text:
UNDP, NCW award gender equality seal to Egypt's MSMEDA
MSMEDA CEO Nevine Gamea and NCW President Maya Morsy both said that the award represents international recognition of Egyptian efforts to further gender equality
Ahram Online , Wednesday 6 Mar 2019
Nevine Gamea, Head of Egypt's Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise Development Authority (MSMEDA)
125 years of the Egyptian women's movement
Geneva seminar discusses women's rights issues in Egypt
16 Egyptian women judges promoted to top judicial positions
Egypt's National Council for Women, in cooperation with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), has awarded the gender seal in the public sector to the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency (MSMEDA) in recognition of its efforts to promote gender equality.
CEO of the MSMEDA Nevine Gamea and President of the NCW Maya Morsy both said that the award represents international recognition of Egyptian efforts to further gender equality.
MSMEDA is the first entity in Egypt and the Arab region to receive this seal.
Gender equality assessment is a tool that contributes in determining the criteria used by public institutions to integrate gender equality issues.
The evaluation team is composed of experts on gender equality from the UNDP and the National Council for Women.
MSMEDA is a government entity responsible for Micro, Small and Medium projects in Egypt, offering funds for SMEs either directly or through banks as mediators.
MSMEDA


KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) plans to create a more effective special corruption index to analyse and measure the level of corruption in the country.
MACC Chief Commissioner Tan Sri Dzulkifli Ahmad said the paperwork on the proposal would be presented in the next Anti-Corruption Advisory Board meeting before submitting it to the Cabinet.
He said if the proposal was approved, a study would be carried out by an independent body as well as academicians to ensure the transparency of the index.
"It is time for us to have our own and more effective index. We do not want to look solely from the angle of perceptions but also the reality.
"Give the MACC some time, maybe within two to three months before (the proposal) being brought to the higher level," he told a press conference after attending the Anti-Corruption Advisory Board meeting here today.
Dzulkifli said the special index would be an important tool to study the reality of corruption and abuse of power in the country through Malaysians' point of view.
Meanwhile, he said the MACC had set up a special committee today to look into the country's Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2017 issued by the Transparency International which saw Malaysia dropped two points from 49 in the previous year to 47.
"Since the existing CPI is a perception or study about the position of corruption in Malaysia is carried out by foreign expatriates, it does not reflect the reality of the situation. However, we do not reject the index and we will also look into the findings," he explained.
Dzulkifli said the country's latest position in the CPI did not at all reflect the aggressive efforts carried out by MACC in combating corruption throughout last year.


text:
Q: How to make Mongoose case sensitive? So we have an authentication system but I want to make it case insensitive for the email input.
The function looks like this:
Auth.authenticate({ email, password })

Auth is a mongoose Model, and the users are stored in a mongo database.
This works but it is case sensitive and some users had trouble connecting.
First I tried this code:
Auth.authenticate({ email: { $regex : email,$options:"i" }, password: password })

But I can't make it work, I always get this error: "Can't use password with String."
and I can't find on internet how to solve this.
So I tried a different method, instead of using the authenticate function I will get the user and compare the password myself like this:
const user = await Auth.findOne({ "email" : { $regex : email,$options:"i" } })
if (user.password == password) { return true }

But the thing is, the password is encrypted with mongoosePii. So when I compare the two passwords I have to encrypt the password I received from the user first like this:
password = await hashPassword(password)

But I get a different result...
The two passwords are encrypted with the same key but for some reason they don't give the same result and I can't figure out why.
I'm not sure which solution is better but both are fine for me if you know how to solve one of them.

A: You could do it simpler, by lowercasing every email, and having a validator on your Schema. This way you don't have to write any validation about emails. Like so:
 npm i validator

const { isEmail } = require("validator");
const schema = Schema(
  {
    email: {
      type: String,
      required: [true, "Please enter an email"],
      unique: true,
      lowercase: true,
      validate: [isEmail, "Please enter a valid email"],
    }
  },

);

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Common cause ruling: no 'right' recognized, no 'dignity' ensured
by HemRaj Singh
जीस्त एहसास भी है , शौक भी है, दर्द भी है,
सिर्फ अनफात की तरतीब का अफसाना नहीं |
– साहिर लुधियानवी
Zeest ehsaas bhi hai, shauq bhi hai, dard bhi hai,
Sirf anfaas ki tarteeb ka afsaana nahin.
– Sahir Ludhiyanvi Common cause ruling: no 'right' recognized, no 'dignity' ensured
Much like, Sahir and many other poets, writers and thinkers, the Supreme Court of India has always looked at human life as far more in terms of depth, richness and dignity than merely the state of being alive. With the ruling in Common Cause v. Union of India [Writ Petition (Civil) No. 215 of 2005; decided on March 9, 2018], the Supreme Court once again recognized the 'right to die with dignity' and recognized, yet again, a mode of causing such death in certain circumstances, but carefully stopped short, once more, of conferring absoluteness on the choice and categorically refused to recognize 'right to die' as part of 'Right to Life and Personal Liberty' under Article 21 of the Constitution and went only so far as to recognize 'right to die with dignity' as part of Right to Life, which was what the petitioner-society had pressed for distinguishing it from 'right to die', which the petitioner-society had expressly stated to have not claimed or pressed for as part of 'Right to Life'. So, 'right to die with dignity' without 'right to die', it is. And there lies a conceptual conundrum.
How possibly could one have 'right to have A with B' without having the right to 'A' where 'B' is a qualification attached to 'A' like 'tea with sugar' or 'a car with automatic transmission' or 'a wife with a heart of gold'. In principle, one needs to have the tea, the car and a wife for the qualifications to be attached, for the denial of the possibility of the principal element to which the respective qualifications could be attached without nullifying the property that the qualifications seek to bring to the principal element is conceptually impossible.
Therefore, in granting 'right to die with dignity' without an absolute 'right to die', the Supreme Court, despite having expressly denied 'right to die' has not quite 'denied' it but has made 'right to die' subject to the existence of a set of necessary conditions. In other words, 'right to die' is available only when the denial of it would amount to a denial of dignity that a human being deserves in accordance with the settled reading of Article 21. The conceptual conundrum outlined above can only be resolved thus: one can only have 'tea with sugar', 'a car with automatic transmission' and 'a wife with a heart of gold', and tea without sugar, car with manual transmission and a wicked wife are simply off the table. Take it or leave it. However, it's a little more complicated than that but the analogy, like all analogies, has its limits and cannot be stretched to reflect upon and effectively analyze the more complicated aspects of this newly recognized conditional right to die.
Right to die as a facet of Right to Life first came up for consideration in P. Rathinam v. Union of India, (1994) 3 SCC 394, when the Supreme Court was called upon to pronounce on the constitutionality of Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code, which penalizes 'attempt to commit suicide'. The two-judge bench of the Supreme Court drew on the rationale of R.C. Cooper v. Union of India, AIR 1970 SC 1318, to conclude that what is true for one fundamental right is, in principle, true for the others all fundamental rights as well. Therefore, if 'Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression' includes right to remain silent and Right to the Freedom of Association and of Movement include the rights to 'not to join any association' and 'not move anywhere', it follows that Right to Life includes 'right to not live' or, differently put, 'right to die'. The Supreme Court entertained the possibility of a conscious, rational choice to end one's life without physical or mental distress coming into play, and observed:
"One may rightly think that having achieved all worldly pleasures or happiness, he has something to achieve beyond this life. This desire for communion with God may very rightly lead even a very healthy mind to think that he would forego his right to live and would rather choose not to live. In any case, a person cannot be forced to enjoy right to life to his detriment, disadvantage or disliking."
The Constitution Bench in the Common Cause case quite obviously did not agree with the cited rationale of P. Rathinam, but the observation was taken due note of by the Bench. The Supreme Court in P. Rathiman read 'right to die' into 'Right to Life' under Article 21 and set aside Section 309 of the IPC as unconstitutional. However, the ruling did not stand for long, and two years later, a five-judge Constitution Bench called upon to decide the constitutionality of Section 306 of the IPC in Gian Kaur v. State of Punjab, (1996) 2 SCC 648, overruled P. Rathinam and ruled in favour of the constitutionality of both Section 306 and Section 309 of the IPC. Rejecting the rationale of P. Rathinam, the Constitution Bench in Gian Kaur held that it was incorrect to see all fundamental rights as alike in all respects. Adverting to the decisions relied upon by P. Rathinam, the Constitution Bench said, "In those decisions it is the negative aspect of the right that was invoked for which no positive or overt act was required to be done by implication. This difference in the nature of rights has to be borne in mind when making the comparison for the application of this principle." It further observed:
"When a man commits suicide he has to undertake certain positive overt acts and the genesis of those acts cannot be traced to, or be included within the protection of the 'right to life' under Article 21. The significant aspect of 'sanctity of life' is also not to be overlooked… With respect and in all humility, we find no similarity in the nature of the other rights, such as the right to freedom of speech' etc. to provide a comparable basis to hold that the 'right to life' also includes the 'right to die."
On the issue of euthanasia, the Bench in Gian Kaur observed that Right to Life means right to live with human dignity "upto the end of natural life" and includes "a dignified procedure of death". However, to be sure, the Court added a caution: "But the 'right to die' with dignity at the end of life is not to be confused or equated with the right to die' an unnatural death curtailing the natural span of life."
With the Constitution Bench of equal strength in Common Cause approving Gian Kaur and rejecting the rationale of P. Rathinam, the law is that Right to Life includes 'right to die with dignity' but not 'right to die' per se, which is a slightly odd proposition from the very sound of it, and may be an incomplete — if not completely incorrect — enunciation of the law in this regard unless one adds 'in certain circumstances' as an additional qualification because the Supreme Court has also laid down the condition precedent for the 'right to die with dignity' to be available to a person — namely, Permanent Vegetative State (PVS). In other words, the Supreme Court has already set in stone as to what constitutes living as subhuman a life as to warrant termination because such a life is not 'life' at all in terms of Article 21.
Right to die with human dignity', as recognized by the Supreme Court in Common cause, can only be exercised in a physical state in which an individual is incapable of making any choice or exercising any right whatsoever whereas the very idea of 'right' presupposes the ability to make a conscious choice. In this case, the choice — if it could be made at all — is between existing in a state that is not 'life' in terms of Article 21 and ceasing to 'exist' completely, which in terms of Article 21 translates into a choice between 'not-life' and 'not-life', and that is no 'choice' at all. There is, no doubt, the Advance Medical Directive or Advanced Directive or Living Will, as recognized by the Supreme Court in Common Cause, by way of which one can choose to direct one's future caregivers in advance as to in which situation should the medical treatment be withheld or withdrawn and nominate a guardian or close relative to give consent one's behalf to withhold or withdraw the treatment in terms of the Advance Medical Directive so as to hasten one's death in the event one becomes incapable of communicating one's consent. And there lurks another conceptual conundrum.
Every human being has 'Right to Life' under Article 21 and also 'right to die with human dignity' by virtue of Common Cause ruling, but since 'right to die' is itself not a right and 'right to die with human dignity' does not accrue to the person until and unless the condition precedent — Permanent Vegetative State — is met, how can one transfer the right to do something to oneself to another human being when one does not have the right to do the same to oneself? Alternatively, if 'right to die with human dignity' is available to an individual before he or she is in the PVS and the state of PVS is not a condition precedent for the exercise of the right, the individual concerned would be free to decide what is 'life with human dignity' to him or her because then the decision would be free of the additional necessary condition of the PVS. But that is nothing short of recognizing 'right to die' as part of Right to Life, which the Supreme Court has categorically declined to do in both Gian Kaur and Common Cause.
Therefore, in executing Advance Medical Directive, the executor would exercise a future 'right to die with dignity' in future, which is different from exercising a present right in future, like in the case of an ordinary will with respect to property. And the position is absurd and untenable because one is deemed to be exercising a right that one does not have yet, and when one would, in fact, have the right, one, by virtue of the condition precedent attached, would not be in the physical condition to exercise the right due to diminished capability to make an informed choice. This conceptual conundrum is the logical consequence of recognizing 'right to die with human dignity' without conferring validity on 'right to die' itself because one cannot obtain the validity of the whole without according validity to its core constituent part.
Gian Kaur made a distinction between 'right to die with dignity at the end of life' and 'the right to die an unnatural death curtailing the natural span of life' in declining 'right to die' as part of Right to Life. The 'end of life' is indistinguishable from actual physical death, and administering passive euthanasia would amount to 'curtailing the natural span of life', no less, because one cannot argue that the 'natural span of life' is only so far as one can stay alive without medical assistance or without any medical device, for that would make everybody living with the assistance of life saving drugs and/or medical devices, such as pacemakers, living beyond the 'natural span of life'. A death caused on account of withdrawal of medical assistance is just as much a 'natural death' as any other and just as much a 'caused death' as, say, a homicide or suicide.
Gian Kaur further says that administering passive euthanasia is not the same as "extinguishing life" but only "accelerating conclusion of the process of natural death which has already commenced". The "process of natural death" begins right at birth. Technically, with each passing day a human being progressively dies. Therefore, when one person murders another person or kills himself or herself, he or she only "accelerates the conclusion of the process of natural death which has already commenced." So, that distinction between 'causing death' — one's own or someone else's — and 'passive euthanasia' administered to a person in the PVS is not sound enough to resolve the logical quagmire that 'right to die with dignity' sans 'right to die' lands one in.
Another distinction made in Giar Kaur that the Constitution Bench in Common Cause accepts and cites with approval is between 'overt act' and willful abstinence based on which Gian Kaur placed 'right to remain silent' on a different footing than 'right to not live' or 'right to die' and ruled against 'right to die'. The difference between act and omission so long as they carry the choice of the actor is negligible, if not completely non-existent. The act or willful omission are merely means to accomplish an objective and do not by themselves alter the substantive component of the actor's accountability, which is attached primarily to his or her intent, and for that reason one can be held morally and legally accountable for one's acts as well as willful omissions. The same distinction is played up and is foundational to the Court's allowing Passive Euthanasia as opposed to Active Euthanasia or Euthanasia.
Euthanasia: Active and Passive
Active Euthanasia is to kill and Passive Euthanasia is to let die, and the Supreme Court prefers the latter because while the former is an 'act', the latter is only a 'willful omission' even though the difference between the two is largely cosmetic. Like many other writers and thinkers, the present writer had also questioned the artificial distinction drawn between 'killing' and 'letting die' for the purpose of legalizing Passive Euthanasia in a Cover Story article titled 'Passive Euthanasia: Judicial Spot-Running?' (Lawyers Update, April 2011, Vol. XVII, Part 4) published in response to Aruna Ramachandra Shanbaug v. Union of India, (2011) 4 SCC 454, which was the judgment that originally legalized Passive Euthanasia in India. The logical difficulty involved in making a distinction between act and willful omission is not lost on the Supreme Court in Common Cause, which Justice Chandrachud acknowledges in his separate, concurring opinion and cites American philosopher and medical ethicist James Rachels, who said, "There is no morally important difference between killing and letting die; if one is permissible (or objectionable), then so is the other and to the same degree."
However, Justice Chandrachud, after citing James Rachels, defends Passive Euthanasia by pointing out the distinction between "positive medical intervention (such as a lethal injection)" and "a decision to not put a patient on artificial life support," and adds, "while the former brings a premature extinction of life. The latter does not delay the end of life beyond its natural end point." As pointed out earlier in this article, this is a weak defense because just about any life saving medical treatment interferes with the "natural end point" because there is no "natural end point" other than the point when one actually dies or is made to die. Advances in medical science have prolonged average human life by what can only be described as an "artificially induced delay of the 'natural end point'." So, if Active Euthanasia is 'premature extinction of life', Passive Euthanasia is every bit the same.
While it is hard to disagree when James Rachels, as cited by Justice Chandrachud, says that "one of the reasons for the exculpation of omissions is based on the idea that our duty not to harm people is generally stricter than our duty to help them," but it doesn't apply when one has to choose between 'killing by lethal injection' and 'killing by taking one off the ventilator' because in both the cases both the intent and the outcome remain unchanged. The means is immaterial.
Furthermore, the stated objective of euthanasia is to bring a quicker end to a lifeless existence, which can be achieved promptly, efficiently and relatively painlessly by way of Active Euthanasia whereas Passive Euthanasia is a slow and arduous way of achieving the same objective. In gasping for life as the life ebbs away, where is the promised dignity?
The Common Cause ruling is doubtlessly a step in the direction of ensuring dignity in death, but it does not break new ground in terms of constitutional jurisprudence in that respect and stops at endorsing the view taken in Gian Kaur and Aruna Shanbaug. As demonstrated above, if 'right' is understood to presuppose the freedom to make a choice, Common Cause does not confer or recognize any such 'right'. It merely puts together a detailed arrangement in furtherance of Aruna Shanbaug to ensure that those who are forced to go through what is not 'life' under Article 21 could be permitted to die with as much pain and as much dignity as Passive Euthanasia might allow.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Your glory has no end! Your Kingdom goes beyond any measure man can place on it. The glory that Abraham witnessed is the same that we see today, the glory that took Noah to dry land is the same glory that restores promises to us, the glory that parted waters is the very same one the takes us to promised land, the glory that walked the earth through our Lord and Savior is the same that gives us life this very day!
Your glory has no end! Let us praise You Lord! Father in Heaven- we sing Your praises! We shout with jubilation as we walk into Your glory! May the blind have their eyes opened to the glory of the Most High!
Grace follows Your glory! Your glory shines upon us. Just as the morning sun touches our face, the warmth we feel can only be described as Your grace.
Infinite understanding! Your wisdom puts grace on display and we are the benefactors! You love us Lord! You truly love us! Thank You Lord! Praise You!
Your grace sees us through Your plan! May we surrender to Your will completely Lord! As the elements of the weather carve our topography, Your grace shapes us into the people You've called us to be!
Lord! We stand here amazed in Your presence. Astounded by Your mercy and love! Our hands are lifted high in surrender. Your grace for me is always enough. There is no one higher than our God! There is no one higher than You!


text:
Chris Eggleston Edges Gilliland for Homecoming Win at Colorado
DACONO, Colo. (June 11, 2016) – Chris Eggleston edged his Bill McAnally Racing teammate Todd Gilliland to win the NAPA AUTO PARTS / Toyota 150 at his home track of Colorado National Speedway on Saturday and capture his second consecutive victory in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West.
In addition to being his second win of the year, it marked the fifth career series victory for the defending series champion, who hails from nearby Erie.
It was also the second series win at CNS for the driver of the No. 50 NAPA Filters/H2O Fire Protection Toyota Camry. In addition, it marked BMR's fourth win in five races this season.
Despite being teammates, Eggleston and the rookie Gilliland waged a fierce battle in the closing laps around the 3/8-mile oval – swapping the lead multiple times.
"That last restart there at the end with 10 to go, it got real exciting there for sure," said Eggleston. "Todd dang near wrecked us, but we were able to get back by him with a couple laps to go.
"It was fun and a cool experience to share this with our fans here in Colorado," he said. "That's two in a row. I'm so proud of the BMR crew."
Saturday's race was delayed by about two hours due to a storm that moved through the area just after the event started. Gilliland, who captured his third pole of the season in qualifying, had his No. 16 NAPA AUTO PARTS Toyota Camry out front for the initial laps before the rain. Eggleston took over after racing resumed and held command through 102 of the 150 laps.
"I didn't know what the rain was going to do to the race track," Eggleston said. "I was kind of skeptical there. But we got the lead and then a sizable lead. The car was very well balanced, thanks to Ty Joiner, my crew chief, working so hard all day. The 50th Anniversary NAPA Filters Toyota was definitely rolling."
Gilliland, who slipped back as far as fourth midway through the race, started his charge to the front in the final 60 laps. He was up to second by Lap 107 and began to chase down Eggleston. Gilliland grabbed the lead about 30 laps later, but Eggleston was able to battle back. Gilliland mounted one more challenge and held the lead briefly before Eggleston regained it in the final laps.
"It was definitely a tough battle," said Gilliland, a NASCAR Next driver. "It's always stressful racing with your teammate like that, but when it comes down to the win you've got to do what you've got to do. Chris did an amazing job.
"I can't thank my NAPA crew enough," said the 16-year-old third-generation driver from Sherrills Ford, North Carolina. "We didn't have a second-place car when we unloaded. They made changes and got it better. To have a chance to win like that is huge at any of these K&N races."
BMR teammates Julia Landauer, Riley Herbst, and Cole Moore finished sixth, 13th, and 14th, respectively.
With his win, Eggleston moved to second in the championship standings – just behind Gilliland. Both drivers have two wins and five top-five finishes in the first five races this year. In addition to leading the overall standings, Gilliland also leads the rookie points.
Landauer, who drives the No. 54 Curb Records Toyota Camry, is fourth in the standings. The 24-year-old native New Yorker – who now resides in Charlotte, North Carolina – is second in rookie points. Also part of the NASCAR Next program that spotlights NASCAR's rising stars, she has two top-five and five top-10 finishes in five starts.
Herbst, 17, of Las Vegas comes away from the Colorado event eighth in the standings and fourth in rookie points. The driver of the No. 19 NAPA Power Premium Plus Toyota Camry has one top-five and three top-10 finishes in five career series starts this year.
Moore, who is running select events on this year's K&N West schedule, was making just his second series start – driving the No. 20 JM Environmental Toyota Camry. The 19-year-old from Granite Bay, California qualified third and ran in the top five until a late race incident.
The NASCAR weekend in Colorado featured a variety of NAPA activities, including a special get-together for some NAPA VIPs on Friday evening and the very popular NAPA Hospitality event at the track on Saturday.
The NAPA AUTO PARTS / Toyota 150, which is scheduled to be televised on NBCSN on June 16 at 7 p.m. ET, was the fifth event on a 14-race schedule. It marked the 14th visit by the series to CNS.
The next event on the series schedule is the Chevy's Fresh Mex 200 at Sonoma (California) Raceway on June 25.
The post Chris Eggleston Edges Gilliland for Homecoming Win at Colorado appeared first on NAPA Know How Blog.
Source: Racing
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text:
Can immersive art remain afloat when money is the object?
A visitor inside the "Rain Room" installation at the Modern Museum of Art in New York, July 15, 2013. For-profit immersive art centers are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in a business where audiences have evaporated because of the pandemic. Karsten Moran/The New York Times.
by Zachary Small
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Even as the pandemic takes its toll on tourism, immersive museums and experiential art centers are expanding to new cities and wooing investors willing to gamble on the future of the emerging industry.
Fotografiska wanted to introduce New Yorkers to a different type of museum when it opened in December 2019 in Manhattan, welcoming visitors to view photography exhibitions in a boozy clubhouse atmosphere complete with midnight DJ sets and a restaurant run by a Michelin-rated chef. The coronavirus pandemic has brought an end to the party but not to the Swedish company's dreams of dotting the world with its for-profit museums. The franchise has announced plans for a fourth location, in Berlin.
Similar ambitions have fueled Meow Wolf, which over the last decade became a tourism juggernaut in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The immersive-art company welcomed a half-million visitors in 2019 into its psychedelic "House of Eternal Return," with a giant marimba that resembles a mastodon's rib cage. But an outbreak of COVID-19 cases among staff members forced the enterprise to close its facilities last year, resulting in layoffs of 200 employees. Despite losing half its workforce, the company is barreling ahead with a $158 million investment, expanding its footprint with new locations in Phoenix, Denver, Las Vegas and Washington, D.C.
Entering what was already a crowded market for companies specializing in experiential art, Superblue had plans to dominate the field with installations by experimental artists like Nick Cave, James Turrell, Es Devlin and teamLab. But the multimillion-dollar venture in Miami stalled before it started; the city's surge in coronavirus cases forced Superblue to postpone its anticipated opening from December to March. Unfazed by the delays, the company says it has attracted stronger interest from investors and is planning two additional centers in unnamed cities.
While traditional museums are discussing closures and mergers, the for-profit industry around experiential or immersive art is investing hundreds of millions of dollars into a business that currently has no audience in the United States because of the pandemic. It's a gambit that has surprised market watchers, who see this gamble on the previous triumphs of experiential art — Random International's Rain Room, which had thousands waiting for hours to experience a technology-generated rainfall, or teamLab's digitally inventive exhibitions, which have drawn 2 million visitors in Tokyo — as difficult sells in a pandemic environment.
"Art is a risky enterprise, and in a period of distress, it's exactly the wrong time to expect more investment," said William Goetzmann, a professor of finance and management studies at Yale University who researches the art market. "If you are a nonprofit, you can appeal to donors to safeguard cultural heritage. If you are a for-profit company, an investor expects a return that's commensurate with the risk."
Industry leaders are finding themselves in a tricky situation where investor demands for growth contradict the realities of a sunken experience economy. In 2019, the arts, entertainment, recreation and hospitality industries were booming, contributing nearly $1.6 trillion in gross domestic product, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. But that number has dwindled in the absence of tourism; recent Port Authority data shows that international arrivals in New York, for example, were down as much as 93%.
"The galleries are empty," a Fotografiska greeter said on a Sunday afternoon in December. There were only two more visitors in an hour. "Since we reopened, it's been like this," she added.
Last year, Fotografiska laid off a third of its workforce at its Stockholm location and said it still expected to lose money. The museum founders also resigned.
"I had a conversation with my board chairman, who wanted me to continue another year," Per Broman, who started the photography center with his brother Jan, told the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter in October. "Then came the coronavirus."
Despite these setbacks and an abandoned plan for a London outpost, the museum franchise announced the Berlin addition, housed in the historic Kunsthaus Tacheles.
"Being undercapacity doesn't worry me," Yoram Roth, board chairman and majority shareholder of Fotografiska, said in an interview. "There are tough times ahead, but if I look at the next 10 years, I'm confident. I believe people will want to experience art again."
The public's appetite for experiencing art in close quarters is already being tested. In Asia, teamLab said its 13 exhibition spaces remain open — for now — in Japan, China and South Korea, but they have seen a drop in audiences compared with prepandemic levels.
"We're assessing our operations and plans with a long-term view," said Marcy Davis, chief operating officer for Superblue, which plans to open in mid-March in a 50,000-square-foot industrial warehouse featuring teamLab's digital creations, among others. The company will initially operate the center at reduced capacity, Davis said, but she predicts continuing demand for immersive art.
"Because of the large population base in South Florida, including more than 6 million people in the tri-county area alone, Superblue Miami is not dependent upon fly-in tourism," Davis added. "All signs indicate that there will be an increase in day-trippers driving to Miami from throughout the region as well.
"Big picture, the public interest in these kinds of experiences and our artists is only growing, and will likely increase even more after this long period of lockdowns."
But the sobering reality of a prolonged pandemic is starting to sink in for other proprietors in the experience economy.
"It's definitely not smooth sailing," Jim Ward, a chief executive officer for Meow Wolf, said. "I have no doubt that immersive experiences can survive the pandemic; they just might look a little different."
Unlike Fotografiska, which is sticking to in-person ticket sales as its main source of revenue, Meow Wolf has experimented with online programming to buoy itself through the pandemic. The company, which said it does not know when it will reopen, is replacing components of exhibitions that visitors would normally touch with augmented reality features through cellphones.
Leaders at both companies said being for-profit enterprises has allowed them to operate more responsively to global events. At Fotografiska, the Black Lives Matter protests inspired staff members to reorganize programming to accommodate an exhibit of Andres Serrano's photographs of racist artifacts and propaganda.
For Meow Wolf, it means keeping shareholders invested in what the company insists is a mission-based focus: forging a community of artists.
"In a normal world, let alone a pandemic," Ward said, "a social impact art project like ours that's a nonprofit would not have a long shelf life," arguing that business fuels artists' creativity.
But members of the nonprofit museum world have doubts about the motivations of their for-profit counterparts, who are vying for the same audiences.
"The return on investment for these spaces goes into the pockets of investors," said Erika Sanger, executive director of the Museum Association of New York. "Nonprofits invest in the community."
Sanger also criticized for-profit art centers like Fotografiska and the Museum of Ice Cream in Manhattan for calling themselves museums at all, when a museum is defined as a nonprofit institution with an educational or cultural mission.
Still, Sanger acknowledged the for-profits' appeal at a time when traditional museums are hurting.
"I would think lots of museums and nonprofits would be envious that experiential centers have investors who are putting up their money."
Hindman Auctions to present first dedicated photography sale
Exhibition at De Buck Gallery offers an exclusive look at Turi Simeti's luminous recent works
'Picasso to Rothko: European and American Masters in Dialogue' opens at Sotheby's Palm Beach
The Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies announces online symposium
albertz benda opens a two person show with works by Thomas Fougeirol and Tony Marsh
Richard Saltoun Gallery announces a 12-month programme of exhibitions dedicated to the writings of Hannah Arendt
Nara Roesler opens new location in New York's Chelsea neighborhood
EXPO CHICAGO to reschedule April exposition, secures series of dates starting July 2021
Schönfeld Gallery opens a group show with 5 Israeli artists
Rattle to quit London Symphony for Munich from 2023
C24 Gallery opens an exhibition of new works by Cheryl Molnar
Compton Verney reveals positive 2020 figures, despite disruptions caused by Covid-19
Benefit Shop Foundation, Inc. to offer Janine Metz estate over two days
Guild Hall announces new Chief Creative Officer Amy Kirwin
JoAnne Artman Gallery opens an exhibition of works by Swan Scalabre and Jenna Krypell
Ved Mehta, celebrated writer for The New Yorker, dies at 86
Brandywine Conservancy & OAF acquire 577-acre property for use as a public nature preserve
Pat Loud, reality show matriarch of 'An American Family,' dies at 94
Delaware Museum of Natural History and Winterthur create new partnership
"What Was That?" New paintings by Eva Goetz at Moss Galleries
Forced online, an opera festival searches for intimacy
The New School receives $5.5 million from Mellon Foundation
How The World Has Overcome From COVID Crises?
Fashion Guide to the Melbourne Autumn Racing Carnival
Style Inspiration for New Eyeglasses in 2021
Mental-Health Researchers Ask: What Is 'Recovery'?
New Age Care Finds a Place in Therapy
How to Start a Wine Collection?
The Power of Art Therapy for Addiction Treatment
From Athens International Airport to Athens city centre: 5 ways of travel


text:
Q: Setting a limit within touchesbegan method So I am using the touchesBegan method in my program in Xcode. When the user touches the screen, the character goes up the y axis, and when touches ended the user goes down. The problem I'm having is that the character is able to go off the screen (below 0 or above 768 [ipad] on the y axis).
How can I make it so that if the user touches the screen, and the character gets to y axis 0, the character will just stay there even if the user continues to touch. As well, if the user ends touch, how can I make sure the character doesn't go past 768.
I entered in a bunch of different if conditionals but the closest I got was to get the character to stay at 0 or 768, but when the user ended touch or began touch again, the character would just stay at 0 or 768. Any help??

A: In touchesBegan:
//[animation begins]
character.frame = CGRectMake(character.frame.origin.x, 0, character.frame.size.width, character.frame.size.height);
//[animation ends]

In touchesEnded:
//[animation begins]
character.frame = CGRectMake(character.frame.origin.x, (self.view.frame.size.height - character.frame.size.height), character.frame.size.width, character.frame.size.height);
//[animation ends]


Here are 2 vintage Alexander-kins dolls - Meg and Jo - from the Little Women series by Madame Alexander. Cloth tags identify each. They have original hair, which has flattened or ruffled a bit from storage. Both have sleep eyes. Meg's are blue. Jo's are brown. They have what appears to be original clothing but no shoes. Meg's apron has yellowed slightly and probably needs washing. They measure about 7.25" high. Pre-owned. Good condition with exceptions noted.


The Samsung Galaxy Luna Pro is a 4G LTE smartphone that comes with a 5-inch TFT display panel with a resolution of 720x1280. Powering the device from within is a 1.4GHz Quad-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 processor with 1.5 GB of RAM. It comes with built-in storage of 16GB, expandable by up to 256GB via a microSD card. Camera-wise, the phone is equipped with a 5-megapixel main camera with 1080p HD video capture and a secondary 2-megapixel camera in front for selfies and video calls. The device includes a 2,600 mAh battery. Upon release, the phone runs on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow OS.


text:
using namespace PaintsNow;

SkyDirectIrradiancePass::SkyDirectIrradiancePass() {}

TObject<IReflect>& SkyDirectIrradiancePass::operator () (IReflect& reflect) {
	BaseClass::operator () (reflect);

	if (reflect.IsReflectProperty()) {
		ReflectProperty(transform)[IShader::MetaShader(IRender::Resource::ShaderDescription::VERTEX)];
		ReflectProperty(shading)[IShader::MetaShader(IRender::Resource::ShaderDescription::FRAGMENT)];
	}

	return *this;
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


When ministers of the Word are sent out as missionaries, they shall be and remain subject to the Church Order. They shall report and give account of their labours to the church which sent them and shall at all times remain subject to its calling.
It shall be their task, in the specific region assigned to them or chosen by them in consultation with the church that sent them, to proclaim the Word of God, to administer the sacraments to those who have come to the profession of their faith, teaching them to observe all that Christ has commanded His church, and to ordain elders and deacons when this appears feasible, according to the rules given in the Word of God.


Members of the Tuawhenua community who took part in the Māori values study visit Ohaua-o-te-rangi marae – the most isolated marae in the area and only accessible only by foot, horse or helicopter.
Understanding and balancing community values associated with managing a forest is a challenge facing a Māori group in the North Island.
This was one discovery from a collaborative study between Tūhoe Tuawhenua Trust and BioHeritage host Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research. The research aimed to understand the values central to the Tuawhenua community's relationship with the forests, lands and waterways. It's part of a larger BioHeritage programme where researchers are investigating how kaitiakitanga (Māori guardianship) approaches help to reverse the decline of New Zealand's biodiversity.
Led by Tuawhenua researcher Puke Timoti and Manaaki Whenua's Dr Phil Lyver, the study aimed to understand and compare the spectrum of values held by different generations in the community in order to guide future planning, management, and monitoring of Tuawhenua forests. They also wanted to understand what type of trade-offs might be associated with different management decisions and economic development opportunities.
The study involved interviewing kaumātua and youth from the Tuawhenua community who have lived in and around the settlement of Ruatāhuna which is part of the larger Tūhoe nation – located in the heavily forested Te Urewera mountain ranges.
"The relationship Tuawhenua has with Te Urewera shapes and guides their values, beliefs and knowledge systems," Puke says.
Future aspirations of Tuawhenua for their forests.
Mauri (life essence) and mahinga kai (food procurement) were the highest-ranking values across the four themes, followed by oranga (human well-being) and te ōhanga whai rawa (economic development).
Puke says a key challenge for the leadership within the community was balancing the costs and benefits of te ōhanga whai rawa against aspirations to nurture the mauri of the land, forest and rivers.
"For example, milling of large native conifers from Tuawhenua forests between 1950 and 1975 altered the forest structure.
"The benefits were local employment and a better standard of living that supported ahikāroa ꟷ uninterrupted connection to the land ꟷ which sheltered the language and culture for a little while.
The Tuawhenua Trust recognised that values and activities like mahinga kai were important for other values such as matemateāone (community togetherness), manaakitanga (caring for others), knowledge retention and growth.
To find out more, read the published article on the study.


text:
Read about our day to day discoveries, the trips we take around the world, our personal developments and news about the things we do at Manas.
of reading time across 171 blog posts
Embedding YouTube videos in Silverlight
There's no straight way of embedding YouTube videos in Silverlight. What you can do, however, is to create a floating div over the Silverlight plugin, whose content will be the YouTube video control. For this purpose, I wrote a simple class to make...
Explicit Substitutions, or Substitutions If You Need to Implement Them
As I told you before, performance is something desirable when programming a λ interpreter. The sustitutions we saw are made in one step. I will note the beta step as →β and a substitution step as →. For instance, (λx.x) z →β x[x/z] → z. The computations...
Visualizing multi-dimensional data
A couple of days ago we started working on a new visualization for Riff's acitivity. The requirement was to find a way of representing the relationship between items tag with two or more tags, the users who were tagging and the evolution of the tags...
Saturation variable function for treemaps
Positioning a Google Map according to a set of coordinates
The Google Maps API provides a number of methods to make it easier to accomplish this task. One only has to take the time to explore them and think how to combine them to get the solution. It's not a hard thing to do, but in case you're a lazy guy...


text:
Trachinotus anak, the giant oystercracker, or oyster pompano, is a marine fish endemic to the coasts of tropical Australia, one of 20 species of pompano (Trachinotus spp.).

Description
The fish has a silvery greenish or bluish-grey color above and is paler below. It often has a bronze or a green-gold tinge. The second dorsal and caudal fins are a dusky orange to nearly black. The fins have dark leading edges. The anal fin is a dandelion yellow and the pelvic fins are paler. The pectoral fins are dark.

Taxonomy
In the early 20th century, Australian ichthyologist James Douglas Ogilby was identifying fishes to give advice to fisheries, under supervision of James Stevens, the Queensland Inspector of Fisheries. When the question emerged of what was damaging oyster populations in the Wide Bay district in January 1908, Ogilby determined that the organism to cause this damage was a large fish, yet undescribed to science. He described it as Trachinotus anak in a report in 1909.

References

anak
Taxa named by James Douglas Ogilby
Fish described in 1909

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Jerusalem Post World News
Despite political crisis, Italy still backs the US
Prodi gov't approves Italy's peacekeeping in Afghanistan, not sending troops to fight in the south, and a complete withdrawal from Iraq.
By LISA PALMIERI-BILLIG
italy Massimo DAlema 88
The motion of confidence in Italian foreign policy that fell short of approval by two votes (158 instead of 160) in the Italian Senate last week, where the governing coalition holds a split-hair majority, causing Premier Romano Prodi to hand in his resignation, was a vote against the spirit, and not so much the substance, of Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema's policies. The issues are very Italian and revolve around competition between coalitions of the Left and the Right. Although the opposition had presented its own, not very different, motion for approval, it was withdrawn and they were allegedly prepared to vote confidence in the government's foreign policy. They changed their minds after hearing the foreign minister's insistence that the Prodi government's policy represented a break from that of the previous, Berlusconi government. Form, not content, was at stake. The Prodi government, in fact, is following the same strategies laid out previously: an Atlantist stance in line with that of the European Union: Funding Italy's peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan but not sending troops to fight in the dangerous south of the country, and a now completed withdrawal of Italy's soldiers from Iraq. These actions were carried over from Berlusconi decisions. Although Italy sees itself as a "peacemaking" rather than a "peacekeeping" country, its substantial role in Lebanon was not even discussed in the parliamentary debate before the vote. Under the present government, Italy has supplied the largest military contingent for UNIFIL in Lebanon, which it now commands. And Italy held firm to its decision to acquiesce to the US request to expand its military base in the northeastern town of Vicenza despite a huge public anti-American demonstration held last week. The new international commitments made by the Prodi-D'Alema coalition solidly back US and Israeli concerns, despite rhetoric and actions that might lead one to think otherwise - such as D'Alema's "diplomatic" arm-in-arm walk through Beirut with a Hizbullah minister (for which he was harshly criticized). D'Alema likes to stress Italy's adherence to a "multilateral" (meaning EU or UN) policy rather than just bilateral (Italy-US); he shies away from use of force, preferring to propose international peace conferences for Afghanistan as well as for the Middle East, and he has toned down the former center-right's coalition's strong verbal support for the US and Israel. He has opted to reiterate that Italy's unquestionable loyalty to the US may at times permit "friendly dissent", and that a more inclusive, "equidistant" policy between Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab countries permits him to commit to Israel's security while continuing to cultivate ties to the Arab world. Without doubt, the governing coalition has major internal problems, made up as it is of widely divergent splinter parties, including those of the extreme Left. To satisfy the ambitions of all concerned, Italy now has the most numerous cabinet in its history, multiplying the numbers of its ministers, vice ministers, secretaries and undersecretaries. Other major problems beset this government - such as the arrest of a new generation of extreme-left Red Brigade terrorists, discovered armed and with plans to hit a myriad of targets including US and Israeli institutions in Italy. This group, resuscitated after more than 30 years, had made its base in sections of the Leftist unions. Although six out of 10 Italians now want national elections, and the center-right is itching to return to power, it seems unlikely this will happen. Prodi's Unione coalition is considering expanding its membership. Whether or not there will be another Prodi government, possibly with some reshuffling of ministers, and whether or not D'Alema keeps his position as foreign minister, it can be safely predicted that Italy's transatlantic commitments will not be weakened to please a vociferous minority.


BOSTON (CBS) – It's back! The dreaded and much hyped "Polar Vortex" is once again making headlines. The concern is real for folks in the upper Midwest, the air mass that is descending upon them is literally being displaced right from the North Pole. Thankfully, for us here in New England, we get more of a glancing blow from the Vortex.
But, before the cold arrives, we have a little snow in the forecast. Not a major snow storm by any means, the rain and snow tonight combined with the Arctic chill to follow does make for a busy week of weather ahead.
We hesitate to call it a storm, it is really more like a juicy cold front, but nonetheless, it will cause some disruption early on Wednesday.
The first flakes were actually out early Tuesday morning, but not directly from the storm, instead from an onshore wind and unstable atmosphere. Don't expect any accumulation though. Just some light snow and flurries in the air across eastern Mass.
The steadier, heavier precipitation arrives Tuesday night, mainly after 7 p.m. from west to east.
It will come in as mainly snow but change over to rain in most of eastern Mass. overnight as the temperatures gradually rise through the 30's. Then, as it tapers before dawn on Wednesday, it will change back to snow briefly. The unfortunate part of the flip back to snow is it occurs during the early part of the morning commute, generally between 5 and 7 a.m. After that, the sun breaks out very quickly, although temporarily.
The next round of snow will move in Wednesday afternoon and evening in the form of scattered snow showers and squalls.
There won't be much additional accumulation, but there will be scattered coatings to 1 inch, gusty wind, brief white-out conditions possible and localized amounts up to 2 inches where the squalls are best organized. Be ready for slippery conditions on the roads during the evening commute where these squalls push through.
Again, the harshest of the cold will pass well to our northwest back up into Canada. Temperatures will be similar to that which we experienced back on Martin Luther King Jr day, last week.
We will challenge record low high temperatures on Thursday. Boston will be very close to the record low max of 12 degrees. Many areas northwest of Boston will stay in the single digits.
Wind chills will average 0 to -10.
We have another very cold start on Friday but then the recovery begins. Highs in the 20's Friday afternoon, around 30 Saturday afternoon and mid 40's by Sunday.
And what do you know… February is here! Still no major or significant snow in the forecast… yet.