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My friend Rachel picked St. Patricks day to get married. Adam and I went to the wedding, it was in a Catholic church here in Wheeling. It was a longer service than I thought it would be, even though there wasn't a mass. It was a really pretty service. The bridesmaid desses were pretty and Rachel's dress was beautiful! After the wedding Adam, Roger and I came back to the house where they caught up on the baseketball scores. The parentals joined us and we went to the reception at the White Palace. It was the most fun wedding reception I have been to in a while. I loved it because I was able to spend time with not only my family, but my best buds as well. We partied till the lights came up and the green beer was free flowing! We hockey pokied, did the cha cha, and even Adam joined us for the chicken dance. He and Sandy even attempted to do "the lift" from dirty dancing. They didnt quite make it, but it was a good couple of tries. Saturday was one of the best St. Patty's Day celebrations I've had in a long time!


text:
Dancing around the problem
When he was majority leader of the state Senate, Bill Bablitch referred to the long slow prelims to the state budget as "the dance," as in, "The dance has begun."
Before getting to the nitty gritty, some stuff has to be cleared away.
Campaign promises are the first to go. The new administration has done a lot of that.
The train is either gone or postponed. The GOP paranoia about voter fraud is being addressed. The "open for business" slogan has gone beyond talk to small, symbolic, more-or-less important actions. Cathy Stepp has taken over DNR and will test the reality of what may be an anti-business illusion there. The proponents of Health Service Accounts got the nod they wanted.
Take back the campaigns
In the fall of 1970 the Wisconsin Republicans were having the kind of year the Wisconsin Democrats had in 2010.
Pat Lucey was beating Jack Olson for governor. Bill Proxmire was pummeling John Erickson for the U.S. Senate, and things weren't going all that well in the statehouse for the GOP either.
It didn't cost an arm and a leg to win a major office back then. Proxmire, as a matter of fact, raised and spent no money, which confirmed his electoral invulnerability and the virtue of campaigning almost full time to achieve that status. The Erickson campaign spent something like $150,000 to persuade something like 34 percent of the voters to vote for John. Pat Lucey and Jack Olson spent somewhat more, but money wasn't the issue in that campaign.
The big difference in those campaigns other than the modest spending levels was who was running them and who was not and what they were about. The now famous Roger Ailes was working in the Olson campaign. He was working for the estimable John MacIver, a volunteer campaign chairman. There were professionals working in the Erickson campaign as well, but that campaign too was being run by citizen volunteers.
Fixing the fix
All the talk about the 2010 elections is about the referendum on the Obama/Democrats response to the great recession, about the length of the coattail on the Obama popularity if any (coattail or popularity), and how these things will play out in legislative elections everywhere.
No one is talking about the fact that the legislatures elected in 2010 will be responsible for the mandated legislative redistricting that will follow the 2010 census.
Don't kid yourself. There is a great deal of talk about this. But it is among the insiders who nest in the D.C. beltway and the Madison capitol square.
The alleged purpose of redistricting is to even out the size of the Assembly, Senate and House districts, and achieve some kind of popular homogeneity within them while getting as many competitive races as possible.
Pulpit fiction II
The people who seem to be most concerned about the revelations spewing out of WikiLeaks are the same people who promised transparency, full disclosure, intense efforts to communicate with all the people.
Everyone in public life accepts the need to know concept in public communications. What WikiLeaks reveals is that need to know rarely means that everyone needs to know everything. A covert few think it means that no one needs to know anything. Most officeholders are located somewhere on the spectrum between those two extremes.
My own bias is toward full disclosure.
Public officials are by definition doing the public's business. The logic of not telling the public what is being done in the performance of the job eludes me.
A few things become very clear very quickly to anyone who takes a place in the fish bowl that is the public sector.
Pulpit fiction
Thirty years ago there was no Facebook, Twitter, internet. Blogs and bloggers and blogging were not even words.
There was, however, a communication system for elected officials. It was run by journalists who were more ubiquitous than beloved. Most of them worked for newspapers. Two Wisconsin papers were distributed statewide. No other medium made any claim or serious effort except public broadcasting to go beyond its own local or regional markets and audiences. The Madison papers, for example, have always behaved as if the Columbia County line just above the city of Portage was the northernmost boundary of Wisconsin.
A governor who wanted to communicate with his entire constituency had only to open the doors to his office and spout. He had the bully pulpit. The pews were full--of reporters.
Those pews are much less full now. There are no statewide newspapers. The only reporters trying to reach a statewide audience work for the Associated Press and public radio. The former deliver news to their local and regional client papers and broadcasters and are in the position of a teacher who sends notes home with third-grade students. Delivery to the intended audience is somewhere south of sporadic.
This nice, orderly, controlled system where news was reported, validated, and made available to anyone who was interested in anything or everything going on in the state capital and had the price of a subscription is mostly gone.
Today there are many, many communications systems. Websites, blogs, social networks are sending mostly opinions out in firehose quantities. The illusion is that this is some kind of communicators' heaven. On closer examination it's more of a nightmare. Putting aside the fact that a significant part of the population does not have the devices needed to access any of these new channels of communications, there is no assurance that those who are connected to the internet are consuming what the public officials are delivering.
News consumption was always voluntary. But the delivery system, while short of being universal, probably got to everyone who really wanted to know and delivered a glancing blow of information to the rest, which was better than nothing.
If you regard the broad news distribution of 30 years ago as a pasture, then the new user driven media is a series of silos.
The governor who got the attention of all the creatures in the pasture now has to go to all the silos in hopes of being admitted. The silos which used to be geographically challenging are now also subject challenging. How many hits is the "governor's office" website, Facebook page, Twitter feed likely to get? Not as many as those about the Green Bay Packers or any other run-of-the-mill celebrity in any field of choice. Not even as many as the "talk radio" entertainers who clutter the public airwaves.
The other problem with the silo system is the silos are filled more with opinions than with the kinds of facts that we call news when they are reported by journalists.
At a cosmic level we seem to have gone from a system where there were too many reporters chasing too few stories and their sources to a world where there are too many stories not being reported because there are two few reporters chasing them.
All this technology is a gift to all of us blabbermouths looking for an audience and for ways to be heard. Not so much for leaders who are trying to explain to their followers what they are doing and why and why, particularly, it is good for the followers.
What the leaders seem to be left with is a bully pulpit facing empty pews. Not so bully after all.
What we have here is a failure to communicate
Taxes have been a free-standing issue in our politics ever since George Bush 1 made his famous "read my lips" pronouncement in 1988.
Ever since then the political dialogue has disconnected the hated taxes from what they should be used for and at what spending level.
Listening to talk about taxes gives the impression that they are something onerous assessed by politicians for their own unspecified reasons or amusement.
To a very large extent this stupid non-dialogue is rooted in the failure of elected incumbents to communicate simply and lucidly about what the money is for (always debatable) and whether the spending level for what it is for is (a.) proper and (b.) affordable (really debatable).

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
The Butterfly and the Violin (A Hidden Masterpiece) (Digital Audiobook)
By Kristy Cambron, Carrington MacDuffie (Narrator)
Publication Date: June 8, 2015
Hardcover, Large Print (1/7/2015)
Manhattan art dealer Sera James watched her world crumble at the altar two years ago, and her heart is still fragile. Her desire for distraction reignites a passion for a mysterious portrait she first saw as a young girl—a painting of a young violinist with piercing blue eyes. In her search for the painting, Sera crosses paths with William Hanover—the grandson of a wealthy California real estate mogul—who may be the key to uncovering the hidden masterpiece. Together Sera and William slowly unravel the story behind the painting's subject: Austrian violinist Adele Von Bron.
A darling of the Austrian aristocracy of 1942, talented violinist, and daughter to a high-ranking member of the Third Reich, Adele risks everything when she begins smuggling Jews out of Vienna. In a heartbeat, her life of prosperity and privilege dissolves into a world of starvation and barbed wire. As Sera untangles the secrets behind the painting, she finds beauty in the most unlikely of places: the grim camps of Auschwitz and the inner recesses of her own troubled heart.
Carrington MacDuffie is a voice actor, recording artist, poet, and spoken-word performer who has narrated over two hundred audiobooks, received numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards, and has been a frequent finalist for the Audie Award, including for her original audiobook Many Things Invisible. In addition to her narration work, she has released an album of original songs entitled Only an Angel. She has recited and performed her poetry at venues ranging from L.A. coffeehouses to the museums and poetry festivals of the Northwest. She served for several years as poetry editor of the literary journal Square Lake, where she enjoyed discovering and publishing unknown writers alongside of literary notables.


text:
HomeDirty TackleBorussia Mönchengladbach rename themselves "A German Team" for Scottish pub owners
Borussia Mönchengladbach rename themselves "A German Team" for Scottish pub owners
Who says German football clubs don't have a sense of humor?
(@Borussia_en)
Champions League fixtures can pose a problem for the more ignorant pub chalkboard writers of the world. And with Celtic set to face Borussia Mönchengladbach, this proved problematic for one such person in Glasglow, who gave up on writing Mönchengladbach after three tries and just went with "A German Team."
Obviously, in the age of internet capable devices in every pocket, this spelling challenge could have been rectified rather easily and was likely just a joke to bring attention to the sign. And it definitely worked.
Gladbach's English language Twitter account took notice and decided to play along, changing the name of their account to "A German Team" for the rest of the day. Celtic fans are far more likely to know their opponents' name after the match, however, as Gladbach won 2–0, leaving Celtic at the bottom of Group C.
BORUSSIA MÖNCHENGLADBACH! #aGermanTeam #CELBMG #UCL pic.twitter.com/4ZFgzUBILi
— Borussia (@borussia) October 19, 2016
Gladbach can take solace in the fact that they weren't the only European club giving pub chalkboard writers fits on the day, though. Ludogorets Razgrad was apparently too difficult to even attempt.
https://twitter.com/sathyajames/status/788755742689992704


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text:
Back to Contents of Issue: August 2001
For VC/professor Takatoshi Matsumoto, the best companies to invest in are student startups. That makes him a bit of an iconoclast in Japan's VC community -- if there is such a thing.
by Cynthia Sekiguchi
Matsumoto in the new (and still being built) offices of Academy Capital Investment
"I EASILY GET BORED RUNNING a company," says Takatoshi Matsumoto. He isn't kidding about that. Matsumoto started and later left Cisco Systems Japan, Sun Microsystems Japan, and a couple of others. In April, the restless entrepreneur launched yet another company, Academy Capital Investment. This time around, though, he sees himself less as a builder than as a gardener. His latest startup is backing youngsters, especially in university research departments, who have come up with unique and revolutionary technologies. "This is a long term project, a seedling that might put forth buds," Matsumoto explains.
Receiving visitors in his paper-strewn office in Tokyo's Kojimachi, Matsumoto comes across as relaxed and unusually approachable -- but at the same time, like a forest predator at rest, he seems ready to leap up and begin the hunt at any second. His eyes sharpen and his voice takes on the firmness of conviction as he warms to the topic of venture businesses and investments.
The tech-stocks crash in the United States that scared off venture capitalists and left Silicon Valley startups starving for funds last year also burst an IT bubble that had started inflating two years before in Japan. Suddenly in both countries, youth -- now interpreted as lack of experience -- has come to be seen as a handicap instead of an advantage for an entrepreneur. Matsumoto thinks that's a shame and has set out to do something about it. "After reaching age 50, I wanted to give something back to the society," he says. "Accepting an offer from Keio University to teach students, the way I found was to nurture startups."
Incessantly casting about for chances to start something new has given Matsumoto a strong network among business people, academics, and investors both inside and outside the country. Using those relationships and allying with top Japanese universities, he proposes to provide full-service support for new startups across Asia, using the US model of incubation.
To understand how unique his approach is in Japan, look at the existing VC scene. Even today, large corporations control most of the money, technology, and people in the country, and they stubbornly adhere to the old rules. Formality, deference, and introductions are still required to gain access to resources. Independent, bootstrap outfits, the type of companies that sparked the Internet boom and almost everything of value associated with it, are not really viable in Japan. Even if they have a great product or service to offer, the "two 26-year-olds in a garage with a PC" just don't have a reasonable chance.
Mitsumasa Murase, for example, runs Japan's largest venture capital firm, Jafco. Unlike Matsumoto, whose regulation dark suit seems more camouflage than uniform, Murase looks like what he is: an executive from Jafco's parent company, Nomura Securities. While much of the venture capital world is dressed down and relaxed, the 61-year-old Murase is uptight by standards of any hemisphere. Beneath the surface, as well, Jafco is different from venture capital companies elsewhere. While firms in the business usually pride themselves on finding small, unknown companies -- seeing value where others don't -- and supplying the money that gets these startups off the ground, Jafco works like a traditional Japanese company. You can't meet its officials without an introduction. You need existing business. You need contacts. You bow. "We decide how to invest through relations built over the years," says Murase.
Things don't work much differently for entrepreneurs seeking capital from Japanese trading companies, some of which have been testing the VC waters. For years, the trading companies were key components of Japan's economic machine. They provided the capital and contacts for Japanese companies wanting to sell their products overseas. They served an important function in the export-led economy. But as manufacturers built up their own capabilities overseas and had the money to fund market research, the sogo shosha, as the traders are known, were taken out of the loop. "The time is over for trading companies to be intermediaries," says Tadao Watanabe, chairman of Marubeni Hong Kong. As a result, the companies have been looking for new ways to make money. Some went into investment, leveraging off their human and technological strengths. Itochu went first and has benefited from its transition to a venture capital--style firm, a transition that began in the late 1980s when the trading house was the largest company in the world in sales. "Itochu started to invest in technology 15 years ago, and it is fruitful now," says Tomoyasu Kato, an analyst at Nomura Securities.
Over the past decade, Itochu has outperformed the other major trading companies and performed in line with the Nikkei 225 stock average. While it benefited from its early forays into venture capital, however, the company says that New Economy investments, made recently, have been disastrous. "The Tokyo headquarters decided to invest heavily in e-commerce," says Hiromitsu Hasegawa, manager of Itochu's administrative department in Hong Kong. "But a huge loss was made."
Money in Japan has long been locked up in the banks and stuck in the balance sheets of major corporations. The main stock markets have been reserved for mature companies, while the over-the-counter market and the Second Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange have never fully developed. Entrepreneurs with ideas have had nowhere to go. They needed introductions and contacts, which they usually lacked. Even today, "nothing has changed," insists Tetsuya Tajima, a researcher at Mitsui Knowledge Industry Research Institute. "Japanese still do business through the usual channels, among keiretsu and related companies."
Consider the case of Kazutomo Robert Hori and his startup, Cybird, a pioneering provider of content to Japan's cellphone industry. For Hori, finding money was not a matter of writing up a business plan and taking it around to funds interested in hearing about the next big thing. It meant going the standard Japanese route and using connections in the old economy. Hori spoke to Omron, where a friend of his worked, and got funding. The Kyoto-based electrical control maker then invited Itochu to join in. Jafco invested, but just two years ago, only after Cybird had managed to get NTT DoCoMo, the largest company in Asia, to become a customer. By that time, Cybird and Hori had become well known, and even then Jafco took only two out of 15,000 shares. "There is no VC in Japan," remarks Hori. "The probability for startups is less than one in a hundred million."
Japan's venture capital industry is about one-tenth the size of that in the US. Jafco is by far the largest venture capital firm, twice the size of the second largest, NIF, a Daiwa Securities--related company. Of Japan's 160 venture capital firms, about 21 are associated with securities companies, 74 with banks, and 12 with insurance companies. Nineteen are independent. Together, they have less than $10 billion invested, according to Asian Venture Capital Journal, and only 15 percent of that was committed to startups. Less than a third of Japan's venture capital investments went to companies involved in endeavors that could be classified as New Economy.
Some argue that the venture capital problem in Japan may be a chicken-and-egg issue. There is no venture capital, they say, because there is little, if anything, good to invest in. Just as the large companies and financial institutions control most of the country's capital, so they control the people, the ideas, and the markets. The Matsushitas, Toshibas, and Toyotas of the world still hoard the best employees and dominate major chunks of the economy. Without them, it is tough to develop anything; it is tough to sell a product or a service; and it is tough to get the right employees. "In the US, experienced executives ally with young entrepreneurs," says Yoshinari Yoshikawa, chief executive of IP Infusion. Supposedly some big names did the same in Japan, "but I am still curious to know if that ever really happened."
From left: Matsumoto listens to student presentations in his class at Keio University; student Asako Ono; students present their research
Japanese executives know that if they leave their companies, they cannot return. While lifetime employment is reportedly on the decline in Japan, companies still regard loyalty and commitment as important qualities in their employees. "If you fail," says one dot-com consultant, "there's no way to go back."
Is it possible to develop a business in Japan without the help of a large company? "I want to say, 'Yes,'" says Dan Schwartz, managing director of AVCJ Holdings, publisher of Asian Venture Capital Journal. "But I have to say it is muzukashii," he adds, using the Japanese word for difficult.
While most investors agree that venture capitalism is different in Japan, they caution against exaggerating these differences. Even in the most freewheeling venture capital markets of the world, entrepreneurs don't just walk into the office of a VC and ask for money. Usually the startup has some connection to the investor or some connection to a large, established company. And to the extent that Japan's venture capital industry is different, it may have benefited from the differences. While traditional ways kept it largely out of the dot-com boom, the adherence to custom, formality, and deference also kept it away from the bust. By investing in companies with existing businesses and strong financial support, Jafco and others may have forfeited some profit, but they have also avoided substantial losses. Jafco has invested in nearly 2,000 companies, and it says only 6 percent of them have failed.
Then where does Matsumoto's Academy Capital Investment fit into this scene? While the sources of venture capital have been drying up in Japan as well as in the United States, and while much of what has passed for VC in Japan really isn't, in fact, ACI intends to do the real thing. What happened during the past couple of years, Matsumoto says, "was irrational. Companies and investors poured in huge amounts of money, without first doing clear evaluations of what they were investing in. Those who disappeared after the end of the IT bubble had no core competence to run businesses. They had only ideas. Many of their business models relied on advertising and were no more than copies of US models."
Further, he says, "while in the US a venture capitalist would evaluate the character of the CEO, his or her management skills, and the technologies already in hand before providing capital, in Japan people avoid investing in the seed stage. They consider it too risky." Not Matsumoto. "I want to invest in the seed stage of IT-related companies -- for example, in the network business," he says. Matsumoto clearly is more comfortable talking grand design than details -- and the few details he's willing to offer reveal that he is truly starting small. "We are investing in a total of seven startups in Japan and China," he says. "I can't name them because other investors might poach them from us." That concern may sound inconsistent, coming from a man who laments the supposedly risk-averse behavior of other investors. But Matsumoto figures that if someone else does the work and finds truly promising startups, "there are thousands of investors willing to put up the money." Members of the ACI advisory board, mostly former Cisco Systems executives, "tipped us off to the existence of these seed companies, where the staff are all young -- in their 30s," he says. But wouldn't more capital be good for the startups? Not necessarily, Matsumoto says. "Too much capital also spoils entrepreneurs and affects the quality of their management."
Matsumoto says he drew upon his own money for the initial capital, a total of �50 million. He expects the first fund-raising from third parties to reach �15 billion. Financial institutions have yet to be tapped, but he says the first stage of financing has brought in �1.5 billion from major IT-related companies in Japan. That's pretty small change in the VC world. As an experienced entrepreneur in his own right -- but one who had big-time backing from the outset for his most successful ventures -- Matsumoto is no dummy about the odds that ACI will hit it big any time soon and incubate the next Yahoo. "We might be in the red for a while," he acknowledges.
So what's the motivation? By all accounts, Matsumoto is a born teacher who, at this point in his career, really does see himself as able and willing to be of service by doing what he loves to do. He sees teaching as a large part of what being a VC really is all about: "It's necessary to educate the startups to enable them to compete in the international field if Japan wants to lead the world's economy," he says -- and it's a matter not only of world leadership but of continued prosperity. "Japan may be a poor country in the near future if nothing is done. I want to invest starting from the technology departments of the private universities."
In the United States, he says, "90 percent of the startups come from universities." In Japan, meanwhile, the universities "have considered themselves sanctuaries, keeping their distance from the business world. It's a shame. Hundreds of good ideas hatched in the research departments have sunk without a trace there." With that in mind, Matsumoto became a professor at the forward-looking Kanagawa prefecture campus of the venerable, Tokyo-headquartered Keio. At the university, he says, "there are already five startups, and I do believe in their potential."
You have to attend one of Matsumoto's classes to see how wrapped up in teaching he has become. From Tokyo, that requires a one-and-a-half-hour train trip to Chigasaki Beach, where a golf course in front of the Keio campus contributes to the abundant greenery. In the center of the campus is the Media and Governance Department, where Matsumoto holds forth on "information technology management." Before the class starts, Matsumoto is already there, chatting with his students. Namiko Ito, his secretary, smiles, saying, "He loves to talk with students. Between class meetings, too, they approach him constantly."
Sometimes Matsumoto brings well-known business people to speak to the class. He likes to get the students talking, so he also sets up debates. The theme for today's debate is Amazon vs. Barnes & Noble. A group of students makes presentations using PowerPoint illustrations. It's a relaxed atmosphere, with some students drinking milk or munching sandwiches. They don't call him sensei, or professor, but just plain Matsumoto-san. Every student carries a laptop, for making notes and accessing sites during the class. The class is surprisingly dynamic; none of the 20 students sleeps or uses i-mode, frequent scenes in other universities. Students keep asking questions while Matsumoto remains quiet, not participating directly in the discussion. Only from time to time does he interject a question, such as one about the total sales, profits, or market shares of the companies. Finally, when the discussion become fierce, he comments, explaining management's point of view and asking students to come up with ideas to deal with management's problems.
Students, clearly, adore him. "I can't feel the usual professor-student distance with Matsumoto-san," says Itaru Terashima. "He likes to go drinking with us. He speaks on all those off-the-record issues that you can't find in the media. You know, those gray topics." Takayuki Hara agrees with Terashima, saying, "Yeah, he explains to us why Cisco Systems doesn't become a listed company." Asako Ono likes the fact that the professor pays real attention to the students. "One day, I made him an awful cup of tea -- and he still remembers it. I'm ashamed of the tea, but it is good to know that he cares about each of us."
Ono says taking the class was a natural for her, as she is participating in a Keio startup. But plenty of the students are just nibbling, with other plans in mind. Terashima wants to work in management for an NGO, Hara at a publishing company. Ken Komuro, who is studying environmental information, admits that he may not have what it takes to get into a startup. "Now, I am a bit scared to go into a venture business," he says. "It's too bad I didn't jump in during the IT bubble like some people I know. I could have entered and exited quickly. Today we are in a wait-and-see mood."
Matsumoto is satisfied, nevertheless, that he's getting somewhere. He has seen enough of the new generation to know that the burning ambition to be a lifetime salaryman "is not really a matter of our culture," he says. "In fact, there are signs that Japanese students are changing their preferences. These days, many want to go to interesting companies rather than brand names; I have high expectations for them." It's not the students but the investors who disappoint him. Although some people show interest in what he's doing at the university, in the post-bubble apathy that afflicts the country that's mere lip service. "They only say 'Fantastic!' and that's it."
Clearly, then, if he's bored with being the builder and running companies that he's started, Matsumoto still finds excitement in his role as gardener, in interacting with students. Perhaps that's one reason he professes to be in no hurry to fulfill his objective. He is, he says, prepared to wait five years or more to nurture students who can compete internationally.


text:
Q: build cordova with command line in cygwin I am using cygwin to build the cordova android project.
I created a project successfully
but there is some errors when I build it:
╭─Dozer@Dozer-PC  ~/Projects/ba-crm/crm-plus  ‹master*›
╰─$ cordova build                                                                                127 ↵
Running command: cmd args=["/c","C:\\cygwin64\\home\\Dozer\\Projects\\ba-crm\\crm-plus\\platforms\\android\\cordova\\build"]
ANT_HOME is set incorrectly or ant could not be located. Please set ANT_HOME.

But I have already install all the libraries in cygwin:
╭─Dozer@Dozer-PC  ~/Projects/ba-crm/crm-plus  ‹master*›
╰─$ ant -version
Apache Ant(TM) version 1.9.3 compiled on December 23 2013
╭─Dozer@Dozer-PC  ~/Projects/ba-crm/crm-plus  ‹master*›
╰─$ java -version
java version "1.7.0_51"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_51-b13)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.51-b03, mixed mode)
╭─Dozer@Dozer-PC  ~/Projects/ba-crm/crm-plus  ‹master*›
╰─$ cordova -version
3.4.0-0.1.3

A: Just because the library is installed does not necessarily mean that the environment variable is set.  To see if it's set, in Cygwin I believe you can do echo "$ANT_HOME".
Additionally as the error says, make sure it's set correctly.  For example, on my machine ANT_HOME points to C:\Source\ANT\apache-ant-1.8.4.
Lastly, make sure your path is set up to have %ANT_HOME%\bin

A: export ANT_HOME=c:/path/apache-ant-1.9.4
(export ANT_HOME/cygdrive/c/path/apache-ant-1.9.4 fails - you need the :/ style)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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2014 Global Entrepreneurship Week lights an entrepreneurial fire across the globe
By Allan Gray Orbis Foundation
We are half way through this year's Global Entrepreneurship Week ("GEW") which started on 17th November and finishes on Sunday! GEW is the world's largest celebration of the innovators and job creators who are bringing ideas to life, driving economic growth and expanding human welfare. GEW looks to inspire people everywhere through local, national and global activities designed to help them explore their potential as self-starters and innovators. There has been an explosion of entrepreneurial energy this year and the momentum continues to grow with 150 countries around the world now participating in thousands of activities. It is a fundamentally powerful movement for shifting the entrepreneurial culture of participating countries.
It also provides the platform for some important developments in the world of entrepreneurship:
Firstly the launch of the 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Index measuring the entrepreneurial ecosystems in 130 countries—from Albania to Zambia. South Africa ranked number 52 in this index and was the highest ranked country in Africa. This is a positive development relative to South Africa's performance in the annual Global Entrepreneurship Monitor where we have tended to lag other African countries. The bad news is that our areas of weakness continue to be around human capital and start up skills.
Secondly, this week was the culmination of the Creative Business Cup 2014 where creative entrepreneurs from all over the world gathered in Copenhagen for the "World Cup for creative entrepreneurs". The winner was "Professor Why" of CTAdventure from Poland, a startup re-imagining education by involving users in a creative learning process in important areas such as chemistry, physics, and maths using modern technology like augmented reality. Sounds like the South African education system could do with some assistance from the Professor!
Thirdly, yesterday was Woman Entrepreneurship Day which provided the opportunity to celebrate, support and empower women entrepreneurs worldwide. There is increasing evidence that bridging the gender gap in entrepreneurship will be an important catalyst for the next frontier of entrepreneurial endeavour. A development the Foundation is well geared for with 55% of our Candidate Allan Gray Fellows being female.
And very importantly Africa is proud to be hosting one of the most important annual entrepreneurship gatherings, the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, for the first time, in Morocco, this week. The theme is harnessing the power of technology for innovation and entrepreneurship. The Foundation is participating in the summit and looks forward to reporting back on its impact.
With regards to GEW, South Africa has been pulling its weight with 127 activities powered by 45 different partners. One of those 127 activities is the "Make a R100" challenge, which is a campaign designed to encourage South Africans to experience the possibilities of entrepreneurial action in a non-intimidating way. Everyone is challenged during the month of November and particularly during this week of GEW to make a R100 profit (in a legal and ethical way) by providing a creative service or product to a willing buyer.
So far there have been some great responses coming through with people harnessing their musical, fashion, practical, beauty and even tax skills. If you looking for a good starting point, there has been a strong culinary theme with a number of people taking advantage of our natural inclination for good food! Someone even showed great entrepreneurial insight by turning the challenge of Eskom's recent load shedding in Pretoria into an opportunity to sell pre-charged solar lights! Have a look at the emerging ideas on our Social Media page and challenge your friends, family, colleagues and/or classmates to take up the challenge too.
Let's hope that this incredible energy and excitement around the potential for entrepreneurship continues way beyond this one week. Let us know how you have experienced GEW in the comments below.
Allan Gray Orbis Foundation
Local is lekker and complex in the entrepreneurial ecosystem 19/05/2015
Finding solutions to South Africa's weak entrepreneurial pipeline – Commentary on the South Africa 2014 GEM Report Part II 23/06/2015
Entrepreneurship: If you think you can, or think you can't, either way, you are right! 27/02/2014
Fellowship Jamboree
Foundation Selection Summit
In memory of Allan William Buchanan Gray (8 April 1938 – 10 November 2019)
The Allan Gray Orbis Foundation is saddened to announce the passing of Allan William Buchanan Gray
What makes an Entrepreneur: 14 Behavioural Competencies
Allan Gray Orbis Foundation Fellows dominate award categories at the USAF Entrepreneurship InterVarsity Final
The State of Entrepreneurship in South Africa
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46 Hof Street, Oranjezicht
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8th Floor, Forum Building,
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University Applications
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© 2017 Allan Gray Orbis Foundation. All Rights Reserved.
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I Celebrity Love
Home » Lifestyle » Steven Spielberg's newest film is his most personal yet. But is it good?
Steven Spielberg's newest film is his most personal yet. But is it good?
The Fabelmans ★★★★
(M) 151 minutes
"In this family," declares Mitzi Fabelman, "it's the scientists versus the artists. Sammy's on my team. He takes after me."
It's said lightly but there's no doubt that Mitzi (Michelle Williams) means it. She's laying down a dividing line that will turn out to be one of the governing principles of her son, Sammy's upbringing.
Paul Dano, Mateo Zoryon Francis-DeFord and Michelle Williams in a scene from The Fabelmans. Credit:Merie Weismiller Wallace/Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment via AP
Sammy (Gabriel LaBelle) is a fictionalised version of Steven Spielberg, who waited until his parents' deaths before embarking on this account of his childhood and adolescence because he didn't want to risk hurting them. It's the kind of dilemma faced by most artists and writers who work close to home and many of them approach it a lot more ruthlessly than Spielberg does here. While he takes an unflinching look at his parents' marriage and the reasons for their eventual split, his focus is softened by his love for them both – Burt, his highly intelligent father whose imagination is concentrated on facts, figures and mathematical abstractions, and Mitzi, his starry-eyed mother, a frustrated visionary who can't shake off her regret at having forfeited a promising career as a classical pianist to become a housewife and mother.
Luminously portrayed by Williams, she's a woman full of shifting moods and colours – warm-hearted yet mercurial with an irresistible urge to avoid boredom at all cost. Her husband can often be spotted gazing at her with a mixture of admiration and bewilderment. Played by Paul Dano, an actor whose pale, open face works like a mirror of his inner self, effortlessly reflecting every rippling thought and feeling, he regards her as a puzzle he will never solve. Yet he loves her with an intensity he has no hope of expressing because they don't share an emotional language.
Michelle Williams is luminous as Mitzi Fabelman in The Fabelmans. Credit:Merie Weismiller Wallace/Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment via AP
When young Sammy is given an 8mm movie camera and makes the all-important discovery that film is to become his lifelong occupation, Burt doesn't get it. He dismisses this new passion as a "hobby". Mitzi, however, understands instantly. "Movies," she says, "are dreams that you never forget."
In the 1970s and early '80s, most of Spielberg's films dealt nostalgically with the pleasures of childhood, which meant that he and George Lucas became responsible for the revitalisation of the "family film", a genre which had been effectively colonised by Disney and its commitment to the safe and the wholesome. Spielberg and Lucas pumped energy and suspense into it, bringing out the impressionable child in moviegoers of all ages while harking back to the classics of their own moviegoing in the 1950s.
The Fabelmans opens with a memorable example – Cecil B. DeMille's circus picture, The Greatest Show on Earth, which climaxes with a train accident. Sammy is thoroughly shaken up by this spectacle and when Burt and Mitzi buy him a model train, he promptly crashes it, to Burt's dismay. But once again, Mitzi understands. She suggests that he choreograph another pile-up and her son goes on to exorcise his fear by using his camera to film it.
The camera becomes Sammy's extra limb – or, more aptly, his third eye. By putting things on film, he can better comprehend them but these truths also come at a price. It's the camera which leads him to the realisation that Mitzi is in love with Bennie (Seth Rogen), his father's best friend, for Bennie can do something Burt can't – make her laugh.
Gabriel LaBelle as Sammy Fabelman. Credit:Merie Weismiller Wallace/Universal Pictures/Amblin Entertainment
While the film is the most personal that Spielberg has ever made, full of wistful insights into the tragedy spawned by Burt and Mitzi's mismatched temperaments, it also shows how deeply he's steeped himself in the Hollywood movie's genres and syntax. Running in tandem with the story of Sammy's life at home is a typical high school movie about his misadventures as a Jewish kid being bullied by the jocks among his Californian classmates. But here, too, the camera proves to be his most powerful weapon, securing his popularity because he knows how to turn his fellow students into movie stars – and villains.
Spielberg has packed all these things into a deceptively simple narrative which flows so smoothly that it's easy to miss its finer points. In that sense, it crystallises his innate ability to translate the most delicate subtleties into entertainment.
The Fabelmans is in cinemas January 5.
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Yesterday I went on a day trip to Coptic Cairo and al-Azhar Park. Those two places, more than any other two that I've visited in Egypt, gave me a real sense of being "somewhere else."
I think I may have mentioned before that people are people no matter where you go (even if I didn't mention it before, there you have it now). There's a certain consistency in human nature that makes me feel less confused about my being transplanted into a different culture from my own. ANYHOW, for a while I thought that, considering how people are remarkably similar even given vast distances between them, there was nowhere in Cairo where I would feel really, really far from the US. All it took was one day trip to Coptic Cairo and al-Azhar Park for the very real sense of being in an ancient and foreign land to settle over me.
There are a number of sites in Coptic Cairo that are thought to be places where the Holy Family (Jesus, Mary, and Joseph) visited so long ago. At one such site is a well that is said to have been blessed by the Holy Family when they stopped there. When my friends and I entered, there were some Greek pilgrims there, gathering water in bottles and reverently crossing themselves with it.
In another area of Coptic Cairo is another peaceful and strangely beautiful place: a cemetery. There are mausoleums that look like small churches, tombs with the occupants' pictures carved into them, graves with flowers and other plants that seem to be flowing from the graves themselves. There are pools of cooled wax from candles that seem to have been burning for years. And over it all is that fine, democratizing Cairo dust that mutes some of the differences from grave to grave. It's like a small, silent village. I almost expected to be greeted by shopkeepers, or to see children running around, or hear music winding between the statues and various architectural tributes to loved ones.
Most obvious was the silence.
Most other place in Cairo, one is bound to hear the honking of taxis and minibuses. The cemetery in Coptic Cairo is restful. I suppose the people there tend to get along. One image that impressed itself on me was where two mausoleums stood as neighbors with wildly different themes. One was obviously Greek with its Parthenon-like pillars and white marble, while the other was clearly more at home in the Middle East.
And then there's al-Azhar Park. It is a beautifully landscaped park on what used to be a landfill. We visited in the evening and, like many other Cairenes that night, got to enjoy Cairo's unbelievably crowded silhouette.
This was one of those places where it was abundantly clear that Toto and I were not in Kansas anymore. Minarets burst up over thousands of brick apartment buildings. Modestly-dressed women walk leisurely with their husbands and children, a hijaab covering many a head. And I had forgotten how it felt to be in open spaces until we got to look down over the city; in my mind's eye I imagined civil engineers staring drop-jawed at the insanity below.
Are you staring drop-jawed? Go ahead and click on the photo for a larger version. Stare. I did. The view caught me off-guard as I hadn't been out of that maze of buildings for quite some time. And then there I was, above it all. There is modernity built up right next to historic architecture. This is a land where some people can look out from their balcony and see pyramids in the distance and taxi cabs racing along downstairs.
How different this is from "historical sites" in the United States. In my own home town we make a big to-do about maintaining Victorian homes built in the 19th Century. Go to Egypt and you can do handstands on a structure built before 2000 BC. If that doesn't serve to make you feel the weight of history, I don't quite know what will.
My immediate thought when I looked at the enlarged picture of Cairo from above was "it looks like a war zone". But then it probably has been through a lot, at least a lot of time. I didn't realize Cairo was walled, at least in part.


text:
Browse Books: Religion / Judaism / Talmud
The Talmud of the Land of Israel, Volume 7: Maaserot (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism - The Talmud of the Land of Israel: A Preliminary Translation #7) (Hardcover)
By Jacob Neusner (Editor), Martin S. Jaffee (Translated by)
The Talmud of the Land of Israel, Volume 8: Maaser Sheni (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism - The Talmud of the Land of Israel: A Preliminary Translation #8) (Hardcover)
By Jacob Neusner (Editor), Roger Brooks (Translated by)
The Talmud of the Land of Israel, Volume 9: Hallah (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism - The Talmud of the Land of Israel: A Preliminary Translation #9) (Hardcover)
By Jacob Neusner (Translated by), Jacob Neusner (Editor)
The Talmud of the Land of Israel, Volume 10: Orlah and Bikkurim (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism - The Talmud of the Land of Israel: A Preliminary Translation #10) (Hardcover)
By Jacob Neusner (Editor), Jacob Neusner (Translated by)
The Talmud of the Land of Israel, Volume 12: Erubin (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism - The Talmud of the Land of Israel: A Preliminary Translation #12) (Hardcover)
The Talmud of the Land of Israel, Volume 11: Shabbat (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism - The Talmud of the Land of Israel: A Preliminary Translation #11) (Hardcover)
The Talmud of the Land of Israel, Volume 14: Yoma (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism - The Talmud of the Land of Israel: A Preliminary Translation #14) (Hardcover)
The Talmud of the Land of Israel, Volume 15: Sheqalim (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism - The Talmud of the Land of Israel: A Preliminary Translation #15) (Hardcover)
The Talmud of the Land of Israel, Volume 16: Rosh Hashanah (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism - The Talmud of the Land of Israel: A Preliminary Translation #16) (Hardcover)
By Jacob Neusner (Editor), Edward A. Goldman (Translated by)
The Talmud of the Land of Israel, Volume 17: Sukkah (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism - The Talmud of the Land of Israel: A Preliminary Translation #17) (Hardcover)
The Talmud of the Land of Israel, Volume 18: Besah and Taanit (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism - The Talmud of the Land of Israel: A Preliminary Translation #18) (Hardcover)
The Talmud of the Land of Israel, Volume 19: Megillah (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism - The Talmud of the Land of Israel: A Preliminary Translation #19) (Hardcover)
Religion / Judaism / Talmud
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text:
Today's Bible Reading - NIV Old & New Testament Reading Plan
Exodus 4-6
Signs for Moses
4 Moses answered, "What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, 'The Lord did not appear to you'?"
2 Then the Lord said to him, "What is that in your hand?"
"A staff," he replied.
3 The Lord said, "Throw it on the ground."
Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. 4 Then the Lord said to him, "Reach out your hand and take it by the tail." So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. 5 "This," said the Lord, "is so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you."
6 Then the Lord said, "Put your hand inside your cloak." So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, the skin was leprous—it had become as white as snow.
7 "Now put it back into your cloak," he said. So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his flesh.
8 Then the Lord said, "If they do not believe you or pay attention to the first sign, they may believe the second. 9 But if they do not believe these two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water you take from the river will become blood on the ground."
10 Moses said to the Lord, "Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue."
11 The Lord said to him, "Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 12 Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say."
13 But Moses said, "Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else."
14 Then the Lord's anger burned against Moses and he said, "What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and he will be glad to see you. 15 You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. 16 He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him. 17 But take this staff in your hand so you can perform the signs with it."
Moses Returns to Egypt
18 Then Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, "Let me return to my own people in Egypt to see if any of them are still alive."
Jethro said, "Go, and I wish you well."
19 Now the Lord had said to Moses in Midian, "Go back to Egypt, for all those who wanted to kill you are dead." 20 So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey and started back to Egypt. And he took the staff of God in his hand.
21 The Lord said to Moses, "When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. 22 Then say to Pharaoh, 'This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son, 23 and I told you, "Let my son go, so he may worship me." But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son.'"
24 At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him. 25 But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it. "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me," she said. 26 So the Lord let him alone. (At that time she said "bridegroom of blood," referring to circumcision.)
27 The Lord said to Aaron, "Go into the wilderness to meet Moses." So he met Moses at the mountain of God and kissed him. 28 Then Moses told Aaron everything the Lord had sent him to say, and also about all the signs he had commanded him to perform.
29 Moses and Aaron brought together all the elders of the Israelites, 30 and Aaron told them everything the Lord had said to Moses. He also performed the signs before the people, 31 and they believed. And when they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped.
Bricks Without Straw
5 Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, "This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness.'"
2 Pharaoh said, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go."
3 Then they said, "The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Now let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God, or he may strike us with plagues or with the sword."
4 But the king of Egypt said, "Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their labor? Get back to your work!" 5 Then Pharaoh said, "Look, the people of the land are now numerous, and you are stopping them from working."
6 That same day Pharaoh gave this order to the slave drivers and overseers in charge of the people: 7 "You are no longer to supply the people with straw for making bricks; let them go and gather their own straw. 8 But require them to make the same number of bricks as before; don't reduce the quota. They are lazy; that is why they are crying out, 'Let us go and sacrifice to our God.' 9 Make the work harder for the people so that they keep working and pay no attention to lies."
10 Then the slave drivers and the overseers went out and said to the people, "This is what Pharaoh says: 'I will not give you any more straw. 11 Go and get your own straw wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced at all.'" 12 So the people scattered all over Egypt to gather stubble to use for straw. 13 The slave drivers kept pressing them, saying, "Complete the work required of you for each day, just as when you had straw." 14 And Pharaoh's slave drivers beat the Israelite overseers they had appointed, demanding, "Why haven't you met your quota of bricks yesterday or today, as before?"
15 Then the Israelite overseers went and appealed to Pharaoh: "Why have you treated your servants this way? 16 Your servants are given no straw, yet we are told, 'Make bricks!' Your servants are being beaten, but the fault is with your own people."
17 Pharaoh said, "Lazy, that's what you are—lazy! That is why you keep saying, 'Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord.' 18 Now get to work. You will not be given any straw, yet you must produce your full quota of bricks."
19 The Israelite overseers realized they were in trouble when they were told, "You are not to reduce the number of bricks required of you for each day." 20 When they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them, 21 and they said, "May the Lord look on you and judge you! You have made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us."
God Promises Deliverance
22 Moses returned to the Lord and said, "Why, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me? 23 Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people, and you have not rescued your people at all."
6 Then the Lord said to Moses, "Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh: Because of my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country."
2 God also said to Moses, "I am the Lord. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself fully known to them. 4 I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they resided as foreigners. 5 Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant.
6 "Therefore, say to the Israelites: 'I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. 7 I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. 8 And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord.'"
9 Moses reported this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement and harsh labor.
10 Then the Lord said to Moses, 11 "Go, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the Israelites go out of his country."
12 But Moses said to the Lord, "If the Israelites will not listen to me, why would Pharaoh listen to me, since I speak with faltering lips?"
Family Record of Moses and Aaron
13 Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron about the Israelites and Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he commanded them to bring the Israelites out of Egypt.
14 These were the heads of their families:
The sons of Reuben the firstborn son of Israel were Hanok and Pallu, Hezron and Karmi. These were the clans of Reuben.
15 The sons of Simeon were Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jakin, Zohar and Shaul the son of a Canaanite woman. These were the clans of Simeon.
16 These were the names of the sons of Levi according to their records: Gershon, Kohath and Merari. Levi lived 137 years.
17 The sons of Gershon, by clans, were Libni and Shimei.
18 The sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron and Uzziel. Kohath lived 133 years.
19 The sons of Merari were Mahli and Mushi.
These were the clans of Levi according to their records.
20 Amram married his father's sister Jochebed, who bore him Aaron and Moses. Amram lived 137 years.
21 The sons of Izhar were Korah, Nepheg and Zikri.
22 The sons of Uzziel were Mishael, Elzaphan and Sithri.
23 Aaron married Elisheba, daughter of Amminadab and sister of Nahshon, and she bore him Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.
24 The sons of Korah were Assir, Elkanah and Abiasaph. These were the Korahite clans.
25 Eleazar son of Aaron married one of the daughters of Putiel, and she bore him Phinehas.
These were the heads of the Levite families, clan by clan.
26 It was this Aaron and Moses to whom the Lord said, "Bring the Israelites out of Egypt by their divisions." 27 They were the ones who spoke to Pharaoh king of Egypt about bringing the Israelites out of Egypt—this same Moses and Aaron.
Aaron to Speak for Moses
28 Now when the Lord spoke to Moses in Egypt, 29 he said to him, "I am the Lord. Tell Pharaoh king of Egypt everything I tell you."
30 But Moses said to the Lord, "Since I speak with faltering lips, why would Pharaoh listen to me?"
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
22 Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. 23 After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, 24 and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.
25 Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear.
27 But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid."
28 "Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."
29 "Come," he said.
Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"
31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?"
32 And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. 33 Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."
34 When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret. 35 And when the men of that place recognized Jesus, they sent word to all the surrounding country. People brought all their sick to him 36 and begged him to let the sick just touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.


Discussion in 'The Projects Forum' started by Manlear, Jul 6, 2012.
Hello everyone. I have a project I would like to complete for myself rather inexpensively. I require knowledge so that I can do this correctly. What I want is a PIR Motion Sensor at the door to my room to sense when I enter the room. After it senses my infrared heat, it sends a signal to a board which changes the signal from analog to 3V digital. (Resource: http://www.instructables.com/id/PIR-Motion-Sensor-Tutorial/) It then sends that signal to a relay that is connected to a power surge strip, between the 110V AC socket and the power plug on the strip. The strip has my computer connected to it, which will (thank God for amazing Bios settings) automatically turn on when it receives power. And in turn, my monitors will automatically turn on when they receive a signal.
I am rather new to tinkering with electrical components so I am going to need a thorough explanation of all the parts needed and why I need them.
*NOTE* After my power strip is on, and the relay is in a closed position I don't want to have it trip again, therefore turning my computer off when someone walks in the door.
Thank you for your time and help It's very much so appreciated!
So you want your computer and monitor to turn on when you walk in the room? There are light switches that do this, common in business conference rooms and even bathrooms.
One obvious question is, is it really so hard to walk over to the power strip and turn on the switch?
Next question is, how will the computer get turned off? I mean, you'll probably do a manual shutdown without turning off the power strip? How will you get the strip into the "off" state, so that it's ready to turn on again when you walk in?
Is it really that hard to walk to work? Is it really that hard to make your own clothes? Is it really that hard to kill a deer with a knife?
It's not that it's hard or time consuming. It's the fact that I can do it and I would like to know how because it would make my life easier. It's something I'm interested in.
Yes, I would manually turn off the strip until I think of a way to do that automatically also. Please explain to me these light switches and how I could rig one to my power strip.
Sorry, I've never done anything with one except observe that they exist.
Our local Walmart, in an effort to be "green", turns off aisle and display case lighting unless detectors see movement nearby. It's annoying to walk along and have them all light up as you approach.
Hardware stores sell all kinds of motion detectors for security lighting. The sensor and control module can often be separated from the light fixture. IF (and it's a big IF) you can find one rated for the wattage of your computer, you'd be part way there. I say part way because security lights go off after a few minutes and obviously you don't want that. Same with the room lighting.
All these devices use IR to detect motion. There are DIY kits for building this type of detector. Maybe someone here has had experience in this area.


THIS PRODUCT IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE. We now offer an equivalent product here.
For boats over 42ft it is recommended to use two MY30 heaters, these would normally be set up so that one heats the aft and part saloon and the second one heats the forward area and part saloon. This type of installation tends to work better than using one large air heater.
The Mikuni MY30 is a proven performer for its reliability and quiet operation.
The two compact diesel heaters in this kit both have a powerful 3.5kw output and a 1.7kw half-setting for comfort and economy.
Each heater is operated by an individual solid state thermostat control.
This system can be upgraded with the addition of a programmable timer.
Exhaust terminals are available as a flush fitting stainless steel skin fitting or hard wearing brass hull fitting.
Fuel lines are available in plastic for offshore craft or copper for inland craft.
Select the voltage suitable for your electrical system.


Have you ever heard of a trader or investor doing a position when the market clock is closed? Yes, this is called after hours trading.
After Hours Trading can be interpreted as a sale and purchase contract or stock on the main stock right after the closing of the specified regular trading hours. Many exchanges have regular operating hours from 9:30 to 16:00 and are usually divided into two sessions interspersed by rest. To be able to enter transaction orders in the session After Hours Trading (AHT) is usually between 16:00 and 20:00.
Given the substantial risk of transactions in AHT sessions, the investor who can trade is also restricted. Only investors have great wealth. Usually institutional investors, although there are opportunities for investors with average wealth to trade in the AHT session.
This is helped by technological advances in trading on the exchange. Ie using ECN (Electronic Communication Network). ECN is a communication network that allows investors to interact and transact electronically without being identified (anonymous). Even institutional investors are not seen in action.
The transaction order in the AHT session can provide a huge profit potential but investors should be wary of the risks as well. Having a position when the market is closed, then investors have overnight positions including overnight risk.
The market with high liquidity is when the sale and purchase happens continuously because the number of market participants are many. This usually happens during regular business hours of the stock. But in the AHT session, trading volume will be less due to limited market participants. Not all investors want to transact in the AHT session and bear the risk of overnight.
Lower trading volume may cause spread, bid and ask price difference, width. Therefore, it is difficult for a person to execute his trading at a favorable price.
While retail investors now have the opportunity to trade in AHT sessions, they must compete with large or institutional investors who have access to more resources than the average retail investor. They can get caught in an unfavorable position.
The AHT session is usually traded thin (movement) compared to trading in regular sessions.
From the lack of transactions in the AHT session, of course there is also a surplus of transactions in the AHT session. That investor can react quickly to news or new information before the market opened the next day.
Furthermore, although volatility is an AHT-related risk, there is still a chance of finding some interesting prices in this AHT session.
Related Post "Understanding After Hours Trading and Risks"


text:
Q: Pause and Resume Job Execution Spring Batch Have the same question asked here -
Spring batch pause/resume vs stop/restart
I checked BatchStatus enum in spring, there is no status PAUSED available, it is only provided as use case without details here -
https://docs.spring.io/spring-batch/2.1.x/cases/pause.html

A: use job operator for this, it is the basic interface which provides functionalities such as stop , restart , getStatus
public interface JobOperator {

List<Long> getExecutions(long instanceId) throws NoSuchJobInstanceException;

List<Long> getJobInstances(String jobName, int start, int count)
      throws NoSuchJobException;

Set<Long> getRunningExecutions(String jobName) throws NoSuchJobException;

String getParameters(long executionId) throws NoSuchJobExecutionException;

Long start(String jobName, String parameters)
      throws NoSuchJobException, JobInstanceAlreadyExistsException;

Long restart(long executionId)
      throws JobInstanceAlreadyCompleteException, NoSuchJobExecutionException,
              NoSuchJobException, JobRestartException;

Long startNextInstance(String jobName)
      throws NoSuchJobException, JobParametersNotFoundException, JobRestartException,
             JobExecutionAlreadyRunningException, JobInstanceAlreadyCompleteException;

boolean stop(long executionId)
      throws NoSuchJobExecutionException, JobExecutionNotRunningException;

String getSummary(long executionId) throws NoSuchJobExecutionException;

Map<Long, String> getStepExecutionSummaries(long executionId)
      throws NoSuchJobExecutionException;

Set<String> getJobNames();

}

Here is an example for that
JOB_OPERATOR EXAMPLE


text:
Atlas VPN Review
"Fastest Free VPN Service"
Start at $1.39/month
See full pricing
Type of Pricing Plan
Free , Monthly , Annual
Atlas VPN is on a mission to support internet users around the world to stand up for their right to privacy and help every individual take back control over their digital life. With Atlas VPN, you will be one click away from a truly open internet that grants you the freedom to use any service or app you like. Read our in-depth Atlas VPN review to discover the service's strengths and weaknesses, the best features, as well as how it fares against rivals.
Accessing the internet from several IP addresses at a time
Offers its own private internet address book
Allows unlimited simultaneous device connections
Superior encryption
Optimized for streaming and torrenting
Smaller server network
Limited compatible devices
A VPN That Lets You Explore the Internet with Ease of Mind
Is Atlas VPN safe? The short answer is yes. Our Atlas VPN review is the long answer, covering all that makes this VPN stand out from the crowd, including features, how it performs on streaming and torrenting, and what devices it works on.
Security and Privacy Features
We tested this VPN's safety and privacy features and came back with positive results that demonstrated Altas VPN doesn't get the recognition it deserves.
SafeSwap is a brand new feature that helps you stay more anonymous than ever. It enables you to have as many rotating IPs as you want without having to switch to a different Atlas VPN server.
Tracker Blocker
Our Atlas VPN review continues with Tracker Blocker, which, as the name suggests, will block all third-party trackers and ads. It adds an extra layer of privacy protection, helps you get rid of those annoying advertisements, and improves your overall online experience with faster internet speeds. You will also avoid all potential malware and be more secure and safer while browsing.
Data Breach Monitor
According to Hackmageddon data, over five billion personal records were leaked in the first quarter of 2021 alone. That is a scary number that appears only to rise as time passes. That is why the Data Breach Monitor feature deserves a special mention in this Atlas VPN review — it tracks all data breaches related to your online accounts and gives you a full report. If any data is leaked, you can immediately change all your credentials and take further steps to protect yourself.
Superior Web Traffic Encryption
While Atlas VPN is still a "baby" since it was launched as recently as 2019, it has made up for lost time. With a combination of military-grade AES-256 data encryption and IPSec, IKEv2, and WireGuard protocols, not only will you enjoy the maximum security available, but you will also have high speeds regardless of the server you connect to.
Network Kill Switch
The Atlas VPN kill switch feature is among the best-built in the industry, as evidenced by multiple Atlas VPN reviews. Since a kill switch is an essential feature for a VPN, Atlas VPN took its job seriously and designed a great one. With it, you never have to worry about being exposed to the internet because the kill switch will temporarily halt access to the internet in case your VPN connection drops, and by doing so, it will protect all your data.
Atlas VPN ranks high among the best VPNs for torrenting. Our research for this Atlas free VPN review showed that the service supports P2P with its free and premium plans, which is rare in the VPN industry. For example, in the torrenting battle of Atlas VPN vs ProtonVPN, the former is the clear winner. While both offer functional free versions, ProtonVPN's free plan doesn't support torrenting.
Another reason why we feel Atlas VPN is a good choice for torrenting is its speed. Whether you decide to connect to a closer server or one farther away, your speed won't suffer much. You will have the same experience even with the free version since it offers no speed limits.
Next in our Atlas VPN review is the service's connection speeds. As we already mentioned, Atlas VPN offers some of the fastest speeds available in the industry. You can seamlessly download, stream, or play games without buffering or long loadings. Since Atlas VPN is fairly affordable, many new users are making the switch just for the sake of speed.
Our research showed that Atlas VPN is already ahead of some of the industry's most prominent brands, such as Windscribe or TunnelBear. But it still has a way to go to reach the speeds of some of the fastest VPNs in the industry, such as those offered by ExpressVPN that comes with barely a 3% speed drop. So, when it comes to speed in the battle of Atlas VPN vs ExpressVPN, our VPN of the day loses this round.
If you're wondering about the Atlas VPN Netflix capabilities, this section of our Atlas VPN review has the answer, and we believe you'll like it. Not only will Atlas VPN unblock Netflix US, but it will also grant you access to many other streaming platforms such as Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max, HBO Go, and YouTube. Note that you will need a premium plan to access these services since the free version doesn't support streaming.
As you can see, some major platforms are missing from the list. But even though this service can't unblock the popular BBC iPlayer and Amazon Prime Video, it still offers a decent selection of platforms for all passionate binge-watchers.
Devices and Compatibility
AtlasVPN doesn't monitor your devices, meaning that you can log in to as many as you have. That said, even though it offers unlimited devices in one account, it supports just a few apps. At the time of writing this Atlas VPN review, the ones available are for Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. There isn't even an Atlas VPN Chrome extension yet, even though it seems like they are working on developing one. We don't recommend using Atlas VPN on Firestick since there isn't a native app on the Amazon store, meaning that if you want to use VPN with Firestick, you'll be better off elsewhere.
To paint a better picture of why we feel Atlas VPN lacks in the area, let's compare Atlas VPN vs SurfShark. The latter offers apps for Windows, Chrome, Firefox, Edge, macOS, iOS, Android, Linux, FireTV, Playstation, Xbox, and all your routers.
While researching for this Atlas VPN review, we discovered that email-based support is the norm in the VPN industry. While we don't agree with this trend and prefer to have either phone-based or live chat support, we were satisfied with how fast the support team answered. It took them less than 24 hours, and they provided all the information we asked for.
We also peeked at the Help Center, and even though it doesn't feature as many articles as some of the competition, it still provides a decent amount of information. If you have a simple question or run into a known bug, you will be able to troubleshoot the issue on your own.
While there is no Atlas VPN free trial that we could find, the service offers a great free version. Our Atlas free VPN review shows that this version stands apart with its untethered speed. It, however, is limited by the number of server locations — just three.
An Atlas VPN premium account, meanwhile, gives you access to many advanced features, the complete Atlas VPN server list, and features, at a starting price of a record-low $1.39/month, billed $49.99 for the first three years. The vendor also offers a one-year plan for $2.49/month, billed at $29.89 for the first year, and a single-month plan at $9.99. The Atlas VPN cost for its premium plans includes a 30-day money-back guarantee.
For example, if we do an Atlas VPN vs NordVPN price comparison, this Atlas VPN alternative will charge you $11.95/month for a single month, $4.92/month for a year, and $3.29/month for its two-year plan.
Our Atlas VPN review shows that this service has a lot going for it — it's among the cheapest ones in the market and offers access to advanced security and privacy features. Those who want a free VPN won't be disappointed either with the Atlas VPN free version. On the downside, its app selection is currently limited, and its server network is not overly impressive. So, if you want enhanced security at affordable prices, this VPN will do nicely, provided, of course, that your devices are among the ones supported by the vendor.
Is Atlas VPN any good?
Our Atlas free VPN review shows that this vendor offers one of the best freemium plans with no speed limits, unlimited devices, and three server locations. The premium plans unlock even more great features such as unlimited data and bandwidth, torrenting and streaming support, and many advanced privacy and security features at affordable prices.
Is Atlas VPN still free?
The VPN service still has a free version, as evidenced by our Atlas free VPN review. Moreover, it's one of the best free plans available in the industry, with no speed limits, unlimited devices, and no account required. All you have to do is download the Atlas VPN app and run the service.
Does Atlas VPN work with Netflix?
Yes, Atlas VPN successfully unlocks Netflix. Note that the only library you can unlock at the moment is the US one.
Does Atlas VPN keep logs?
This VPN service abides by a strict no-logging policy and doesn't keep any logs of your internet usage. That said, it seems that they are keeping minimum logs about your interaction with their site to improve their service.
Does Atlas VPN work in China?
Atlas VPN doesn't always work in China. We did a little digging for our Atlas VPN review and discovered that some users had difficulties in the past while trying to establish a secure VPN connection through Atlas VPN in China. Others did so effortlessly. That is why we contacted the support team and asked whether we could use the VPN service in China. Their answer was honest — they confirmed that they couldn't guarantee it would work in China and recommended testing it with the free version.
Is Atlas VPN safe?
Yes, Atlas VPN is a safe VPN service. Our Atlas VPN review shows that it offers military-grade encryption and a plethora of advanced privacy and security features. The company is also open to audits and has already gone through one successfully to confirm that they indeed do not keep any logs.
Where is Atlas VPN located?
Atlas VPN is based in Delaware, United States.


Maria Immanuel, Trade & Investment Policy Analyst at Namibia Trade Forum.
Namibia with 25 countries from the Common Markets of East and Southern Africa (COMESA), East African Community (EAC), and Southern African Development Countries (SADC) Regional Economic Communities (RECs) have been involved in trade negotiations for the past 3 years. The negotiations aims to establish the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) which will create a market, estimated at 600 million people with a GDP of U$ 1 trillion.
Anchored on the three pillars Market Integration, Industrial Development as well as Infrastructure Development, the objective is to establish a large single market with free movement of goods and services and business persons. This is expected to boost intra-regional trade by removing tariff barriers between the RECs and harmonising customs procedures and trade facilitation measures.
Maria Immanuel, Trade & Investment Policy Analyst at the Namibia Trade Forum (NTF), says the current negotiations focus on Market Integration and will be conducted over two phases. The first phase has been ongoing for the past three years focusing on Trade in Goods. Phase two will focus on trade-related aspects such as Trade in Services, Intellectual Property Rights, Competition Policy, Trade promotion and Competitiveness.
Immanuel says, the current negotiations in Trade in Goods, aim to liberalise movement of goods. She adds that negotiating countries will exchange tariff concessions based on reciprocity. "The aim is to liberalise as many goods as possible, effective immediately once the agreement has been ratified. The liberalisation of tariff between the three RECs will allow countries to open up their markets to each other in order to boost intra trade in the Tri-partite region," says Maria Immanuel. Namibia is reportedly negotiating as part of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) due the common external tariff with members' states Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa and Swaziland.
The Tri-partite countries have adopted the acquis principle ("that which has been agreed") as one of the negotiating principles. "Essentially this means that tariff offers can only be exchanged between those countries which don't have existing preferential arrangements with each other," says Maria Immanuel.
SADC countries will therefore offer each other tariff concessions based on what is already achieved in the region. As a result, SADC countries will not necessary exchange new tariff concessions since SADC has already established a free trade area in 2008. The same principle applies to other Regional Economic Communities involved in the TFTA negotiations. Maria Immanuel explains that since most COMESA members are also party to the SADC trade protocol, SACU is left to negotiate tariff elimination with COMESA's non-SADC members as well as the EAC members (Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania) as well as Egypt.
Maria Immanuel cites the example of Tanzania which is party to the SADC trade protocol. Here the acquis principle will prevail whereby the basis of negotiations will be based on the SADC free trade area. This means that, tariff offers to the EAC will only be made to the other four countries. Moreover SACU hopes to engage in tariff negotiation with Ethiopia – presently one of the fastest growing economies in Africa.
The parties are said to have agreed to eliminate all existing non-tariff barriers to trade, and not to impose any new ones, while working on measures to simplify and harmonise trade and customs documentations and procedures.
The Tripartite Trade in goods negotiations were envisaged to be completed in June 2014. Due to unforeseen financial constraints negotiations are however nine months behind schedule. The 3rd Tripartite Summit of Head of States and Government originally scheduled to take place in Egypt this month was postponed to February 2015. It aimed to launch the Agreement establishing the Tripartite Free Trade Area. Some countries including Namibia earlier indicated their reluctance to sign the agreement in the absence of tariff offers and relevant trade rules. "Practically speaking, one cannot have an FTA without tariff liberalisation, Rules of Origin as well as Trade Remedies and Dispute Settlement mechanism," says Maria Immanuel.
As Namibia prioritises its industrialisation agenda under the "Growth at Home" framework, the Tripartite FTA will come as an opportunity for Namibia to expand its regional market access. Namibia's new potential markets will be Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Egypt as well as Ethiopia. Maria Immanuel says the expansion of regional markets would stimulate domestic industries through development of regional value chains. This, she says, will mean Namibia needs to expand or grow its industrial base in order to be able to fully benefit from regional market access arrangement.
"Through our consultation with the private sector, it was identified that exports of products such as beer, cement, salt, pharmaceutical products, dairy products and fish (horse mackerel) have the potential to be exported and expanded into East Africa and the Egyptian markets," says Maria Immanuel with products already exported to these markets set to benefit from lower to zero customs duties.
This trade arrangement will provide Namibia with an opportunity to diversify its international market access. It is therefore important for Namibia to invest in its manufacturing sector by focusing in the production and supply of goods and services which offer a competitive advantage.
The Namibia Trade Forum is an agency of the Ministry of Trade and Industry. The company was launched on 06 June 2006 as a "Section 21 company". Its main objective is to institutionalise Public/Private dialogue and cooperation with emphasis on international and domestic trade as well as investment policies as stipulated by the fourth National Development Plan (NDP4). NTF serves as the highest Public/Private partnership on international and domestic trade, and investment matters of government.


The Federal Reserve is moving forward with its monetary policy normalization process. And interest rate hikes are not the only method in play, the regulator is also unwinding its massive $4.5 trillion balance sheet starting from October.
Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen hinted on a third rate hike later this year, explaining that slowing down monetary adjustments could be dangerous for the economy.
"We should also be wary of moving too gradually," Yellen said on Tuesday before the National Association for Business Economics annual meeting in Cleveland.
The Fed's chief reassured that inflation continues to be a key benchmark for the central bank, but pointed out that interest rate hikes cannot be entirely tied to inflation performance and whether it will reach or not the regulator's 2 percent target.
The hawkish rhetoric has not only been embraced by Yellen. Twelve members of the Federal Open Market Committee are currently expecting further monetary changes before New Year.
According to Fed funds tracked by CME Group's FedWatch program, the probability for a 25 basis points rate increase by December currently stands at 76.4 percent. Fed's short term interest rate is now placed in a range between 1.00 percent and 1.25 percent.
But raising interest rates is not enough. The $4.5 trillion issue was meant to be addressed later or sooner and in the latest monetary policy meeting, policymakers agreed on a plan to unwind the balance sheet in a gradual way (of course).
But first… what does "unwind" really means? Don't worry. You are not the first to wonder about this term. In simple words, it means reducing Fed's bonds steak by selling them or in an even clearer way, turning them into cash or monetizing debt.
The Federal Reserve will start "small" by allowing $10 billion per month, of which $6 billion will be Treasury securities and $4 billion will be mortgage-backed securities. As the plan evolves, the idea is raise that $6bn / $4bn cap to $30bn / $20bn.
And so… the big question for investors is how these two monetary policy adjustments will play out for US dollar? Let's take a minute to think about it.
If the Federal Reserve increases interest rates while other regulators around the world keep or reduce their benchmark rates (Bank of Japan, ECB…), then the saving payouts in the US will be more attractive than in other places. Following with this example, investors are likely to move their capital to the US, resulting in the dollar's strengthening.


we've been not-very-heavily looking for a house (same city). we love our little house, but the neighborhood has gone from a student 'hood to a a frat-boys-kicked-from-campus enclave – not a good thing.
made an offer, went back and forth, yadda yadda yadda…ours and the bank's since last Friday. so yay, kinda. it's in good shape but we want to replace the carpet in the bedrooms, have the interiors painted, a few other things. so not moving for a while.


text:
Research opens possibilities for new cancer immunotherapies
Scientists are examining why immunotherapies work better in some types of cancers than others, in a bid to create more effective treatments.
University of Queensland blood cancer expert Professor Maher Gandhi said immunotherapies had proven to be much more successful in treating Hodgkin Lymphoma compared to Non Hodgkin Lymphoma.
"We rationalised that if we could understand why this was the case, it would help design new immunotherapies that would work better than existing ones, and that might benefit patients with Non Hodgkin Lymphoma," Professor Gandhi said.
Professor Gandhi's team analysed samples from large cohorts of patients with lymphoma and found lymphoma produced large numbers of white blood cells called monocytes, which suppressed the body's own immune system.
"These cells were suppressing the activity of immune cells called 'natural killer cells' which would usually attack the lymphoma," Professor Gandhi said.
"This research opens up new possibilities in immunotherapy to modify the behaviour of monocytes or to improve the function of natural killer cells, which should improve outcomes in patients with lymphoma."
Professor Gandhi said the research could provide the first step for new and improved immunotherapies to be developed.
He said the findings could also apply to other cancers, but more research was needed to determine if the same mechanism applied.
The research has been published in the journal, Blood.
Media: Professor Maher Gandhi, m.gandhi@uq.edu.au, +61 407 167879; Faculty of Medicine Communications, med.media@uq.edu.au, 33655133.
ARC Discovery Grant success
3D imaging machines a melanoma game-changer
World-first skin cancer treatment aims to help transplant patients
Researchers discover link between gut and type 1 diabetes
Two in one: human placenta stem cells hold a dual benefit


What has Councilmember JON OLESON done for NE Bloomington??
Pilot CURBSIDE LOAN PROGRAM – Jon began promoting the idea 3 years ago!
Up to $10,000 great-terms loans for see-from-the-street home improvements!
Pilot rectangle: E of Portland, N of 90th, W of Old Cedar, S of American Blvd – District 4!
Where did the $$ come from? Bloomington Housing & Redevelopment Authority (HRA) put money into a fund; the fund gets paid back when homeowners sell the home.
Program's 2-year trial is so successful that HRA hopes to expand to other areas!
The number of AFFORDABLE HOUSING UNITS is increasing! - Jon in action!
Jon participates in Legislature lobbying and cultivates good working relationships to promote more units—with housing developers, realtors and non-profit organizations like VEAP, Common Bond, and the recently formed Bloomington Housing Coalition.
Actions show results: 400 NE Bloomington rental units recently purchased by non-profit Aeon, affordable housing planned in South Loop and proposed development at Penn-American, Habitat for Humanity built two homes in our district in past 12 months!
Might Bloomington build a COMMUNITY CENTER?
A hard-working resident Task Force (Jon included!) researched, talked out a lot of issues and made a report to City Council. City Council recently negotiated a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding with the YMCA. Jon was appointed 9/25 to be one of three to represent the City in meetings with "The Y" board representatives to draft details of what a Community Center partnership could become. Reports will be presented to the full City Council and YMCA for more discussion (and public hearings!) before a decision is made.
Will a Community Center happen? If so, might it be in NE Bloomington? Jon is positioned to work for what you want!
Houses now sell at more money per square foot than in other parts of the City!
Young families are moving in and strolling through and enjoying our neighborhoods!
Neighborhood block parties generally had larger turnouts this year!