Aid Box Community (ABC) is a Bristol-based humanitarian organisation set up by group of ordinary people in response to the continuing refugee crisis. We come from all walks of life, and all have different jobs and interests. But we've come together to pool our time, energy, skills and whatever money we can give for a cause that we simply couldn't ignore. With the backing of four fabulous trustees, we're getting things done.
As part of our work, we've opened a central base for our work called the ABC Hub, which includes a free shop. You can find us at 5-7 Waverley Road, Redland, Bristol BS6 6ES.
The world is facing one of the biggest humanitarian catastrophes of our generation. Millions of people are being forced to flee their homelands in search of safety from war, extreme poverty and government oppression.
Europe has seen a huge influx of desperate people and is struggling to offer a sufficient response. Where governments and large NGOs fail to tackle the situation, the crisis grows. Camps and pockets of people emerge across Europe with little or no support other than that provided by individuals and small independent organisations who can't turn their backs.
For those who arrive in the UK, it can take over a year to be granted asylum. Only around 40% of asylum seekers are permitted to stay. Others face deportation, and are often held in deportation centres - some for years. Many of the 40% who do get asylum end up homeless and destitute due to the lack of support in finding work and housing. These people are often suffering from PTSD, depression and isolation.
In September 2015, a photo of a small boy on a beach shook the world. The boy was 3 year old Aylan Kurdi, and he'd been washed ashore in Turkey, having drowned during his family's attempt to flee devastation and violence in Syria.
That tragedy, one among so many, highlighted the horror and desperation of the crisis.
In Bristol, a small group of friends began mobilising their resources towards doing something to help. We'd seen and read about the horrendous conditions in refugee camps in northern France and decided on a single mission - to deliver tents, sleeping bags and 300 aid boxes containing complete survival kits to a small forgotten refugee camp in Dunkirk.
Our first aid box convoy arrived in Dunkirk in October 2014. The camp was situated on marsh land on the edge of a suburban housing estate. It was rat-infested, waterlogged due to non-existent drainage or sanitation, and at its peak there were thought to be 4000 people living in the most squalid conditions, bordering on starvation.
Children played amongst rubbish and human waste. A handful of self-funded individual volunteers, small organisations and MSF workers struggled to feed people, provide medical care and offer shelter to the continual arrival of refugees.
With our first load of aid only scratching the surface of what was needed, we had no choice but to keep collecting donations and raising funds to buy essential supplies. Emotional, logistical and personal support for people living in the camp was desperately lacking so we made a commitment to keeping a team on the ground. We remained on the ground until the camps eventual closure in the spring of 2016.
Winter was even more dire. The French authorities, who didn't want to officially recognise the camp, would not allow building materials on site, so tents and blankets had to be smuggled through an armed police blockade. Families slept on wet blankets with nothing but a thin sheet of nylon between them and the elements. They were constantly cold, soaked and hungry. At one point 80% of those tested were suffering from hyperthermia. Truck loads of food, clothing, tents and blankets were a lifeline from good people across Europe.
Since ABC began, we have mobilised over 300 volunteers from Bristol and the south of England. These kind-hearted people have given their time to either work on the camp or help with the collection and delivery of over 1000 aid boxes and hundreds of van loads of emergency aid to the camp.
We coordinated a team of volunteers on the ground in the camp every day for 8 months as well as a team of builders, who built communal kitchens. Working closely alongside MSF and other volunteer groups from across Europe, we helped to keep over 7000 people alive over the winter months.
In the past year we have raised approx £90,000 - all through crowdfunding. This money has been spent directly on aid and the delivery of aid to the camps.
Importantly, we have raised the profile of the refugee crisis in northern France using TV, radio and social media.
Miraculously, in all the time were involved in the camp, no-one died. Above all, this was testament to the resilience and community of the people of the camp. Living in the camps, we met journalists, teachers, interpreters, mothers, fathers, kids. We were greeted with smiles and endless offers of tea. Our lives were forever changed by these amazing people no different from us whom, if our fates were reversed, would be doing the same things to help keep us alive.
The camp was moved in March to a site with better sanitation and facilities. People were provided with wooden huts to live in and had access to a reliable clean water supply. Though still far from an ideal situation, people's immediate needs were being met. So on March 22nd 2016 we withdrew our team from the camp.
The situation in France is constantly changing. The Calais "Jungle" has been closed. Thousands of refugees have been moved on from the streets of Paris. The Dunkirk camp capacity is constantly being reduced. Refugees are being dispersed to smaller centres across France. Yet the root cause of the problem is unchanged, and people continue to land on European shores.
We remain committed to raising funds and supporting those who have been forced to leave their homes and are stranded in inhumane living conditions in camps or on the streets across Europe.
We are also dedicated to supporting refugees and asylum seekers in Bristol, who despite landing in the UK are destitute and in need of food, aid and help to become independent and integrate into the Bristol community. Many people have been given their right to remain in the UK but now find themselves homeless, alone and unable to access jobs or housing.
The Aid Box Community Hub is where we will continue to collect, sort and deliver life saving aid to send to displaced people in France and where we will run a 'Free Shop' where destitute asylum seekers and refugees can access free goods such as toiletries, basic household items, clothes and food.


"it is shown by the drawing in Fig. 7"
"he did complicated pen-and-ink drawings like medieval miniatures"
"he learned drawing from his father"
"the drawing of water from the well"
"The mugger pulled a knife on his victim"
"The session was drawn to a close"
"A declining dollar pulled down the export figures for the last quarter"
"The ad pulled in many potential customers"
"This pianist pulls huge crowds"
"The store owner was happy that the ad drew in many new customers"
"He ran his eyes over her body"
"She ran her fingers along the carved figurine"
"He drew her hair through his fingers"
The word drawing is playable in Scrabble®, no blanks required.
The word drawing is playable in Words With Friends™, no blanks required.


text:
Home » Statistics and Reports » Tax Review Commission
Tax Review Commission
About the Tax Review Commission
Every five years a State Tax Review Commission (TRC) conducts a systematic review of Hawaii's tax structure, using standards such as equity and efficiency. The Tax Review Commission consists of seven members who are appointed by the Governor, with the consent of the Senate, and is based in the Department of Taxation for administrative purposes. The members of the Commission receive no compensation for their services.
The most recent TRC dissolved at the adjournment of the 2018 legislative session. The next TRC will be appointed in 2020 and present its report to the 2022 legislative session.
Archived Commissions:
TRC 2015-2017
TRC 2003 and prior
Page Last Updatd: October 23, 2018

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


15 functions in the irc module to language-independent form.
22 * Changed a static int array to dynamic.
31 EggdropUser object, and EggdropChannel, etc.
62 though? I tried for a little while, but it's failing horribly. ITE?
210 <mo-ize@nul-en.info> to convert blowfish scripting functions.
234 Cygwin's binmode static library name was wrong.
240 Simplified build rules and added a clean target.
253 Small copyright info update.
267 * Made itraffic_* otraffic_* into a single struct.
295 from older versions of Eggdrop to 1.7.
296 * Updated the howto for timers.
337 may be why. I also added 'puthelp' and 'putquick' to compat.tcl.
347 if you specify no arguments.
362 Got rid of tcl_loadmodule() in favour of script_loadmodule.
375 Allow to preload a module from the command line.
389 * Let's increase candidates to be schrienked out from the dcc table.
392 * Minor dcc clean up.
393 * Exporting removedcc() was unneeded and dangerous.
408 * Made max_dcc shrinkable down to the last-used dcc slot.
434 newban channel ban creator comment ?lifetime? ?sticky?
440 isban ?channel? ban isbansticky ?channel? ban ispermban ?channel?
467 unlinking works right now.
544 * "Detected loop: two bots exist named bot2: disconnecting bot3"
546 Disconnected bot3" (synch 1.6).
547 * Minor gettextification clean ups.
572 botlink() now safely copies the linker string.
597 Added a referenece to LD_LIBRARY_PATH in compiling FAQ.
603 Made a few cosmetic changes to the configure macros (synch 1.6).
611 * More gettextification for the filesys module.
627 full strerror() fallback function.
666 * BSD's strlcat() provided as fallback function.
667 * Fallback functions weren't linked as expected when needed.
702 * Created eggdrop's library context.
703 * Moved registry stuff to libeggdrop.
704 * Some headers vs. prototypes cleanups.
726 * Fixed some dcc stuff that got commented out instead of changed..
762 * Cleaned up logmodes a bit.
778 * Removed Tcl dependency from storenote.
793 * Remove assoc.mod's tcl commands and entry in the config file.
907 * Sync perl module with tcl module for SCRIPT_VAR_FRONT functions.
914 * Changed the calling conventions for SCRIPT_VAR_FRONT functions.
1015 nettype templates directory was missing from the last commit.
1062 available on the system, switch to our own.
1069 we have a static build these days.
1083 HQ user's nick to be defined only once.
1241 Sync'd doc/UPDATES1.6 with 1.6.
1248 botnetnick when starting the bot in userfile creation mode.
1372 should be available on every system.
1414 [pass] should be <pass> in usage notices.
1466 Let's log remote botinfo calls.
1478 Fixed a small authors.html error.
1660 * Updated documentation for rand command.
1697 * Converted some commands in tclmisc.c.
1721 * Cleaned up some stuff.
1742 * Merged bits of tothwolf cleaunps from his alpha patch.
1743 * Removed some unneeded externs in some files.
1785 Found the probem with truncated output, I think.
1863 strchr_unescape and str_unescape from the core to libeggdrop.
1897 Applied missing parts from the previous commit.
1916 * Moved some botnet utility functions from the core to libeggdrop.
1917 * Moved some common macros to libeggdrop.
1919 src/egg.h to avoid ambiguities.
1933 * Added some base64 encoding/decoding functions.
1934 * Made mstack initialize memory to 0.
1942 means 'list all users' just like previous '*' meant.


So many of us have experienced it: you could be in class, at work, out with friends, on a date, alone. That panicked rush to the nearest bathroom and the sensation of your stomach dropping to the floor when you see that you have left your emergency supply behind. For some of us it's a frustrating blip in the day, but a quick trip to a shop and crisis is averted. However, it can mark the beginning of up to a week of mortification, crippling anxiety, and isolation - Period Poverty is a thing, and it's about time we started talking about it.
'Period Poverty' as it has been popularised is essentially the state people find themselves in when they are unable to afford the products they need while menstruating. Bloody Good Period, a British charity who donate sanitary supplies to food banks and drop in centres around the UK, estimate that over a lifetime, the average woman will fork out £4800 on period supplies. Given we can have well above 400 periods over the course of our lives, whether it's being spent on pads or paracetamol, up to £15 is coming out of our pockets each month for something we have zero control over. In the grand scheme of things £15 may appear insignificant, but when you're trying to juggle monthly expenses, every pound adds up.
This time last year, Plan International carried out a survey of 1000 girls in the UK aged between 14 and 21 and found that 1 in 10 girls had to forgo buying sanitary products because they couldn't afford it, and of those who could, 1 in 5 had to resort to using a less suitable product due to costs. It is important that people understand the implications of not having what you need when you're menstruating; it's a great deal more than just the embarrassment of someone catching a glimpse of bloodstained jeans. Periods are so much more than a bit of blood each month and going without the supplies you need has profound impact on hygiene, health, education, and personal wellbeing. All too many people with periods are having to skip class, get time off work, and suffer without painkillers as a consequence. Slowly though, society is beginning to recognise the physical, emotional, and financial toll of menstruation and steps are being taken to eliminate the stigma and expense.
Back in August, the Scottish government announced that they would be starting up a scheme worth over £5 million in aid of period poverty, particularly for those at school and further education who are recognised as being one of the most highly affected groups. Our own university, in fact, at the beginning of this year started up collection points around the various campuses where free products can be taken for anyone who needs them. Taking action like this is hugely important in reducing the way in which period poverty has an effect on us as students, alleviating the stress of having to cut money for food back in order to pay for sanitary supplies. On a more national level, an amendment on the 'tampon tax' was proposed by Labour MP Paula Sherriff and accepted by parliament in 2016, but progress has been relatively slow. While there might have been money earned by the 'tampon tax' set aside last year to donate to women's charities, there is still this sense of luxury which surrounds the ability to access sanitary supplies easily. As perfectly put by Laura Coryton, campaigner and founder of organisation Stop Taxing Periods, 'Periods are no luxury. You can 'opt-in' to extravagance. You cannot choose to menstruate.' There has been a great deal of emphasis upon changing prices and lifting taxes and while I agree that such things are incredibly important, solving the problem must also involve education and awareness.
Frankly, as with most issues, conversation brings about change. Once we recognise a problem does indeed exist, we can begin to move forwards in solving it. Slowly but surely, the taboo and stigma surrounding periods is being broken down. It is ludicrous that something so biologically natural is surrounded by so much shame. Seeing people in the media talking about periods in the public eye is hugely beneficial to solving the issues. Young people are looking to Danielle Rowley, the Scottish Labour MP for my local constituency, Jennifer Lawrence, award-winning American actress, Colleen Ballinger, internet and YouTube star better known for her alter-ego Miranda Sings, and finally model Gigi Hadid - all of whom have spoken openly about their periods. Teaching the new generation that they need not be silenced about their periods is integral in bringing about change on a grander scale.


Over the past few years, I have seen many articles written about churches and what churches ought to do to get with it or what churches need to quit doing to get with it. One of the most controversial issues has been about the singing/praise part of church service. I certainly have joined the fray with my facebook comments. I have aggravated some and encouraged others. I definitely have put my opinions out there.
Many want to have a loud, hand-clapping, hand-raising, swaying experience much like when they attended rock concerts when they were young. They carry on about attracting the young and being real and on fire and with it.
On the other side are the ones who want only traditional hymns which tell a story or teach a lesson. In other words, singing and praise with hands lowered, a slower tempo, and an overall more serious feel to the church service. This group espouses the idea that all the loud noise and repetitive phrases are distracting and not true worship.
The loud group espouses the idea that the young want to be in an environment where the band members all sport tattoos and wear modern clothing. The young want to fit in. They claim that no one ever left the church because it was too loud, but many had because it was too quiet. This group feels that they are authentic and really worshipping.
I grew up in a quiet church. No clapping. No swaying. In fact, we made fun of those who did raise their hands and clap. We wondered where in the world they had been raised to act like that in church. And we were OK to think those things because we were in the "right" church.
Now, I attend a church full of tattooed young people pounding out the rhythm on drums and guitars and singing at the top of their voices. I raise my hands and for a while I played drums on the stage every Sunday morning. I loved it. I have attended a church where the music evolved into a bluegrass revolution every week with the crowd clapping along. I loved it.
I love music. I love loud rhythms. I don't mind the repetitive phrases because I can always close my eyes and pray until they quit singing. I also love old hymns sung accapella. When I do my dishes or work around the house I find that I hum the old hymns while I work. When I quilt I listen to the hand-clapping, ear-banging versions of church tunes and sometimes I revert to Neil Diamond or John Denver. They don't sing church songs, but I like their music.
My concern with the church musical issue is not that it is an issue – I am a believer in good, mind-bending issues – but rather that it has almost become an either/or issue and it is going to directly affect me in the future. I like old hymns and I like them to be sung with no instruments. I believe there is a time and a place for this type of music. I like the new, repetitive, rock concert style music and I believe there is a place for this type of music.
My worry is selfish I know, but I worry about who in the world will sing at my funeral. I have traditional hymns picked out. My husband knows which ones. Hopefully, I won't need them for a while, but I am thinking with all this shift in church music there won't be anyone who knows how to sing the hymns that I want. I know I shouldn't worry because, truthfully, I won't actually be there, but I do think about it now and then.
I really, really like some of the old songs but perhaps they are more comforting for me here, now, rather than in the distant future. Perhaps I should go out with pounding drums and cymbal crashes. It might reflect my life better than solemn hymns sung with fervor. At any rate, there might not be any singers of old hymns left on the day I go.
I thought it might be wonderful to have the Gaither's sing at my funeral, but I am not certain that they will still be here on that day. They might have already auditioned for someone with higher authority. I thought that we – the funeral planners actually – might use CD's of my favorite singers but quickly realized that CD's might have gone the way of the 8 track and my current favorites won't be able to be played.
And so, I have decided not to worry about the church music debate. I like all kinds of church music. On the day I depart I hope there is music playing behind me and music welcoming me to come on in. And if I am lucky, maybe I can catch a glimpse of the Gaither's when I get there.
I had a very young lady in my office last week. She was crying and upset because her car hadn't started, and she was a few minutes late to her appointment. She was shaking so badly that I didn't think she would be able to sign the papers. All she could talk about was being a few minutes late and that her car had trouble starting and THEN she had to call to find the office. She was so embarrassed.
I tried to console her and make her feel better while sitting in an office with huge fans blowing and thick electrical cords hanging down from the ceiling. Over the weekend our office had flooded because the office above us had a leak or a pipe break or something that caused it to rain all over our reception area and front desk.
We had signs pointing all patients to a side door, with a quick route through the kitchen area, and on into my "new" office. It wasn't ideal because the credit card machine and the scanner/printer were still hooked up in the front area. For me to print, scan, or take money I had to go through a zippered plastic protector thing, perform my tasks, and then back through the zipper to my desk.
I said "yes" and told her how much it would be.
I was looking at an insurance card taken out in the dad's name with her name listed as a dependent. Hmmm…I thought. Maybe you don't pay for everything.
I tried to reassure her and told her that I would file the insurance and see what they would pay but I thought with it being a new year she would eventually have to pay the full amount because not a penny had been used of the deductible for this new year. She told me that I didn't understand and that she already paid for things a little bit at a time.
We WERE, after all, sitting in a flooded office making do the best way we could that morning.
I have this same story every week, several times a week. I feel for these young ones, but I also can't help but wonder how does one get through life without expecting some hard knocks along the way? Are parents not teaching their young ones about the practicalities of life? When I got married at a very young age and our parents said that we would have to make it on our own, they were not kidding. And it was difficult much of the time.
Life is hard, and life is complex, and I am all for helping my kids, or other kids, along but I am also a big believer in sucking it up and moving forward.
Here is some good, parental advice, in case you need it.
You will have to work more than 15-20 hours per week to make it.
Go to work everyday even if you think you have a headache. Make the effort.
Learn your own business. What is the deductible on all your insurance policies? What does that mean? What does it mean to be overdrawn at the bank? Yes, cars must be inspected yearly to get a registration tag. Find out how to do that.
Don't use credit cards except for emergencies.
Notice that there are many others in this old world. See what you can do to help them.
Get back up and do it again each day.
I hope everyone survived the winter freeze that seemed to run rampant across the country last week. I saw a film from a swamp in North Carolina that showed alligators, and maybe crocodiles, with their snouts frozen and sticking up out of the water. Several, including myself, have had frozen water pipes and some even went without electricity for a bit. And, of course, there were many jokes about climate change and the earth melting. So, I guess winter is off to a good start!
We did try to entice the dog into the house one evening. He lasted about twenty minutes and then shot out the front door and back into his man cave. We had some old carpet and put carpet on the floor of his little house and then we bought an extra blanket and swirled it around in his little bed. And the whole contraption sits on the covered porch. The cats spare it a glance now and then, but generally walk by as if it does not exist.
The chickens don't mind the cold and do their best to pester both the dog and the cats. They hop on anything and everything, poop, and then sing about it. We have a diverse backyard with an evolving pecking order. We got the dog before the cats were born so he was king of the yard for a bit. The cats got bigger and tended to ignore him. He can bark and run in circles all he wants but when tired of him, they jump over the fence – which makes him even crazier because he knows they are on the other side!
Last summer we added some dark red hens. At first, they were tucked away in their little house, but as they grew we added fenced-in areas for them to forage. The dog would sniff his way around their pen multiple times a day, strutting and charging them. He felt so safe. Finally, the day came when I thought the hens were big enough to be set free. I opened the pen and let them out into the yard. The dog was brave until a hen looked at him and ruffled her feathers. He took off for his man cave on the porch.
The fall went well because the hens stayed pretty much around their pen. The cats come and go, and the little dog can jump onto the top of his house and pretend that he is ruler of all he sees. And for a while, all was at peace. Early on, the little dog would eat out of the cat food bowl and ignore his own bowl. The vet told us that is because dogs prefer cat food. So, we had a bowl of cat food for him on the ground and a bowl of cat food on the outdoor table for the cats. All were happy.
When we have scraps or bones I divide it between the bowls. But alas, we have a shift in the order of things. The chickens, not content with their scratch, all the bugs in the yard, or their laying pellets, have ventured to the porch!!! All manner of barking with not dissuade them from hopping up onto his sacred terrain. They squawk and cackle and he barks and acts like he is going to run them off the porch. The chickens have circled his bowl and are eating his cat food and there is nothing he can do about it.
So, now I feed the chickens first on their side of the yard. I feed the dog second, so he can eat while they scratch and hop through their corn, and I feed the cats last because they can do what ever they want. This morning I had several bowls of leftovers and I decided to divvy them up. I tossed the green stuff to the chickens and went around to take some old spaghetti to the dog. He sniffed and licked and OK'ed my selection. No sooner did the first drop hit the bottom of the bowl than there was a hen tilting her head, waiting for a taste. I shooed her away and moved the bowl to the back fence. He gulped down a few bites and then there were six others. I was surprised that the hens would eat spaghetti. One grabbed an old noodle and it was hanging out of her beak. She ran in spurts around the yard while the others chased her. I suppose they thought she had a juicy worm.
As I watched the animals in our mixed up back-yard world, I thought about how mixed up and crazy our human world is, because there ARE days I run around like a chicken with a noodle in my beak. I go here and there, and I feel as if I am not getting anywhere. There are days I feel like the dog. I bark and bark and no one listens. There are days I am like the cats. I saunter by with a haughty attitude, fill the tub, lock the door, and ignore the world.
On the days I wake up and find myself living in a crazy mixed-up world that I don't understand, I am thankful for friends my age who understand my confusion. I am thankful for my kids who will listen and try to steer me down new paths of understanding. And on the days I wake up to find that the water is frozen solid in the pipes, I am thankful that at least the electricity is still on.
Happy Winter! Bundle up and stay warm!
Looking back is so easy isn't it? We definitely have the internal filters to see what is great about a previous year or what is not so great about a previous year. We humans love to organize and categorize events and their implications to suit our own needs. I suppose we do that as a way to survive the world in which we live.
I tend to see things from a brighter perspective than some, but I do have gloomy days as well. I just don't dwell on the gloomy things as much. I mean, who wants to always remember the yucky parts about life when there is so much good. Life is tough and complex and ever-changing. I prefer to bring forth good memories rather than continue to bash the bad ones. Unfortunately, not all have the same preferences and for some reason the ones who love to pounce on others' troubles are very vocal.
True, 2017 was filled with many negative events and the naysayers had a ball with each and every event. Doomsday was the lead story on many days throughout the year, while the good and positive news languished in the background. However, there were also many good things to come about during the past year.
Social media continues to be an aggravation in some areas, BUT in the past year I have prayed more or congratulated more because of social media. I got to remember birthdays of folks I had forgotten about. I received notes of encouragement from others through the Messenger system. I kept up with or reconnected with some old friends and I get to see others' successes on social media.
I don't read every link that is sent or posted, and I certainly do not believe all that is posted but, for me, the idea that we can now share in a stranger's grief or joy is absolutely wonderful. When a post comes up about a baby going into surgery or an accident with fatalities, I get to add my two bits to encourage the family if I want to. I received a message from an old acquaintance one day telling how nice my son, a policeman, was to him during a recent accident. That little message made my day. Hopefully my little bits on other's pages will make their day.
During 2017, I gained the promise of a new daughter-in-law. She is delightful, and I know our oldest son will be blessed with her in his life. We will celebrate their marriage with them in the future. It is good to see young couples committing their lives to each other and making sacrifices to/for each other.
We made some big decisions in 2017 and started up a new business. We have had agonizing days and stressful times, but here we are at the end of the year preparing to go forth into the new year. I am feeling blessed that still in America a couple can decide to start up a new business one day and begin jumping through hoops the next. No one said it would be easy, BUT no one said that it was forbidden either, and for that I am grateful. We can still open a business in America if we have the energy.
Last year, we attended the church of our choice, sent one to college, met with friends at will, and survived knee replacement surgery. We also spent hours on the phone with insurance companies, prayed for family to survive different hurricanes, and watched in horror the reports of various senseless killings. Through tragedies we also saw communities pulling together to rebuild. We saw countless people across the world donating time and money to help strangers. Prayers were sent up for all as we struggled to understand and deal with the realities of being human.
I want to end 2017 in a thankful manner because there was much good that happened in 2017, and I want to say that my hopes for 2018 are for more kindness and grace towards each other. I would also encourage more forgiveness and less selfishness. If we could add in some humility and less offended folks, I would be OK with that as well.
May you remember your last year in a positive manner and may your coming year be filled with opportunities to love others, show forgiveness, and enjoy life.
Merry Christmas to all! My youtube channel is piping out Christmas songs as I write this. I love to listen to Christmas songs and the first thing I do each day, once my computer is on, is to click on iHeart radio or youtube and find Christmas music to play as I work. At home we have about ten CD's that we listen to non-stop. Not only do I love the beautiful music and the words, but I also love the hope that Christmas songs bring.
Christmas music brings back memories as well as hope. I tend to faithfully cry through some songs year after year. Some touch me in the heart and I immediately stop and say a little prayer for my blessings. The Christmas band concerts can often be the most difficult to sit through as I think back through the years at the children I have watched clomp on stage in their stiff dress shoes, or new high-heels, and grin out into the audience. Oh, what hope we place on the shoulders of our children.
We hope that they will be able to grow up and learn lessons that we did not learn. We hope that they do not have to face any suffering in this world and we hope that they are happy and successful. We hope that they listen a little and love a lot. We hope that we have done a good parenting job and that loads of grace will back us up when things don't go as planned. Hope is a great commodity to have at Christmas.
One of the reasons I watch the Hallmark movies – and YES, I know they are all the same – is that each one is filled with hope and goodness. Fake as they are, they pluck my heartstrings and make me try a little harder at Christmas to encourage others. Other Christmas movies are just as good as helping us to see our blessings and not focus on what we don't have.
In our crazy mixed up world of accusations, allegations, and the systematic dismantling of everything and anything, it is nice to see movies and hear songs that evoke the beliefs of goodness and hope. And the sad thing to me is that nearly everyone, including myself, sees it as fake. Why don't we go caroling around our neighborhoods anymore? Why don't we help the stranger new to town? Why don't we have community events that save a church or other entity? Why do the movies have to be fake?
Seemingly, nothing is sacred anymore and every word or note in every piece of music or movie can be turned into some diatribe against some minority with the author being reviled for having even thought about it in the first place – even if it was nearly a century ago. If you don't believe me, look up the animated Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer movie on the Internet or read through comments on articles on the Internet.
Recently, there have been a number of accusations against men for a variety of sexual misconduct behaviors. One celebrity – Matt Damon – spoke out calling for common sense. He states that not all men are sexual predators and that there is a vast difference between sexual harassment and sexual assault but that in the current context ALL misconduct is being treated as assault. He is being vilified by others and is now seen as the bad guy. Without getting into the fray over the harassment charges, isn't he right? Not all men are bad. Not all women are bad.
BUT in our politically correct culture seemingly EVERYTHING is bad. Every situation can be deconstructed to the least molecule and something bad can be found. And so the battle lines are drawn between sexes, between races, between religions, and we all live in fear of the other, and goodness goes out the window.
And that is exactly why we need Christmas and Christmas songs and sappy Hallmark movies. Not EVERYTHING is bad or evil. We still have good in this world. We still have hope in this world. We just need to be reminded. We have a choice.
My choice is to be happy and sappy and glad. And I choose to wish you all a Merry Christmas – even the scrooges. I hope you each get to be with family and friends and eat too much and play games. I hope that Christmas in your house is the REAL Hallmark movie.
Five years ago, I contacted Tammie Toler to see about publishing some family stories. She agreed and in December of 2012 I started publishing stories about family life and life in general. As I begin my sixth year I want to say, "Thank You" to all of you who have written to me or commented either through email or my blog. I also want to say thank you for letting me share the ups and downs of a large family in our crazy, mixed up world.
As most of you know, Tammie is a wonderful person, and I have the privilege of writing to her every week to turn in my story. I couldn't ask for a better editor or mentor. When I write something less than positive, Tammie writes and commiserates or encourages and always, always makes me feel better.
My column started many years ago when our children were very little. I would write a story during the day and read it aloud at supper to entertain the kids and to make them feel special. They were always eager for the story to be about them. Some of the stories sound fantastic but I have learned over the years that the old adage "Truth is stranger than fiction" is certainly correct in a houseful of children.
There are times I look back and wonder how in the world we all survived. The stories started out as "Six" in the morning because there were six children every morning to dress, feed, and get into the van for school. We have added one to the herd, and for about fourteen years our grandson lived with us, so we count eight. We are down to three in our house BUT have now added GRANDchildren to the mix.
When our kids were little, we started the numbering system. We counted them leaving the house to make sure no one was left behind. We counted them after church to make sure no one was left behind. We did lose one at church once. Everyone was helping us look. Turns out he had gotten into the wrong van and was asleep on their seat! I hate to admit but in those counting years, I also left one at school but was reminded by another astute counter, as I turned into the driveway that I had forgotten someone.
Counting systems also worked when we wanted to discuss someone and not let them know. "Your # 3 got into trouble at school today." Unfortunately, it didn't take them too long to figure that one out, so we turned to pig latin for a few years. Once the older ones figured that one out they taught the younger ones and it was no longer effective except to make someone laugh.
And we did laugh over the years. Our holidays are filled with stories of how the old rooster chased # 6 around the house screaming or how # 5 was going to be a sportscaster and practiced on every event in the day. Or how #'s 2,3,4,5, and 6 went out to cut the dead snake to bits to feed the ants way out in the ditch down the road and # 1 danced her way over hot coals in the backyard. ONE time. The others declare that #'s 7 and 8 are totally spoiled and they are – exactly like #'s 1-6 were spoiled.
I have a sign in my kitchen that reads, "Having children is like being pecked to death by a chicken." I can't really add to it because it is so true. One either laughs or cries. I have always found it easier to laugh over absurd things that happen in a house full of children. Not that I haven't cried. I have cried buckets and nearly worn out my knees talking to God.
God is a big part of our lives and my constant source of comfort. The teen years were/are trying but I think we are all going to be fine. # 1 has her own company selling real estate and mothering three of our grandchildren. # 2 is finishing college and engaged to a wonderful girl. # 3 is an amazing mother and pho tographer. # 4 has returned to us for a short while and is aggravating # 8 for us. # 5 is protecting others in west Texas. I totally support our Policemen. # 6 is in college and blossoming. # 7 is back living with his parents. AND # 8 is keeping us young with his DAILY trombone practice.
Our world is changing, and I don't always feel as young as I once did. I get discouraged and think all is going to ruin but then, I attend a band concert and see the smiling faces of 53 Jr. High kids blatting and shrieking out their first Christmas concert and I realize that as long as we have family and God, nothing else really matters that much.
Thank you for letting me share our stories with you for the past five years.
Thanksgiving flew by and now we are waddling towards Christmas. Our visit with our children was great, but as usual we all ate too much. It didn't help that our oldest son saw a picture on the front of a magazine that showed a pie plate with a different type of pie for each slice. He thought it would be grand to take home a pie just like the magazine cover. We all agreed to help him so on thanksgiving morning we got up early and started making pies.
We made pumpkin and German chocolate pies first because they took the longest to cook, then we slipped a pecan pie in beside them. While I worked on the cornbread dressing he peeled apples for an apple pie. His biggest shock came when I informed him that the recipe for the Wonderful Pumpkin Pie that I make all the time came from the back of the can. As we worked together in the kitchen, we got in each other's way a bit, and had loads of fun.
I have been cooking and baking for many years, but our son is a TV trained Chef and has pointed out on previous visits that Gordon Ramsay (British celebrity Chef) would do things differently. Of course, when he corrects my cooking techniques he does so in a pompous, dodgy British accent. "Oh, mooothhherrr, Goordddoonn does not whip his eggs with a simple fooorrrkkk." He sniffs and we all laugh.
Between our son and his fiancé – she is also TV trained – I got many words of advice on how to properly bake my pie shells before adding the wet liquid, how to properly add flour to water to make roast gravy, and the pros and cons of every spice in my spice cabinet. At any rate, we all ate too much, and number one son went home with plastic bowls full of food and a round cake pan full of four different kinds of homemade pie.
And because of the plethora of pies over Thanksgiving, we are now waddling towards Christmas. Literally. BUT hubby has reinstated our diet plan. We started this plan back in early October and it has been somewhat helpful.
Our new office complex is a bit out of the way, so a bagged lunch works perfectly into the diet plan. We have three rotating lunch ideas. First, we buy those tiny little packages of tuna which costs about a dollar and contain about a Tablespoon of tuna. He counts out six crackers to accompany the tuna and there are times, I freely admit, that I peel open my tuna packet and lick the inside. The second rotation is a little plastic cup of natural fruit – 100 calories – and about ½ a cup of cottage cheese. And, naturally, six crackers. The third rotation involves stopping at the grocery store on the way to work and getting ONE salad bar salad. We split it. The six crackers add a salty, crunch to the entire effect.
I can't really say that either one of us are losing a lot of weight and we talk about feeling better and doing what is right for our health and so on, but I must confess that I do sneak a piece or two of the chocolate candy from the reception area while he is busy seeing patients.
And I don't feel bad about it either because of the exercise portion of our daily routine. When we began working at our new place we parked close to the building and it was easy to carry in our drinks, lunch sack, purse, and other things we needed such as office supplies and so on. BUT in all his brilliance, hubby thought we should get a little further out in the parking lot.
I bought some soft, squishy shoes just like my mother wears for these walks and I am seriously thinking about adding a headscarf like my grandmother wore if the scale doesn't change soon.
This might sound bad, but I am truly thankful that the TV chefs will be going elsewhere for the Christmas break and the skinny minnies will be coming home for Christmas because, well, checking on things way out at the dumpste r in January really, really pushes the boundaries of a long, safe marriage.


text:
Brain Disorder Fails to Derail Determined Oklahoman
Isaac Keen always knew he was different, even before he was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder at 28. He says in many ways, that diagnosis was the most liberating experience of his life. As he puts it, "I've got a mental illness. So what?" Many folks agree with Isaac's assessment, saying his positive attitude has helped him overcome the hurdles he's faced.
At the Tulsa Housing Authority's Pioneer Plaza, Isaac Keen troubleshoots a problem with the stove at resident and friend Sheila William's apartment.
At times, however, the hurdles seemed high. In 1990, Isaac was seriously injured in a car accident. During several years of difficult physical recovery, he attended a local community college where he maintained a high grade point average but eventually needed public assistance because he neglected to treat his mental illness.
By 1993, Isaac had dropped out of college, applied for Social Security Disability Insurance and become a resident at the Tulsa Housing Authority's LaFortune Towers, where he would live for six years with SSDI his only income. In 1999, a friend from church encouraged Isaac to apply for a job at the Tulsa Housing Authority, and soon he was a custodian at the housing authority's main office.
Isaac says that having a safe, decent and affordable place to live makes it possible for him to focus on recovery. In addition to maintaining regular appointments with his therapist, Isaac also attends the bipolar support group at the Mental Health Association in Tulsa.
Sheila Williams enjoys a friendly chat with Isaac after he worked on her stove. If you let it, Isaac says, Bipolar Disorder will cause you to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Today, Isaac works in the maintenance department at a high-rise development operated by the Tulsa Housing Authority for the elderly and people with disabilities. He's been there for three and a half years and loves his job, especially the people. He no longer receives any public assistance and has a market-rate apartment that he shares with his four cats - Smudgey, Rosie, Beth and Tommy.
Isaac often talks about his co-workers and the residents where he works, and he says his relationship with them is the same as family. His road to self-sufficiency was long and crooked, but other people see him as an inspiration and an example of what can be accomplished.
Recognizing the important role housing plays in the recovery of people with mental illness, from September 29 through October 1 the Mental Health Association in Tulsa, in conjunction with HUD and a number of national leadership partners, will host the 2004 National Zarrow Mental Health Symposium - A Place to Call Home: Exploring innovative approaches to housing for people with mental illness. (www.mhat.org/zarrow/overview.htm)
Content Archived: September 09, 2009


After being selected for the City Accelerator, an initiative of Living Cities and the Citi Foundation to advance and promote innovation in cities, The City of Philadelphia set out to find more efficient and effective means of enrolling our most vulnerable residents in our utility and taxpayer assistance programs. We employed randomized control trials, developed partnerships and pilot programs with academics, and employed human-centered design, behavioral science, and a trauma-informed approach to customer service. Hundreds of individuals have been enrolled into these programs thanks to this effort.
To keep up the momentum and spread the benefits to an array of public policy challenges, we developed a strategy to educate others about the work, with the goal of embedding these practices into day-to-day operations, and empowering employees across government to explore innovative techniques to solve the problems they face. What started as a group of fewer than 10 people involved with the City Accelerator project, has turned into more than 100 people applying behavioral science, human-centered design, and trauma-informed service delivery methods to in an array of policy areas.
The encouraging results from the City Accelerator, a project which started in the Nutter Administration and concluded during the beginning of the Kenney Administration, led to the creation of a broader citywide effort known as a the Philadelphia Behavioral Science Initiative in mid-2016 co-led by the Mayor's Policy Office and local academics.
In addition to piloting low-cost interventions, the Mayor's Policy Office wants to further the use of evidence-based practices across city government, and provide more support for city agencies who do use data to drive decisions. By early 2017, the Mayor launched GovLabPHL, a a community of City employees and academic researchers dedicated to creating opportunities to learn and practice evidence-based methods. The initiative collaboratively explores ways in which government can best serve residents by supporting City agencies looking to address challenges through the practical use of data and research. GovLabPHL is a local, national and international leader in this space.


This week, our C21 Canada Home Office team got to visit BC Easter Seals Camp Squamish one of 16 camps across the country. This 33-acre site provides safe, fun activities in an environment where the focus is on abilities, not disabilities. Campers are encouraged to participate in activities including climbing, tie-dying, water polo, canoeing, wheelchair basketball, and water balloon wars.
To say the least, it was an eye-opening visit. Our team got to experience what the campers say is "the best week of their year". We were greeted by the two enthusiastic campers who were our guides for the day. They took us to the costume room where our staff got to dress up in the funkiest costumes. Outfitted as bunnies, tigers, giraffes, magicians (you name it) we began our tour. It felt like we were in Neverland where everyone could be who they wanted to be, where there is no judgement and only acceptance. We visited the arts and crafts room, basketball court, indoor pool, secret garden, tree house, trampoline area, campfire and even an outdoor theatre. At first it sounds like a typical camp site but, in reality, it is a place where dreams come true. At this camp, a fully paralyzed girl swam in the pool for the first time, a little boy could play in wheelchair-accessible treehouse and hundreds of other kids could discover their acting and singing talents.
What struck our team the most is the amount of empathy, patience and understanding that these kids have towards each other and camp visitors. Together, they gain confidence, independence, and responsibility and celebrate who they are. Easter Seals Camp truly helps them to become active members of a community that embraces the beauty and diversity of self, others and the environment. It helps the campers cultivate meaningful relationships and experiences they can further develop outside of camp. And most importantly, these kids have opportunities to challenge themselves, take risks and try new things in a safe, warm and supportive environment.
At first it sounds like a typical camp site but, in reality, it is a place where dreams come true. At this camp, a fully paralyzed girl swam in the pool for the first time, a little boy could play in wheelchair-accessible treehouse and hundreds of other kids could discover their acting and singing talents.
We all left inspired by the spirit of these kids, and the importance of donations and volunteers so that Easter Seals can keep making dreams come true.


text:
package org.la4j.vector.dense;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.nio.ByteBuffer;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.Collection;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.Random;

import org.la4j.Vector;
import org.la4j.Vectors;
import org.la4j.vector.DenseVector;
import org.la4j.vector.VectorFactory;

/**
 * A basic dense vector implementation using an array.
 *
 * A dense data structure stores data in an underlying array. Even zero elements
 * take up memory space. If you want a data structure that will not have zero
 * elements take up memory space, try a sparse structure.
 *
 * However, fetch/store operations on dense data structures only take O(1) time,
 * instead of the O(log n) time on sparse structures.
 *
 * {@code BasicVector} stores the underlying data in a standard array.
 */
public class BasicVector extends DenseVector {

    private static final byte VECTOR_TAG = (byte) 0x00;

    private double[] self;

    public BasicVector() {
        this(0);
    }

    public BasicVector(int length) {
        this(new double[length]);
    }

    public BasicVector(double[] array) {
        super(array.length);
        this.self = array;
    }

    /**
     * Creates a zero {@link BasicVector} of the given {@code length}.
     */
    public static BasicVector zero(int length) {
        return new BasicVector(length);
    }

    /**
     * Creates a constant {@link BasicVector} of the given {@code length} with
     * the given {@code value}.
     */
    public static BasicVector constant(int length, double value) {
        double[] array = new double[length];
        Arrays.fill(array, value);

        return new BasicVector(array);
    }

    /**
     * Creates an unit {@link BasicVector} of the given {@code length}.
     */
    public static BasicVector unit(int length) {
        return BasicVector.constant(length, 1.0);
    }

    /**
     * Creates a random {@link BasicVector} of the given {@code length} with
     * the given {@code Random}.
     */
    public static BasicVector random(int length, Random random) {
        double[] array = new double[length];
        for (int i = 0; i < length; i++) {
            array[i] = random.nextDouble();
        }

        return new BasicVector(array);
    }

    /**
     * Creates a new {@link BasicVector} from the given {@code array} w/o
     * copying the underlying array.
     */
    public static BasicVector fromArray(double[] array) {
        return new BasicVector(array);
    }

    /**
     * Decodes {@link BasicVector} from the given byte {@code array}.
     *
     * @param array the byte array representing a vector
     *
     * @return a decoded vector
     */
    public static BasicVector fromBinary(byte[] array) {
        ByteBuffer buffer = ByteBuffer.wrap(array);

        if (buffer.get() != VECTOR_TAG) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Can not decode BasicVector from the given byte array.");
        }

        double[] values = new double[buffer.getInt()];
        for (int i = 0; i < values.length; i++) {
            values[i] = buffer.getDouble();
        }

        return new BasicVector(values);
    }

    /**
     * Parses {@link BasicVector} from the given CSV string.
     *
     * @param csv the CSV string representing a vector
     *
     * @return a parsed vector
     */
    public static BasicVector fromCSV(String csv) {
        return Vector.fromCSV(csv).to(Vectors.BASIC);
    }

    /**
     * Parses {@link BasicVector} from the given Matrix Market.
     *
     * @param is the input stream in Matrix Market format
     *
     * @return a parsed vector
     * @exception  IOException  if an I/O error occurs.
     */
    public static BasicVector fromMatrixMarket(InputStream is) throws IOException {
        return Vector.fromMatrixMarket(is).to(Vectors.BASIC);
    }

    /**
     * Creates new {@link BasicVector} from
     *
     * @param list list containing doubles
     *
     * @return new vector from given double list
     */
    public static BasicVector fromCollection(Collection<? extends Number> list) {
        //TODO goto lambdas
        double[] self = new double[list.size()];
        int i = 0;
        for (Number x : list) {
            self[i] = x.doubleValue();
            i++;
        }
        return fromArray(self);
    }

    /**
     * Creates new {@link BasicVector} from index-value map
     *
     * @param map index-value map
     *
     * @param length vector length
     *
     * @return created vector
     */
    public static BasicVector fromMap(Map<Integer, ? extends Number> map, int length) {
        return Vector.fromMap(map, length).to(Vectors.BASIC);
    }

    @Override
    public double get(int i) {
        return self[i];
    }

    @Override
    public void set(int i, double value) {
        self[i] = value;
    }

    @Override
    public void swapElements(int i, int j) {
        if (i != j) {
            double d = self[i];
            self[i] = self[j];
            self[j] = d;
        }
    }

    @Override
    public Vector copyOfLength(int length) {
      ensureLengthIsCorrect(length);

      double[] $self = new double[length];
      System.arraycopy(self, 0, $self, 0, Math.min($self.length, self.length));

      return new BasicVector($self);
    }

    @Override
    public double[] toArray() {
        double[] result = new double[length];
        System.arraycopy(self, 0, result, 0, length);
        return result;
    }

    @Override
    public <T extends Vector> T to(VectorFactory<T> factory) {
        if (factory.outputClass == BasicVector.class) {
            return factory.outputClass.cast(this);
        }

        return super.to(factory);
    }

    @Override
    public Vector blankOfLength(int length) {
        return BasicVector.zero(length);
    }

    @Override
    public byte[] toBinary() {
        int size = 1 +          // 1 byte: class tag
                   4 +          // 4 bytes: length
                  (8 * length); // 8 * length bytes: values

        ByteBuffer buffer = ByteBuffer.allocate(size);

        buffer.put(VECTOR_TAG);
        buffer.putInt(length);
        for (double value: self) {
            buffer.putDouble(value);
        }

        return buffer.array();
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Have you ever noticed hundreds of crows streaming through the shadows at dusk (probably making a ruckus)? Have you ever watched a crow chase away a bald eagle and wondered at its gumption? Have you ever been dive-bombed by a territorial crow? Have you ever wondered why? Have you ever wanted to tell someone else about your crow encounters? If so, here is your chance. I've created an interactive website (http://depts.washington.edu/uwcrows) enabling citizen scientists to share their crow observations with scientists and each other using a variety of web technologies. The ultimate goal of this project is to involve citizens in the process of scientific discovery. During this process I hope we will build a useful database of crow happenings in the Puget Sound region and beyond. The backend requirements for the website are open-source and freely available so that creating a similar site to track another species would require minimal effort.
The website is organized around a map of the Puget Sound region, and the majority of the data is geocoded so that sightings can be placed into geographic context. The primary method of data submission is via the website itself, including instructions and guidance on reporting anecdotes, daily migrations, nightly roosts, and crows banded by Prof. John Marzluff (http://www.urbanecology.washington.edu/people/marzluff.htm) at the University of Washington. Additionally, anecdotes can be submitted via Twitter (http://twitter.com), a popular micro-blogging web site, by including the tag #seattlecrows in any posting. Updates to Twitter can be made from mobile phones via SMS text messaging. Finally, geotagged photos labeled with the word 'crow' are automatically added from Flickr (http://flickr.com), a popular photo-sharing web site.
The submitted data is incorporated into a database and made available in real-time. It is important that the observations be accessible to those who made them (that is, the public), rather than be potentially lost in the black box of a researcher's office, only to resurface years later in an relatively-inaccessible scientific journal article. Once submitted, each type of data is plotted on the map using unique icons; clicking on the icons reveals detailed information about each submission. The data is also available as an RSS feed (http://depts.washington.edu/uwcrows/crowfeed.rss) which can be read by any news aggregator (e.g. Bloglines, Google Reader). New submissions can be tracked on Twitter by following @seattlecrows (http://twitter.com/seattlecrows).
We have a few regulars in my neighborhood (NE 68th St. and 44th Ave. NE), and one of them is with a white tag on L leg and yellow (I think it was yellow.) tag on R leg. He`ve been around in our neighborhood for the past two years or maybe even longer. He lost his mate a year ago, but he has now found a love of his life, and we are happy for him.


1. He is a nice person, you know, everybody likes him.
2. Look, the fact is I don't like him at all..
3. I was just like, Hey! Don't even think of parking here.
我每天坐校车去上学,都会习惯听车上的老美在讲什么。 结果我发现有一句话出现的频率特别高, 那就是 I was just like.... 原来老美在叙述某人说过了某句话时, 他们不会说, I said... 或是 He said... 而会说, I was just like. 和 He was just like. 当然也不一定指说过的话, 指你当时的想法也可以, 例如你曾经想, "完了, 我的车被吊走了。" 那就可以说, I was just like; No way, my car was towed.
4. You have to keep the secret for me; you know what I'm saying?
5. All right, I got to go.
All right 的意思大概没有人不知道的吧! 但是它有一种口语上的用法不知道各位知不知道, 就是当你要结束一段对话时, 就可以说 All right 来结束它。例如你问别人一个问题,别人也回答你了,这时你让怎么接话?我想很多人只会说, Thanks. 其实比较口语的讲法应该是,All right, thanks. 有点像是中文里,"好吧, 就这样吧!"的味道。 同理, 当你讲电话讲到不想讲了, 就可以说, All right, I have to hit a shower. (好吧,我必须去洗澡了。)或是两人会面结束要说再见前, 就可以说,All right, I got to go.
6. Did you see her new car? It was so cool!
老美最喜欢用来称赞别人的形容词有二个, 一个就是 cool, 另一个是 awesome。这两个字相信很多人都不陌生。 不过要怎么念才会听来比较有美国味呢?我注意到当老美在念 so cool 这两个字时, so 要特别拉得长长的,听起来有点像是, It was soooooo cool. 这样子就没错了! 至于 awesome 则比较没什么特别之处, 不过一般人习惯就只说 Awesome. 一个字, 而比较不会说, Its awesome.
8. Exactly. That's what I'm talking about.
9. Guess what? He is going to publish a book.
当老美要叙述一件会令人感到惊讶的事情时, 他们习惯在句首加上, Guess what? 或是 You know what? 来增强自己的语气。 当然, Guess what? 从字面上来看是猜猜看发生了什么事的意思, 但实际上人家绝不是要你去猜发生了什么事, 只要想要给听者一个惊喜。 这就如同中文里,"你知道吗?" 是一样的,当然你还没说别人怎么会知道呢? 所以这种用法纯粹是加强语气用。 例如你刚找到一份工作, 你就可以说, Guess what? I got a job offer.


text:
COVID-19 Update: Two Deaths, 238 New Cases, 132 in Hospital, 84 Recoveries
Two residents who tested positive for COVID-19 in the North (1) and Regina (1) zones, have died. One individual, from the North zone, was in the 80+ age category. One individual, from the Regina zone, was in the 60-79 age category.
There are 238 new cases of COVID-19 to report in Saskatchewan on December 2, 2020, bringing the provincial total to date to 8,982 cases.
The new cases are located in the Far North West (6), Far North Central (3), Far North East (16), North West (17), North Central (25), North East (3), Saskatoon (109), Central East (4), Regina (36), South West (8), South Central (1) and South East (3) zones and seven (7) new cases have pending residence information.
Five cases with pending residence information were assigned to the Far North East (1), North Central (1), Regina (2) and South East (1) zones. One case previously assigned to the Saskatoon zone was removed from the counts.
The seven-day average of daily new cases is 274 (22.6 new cases per 100,000 population).
Of the 8,982 reported cases, 3,970 are considered active. A total of 4,959 people have recovered.
One-hundred and thirty-two people are in hospital. One-hundred and six people are receiving inpatient care: one in the Far North West, seven in the North West, seven in the North Central, one in the North East, 42 in the Saskatoon, two in the Central East, 23 in the Regina, two in the South West, one in the South Central and 20 in the South East zones. Twenty-six people are in intensive care: five in the North Central, 12 in the Saskatoon and nine in the Regina zones.
Of the 8,982 cases in the province:
480 cases are travelers;
3,812 are community contacts (including mass gatherings);
2,144 have no known exposures; and
2,546 are under investigation by local public health.
Overall in Saskatchewan to date:
268 cases are healthcare workers; however, the source of the infections may not be related to healthcare in all instances.
1,862 cases involve people 19 years of age and under, while the remainder are adults.
3,191 cases are in the 20-39 age range; 2,406 are in the 40-59 age range; 1,184 are in the 60-79 age range; and 334 are in the 80-plus range. Confirmation of age is pending for five cases.
50 per cent of the cases are female and 50 per cent are male.
53 deaths related to COVID-19 have been reported to date.
Of 8,982 confirmed cases:
2,752 cases are from the Saskatoon area
1,809 cases are from the north area (652 north west, 847 north central, 310 north east)
1,634 cases are from the Regina area
1,151 cases are from the south area (442 south west, 412 south central, 297 south east)
966 cases are from the far north area (618 far north west, 83 far north central, 265 far north east)
637 cases are from the central area (275 central west, 362 central east)
33 cases have pending residence information
To date, 350,391 COVID-19 tests have been processed in Saskatchewan. As of November 30, 2020 when other provincial and national numbers were available, Saskatchewan's per capita rate was 223,304 people tested per million population. The national rate was 307,889 people tested per million population.
Yesterday, 2,473 COVID-19 tests were processed in Saskatchewan.
Drive-thru testing available in Prince Albert
Starting today, the Saskatchewan Health Authority is offering daily, drive thru mobile testing in Prince Albert.
The drive-thru testing site is The Cone Shop Car Wash (890 6th Avenue East) from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. seven days a week.
This new site will be in addition to the drive-thru testing sites already operating in Saskatoon, Regina and Yorkton. Referrals for COVID-19 testing are also available from HealthLine 811 or your local health care provider.
More information on COVID-19 testing can be found at www.saskatchewan.ca/covid19-testing.
Public Health Measures
For more information on the current public health measures or to see the Public Health Order, visit https://www.saskatchewan.ca/covid19.
Posters outlining public health measures are now available in French, Mandarin, Tagalog and Urdu at https://www.saskatchewan.ca/covid19-posters#utm_campaign=q2_2015&utm_medium=short&utm_source=%2Fcovid19-posters.
General COVID-19 Information
General public inquiries may be directed to COVID19@health.gov.sk.ca.


What Does it Mean to "Modify" an Unenforceable Non-Competition Covenant Under Georgia's Restrictive Covenants Act?
Although Georgia's Restrictive Covenants Act has been on the books since the spring of 2011, no judge has decided the exact scope of Georgia courts' blue-penciling abilities – until now. In a case of first impression, Judge Thrash of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, in LifeBrite Laboratories, LLC v. Nina H. Cooksey, 1:15-cv-04309 (N.D. Ga. Dec. 9, 2016), held that the term "modify" in Georgia's Restrictive Covenants Act limits blue-penciling to striking unreasonable restrictions and to narrowing overbroad, existing terms. Judge Thrash did not adopt an expansive reading of the term "modify" that could allow a court to supply entirely new terms to render a non-competition covenant enforceable.
In this case, LifeBrite Laboratories hired Nina Cooksey as a business consultant tasked with selling LifeBrite's toxicology tests to various medical practices and physicians. The parties entered into an employment agreement containing a non-competition covenant. The provision prohibited Ms. Cooksey from working for any potentially-competitive laboratory testing facility during her employment with LifeBrite and for one year thereafter. The restrictive covenant did not include any geographic restrictions. After a short period of employment with LifeBrite, Ms. Cooksey sought other employment and accepted an offer from another lab testing facility. LifeBrite sued Ms. Cooksey for breach of the non-competition covenant. In response, Ms. Cooksey sought a declaratory judgment that the non-compete was unenforceable without a geographic limitation.
Under Georgia law, a non-competition covenant will generally be enforceable if it is "reasonable in time, geographic area, and scope of prohibited activities." O.C.G.A. § 13-8-53(a). Judge Thrash noted that the lack of any geographic limitation rendered the parties' non-competition covenant unenforceable. Prior to the passage of Georgia's Restrictive Covenants Act, Judge Thrash's analysis would end there. However, that Act permits courts to "modify a covenant that is otherwise void and unenforceable so long as the modification does not render the covenant more restrictive with regard to the employee than as originally drafted by the parties." O.C.G.A. § 13-8-53(d). Judge Thrash stated that the "question in this case is whether 'modify' means that courts may only excise offending language, or whether courts are empowered to actually reform and rewrite a contract." LifeBrite, 1:15-cv-04309, at 16. Judge Thrash considered the latter to be an issue of first impression in Georgia.
Judge Thrash relied on Georgia common law to reject a broad interpretation of the term "modify." He noted that, prior to 2011, Georgia courts strictly reviewed non-competition covenants in the employment context and struck covenants in their entirety if any portion was unenforceable. In the sale-of-business context, however, Georgia courts did permit the excision of unenforceable language and the narrowing of unreasonable geographic areas when reviewing non-compete covenants. See Hamrick v. Kelley, 260 Ga. 307 (1990). Judge Thrash determined that nothing in Georgia's Restrictive Covenants Act indicated a "change [in] Georgia's common law approach to blue-penciling other than to allow it in more circumstances." LifeBrite, 1:15-cv-04309, at 20. In the end, Judge Thrash held that the term "modify" should be limited to striking any unreasonable restrictions and narrowing the existing, overbroad terms.
The LifeBrite case is a case of first impression and a decision by a well-respected United States District Court judge. Though it was not an interpretation of Georgia common law by a Georgia state court, this decision is still likely a harbinger of future cases. The takeaway is that Georgia courts are likely still reluctant to rewrite or reform unenforceable non-competition covenants by supplying new terms. But Georgia courts may now feel more comfortable narrowing existing terms to make restrictions more reasonable and thus enforceable, and refusing to add missing terms.


text:
Ricky Ponting Shares Batting Practice Videos With Son Fletcher as he Makes Twitter And Instagram Debut
Australia cricket legend Ricky Ponting on Friday made his debut on social media networks Twitter and Instagram.
Edited by Feroz Khan Email
Ricky Ponting (left) with son Fletcher (© Ricky Ponting/Twitter)
Australia cricket legend Ricky Ponting on Friday made his debut on social media networks Twitter and Instagram, announcing his arrival with batting practice pictures and video with his son Fletcher.
"A day of firsts; finally on social media and the first net with my son Fletcher," Ponting posted on his Twitter and Instagram handles.
On Twitter, he shared a series of four pictures where he can be seen instructing his son how to correctly hold the bat.
A day of firsts; finally on social media and the first net with my son Fletcher. pic.twitter.com/DAe79MzqKr— Ricky Ponting AO (@RickyPonting) December 11, 2019
On Instagram, he shared a video of him giving throwdowns.
A day of firsts; finally on social media and the first net with my son Fletcher.
A post shared by Ricky Ponting AO (@rickyponting) on Dec 11, 2019 at 12:08am PST
While Ponting has been on Facebook, he was absent on the other two popular platforms.
The 44-year-old former Australia captain played 168 Tests, 375 ODIs and 17 T20Is during his international career that started in February 1995. During his storied career, he scored 27483 runs including 71 centuries and 146 half-centuries.
He also won three ODI World Cups (1999, 2003 and 2007) – two of them as captain.
After calling time on his playing career, he dabbled broadcasting and coaching. He was part of Australia's coaching staff at the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 apart from being the head coach of IPL franchise Delhi Capitals whom he guided to playoffs last season.
Call on Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma to be Taken on Match Day: BCCI
2nd ODI: All-Round India Level Series With 36-Run Win
India vs Australia 2020, 2nd ODI: Aaron Finch Wins Toss, Opts to Bowl First in Rajkot
Andhra Wicketkeeper KS Bharat Called up as Injury Cover for Rishabh Pant
2nd ODI: How to Stream Online, Probable XIs, Match Result Prediction
Australia Cricket TeamFletcher PontingRicky Ponting


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The Mahindra Powertrain Division in Chakan introduced a "Service Excellence Development Center – A Powertrain Training Facility" to its portfolio of capability enhancement. This state of the art & fully equipped new training facility is located in MHEL, Chakan plant.
With this, the Powertrain customer care team pledged to deliver quality training that enables its field service team to succeed.
With this new training facility, Powertrain aims to increase product knowledge as well as efficiency of its own field engineers & Channel Partners. Thus, empowering with techniques and information which will equip our field engineers to handle customer complaints, queries, and preventive maintenance & installation with utmost care.


text:
Q: How change display scale from the command line in Ubuntu 18.04 (xorg) I am trying to get in the command line the same effect as changing the display scale factor from the Gnome Control Center.
I have tried the following command, but it does not have any effect:
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface scaling-factor 2
I need this command to build a sort of fractional scale factor with the combination of xrandx and the scaling factor in the Gnome Control Center. Since, the execution of xrandr resets the scaling factor in the Gnome Control Center, I would need a command to recover the value in the Gnome Control Center.
Please, any suggestion is welcome. Thanks in advance.

A: Determine your output device (mine is DP-1) by running xrandr on its own, then use this:
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface scaling-factor 2
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings overrides "{'Gdk/WindowScalingFactor': <2>}"
xrandr --output DP-1 --scale 1.5x1.5
xrandr --output DP-1 --panning 3840x2160

A: Looking at the gnome-control-center source code, this turns out to get configured via dbus. Here's a script to toggle between 100% and 200% in a single-monitor configuration.
#!/usr/bin/python3
# Note: use system python3, not /usr/bin/env, because whichever python3 is on
# $PATH may not have dbus, but the system python3 does.

"""Toggle display scaling between 100% and 200%.

Based on https://gist.github.com/strycore/ca11203fd63cafcac76d4b04235d8759

For data structure definitions, see
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/blob/master/src/org.gnome.Mutter.DisplayConfig.xml
"""

import dbus

namespace = "org.gnome.Mutter.DisplayConfig"
dbus_path = "/org/gnome/Mutter/DisplayConfig"

session_bus = dbus.SessionBus()
obj = session_bus.get_object(namespace, dbus_path)
interface = dbus.Interface(obj, dbus_interface=namespace)

current_state = interface.GetCurrentState()
serial = current_state[0]
connected_monitors = current_state[1]
logical_monitors = current_state[2]

# Multiple monitors are more complicated. For now, since I only use one monitor
# in Ubuntu, everything is hard-coded so that only info about the first monitor
# is used, and only it will be connected after running the script.
#
# If someday updating this script: a logical monitor may appear on mutiple
# connected monitors due to mirroring.
connector = connected_monitors[0][0][0]
current_mode = None
# ApplyMonitorsConfig() needs (connector name, mode ID) for each connected
# monitor of a logical monitor, but GetCurrentState() only returns the
# connector name for each connected monitor of a logical monitor. So iterate
# through the globally connected monitors to find the mode ID.
for mode in connected_monitors[0][1]:
    if mode[6].get("is-current", False):
        current_mode = mode[0]
updated_connected_monitors = [[connector, current_mode, {}]]

x, y, scale, transform, primary, monitors, props = logical_monitors[0]
scale = 2.0 if scale == 1.0 else 1.0

monitor_config = [[x, y, scale, transform, primary, updated_connected_monitors]]

# Change the 1 to a 2 if you want a "Revert Settings / Keep Changes" dialog
interface.ApplyMonitorsConfig(serial, 1, monitor_config, {})

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Matt Mason (born 11 August 1978) is an English author and creative executive. He is the former chief content officer for BitTorrent Inc. and studio head at 1-800-N0TH1NG, an innovation lab financed by Sony Pictures Entertainment. He is the author of The Pirate's Dilemma and the founding editor-in-chief of RWD Magazine. He has written for VICE, The Observer, Complex, and other publications in more than twenty countries,

Career

Early career
Mason grew up in London and began DJing as a teen on the pirate radio stations Ice FM and Mac FM. He attended the University of Bristol, where he graduated with a degree in economics. After his studies, he worked in music and advertising at companies including Warner Music, Saatchi & Saatchi, and Mediacom.

RWD
In 2001, Mason became the founding editor-in-chief of RWD Magazine. RWD was created to push new sounds emerging from the UK, most notably UK garage, grime, and dubstep, and Mason became the first journalist to interview a number of prominent UK artists, including Dizzee Rascal, Skepta, and Tinchy Stryder.

RWD became the largest music magazine by circulation in the UK, growing from 5,000 copies per month to almost 100,000. Based on his work at RWD, Mason was selected as one of the faces of former British prime minister Gordon Brown's Start Talking Ideas campaign and was presented the Prince's Trust London Business of the Year Award by Prince Charles in 2004.

Between 2001 and 2004, Mason also ran the independent label Tuned Plastic, specialising in UK garage, grime, and dubstep. Submarine, a record produced by Mason and released on Tuned Plastic, was included on DJ EZ's seminal Pure Garage: Bass Breaks and Beats compilation in 2001.

Between 2003 and 2005, Mason also anonymously wrote the Grimewatch column for Vice magazine, only outing himself as its author in his last column, before leaving RWD and moving to New York.

The Booo Krooo
Between 2002 and 2004, Mason connected RWD'''s online director Lex Johnson and illustrator Art Jaz to create the animated adult sitcom series The Booo Krooo. After the first three-episode web series, the concept was co-signed by Missy Elliott, who asked to be featured to promote her single "Work It". From here, Channel U commissioned a six-episode series to launch their European music TV channel. This was later cited by Ransom Note as the first in the "grime comedy" genre.

The Pirate's Dilemma
In 2005, Mason moved to New York and began working on his first book, The Pirate's Dilemma, watch was published by Simon & Schuster in the US and Penguin in the UK in early 2008.

The book was met with critical acclaim and became the first book to hit the number one spot on both Amazon's hip hop and economics bestseller lists at the same time. Wired gave it 9 out of 10 and BusinessWeek named Mason 'Pirate of the Year'.

In the book, Mason makes the case that the best way to beat piracy is to compete with it, by determining the value pirates are creating and creating legal alternatives. "By short-circuiting conventional channels and red tape, pirates can deliver new materials, formats, and business models to audiences who want them", he writes. "Canal Street moves faster than Wall Street. Piracy transforms the markets it operates in, changing the way distribution works and forcing companies to be more competitive and innovative. Pirates don't just defend the public domain from corporate control; they also force big business and government to deliver what we want, when we want it".

The paperback was released in 2009, and The Pirate's Dilemma has since been published in ten countries.

As a journalist, Mason's work began to appear outside of RWD and Vice. By 2009, he had been published in The Guardian, The Independent, The Observer Music Monthly, Dazed & Confused, Adweek, Complex, Libération, and other publications in more than twenty countries.

BitTorrent

Mason spent the next few years speaking on his work and consulting, as well as working as director of innovation and strategy for New York-based creative agency Syrup LLC. In 2011, he joined BitTorrent as head of marketing, taking on "a full-time job reshaping BitTorrent's tattered image", as Fast Company would later describe it.

When Mason started at BitTorrent, there was a plan on the table to rename the company. But according to Fast Company, "(Mason) ran an experiment that gave everyone there pause. BitTorrent released a file-sharing product called SoShare and advertised it in two ways—as simply SoShare and as SoShare by BitTorrent. The ads with "BitTorrent" in them attracted five times more clicks. 'If you just put the word BitTorrent in front of something people already do on the web', Mason said, 'people understand it means something different'. Changing the name was out".

Mason saw another opportunity at BitTorrent based on his previous work on piracy. The company had begun promoting specific artists' content in its download clients, and he wanted to expand upon that. Mason transformed the experimental promotion of artists into a full-fledged product he called BitTorrent Bundles, which made it easy for artists to put packages of content into the BitTorrent ecosystem. BitTorrent then promoted this to its 170 million users.

The company officially launched BitTorrent Bundle with the artist Kaskade in May 2013. The early results were encouraging. As Fast Company described it, "Best-selling self-help author Tim Ferriss—desperate after being boycotted by bookstores for using Amazon as a publisher—released the first chapter of his book The 4-Hour Chef in a bundle, with recipes, an audiobook, and live workshop video content available in exchange for a user's email address. About 210,000 people downloaded the bundle in the first week, and 85,000 of them followed a link to where Amazon sold the full book. Linkin Park used bundles to distribute a free trial of its recording software, StageLight, and soon after saw a 200% increase in the number of upgrades to the paid version. Madonna released a 17-minute film, which was downloaded 2.7 million times".

Under Mason's leadership in marketing, BitTorrent reintroduced itself as a credible technology company with a 2013 billboard campaign that garnered a great deal of attention. The company anonymously posted billboards in San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles depicting controversial statements such as "Your Data Should Belong to the NSA" and "The Internet Should Be Regulated". After several weeks of media confusion, including an investigation by the LA Times, Mason revealed in a blog post that BitTorrent was behind the ads. That same day, the statements were altered, displaying more positive messages such as "Your Data Should Belong to You" and "The Internet Should Be People Powered". "With the reveal, we are showing people that things don't actually have to be like that", Mason told Mashable in an interview, referring to the original bleak messages. "If you look at BitTorrent's technology and protocols, things can be a different way".

In May 2014, Mason was promoted to Chief Content Officer. On 26 September 2014, BitTorrent released their first pay-gated Bundle, Tomorrow's Modern Boxes, an album by Radiohead singer Thom Yorke. Mason revealed that he had been working on the project with Yorke and Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich in secret for over a year. By February 2015, the album had been downloaded more than 4.5 million times.

Today, there are more than 30,000 artists using Bundle and during 2014, more than 250 million fans legally downloaded a piece of content via the platform.

1-800-N0TH1NG
In September 2015, Mason started 1-800-N0TH1NG. Their first product, Bbble (pronounced 'bubble'), launched in September 2016 for iOS. Bbble is a social video trivia platform where one can play solo, challenge friends, or star as the host by snapping video questions.

1-800-N0TH1NG also quietly piloted a new type of gaming experience in July 2016: RoboKong—a live, live-action game that streamed for four hours on Twitch, where viewers got to control real people on the set of the game.

In RoboKong, players take control of a real person on a live set, controlling the actions of the player in the live broadcast by video chat, directing RoboKong as he attempts to escape from a lab teeming with rogue mutants. With little marketing, the live show attracted 684,563 views over four hours, generating four million brand impressions and more than 26,000 fan messages.

Other projects
In 2015, Mason was voted the eleventh most creative person in business by Fast Company. He left BitTorrent in June of that year and began working on his second book, a sci-fi novel about piracy in the near future, entitled Broadside.

In 2013, Mason collaborated with Zegna brand designer Stefano Pilati on the Tumblr-based gN project to launch the designer's first collection.

In 2010, Mason made London Pirate Frequencies, a documentary with Vice on the past, present, and future of pirate radio in London.

In 2009, Mason collaborated with Nicholas Felton on Hard Times'', an 'info-graphic novel' for Penguin that won Best in Show that year at SXSW.

References

External links

1978 births
Living people
English male writers
People from London
English expatriates in the United States

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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