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Home Ear, Nose, and Throat
So, You've Got Ringing in the Ears—Should You Be Worried?
Alexa EricksonUpdated: Dec. 12, 2019
Dmitry Tkachev/Shutterstock
If you didn't spend last night at a rock concert and your ears are buzzing, clicking or pulsating, it could be a sign of a more serious health issue.
"Someone's thinking about you" may be the sly remark of a friend when you tell them your ears are ringing. And while that would certainly be a nice thought, that incessant buzzing, which affects more than 50 million people in America alone, according to the American Tinnitus Association, may be a symptom of an underlying condition.
What is tinnitus?
Called tinnitus, which is Latin for "ringing," this condition involves a steady ringing, swishing, hissing, humming, roaring, beeping tone or tunes from one or both ears—like a message from inside your head trying to be heard. Some people experience it only occasionally, while others have it nearly all the time. In rare cases, some people report hearing music as a result of the condition.
The Hearing Health Foundation describes ringing in the ears as "the conscious experience of sound that originates in the head of its owner. It is hearing sound without an external, acoustic source." But periods of brief, spontaneous tinnitus is much more common, the organization says.
Tinnitus can be acute (temporary) or chronic (ongoing). Temporary tinnitus is common after a concert or fireworks, as excessive noise can injure the ear, resulting in the ringing. The tinnitus typically clears up on its own within a few minutes to hours—or you can try these natural remedies for tinnitus. Chronic tinnitus, on the other hand, occurs regularly and lasts longer each time.
While this problem can occur for no apparent reason at all, some of the biggest culprits for tinnitus, according to Andrew Resnick, an audiologist at Resnick Audiology in New York, are hearing loss as a result of aging, damage to the ear from repeated exposure to loud noise, wax or other blockage in the ear canal, and the use of certain medications.
How do you treat tinnitus?
A big concern for people who experience the condition—especially those who have it frequently—is whether it is something to seek medical attention over. "In the majority of cases, the presence of tinnitus does not indicate something to be overly concerned about," says Resnick. "Of more concern is the sudden onset of tinnitus in only one ear, especially if accompanied by a sudden drop in hearing and/or vertigo, or the presence of pulsatile tinnitus."
Because hearing loss often accompanies tinnitus, Resnick recommends seeing an audiologist to have your hearing tested. This will rule out any medical causes for the condition. "It is not unusual for tinnitus to be benign and of unknown cause, and yet be persistent," says Resnick. "Persistent tinnitus often accompanies hearing loss, and many people find great relief from their tinnitus when using hearing aids." Here's when it's OK to buy an over-the-counter hearing aid.
While tinnitus is common, especially among those who have worked in the music business, like music clubs, more rarely it can be linked with an overactive thyroid gland, or anemia, and can occur after a head injury. Furthermore, experiencing tinnitus in only one ear may, on rare occasion, be a sign of a tumor affecting the nerve between the ear and the brain.
American Tinnitus Association: "Understanding the Facts."
Hearing Health Foundation: "Tinnitus."
Andrew Resnick, AuD, audiologist at Resnick Audiology in New York, New York
Alexa Erickson
Alexa Erickson is a lifestyle and news writer currently working with Reader's Digest, SHAPE Magazine, and various other publications. She loves writing about science news, health, wellness, food and drink, beauty, fashion, home decor, and her travels. Visit her site Living by Lex.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Understanding the imperative for sustainable edge data centres
Schneider Electric - As the effects of climate change make themselves known through increasingly severe patterns around the globe, we stand at the crossroad of decisions that will impact and shape future generations.
Today, it is estimated that IT will consume 8.5% of global electricity by 2035, compared to just 5% in 2021. As the footprint of technology and digital infrastructure grow inexorably in our lives, the onus is on businesses – and especially data centres operators, to put sustainability at the forefront of their strategies.
Overcoming the climate challenge together
Fortunately, sustainability agendas are gaining priority within both corporate boardrooms, and the minds of consumers. Yet establishing sustainable practices and putting them into action to meet environmental goals calls for multiple parties within the data centre sector to work together – no single business can succeed as a silo on this front.
Conversely, data centre sustainability is completely doable when operators work with key partners on crucial components as part of a cohesive, overarching strategy. Key components include data centre design, location, power utility, and strategies around operations and energy management.
The following four-stage plan can make a difference:
Define what successful sustainability looks like to the organisation
Establish clear targets – no matter how small, and push for more gains over time
Deploy programs and analyse for improvements regularly
Sustain results by monitoring, managing, and sharing the lessons with like-minded partners
By working with a partner with the requisite expertise and experience around sustainability, data centre operators can evaluate the existing portfolio of assets on how it can be possible to maximize the efficiency of existing systems.
Ultimately, operators should consider new data centre designs and concepts that can meet the desired sustainability and efficiency goals. These can then be applied to new projects, or in situations where it makes sense to, leveraged to retrofit existing facilities.
Driving sustainability
Organizations around the globe have made significant improvements in their sustainability programs and reaped the rewards for doing so. This typically ranges from reducing carbon footprint to saving money.
According to Marc Garner of Schneider Electric, Equinix's Global renewable energy procurement gave them a US$23.2 million cost savings by going fully renewable energy in North America. In Europe, 75% of Iron Mountain's electricity has been converted to green power while 100% renewable energy serves their entire U.K., Ireland, and Benelux operations.
Sustaining such initiatives do requires a comprehensive view of the environment and the energy impact: As operators drive sustainable initiatives, maintaining efficiency and resiliency might become a challenge. These are vital parts of the puzzle that must be tended to if long-term sustainability goals are to be met.
To be clear, energy is hardly the only element that data centre operators need to think about. A holistic, full-scale view of the environmental impact to look at both the energy impact, as well as the carbon cost around construction and decommission of equipment. Going net-zero is an excellent start.
As an industry, the ball is now in the courts of data centres operators to focus on sustainability to reduce our overall climate impact. And the time to change is now.
Learn more about how Schneider Electric solutions can help you meet sustainability goals in your data centres at link.
Article by Michael Kurniawan, Vice President - Singapore, Malaysia & Brunei, Secure Power Division, Schneider Electric
Re-imagining Enterprise Experiences - Increased focus on employee experiences
Stronger Vietnam - Singapore economic ties expected with Prime Minister's visit


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Squamish's Newport Beach reborn as Sp'akw'us Feather Park
Following a 'grand closing' ceremony, two-year construction on park begins.
Steven Chua
1 / 1 As of Aug. 14, the oceanfront area formerly known as Newport Beach and previously Nexen Beach was reborn as Sp'akw'us Feather Park. The closing of the area for construction of the park and the naming occurred on Aug. 14.Courtesy Matthews West/John Matthews
Nexen Beach. Newport Beach. The Oceanfront park.
The beachfront property just south of the downtown core has gone through many iterations in its storied lifetime.
But as of Aug. 14, the park was reborn as Sp'akw'us Feather Park.
John Matthews, the head of Matthews West — previously known locally as Matthews Southwest — said the name was chosen in collaboration with members of the Squamish Nation.
The name is a mix of the English and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh languages, which is meant to signify a unity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultures, he said.
This christening happened during a "grand closing" event hosted by Matthews West — which is responsible for the Oceanfront Squamish development — and the annual Wind Festival.
The idea was to provide a grand hurrah for everyone to gather at the beach before construction starts to recreate the waterfront as a public park.
It will have a number of amenities, such as a water sports beach, recreation beach, large open green spaces, slacklines, public art installations, and trails linking the park to the surrounding community.
Upon completion, it will become a public park that will be given to the municipality and available for all to use.
"We know how important it is to the community, because it's important to us as well," said Matthews. "I felt it deserved a moment for people to enjoy it before access was going to be limited."
The Mamquam and Cattermole trails will remain open until further notice, and while construction is expected to last two years, Matthews said the company would do everything it can to open up access as soon as it can.
The event was also one of the first major public events in town that occurred since COVID-19, providing locals an opportunity to gather for the first time in over a year and a half.
"It felt like we had a really nice opportunity to actually bring people together and that felt good in and of itself," Matthews said.
He added the park's construction arrives after about 20 years of planning and preparation. The land previously required a major remediation effort, as the former Nexen plant was found to have contaminated the soil.
Personally, Matthews said he's a fan of the upcoming intertidal marsh, which is expected to display a number of native plant species.
He also added that an upcoming open greenspace will serve as a great point for public gatherings such as the one that just occurred.
"Overall, as a community, I think the open space and access to the water is going to be something I just think, once it's there, people are going to be like, 'How did we not have this before?'" Matthews said.
He also extended his thanks to the Wind Festival and the Squamish Arts Council, and said there may be a chance that there will be a celebration next year to celebrate the midpoint of the beach park's construction.
FortisBC attending to customers without gas service today
Squamish residents no longer have to shelter in place in wake of gas leak
It is about to get chilly, Squamish


Both screenings at the ArcLight Cinemas in The Glen, Glenview.
Part of our 6th Annual Evening of Films By & About Women.
Q&A with visiting Israeli filmmaker Elad Wexler.
DIMONA TWIST TRAILER from Lama Films on Vimeo.
What happened during the 1950's and 60's to seven girls and women who arrived in Israel with their families from modern, cultured Morocco, Tunisia and Poland and found themselves plopped together in a development town (soon to be the home of Israel's nuclear reactor) in the middle of the Negev? (One of them upon seeing her new home remarked, "I think they're making a cowboy movie here.") With humor, dignity and sorrow, each of them looks back and talks about the pain of leaving their native country, about the challenges of adapting to their new country, Israel, as an immigrant, and about their determined attempts to create rich and meaningful lives. These intimate conversations are interwoven with stunning archival footage and music of the time.
Aviad successfully conveys the incredible fortitude of these women in the early stages of the State of Israel.


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Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for their support. I shall certainly take back the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, about publicity for the provisions of the census, particularly among ethnic communities. I am sure that that will be at the forefront of the minds of representatives of the Office for National Statistics.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Wandsworth Prison
The Earl of Longford rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what action they propose to take on the report of the Chief Inspector of Prisons on Wandsworth prison.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, I am sorry that my noble friend Lord McIntosh is leaving the Chamber, because I was going to pay him a compliment of a dubious character.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I shall stay for it.
The Earl of Longford: I am not so sure that he would welcome it. I visited Wandsworth prison not so long ago during the time of the previous governor. I said to him, "Hello Governor. In my eyes you are the ideal prison governor". He said, "Don't tell anybody that
16 Feb 2000 : Column 1309
because it would ruin my reputation". So I had better be careful about congratulating my noble friend on anything at all. It might damage his career, which is still in the melting pot, as I understand it. I am glad that he waited long enough to hear that. I am not going to say any more about my noble friend. He has gone anyway.
I am honoured and flattered that so many noble Lords have put their names down to speak in the debate, which is limited to one-and-a-half hours. We shall not have many minutes. Even the Minister will not have many minutes. I am nevertheless grateful. Perhaps the Government Whip, whom we respect so much, will inform me when I have overstepped my limit. I am allowed only 10 minutes, but of course I could go on for hours.
We are told in the Christian gospel, "Judge not, that ye be not judged", but it is impossible not to make a judgment here. The story of Wandsworth prison revealed to us by the much revered chief inspector is a terrible story. I do not know if it is any worse than that of Wormwood Scrubs, but at any rate it is extremely bad. We cannot restrict our criticisms to the prison or to the people in charge of it. One must remember that the Prison Service has a very bad record, as the report reveals. For six months the prison was left without a governor. That was the fault of the Prison Service. What was the Home Office doing?
Therefore, I am bound to put the question, of which I have given notice to the Minister: how far does the Minister accept responsibility for the failure--in this case, the signal failure--of the Prison Service? I hope that he will say that he accepts responsibility and that he will take steps to improve matters in the future. We have seen this dreadful report and we all look to the future rather than to the past.
Those of us who have been visiting prisoners for half a century know that Wandsworth has the reputation of being the worst prison. Many years ago when I visited Maidstone prison, I said on leaving to a prison officer, "I like this prison, you know"--which was a rather stupid and unwise thing to say--"I like this prison. I wouldn't mind being governor here". I shall not say exactly what he said in reply--he used rather stronger words than I can quote to your Lordships--but the gist was, "Any fool can manage this place. You wouldn't last five minutes at Wandsworth". Wandsworth had the reputation of being the worst prison. The Government are tackling that reputation head on and I give them full credit for facing up to it.
At last the story has been told in detail by our much respected Chief Inspector of Prisons. What are we going to do about it? We can all surely accept the general opinion of the chief inspector about what makes a healthy prison and what does not. One thing that does not make a healthy prison, which is brought out clearly in the report, is a situation in which the prisoners are frightened of the staff. There is something particular about the Wandsworth culture. I repeat that phrase because it is important in this connection--"the Wandsworth culture". I have known the Wandsworth culture for half a century. How on earth can it be put right?
I do not underestimate the task facing the Minister. I know that he cannot do it tomorrow, but I want to know how the Government are setting out to tackle the Wandsworth culture. I have met the chief inspector since the report was published. I had good talks with him and with the area manager. I am greatly impressed by what has been achieved in the area plan. I hope that the Minister will tell us about that in due course. The new plan is very good.
I visited the prison last week. I met the governor and deputy governor. Luckily, on my way into the prison I ran into the Catholic chaplain, whom I have known in the past. He told me that there has been a great change in the most criticised of all the departments--what was called the segregation unit. The Minister will tell us that it has been given a new name, which is important. I do not doubt the Minister. I want to be on the side of optimism. Things are happening there.
I do not want the Minister to feel that I am saying in a snide kind of way that I do not know at all what is going on there and that I do not like the smell of it. I do like the smell of it, but the point is, what is going to happen? It is a tremendous task to put right the horrible culture of half a century or more. How are the Government going to do it? The Chief Inspector has pointed the way. A change in management is needed. But how does one change the management without changing the managers?
The Home Office has changed the governor. I knew the previous governor. I liked him very much. I said to him, "In my view, you're a good governor". He said, "Don't tell anyone that. It would ruin my reputation". But he has now been moved. I have met the new governor and his deputy. I was very much impressed, as I have been impressed by the area manager too. There is a very impressive team in charge of the prison so I am asking the Minister to give them inspiration.
Above all, it is a hell of a task. Just before coming to the House--only this evening--I received a letter from the Prison Officers' Association. It is very easy to be nasty about the Prison Officers' Association and to blame everything on it. I do not do that. I am on its side. I should like to think that I am its friend, although I do not think it believes that I am. Nevertheless, the Prison Officers' Association is worried about the damage to the morale of the prison staff caused by these rather crucifying reports. We have to think of the prison staff. I am told--I know only what I read in the letter--that prisoners are attacking the prison officers more frequently as a result of the decline in prison officers' morale. I do not know whether that is true, but that is what I have been told. We have to face that fact. It is no use sitting here saying that everything can be altered. Over half a century the prison staff have treated prisoners in a certain way--I think in a rather bullying way. How are we going to alter that?
That is the great question before us. I know that the Minister means well and the Government mean well. I am on the side of all their efforts. It is a tremendous task. I look with hope to the Minister to tell us how they are going to set about it.
Baroness Linklater of Butterstone: My Lords, anyone who has an interest in what is going on in our prisons today will be extremely concerned by this report. For it represents an indictment of those with responsibility for the custody and care of the prisoners in their charge which reaches to the highest levels in the Prison Service, and their failure properly to discharge those responsibilities. The chief inspector has quite a lot to commend in Wandsworth, but overall he states that it is,
"far behind the vast majority of other prisons in civilising the treatment of and conditions for prisoners".
As a result, a situation has been allowed to develop in Wandsworth in which life has clearly become unacceptably difficult not only for the prisoners held there but also for many of the prison staff and others associated with the prison. That is intolerable for all concerned--and this includes us, my Lords, for we all have a duty of care for how our prisons are run.
The report is particularly concerned about the alarming culture of the prison--"the Wandsworth Way"--which underpins many of the other difficulties, a point referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Longford. The levels of overcrowding, which mirror the catastrophic rise in the prison population generally, coupled with budget cuts have compounded the problems. It makes most unhappy reading. However, I will concentrate on three particular aspects of the report.
I had a feeling of deja vu about some of the report's contents. The description of the way visits are handled, the attitudes to visitors--described as "despicable" by some, but not all staff--and the mismanagement of arrangements such as the booking system described in Wandsworth today reminded me of the time when I was involved in setting up the first visitors centre at Pentonville back in 1970. Then too visitors, mostly wives and children, were often treated as if they also were criminals when in reality they were more often victims. Then too it could take an hour or more to get into the visits room--plus ca change. When we started the centre it was a controversial idea to provide a service to these families, but it is a measure of progress that visitors centres are now part of the landscape. I am delighted that Wandsworth too has a visitors centre, which was highly praised in the chief inspector's report, so that visitors do have that degree of support. But, how people are treated by prison staff is also crucially important.
There is a clear understanding today that regular, positive contact between a prisoner and his family and friends is absolutely essential if prisons are to be manageable institutions. Thus, visits form a key part of the life of any prison. They maintain vital family links and contacts with the outside world, and are of huge importance to all prisoners. How their visitors are treated and how their visits go can make all the difference to the prisoners concerned, which in turn will impact on the atmosphere in a prison. Visits are never easy, but if properly and sensitively managed they result in prisoners being more relaxed and happier and ultimately that means a happier prison. This is
well understood in most prisons, and indeed in Scotland we have seen the introduction of the families contact development officer who spends his time in the visits area actively fostering good and positive relationships between visitors and the uniformed staff. I hope very much that the Minister will give serious consideration to developing this model in England. I should also like to ask what priority is given to spending on visitors facilities and centres when capital funding is being allocated.
The segregation unit also has a familiar ring about it, where the most disruptive, weakest or unpopular--notably sex offenders--are held and this is where the report is most critical. It reminds me of the infamous B Hall in Peterhead prison back in the mid-1980s when men were held in isolation, sometimes for months, by staff who wore riot gear at all times. Like Wandsworth today, it enjoyed a reputation as a hard prison, and that was its hardest feature. I am glad to say that B Hall is no more, and those men were satisfactorily dispersed. But the report refers to the,
"inhuman and reprehensible way that prisoners were treated"
in Wandsworth's segregation unit. That is unacceptable.
Just as the gate lodge and visits area of a prison is a barometer of the ethos of a prison in the way it presents itself to the outside world and deals with its visitors, so segregation units are a barometer of basic levels of care. If any level of abuse is occurring, this is where it is likely to be found. That is because of the very difficult nature of the prisoners held in these units, the fact that they are out of the mainstream of prison life and that they tend to be managed by the same staff team. While this can be helpful where there is good practice, if there is not, then they can go badly wrong. These units absolutely require regular supervision and it is imperative that the Government put strategies in place to deal with this very difficult and sensitive area. I ask the Minister what practical plans there are to deal with this problem.
The problems of management and supervision of these units is a symptom of a larger problem for the most senior management levels in the service, which is the need to give an appropriate, effective and clear lead in terms of strategies, goals and vision. It is all too easy to pin the blame on the staff on the ground, or the POA and the "sizeable minority" of staff who embody and perpetuate the tough, negative, aggressive and frightening culture that pervades the prison. That certainly and shockingly exists, and the high proportion of prisoners who feel unsafe or claim that they have been assaulted by staff--even if exaggerated--is unacceptable and cannot be allowed to continue. But a prison which has had periods without its new governor actually on the job in the prison for months at a time, but seconded elsewhere, cannot begin to have its problems addressed. That too was unacceptable.
There are members of staff at Wandsworth who try their best to be constructive and do their job effectively. Indeed, the chief inspector paid tribute to them and identified various areas of very good
practice. Having worked to set up and then run the Butler Trust back in 1985, which gives annual awards for outstanding work by staff throughout the prison services of the UK, I believe in the fundamental importance of maintaining standards and morale by recognising and promoting good practice by prison staff and disseminating it throughout the system. But to take that work forward, it must be in the context of clear and firm leadership from the top.
I welcome Jack Straw's initiative in inviting the noble Lord, Lord Laming, to look into the problems of failing prisons and how to identify them so that the Wandsworth abuses never recur. But I understand that he is being asked to report by the beginning of May and also has other commitments. So I should like to ask the Minister how he can possibly have time to make a meaningful report under those circumstances.
There is no quick or simple solution to the problems of Wandsworth. But simply on the indicators of those areas I have highlighted, it is not a healthy prison. I call on the Government to take urgent action to remedy this most shocking and worrying state of affairs.
The Lord Bishop of Lincoln: My Lords, we have already heard some of the concerns expressed in the wake of the chief inspector's unannounced visit to Wandsworth last July. I shall not repeat them, save to voice my own concern, as bishop to prisons, at what Sir David Ramsbotham found. Instead, I want to focus on two particular areas.
In his highly critical comments on the segregation unit at Wandsworth, the chief inspector mentions mentally disordered prisoners. It is well known that our over-burdened Prison Service has to deal with an unacceptably high level of mentally ill prisoners. As I have said previously in this House, a normal prison is no place to handle and house such people. It is totally unreasonable to expect ordinary prison officers to deal effectively with such inmates. That does not excuse filthy conditions or idleness, but it does help to illustrate the considerable pressure under which all prison staff are expected to work these days. I beg the Government, and the Minister in particular, to give urgent consideration to these matters.
Sir David says that what his team observed in the segregation unit confirmed his suspicions that the priorities of management are directed elsewhere than to the correct treatment and conditions of prisoners. Our prisons are bursting at the seams, and the Prison Service is obliged by government to give a high priority to budgets and key performance indicators. But we need also to recognise the importance of the quality of treatment and the conditions of prisoners. As Martin Narey, the director-general of the Prison Service told us in General Synod last November, for him, prisoners are ultimately about morality. In our anxieties about efficiency and costs, we need to remember that.
Secondly, I want to express concern about the chaplaincy at Wandsworth. Sir David refers to concerns about the facilities for worship for prisoners of all faiths and denominations in the vulnerable
prisoner unit. I am told that the prison's Anglican chapel is now used during the week by a charity running experiential social drama and teaching programmes about relationships. While one applauds the provision of such programmes, it means that during the week the chapel cannot be used for a service, groups, or for individual inmates with a chaplain to pray on the day of a funeral of a close friend or relative that the prisoner may not attend. Chaplains have to make arrangements to re-order the chapel on Saturday for Sunday worship. I can recognise the pressure on space in Wandsworth, but the fact that the mosque can only be reached through the chapel makes respect for sacred space for all traditions of faith difficult and causes concern.
More important is the entitlement of prisoners to practise their religion in Wandsworth. Men whose names are properly listed to attend chapel may not be unlocked, and so their name is not on the list of attendees and they lose a place. Each week, so I am told, numbers of prisoners are not able to attend because there is a restriction on numbers in the chapel, and staffing difficulties do not allow the provision of additional services. There is an attitude that the prisoner must apply and that worship is a kind of recreation, not a right. Clearly, that is an unsatisfactory state of affairs.
Wandsworth is a large local remand prison and its main function is to serve the courts by holding prisoners on remand and directly after sentence. The prison has to take what it is sent. That means that, in the main, the population is on the move continually. I know that staff often feel that Wandsworth "gets the dregs", and they cite examples of difficult prisoners being posted on to Wandsworth. All that gives some insight into the low morale of many officers. It does not encourage them to think creatively or to seek to depart from the "Wandsworth way" of doing things. It is a demoralising experience simply to be dealing with that turnover of difficult and demanding inmates. As the chief inspector rightly points out, Wandsworth shares many problems with other local prisons which are not of its own making.
It is hard, as the noble Earl, Lord Longford, said, to change a culture in a prison. However, the chief inspector told me only this week that, since the publication of his report, a new and impressive governor has been appointed to lead Wandsworth out of its difficulties. That, combined with a very good action plan by the area manager--a plan based on the inspectorate's concept of the healthy prison--should go a long way to turning Wandsworth round. All of us devoutly hope that that may be so.
Lord Judd: My Lords, first, I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Longford for once again giving us the opportunity to discuss this issue. I am one of those who believe that we shall be assessed by historians on the conditions of our prisons. It is said that prison conditions say a great deal about the underlying values of the society in which we live.
At the outset, I should like to underline that, in his report, the Chief Inspector of Prisons goes out of his way to say that there are good people working in the Prison Service in Wandsworth, people who are endeavouring to reach the highest standards and who deserve encouragement as well as inspired and firm leadership.
If we are looking at the seriousness of the report, it is important to place it in historical perspective. The task with which the Government, and those responsible to the Government, are confronted goes back a long way. It is more than 10 years since the Chief Inspector, Judge Tumim, in an inspection report, criticised the culture of staff neglecting prisoners and, subsequently, discipline staff walked out of the prison, blaming problems on "difficult prisoners" and police officers were drafted in to run the establishment.
In 1991, the Council of Europe condemned conditions at Wandsworth as "inhuman and degrading". In 1992, Wandsworth Community Health Council severely criticised the standard of healthcare in the prison, three years after the Chief Inspector of Prisons had made similar criticisms. In 1993, an inspection report described life for prisoners as "monotonous and tedious", with "completely inadequate" employment opportunities. Many prisoners were receiving less than one shower a week, and there was no inmate association. In 1997, a Board of Visitors' report criticised education and healthcare provision, and indeed the local Prison Officers' Association then demanded the removal of passages in the report that were critical of staff.
In 1999 the Wandsworth Board of Visitors criticised overcrowding, budget cuts, low staffing levels, lack of middle management and the fact that, on more than one occasion, the prison had been left without a governor for several months. That is a sad history and a very difficult situation for the present team to turn round. I hope that the message which goes out from tonight's debate is not negative but one that encourages and supports them to try to make this prison a model rather than one which continues in the "Wandsworth way".
Having said that, perhaps the Minister in his reply can deal with several specific points, some of which have already been mentioned, and reassure us. I very much agree with the right reverend Prelate that it is a tragedy--I use that word advisedly--that in so many of our prisons people should not be there at all because basically they are mentally ill. It would be good to hear reassuring comments from the Minister this evening that the Government have that issue in hand and are determined to do something about it. At another level, I was very concerned to read that there were two immigration detainees--it was a small number--in this prison. Why on earth were they in this awful place? I should like to have a specific assurance from the Minister that never again will an immigration detainee find himself in Wandsworth.
There are also disturbing observations in the report that staff did not know how many foreign nationals were in the prison and there were communication
difficulties because of language. I should like a reassurance from the Minister that something specific is being done about that. The chief inspector also talked about racism. I suspect that in this context he was not talking primarily about the staff. This is a pernicious problem which must be tackled head on. It would also be of assistance to have a reassurance from the Minister on that matter.
I was concerned to hear that last year there were 305 instances of self-harm in Wandsworth. What is being done about that? I totally agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, that we must have evidence from the Minister that the issues surrounding the segregation unit are being tackled and that arrangements for visitors are being made, or should be. Of all that I have learnt about rehabilitation, relationships with families are of crucial importance.
Perhaps the most important issue of all is that it is impossible to read the report without drawing the conclusion that here we have too big and impersonal a prison with all its problems of overcrowding and so on. If there is a future strategy for our prisons it will be of assistance to know that we shall not continue to run establishments of this size which in many ways make it virtually impossible to manage them. I recognise that this situation has been inherited by those with current responsibility, and we want to support them in finding a way forward. However, firm leadership is necessary and that must start with the Government. For that reason, I ask my noble friend to provide specific reassurances on the points that I have raised.
There is one basic point on which I should like to hear the thinking of the Minister. Like others, I have great respect for him and his colleagues in all that they seek to do. I believe that a government that seek to be judged by the toughness and effectiveness of their penal policy must have the challenge of rehabilitation at the top of their priorities. It must be understood that wrongdoing is not acceptable and will be punished, but the challenge is to turn the wrongdoers into decent, positive citizens.
The question is: how does one bring them back into mainstream life so that they make a constructive contribution? The desperately sad fact to emerge from the report is that there is evidence that people are being turned into hardened criminals with little chance of playing a positive part in society and taking an altogether different approach to life on their release. It is not only a matter of what happens in prison but of what arrangements are made to ensure that people are not just dumped back into society. They must be taken by the hand and led back into society so that they can reconstruct their lives. That approach must be based on the underlying culture and expectations of the Prison Service. We have heard about leadership. However, I should like to hear the Minister tell the House specifically what is being done to re-express the culture of the Prison Service so that the challenge of rehabilitation is seen as the principal vocational task of all those who on our behalf look after people in our prisons, which is no easy task.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, Holloway, Feltham, Wormwood Scrubs and now Wandsworth have been the subject of scarifying reports which in the old days would have been enough to see the departure of the Home Secretary. Since the previous Home Secretary managed to hive off the responsibility to the director-general, nowadays almost anything can happen in the Prison Service without disturbing the equilibrium of Queen Anne's Gate. Every time the chief inspector comes out with a hard-hitting report it is greeted with an air of injured surprise in the eyes of Queen Anne's Gate. In the last case the Minister, commenting on the report at the Prison Service annual conference at Harrogate, said:
"We cannot continue to experience the sort of failures that have occurred in the Scrubs and Wandsworth ... in which all those agencies and systems that you would expect to alert the Board [to] problems seem not to have done so".
If there is an absence of an effective early warning system which causes management and the Minister to be caught on the hop in trying to explain to the media why they are unaware of what goes on in their prisons it is about time they found one. It is probable that one of the agencies that the Minister had in mind was the board of visitors. The board has a duty under Rule 77 to,
"direct the attention of the governor to any matter which calls for his attention, and shall report to the Secretary of State any matter which [it considers] it expedient to report".
It also has the quite separate duty to,
"inform the Secretary of State immediately of any abuse which comes to [its] knowledge".
Why does that system not provide an adequate early warning of trouble at Wandsworth or anywhere else?
First and foremost, I suggest that the reports are not read properly by anybody except the chief inspector, who picks up criticisms and expresses them in his own inimitable style. I shall demonstrate that in the case of Wandsworth. Secondly, the reporting duties of boards of visitors are not clearly defined. For some years I have tried to persuade Ministers that the boards should be required to produce annual reports and make them available to the media and the public. In the last year for which we have figures, 132 boards submitted annual reports to the Minister and only 94 of them were published. Will the Minister now place a duty on boards of visitors to publish annual reports, and will he ask them to report specifically on issues which are the main causes of problems?
Apart from routinely reporting to the Secretary of State any matter which they think it expedient to report, boards of visitors have the duty to inform the Minister "immediately" of any abuse which comes to their knowledge. I suggested to the previous Minister that the wording of this provision needed to be clarified because of the vagueness of the term "abuse" and the necessity to investigate whatever allegation might have been made, rather than bombarding the Secretary of State with every allegation which might turn out to be malicious or ill-founded.
In September 1998 the noble and learned Lord, Lord Williams, agreed that there might be a need to look at the wording of that rule. He thought that in the mean time it would be helpful if the national director issued guidance to boards of visitors on the point. But I noticed that the new rules published last year remain unchanged. I asked why the opportunity had not then been taken to make the drafting alterations. The noble Lord who is to respond this evening replied that only a consolidation exercise had been undertaken, plus a few obvious deletions such as the removal of provisions dealing with prisoners sentenced to death. However, the noble Lord undertook to ask the secretariat of the board of visitors to issue guidance to boards on how to interpret that rule until such time as it may be amended. Can the Minister say anything further on that? What are the circumstances in which boards would be required to communicate their knowledge of abuses occurring in their prison directly to the Secretary of State?
There are plenty of warnings in the 1997 and 1998 reports of the Wandsworth board of visitors. The Minister was not being entirely fair to the board when he claimed that all the responsible agencies had remained silent. They dealt with a number of issues raised later in perhaps rather stronger language by Sir David. At the beginning of the report, it commented adversely on the fact, as noted by my noble friend Lady Linklater, that the previous governing governor, Graham Clark, retired in June 1998 but his successor arrived four months later in October. Even then he was apparently taken out to act as area manager leaving the prison without a governing governor for six months. The board described that as unfortunate and said that the gap led to "a lack of direction". So no one can say that he was not told.
Sir David now says that he has criticised Prison Service senior management again and again for allowing that to happen, as one of the reasons for failing the prison. We do not need the noble Lord, Lord Laming, to tell us that. It is already in the report.
The board drew attention again to the problems created by the presence of a large foreign population in the prison--it was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Judd--with no resources to match. On average in that year there were 120 prisoners, or about 10 per cent of the population in the prison. However, at the time of the chief inspector's visit, the number had doubled to 250. Their needs were largely being ignored. The staff did not know how many foreigners there were on their wings, their nationality, or the languages they spoke. To deal humanely with those prisoners, one would have to provide interpreters, and meet the prisoners' dietary and religious needs. They might need reading material in their own language. They might need teaching by qualified ESL teachers. It is not satisfactory to dump the job of assessing those needs on the shoulders of one part-time race relations officer, however competent he may be.
To put that situation right would cost money. Yet governors have the same amount to spend per head on all prisoners irrespective of their nationality. I suggest to the Minister that we need a supplement, an extra
payment, to governors to cover the needs I have mentioned where there is a large number of foreign nationals in the prison.
Last November I sent the Minister an analysis of foreign nationals in our prisons in March 1996 and September 1999. It indicated that the number of foreigners in our prisons is increasing even faster than British nationals. Bearing in mind the cost of keeping these prisoners in custody, I asked whether we could undertake a study to determine the reasons for the increase and to consider the possibility that the courts make greater use of suspended sentences with a recommendation for deportation; and whether the arrangements for repatriation of sentenced persons are working properly and expeditiously. Whether or not the Government agree to my suggested terms of reference, we should not turn a blind eye to a phenomenon which has important implications for both the criminal justice and the penal systems.
Finally, one way to improve the early warning of failing prisons would be to upgrade the standards of professionalism and competence of the boards of visitors. The training of board members is not well designed. The courses are not tailored to meet the needs of different kinds of establishment. They have no module on alleged abuse and what to do about it. They have no training on the Human Rights Act. The subject matter is geared to trained volunteers relying on their own experience. Some boards would like to see IIP accreditation, but that would require support from the Minister and the directorate.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Longford, for initiating a debate on the Wandsworth prison report. Wandsworth is one of four significant prisons in my diocese and my colleagues and I share an active interest in the life and health of people there. I was therefore very concerned about the criticisms of Wandsworth made in the chief inspector's report.
As we have heard, Wandsworth prison, both within the service and outside, has the reputation of being a hard place able to handle prisoners who have proved difficult to handle elsewhere. They were sent to Wandsworth and Wandsworth handled them without too many questions being asked. That was the "Wandsworth way".
The chief inspector's report questions whether the remnant of the Wandsworth way has any place in a modern penal system. In particular, the report makes criticisms of the regime in the segregation unit where some of what the chief inspector calls "the worst and the weakest prisoners" were wont to show up. He says:
"Never have I had to write about anything so inhuman and reprehensible as the way that prisoners, some of them seeking protection and some of them mentally disordered, were treated in the filthy and untidy segregation unit".
The chief inspector adds that those visiting the unit, including chaplains and doctors, should ask themselves why they did not do enough to stop what was going on.
I am in no position to respond to the accusation concerning Wandsworth. But I can tell a story from another prison in a different part of the country which might indicate why criticisms are sometimes muted. The story concerns a young prison chaplain who made several complaints about the harshness of a regime in a wing where vulnerable prisoners were being held. An accusation of sexual misbehaviour by the chaplain was then made and he was suspended. The police were eventually informed and within a short time came to the conclusion that the accusation had been concocted. Nevertheless, it took several months before the chaplain's suspension was lifted and he was then moved to another prison.
I was closely involved in the case and have no doubt that the whole episode was engineered in order to move someone who was perceived to be a troublesome member of staff. Will that chaplain complain again about anything he sees which disturbs him? I doubt it. Will he keep his head down and just get on with his job without complaint? Very probably.
The report is quite correct. In the absence of firm management, inexperienced staff become resigned to decisions being taken by the dominant officer of the day on the wing. And woe betide the member of staff or prisoner who steps out of line.
The report makes many recommendations, and the noble Earl rightly wishes to know how these issues are being addressed. A diocesan bishop is in a privileged position. He can turn up at the gatehouse of any prison in his diocese unannounced and has the right of admission. It is a right rarely used. We usually make an appointment like most civilised folk. However, last night, in order to address the noble Earl's Question I thought it right to show up unannounced at the gate of Wandsworth prison at six o'clock and ask to be taken to the segregation unit. To be honest, I was expecting to be depressed by what I found. On the contrary, I was much encouraged. The unit has been completely redecorated, a new kitchen has been installed, and new showers are in the process of being fitted. While not spotless, the floors and the washbasins are no dirtier than those in the average student accommodation.
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Aaron Judge hits 35th home run, Yankees top Indians 8-1
Aaron Judge belted his 35th home run of the season in an 8-1 Yankee's win on Sunday. [Image via MLB/YouTube]
New York's rookie continues to rack up impressive stats down the stretch of the season.
by Matthew Couden (article) and Milos Kitanovic (video)
August 6, 2017 at 5:27 PM August 6, 2017 at 5:27 PM
Among Sunday's MLB results were the new york yankees defeating the Cleveland Indians. MLB rookie Aaron Judge continues to look like a future star in the league. On Sunday, Judge recorded his 35th home run of the season as part of an 8-1 win for the Yankees. The team also gained great pitching from Luis Servino and a key performance from Jacoby Ellsbury. Here's the latest MLB game recap including top performers, stats, and what's next for the two teams.
MLB game recap
Several players factored into today's impressive 8-1 win for the New York Yankees. Among them was rookie right fielder Aaron Judge.
The rookie sensation had just one hit, but it was a big one as he blasted a three-run homer in the seventh inning. That gave the young star his 35th on the season which is just one behind home run leader Giancarlo Stanton. The Miami Marlins star has 36 so far this MLB season.
.@TheJudge44 is redefining the term "frozen rope." pic.twitter.com/towkcY6xC4
— MLB (@MLB) August 6, 2017
Teammate Jacoby Ellsbury also added three RBIs on the day on his two hits. Also coming up big for the team was pitcher Luis Severino who had nine strikeouts over 6.2 innings of pitching. Severino picked up the win to move to 9-4 on the season as he gave up just the one home run to Michael Brantley today.
The Cleveland Indians were limited to just two hits for the day including Brantley's ninth home run in the first inning.
Edwin Incarnation recorded the only other hit for the day. Coming up with the loss for the pitching staff was Carlos Carrasco who struck out six batters but gave up five runs over a bit more than five innings.
The win by the NY Yankees' today gave the two teams a 2-2 split over their recent four-game series. Right now, the Yankees and the Royals are the top two wild card teams in the American League, with Tampa Bay and Seattle each about three to four games behind them.
Standings & what's next
With today's win, the New York Yankees are now 59-51 overall and 27-31 when playing away from home. The team is currently three games behind the Boston Red Sox for the American League East lead. Next up for the Yankees is an away game against the Blue Jays in Toronto with game time set for 7:07 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday night.
The Cleveland Indians fall to 59-50 with today's loss. However, the team still leads the American League Central division by 2.5 games over the Kansas City Royals. Next up for Cleveland will be a home game against the Colorado Rockies. That game is scheduled for Tuesday night beginning at 7:10 p.m. Eastern Time.
As of the latest MLB future odds from Vegas Insider, the Indians are tied with the Cubs for third overall in terms of favorites to win the 2017 World Series with odds of 27 to 4. The Yankees rank fifth on the list with 17 to 2 odds, just ahead of the Boston Red Sox (9 to 1).
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Matthew Couden
Matt Couden has worked as a freelance writer online for several years now. Among the topics he has covered are sports including NBA, NFL, and college, as well as WWE professional wrestling.
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Design patterns are solutions to recurring problems; guidelines on how to tackle certain problems.
Conformity to patterns is not a measure of goodness.
Do not try to force them; bad things are supposed to happen, if done so. Keep in mind that design patterns are solutions to problems, not solutions finding problems; so don't overthink.
Do we need them all? Maybe there are a few principles we may use instead?
Principles: SOLID, DRY, KISS, YAGNI.
Simple factory simply generates an instance for client without exposing any instantiation logic to the client.
Consider, you are building a house and you need doors. It would be a mess if every time you need a door, you put on your carpenter clothes and start making a door in your house. Instead you get it made from a factory.
Use when creating an object is not just a few assignments and involves some logic, it makes sense to put it in a dedicated factory instead of repeating the same code everywhere.
Provides a way to delegate the instantiation logic to child classes.
The essence of this pattern is to "Define an interface for creating an object, but let the classes that implement the interface decide which class to instantiate. The Factory method lets a class defer instantiation to subclasses [Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software from the Gang Of Four].
Useful when there is some generic processing in a class but the required sub-class is dynamically decided at runtime. Or putting it in other words, when the client doesn't know what exact sub-class it might need.
Abstract Factory has more then one factory methods.
Each of the methods creates a different kind of object.
We can select methods behavior by selecting particular factory.
Abstract Factory is used when you need to create a family of objects that do some work together.
Based on your needs you might get a wooden door from a wooden door shop, iron door from an iron shop or a PVC door from the relevant shop. Plus you might need a guy with different kind of specialities to fit the door, for example a carpenter for wooden door, welder for iron door etc. As you can see there is a dependency between the doors now, wooden door needs carpenter, iron door needs a welder etc.
Use when there are interrelated dependencies with not-that-simple creation logic involved.
Instead of using numerous constructors use only one + methods to modify it.
Imagine you are at Hardee's and you order a specific deal, lets say, "Big Hardee" and they hand it over to you without any questions; this is the example of simple factory. But there are cases when the creation logic might involve more steps. For example you want a customized Subway deal, you have several options in how your burger is made e.g what bread do you want? what types of sauces would you like? What cheese would you want? etc. In such cases builder pattern comes to the rescue.
Use when there could be several flavors of an object and to avoid the constructor telescoping. The key difference from the factory pattern is that; factory pattern is to be used when the creation is a one step process while builder pattern is to be used when the creation is a multi step process.
Remember dolly? The sheep that was cloned! Lets not get into the details but the key point here is that it is all about cloning.
Use when an object is required that is similar to existing object or when the creation would be expensive as compared to cloning.
Singleton pattern is actually considered an anti-pattern and overuse of it should be avoided. It is not necessarily bad and could have some valid use-cases but should be used with caution because it introduces a global state in your application and change to it in one place could affect in the other areas and it could become pretty difficult to debug. The other bad thing about them is it makes your code tightly coupled plus it mocking the singleton could be difficult.
Consider that you have some pictures in your memory card and you need to transfer them to your computer. In order to transfer them you need some kind of adapter that is compatible with your computer ports so that you can attach memory card to your computer. In this case card reader is an adapter. Another example would be the famous power adapter; a three legged plug can't be connected to a two pronged outlet, it needs to use a power adapter that makes it compatible with the two pronged outlet. Yet another example would be a translator translating words spoken by one person to another.
Consider you have a website with different pages and you are supposed to allow the user to change the theme. What would you do? Create multiple copies of each of the pages for each of the themes or would you just create separate theme and load them based on the user's preferences? Bridge pattern allows you to do the second i.e.
If something is ugly, hide it inside an object.
This design pattern aggregates classes that implement the functionality of the subsystem but does not hide them completely. Should not add any new functionality, just simplify the access to a system.
Goal: make a software library easier to use, understand and test.
Relates to: State (or State provider), Surrogate. Proxy is used to control access to its implementation, while State allows you to change the implementation dynamically. Surrogate - uses for both (controlling access to implementation).
A Proxy is a design pattern that helps to decouple the client code from the object that the client code uses. Proxy acts like a real object but delegates all calls to the real object.
Have you ever used an access card to go through a door? There are multiple options to open that door i.e. it can be opened either using access card or by pressing a button that bypasses the security. The door's main functionality is to open but there is a proxy added on top of it to add some functionality. Let me better explain it using the code example below.
It is concerned with assignment of responsibilities between the objects. What makes them different from structural patterns is they don't just specify the structure but also outline the patterns for message passing/communication between them. Or in other words, they assist in answering "How to run a behavior in software component?"
Choosing the operation at runtime.
A generic example would be you ordering a food at restaurant. You (i.e. Client) ask the waiter (i.e. Invoker) to bring some food (i.e. Command) and waiter simply forwards the request to Chef (i.e. Receiver) who has the knowledge of what and how to cook. Another example would be you (i.e. Client) switching on (i.e. Command) the television (i.e. Receiver) using a remote control (Invoker).
Mediator pattern adds a third party object (called mediator) to control the interaction between two objects (called colleagues). It helps reduce the coupling between the classes communicating with each other. Because now they don't need to have the knowledge of each other's implementation.
Or State provide. See Proxy.
Defines the basis of an algorithm and enables successors to redefine some steps of the algorithm without changing its structure.
There is a method that calls some other methods. Some of these methods remain the same for different algorithms and some may be changed.
CAR_NAME = "No belts car"
Pattern in which an object, called the subject, maintains a list of its dependents, called observers, and notifies them automatically of any state changes, usually by calling one of their methods.
Tries to facilitate one-to-many relationship in software engineering. Reduces coupling between objects.
We need smart models, thin controllers and dumb views.


text:
/**
 * Simplified MapReduce engine.
 */
package com.asakusafw.runtime.mapreduce.simple;

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Tim McGraw and Itzhak Perlman Join The McKnight Center For The Performing Arts' Grand Re-Opening Weekend
Country music superstar, Tim McGraw headlines the celebration on Friday, Oct. 8, followed by Emmy Award-winning violinist, Itzhak Perlman on Saturday, Oct. 9.
by Stephi Wild Sep. 30, 2021
The McKnight Center for the Performing Arts at Oklahoma State University will kick off its grand re-opening weekend on Oct. 8-10, bringing award-winning stars to Stillwater, Okla. Country music superstar, Tim McGRaw headlines the celebration on Friday, Oct. 8, followed by Emmy Award-winning violinist, Itzhak Perlman on Saturday, Oct. 9, and Broadway's Brian Stokes Mitchell and Megan Hilty on Sunday, Oct. 10.
"The McKnight Center's upcoming season will be incredible. We know audiences have missed seeing live concerts during the pandemic, which is why we aimed to reopen with an unforgettable lineup of performers," said The McKnight Center's Marilynn and Carl Thoma Executive Director Mark Blakeman. "We are proud to bring such high caliber talent to the Center. Guests at all shows will enjoy a unique concert experience at The McKnight Center, as no seat is more than 100 feet from the stage. The intimacy of the center combined with our state-of-the-art acoustics make every guest feel like a VIP."
Tim McGRaw performs on Friday, Oct. 8 at 7:30 p.m. His visit to The McKnight Center is significant, as he typically plays in arenas and massive outdoor venues. The McKnight Center offers an intimate viewing environment and boasts not a bad seat in the house. All tickets to Tim McGRaw include a celebratory reception before and after the concert, complimentary parking in the adjacent garage, and a gift bag of souvenir items.
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Itzhak Perlman takes The McKnight Center stage on Saturday, Oct. 9 at 7:30 p.m. Bringing a solo concert to the stage, the well-decorated violinist will show the audience his charm and artistry.
Tony Award-winner Brian Stokes Mitchell and award-winning actress and singer, Megan Hilty, will close out the weekend with Broadway Songbook on Sunday, Oct. 10 at 3:00 p.m. This performance will feature memorable musical theater songs, performed by Broadway's most iconic performers.
"The McKnight Center is dedicated to attracting celebrated national and international programs with notable performing arts productions and artists. We are thrilled to welcome back our audience and celebrate our grand reopening with them," continued Blakeman.
Opening weekend kicks off The McKnight Center's 2021-2022 season, which includes performances by Bernadette Peters, Philadelphia Orchestra, Sarah Coburn and more. To purchase tickets or to learn more about the upcoming season, please visit mcknightcenter.orgor call 405-744-9999.
COVID-19 Safety Precautions
The McKnight Center has enhanced health and safety measures to keep guests, artists and employees safe. Any concert presented as a McKnight Center season event may require any combination of a face mask, proof of vaccination, or a negative COVID-19 test, depending on the requirements set by each visiting artist. These requirements will chance from event to event. For specifics regarding COVID-19 safety guidelines, please click here.
Tim McGRaw: Face masks are expected while indoors, regardless of vaccination status.
Itzhak Perlman and Broadway Songbook with Brian Stokes Mitchell and Megan Hilty: All guests must show proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID-19 test for entrance to the concert. Tests must be performed by a medical profession within 72 hours of the performance start time. Masks are required for all guests, regardless of vaccination status.
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Lyric Theatre's Thelma Gaylord Academy To Compete At National Performing Arts Festival In Florida
Students from Lyric Theatre's Thelma Gaylord Academy have been selected to compete at the prestigious National Performing Arts Festival next month in Florida. This marks the first time a group from Oklahoma will perform at the festival.
Winners Announced For The 2022 BroadwayWorld Oklahoma Awards
The winners have been announced for the 2022 BroadwayWorld Oklahoma Awards, honoring the best in regional productions, touring shows, and more which had their first performance between October 1, 2021 through September 30, 2022.
Storyteller Theatre to Return to the Stage With ANNE OF GREEN GABLES in February
Storyteller Theatre is making a comeback after their COVID closure in 2020 with a new brick-and-mortar location within the former Old Moore High School with Anne of Green Gables.
Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma Announces 2023 Season Featuring THE PROM, THE SOUND OF MUSIC & More
Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma will celebrate its 60th anniversary season this year with seven spectacular performances at the beloved Plaza Theatre and majestic Civic Center Music Hall.
Students from Lyric Theatre's Thelma Gaylord Academy have been selected to compete at the prestigious National Performing Arts Festival next month in Florida.
AIN'T TOO PROUD National Tour Comes to Tulsa PAC in April
Single tickets for the twelve-time Tony nominated Broadway smash hit musical AIN'T TOO PROUD - THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE TEMPTATIONS, went on sale Friday, January 13th at 10:30am.
48 Regional Awards Programs to Participate in 14th Jimmy Awards
Interview: Jessica Vosk Launches MY GOLDEN AGE Concert Tour
Oklahoma SHOWS
Lyric's A Christmas Carol
Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma (11/24-12/24)
Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma (7/25-7/30)
Storyteller Theatre (2/23-3/05)
Oklahoma City Repertory Theater (2/23-3/05)
Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma (9/13-10/01)
The Brothers Size
Shrek The Musical Jr
Chickasha Comm Theatre (6/22-7/02)
Disney's Frozen Kids
Ada Cougar Activities Center (8/22-8/22)
The Prom
Singin' In The Rain Jr.
Christ The King School (4/08-4/08)
The Play That Goes Wrong
A Company of Wayward Saints
Jewel Box Theatre (2/02-2/19)
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Tax Notes Today Quotes Mark Allison: Tax Court Retains Jurisdiction Over Worker Classification Case
April 4, 2014, Tax Notes
Tax Notes Today spoke with Mark D. Allison concerning the U.S. Tax Court maintaining its jurisdiction over a worker classification case. The IRS argued that the court lacked jurisdiction because a notice of determination of worker classification was not issued. For the complete article, please visit Tax Notes Today's website (subscription required).
Excerpt taken from the article "Tax Court Retains Jurisdiction Over Worker Classification Case" by Matthew R. Madara for Tax Notes Today.
Mark D. Allison of Caplin & Drysdale called the decision "fascinating" and said it should serve as a wake-up call to practitioners as they think about Tax Court jurisdiction. Practitioners generally view the court's jurisdiction as deriving from statutory-based deadlines, and the notion that jurisdiction can be created by "any mailing that purports to create a controversy in a particular context" adds a new wrinkle to that thinking, he said.
According to Allison, the decision has another lesson for the IRS: The Service will have to pay closer attention to the title and nature of the notices it issues and the method by which it issues them. The IRS clearly thought the notice would trigger jurisdiction only if it was sent certified or registered mail as required under section 7436(b). Now, though, the agency must appreciate that "they can by their own actions inadvertently give an opportunity for jurisdiction where they may not have understood or intended to do so," he said.
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As you can see, these two channels cover the entire list. For some companies, these channels are vital to the companies' growth, driving most of the acquired users. So, exploring these channels and scaling them should be a top priority for any consumer company growth team. In this 2 post series, I'm going to talk about how each of the channels are tackled by these unicorns and how to determine if your company has product-channel fit with each of these channels.
I'd also like to note that paid is also a part of most of these companies' acquisition strategy but usually is not a big portion at this scale, since it is hard (and expensive) to generate millions of users through paid. I don't really consider paid a "scalable" channel due to this.
The reason why SEO is such an effective scaled growth channel is the sheer number of searches done per day with high intent. Google processes over 3.5 billion searches per day, which can be thought of as 3.5 billion chances per day to show up for free to a user. In addition, it scales very well since the costs don't scale with the amount of acquired users, so your effective "CAC" goes should decrease over time.
The main requirement to be able to do SEO at scale (1M sessions/day) is to have a growing base of quality user generated text content. Let's break this down into 4 parts: growing, quality, user-generated, and text content.
The first key part is that content base grows. Internet search trends can change a lot over time, and it's important to have fresh content to capture new search terms that may not have been that popular before. A lot of search term modifications that favor more recent content, like "new" or "in 2019". In addition, a lot of mobile search results seem to favor recency especially for AMP pages.
Why user generated instead of generated in house? It's hard to reach the massive scale of quality content needed to hit big numbers by doing content in house. Usually a large percentage of your pages won't contribute significantly to your SEO so it's important to be able to make up for that with scale. The number of pages needed to hit 1M SEO traffic/day is usually in the 10 or 100 thousands, if not more.
Quality text content is the most valuable type of content for SEO because it's the kind of content Googlebot understands the best. It's the one of the reason why wikipedia results rank so high, because they usually have the most quality text content about a given topic. While images are also helpful, usually this is only if the type of images you have are common queries on Image search. This is also why most scaled landing pages have a lot of items on them, in order to increase the text footprint of the page. It makes sense that having quality text content increases traffic because in order to rank for a specific query, that text must be in your web page somewhere. By having more text, you are "in the running" for a wider array of queries.
If your product produces a growing base of quality user generated text content, SEO has good product-channel fit for you and should be a top growth priority. Next week, I'm going to talk about the other popular scaled growth channels for unicorns: referrals. Make sure to subscribe to get new posts sent directly to your email!


text:
Webster Wagner Home Update
2013MVC
Tags: Update, Webster Wagner
This weekend, a public auction was held in Hudson, NY that led to the selling off much of what remained of the Webster Wagner mansion. The auction contained "architectural features, Victorian furniture, lighting decorator items, [and] china glassware from the mansion." This is an important moment for the Mohawk Valley and our organization. While it is good to see that some of the artifacts from the house were saved and can be treasured by future generations, this does not ignore the tragedy of the Webster Wagner house that we saw unfold over the past several decades. The house was once one of the most prominent architectural gems of the Mohawk Valley, a true sight to behold from Palatine Bridge or Canajoharie. Through Webster Wagner, it was closely tied to the industrial and entrepreneurial heritage of our communities. Despite its importance, the building slowly crumbled in front of our eyes. The Mohawk Valley Collective will try to pick up the pieces (literally in this case) to preserve at least a shadow of our once grand heritage.
Wagner Home in 2013, photo by Carl Reid, Flickr.com
The Webster Wagner house was special to everyone that knew it, in a way that you would find an excuse to pass by, or stop momentarily to admire it. We all shared a sense of "I love that house," but to each of us the feeling was very personal, as if we were its sole secret admirer. The spirit of Webster Wagner, the innovative inventor, manufacturer, and politician, was inherently embedded in the building, and you could almost feel a grand, energetic personality radiating from the mansion. According to its National Register listing, the mansion "illustrates the monumental aspirations of a self-made millionaire-inventor" while being "typical of the grandiose houses of the 1870s." The building was designed in 1876 by Syracuse architect Horatio Nelson White. Interestingly, White was a mentor to another local architect, Archimedes Russell, who designed Canajoharie's West Hill School. For years, the two buildings faced each other from across the Mohawk River: one by teacher, one by student.
Drawing of Wagner Home in 1878, photo uploaded to Flickr.com by user Carolyn.
While the destruction of the mansion is tragic, we recognize that there was little that could be done to prevent it. Although the house was listed on the National Register in 1973, the listing had little effect. The designation allowed owners to apply for historic tax credits (HTCs), but could do nothing to stop 30 years of neglect and disinvestment. The Webster Wagner house was well built, but because it was composed mostly of wood and limestone, it deteriorated quickly. Historic wooden houses need a certain level of maintenance to survive. They need to be repainted every two or three years, checked periodically for water or termite infiltration, parts that have rotted away replaced. This seasonal maintenance can maintain a wooden house indefinitely, in the same way you can pass down your grandfather's axe to the next generation ("This is my grandfather's axe, only that the handle has been replaced five times and the head twice").
Webster Wagner House in 2014, with porch collapsed, photo by MVC staff.
While there is little to do now, the loss of the Webster Wagner mansion highlights a major problem. We would like to thank the mayor and board of Palatine Bridge, who went above an beyond their necessary duty to try to protect this house. Unfortunately, there was only so much that they were able to do within the legal framework. If this house, which was so special to so many of us, can be destroyed by neglect, what is there in place to protect lesser, more personal buildings? (not to mention the other elephant in the room in Canajoharie). It is our goal as a preservation non-profit to advocate and protect for these buildings, but we got into this battle at the end of the fourth quarter. The real question for us, and for the community, is where do we go from here?
Webster Wagner Crumbling in 2016, photo by MVC staff.


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THE AVENGERS COMIC BOOK THAT BECAME AN AWESOME SET OF GAMES
David Andrews April 11, 2016 GAMES
When Stan Lee first assembled the Avengers way back in the early sixties, I bet you anything he never thought they'd grow into the mass franchise they've become today. 'I wanted to make superheroes that were fun and people could relate to', Stan once said, 'and that's one of the main reasons why I based them in New York as opposed to some fictitious city nobody's heard of'.
And do you know what? He did just that, didn't he? He made an array of colourful characters of all shapes and sizes that we all know and love. So much so that nowadays you can hardly budge an inch without bumping into some sort of Thunder God, Web Slinger, Metallic Marvel, or Patriotic Captain.
Just the other day I was playing one of those amazing online slots games and I remembered another game I used to play in my youth. Marvel Vs Capcom was the name of the game, and although technically not a pure Avengers game, this one-on-one Street Fighter style combat simulator really got me hooked into the whole beat-em-up gaming scene. In fact, I was so hooked by it, now that I own a brand spanking new Iphone I continue playing with my mates at marvel in a game called Marvel: Avengers Alliance 2, a strategy based game which I can't stop messing about with by tapping, clicking, and moving my much beloved hero to do action A on enemy B.
Also, let's not forget about some of the other Avengers games out on the market. Like LEGO Marvel Avengers for instance: Obviously a Lego themed Avenger platform game for kids of a certain age. Then there are games like MARVEL Avengers Academy or Avengers Battle For Earth: Two similarly-styled combat / strategy games that take two different approaches with their manner of gameplay. Where Academy is concerned it's all talk and click, and where BOF is concerned it's all punch and slap. On top of that, I have to mention another Avengers game, non video based, entitled Avengers Monopoly. I mean, what's not to like about two people beating each other up over what house is placed on what square? It's a classic! But please be warmed, don't play it with my cousin Jimmy, OK? Because you wouldn't like him when he's angry; he's even meaner than Avengers in Galactic Storm: Another beat-em-up styled fighting game made by Data East back in the nineties, ha!
Now if you don't mind me for asking, but what is your favorite Avengers game, dear reader? Is it among any of those I mentioned up above? Or can you think of something better I failed to acknowledge? Well, whatever the case may be, please don't hesitate to drop me a message below. I always like to know a bit more about gaming and what you nice people enjoy, plus it would give us an excuse to enlighten each other on our own gaming knowledge. Agreed, Avengers?
THE AVENGERS COMIC BOOK THAT BECAME AN AWESOME SET OF GAMES Reviewed by David Andrews on April 11, 2016 Rating: 5


text:
Q: r data.table set key column length error I have a data set about microblog like this:
uid mid annotations bmiddle_pic created_at  favorited   geo in_reply_to_screen_name in_reply_to_status_id   in_reply_to_user_id original_pic    reTweetId   reUserId    source  thumbnail_pic   truncated   dateTime    year    month   date
2025135630  3431909076450860            Fri Apr 06 20:12:27 +0800 2012  FALSE   None    NA  NA  NA      3.42867E+15 1292317643  Android???      FALSE   6/4/12 20:12    2012    4   6
1707427294  3439478742005300            Fri Apr 27 17:31:36 +0800 2012  FALSE   None    NA  NA  NA      3.43689E+15 1717022775  ???????     FALSE   27/4/12 17:31   2012    4   27
1707427294  3449202430032250            Thu May 24 13:30:06 +0800 2012  FALSE   None    NA  NA  NA      3.44822E+15 1717022775  ???????     FALSE   24/5/12 13:30   2012    5   24
1444865141  3432162475292600            Sat Apr 07 12:59:23 +0800 2012  FALSE   None    NA  NA  NA      3.43215E+15 1406200033  iPhone???        FALSE   7/4/12 12:59    2012    4   7
1444865141  3451309551846890            Wed May 30 09:03:02 +0800 2012  FALSE   None    NA  NA  NA      3.45109E+15 1406200033  ????       FALSE   30/5/12 9:03    2012    5   30
1422308692  3449219618915960    [{'name': u'\u827a\u672f\u4e0e\u751f\u6d3b\u7684\u5e73\u884c\u5bf9\u8bdd', 'title': u'\u827a\u672f\u4e0e\u751f\u6d3b\u7684\u5e73\u884c\u5bf9...', 'url': u'http://localhost/ft/201205215587', 'detailid': u'201205215587', 'appid': 47, 'id': u''}]     Thu May 24 14:38:21 +0800 2012  FALSE   None    NA  NA  NA      3.44922E+15 1438620052  ???       FALSE   24/5/12 14:38   2012    5   24

and I turn it into a data.table but I can't set the key:
DT <- data.table(df)
keycols = c("reUserId", "year","month")
setkeyv(DT, keycols)

It says:
Error in setkeyv(eihun.im60k, keycols) :
Column 17 is length 9 which differs from length of column 1 (143). Invalid data.table. Check NEWS link at top of ?data.table for latest bug fixes. If not already reported and fixed, please report to datatable-help.

While I try the test as the author Matt Dowle suggested `data.table` error: "reorder received irregular lengthed list" in setkey :
sapply(DT, length)

And it returns:
                uid                     mid             annotations             bmiddle_pic
                143                     143                     143                     143
         created_at               favorited                     geo in_reply_to_screen_name
                143                     143                     143                     143
in_reply_to_status_id     in_reply_to_user_id            original_pic               reTweetId
                143                     143                     143                     143
           reUserId                  source           thumbnail_pic               truncated
                143                     143                     143                     143
           dateTime                    year                   month                    date
                143                     143                     143                     143

So if every column has the length of 143, why am I still getting this error that says column 17 is length 9? Thanks in advance!
P.S.
dput(head(df))

and it returns
    structure(list(uid.mid.annotations.bmiddle_pic.created_at.favorited.geo.in_reply_to_screen_name.in_reply_to_status_id.in_reply_to_user_id.original_pic.reTweetId.reUserId.source.thumbnail_pic.truncated.dateTime.year.month = structure(c(2L,
3L, 4L, 5L, 6L, 1L), .Label = c("105411 1422308692 3449219618915963   Thu May 24 14:38:21 +0800 2012 False None NA NA NA  3449215332521999 1438620052 \345\276\256\350\256\277\350\260\210  False 2012-05-24 14:38:21 2012 5",
"22527 2025135630 3431909076450865   Fri Apr 06 20:12:27 +0800 2012 False None NA NA NA  3428667298503554 1292317643 Android\345\256\242\346\210\267\347\253\257  False 2012-04-06 20:12:27 2012 4",
"90933 1707427294 3439478742005300   Fri Apr 27 17:31:36 +0800 2012 False None NA NA NA  3436888868360479 1717022775 \346\226\260\346\265\252\345\276\256\345\215\232\344\274\201\344\270\232\347\211\210  False 2012-04-27 17:31:36 2012 4",
"91994 1707427294 3449202430032258   Thu May 24 13:30:06 +0800 2012 False None NA NA NA  3448224780547857 1717022775 \346\226\260\346\265\252\345\276\256\345\215\232\344\274\201\344\270\232\347\211\210  False 2012-05-24 13:30:06 2012 5",
"93408 1444865141 3432162475292602   Sat Apr 07 12:59:23 +0800 2012 False None NA NA NA  3432146591339391 1406200033 iPhone\345\256\242\346\210\267\347\253\257  False 2012-04-07 12:59:23 2012 4",
"93772 1444865141 3451309551846895   Wed May 30 09:03:02 +0800 2012 False None NA NA NA  3451094757864706 1406200033 \346\226\260\346\265\252\345\276\256\345\215\232  False 2012-05-30 09:03:02 2012 5"
), class = "factor")), .Names = "uid.mid.annotations.bmiddle_pic.created_at.favorited.geo.in_reply_to_screen_name.in_reply_to_status_id.in_reply_to_user_id.original_pic.reTweetId.reUserId.source.thumbnail_pic.truncated.dateTime.year.month", row.names = c(NA,
6L), class = "data.frame")

A: Package 'data.table' can't take variables of POSIXlt as part of a valid table. Transform it before data.table(mydf).

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


And some days it's a little tough to remember. There are people out there who don't want you to change. It's not their fault; the old you served their purposes just fine. But sugar you are the driver of your life, and you get to drive your little car any old place you choose. Bravo!!!
PS Hey when did the new covers show up? Yay! Just think - by one year from now, we might have a whole raft of new covers there in the sidebar! Go Pens!
I don't want to say anything. I just want to smile at you. But I'm over here. And you're over there. So picture me smiling.
I can just hear them singing it... I LOVE THAT LINE. Love you, too! LOVE THE PENS!
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The best product is one that has been produced with respect for the environment and for the working rights of the people who made it possible..