text:
namespace Google.Cloud.Recommender.V1.Snippets
{
    // [START recommender_v1_generated_Recommender_UpdateInsightTypeConfig_async_flattened]
    using Google.Cloud.Recommender.V1;
    using Google.Protobuf.WellKnownTypes;
    using System.Threading.Tasks;

    public sealed partial class GeneratedRecommenderClientSnippets
    {
        /// <summary>Snippet for UpdateInsightTypeConfigAsync</summary>
        /// <remarks>
        /// This snippet has been automatically generated and should be regarded as a code template only.
        /// It will require modifications to work:
        /// - It may require correct/in-range values for request initialization.
        /// - It may require specifying regional endpoints when creating the service client as shown in
        ///   https://cloud.google.com/dotnet/docs/reference/help/client-configuration#endpoint.
        /// </remarks>
        public async Task UpdateInsightTypeConfigAsync()
        {
            // Create client
            RecommenderClient recommenderClient = await RecommenderClient.CreateAsync();
            // Initialize request argument(s)
            InsightTypeConfig insightTypeConfig = new InsightTypeConfig();
            FieldMask updateMask = new FieldMask();
            // Make the request
            InsightTypeConfig response = await recommenderClient.UpdateInsightTypeConfigAsync(insightTypeConfig, updateMask);
        }
    }
    // [END recommender_v1_generated_Recommender_UpdateInsightTypeConfig_async_flattened]
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
THREE HUNDRED IT IS! (PREPARE FOR GLORY)
Lucid Frenzy has finally reached the same balance against the rest of the internet as those crack Spartan troops who held back the Persian hordes. (Well apart from that holding back bit.) Yes, shortly after clocking up five years, we've hit our three hundredth post!
So let's not stint on the celebrations. Let's wave our hands in the air like we just don't care, open a bottle of fizzy pop and make a few announcements...
The Author Recommends
A new page added to the site which links to twenty posts which I've particularly liked myself. (Mostly added to show how wrong everyone else is over what have come to be the most popular posts!)
The 'Dredd' movie reviewed
"Picture a Seventies cop flick filmed on the set of 'Blade Runner', with extra side-orders of litter and graffiti. Dystopias assume the future will be like the present, only more so. And here Mega City One is New York, just bigger and badder."
Citizens! My review of the new 'Dredd' movie is now on display the 'FA Comiczine' site. To claim unfamiliarity with it at any future point will not constitute a legal defence.
Also worth reading for comparison... or for that matter purely in it's own right... is the first part of Pat Mills' own account of the creation of Judge Dredd. (Four further parts posted, and counting.)
The Lens of Lucid Frenzy Surprises No-one In Any Way By Posting More Brighton Graffiti Pictures
...but they are nice pictures.
More, as they say, after the link.
Coming soon! More stuff about out-there music, 'Doctor Who' and a fair few out-of-date art exhibitions. (In fact that description will probably end up standing for the next three hundred posts, I would imagine...)
THE TWO PILLARS OF LUCID FRENZY (aka KEEPING MY FOOL MOUTH OPEN THESE PAST FIVE YEARS)
Today, good reader, is our fifth birthday! Yes it's five years to the day since the first ever 'Lucid Frenzy' entry was posted, a look at the first 'Quatermass Xperiment' film. Of course it's been nine years since things actually began, as an old-school photocopied fanzine handed out to all and sundry. (Well, not to all but there was the odd bit of sundry.) And it's nigh-on thirty years since I first started contributing to comics fanzines.
But that just makes me feel old, so let's focus on the most recent anniversary and celebrate by outlining the two pillars of Lucid Frenzy.
Now Islam, needless to say, has marshalled five pillars to its name. But that's a global religion steeped in ancient wisdom. Here at Lucid Frenzy we're more of a budget enterprise, and the most we can muster is two. In a half-hearted attempt to atone for this, each comes with an accompanying illustration. (Actually, one's a video.)
Of course these may have differed if one of the other mooted names for this blog had come to pass; which included Double Negative, Sympathetic Magic, The Iconoclastic Fury, To Encourage the Others, A Hotbed of Baboonery, Crash Course, Hurly Burly, Dirty Looks and Early Closing Wednesday. (Dirty Looks would have at least upped the Google hits. And I do still intend to one day open a web shop for my comics which closes early on a Wednesday.)
1. A Lucid Frenzy
"Although rationality is a marvelous tool, it has its limits. Sometimes intuition can yield equally powerful and impressive results. But the title suggests having fun."
Alan Moore on naming 'Dodgem Logic'
Though I borrowed this blog's name from a surrealist term it's perhaps best illustrated by a Diego Riviera linocut, 'The Communicating Vessels' (1938, above), which doesn't use the term at all! His aim was to illustrate Breton's description of the relationship between dream and wakefulness not as opposite states but as an interaction, a perpetual interplay, like the ebb and flow of a fluid between two containers.
I'm attracted to this concept because it does precisely what Surrealism often didn't do. Observing that the "bourgeois culture" of its era fetishised consciousness and feared the Freudian id, it attempted to turn all that upside down. Yet just to take up a parallel fetishisism, merely of the unconscious, was always heading for a fall. The common observation that surrealist imagery now fills adverts has its moment of truth here. We're now told our dreams and desires can be fulfilled if we start buying shit.
Not only does Riviera's image seem to me to be a more desirable state of affairs, it's also a better description of how the act of creation works. The intuitive and puzzle-solving aspects of the brain have to work in an alliance. If they do then the result, both lucid and frenzied, will always be more than the sum of its parts.
Furthermore, there's a tendency to assume critical writing merely applies some post-hoc analytical thinking to the original moment of artistic insight. The artist leaps boldly off into pastures new, then the critic follows while delineating the map. This seems to me to make pretty much the same error as above. The vessels communicate in your own head, which then ebb and flow into the original artwork and back. By making you see the artwork in a different light, the critic has effectively rewritten that work. As music writer Simon Reynolds has argued:
"Theory seemed to provide genuine illumination into qualities and powers possessed by the music. But beyond that the combination of the ideas and the music had a potentiation effect, to use the pharmacological term for when two drugs synergize to create a fiercer buzz."
(Actually, after titling this blog, I realised that the Surrealists hadn't used the term much at all! If you google it you mostly get references to here. The few other hits sometimes use it to mean what I mean, but more often take it as a general statement of exhilaration. Pretty rarely is it ever quoted from or referred back to the Surrealists!)
2. I've Started, I'll Never Finish
"The further I go the less I know,
One foot goes in front of the other..."
As well as the clip above showing one of my favourite Fugazi songs (given a particularly fine performance), in my more self-aggrandising moments I like to imagine it's this blog's school song. (Of course my personal theme song is the Soft Boys' 'I Want To Be an Anglepoise Lamp', but there I digress.) Now I may have been at this sort of thing some while now, but I am as nothing compared to song author Ian MacKaye. He's the very inverse of the trajectory Jello Biafra acidly described as "harder core than thou for a year or two, then it's time to get a real job". He's played his own style of punk his way since 1979 (when he was but seventeen). But I can't see MacKaye writing a song to brag, so I don't think that's the nub of the issue here...
The song's based around the double vision required of a long distance runner. Picturing the whole length of the course is just going to crush your resolve, so you make your mission something in sight - to get to the next hill. But there's no use sprinting there, you set your sights on the next horizon but you run as though you'll be doing it forever.
The key line is "there is not a fixed position." Don't ever expect to get to the end of this. There's no point where everything has been said and the subject can be closed. And that's not just true because new people see the artwork and spin more lines from it, or new artworks are created which shine the old in a different light. It would be equally true if there was no further input, if people stopped making new artworks tomorrow. Art is like one of those magic wells or bottomless glasses of folklore, which can never be emptied, which always somehow renews.
In the above I've attempted a kind of brief explanation of a Riviera linocut and a Fugazi song. But of course those are only limited explanations, single perspectives. Someone reading them might even find them valuable, but at most they're the next hill, never the finish of the race. And the same would be true if we got Riviera in to explain his linocut, or Mackaye his song. All knowledge, all insight, is only ever provisional.
As Paul Éluard (back to the surrealists) said: "There cannot be total revolution but only permanent revolution. Like love, it is the fundamental joy of life."
Coming soon! Believe it or not, another anniversary...
Posted by Gavin Burrows at 20:01 2 comments:
Labels: Admin Announcements, Anniversaries, Art, Music
Shakespeare's Globe, London
...now finished in London, possibly on tour somewhere
For my third visit to the theatre dedicated to Shakespeare, I figured it might be time to take in something actually by the bloke. Also, having seen the left-field reworking 'The Rest Is Silence' earlier this year I thought to take in a 'straight' version of 'Hamlet', as a kind of control to measure against the experiment.
I can be as partial as the next man to the sexed-up, cinematic Shakespeare we often see on screen. But there is still something appealingly rootsy about seeing a bare-boards production, in which planks of wood can represent the ramparts of a castle or the bow of a boat, all under an open night sky. (Albeit one more beset by police helicopters than 'twould have been in the Bard's day.) Typically, and almost certainly traditionally, the company make most use of their limited numbers by multi-assigning roles. But they also use these editorially. For example, in a nice touch both the Ghost and Claudius (who murders him and usurps his Kingship) are played by Dickon Tyrrell. (Meat and drink to my theory the play is partly about the child's split view of the parent.)
Similarly, when the Players turn up their King and Queen are played by the same actors as Claudius and Gertrude. An on-stage curtain closes and opens, portraying their shocked reaction and underlining the reflection. It's a neat device, but overall this scene epitomises all that's wrong with this production.
After an opening where the company take to the stage, playing instruments and addressing us directly, it's less that the Players are cast within the play and more they're producing the whole thing. The play-within-the-play should not just be reflective but recursive, smaller. It should be like a 2D construct within a 3D world, or a sketch inside a portrait. As it is, there seems very little difference between the two. The stock characters grate against any suggestion of a psychological study.
We talk of "Hamlet without the Prince" as a definition of pointlessness. And it has to be said Michael Benz's Hamlet is lacking. He can give us the mad Hamlet, but less the bad or dangerous-to-know one. He seems more like a boisterous teen, playing pranks, making smart-arse remarks, getting crushes on girls then going off them. (Which interestingly isn't entirely unlike the sulky emo Hamlet of 'Rest Is Silence.') The mad seems to leech through when it shouldn't, and the crowd laughs at inopportune moments. (Including his hesitation over killing Claudius, a dramatic moment if ever there was.) However other actors are stronger, particularly the afore-mentioned Dickon Tyrrell, so that's not the whole of the problem. We must widen our gaze.
For all of this being a dedicated theatre, it's quite possible the setting is wrong. I've enjoyed plays at this very spot on two occasions, the Mystery Plays and Marlowe's 'Doctor Faustus'. But, perhaps significantly, these were both performances as much as they were dramas, works which came out at the audience.
A production of 'Hamlet' needs to do precisely the opposite - draw us all in. The recent version of 'Macbeth' by Platform 4 was in a dark and confined box, which might have worked better than this open-air space. Here, even after darkness falls, you're still aware of the rest of the crowd, that we are all here watching this. Most likely the play was written for an indoor theatre. (One opened in 1599, replacing the Globe. There's no mention of 'Hamlet' until three years later, though of course records of the time are scant.)
But most likely, what we have is a deliberate choice. In the programme Dominic Dromgoole's 'Note on the Text' bases the performance on the First Quarto (often dubbed 'the Bad Quarto'), "which has a robust energy and a winning ability to get on with it." Later, Michael Dobson's 'More Matter, With Less Art' expands upon the point:
"While some actors and directors have preferred this play to be a lengthy as possible, the most central part of its action occurring within the brooding consciousness of it's protagonist as he thinks slowly and meditatively aloud, many have instead wanted their 'Hamlet' practicably short, the pith of the play lying in the action-packed and political struggle."
Talk ye of politics, sir? Any politician knows the trick of pushing people towards one bad alternative by contrasting it to another, while steering the flock from all other options. Of course we don't want a 'Hamlet' that's three hours of a luvvie bedecked in tights, orating endless soliloquies to a patient skull until it's not just the Ghost who feels stuck in purgatory. This is a play by a popular writer of the day. It has ghosts, wars, plots and duels - so many of them it's a wonder Elsinore isn't rent asunder. It should be exciting and animated.
But there's a crucial difference between thrilling the audience and being a thriller. There are a thousand revenger tales from the era, all forgotten save by the most dedicated academics. Shakespeare was using these as a base, but had other designs. As said over 'The Rest Is Silence', "the play exists first to precipitate Hamlet's conflicted state of mind." Any other method leads to madness.
Much of the appeal of cutting down, reducing and simplifying the play comes from pruning back at the ambiguity which suffuses it. But the ambiguity isn't some obstacle, to be chopped away until the true play is revealed – it is the essence of the play. It's true that at least some of this may have been unintentional on Shakespeare's part. It seems unlikely for example he would have plotted to leave us with three text sources which can contradict each other, even if he'd been able to. But he did write a play where Barnardo and Horatio sight the Ghost before Hamlet even shows up, yet Gertrude can't see him at the very moment he lectures Hamlet. The net result is that all the ambiguity becomes beneficial, whatever its source. It's there to be embraced, not thrown away. The obstacles become the signposts.
But to assign the production a motive of 'fixing' the play, of making it serviceable, may be to assume too highly of it. Something is more rotten still upon the South Bank. Things finish, I kid not, on a song and dance number. The aim is crowd-pleasing, to give the punters a good supply of yuks, a smattering of angst and nothing too likely to confuse.
The play's the thing?
The tourists are the thing.
Labels: Performance, Theatre
THE LENS OF LUCID FRENZY IS... UM... STILL BACK....
...with another crop of photos of Brighton graffiti. This time with more of a focus on murals, iconic characters and the like. Check out my Flickr page for more of this sort of thing.
(More regular posting soon to be resumed. Probably.)
Labels: Art, Photos
DISINTERRING MORE GHOSTS (MUSICAL RESPONSES TO 9/11 BY JOHN ADAMS + STEVE REICH)
Given the auspicious date, for once we have a timely post. In which minimalist musical commemorations of 9/11 are considered, before expanding into film and documentary and winding up as a partly political broadcast
"Remember me. Please don't ever forget me."
After attending the Kronos Quartet's 'Awakening: A Musical Meditation on the Anniversary of 9/11', I started to wonder what similar responses there might have been.
As it turns out, there's a fair few things which are next along on the shelf, with the ever-busy Kronos folk seemingly at the centre of it all. (Though 'Awakening' was not a standalone composition but a programme put together from already-recorded works, I'll call it a 'piece' here for convenience. I also use the American term 'progressive' for anyone with a liberal/leftist political perspective, even if in the UK it more suggests indulging in musical meanderings about Topographic Oceans while wearing white flares.)
Now it may seem contrary to link to (let alone post) a YouTube video that's just a black screen. In fact, for anyone that image-fixated, there are other YouTube clips that add the expected 9/11 disaster footage. But, honestly, listen to the piece and the black screen works better. (A white screen may have been better still. Or a black screen which slowly shaded into white as the piece progressed. But anyway...)
As Adams says in this interview, almost in echo of my comments following the Kronos Quartet Meditation, "9/11 had been so over-exposed... the country had gone into an orgy of repeating these images." So instead of the sheer spectacle of the event the focus here is on the human cost; in Adams' words "not the political aspects but the personal aspects."
True, the inner sleeve does contain recognisable 9/11 images but of post-attack ruins. Looking at them feels contemplative rather than reactive. In fact there's something almost cathedral-like about them, with a workman kneeling as if in prayer. Which feels fitting to the music.
I'd called the earlier evening "the sonic equivalent of a commemorative wall – the place where people pin photos of the disappeared." In this case the words from the opening section, after the repeatedly intoned "missing" are from actual missing persons boards pinned up after the tragedy. It's their unadorned artlessness, such as the quote above, which make them effective. Recordings of street noise add to this sense of verite. (It later moves into longer personal reminiscences, published in a New York Times series.) Adams has called the piece a "memory space."
And, again similar to the earlier evening, the piece has a palindromic structure - building to an explosive middle before turning back into reflection. However, it doesn't attempt to follow the same chronology of events. The line repeated over this build, "I know just where he is", feels ambiguous. Though taken from a woman talking about her dead husband, it could be taken to mean that we know from where we were attacked. Similarly the music feels ambiguous, it could be illustrating either anguish or a war-cry. (I am fairly sure that I heard this section played on the radio, and it was explained Adams was giving vent to the revenge instinct that was vibing at the time, though he didn't share it.)
Overall however, the piece seems to share the same humanistic concerns as 'Awakening'. Adams commented: "I hope that the piece will summon human experience that goes beyond this particular event." If the comparisons are there to be made, perhaps the main thing I got wrong was suggesting that the passage of time had led to this response – for Adams wrote this piece almost immediately. ("The request to compose this piece came in late January, which meant I had not much more than six months.")
Indeed the CD's sleeve notes by David Schiff take quite the opposite tack: "In the months that followed the catastrophe, 9/11 became a source more of civic pride than of nationalism. The heroes were policemen and firemen, not soldiers; a mayor, not a president. The names read... reminded New Yorkers of their diversity and commonality."
"The world to come..."
Steve Reich's 'WTC 9/11', also written for the Kronos Quartet and first performed in March 2011, uses actual voice recordings rather than transposing the words onto performers, perhaps only a minor difference to Adams'. Yet these surface similarities in fact merely place their differences into sharper relief.
It might at first seem more natural for Reich to create such a work than Adams. Unlike the West Coaster, he's a long-term New York City resident who lived a mere four blocks from the towers. (Though he did not witness the attacks first hand.)
However, though some earlier works could be considered politically progressive, lately his concerns became more mystical through a re-acquaintance with his Jewish heritage. 'Come Out' was released in 1966, at the height of the Civil Rights movement and shows it. Yet 1981's 'Tehillim', in which Psalms are sung in Hebrew, marked a slow but steady change in direction. While, at least in operas such as 'Death of Klinghoffer,' Adams has taken a more explicitly political line. (He's stated that things have since been made difficult for him, not just in terms of his career but also in so simple a step as security checks at airports.)
Yet listen to the pieces and it's as if they get it the wrong way round. Adams was more the post-minimalist composer, more willing to introduce symphonic dynamics to his work. As I've said before, I think of Reich's work as harmonious and serene. Yet 'WTC 9/11' is much the more discordant of the two, composed significantly later but shorter, sounding more urgent and contemporary, homing in on the events of the tragedy.
Even that trivial-sounding decision to use field recordings helps to throw Reich's response into sharper relief. He's commented "these are actual recordings with the intensity and the grit that is embodied in people who were there who didn't know what was going on."
Based around actual recordings of Aerospace Defence Command and the Fire Department, the strings matching the line crackle as a flurry of communications try to respond to the disaster. The first movement starts and ends with the sound of a phone off the hook. It's another work which could be given a Tower of Babel interpretation, falling towers scuppering communication.
Yet, interestingly, controversy ensued over the original CD cover for this release (above). As said above, the choice to visualise the attacks is more logical than for the other two pieces, for the focus is more specifically upon that day. However, this choice was widely criticised, and not just by the political Right. Reich finally released a statement that the cover would be changed, feeling the furore was distracting people from the music. (it was replaced, I kid not, with fluffy clouds.)
This perhaps underlines a dichotomy. 9/11 was a huge national, if not world, event. Yet minimalist and even post-minimalist music are marginal pursuits, beloved perhaps by the likes of you and me but bypassed by the general populace, their influence well exceeding their reach. Why a number of such works on this subject?
"What hit the coast was a natural disaster, pure and simple. The flooding of New Orleans was a man-made catastrophe, a federal fuck-up of epic proportions."
With the Neoconservatives' rise in political influence following the attacks, the right soon came to 'own' 9/11. If it was ever questioned how failing to stop a terrorist atrocity should be seen as a virtue, the answer was simply that we need to get more right-wing. A notorious example of this seeping into popular culture would be Paul Greengrass' 2006 film 'United 93.' The English director had previously seemed something of a leftist, with films such as 'Bloody Sunday' (2002) dramatising the murder of Irish demonstrators by British soldiers. Significantly 'United 93' uses many of the same devices as both the previous film and Reich's piece, even up to utilising the same air traffic control transcripts. It's a very good film.
It's also the most blatant piece of baseless right-wing propaganda this side of Fox News. The faux documentary style merely convinces us that events must have happened when there is no evidence for them whatsoever. Slipped in among the actual is a German passenger acting as a 'surrender monkey' to the terrorists.
The film's climax, when the passengers rush the terrorists, is preceded with intercut scenes of their reciting a Christian prayer and the terrorists intoning the Quran. The poster, in tastefully pushing the burning towers to the back of the image, shows a plane instead advancing on the Statue of Liberty's crown – aligning perfectly with the right-wing insistence that "they're jealous of our freedoms."
Meanwhile, excluded from Ground Zero, progressive opinion soon shifted to another disaster site - New Orleans, hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Though precipitated by an act of nature the disaster was massively exacerbated by official failures and neglect, with a response that matched astonishing incompetence with appalling malevolence - including virtual ethnic cleansing of poor districts. (Causing the rapper Kanye West's ripple-inducing comment on live TV "George Bush doesn't care about black people", which some took as though it was fresh information.)
If the Twin Towers transmogrified into the War on Terror, Katrina came to represent the destructive excesses of free market capitalism, sucking up and destroying the lives of working people. Government proved both incapable and unwilling to protect people from it's rampaging.
Perhaps the best example is Spike Lee's documentary 'When the Levees Broke', begun only three months after the event and released the following year. It's sub-head 'A Requiem in Four Acts' takes on similar language to the musical pieces we've looked at. Structurally it also seems similar - built up of a myriad of interviews from many different places, adding together to give a ground-level perspective. However, even though there's no grand voice-over or editorialising, it's much more polemical, much more impassioned. It doesn't just list the dead, it asks how they got there.
(I'd like to say something about the series 'Treme', about the aftermath of Katrina, from which comes the quote atop this section. It might make for something of an interesting comparison as its maker David Simon, best known for 'The Wire' previously produced 'Generation Kill', if not about 9/11 then about the resultant invasion of Iraq. However, as I'm yet to see any of 'Treme' that might have to wait!)
It feels like separate tram lines have been dug. It's reminiscent of the Red and Blue Americas, described in art speigelman's post 9/11 comic strip 'In Shadow of No Towers.' "The map of the 2000 election – the one that put the loser into office – made it clear that we're actually a nation under two flags! The state he lives in is the state of alienation." Talking of himself as a cartoon character, in the third person, he continues "he's barely ever been in the Red Zone, where the 44% of Americans who don't believe in evolution tend to gather... He hardly knows anyone who supports the war and no one who voted for that creature in the white house [Bush]."
If this is the case then I'm not sure how I feel about it. I may have stated out exploring something I hoped to find a rich seam of (humanistic responses to 9/11 within America) and instead run into a barrier. It sounds like the red and blue Americas are happiest when their different reality systems don't collide. As is probably obvious from the above, I prefer one colour to the other. Yet does that mean I should seal out the other from my life? Yes, of course Katrina was an important event. But that doesn't mean 9/11 should be abandoned to the Right.
Of course it is absolutely correct when considering 9/11 to start with the human tragedy. And music, always better at evoking feelings than constructing arguments, is a well-placed medium to do that. But should you stop there? A documentary, in the style of 'When the Levee Broke' might go on to do this, but none seems to exist. Even a folk or rock song, with more of an emphasis on lyrics, would more naturally be drawn into wider questions. I'm sure such songs exist. But they're not public works like these musical tributes.
Many places in continental Europe now have statues or other public installations commemorating the victims of the Nazis. Yet of course none of them ask how it cam to be that the Nazis arose - that's simply not what they're designed for, any more than a gravestone would ask why cancer was widespread. Similarly if you want to commemorate an event without commenting on it, these musical memorials have become the go-to.
Restricting progressive responses to such pieces, however moving and however valuable they are in themselves, is almost tantamount to suggesting that going any further takes you into the Right's territory. Which of course is absurdly incorrect.
Of course we should acknowledge the problem. There are sections... sizeable sections of the Right whose tactic is to repeat baseless lies in the hope that they stick. (The so-called 'mosque at ground zero', the concocted 'birther' controversy over Obama, the British NHS supposedly running "death panels" and so on.) It is hard to respond meaningfully to such absurd slurs, it's like trying to start a debate with a fanatic shouting things in the street. Seriously, how do you respond to the screechy fantasies of Fox News? How do you hold a conversation with someone who's not holding one with you?
Perhaps we have domestic parallels, for example the European Union. Even now, with it's insistence on continent-wide austerity measures, when it couldn't be more obvious what a reactionary banks-and-big-business-biased institution it is, it's still difficult to the point of impossible to say any of that. Being anti the EU is the property of far-right little Englanders like the xenophobic UK Independence Party, fulminating over Brussels' plot to wiping the Queen's head from our currency and other such vital issues.
But there's significant differences. A large number of people... perhaps the majority are agnostic or even indifferent to the whole question, assigning it to the incomprehensible and distant world of capital-P politics. (Rightly or wrongly. Well actually wrongly, but never mind that now.) 9/11 was a much more immediate and visceral issue. A large number of people killed in a terrorist attack, targeted simply because of the building they worked in, that's not something which leaves people on the fence.
It amuses me when politicians talk about political engagement like it's an automatic social benefit, rather than something which simply suits them. The last election in America seemed to carve the tram lines deeper, with the "hopey-changey" arguments for Obama seemed to centre around his personality differing from Bush, much more than his policies. In the UK few people would seriously expect Miliband to act significantly differently in office to Cameron, something which quite frankly is to our advantage. In general I try to avoid "America bashing", which seems at best pointless and most often hypocritical. However, when the evidence speaks you need to go with it...
The last, spoken line in Adams' piece is "I love you." Not, I fear, a sentiment which looks to be widely shared any time in the near future.
Labels: Contemporary Music, Film, Minimalist Music, Music, Politics
THE LENS OF LUCID FRENZY IS BACK...
Finally got round to posting more photos to Flickr, mostly on a stencils and street art theme. (My Flickr backlog is just about as big as everything else, so hopefully should get more done in the near future.)
WHY CAN'T WE JUST DO WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED?
No, not that Doctor....
In the latest of a series of posts where I basically agree with someone else, I hereby cite Dr. Richard Turner's letter to the Guardian newspaper, on the Tories' market "reforms" to the National Health Service.
(Which seem to be strangely unpopular with those who work in the medical sector in general. Funny that...)
Labels: Politics, Rants, What He Said
DOCTOR WHO: 'ASYLUM OF THE DALEKS'
"The Daleks are mad. That's what makes them unique among the Doctor's enemies... A Dalek is a robot with anger problems, a tank that hates you."
So wrote Stephen Moffat in this weeks 'Radio Times'. He's right of course. Even when we first met them, they had already been driven insane by ceaseless war, literally unable to live in anything that wasn't battle armour.
But I was skeptical of making this into a theme. Jumping from the general observation that the Daleks are mad to writing an episode about mad Daleks, that seems to exhibit the fixatedness of fan writing. It sounds a little like that 'Spitfires Versus Daleks' stuff we've already sat through - the sort of thing you'd draw in felt pens as a child, a cool-sounding notion. But a cool-sounding notion is an idle fancy, not a story in the making.
Worse, New Who has already hinted heavily that perpetually battling the Doctor has pushed their gooey green noggins over the edge. They have come to epitomise the death wish, planning to take the whole universe down, including themselves, as the only sure way to take the Doctor with them. (Of course this isn't stated openly anywhere, and may well itself be a fannish extrapolation. But their behaviour in a story such as 'Journey's End' makes sense in no other way, so I'm sticking with it.)
But actually it worked strangely well. To see those pitiable, broken creatures slumped in the shadows, activated only by hatred. Baudrillard once said the purpose of Disneyland so there could be a border between Disneyland and the rest of the world, because of course there is no longer any difference between Disneyland and the rest of the world. Similarly, the Daleks need the Asylum so they can tell themselves that is where the broken Daleks go. Yet they will all eventually go there, even if they're not in effect there already. The heavy reliance on old models in the Asylum isn't just a fannish indulgence, it's a sign that the only gap between the Parliament and that planet is time. (They should probably have found some story device to make the Asylum Skaro itself, the parental home, where they had to abandon and wall in their forebears.)
As I must have said many times by now, I'm not a fan of all this bigging up of the Doctor. Every time some of that Great One stuff gets uttered, I expect him to add "so you really should be watching my show" and pull a thumbs-up to the camera. But since both 'Dalek' and 'A Good Man Goes to War' the show has developed a counter-theme, where this new bigger, badder Doctor ran the risk of becoming dangerous. 'Dalek' in particular held that his particular anathema to them could blind him to all else, with less-than-hilarious consequences. Hitler once said that the greatest victory for the Nazis would not be their defeating their enemies, but that in fighting them their enemies would become like them. The show's great Nazi stand-ins have seem to have been having this effect on the Doctor.
But would this counter theme lead to the show self-innoculating, or would these objections be duly noted and genre rules reassert themselves? Though it's a smart Asylum setting which leads to some decent set-pieces, it has to be said that plot-wise it's predictable and repetitious – basically a mash-up of the afore-mentioned 'Dalek' and 'Silence in the Library,' with a dash of 'Source Code'. (Plus Moffat still seems to be turning into the writerly equivalent of those decrepit Daleks, endlessly reiterating a few phrases – the dead reanimate and attack us, people get memory lapses and so on.) It carries absurd plot holes. Why do the Daleks even need the Tardis on board when they've already captured the Doctor by separate means?
But let's cut to the chase - did it lead anywhere? Arguably it takes what was before (the incognito Doctor, something no-one ever imagined would last) and inverts it. Instead of an anonymised hero we now have amnesiac enemies. Which runs the risk of making the Daleks epitomise all the Doctor's enemies. And in making humans into Daleks, they already seem to be stealing the schtick of the Cybermen. As the Daleks are already the Doctor's default foe, this seems a slippery slope to step on.
But amnesia... right now, the prospect seems pretty appealing. The revived show has always been careful about it's references to Old Who, carefully dropping them in for fans who choose to look but in places where new viewers will skip past them. (This very episode referenced 'Genesis of the Daleks' a few times, suggesting the Daleks' fate was inherent in their birth.) But, alas, it seems it could not do the same for it's own history. The last series in particular became hopelessly convoluted and self-referential, to the point where it was fast putting me off – let alone the casual viewer. (Remember that the old show got to a point where it was chiefly being written by fans for fans? Wasn't that shortly before it got cancelled?)
Derivative and repetitive though it was, this episode moved along briskly, managed a few decent moments along the way and... hurrah!.. was reasonably self-contained. We can only hope that's a sign for the future...
Coming soon! Well, probably less of this sort of thing. Though I'll doubtless be sad and fannish enough to watch the Toby Whithouse and Chris Chibnall episodes, I doubt I'll be motivated to write about them. After which we get one more serving of Moffat...
Labels: Doctor Who, Horror, Science Fiction, TV
THE TWO PILLARS OF LUCID FRENZY (aka KEEPING MY FO...
DISINTERRING MORE GHOSTS (MUSICAL RESPONSES TO 9/1...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Retirement Considerations
When To Take Social Security
Taking RMD's from Retirement Plans
Have an employer sponsored retirement plan? How w
Why All the Fuss About the New DOL Fiduciary Rule?
Leave it or Roll it into my IRA?
Leave it or Roll it into My IRA Distribution Chart
The 25 Documents You Need Before You Die
How Bad Is It Really?
Life Insurance Changes
"The person who makes a success of living is the one who see his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication."
US movie producer (1881 – 1959)
"Happiness arises in a state of peace, not of tumult."
Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho, 1764
English writer and pioneer of the gothic novel (1764 – 1823)
"I expect to pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."
Ettiene De Grellet
"For myself I am an optimist – it does not seem to be much use being anything else."
Sir Winston Churchill, speech at the Lord Mayor's banquet, London, November 9, 1954
British politician (1874 – 1965)
"Patience has its limits. Take it too far, and it's cowardice."
George Jackson (1941 – 1971)
"Self-regulation will always be a challenge, but if somebody's going to be in charge, it might as well be me."
Daniel Akst, We Have Met the Enemy: Self-Control in an Age of Excess, 2011
"To err is human; to forgive, infrequent."
US journalist (1881 – 1960)
"Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think."
US poet (1807 – 1882)
"Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go much further than people with vastly superior talent."
US (Italian-born) movie actress (1934 – )
"Sports serve society by providing vivid examples of excellence."
US editor, commentator, & columnist (1941 – )
"Act as if it were impossible to fail."
Dorothea Brande
"Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses."
Chinese philosopher & reformer (551 BC – 479 BC)
"It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it."
English historian & historical philosopher (1889 – 1975)
"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true."
James Branch Cabell, The Silver Stallion, 1926
US essayist & novelist (1879 – 1958)
"They can conquer who believe they can."
Roman epic poet (70 BC – 19 BC)
"The farther behind I leave the past, the closer I am to forging my own character."
"There art two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness."
Austrian (Czechoslovakian-born) author (1883 - 1924)
"The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will; and the other from a strong won't."
Henry Ward Beecher, Seven Lectures to a Young Man, 1844
US abolitionist & clergyman (1813-1887)
"You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you do not trust enough."
"You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try."
US opera singer (1929 – )
"Forgive many things in others; nothing in yourself."
"Every time you don't follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness."
"The bravest thing you can do when you are not brave is to profess courage and act accordingly."
Corra Harris
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."
US comedian & television actor (1937 – )
"To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe."
French novelist (1844 – 1924)
"We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action."
Frank Tibolt
"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others."
Cicero, 'Pro Plancio,' 54 B.C.
Roman author, orator, & politician (106 BC – 43 BC)
16th president of US (1809 – 1865)
"The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. The trite subjects of human efforts, possessions, outward success, luxury have always seemed to me contemptible."
US (German-born) physicist (1879 – 1955)
"Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings."
English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 – 1784)
"Learn the art of patience. Apply discipline to your thoughts when they become anxious over the outcome of a goal. Impatience breeds anxiety, fear, discouragement and failure. Patience creates confidence, decisiveness, and a rational outlook, which eventually leads to success."
"I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles."
"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing."
Abraham Lincoln 16th president of US (1809 – 1865)
S0….we have nothing to fear but fear itself.
"Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. Where there is sadness, joy. O divine master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console. To be understood, as to understand. To be loved, as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, It is in forgiving that we are forgiven, It is in dying that we are born to eternal life." THE PRAYER OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISSI
"It ain't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know for sure..that ain't so." -- Will Rogers
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasm, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. " -- Theodore Roosevelt
"There is no better exercise for the heart than reaching out to lift someone up."
"We are here to Add what we can to, not Get what we can from life." - Sir William Osler
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text:
Q: How can I replace a pattern only on lines that do or do not contain another pattern? Say I have a text containing the words red and blue.
How do I replace occurences of the word blue with the word green only in all lines containing the word red?
Likewise how can I replace blue with green in all lines NOT containing the word red?

A: To replace "blue" with "green" in lines that contain "red":
:g/red/s/blue/green

To do the replacement in lines that do not contain "red":
:g!/red/s/blue/green

A: Use Pattern-Match Addresses
Just as in sed, you can use a pattern for the addresses on which to operate. For example, given the following file:
foo bar
bar
foo bar baz
bar baz
quux bar

You would issue a command like the following:
:g/^foo/s/bar/foobarbaz/g

Explanation
This will tell Vim to apply the pattern match only to each line that starts with "foo" and to perform the replacement on multiple matches within each matching line. So, even though "bar" appears on multiple lines, with this invocation you will end up with the following output:
foo foobarbaz
bar
foo foobarbaz baz
bar baz
quux bar

Note that only the lines that start with "foo" at the beginning of the line will be matched, so lines with "bar" on the other lines remain untouched.

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text:
As Omicron Surges and Businesses Face Pushback From Workers, Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation Continues to Put Employees' Health First
Employee wellnessNews
By HRTech News Desk	 On Jan 14, 2022
As Covid-19 infection levels shatter records nationwide due to the surge of the Omicron variant, numerous companies, school systems and organizations face pushback from workers mandated to return to work in person. Top-10 national mortgage lender Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation, however, continues to allow its employees to choose whether to return to the office or not.
"The flexibility that Fairway has shown in allowing employees to return to the office or remain at home has greatly reduced stress"
"Fairway implemented a work-from-home policy immediately after Covid hit in March of 2020," said Julie Fry, Fairway's Chief Human Resources Officer. "We've continued to assure our teammates that the decision to return to the office is theirs and theirs alone." More than 80 percent of Fairway employees continue to work from home.
HR Technology News: Claro Analytics CEO Michael Beygelman Named 2021 HR Superstar by HRO Today
Fairway's dedication to prioritizing its employees' safety and health also encompasses several innovative wellness initiatives. Fairway made pro-grade exercise machines available to employees with more than a year of service, enabling them to work out at home, and the company distributed 5,828 machines at a cost of $19.6 million. Fairway also offers virtual fitness classes for employees and their families, as well as parenting webinars and extensive mental health resources.
"The flexibility that Fairway has shown in allowing employees to return to the office or remain at home has greatly reduced stress," said Amy Slotnik, SVP at Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation. "Knowing that going back to the office was my choice and not a forced mandate gave me the freedom to decide what was best for me and my family. From the start of the pandemic, Fairway has supported its employees' health, both physical and mental, above all else."
Throughout the pandemic, Fairway has granted its teammates extra personal time off to deal with Covid-related challenges – time off that didn't reduce an employee's standard PTO.
HR Technology News: Deel Hires Casey Bailey to Lead HR, Acquires HR Software Company Roots
Anticipating its employees would want additional information about Covid and the company's response, throughout the pandemic Fairway's CEO Steve Jacobson has sent out daily messages of encouragement to all employees, and Fairway holds regular Covid update calls, including special guest experts, during which teammates can ask questions and receive answers. Fairway also maintains a dedicated email address employees can use to ask Covid-specific questions any time of day.
Fairway's non-profit charitable arm Fairway Cares continued its distribution of financial assistance and care packages delivered to individuals and families dealing with critical illness, physical trauma, or the loss of a loved one. Following the outbreak of Covid, Fairway Cares delivered more than 200 nutrition bundles to frontline workers, and over the past two years, the non-profit distributed 728 financial grants and 3,773 care packages to those in need.
Fairway's employee-centric response to the pandemic is one reason why its teammates voted Fairway No. 1 on the Top Workplaces USA ranking for companies with more than 2,500 employees in 2021 by Energage.
HR Technology News: SeekOut Raises $115 Million in Series C Funding, Bringing Valuation to $1.2 Billion in Four Years
[To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]
EnergageFairwayFrontline WorkersOmicron variantwellness initiatives
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HRTech News Desk
The HRTech News Desk represents a team of tech journalists who coordinate trending stories and breaking news on behalf of the HRTech Series newsroom.
Pocketnest Reaches Nearly $2 Million in Funding With Reseda Group
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HR Technology Highlights – HR Tech Daily Round-Up For 22-Jan-2022
SHL Wins Eleven Industry Awards Across Asia
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Aacom Awarded Health Workforce Resiliency Grant


When it comes to growth hacking and digital marketing, it's vital to leverage marketing automation and implement a solid customer journey optimization strategy that helps you save time, money, and quickly acquire more customers. 9 Ways to Save Time and Money With Marketing Automation (Infographic) – Entrepreneur When it comes to growth hacking and digital marketing, it's vital to leverage marketing automation and implement a solid customer journey optimization strategy that helps you save time, money, and quickly acquire more customers. In plain English, marketing automation refers to the technologies that enable you to automate, and measure your marketing activities, workflows and strategies to attract more customer faster, and generate a higher return of investment (ROI). If implemented correctly, you can nurture your visitors and leads, and walk them through an engaging journey that you designed in your customer journey optimization strategy.
If you don't know your Pikachu from your Pichu or if you have no idea what either of those are, that doesn't mean you have to stand out in left field as the rest of the world — and thousands of businesses big and small — capitalize on the Pokemon Go craze. Since Pokemon Go is largely a community interactive game, all you really have to do is participate in your community and with those playing the game, even in indirect ways. It doesn't require a lot of money to get in on the fun and excitement.
If you're like most business owners you find that most of your time is spent following up with leads and customers as you market your business in order to pay the bills. The problem is that while you're occupied with managing ads on Facebook and Google, keeping up with your social media platforms, blogging, emailing or consulting with potential clients and client retention, there's little time left over to work on the growth of your business. For you to fully realize your performance possibilities and maximize your content marketing ROI, you need to take advantage of today's efficient marketing technologies.
a carpenter with 10 years of experience who can write coherent how-to guides on home improvement projects has good prospects for selling his articles to do-it-yourself magazines and websites. A Certified Public Accountant (CPA) can make some easy money by … 7 Flexible Ways to Make Side Money Earning money on the side can bring a little extra luxury to your life, finance your summer vacation or enlarge your retirement nest egg. The following jobs can help you earn some additional money. Compensation varies and may be modest at first. Freelancing for traditional paper publications can be difficult to break into, while online freelancing opportunities are often fiercely competitive, with poor compensation. Focus on a niche that aligns with your day job. For example, a carpenter with 10 years of experience who can write coherent how-to guides on home improvement projects has good prospects for selling his articles to do-it-yourself magazines and websites. A Certified Public Accountant (CPA) can make some easy money by writing up a rundown of new changes to the tax code and how they apply to allowable deductions. In a narrower niche where you have better qualifications, you find less competition and better compensation.
It pays to cast your financial net online, where possibilities abound. Monetizing your expertise — whether in social networking or transcribing — is one way to make money while sitting at your computer at home. Follow these rules, and you'll find the Internet awash in money making opportunities. There are several to choose from to make money online. At kgbanswers.com and JustAnswer.com, you become an expert after taking a brief test. At these websites, a customer asks a question and receives an answer from an "expert." At kgbanswers, answers come via your smartphone. At JustAnswers, answers come via email or text message. Both offer subscription and per-question alternatives.
If you want to earn money online, freelance writing is the best way to do it … Seriously, if you're looking to make $100 fast, cleaning is a great way to do it. Print some flyers, drive around your neighborhood, and drop them off! 5 Ways to Earn $100 in a Few Hours (Plus Presale Open for "Earn More Writing" Course!) Sign up now, learn how to get paid to write, and succeed as a freelancer. We want to give our inaugural class a little welcome gift…so here you go: Between now and the launch of the course (Monday, October 3, 2016), we're giving you a nice little discount! Yep. 5 Ways to Earn $100 in a Few Hours Now, back to the lecture at hand. Of course, different types of care require more or less effort. That also means that pay varies. A professional sitter who runs a daycare is (and should) make quite a bit more than a teenager just filling in while the kids sleep for a couple of hours. Experience and location matter as well. If you're making just $10 an hour, you could easily make $100 in one or two jobs.
If you want to keep your wallet healthy, you must work hard. The more work you put into various streams of revenue, the more money those streams will flow to you. Working on the web takes a lot of effort. The following tips will help you figure out how to … Want Fast Access To Great Ideas On Making Money Online? Check This Out!
The more work you put into various streams of revenue, the more money those streams will flow to you. The following tips will help you figure out how to start raking in the money! There are countless ways to earn money online, but not all are trustworthy.
Well, such a blog network actually exists, although not many people have heard of it yet! Steemit is the new blogging / social media platform that combines the social networking of Facebook, the crowdsourced upvoting of Reddit and the monetization incentives of being an owner. In essence, Steemit allows you to make money by posting blog posts, by upvoting on other people's posts and by commenting on other people's posts.


text:
Sophia's at Market's former pastry chef opens Market restaurant with breakfast, lunch and desserts
Market restaurant opens at 3700 Market St., Hampden Township
By Sue Gleiter | sgleiter@pennlive.com
After 12 years as a pastry chef at Sophia's on Market, Megan Seiferth is following a new career path.
And it happens to be at familiar place. Seiferth is now owner of Market, a new restaurant that opened in February at the old Sophia's at 3700 Market St. in Hampden Township.
"One of the reasons I love this place is it's such a neighborhood community place," Seiferth said.
In December, Sophia Nelms closed Sophia's on Market and passed the baton to her longtime employee. Nelms is now focusing on her other restaurant, Sophia's at Walden in Silver Spring Township.
For Seiferth, the timing was perfect.
"I just got to the point I've been in the industry since I was 16," Seiferth said. "I was at the point, 'What am I doing?'"
"I was a little hesitant, and then I was like, 'Why not?'" she added.
She dove right in and spent January and February organizing Market's menu and remodeling the restaurant, giving it a fresh coat of blue paint, installing new flooring and adding banquette seating.
The entire time Nelms was at her side.
"She was with me the whole time. It was great. She's a great mentor," Seiferth said.
Market follows a similar footprint as Sophia's with a menu full of breakfast, soups, salads, sandwiches and baked goods.
In keeping with a made-from-scratch mentality she's roasting pork shoulders and turkey and using fresh herbs. Chicken noodle is the signature soup and the dessert case is filled with pies, cookies and sweets.
Customers can order breakfast fare including avocado toast, baked oatmeal, omelets, French toast, pancakes and egg sandwiches. In the near future, Market will introduce a Saturday BYOB brunch with a full menu including house biscuits, homemade doughnuts and strawberry Pop Tarts. Plenty of mix-ins will be available for Bloody Mary's and other boozy beverages.
Lunch options cover salads - a Thai with grilled chicken, edamame and peanuts; a southwest with chicken, corn and cilantro; and a steak with blue cheese and red onion - along with cold and hot sandwiches such as pulled pork, cheddar burgers, egg salad and pastrami.
Prices range from $6.50 for a garden salad to between $9-$12 for sandwiches.
Of course, Seiferth still carves out time to bake. Among her specialties are homemade pies, something she plans to expand upon in the near future with weekly specials. She envisions the restaurant as a place where customers can stop for a slice of pie and a cup of coffee.
At Market, she's also planning to offer on and off-premise catering. The restaurant is open 7 a.m.- 3 p.m. Monday-Friday.


Does Costco Offer a Free One-Day Guest Pass?
A lot of people wonder if there is a Costco free one-day guest pass to check out the store before purchasing a membership. The answer? No, Costco doesn't offer guest passes to their warehouse stores, but that doesn't mean you can't go.
Although Costco doesn't offer a one-day guest pass, there's a workaround that basically gives you the same opportunity to shop at Costco for one day. What you need to do is get a hold of a Costco gift card. If you have a Costco gift card, you can shop at their warehouses even if you don't have a membership (these also work for purchasing gas at Costco gas stations, which is often the least expensive with the same gas quality as top tier gas stations. In this way, it works exactly like a guest pass.
1. Ask a friend who has a membership. Probably the easiest way to get one is to give a friend who has a membership at Costco the money and ask them to pick up a gift card the next time they go. The least expensive card is $25, but you can buy as much as you want at the store as long as you have a card with some money on it (you simply pay anything above the value of the gift card in cash). You could also request one as a gift for a special occasion (birthday, Christmas, etc).
2. Buy it on eBay or Amazon. Another way to get a gift card is to purchase it on a secondary market such as eBay or Amazon if you don't have any friends with a membership, or simply don't want to ask them to buy you one. Again, it doesn't matter what amount is actually on the gift card (it could only be a few cents, and you'd still be OK), you just need one with money on it to shop at Costco.
When entering Costco, you simply show the gift card and they will let you pass as if it were a membership card. At check out, tell the cashier you only have a gift card. The cashier will need to have a manager give a special code to accept it (there are always managers on the floor and it only takes a few seconds) and you will be good to go. If your items cost more than you have on the gift card, you will need to pay cash.
Another way to shop without getting a gift card is to shop with a friend who has a membership. You can get inside the store with them, but they will have to pay for all the purchases you make. You can pay them back for your purchases once you leave the store.
So while Costco doesn't have an official one-day guest pass program, there are ways to shop at their warehouses without paying $60 for a membership.
If you like this article, please leave us a comment, share it on social media or rank us five stars below.
Thank you. I knew that Costco didn't offer a guest pass because I called and asked, but I didn't realize there was a way around it. Now I can go and check it out without buying a membership first. Exactly what I hoped to do.
Good information to know. I have wanted to give cash cards to my friends in the past, but I wasn't sure they would be able to use them since they didn't have a membership. Now I can and know they can use them.
I never knew you can buy it on ebay..
A couple of questions though.
– I noticed that cards are usually sold at 15% mark up. Is it the profit or something else. It costs only $0.45 to post the card.
– Whats up with the 5 cent cash value card? Just to get the entry and pay in cash?
Yes, people sell them for above face value (although you can find them at face value from time to time) because it's still less expensive than buying a membership. The 5 cent cards are sold as an entry into the store and yes, you pay for the purchases in cash in that event.
Anyone here have a menbership and live in Toronto? Need one damn item from there.
Warning this does not always work at all Costcos. I have tried it and more often than not the store manager will refuse to allow it. So you may wind up having to pay an extra percentage as a guest shopper or not using it.
Even at the same store, I found one manager will allow it, the next day, another manager will not.
If this has happened to you, contact corporate. The manager doesn't know the store's rules. The Costco site states anyone can use a cash card, even without a membership.
They can get in trouble because if they do not allow you to use the gift card then they can get into trouble with Federal and some state laws. They have to let you use gift cards.
It's ridiculous Costco doesn't offer a free pass for those who want to try it out. Even if you can do it with their cash card, it's not easy for many people to get. You would think they would want us to try it and get our business. Apparently not.
Wow, $400 a month I presently spend at BJ's that I would love to have the opportunity to test out at Costco. It's just not worth the $55 to learn if I prefer them to BJ's and Sams.
Definitely do a free pass and have a look around! You've got to try all three – especially if you're spending $400/month there! Could make a difference.
Buy the membership and shop. If you do not like it they will give you your money back.
You can look around and see if you like the place and their prices. You just can't buy anything.
No. They are two completely different and competing companies.
COCTCO sent em a Costco cash card in the mail as an apology for a poor service incident but then when I tried to use it the cashier said the card was empty :\ Then she took the card and threw it away. Now I need a cash card and not only did they lie about the content of the card, they took it away preventing me from putting more on it. Im not happy at all.
I think a one day pass would be awesome for people who come from out of town and want to purchase items or browse the store.


text:
Michał Sobelman (Sosnowiec, 1953. március 26. –) izraeli lengyel műfordító és dokumentumfilmes dramaturg, Izrael lengyelországi nagykövetségének sajtóattaséja, 2008 januárjától a Słowo Żydowskie – Dosz Jídise Vort című lengyel–jiddis kétnyelvű havilap főszerkesztője.

1969-ben, a lengyel állampárt egy évvel korábbi antiszemita hecckampányát követően Izraelbe emigrált, ahol a jeruzsálemi Héber Egyetemen történelmet és szlavisztikát tanult. 1981–1982-ben az egyetem oktatója, majd 1988 és 1993 között a Jad Vasem Intézet munkatársa volt. 1993 óta Izrael varsói nagykövetségének sajtóattaséja.

Héber nyelvű irodalmat fordít, fordításában legutóbb Judith Katzir írónő regénye jelent meg, 2007-ben.

Izraeli műfordítók
Lengyel újságírók
Emigráns lengyelek
1953-ban született személyek
Élő személyek

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
The Holy Terror
by H. G. Wells
subjects: Fiction
This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 or less.
Presenting itself as a biography of Rudolf "Rud" Whitlow, who is born with such an aggressive temperament that scarcely is he born but his monthly nurse exclaims: "It's a Holy Terror!" Rud Whitlow goes on to become the founder of the first world state, long a Wellsian dream.
The events take place in the recognizable recent English past, though it should be noted that Wells warns that "Every person, place and thing in this story—even the countries in which it happens—are fictitious…The England, the America, the London in this book are not the England, America and London of geography and journalism, but England, America, and London transposed into imaginative narrative."
548 pages, with a reading time of ~8.5 hours (137,216 words), and first published in 1939. This DRM-Free edition published by epubBooks, 2019.
"It's a Holy Terror," said Betsy Barnacle, the monthly nurse. "I never heard such a baby. Scream and scream it does. And its little fists!"
"There ain't nothing wrong with it?" asked cook.
"Only it's a little Turk," said Betsy. "Goes stiff it does and if you tried to stop it, there'd be convulsions. Hark at it now! You'd think it would rupture itself."
The two women listened judicially. Their eyes met in a common wonder.
"I shouldn't have thought its father had it in him," said cook.
The baby grew into an incessantly active, bilious little boy with a large white face, a slight scowl and the devil of a temper. He was a natural born kicker; he went straight for the shins. He was also a wrist-twister, but he bit very little. On the other hand he was a great smasher of the cherished possessions of those who annoyed him, and particularly the possessions of his brothers Samuel and Alf. He seemed to have been born with the idea of "serving people out." He wept very little, but when he wept he howled aloud, and jabbered wild abuse, threats and recriminations through the wet torrent of his howling. The neighbours heard him. Old gentlemen stopped and turned round to look at him in the street.
By the time he was seven or eight quite a number of people had asked: "What can you do with a boy like that?" Nobody had found a satisfactory solution to the problem. Many suggestions were made, from "Knock his little block off," to "Give him more love."
Nowadays many people deny that the unpleasantness of unpleasant children comes naturally. They say they are love-starved. His Aunt Julia, for example, did. "You think so," said his mother, and did not argue about it, because at times she was very doubtful indeed whether she did love him. She was for a mother unusually clear-headed. She was affectionate but she was critical. And what to do with him she did not know.
His name was Rudolf, not perhaps the wisest name to give a child, which shortened naturally into Rudie, but which after he had heard of the existence and world-wide fame of Mr. Kipling he insisted upon shortening further and improperly–since it altered the vowel sound–into "Rud." He was also called Young Whitlow, Whitlow Tertius, Wittles and Drink, Wittles and Stink, Grub and simply The Stink. He objected strenuously to the last and always attempted the murder of anyone not too obviously an outsize who used it. It referred to some early accident in his career which he desired to have forgotten.
His relations with his brothers were strained. Samuel was inclined to mock and tease him–a perilous joy. He threw a dinner-knife across the table at Samuel and nicked a bit off the top of his ear. Samuel had either taken an overdose of mustard or, as Rud declared, twisted his nose in such a way as to imply "Stink." The subsequent enquiry never settled this. The ear bled copiously into Mrs. Whitlow's handkerchief and nobody could imagine what would have happened if the knife had gone four inches straighter. "Might have blinded me," accused Samuel, from under Mother's arm. "Might have cut my eye clean out." It was a tremendous scene and Mr. Whitlow, who disliked the job extremely, took little Rudie upstairs and spanked him, calling him "You little Devil!" between each smack, and left him in the bedroom.
Thither presently came Mother.
"Why did you do it, Rudie?" she asked.
"He's always teasing me. He drives me wild," said Rudie.
"But to throw a knife!"
"He won't do it again," said Rudie, smearing his wet, dirty, woeful face and nose with the back of his dirty little hand. "Your own brother!"
Later he threw a large, wooden toy-horse at Alf and missed him and smashed the parlour window. "Your father will beat you again!" cried mother in distress. "Say you were playing catch with him, Alfie!"
"I didn't catch the horse," brother Alf prevaricated stoutly to Father, and the beating was averted.
But little Rudie never thanked Alfred for that. He never thought very much of Alfred.
He stole his brothers' things, he played with their things and broke them and they had no remedy–for you cannot sneak on a younger brother and they were forbidden to take the law into their own hands. All three of the boys drew and painted. Alf's work was the more delicate and he copied meticulously, but Rudie's had a sort of splashing originality. When Alf took a bright and careful bit of illumination to school the drawing master praised it in front of the whole classroom, and he had never once had a word of praise for Rudie's frequent and hasty performances. So Rudie got hold of and tore up Alf's masterpiece and, when the master wanted to exhibit it again, the story came out and Rudie was reproached by the master before everybody. He went home with a bursting heart and scribbled all over a number of pages in Alf's favourite book.


text:
/**
 * @file clock.c
 * @brief Implementation Code of POSIX Time Routines
 */

#include <stdio.h>
#include <pthread_clock.h>

#include <winsock2.h>

#include "misc.h"

/**
 * Get the resolution of the specified clock clock_id and
 * stores it in the struct timespec pointed to by res.
 * @param  clock_id The clock_id argument is the identifier of the particular
 *         clock on which to act. The following clocks are supported:
 *

 *     CLOCK_REALTIME  System-wide real-time clock. Setting this clock
 *                 requires appropriate privileges.
 *     CLOCK_MONOTONIC Clock that cannot be set and represents monotonic
 *                 time since some unspecified starting point.
 *     CLOCK_PROCESS_CPUTIME_ID High-resolution per-process timer from the CPU.
 *     CLOCK_THREAD_CPUTIME_ID  Thread-specific CPU-time clock.
 *

 * @param  res The pointer to a timespec structure to receive the time
 *         resolution.
 * @return If the function succeeds, the return value is 0.
 *         If the function fails, the return value is -1,
 *         with errno set to indicate the error.
 */
int clock_getres(clockid_t clock_id, struct timespec *res)
{
    switch(clock_id) {
    case CLOCK_MONOTONIC:
        {
            LARGE_INTEGER pf;

            if (QueryPerformanceFrequency(&pf) == 0)
                return lc_set_errno(EINVAL);

            res->tv_sec = 0;
            res->tv_nsec = (int) ((POW10_9 + (pf.QuadPart >> 1)) / pf.QuadPart);
            if (res->tv_nsec < 1)
                res->tv_nsec = 1;

            return 0;
        }

    case CLOCK_REALTIME:
    case CLOCK_PROCESS_CPUTIME_ID:
    case CLOCK_THREAD_CPUTIME_ID:
        {
            DWORD   timeAdjustment, timeIncrement;
            BOOL    isTimeAdjustmentDisabled;

            (void) GetSystemTimeAdjustment(&timeAdjustment, &timeIncrement, &isTimeAdjustmentDisabled);
            res->tv_sec = 0;
            res->tv_nsec = timeIncrement * 100;

            return 0;
        }
    default:
        break;
    }

    return lc_set_errno(EINVAL);
}

/**
 * Get the time of the specified clock clock_id and stores it in the struct
 * timespec pointed to by tp.
 * @param  clock_id The clock_id argument is the identifier of the particular
 *         clock on which to act. The following clocks are supported:
 *

 *     CLOCK_REALTIME  System-wide real-time clock. Setting this clock
 *                 requires appropriate privileges.
 *     CLOCK_MONOTONIC Clock that cannot be set and represents monotonic
 *                 time since some unspecified starting point.
 *     CLOCK_PROCESS_CPUTIME_ID High-resolution per-process timer from the CPU.
 *     CLOCK_THREAD_CPUTIME_ID  Thread-specific CPU-time clock.
 *

 * @param  tp The pointer to a timespec structure to receive the time.
 * @return If the function succeeds, the return value is 0.
 *         If the function fails, the return value is -1,
 *         with errno set to indicate the error.
 */
int clock_gettime(clockid_t clock_id, struct timespec *tp)
{
    unsigned __int64 t;
    LARGE_INTEGER pf, pc;
    union {
        unsigned __int64 u64;
        FILETIME ft;
    }  ct, et, kt, ut;

    switch(clock_id) {
    case CLOCK_REALTIME:
        {
            GetSystemTimeAsFileTime(&ct.ft);
            t = ct.u64 - DELTA_EPOCH_IN_100NS;
            tp->tv_sec = t / POW10_7;
            tp->tv_nsec = ((int) (t % POW10_7)) * 100;

            return 0;
        }

    case CLOCK_MONOTONIC:
        {
            if (QueryPerformanceFrequency(&pf) == 0)
                return lc_set_errno(EINVAL);

            if (QueryPerformanceCounter(&pc) == 0)
                return lc_set_errno(EINVAL);

            tp->tv_sec = pc.QuadPart / pf.QuadPart;
            tp->tv_nsec = (int) (((pc.QuadPart % pf.QuadPart) * POW10_9 + (pf.QuadPart >> 1)) / pf.QuadPart);
            if (tp->tv_nsec >= POW10_9) {
                tp->tv_sec ++;
                tp->tv_nsec -= POW10_9;
            }

            return 0;
        }

    case CLOCK_PROCESS_CPUTIME_ID:
        {
        if(0 == GetProcessTimes(GetCurrentProcess(), &ct.ft, &et.ft, &kt.ft, &ut.ft))
            return lc_set_errno(EINVAL);
        t = kt.u64 + ut.u64;
        tp->tv_sec = t / POW10_7;
        tp->tv_nsec = ((int) (t % POW10_7)) * 100;

        return 0;
        }

    case CLOCK_THREAD_CPUTIME_ID:
        {
            if(0 == GetThreadTimes(GetCurrentThread(), &ct.ft, &et.ft, &kt.ft, &ut.ft))
                return lc_set_errno(EINVAL);
            t = kt.u64 + ut.u64;
            tp->tv_sec = t / POW10_7;
            tp->tv_nsec = ((int) (t % POW10_7)) * 100;

            return 0;
        }

    default:
        break;
    }

    return lc_set_errno(EINVAL);
}

/**
 * Sleep for the specified time.
 * @param  clock_id This argument should always be CLOCK_REALTIME (0).
 * @param  flags 0 for relative sleep interval, others for absolute waking up.
 * @param  request The desired sleep interval or absolute waking up time.
 * @param  remain The remain amount of time to sleep.
 *         The current implemention just ignore it.
 * @return If the function succeeds, the return value is 0.
 *         If the function fails, the return value is -1,
 *         with errno set to indicate the error.
 */
int clock_nanosleep(clockid_t clock_id, int flags,
                           const struct timespec *request,
                           struct timespec *remain)
{
    struct timespec tp;

    if (clock_id != CLOCK_REALTIME)
        return lc_set_errno(EINVAL);

    if (flags == 0)
        return nanosleep(request, remain);

    /* TIMER_ABSTIME = 1 */
    clock_gettime(CLOCK_REALTIME, &tp);

    tp.tv_sec = request->tv_sec - tp.tv_sec;
    tp.tv_nsec = request->tv_nsec - tp.tv_nsec;
    if (tp.tv_nsec < 0) {
        tp.tv_nsec += POW10_9;
        tp.tv_sec --;
    }

    return nanosleep(&tp, remain);
}

/**
 * Set the time of the specified clock clock_id.
 * @param  clock_id This argument should always be CLOCK_REALTIME (0).
 * @param  tp The requested time.
 * @return If the function succeeds, the return value is 0.
 *         If the function fails, the return value is -1,
 *         with errno set to indicate the error.
 */
int clock_settime(clockid_t clock_id, const struct timespec *tp)
{
    SYSTEMTIME st;

    union {
        unsigned __int64 u64;
        FILETIME ft;
    }  t;

    if (clock_id != CLOCK_REALTIME)
        return lc_set_errno(EINVAL);

    t.u64 = tp->tv_sec * (__int64) POW10_7 + tp->tv_nsec / 100 + DELTA_EPOCH_IN_100NS;
    if (FileTimeToSystemTime(&t.ft, &st) == 0)
        return lc_set_errno(EINVAL);

    if (SetSystemTime(&st) == 0)
        return lc_set_errno(EPERM);

    return 0;
}


text:
Famous People Who Died on February 15
From the Who2 database of 4,732 musicians, actors, historical figures, and other celebrities:
Cole, Nat King (1965)
The singer of "Unforgettable" and "Mona Lisa"
Feynman, Richard (1988)
The Nobel-winning author of Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman
Hotchner, A.E. (2020)
The writer who befriended Ernest Hemingway and Paul Newman
Merman, Ethel (1984)
The brassy star of Annie Get Your Gun
Stevenson, McLean (1996)
Lt. Col. Henry Blake on TV's M*A*S*H
See also: Born on February 15


text:
'When did she become black?' Ariana Grande fans claim the 26-year-old singer is unrecognizable on the cover of Vogue - as many voice their shock over her 'mighty dark' tan
The singer, who is from Boca Raton, Florida, and has Sicilian and Abruzzese roots, appeared on the cover of the August issue of Vogue
In her cover image the pop star is seen posing on a beach with her dog Toulouse
She is pictured wearing a black Dior Fall 2019 dress and an Eric Javits hat
Since the cover image was shared on Instagram, many of the star's fans have pointed out that it her skin tone looks darker
One user said 'is she black now?' while another Instagram user said Ariana 'does not look like this at all'
Meanwhile, others have defended the singer, as many said her Italian roots means that she would naturally tan easily
By Shirley Donlon For Dailymail.com
Fans of Ariana Grande have criticized her new Vogue cover, as they say the star is almost unrecognizable in the photograph.
The 26-year-old Italian-American singer, who is from Boca Raton, Florida, and has Sicilian and Abruzzese roots, appeared on the August 2019 cover of the publication, donning a more toned-down look than her typical knee-high boots and high-swinging ponytail.
However, some fans of the pop star have been left confused by the photograph, as they point out that the star's complexion looks darker than her natural skin tone in the image.
Criticism: Fans of Ariana Grande have criticized her Vogue cover, as they say the star's skin-tone looks significantly darker in the photograph than her natural complexion
Difference: Social media users have pointed out the fact that the singer (seen in 2018), who has Sicilian and Abruzzese roots, 'doesn't even look like herself' in the image
Yikes: Some users have asked 'when did she become black?' while others have said that her darker skin tone is a result of Photoshop
Vogue unveiled the cover image on Instagram on Tuesday, July 9, where it has already garnered almost 400,000 likes.
The image sees the 26-year-old, who headlined the Coachella festival earlier this year, posing alongside her dog, Toulouse, as she sits comfortably on what looks like a tropical beach.
Standing up: However, many of her fans have defended Ariana (pictured as a teenager), as they explained that her Italian roots mean that she would tan easily
She is pictured wearing a large Eric Javits fedora hat, that takes up the majority of the shot, and a simple black Dior Fall 2019 that exposes her decolletage.
Her makeup seems to have been kept to a minimum - as she appears to be sporting a natural look. However, despite many social media users praising Ariana's appearance on the cover, hundreds of fans have slammed the image.
Many fans of the star, who often changes up her look and even appeared on the July 2018 cover of British Vogue sporting blonde hair and a more fair complexion, have said that Ariana's skin tone appears darker than usual in the photo.
One user commented on the photo, saying: 'Is she black now?' Another asked 'when did she become black?', while a third Instagram user said: 'Why is she brown?'
'Noooo, sorry this is not ok,' another user wrote. 'Ari does not look like this at all.'
Another user said they were 'tired of' Photoshop, as they claimed that Ariana's skin-tone has been adjusted in the image.
Others said the star needs to 'chill' with tanning. 'Why tf does she look like a woman of color tho? Chill with the tanning Ari,' one user commented on the photo.
Meanwhile, another said they thought the star had 'surgery' to achieve a different look, as they said: 'All I see is plastic surgery.'
Serena Williams reveals she 'started seeing a therapist'... 'We are policed for being black': Doctor accuses American...
Defense: Many users have said that her darker appearance in the photo is simply a result of her getting a 'tan', while others have advised people commenting on her appearance to 'chill out'
However, many have defended Ariana, as they explained that her Italian roots mean that she would tan easily. One user said: 'She's ITALIAN! All we gotta do is walk in the sun and we get TAN!! She looks more Latina than black anyway. Y'all maddd!'
'Stop saying that she's black now. She isn't! It's summer, she has a tan. Stop hating on her and live your life,' another said.
A third user wrote: 'Y'all are freaking out over the fact that u think she's black in this when's she's nowhere near that. She's just tan in this, chill the hell out.'
In her interview with the publication, Ariana opened up about her ex-boyfriend Mac Miller's death, as she says she doesn't remember much from that time.
She also talked about her brief engagement to Saturday Night Live star Pete Davidson, branding the whirlwind romance an 'an amazing distraction.'
'It was frivolous and fun and insane and highly unrealistic, and I loved him, and I didn't know him,' she said.
'I'm like an infant when it comes to real life and this old soul, been-around-the-block-a-million-times artist. I still don't trust myself with the life stuff.'
After Mac died she needed time alone, and ultimately turned to music. 'But if I'm completely honest, I don't remember those months of my life because I was (a) so drunk and (b) so sad,' she said.
'I don't really remember how it started or how it finished, or how all of a sudden there were 10 songs on the board,' the singer added.
Vogue's August 2019 issue is available on newsstands in New York and Los Angeles on Tuesday, July 16, and nationwide on Tuesday, July 23.
Vogue (@voguemagazine) • Instagram photos and videos
Ariana Grande's Vogue Cover: On Grief and Growing Up - Vogue
Ariana Grande on Twitter: "No, I'm actually Italian! Part Abruzzo and part Sicilian. :) RT @bianqui_creates @ArianaGrande are you part Hispanic/Latin?"
Ariana Grande British Vogue Interview | British Vogue
Fans think Ariana Grande is unrecognizable on her Vogue cover as they say she is unrecognizable


text:
Brandon Kerschbaumer
bk@IgniteMP.com 780-897-1943
As a farm kid born and raised on a farm 10 miles southeast of Fairview, Brandon learned about hard work early. Brandon's parents both operated businesses, which led to a busy childhood. "I can still hear my dad saying 'there's always something to do!", Brandon jokes.
After completing high school in Fairview, Brandon pursued business and athletics at Grande Prairie Regional College (GPRC) and then at Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) where he studied Radio and Television Arts.
His professional history includes a wide variety of fields, from seed cleaning at Golden Acre Seeds, to graveyard cleanup at Canfor, to selling at Future Shop to running his family quicklube shop in Peace River. "I've worked a lot of different jobs through the years, learned from some great people along the way, but at the end of the day, couldn't see myself in those roles as a career, so I'd move on, learning and trying new things." Radio, though — whether organizing special events or writing, recording, producing and selling ads — has always had a special place in his heart. However, he wanted to expand beyond radio into new avenues and marketing channels, specifically digital marketing.
"I'm not great at just accepting mediocrity," he says, laughing.
Now, with Ignite, Brandon says he appreciates being able to give his creativity free reign. "I love that we have no limitations," he says. "If something new comes along that's worth pursuing, we can be at the forefront. It's all up to us. Marketing is always changing, especially on the digital side, so we need to work daily to stay ahead."
He's a self-professed data nerd and with everything they do, information reigns supreme. "I love data and analytics," he says. "We can learn so much from our efforts in a short time, so we can constantly be evolving and improving."
One thing he loves about Ignite's work is that it's never boring and suits his endlessly optimistic outlook. "We have a fresh take on the business world, and we've been successful in injecting new ideas and finding ways for our clients to be successful through different strategies." Brandon remarks. "Working as a radio rep locally was one of the best experiences of my life. On the daily, I got to sit with business owners and managers from so many different categories of business, gaining a unique perspective into their marketing challenges, every day was an education. And through that experience, I was introduced to my business partner Coree-Ann and the best business mentor in the game, Dennis Chopko."
When Brandon's not deep in data-driven research or strategic planning, he can often be found immersed in music, writing jingles, playing guitar, piano or drums in Ignite's in-office music studio (the 'lab'). He'd otherwise be spending time with his wife and 3 kids or seeking an endorphin high with snowboarding or playing basketball.
Coree-Ann McGonigle
Co-Founder & COO
cam@IgniteMP.com 780-814-1642
Coree-Ann's upbringing was filled with change. Having lived in Cochrane, Saskatoon, Kelowna, Arkansas, Black Diamond, Calgary, High River and Red Deer – she now calls Grande Prairie home."I'm grateful for having been shuffled around so much because of my dad's job, I've had so many experiences that I wouldn't have had otherwise."
After finishing high school in High River, she graduated with a Business Diploma from Red Deer College and then a Bachelor's Degree in Business with a Major in Marketing from the University of British Columbia-Okanagan.
Living in so many wildly different locations, she learned to make friends with almost anyone. "Moving around really taught me that it doesn't matter what you look like or what your background is," she says. "Everyone has something to offer the world and we are all human on the inside."
It's something that serves her well playing her part in Ignite's operations. "I love working with people," she says. "I'm really good at connecting with people, understanding them and relating to them. I'm not afraid to ask and I'm honest to a fault."
Radio was her niche before launching Ignite. In this fast-paced world she specialized in advertising sales, content creation and production. Now Coree-Ann puts this experience to work every day at Ignite, in tandem with her background in business and marketing. Her drive and passion are what make it fun for her.
"I love finding the best deal for our clients," she says. "I love knowing the right questions to ask in order get the best deal for them. I love negotiating and finding win-win situations. I love building relationships. I could go on for a long time, there's so much I love about what we do."
When she's not working out exciting new strategies with clients, Coree-Ann can often be found spending time with her family skiing or roasting hot dogs around a fire. "I love to sit by the fire with a cold beer in my hand," she laughs. If you can't find her there, she might be working away at her family acreage, tending to her chickens, garden and greenhouse or honey bees at home.
Tomas Krejcar
dev@IgniteMP.com 780-978-8958
Though born in Czechoslovakia, Tomas Krejcar (Krates-are) has lived in the Grande Prairie Area nearly all his life. His unique combination of artistic talents, logical thinking and a passion for programming made website design a natural choice for him. "A website must serve two masters; the site owner and the site user. Helping the user helps the owner."
For many years Tomas ran his own webdesign business out of Beaverlodge. In order to be able to offer more comprehensive services and focus on his core skillset, he has joined forces with Ignite Marketing & Productions. Tomas also lived in his native country for six years while working for a software design company in the Czech Republic. He has an Associates Degree focused in Web Design from BCIT but he is proud of his ability to learn and problem solve on his own. "Maybe they should teach Effective Googling at school…"
Tomas has too many interests to list them all. When he's not working on the computer he likes oil painting and creative crafts. He likes to spend time at home with his wife and four kids teaching them arts and programming. "I love computers and technology and designing pleasing and efficient user experiences. If I were born in a previous era, I would have been a watchmaker and goldsmith."
Tomas brings with him a wealth of knowledge, experience, and a desire to stay ahead of the constantly evolving digital world. We are enthusiastic to have him as a partner of Ignite.
Gagan Kaur Dhillon
mc@IgniteMP.com
Gagan was born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta. In more recent years, she has lived in Surrey BC, Calgary and now calls Grande Prairie home. Gagan joined the Ignite team as a practicum student while completing her Business and Digital Marketing Management Diploma from CDI College. She also has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology from Concordia University of Edmonton and a Bachelor of Education Degree from the University of Alberta.
"I love learning new things and when the opportunity to study business and digital marketing arose, I dove right in." …


text:
About us https://www.civica.com/en-us/about-us/
Innovation https://www.civica.com/en-us/innovation/
Contact us https://www.civica.com/en-us/about-us/contact-us/
Capabilities https://www.civica.com/en-us/capabilities/
Financial Management & Payments Logistics & Infrastructure
Sectors https://www.civica.com/en-us/sectors/
Local & State Government
Justice & Courts
Local & State Government Health & Care
Safety Justice & Courts
The Police Service of Northern Ireland chooses Civica for new Criminal Justice Data Sharing platform
• The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) appoints Civica Digital as transformation partner in extensive, new multi-million pound contract
• Civica will supply new Criminal Justice Data Sharing platform to increase system efficiencies and safeguard criminal justice
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has appointed Digital, a division within the Civica Group which provides digital services from concept to implementation, to deliver the organisation's new data sharing platform for an initial five-year period.
PSNI ran an extensive procurement exercise to find a strategic partner to design, build, support and provide services for the future development of a robust Criminal Justice Data Sharing (CJDS) solution, set to go live in November 2019.
Civica has designed and will build the new system to support information sharing between numerous sources including PSNI's case management systems, Causeway (the Northern Ireland Criminal Justice Data Store) and the Police National Computer (PNC) – joining together multiple pre-existing systems into one streamlined, integrated solution.
The new data-sharing platform will allow better structured and controlled information flow between the police, the Public Prosecution Service, prison and forensic science services, speeding up day-to-day processes and reducing errors.
Civica has designed an enhanced set of reusable services to improve the scalability of the system, which is critical as demand and case-loads are set to grow in the future. The new system also includes a set of operational management and self-monitoring tools which will allow PSNI to rapidly view, track and rectify issues as soon as they occur.
Information held on the data sharing platform can be shared out via the PNC, linking data with the wider UK and European police data sharing platforms in one seamless transaction.
(L-R) Mark Owens, Managing Director, Civica, Digital, Ireland with Former Deputy Chief Constable Drew Harris
Jeff McNamara, Head of ICS from the Police Service said: "Our new Criminal Justice Data Sharing platform will streamline our processes and systems and drive more efficiency. This is crucial at a time when budgets are continuously stretched, demands are becoming more complex and public expectations are changing. Implemented with Civica, the new system will ultimately allow our officers to spend more time Policing with the Community delivering more effective, collaborative outcomes and continue to help build a safe, confident and peaceful Northern Ireland."
Mark Owens, Managing Director, Civica, Digital, Ireland commented: "This latest engagement with PSNI builds upon our long-term partnership with the police service and we're delighted to be continuing to support the organisation's digital transformation plans. Our thorough understanding of the technology required to deliver this truly digital service means we have designed a very detailed solution from the ground up to address all issues of functionality, efficiency and security. We were able to demonstrate this understanding throughout the procurement process and now look forward to working with PSNI to deliver the CJDS platform.
"This new partnership follows hot on the heels of the large body of work we've delivered through programmes such as NI Direct, and is a further endorsement of our strong digital credentials and presence in the region."


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text:
Q: Openshift: How to pick up my new datasheme? I'm trying to do something with OpenShift.
I've added models.py
from django.db import models

class Person(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=50)
    email = models.CharField(max_length=50)

And admin.py
from django.contrib import admin
from models import Person

class PersonAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    pass

admin.site.register(Person, PersonAdmin)

Now, due to the django docs I should add my app into INSTALLED_APPS and run syncdb. But I don't have any kind of django applications to write there :) (OpenShift folder structure differs I bit from default django.)
I have settings.py,manage.py and all other .py files right inside ..openshift/app/wsgi/openshift. What should I do? :)

A: We have a Django sample application posted here:  https://github.com/openshift/django-example
Can you please take a look at it and see if it helps?  Specific steps are outlined here:  https://github.com/openshift/django-example/blob/master/.openshift/action_hooks/deploy