Ok. We are going to do something here that is slightly "left of center" on a number of levels. First of all, I would like to draw attention to my friend Boros from Mask of the Slave records in Romania. He's a recent addition to my sources and am glad to be working with him. This is a fantastic label with a lot of integrity and very cool limited tape and CD releases, very good distro catalog and low prices.
This is a somewhat mysterious release from a mysterious band. Hunyadi PH is a harsh power noise act out of Transylvania. This is a ltd. 3″ CD-R that was initially put out in 2008. Boros has a few copies left so let's help him sell this unique disc out.
There is not much information available about Hunyadi PH which makes this more of a mystery. Nevertheless, according to Mask of the Slave records, this is "harsh analog noise with lots of PE elements mixed with Hungarian military songs from World War 2." It was also limited to 125 copies.
There are 5 tracks on this release. I'm not sure regarding the source of the military songs. Maybe a vintage 33″ LP record? Aside from this source, the noise element appears basically from a simple source. However, it works and almost makes a disturbing atmosphere with the old military songs. Mostly the mix sounds like an obnoxiously out of commission radio trying to be tuned. It's interesting at which points the noise ceases and you just hear the military marches. I really can't say I have even heard of another power noise type release out there like this one. It proves that maybe some of these noise artists think not just about what noises/sounds to use but also what not to use and when not to use them.
So who knows. Maybe that's what the band was referring to. Perhaps something will come up so we can find out more about this mysterious release. However, it's the mystery that makes this all the more intriguing. It's kind of like the artists themselves…thinking of what noises and sounds to use, when to use them but equally when and how NOT to use them. Essentially it's equally fascinating go with what we know but what we have yet to know.
But go check this release out if you are a fan of power noise and like something mysterious and different.


text:
Stadia & Entertainment
EPOS Terminals
Mobile EPOS
Self-Service EPOS
Self-Ordering App
Kitchen Video Systems
Web Back Office
Rental Solutions
Design, Manufacture, Supply and Support
One Stop EPOS & Payments Solution
Bleep Supplies Rugby World Cup 2019 in Japan.
Interim Senior Web Developer November 12, 2019 Comments are off for this post
Bleep Supplies Rugby World Cup 2019 in Japan
Bleep UK PLC installed an integrated EPOS and Payments solution and Self-Service Checkout Kiosk system for the retail stores at the Rugby World Cup in Japan.
The tournament was hosted in Asia for the first time and was held from the 20th September until the 2nd November 2019, with South Africa taking home the prestigious Webb Ellis trophy. Industry-leader Legends International were appointed as the official retail partner and operator for the Rugby World Cup 2019 and they selected Bleep as the point of sale technology provider for this event, based on their track record supplying the world's most prestigious events.
Bleep installed their proven, award-winning retail solution in 12 stadiums right across Japan, with retail shops at all stadia and in the fan zones. There was also a flagship 11,000 square foot megastore at Shinjuku Odakyu Park, Tokyo. All stores sold a range of team-branded goods, official licensed products and exclusive event memorabilia, including replica shirts, apparel, balls and souvenirs.
The solution deployed by Bleep featured a mix of traditional point of sale, handheld devices and self-service checkout kiosks, with the emphasis upon the speed of service, positive customer experience and user-friendly for staff and customers. Bleep's TS-813 Android EPOS terminal was selected as the perfect fit for the retail stores, complete with built-in printers, barcode scanners, and POS media video customer displays – showing a range of sponsor advertisements. Each terminal had an integrated payment device for ultra-fast and secure contactless payments. The Bleep V2 handheld POS device was used in the fan zones for hawking, mobile sales and queue busting, allowing more best sellers and smaller items to be sold during peak times.
All EPOS hardware, whether at the megastore, around or inside the stadia on a matchday or in the fan zones, sent live sales and stock data to W-BO (Web Back Office) for real-time reporting and stock control, viewable by management on any web-enabled device.
Bleep SS-821 Self-service checkout kiosks were installed in the Tokyo Megastore as part of the 'Mastercard Priority Lane' and this multi-language solution enabled fans to self-scan products and pay at the wall-mounted, seamless and intuitive self-service kiosks. Also, Mastercard's new 'Sonic' aural brand, was initialised whenever a customer used a Mastercard as a payment method on a Bleep EPOS terminal or Self-Service Kiosk. The Sonic has been launched to help customers recognise the brand when they make purchases and the Bleep EPOS hardware physically played the 'sonic' sound and simultaneously displayed the animation on the customer-facing POS Media displays.
Nick Price, Chief Commercial Officer, Legends International, commented, "Central to any good retailer is your EPOS system. We have been extremely pleased with the solution we have provided through our partners, Bleep and Mastercard. Working with this solution has allowed us to bring our average transaction time down and we have enjoyed record sales at a truly memorable Rugby World Cup – proving to be the most successful in history."
"One of the key features of our activation at the Rugby World Cup has been our introduction of Self-Service machines – for the first time in Japanese event retail environments. It has gone down extremely well with the Japanese public and it is something we are incredibly happy with."
John Wellman, Group CEO of Bleep UK PLC added, "Bleep was selected as the POS partner for another world-class sporting event outside of the UK. We delivered an unrivalled solution in terms of innovation, reliability and performance."
"While the Final never saw the result we wanted, Bleep put in a consistent performance from the group stages right through to the final! This is due to our hardworking team of Bleep EPOS experts – both those out in Japan or back at home in our UK offices. The in-store customer experience across all sites was truly best-in-class, thanks due to the Bleep system and our latest technological innovations."
The Rugby World Cup capped off a busy year of sporting events for Bleep – with traditional EPOS and Payment solutions deployed across the globe at prestigious events including Wimbledon, The Open, the F1, Tour de France and many more. Bleep's new Self-Service terminals have also been installed at several events, such as the Champions League Final in Madrid, with positive feedback from event operators and customers alike.
About Bleep UK PLC
Bleep UK PLC is an award-winning designer and manufacturer of Electronic Point of Sale (EPOS) systems and Payment solutions for retail, hospitality and events, including bars, nightclubs, pubs, restaurants, hotels, bakeries, fast food, stadia, arenas and world's biggest and best sporting and music events. We have over 38 years' experience providing bespoke, innovative, flexible and reliable EPOS and Payment solutions for any business, for any requirement, in any industry.
If you would like more information about this press release, or to schedule an interview with a company director, please call Ross Weszka, Group Marketing Manager on 01772 436222 or 07795 814615 or e-mail ross@bleepplc.com
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Making a local variables to Global so the main function can access it in C I have a code in which I have the function tilt_left there are some variable that I want to make it available for the main.
But I have no idea how to do that; I think it's generally very easy to do that.
Following is my code.
unsigned char sync, camera_address;

#include <stdio.h>

void tilt_left();

void config() {
    sync = 0xFF;
    camera_address = 0x01;
    printf ("The sync code is %x %x", sync, camera_address);
}

void tilt_left() {
    unsigned char command1, command2, Data1, Data2;
    command1 = 0x00;
    command2 = 0x04;
    Data1    = 0x3F;
    Data2    = 0x00;
}

void main() {

    unsigned char checksum;

    config();
    tilt_left();

    checksum = camera_address + command1+command2+Data1+Data2;

    checksum %=100;
    printf ("The sync code is %x %x %x %x %x %x %x", sync, camera_address,command1, command2, Data1,Data2,Checksum);
    //  return 0;
}

A:
"... are some variable that I want to make it available for the main."

In general that is a very bad idea - global variables shall be avoided when possible. If you want to access the variables in main, you define them in main.
Like:
void tilt_left (unsigned char *command1,  // Use pointers so that the
                unsigned char *command2,  // function can write to the
                unsigned char *Data1,     // pointed-to variable
                unsigned char *Data2)
{

  *command1 = 0x00;
  *command2 = 0x04;
  *Data1    = 0x3F;
  *Data2    = 0x00;
}

void main(){

  unsigned char checksum;
  unsigned char command1, command2, Data1, Data2;

  ...

  // Pass address-of the variables
  tilt_left(&command1, &command2, &Data1, &Data2);

A: To declare a global variable you just have to declare it outside the main (and outside any other function)
int global_variable = 0;

int main()
{
    /* do stuff */
}

Edit

But how to call a local variable of any other function to the main

You can't do that. When a function returns, its activation record is deallocated and the local variables are lost. What you can do, is passing a pointer to a variable (stored in main, or in general, in the calling function) and access it from another function.
#include <stdio.h>

void function(int *var);

int main()
{
    int var = 0;

    /* Passing the pointer to var as parameter */
    function(&var);

    /* Prints 5 */
    printf("%d\n", var);
}

void function(int *var)
{
    /* Prints 0 */
    printf("%d\n", *var);

    /* Dereference the pointer and assign a new value to the variable */
    *var = 5;
    return;
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Ikaruga pc game download. I giocatori devono diventeranno gli eroi di Gun Gale Online nel nuovo gioco del franchise di Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet.
Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet è disponibile per Pc ( via Steam), PS4 ed Xbox One. This site allows you to play backups of your old video games on your computer or mobile device!
Bandai Namco ha diffuso il trailer di lancio di quello che è un ibrido tra uno sparatutto ed un gioco di ruolo d' azione.
Ikaruga is a fairly well known vertical- scrolling game in the STG or Shooting Game genre and a polarizing one at that ( Ignore the pun). Fans of the genre and even newcomers alike will either love or hate this game for a variety of reasons such as the difficulty curve, it' s somewhat linear playstyle at higher levels of play due to it' s puzzle elements, etc.
Voyage of the Dead Platform/ System: Microsoft XBOX ONE Genre: Arcade / Shoot' em Up Publisher: Performance Designed Products Rating: Freigegeben ab 16 Jahren gemäß § 14 troid Prime 3 is a must have for any Metroid fan! After playing through Metroid Prime 2, I was a little worried about the development of Metroid Prime 3 so I was sure to write Nintendo with my concerns. Welcome to Cheatinfo, your number one source for Gamecheats, Action Games, PC Cheats and Codes along with high resolution game.
Cheatinfo is updated everyday, so check back often for the latest cheats, codes, hints and more. Welcome To Doperoms is an interactive archive of retro video games.


Peyton Manning breaking down a couple of Stafford's plays. He pretty much says that Stafford has been staring down his receivers too much allowing the defense to make plays. Isn't that something rookies should be working on instead of 10 year vets?
Feels like he's getting worse about it..especially 3rd down. He acts like a 50yo qb waiting to get hit..
Then you have rookies throwing no look passes..
Trading Stafford is fairly silly at this stage. Even if you could get the so-called Cutler deal (which I think is a bit too rich for a 30yr old QB), who's your QB for 2019. There's not the Darnolds, Mayfields, or Allens in this draft. Are we going to go after a recycled FA QB like Teddy Bridgewater or some team's backup QB. I say focus on building up the "D". Add a CB to go opposite Slay, an edge rusher strong enough to also play the run, some more LB's, a WR for the slot, and some OL. Build a really tough D, which should help keep us in games and hope Stafford re dedicates himself in the off season.
My point would be who really cares? You'd basically back to back double up on top picks for a extremely good chance to bounce back in those two draft's.
The scenario takes real digging and understanding. Trade Stafford cripples the cap situation next year, almost insuring Lions don't go out and spend a bunch of money on junk players. They can still cut/move on from guys like Wagner/Lang, etc, if they want to and free up money to bring in guys. They'll have two drafts with four top 50 selections plus the picks from the Stafford deal and compensation pick we're likely to get from Ziggy. With money to spend in the 2020 off-season to get... whatever they want basically.
If you trade Stafford it's a full complete rebuild. It's not even about being good/making the playoff next season. It's about getting in place to give the Lions a chance to set up a foundation for years to come. No guarantee they even draft the right guys, but it gives the team a chance to controll alot of guys long-term if they hit on the half dozen or so selections they have in the first three rounds.* Assuming they got a Jay Cutler like return.
NYG/TB: 1st rdp, 3rd rdp, and 2nd rdp in 2020.
Idk, I think that raise's most peoples eyebrows honestly, like it or not.
We all know they'll do nothing though. Like really. I know this. I've spent too much effort on this post already lol.
This is what you do... Trade Stafford now, get young, tank for two years, and then draft Trevor Lawrence.
Stafford absolutely lost trust in the pass blocking this year. Understandable if you ask me.


You can find the full source code in the example project DeploymentJdbc.
This configuration was used in most of the sample projects.
We can define a session context. This is a place where Hibernate will store the session. One option is a ThreadLocal session context. It uses a Java ThreadLocal which guaranties that every thread can only see its own session.
In addition, the thread context of Hibernate will close the session automatically, if we call commit or rollback. In contrast to the default pattern, we need to call sessionFactory.getCurrentSession to pick a session from the context. If there is no session in the context, Hibernate will create one for us.
Please be aware, that if you use factory.openSession, the session is not placed in the ThreadLocal context.
In the old times you had to implement the ThreadLocal session context on your own. This is no longer required, at least if you are happy with the default contexts available.
But you will still find a lot of old examples in the web.


text:
Q: How to manage conditional Time and date in ruby I have 2 graphql mutation call which I am calling in my ruby application.
I want to call 1 mutation normally. 2nd mutation I want to call on every first day of the month at 12 AM.
Please help me with this logic. The 2 mutation calls are below:

*

*provisioning_client.query(Atacama::ProvisioningClient::WriteEntitlement,payload)

*provisioning_client.query(Atacama::ProvisioningClient::RefreshEntitlement,payload)


text:
China's Xi…
China's Xi Orders Hong Kong To Suppress Outbreak 'above Everything…
Hong Kong is currently in the throes of its worst-ever coronavirus outbreak
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has called for Hong Kong to take "all necessary measures" to control an Omicron-fuelled Covid-19 outbreak, Beijing-affiliated newspapers in the city said Wednesday, a day after leader Carrie Lam ruled out a China-style hard lockdown.
Hong Kong is currently in the throes of its worst-ever coronavirus outbreak, registering over a thousand confirmed cases a day as hospitals reach their breaking point.
Lam this week insisted a hard "wholesale" lockdown — which the mainland has imposed on various cities in order to stamp out cases — will not be imposed on Hong Kongers.
Hong Kong's battle against Omicron
By Wednesday, local newspapers Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po — which answer to Beijing's office in the city — reported Xi had called on authorities to "implement every necessary measure to ensure the protection" of public health.
Hong Kong needs "to prioritise stabilising and controlling the Covid situation above everything else", the papers reported China's leader as saying.
Following the publication of Xi's remarks, Lam expressed "gratitude" for his concern.
"The government will, in accordance with the important instruction of President Xi Jinping, assume the main responsibility to… adopt all necessary measures to safeguard the lives and health of Hong Kong people," she said in a press release Wednesday.
Authoritarian China remains one of the few places in the world sticking to a "zero-Covid" policy — stamping out any sign of an outbreak with weeks-long lockdowns of entire cities, widespread contact-tracing and testing.
But it is unclear whether Hong Kong, one of the world's most densely-packed cities, could ever make it back to zero-Covid even with a full lockdown, given the sheer number of Omicron infections it now faces.
The emergence of the extremely contagious Omicron variant sent authorities scrambling in 2022 — upping social distancing measures, shuttering schools and night-time restaurant dining, and even culling hamsters when some rodents tested positive for the virus.
– 'Strong, positive energy' –
China's President Xi Jinping has ordered Hong Kong to "prioritise" the fight against the virus
Lam's administration had already sought aid from Chinese officials — specifically with testing capacities and the need for the brisk construction of more quarantine facilities — during a weekend meeting.
Beijing's Liaison Office in Hong Kong said that Xi's Wednesday proclamation had "injected strong, positive energy" into the virus-wracked city.
"Various sectors in the society are greatly encouraged and expressed one after another that President Xi's important instructions have made Hong Kong people feel extraordinarily warm," it said in a statement.
In recent days the city had resembled the early phase of the pandemic, with shoppers clearing out supermarket shelves to stock up on food and essentials.
This week hospitals buckled under the strain of rising infections, with at least two facilities placing patients in beds in the open air.
This week hospitals buckled under the strain of rising infections
As temperatures dropped Wednesday, many of the elderly in beds outside Caritas Medical Centre were huddled under multiple layers of blankets and harga pintu aluminium thermal shields.
The city has some of the lowest vaccination rates for the elderly in the industrialised world — a government website puts it at about 43 percent for those aged 70-79, and 26 percent for those aged 80 and above.
Hong Kong on Wednesday reported 4,280 confirmed cases, a new record.
So far, most of the Covid deaths recorded in the past week have been patients above the age of 70.
harga pintu aluminium
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The Worlds Best Interview. Meet Mallory & Luke. Photo Wizards.
I've known Mallory and Luke for a while now. I've never really actually hung out with them I don't think... They've always been sort of a unicorn couple to me. Super cool, creative and good looking it seems unreal.
I know a lot of young aspiring creatives come browse around the SLOTH site and I thought it would be awesome to feature a young married couple doing what they love behind a lens. You guys better enjoy these unicorns and their awesome work as much as I do.
I hope this helps light a creative fire for others to go out and create.
1. What does your 'photography' mean to you?
L- To me it means a lifestyle that I want to live, you know? It means charting my own course in pursuing my passions while allowing me to pay my bills. It means spending more time with Mal. It means exploring the world and telling the most important stories. It means a unique outlook of self expression and it means gratification of a life long artistic pursuit.
2. What is your favorite camera set up?
3. What has been your most exciting photog adventure?
M- Probably Iceland in 2013. It was definitely like being in dream when we were there!
L- Probably Iceland too. But I also went to Haiti with Living Water International a couple years back and that was incredible.
4. What do you want your viewers to take away from your work?
L- We want people to be able to connect with the subject matter. Our goal is to capture true and authentic human interactions and emotions.
M- …. As well as connect with the photographs stylistically and aesthetically!
5. What were the difficulties you encountered first starting photography?
The normal things like work/life balance, how to not procrastinate on projects (we all do it!), self advocation and comparing ourselves to others who are ahead of us in our field. I remember thinking (and still do sometimes) "why can't we get those clients" or "I want to shoot there" etc. You start to think you're all on the same page but you're not, you need to just accept the process of learning and growing in your field. Plus that's how you become you as an artist.
6. Who are some of your favorite classic photographers, and how did they influence you?
L- Henri Cartier-Bresson & Sebastião Salgado, I love them both for their unique ability in telling multiple stories within one frame. If you haven't seen it, go watch Salt of the Earth, a documentary done of Sebastian Salgado. It will move you.
M- Vivian Maier! She's the original street photographer! I love how much one photo tells so much about what the subject is experiencing in the everyday life. She's helped me realize the importance of photographing more of the "normal" things in the day to day that most people wouldn't even remember.
7. What is a top bucket list photog adventure spot you guys want to shoot?
Oh man, so many places!! We are planning on going to Greece this year so that's a top spot for sure. But we always say, give us a plane ticket to anywhere and we'll take it! We are always down for the next adventure.
8. How long have you guys been shooting photos for?
Full-time for 3 years. Before that we did a couple years of just part time photography work… You know, shooting on our days off of our normal 9-5 jobs.
L- Whatever you are doing, do it because you enjoy it not because you've seen other people do it or because you need to make money from it. Neither of those mindsets will lead you down a path of happiness or success.
M- Make yourself achievable short-term goals, and start pursuing them. Don't wait around for people to hire you. Instead go out and create the things that you'd like people to pay you for some day. You'll get inquiries based on the work you show to the world, so it's important to start off your career by creating things you're passionate about. The money will follow.
10. If you guys had to pick one would you choose to be one of these what would it be and why?
A Black Unicorn with green glowing horn and a white glittered tail that can only eat breakfast burritos or Frodo from lord of the rings?
M- Neither, I'd be a cat. duh.


text:
pdf: the Left in the 1980s
four texts on the Left in the UK in the 80s:
Wage Slavery – For No Change
Shed No Tears For Blunkett
One Local Chapter In The Spectacle Of Decomposition
The following was distributed (not by me) at an event called "The Moving Left Show" in the early 80s and imitated the format of a leaflet advertising the event. It's not an analysis but a slap in the face.
Welcome to the most predictable event in years, organised by the pseudo-oppositional Left community.
See Benn and Napolitano speak with forked tongue!
Every so often you need to brighten up your sophisticated slavery in a crummy career with new ideas, and find sublimations for your desires which ensure a good future forthis society!
Be merely thought-provoked by a whole bunch of lecturers, journalists, social workers, TV directors, actors, professsional charity workers, politicians, even priests, and other errand-boys of power.
And that's all! – But in case you want the illusion of something more you can sleep through alternative cabaret, video, films, and a rock concert, not to mention other means of kidnapping our lives.
Grey saint Tony Benn will be spouting off about some means of perpetuating the buying and selling of forced work, the stabilisation of the commodity economy, saving international capital nationally, being explicitly reformist and anti-revolutionary, and giving the working class the chance to participate in their alienation through praliamentary cretinism. For which great project they will need a new police, now with added « potential for change ». In which regard, Napolitano will explain how his Italian Copmmunist Party directed police, armed with tanks, to crush the proletariat in Bologna in March 1977.
So – join the Communist Party – in chucking lies and bullets at the real social movement everywhere!
We wish you a pleasant evening afterwards. We suggest some drinks to give you that feeling of individuality within safe roles. And to suppress anxiety may we recommend some old ideology routines and the ritual conflicts of arguing isms against isms. This way you can rest assured that nothing will change – least of all yourself.
On the way home the proletariat will be waiting for you with irony and disgust.
Samotnaf note, post 7/7/2005:
After the recent 7/7 bombing Ken Livingstone proved a cleverer politician than Tony Blair, who just came out with obvious hyopocritical soundbites. Our Ken cried genuine tears as he denounced the attack on "working class" people, whether Christian, Jew, Muslim, agnostic or whatever. These tears came from his 'ordinary' roots which makes him less of an actor than the more bourgeois Blair. Lets look a little at some of his populist past.
Ken Livingstone achieved his lefty reputation as head of the GLC in the early 80s, becoming the bête noir of Thatcherites everywhere, with his cheap fares policy etc. But, like all politicians, he was – and is – an opportunist creep. In 1999 he retrospectively supported the Gulf War just as he was supporting the massacre of Serbs and Kosovans by Nato bombing. Though he'd 'opposed' the Gulf War at the time, he said he'd been wrong to oppose it: lest we forget, the Gulf War killed at least 4000 times as many mainly working class people than the horrific 7/7 terorist attacks in London. In the year 2000 he loudly condemned the May Day rioters who wrecked MacDonalds and defaced a statue of Winston Churchill, saying that Churchill, whose death in 1965 was celebrated by Welsh miners, was Britain's greatest Prime Minister (for more on this see "You Make Plans – We Make History"). This leaflet shows what the GLC was really about. It was produced by me and the Campaign for Real Life and distributed at the Ken Livingstone-run GLC festival in 1984, whose theme was "Work for a change".
In the swinging 60s everyone could have a job, and everyone hated their job. In the 70s the workers hardly worked and the rulers could hardly rule. That's why in the 80s jobs are rationed – to make us appreciate them more. As well as a way of getting rid of uncompetitive technology, the povery and isolation of the dole has been the ruler's means of dividing, demoralising and intimidating the masses, who had begun to dangerously discover their power against the misery of work, of exploitation.
The 'English Disease' (suffered by capital, enjoyed by workers – the world over) – i.e. resistance to work (absenteeism, sabotage, and all forms of direct solidarity) is conveniently ignored by the ideologists of the Left. That's because the Left represents those wage laboureres who still identify with their allotted role in the running of the World Market, who still see the means of survival imposed on them as 'dignified'. Fearful of the refusal of 'The Dignity of Labour', and even more terrified that incresing sections of the jobless are resisting all political representation (which many visibly did in the riots of '81), they can only patronise their would-be voters with the carrot of future forced labour for all (London Labour Briefing has even called for the defence of the notorious Youth Training Schemes against the government's cuts).
The Good Guys of the Left wsh to inherit the world market and further rationalise alienation minus (some of) its Evil anomalies. For those who wish to be saved by the Good Guys, the enemy's apparent enemy seems like a friend. Those resigned to false alternatives always have to choose sides to avoid making sides. All those who try to adapt to and reform the alien economy, like the Saatchi and Saatchi ads, just want to be accepted because of their promises of a better future, because of their 'good intentions' – a convenient mask over the brutal anomalies they perpetuate in their present practice. If the jobs the Left are creating in the present are anything to go by, our future in their hands will be as bleak as anything the Right could concoct. Like the big increase in the employment of fares inspectors on the tube. Or the massive boom in vacancies for riot cops in Effra Parade in Brixton. Or the mounting prospects for those seeking a job smashing and bricking up squats in various Labour-controlled boroughs. Or the rising possibilities for those whose ambition has always been to become a concerned socialist bailiff, evicting council tenants who don't pay their rent, whilst crying tears of compassion for their plight.
"But what about all the good the GLC is doing?", whines the liberal. "Like positive discrimination for minority groups?" "Positive Discrimination" – say, in housing – in the present conditions of artificially enforced scarcity, can only become a way of discriminating against one section of the proletariat and helping another section. It merely inverts the divide and rule operated by the more traditional forms of class power. Why should heterosexual proletarians remain in the housing queue, whilst gays can jump the queue? The GLC obviously doesn't advocate the direct seizure and transformation of territory, of offices, of banks, of university buildings, of hotels, of palaces, etc. as a method of dealing with the false scarcity of housing – because they know that County Hall might be amongst the first to be taken over. Instead they perpetuate the divisions – and give material reasons for 'straight' proletarians to resent gay proletarians, just as gays have good reasons to resent 'straights' in this society. This 'balancing out', under capitalism, shows just what the ideology of equality means: equality of resentment, equality of humiliation, equality of separation. This resentment, intensified by the Left's moral blaming attitude, is repeated in the insulting ads for the GLC's anti-racism year: "1 million Londoners are getting a raw deal because the other 6 million let it happen." This liberal garbage takes the blame for racism away from the Nation, its frontiers and its institutions – and puts it simplisticly onto everyone, regardless of their material position and their choices. In the riots of '81 (which Ken Livingstone described as "disastrous for the community locally") black and white, gay and 'straight' proletarians discovered true community by attacking directly the "raw deal" they get from this world. Since then, what the Tory's social security race checks and Nationality Acts can't do to prevent such real equality from recurring, the Left's patronising 'positive discrimination' will make up for.
Or take the Great Fares Fluctuation Saga – when the GLC tried to encourage the efficient and rapid moblity of wage-slaves and consumer-slaves through the lonely crowds of London's Public Transport. Even within its own narrow terms, one would have thought that Leftists would've at least threatened mass law-breaking in response to this flagrant insult to 'democracy' – even in its bourgeois forms, an insult which led to 80 extra deaths and innumerable extra fumes and ulcers on the roads these last 2 years. But no! – on the day London's fares became the most expensive in the world, Ken Livingdeath dutifully paid his full fare before the TV cameras and said that the way to change this flouting of bourgeois democracy was through…bourgeois democracy! Frightened that the breaking of the Tory law might encourage the rejection of their own management of the law, they even introduced a big increase in fares inspectors to deal with both those who refused the law-lords' fare prices, and those who refused to pay altogether. Dave Wetzel, the GLC Transport bureaucrat who in April '82 had been prepared to go to prison, 6 months later decided that proletarians should be prepared to go to prison for him. And yet Leftists still claim that the GLC is at least a buffer against the harsh force of raw capitalism. With buffers like this we can only expect an endless increase in repeats of the Moorgate disaster!
Far from acting as a buffer, Left-wing capital is merely the soft face of Right-wing capital. That's why the Left's calls for 'Community Policing' have been taken up as Neighbourhood Watch schemes by the Right: either way, it means each person policing the rest in obedience to the laws of the commodity. Since community doesn't exist outside of struggle against this world, Community Policing can only mean policing the 'community' bound together by a 'respectable' submission to property laws. That's why K.L.'s buddy, Ted Knight, sends the riot cops against squatters. And that's also why Ken Livingstone evicted squatters as Chairman of Camden's Housing Committee.
"The riots will all happen again. I think you will only get real change in Britain when you link the extra-Parliamentary qctivities of all the groups and their manifestations with a constructive response within Parliament. If you actually think back to what happened in Paris in '68, all that happened completely by-passed the French Assembly and therefore it all peaked out quickly." – Ken Livingstone, The Face, May 1984.
Doubtless K.L. identifies with those involved in May '68 who did push the wildcat General Strike and Occupations Movement into a parliamentary direction – the French Stalinists in the Communist Party. With the Right, the CP managed to sieze the initiative and to lie, manipulate and herd the movement back into the estranged isolation of the TV and the ballot box (two capitalist cons that Ken Livindeath is fond of using): these specialists were obviously helped in this by the fact that in May '68 the vast majority of proletarians had still only developed pretty limited initiatives, perspectives and mistakes of thier own, and that, despite having launched a movement in which the Left, as usual, were left behind, they largely failed to assert any decisive opposition to the Left. This is a mistake the rioters of '81 started to go beyond. For instance, when the Militant Tendency's Claire Coyle spoke of the riots as "understandable but inexcusable" she was howled down. She was further silenced by the repeated chorus, "Bigger cages, longer chains!". Nevertheless, many of those who have given the Leftists the boot have got the boot of the State back in their faces – as in Effra Parade in Brixton during March this year, when Ted Knight called out the riot cops, equipped with water cannon, to evict squatters. Or in Bologna in Italy, KL's favourite municipality, which he regards as a centre of "dynamism" (The Face, May '84), where in 1977 the Italian CP dynamically called out the tanks and the cops to crush the massive autnomous movement against work, sacrifice, authority and mediation. Those who, "on behalf of others", seek to use the institutions capital presents as being the basis of power will inevitably use such forms to crush those who seek to destroy this power.
"If they gave up some of their pen-pushing and bureaucracy, they could get officers back on the streets dealing with crime – including the sale of drugs." – KL, reported in the News of the World, July '81, during the riots.
"Black kids support what I said about the police, and when I walk down the Kilburn High Road, people shake my hand." – K.L. in 'Not…', August '81.
"I feel a degree of regret that Marshall did not push on and abolish the GLC because I think it would have been a major saving and would have released massive resources which could have been put to far more productive use." – KL, 11/3/79.
"If you are a member of the public trying to get something done, trying to defend one of your rights, this [the GLC] can be a very powerful body to fight against, but in terms of using it positively, it is a very difficult and reluctant machine to use." Kl, The Face, May 1984.
"The fact that you have skills at…manipulation in politics…does not alter your class."– K.L., The Face, May '84.
Livingstone's nice guy mediocrity, with its self-consciously reasonable tones and gestures, is a superficial style of 'honesty' , hiding the inevitable hypocrisy of his bureaucratic position, a postion that makes irrelevant all his guilty proclamations of working class credibilty. Nevertheless, he serves as a model, for those proletarians who don't want to face and confront their misery, of polite dialogue with the rulers and the Old World, at a time when large numbers of proletarians are refusing such respectful 'criticism' by angrily taking the streets. K.L. – and all those who identify with his 'ordinariness' – can only speak the contradictory language of the rulers, the language of manipulation and of commodity calculations, the langauge of 2-faced bullshitters, who say and do one thing one moment and say and do the opposite the next.
"At the moment people's confidence has been so damaged by Thatcher that the first thing we must do is give them their confidence back and show them tht you can actually improve things, that things can get better…I think things will get better in the 1990s; you might get a Labour government in the late Eighties. But the next 3 or 4 years: really grim, really bad…I enjoy life immensely…It is so fantastic. There cannot be another job except Prime MInister that can be as rewarding as this one. I have just loved it…" – KL, The Face, May '84
Those for whom life in the present is "really grim" can only get their confidence back by attacking all those who immensely enjoy their pesent niche within this society, whether their name is Thatcher, MacGregor, Prince Charles or Ken Livingstone. Thatcher has stated that she had her worst 10 nights of sleep during the riots of July 1981: she won't be the only one with insomnia when proletarians start to wreck the Left-wing of capital – and all its would-be Prime Mini-stars, and not just its Right-wing.
The text was followed by a poorly-produced photo of Ken Livingstone shaking the hand of the Queen at the opening ceremony of the Thame Barrier, where he got the Queen to agree to see his mum. A speech bubble is coming out of the Queen's mouth – "Thank you for helping to protect the Palace from the Thames flooding, and keeping an eye on the IRA, but how are you getting on with the proles?" KL replies, " I'm doing the best I can, ma'am, but I'm afraid they're pretty uncontrollable.". Below that there's a cutting from The Face in which KL says, "Well, although I'm an agnostic my sort of politics is very similar to other people's idea of religion. I am not one of those people, though , that believes in scientific Marxism. I'm a left-winger not because it can be proved correct. I just think there are different ways of running society , and think that socialism is a fairer and better way. Of course, it requires an act of faith. There are too many bits and pieces of thought in me to find a convenient label, but I suppose, I'm an anarcho-syndicalist." This was followed by a newspaper cutting from the Evening Standard, April 12 1984: I'm willing to break the law – Livingstone Mr Livingstone, speaking on LBC, said the Government's actions reminded him of the slogan often seen scrawled about London – "if voting changed anything they would abolish it." "The Government has done exactly that," he said.
This leaflet was handed out at a very crowded festival on the South Bank in and around County Hall. It was accompanied by a tape-recorded parody of a record of Ken Livingstone given out free with every copy of Time Out during the week before the GLC event. On the day we went along to a trade union stall which was giving out free ultra-nationalist literature – with a Union Jack on its cover, found the stall abandoned and took all the crap literature out and dumped it into the Thames.
The following was written in December 2004 by Mark Barnsley, but much of it refers to Blunkett's time as leader of Sheffield Council in the 80s, so I've put it here:
When David Blunkett boasted, characteristically, that he would make his predecessor as home secretary, Jack Straw, "look like a woolly liberal", I doubt there were too many people who believed this was possible. Even Blunkett may not have been able to make 'Mad Jack', as he was known in the prison system, look like a liberal, but he is certainly the most right-wing home secretary this country has had in living memory, and he revelled in the fact. Straw may have been at least as Draconian as Michael Howard before him, but he didn't have 9-11, an event, which if one were needed, gave Blunkett's innate authoritarianism and xenophobia full-reign.
In the wake of Blunkett's overdue resignation a picture is being painted, with himself as the primary artist, of 'an honourable man brought low by love'. The career of this vain, arrogant, conceited individual was not brought to an end because of Blunkett's private life, something he has done his utmost to deny the rest of us, but because he is a liar and corrupt, neither of which are new.
I first met David Blunkett in 1974, and later suffered under him when he was leader of Sheffield City Council, and neither his dishonesty, nor his corruption, nor his right-wing views are recently acquired. He's simply been better in the past at hiding them. First and foremost though, David Blunkett has been a ruthless careerist – no wonder, like Margaret Thatcher before him, he's blubbing now.
Thatcher was a great political ally to Blunkett in his Sheffield Council days, he could cover up the corruption and incompetence of his administration by blaming everything on central government: Northern Grit squaring up to Whitehall. Thatcher was of course despised in Sheffield, leaving the local Labour administration as secure as a one-party state, and they ran it accordingly. As Blunkett well knew, during this period, you could have put a red ribbon on a dog, and people would have voted for it[1].
In the 1980's Sheffield City Council may have had a publicity machine worthy of Stalin's Russia, but any talk of 'socialism' was never more than empty rhetoric for Blunkett and his pals. Look beyond the publicity and their track record shows that.
Under Blunkett, more than half of the council's own 32,000 employees earned basic pay below TUC guidelines, and 10,000 of them were paid less than the Council of Europe 'decency threshold'. Women workers got a particularly bad deal, earning far less than their male colleagues, and getting fewer promotions. There was also evidence of racial discrimination, with only 1% of council employees being black, a quarter of what it should have been, and rumours of a 'colour bar' in the Town Hall's heavily subsidised restaurant, where no black person had ever been employed.
While lowly council workers got a raw deal there were plenty of jobs and high salaries for the Labour Party faithful. Irrespective of their true politics, careerists from all over the country flocked to Sheffield and joined up. Sheffield didn't need freemasonry, we had the Labour Party. Usually the jobs doled out to the boys and girls were in social or youth work, Sheffield had more social-workers per head of population than any other place on the planet. In special cases though, a job would be invented, such as the creation of a highly-paid 'Peace Officer' role for one Blunkett crony.
Blunkett presided over a huge homeless problem in Sheffield, while massive numbers of council-owned properties lay empty for years, and sometimes for decades. Early in 1983 'Peace City' was somewhat embarrassed to find that a group of young peaceniks had squatted one long-empty council-owned building and turned it into a 'peace centre'. In response, Blunkett's pal Roger Barton, then Chairman of the 'Nuclear Free Zones Committee', personally went round and cut off the electricity to the building. Blunkett however, faithfully promised the young pacifists that they would not be evicted, a promise he quickly broke.
Another embarrassment for the Blunkettgrad 'Nuclear Free Zone' was when a British Rail guard blew the whistle on the transportation of nuclear waste through the area, a fact the council had tried hard to keep quiet.
As homeless figures in the city continued to soar, other long-unused council-owned properties were occupied. The council's response was always swift and ruthless. Facing immediate eviction one group of squatters wrote to Blunkett personally to ask for a stay of eviction while they found somewhere else to live. With typical arrogance Blunkett replied, "It would seem to me that anarchy can hardly expect reasoned and structured responses within the system which is being attacked." After the eviction the building stayed empty for several more years.
Blunkett's administration also waged a long and bitter war against travellers, even evicting them in the middle of a TB epidemic. The treatment of Sheffield travellers led to a perinatal mortality rate of nearly 50%.
Blunkett and his cohorts constantly railed in public about the corruption of Tory politicians in Whitehall, while Sheffield City Council junkets were legendary and almost every night the Town Hall hosted a lavish function or banquet for some group of councillors or another. Some friends of mine once went to visit Blunkett in his Town Hall office in 1983. Walking in unexpected they witnessed a huge feast laid out, this was Blunkett's elevenses.
A big part of maintaining the illusion necessary to running Blunkettgrad was the notion of 'squaring up to Thatcher', so from time to time various 'stands' were made, with Blunkett & co promising to 'stand firm' against the Tories on various issues. Things were made easier by the fact that to a very large extent the Council 'owned' the unions, the tenants associations, the peace groups, and just about every political front, tendency, and organisation operating in the city.
One Blunkett 'stand' was over 'rate-capping', when Sheffield and several other Labour council's refused to set 'a Tory rate'. How Blunkett and his pals puffed and panted about this one, before crumbling at the very first opportunity. The discovery of the 'Tory' rate demands already typed-up and hidden in Blunkett's office said a lot about his personal integrity. The inside word at the time was that Blunkett had been instructed to back down personally by Labour leader Neil Kinnock, who was then waging a war against Militant Tendency, particularly in Liverpool where they controlled the anti-rate capping council. Blunkett's promised reward was the advancement of his cherished political career. He was elected as MP for Brightside, one of the most solid Labour seats in the country, at the next General Election.
Another 'stand' was against bus-fare increases. The city's famously low fares had actually begun to increase a few years earlier, but in 1986 Thatcher's deregulation of public transport threatened to send them spiralling. After more hot-air Blunkett again capitulated, and as always he aimed to crush any uncontrolled dissent ruthlessly. As a member of a group opposed to the fare increases I was sent to prison for putting up a poster advising passengers not to pay. I wasn't prosecuted by the police, I hadn't committed a criminal offence, but by the Labour council, for not having planning permission.
As home secretary Blunkett's abuses of human rights and civil liberties have been staggering. He has introduced internment without trial for suspected foreign terrorists, is introducing military camps for children, and barely a day goes by without him dreaming up another crackpot neo-fascist scheme to attack civil liberties, criminalize working-class communities, and put more and more people behind bars. Under Blunkett the British prison population has risen to more than 75,000. Held in appalling conditions, which Blunkett has consistently ignored, growing numbers of these prisoners are driven to suicide, slashing open their veins with slivers of glass or razor-blade, hanging themselves from heating pipes only inches above the floor, or choking on their own vomit through swallowing pills. Callously, Blunkett has refused to meet the mothers of some of the young women driven to these acts of desperation, while his only comment on prison suicides has been to quip that he was inclined to open a bottle of champagne after Harold Shipman killed himself.
Blunkett has long had a vicious tongue, and as his former cabinet colleagues have witnessed recently, he is not slow to use it. He once famously accused single mothers of deliberately getting pregnant to jump the council housing queue. There was no basis for this accusation whatsoever, but these were young working-class girls, who might need a helping hand, and perhaps a bit of advice on contraception. Not rich, already married, right-wingers who didn't need his sleazy favours (and who might also now be reconsidering the issue of birth-control.)
David Blunkett sought to hide his corruption by playing the 'my private life is my own' card he is trying to deny the rest of us. The man who has consistently assured us, in relation to ID cards, that if 'we have nothing to hide, we have nothing to worry about' has come unstuck, and those familiar with his 'computer-like' mind are probably taking his recent bad memory with a pinch of salt.
Blunkett's assistance with passport and visa applications on behalf of his rich former mistress sits hypocritically with the hard-line stance he has taken with those fleeing war and torture abroad. This is the man who told Kosovan and Afghani refugees to "get back home".
And without wanting to twist the knife too much, his current fixation with acquiring a family, even if it's somebody else's, sits uneasily with his past history. The day after his election as an MP, Blunkett announced he was leaving his wife and children in Sheffield and moving in with his 'research assistant' in London. His marriage may, as he has recently said, been "a loveless relationship", but he had found it politically expedient to hide that fact for a long time, and he's now finding out that middle-class women don't disappear into the background quite so quickly or so conveniently.
Just like Thatcher before him, the only person David Blunkett is able to shed tears for is himself, snivelling that he doesn't feel sorry for himself and that he'll "try to have something of a Christmas", he sounds like Albert Steptoe. Whatever happens to Blunkett, and unfortunately we may not have seen the last of him2, he's sure to have a better festive season than the families of the record 93 British prisoners who have killed themselves so far this year, those locked up without trial in prisons or detention centres, or the vast number of other victims of his reign as home secretary. Shed no tears for Blunkett, he can shed them himself.
Mark Barnsley, 16 December 2004
1: Samotnaf note, 2005:
In fact, during the 80s in the Sheffield area, one miner told us that the only reason people voted for Blunkett was because they had sympathy for his guide-dog.
2Samotnaf note, 2005:
The scumbag, predictably, is back in office – in charge of stealing the pensions of the working class. One of the better actions of the late 90s involved just a handful (no more than ten) pensioners blocking off the Humber Bridge (I think) for several hours in protest at the attacks on their pensions. Let's hope such actions multiply against the vicious Minister For Ripping Off Pensioners.
The following, written by Richard Parry (who wrote a book on The Bonnot Gang) was a short leaflet produced in 1982, critiquing a Trotskyist group (International Marxist Group/ Socialist League) who collectively "went to the factories" (in this case Cowley) to secretly agitate for their group's politics whilst pretending to be "ordinary workers" and not revealing their political group identity.
Page counter added 30/3/13
Posted on January 29, 2013 by Sam FantoSamotnaf	— No Response ↓


text:
Embed Scrapy jobs directly in your code

### What is Scrapyscript?

Scrapyscript is a Python library you can use to run [Scrapy](https://github.com/scrapy/scrapy) spiders directly from your code. Scrapy is a great framework to use for scraping projects, but sometimes you don't need the whole framework, and just want to run a small spider from a script or a [Celery](https://github.com/celery/celery) job. That's where Scrapyscript comes in.

With Scrapyscript, you can:

- wrap regular Scrapy [Spiders](https://docs.scrapy.org/en/latest/topics/spiders.html) in a `Job`
- load the `Job(s)` in a `Processor`
- call `processor.run()` to execute them

... returning all results when the last job completes.

Let's see an example.

```python
import scrapy
from scrapyscript import Job, Processor

processor = Processor(settings=None)

class PythonSpider(scrapy.spiders.Spider):
    name = "myspider"

    def start_requests(self):
        yield scrapy.Request(self.url)

    def parse(self, response):
        data = response.xpath("//title/text()").extract_first()
        return {'title': data}

job = Job(PythonSpider, url="http://www.python.org")
results = processor.run(job)

print(results)
```

```json
[{ "title": "Welcome to Python.org" }]
```

See the [examples](examples/) directory for more, including a complete `Celery` example.

### Install

```python
pip install scrapyscript
```

### Requirements

- Linux or MacOS
- Python 3.8+
- Scrapy 2.5+

### API

#### Job (spider, \*args, \*\*kwargs)

A single request to call a spider, optionally passing in \*args or \*\*kwargs, which will be passed through to the spider constructor at runtime.

```python
# url will be available as self.url inside MySpider at runtime
myjob = Job(MySpider, url='http://www.github.com')
```

#### Processor (settings=None)

Create a multiprocessing reactor for running spiders. Optionally provide a `scrapy.settings.Settings` object to configure the Scrapy runtime.

```python
settings = scrapy.settings.Settings(values={'LOG_LEVEL': 'WARNING'})
processor = Processor(settings=settings)
```

#### Processor.run(jobs)

Start the Scrapy engine, and execute one or more jobs. Blocks and returns consolidated results in a single list.
`jobs` can be a single instance of `Job`, or a list.

```python
results = processor.run(myjob)
```

or

```python
results = processor.run([myjob1, myjob2, ...])
```

#### A word about Spider outputs

As per the [scrapy docs](https://doc.scrapy.org/en/latest/topics/spiders.html), a `Spider`
must return an iterable of `Request` and/or `dict` or `Item` objects.

Requests will be consumed by Scrapy inside the `Job`. `dict` or `scrapy.Item` objects will be queued
and output together when all spiders are finished.

Due to the way billiard handles communication between processes, each `dict` or `Item` must be
pickle-able using pickle protocol 0. **It's generally best to output `dict` objects from your Spider.**

### Contributing

Updates, additional features or bug fixes are always welcome.

#### Setup

- Install [Poetry](https://python-poetry.org/docs/#installation)
- `git clone git@github.com:jschnurr/scrapyscript.git`
- `poetry install`

#### Tests

- `make test` or `make tox`

### Version History

See [CHANGELOG.md](CHANGELOG.md)

### License

The MIT License (MIT). See LICENCE file for details.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


This view enables you to interact with the console I/O capabilities provided by the semihosting implementation in the ARM® C libraries. To use this feature, semihosting support must be enabled in the debugger.
Saves the contents of the Semihosting Console view to a text file.
Clears the contents of the Semihosting Console view.
Enables or disables the automatic scrolling of messages in the Semihosting Console view.


text:
Casa Bossi – edificio di Busto Arsizio progettato da Francesco Antonio Provasoli
 Casa Bossi – edificio di Milano progettato da Giovanni Battista Bossi
 Casa Bossi – edificio di Novara progettato da Alessandro Antonelli
 Casa Bossi – edificio di Udine progettato da Pietro Zanini

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


North Korea is to send its highest ranking official for years to the South amid a diplomatic rapprochement sparked by the Winter Olympics.
Their united women's ice hockey team played its first match on Sunday, but lost the friendly against Sweden 1-3.
The unified Korean ice hockey team will get a chance to even the score when they face Sweden again during the Games.


text:
Cultural tourism can boost our fortunes
By Peter Gitaa | September 24th 2020 at 02:55:00 GMT +0300
Recently, Kenya marked 10 years since our supreme law was promulgated and Bomas of Kenya featured prominently as the place where our Constitution was conceived, created and compiled. Because of this historical connection, many Kenyans associate Bomas of Kenya with the nation's reform journey but few know that it is a public institution that was mooted in 1971 for the sole purpose of preserving, maintaining, educating and promoting the diverse cultures of various ethnic groups in Kenya. For the last five decades, the institution remains the leading custodian of Kenya's diverse cultures as a national heritage for prosperity and posterity.
Why is culture important to us as a nation? The framers of our Constitution underlined the critical importance of culture in a progressive society and that is why Article 11 of the Constitution recognises culture as the foundation of the nation and as the cumulative civilisation of the Kenyan people.
With the current growing interest in cultural heritage globally, growth in cultural tourism has increased a positive worldview of the importance of cultural resources as tools for creating economic development while preserving cultural resources. As a nation, therefore, it is incumbent upon us to devise innovative ways of promoting all forms of national and cultural expression through literature, the arts, traditional celebrations, science, communication, information, mass media, publications, libraries and other cultural heritage.
But even as immense opportunities for growth beckon with cultural tourism being the economic magnet, the negative impact of Covid-19 has slammed brakes on this promising development. The pandemic has taken the whole world by storm, bringing it to a virtual socio-economic standstill.
Kenya is not an exception and one of the economic sectors most hard hit is the travel and tourism industry. That is hardly surprising given that a record 1.5 billion tourists travelled internationally in 2019.
1 Covid-19: Three dead as country records 65 new cases
2 Vaccine nationalism puts world on brink of 'catastrophic moral failure': WHO chief
3 Vaccine manufacturing is lumpy, supply not as good as hoped, UK says
4 Covid-19 accelerates growth in e-commerce
The outbreak of the disease and its rapid spread across the globe has seen heightened uncertainty in the sector as travellers require up-to-date and reliable information before deciding on their next destinations and itineraries. The major disruptions on the global economy from the transmission of the virus especially to the travel and tourism industry are immeasurable.
Nonetheless, tourism remains Kenya's top foreign exchange earner hence one of the country's economic mainstays. The industry depends on people and as we rethink how to make it sustainable in the post Covid-19 phase, local communities will be critical in this paradigm shift. This is why we must pool our resources and promote cultural tourism to boost the country's domestic tourism prospects now that international travel has taken a dip due to the pandemic.
Such a move will not only trigger the process of reviving the dwindling fortunes of the sector, but will also foster unity and national cohesion amongst the Kenyan communities. In the words of Tourism Principal Secretary Safina Kwekwe, time has come now for State authorities to focus on the interface between tourism, culture, conservation and the use of natural resources for sustainable livelihoods. There is no better institution that can play a pivotal role in the development and promotion of cultural tourism than Bomas of Kenya.
As the country prepares for a post coronavirus phase, let us strategically embark on promoting local tourism through our cultural heritage and to expand our attraction sites.
I am certain that having been confined to our homes over the last seven months, Kenyan families in western Kenya will be enthusiastic to learn the cultures of their counterparts in the coastal region and the other way round. It is important that the practices of our various communities are preserved, maintained and promoted for the sake of future generations through our cultural resources preservation and management policies.
One way of improving our nationhood to have young people learn, experience and appreciate the rich diverse cultural values of various ethnic groups in the country.
Indeed, Vision 2030's Social Pillar talks of building a just and cohesive society that enjoys equitable social development in a clean and secure environment - a good living ground for unity and national cohesion.
Our constitution in addition recognises the role of science and indigenous technologies in the development of the nation and the need to promote the intellectual property rights of the people of Kenya.
This noble realisation will best be achieved when we all roll up our sleeves to promote cultural tourism to boost Kenya's sustainable development in the post Covid-19 phase.
-Mr Gitaa is the head of Bomas of Kenya. [email protected]
Covid 19 Time Series
Search for a Covid-19 Vaccine: Kenyan jab still at trial stage, vaccine known as Chadox
Bomet launches tea tourism to organize marathon in tea estates, county pledges to support farmers
COVID claims Doctor: Dr Anthony Were died last night while receiving treatment in ICU
Cultural Tourism Tourism Economy Covid-19
Politics and the art of speaking in tongues
Students' discipline key to locking virus outside universities
China's economy picks up speed after COVID-19 shock
Sex and poverty: Major crises behind high number of teenage pregnancies
Why this week is critical as learners and teachers settle down for challenging term
80 test positive for coronavirus in Kenya today
Samsung's Jay Y. Lee on cusp of stepping out of father's shadow
K'Ogalo thrash Western Stima 3-1 in Kisumu
Be careful what you share on social media
By Demas Kiprono
Ethics should guide use of artificial intelligence
By Edwin Wanjawa
Is the mighty American empire on its last leg?
By Babere Chacha and John Wahome
Covid vaccines safe, ignore the naysayers
By Mohamed Guleid
Violent students: A loud cry for support
By Kalangi Kiambati
Cheer up, things are getting back to normal
By Macharia Munene


text:
Apple's iPhone 13 Said To Be Getting Smaller Notch With Larger Image Sensor Coming To Pro Models
By Oliver Haslam | January 22nd, 2021
Apple's 2021 iPhones might or might not be called the iPhone 13, but there are a few things beginning to leak out about the new handsets already. According to a new DigiTimes report, we could be set to see a new, smaller notch.
The iPhone's notch has been the same since its debut in 2017 on the iPhone X, but the 2021 releases could see an improvement in that front according to industry sources.
The next-generation iPhones' Face ID system will see some design changes with the size of the notch at the top of the screen to shrink and their ultrawide angle lens upgraded from 5P to 6P, the sources said.
The new design integrates Rx, Tx and flood illuminator into the same camera module, similar to that of a LiDAR scanner in the back camera module, to enable smaller notch sizes, the sources stated.
Other reports have previously suggested a change in the notch's size this time around, and it's sure something that people will be keen to see come to fruition. There could be changes around the back of the device as well, with a new image sensor improving the shots the Pro models will be able to achieve.
The sources revealed that the Pro family of the next-generation iPhones reportedly will feature a newly-designed CIS, while the other models will adopt the CIS used by the iPhone 12 Pro devices. The CIS will be supplied mainly by Sony, the sources said.
It's always important to remember that DigiTimes doesn't have a stellar record with these kinds of things, although it does have some wins on its record. Given this isn't the first time we've heard about the possibility of changes to the notch we're quite hopeful on that front at the very least.
How To Downgrade iOS 14.3 The Easy Way [Guide]


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Coming from a Bochnerian indexical or Kosuthian ontological fashion design to now what is firmly looking like art: diaspora of objects, parabolic playthings, affected benches, weight-pinned jester, Frankenstein's hat, warbled whites, set peas, objects admitting nothing but a clue like game of whispers across things. It's a fun game if you got someone to play along with, otherwise you're just sending words across space, luckily Berger seems well-attended so the objects get the attention. Ten art experts invited seventeen artists to apply, an international jury consisting of mumok director Karola Kraus, Georg Kapsch, CEO of the Kapsch Group, Eva Birkenstock, director of the Kunstverein Dusseldorf, Yilmaz Dziewior, director of the Museum Ludwig, and Stephanie Weber, curator for contemporary art at the Lenbachhaus Munich, selected the artist Anna-Sophie Berger as the first prizewinner of this new art prize.
Oliver Payne at Overduin & Co.


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Banks Mining Makes Major Equipment Investment At Bradley Surface Mine
Posted by Christopher | Mar 13, 2019 | Business | 0
North East employer Banks Mining has made a six-figure equipment investment at its Bradley surface mine in County Durham.
The County Durham-headquartered firm has acquired a Komatsu PC3000-6 excavator for use at the Bradley site, which sits off the A692 between Leadgate and Dipton, following the good service of a similar machine at its Shotton surface mine in Northumberland.
The 254 tonne excavator had previously been operating at the Hinkley Point nuclear power station development site in Somerset before being moved to Banks Mining's depot at Thrislington in County Durham and then taken the 23 miles to the Bradley site to be rebuilt by a pair of 200 tonne cranes.
In line with The Banks Group's 'development with care' approach, the excavator uses a single V12 engine, which is a similar power output to that of rival twin-engine machines while using less fuel.
Komatsu has recruited a locally-based service engineer to be based permanently on site and has also placed a stock of consumable parts at Bradley to ensure the excavator is kept working for the maximum time possible.
Forty-one jobs are being directly supported at the Bradley site, alongside others in the local supply chain, and the coal that has so far been produced has been supplied to a number of Banks Mining's industrial customers around the UK.
The family-owned firm recently announced plans to extract around 100,000 tonnes of high quality coal for supply to UK industrial customers from land to the west of the Bradley site which it is aiming to complete within the same timescale to which the existing site is operating.
Robbie Bentham, plant director at Banks Mining, says: "Giving our highly-skilled teams the equipment they need to work our sites in the safest, most efficient and most environmentally responsible way possible is an essential part of our overall operational strategy.
"We're living up to our promise to provide local employment, contract opportunities and revenues for community improvements through the Bradley site, as well as contributing positively to the UK's balance of payments and meeting more of the UK's continuing need for coal through high quality domestic resources.
"The UK still requires coal to meet a range of essential industrial, household and electricity generation needs. It's in our national interest and makes environmental sense to supply coal to the UK's essential steel and cement manufacturers from high quality reserves in the UK rather than rely on imports from Russia the US, Columbia and Australia. Imports of coal from Russia have increased by around 70% over the last two years and the associated greenhouse gas emissions generated by the transportation of imports alone are between five and seven times higher than transporting coal produced by Banks Mining close to our customers in the UK. Increasing imports of coal simply 'off-shores' our environmental responsibilities without the significant local economic and employment opportunities and environmental enhancements that Banks mining projects like Bradley are delivering.
"The Komatsu excavator based at Shotton has surpassed our expectations in terms of mechanical availability and we are seeing similarly impressive results at Bradley."
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Monmouth Pétanque Club
The Home of Boules in Monmouth
Meeting Times
BIG League Update – 30th May 2013
Posted on May 30, 2013	by rwintfod
The Monmouth team is still unbeaten in the BIG league. On May 20th they beat The Star 4 – 0, on May 28th they drew 2 – 2 with Abergavenny PC. The team is currently 3rd in Division 3.
Boules in Gwent Petanque League
Having decided to enter the Boules in Gwent (BIG) Petanque League for the first time this year Monmouth Petanque Club have completed their first two rounds. These two matches have resulted in two wins and have currently placed the Club in second place in their division. The league matches are played on Monday nights throughout the summer finishing in September when promotion and relegation places will be resolved. The club selects the league teams on the basis that all players who want to, no matter what their ability, get equal chances to play in these competitive matches.
Friendly Match vs Monkstone PC
On 14th April 2013, Monkstone Pétanque Club hosted a friendly match against Monmouth at the Penylan Bowling Club. In spite of the weather, the hospitality was faultless and everyone had an enjoyable afternoon.
The teams were tied 3-3 after the pairs but Monkstone won the triples 3-1, coming out overall winners at 6-4.
Welsh Cup for Clubs
Posted on April 1, 2013	by rwintfod
For the first time the club entered a team into the Welsh National round of the sport's European Cup for Clubs. The competition was held at the Monkstone Pétanque Club, Cardiff on Sunday 3rd March. Representing the club were Chris Marshall, Paul Macer-Wright, Vince & Leah Lewis, Len Humphries, Roger Norgrove and Peter & Barbara Clarke.
After the morning qualifying rounds the team finished with 5 wins and 5 losses. This put Monmouth in an afternoon play off with the Caerleon Pétanque Club for fifth place. The competition was close all the way through, ending with equal games won but Monmouth winning on the points count-back.
Club Captain Peter Clarke has expressed his delight with the skills and determination of the players in their first competition of this magnitude and is looking forward to further success for the players and the club. Well done!
The competition was won by the Wheatsheaf Pétanque Club, winning by 2 points in the very last game of the final against the Monskstone Inn Pétanque Club. Full details are to be found on the WPA website at http://www.welshpetanque.org.uk.
General Meeting to Discuss 2013 Programme
A general meeting to discuss the programme for 2013 was held on Thursday 28th February at the Rockfield Community Centre. The meeting was attended by 18 members with apologies for absence being received from a further three. Topics discussed included frequency of club meetings and plans for competitions throughout the year, both internal and against other clubs.
The meeting decided against running a summer league but unanimously supported the club competition day, one of the highlights of the 2012 season. Support was also strong for friendly matches and holding mêlées. Subject to there being sufficient support the club will be entering a team in the Big League, matches being played on Monday evenings throughout the season.
The club held its 2013 AGM on Thursday 31st January 2013 at the Rockfield Community Centre. The meeting was attended by 16 members with apologies for absence being received from a further eleven. The outgoing chairman presented his report for 2012. The treasurer's report was circulated and approved. Given the healthy state of the club's finances, membership fees were pegged at £25 for seniors and £10 for juniors for the current year.
Topics discussed included lighting for the terrain, conditions of the terrain license, possible competitions for 2013 and the potential for involvement with the Monmouth Twinning Association.
The officers elected for 2013 were: Chairman – Chris Marshall, Vice Chairman – Paul Macer-Wright, Secretary – Richard Wooller, Treasurer – Jane Moody, Club Captain – Peter Clarke. Jo Clifford agreed to continue as Catering Organiser and Rob Clifford as Terrain Manager.
First Club Championship
Posted on October 9, 2012	by monnowboule
On Saturday 29th September the club held it's inaugural Club Championships in glorious sunshine.
The competition comprised of two separate Petanque matches of Singles and Pairs.
The morning competition was the Singles in which there were 16 individual entries. The format was a qualification tournament of three rounds which provided the top four singles players, who then played off for the Trophy. In the 3rd & 4th place play off Hywel Rees defeated Diane Lake and in the 1st & 2nd place play off Peter Clarke defeated Richard Wooller.
In the afternoon, 10 teams competed for the Club Pairs Championship. Using the same format of three qualification rounds followed by a play off for the Trophy the pair of Richard and Wendy Wooller defeated Monmouth Petanque Club President Graham Pritchard and Chris Marshall in a very tense and close battle by 13 points to 11.
After the competitions Graham Pritchard thanked the Club Members who provided an excellent buffet lunch, in particular Jane Moody and Jo Clifford. He then presented the winners and runners-up with their trophies.
Winter League Results
Posted on March 8, 2012	by monnowboule
The Winter League is now complete. The final positions are below. Guy has promised to do a write up later.
Position Played Won Lost Score for Score against Diff Points
1 Paul 8 6 2 93 59 34 6
2 Len 8 6 2 98 75 23 6
3 Rob 8 5 3 91 80 11 5
4 Jo 8 5 3 92 82 10 5
5 Jane 8 5 3 90 84 6 5
6 Guy 8 4 4 70 91 -21 4
7 Graham 8 3 5 74 82 -8 3
8 Glyn 8 1 7 78 99 -21 1
9 Margaret 8 1 7 67 101 -34 1
Posted on February 13, 2012	by monnowboule
After much hard work by the committee and a couple of false starts the terrain was finally opened in May 2011. We have 7 pistes and 43 members.
In July the club was asked to provide a triple for the match in Brecon between the WPA and the Marches league. Richard, Wendy and Paul played and won four of their games in a convincing victory by the WPA team. Becky Minshull one of our junior members played for Wales juniors against England in July.
All the initial training at Abergavenny and the coaching by Chris and Len in June and July paid off in August when we played our first friendly match. We won 9 – 2 against Abergavenny. Several more friendlies with mixed results followed. A 2 -8 loss to Ross at home in September, a 7 -3 victory against Monkstone at home in October, a 4 – 8 loss away to Monkstone in December and finally a 6-9 loss away at Ross. I am sure Graham would want me to point out that in our first year of competition we only lost 2 more games that we won. A very good performance for a new club.
All the teams that visited Monmouth have said they would like to return this year. I'm not sure if this is because they like playing at Monmouth or if they just want more cake, hopefully both.
Both Chris and Len completed their WPA coaching courses during the year and their advice to all has been very good.
Site under way
Posted on February 2, 2012	by monnowboule
The site is currently under construction. Come back in a few days to see the finished article


Michigan's farmers and food processors are closely watching how talks of trade wars and retaliatory tariffs could affect the nearly $2.7 billion in exports they send to other countries.
When the Trump administration announced plans to impose tariffs on imported steel and aluminum earlier this year, Michigan Agri-Business Association President Jim Byrum worried the agriculture industry could suffer as a result. Those worries escalated in the weeks after President Donald Trump announced a 25-percent tariff on steel and a 10-percent tariff on aluminum as news hit that the European Union, China and other trading partners could target U.S. goods, including food and agricultural commodities.
"Countries have already looked at those potential tariffs and threatened certain agricultural commodities," Byrum said.
While potential tariff threats to bourbon and Harley-Davidson Motorcycles — both from Republican districts — made the most headlines, the trade war could also affect commodities from Michigan, including dark red kidney beans and soybeans, according to Byrum.
The tariffs could have a direct effect on Michigan producers. The state's top three specific agricultural exports are soybeans ($564.3 million), corn ($229.3 million) and dairy products ($222.6 million).
For now, the threats will not affect plans for farmer-owned cooperative Foremost Farms LLC to build a new milk processing plant in Greenville in the next 12 months, according to President and CEO Michael Doyle. However, he warned that the situation could alter the company's plans for further development at the 96-acre site it bought for $1.15 million last November.
The company expects to build a 55,000-square-foot intake system to process up to 6 million pounds of milk solids per day at the Greenville location.
As the agriculture sector monitors the trade situation for now, Michigan's manufacturing sector is bracing for more immediate challenges related to the steel and aluminum tariffs. According to a March report from the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C., Michigan imports about $2 billion worth of steel and aluminum annually.
The report's authors noted the group of states including Michigan, New York, Illinois, Ohio, California, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and Texas account for 60 percent of the nation's total imports of the metals.
"Given the large size of their economies, disruptions to trade in these states have significant potential to influence national economic growth and key industry sectors like automotive manufacturing, chemicals, and oil and gas production. Michigan, for instance, relies on NAFTA for more than 70 percent of its steel and aluminum products," according to the report.
That's a worry for Dave Armstrong, president and CEO of East Lansing-based GreenStone Farm Credit Services, a leading lender for Michigan's agricultural industry. He cited farmers' ongoing struggles with falling net farm income since 2013, when the market hit $123 billion nationally.
With domestic farmers producing more of every agricultural commodity than "we can possibly consume in the United States," Bryum said the industry needs export options, including with NAFTA partners in Canada and Mexico. However, the talk of tariffs and trade wars does little to inspire customer confidence abroad, Byrum said, noting that uncertainty could cause other countries to back off on U.S. imports.
The uncertainty could cause customers from other countries to consider "other supply options" from sources that grow "what we grow here" and have more stability when it comes to trade, Byrum said.