Once again, it's been a decently busy year for the Walt Disney World Parks this year. A lot of new things happened, both that took a positive direction for the company and a certain thing that well, simply didn't exactly cut the mustard.
New Downtown Disney Shops and Restaurants: I know they new Hyperion Wharf area isn't set to be done for a few years, but that didn't stop Disney from starting the process of building Downtown Disney up a bit more. I'm sure many of you would think I would put this in the Fail category because I'm still bitter about what they did to Pleasure Island (which I am still bitter about....you give me back my Adventurer's Club in the Hyperion Wharf area and all will be forgiven...please....) But really, Downtown Disney overall needed a complete overhaul and this year really saw a lot of great changes. Things added this year included Pollo Campero, Fresh Appeal and Babycakes Bakery, which can only be a win over McDonalds, and the menu here sounds delicious. We saw the new addition of the new shop D-Street. Ridemakerz took over a section of the defunct Virgin Megastore and we saw a few additions to some existing stores, such as the Tea and Spice Shop and a new Video Game area. These are all things that are going to help Downtown Disney continue to grow in the future and make it a much more enjoyable experience all around, rather than just walking through empty building after empty building like it used to be.
Best Friends Pet Care: I think this is such a plus. Sure Disney had Kennels before, but before you had to go to the specific kennel at a specific park. Now, with the "doggie daycare" facility being open in a single location, I really think that's a real positive. And this place is nice too! Almost too nice...I think they have better amenities here than they do at some of the Value hotels! But despite that, I think it's definitely a good thing to have on property because even our fur babies need a vacation too.
Summer Nightastic: I think this is a fabulous event and I really hope they bring it back each year. So many people complain because WDW won't do things like holiday overlays on attractions...but this event right here is great because it changes things up just enough for those who get to come multiple times a year, but doesn't impact too terribly many attractions found in the parks to a large degree. So the way I see it, everyone wins! And I can only hope next year, we see even bigger enhancements for the summer months in all 4 parks!
Captain EO: In sort of conjunction with Summer Nightastic, but also separate in it's own right was bringing back Captain EO. At first when I heard of this news, I thought it would be a fail. I had seen the video on YouTube and thought, you can't be serious! You want to bring this hot mess back?! But after finally getting to experience it in the actual theater, I have to say, I'm so glad they brought it back. Granted, I still want to see something new brought to that theater in a few years, but Disney took an EXTREMELY tired attraction in Honey I Shrunk The Audience and replaced it with something that was much more fun and something that had just the right amount of kitch and nostalgia to make it work. And boy did it ever work!
Announcement of Art of Disney Animation: For so long, those of us in the Disney community have wondered, when are they going to do something with that eyesore known as Pop Century, Legendary Years. Well, this year, we got our answer with the announcement of the Art of Disney Animation Resort. From what I can tell from the concept art that was recently released, this place is going to look FABULOUS!! And add on top of that that they are making the resort mainly family suites, which is so great because it was a demographic the resort as a whole was severely missing...I think when this place opens in 2012, we're gonna wonder, what took them so long?!
Muppet-Vision 3D enhancements: This year, the beloved Muppets got a good spit and polish and boy did it need it! You didn't realize it until you compared the film from before with the new enhance version of the film. Wow! I can see things so much clearer now! I can see things I didn't know even existed. And of course, they fixed up the theater too, so all effects are working at top notch quality. I love when things get spruced up in the parks and this looks amazing.
La Cantina and La Hacienda de San Angel: Yes, this restaurant was a new addition too, but for some reason, it just doesn't do a whole lot for me personally. Which means that at this moment, I must place it in the Meh category. It's not a fail because I've heard the reviews are now coming back a little more glowing. And looking at the menu, I see some things on there that I would certainly like to try. But, the menu items are sort of high on the price side and intial reviews weren't great, so at this point in the game, I'm not ready to make a definitive win or fail decision yet.
A few new additions came in the way of updating attractions. The first was changing the Storytime With Belle area at the Magic Kingdom into a Tangled Greet and Play area. The second was taking the High School Musical 3 show out and replacing it with Disney Channel Rocks. I'm meh on this because neither one were really upgrades...they were like lateral moves. Take two shows and change them out for 2 new shows that are close to the same type of experience. Nothing really all that new to see. Meh.
Duffy: Oh the bear that was conceived expressly for marketing purposes. This equals major fail for me. Yes, Duffy is cute and cuddly, but was it really necessary to create a whole brand new "fake" character just to sell plush that you can change the outfits on? Why couldn't we have introduced this changing outfits concept for Mickey or Figment or something if Disney wanted to have a "Build a Bear" type experience with their characters? That would have been something I could have gotten more behind. At least those are legitimate characters...created by actual Imagineers or Animators. I am not a big fan, and I know that many others in the Disney community are not big fans of this either.
For a year that was semi quiet with not a lot of MAJOR things going on, there was still quite a bit to talk about and quite a bit of it was super. I look forward to what next year is to bring us, including a new parade in Disney's Hollywood Studios called the Pixar Pals Parade, the new Wild Africa Trek experience, the Let the Memories Begin campaign, and of course, the thing that I'm looking forward to the most, Star Tours II. And while right now it seems that 2011 is going to be a quiet year too, I'm sure Disney has some stuff up their sleeves that they just haven't announced yet. And I look forward to all the changes coming for 2011!
And with that, I wish you all a Very Happy New Year!!!! See you all in 2011!
100 percent agree with the Duffy Fail. ugh.
hate Duffy, too, seems like being 'disloyal' to the mouse in a way. also, you didn't comment on the newest renovations: fantasyland in mk or australia in ak...too soon to comment? i'd be interested in your opinion(s).
I very strongly disagree with your overly-negative and prejudiced opinions on Duffy, as well as on all the stuff on the "Meh" list.
Barb: I didn't mention anything about Fantasyland because while the ground had broken this year, the changes that are coming hadn't been announced, so I'm reserving my thoughts for after they're announced. As for Austrailia, I didn't mention anything because that is way to early to tell right now.
And as far as the Anonymous posting, I'm sorry you disagree with me, but we all have our own opinions and I am entitled to mine. And in regards to Duffy, as I'd mentioned, apparently I'm not the only one who feels that way...look at the comments posted as well. But thank you for posting your opinion.


text:
East End Film Festival reveals 2014 dates
Contributing Editor Sarah Cooper2013-09-18T13:21:00+01:00
Sebastian Hoffman to co-curate focus on new wave in Mexican Cinema; partnership with Sheffield Doc/Fest strengthened.
The East End Film Festival (EEFF) has announced its dates for the 13th edition of the festival, which will run from June 13-25, 2014, for 13 days.
"There's a recurring theme of the number 13 with next years festival which I'm expecting in this case will prove lucky for us," said EEFF's director Alison Poltock.
"Standing up against massive events like the World Cup, I'm determined to make this the biggest and best ever East End Film Festival – a proper coming of age celebration as EEFF enters its teenage years."
The festival will run directly after Sheffield Doc/Fest which closes June 12. As in previous years, both festivals will share a selection of films, and EEFF will run the East End Bar at Doc/Fest as part of a growing informal partnership between them.
Meanwhile, Mexican filmmaker Sebastian Hoffman, whose debut feature Halley won EEFF's Best Feature award in 2013, will return as the festival's director of residence, working alongside the EEFF programming team to co-curate a focus on the new wave in Mexican cinema.
Titles include Patrick Vollrath's hijack thriller 7500 , starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Dutch actress Halina Reijn's racy feature debut Instinct .
More UK & Ireland
Bulgari Hotel unveils Richard Attenborough cinema
2012-05-29T21:00:00ZContributing Editor Sarah Cooper
The new hotel in London's Knightsbridge has promised to donate 10% of all booking revenues from the cinema to the CTBF.
Metrodome in the black for first half of 2010
UK distributor Metrodome Group has announced its half year financial results for 2010, with profits of £161,000 for the six months ending June 30.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
A new Wikipedia page on CEASE therapy
Summary: I've created (with help from other Wikipedians) a new page on Wikipedia for CEASE therapy giving a brief overview of what the therapy involves and the regulatory action that's taken place against the misleading claims made for it. (Page last updated - 29 July 2018)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEASE_therapy
For some time I and others have been trying, not all that successfully, to get UK homeopaths / naturopaths to stop making misleading claims about curing or treating autism. The information accompanying their treatment promotes the idea that vaccines cause autism (which is a harmful idea to be promoting anyway) and the treatment itself involves the notion of 'vaccine detox' through large doses of vitamin C alongside a buffet selection of supplements, dietary restrictions and homeopathy. CEASE therapy (Complete Elimination of Autistic Spectrum Expression - the name itself is problematic) is promoted to parents of children with autism and no evidence has been provided of it being of use to anyone. A related 'treatment' is Homeopathic Detox Therapy or HDT.
In 2015 Teddington Homeopathy was reported to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for misleading CEASE-related claims and the ASA adjudicated against them and subsequently added them to their non-compliant online advertisers list. [I submitted a complaint myself but the ASA had already begun to take action based on someone else's prior complaint].
More recently we have asked the Society of Homeopaths to rein in their own members. There are several homeopathic societies in the UK and the SoH has its members' register accredited by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) so I suppose this offers a potential source of leverage. Happily the PSA listened to our* complaints and imposed conditions on the SoH when reaccrediting their register. The SoH published a position statement advising their members to take care about misleading claims relating to the treatment.
In my own complaint, to the SoH, I reported five of their members who had been making misleading claims, then I periodically monitored the five websites for any changes. Sadly the changes were fairly minimal - hence the 'not all that successfully' reference above. Most significantly one member has cancelled their SoH membership (so they are no longer required to follow the SoH's guidelines on marketing etc) but very little of the text has changed.
In July 2018 the ASA adjudicated against another CEASE therapist who offered CEASE among several other things, so it wasn't the main focus. I also discovered that they'd written to several homeopaths in May and June enclosing an Enforcement Note on CEASE therapy and asking them to ensure that their marketing material did not make misleading claims.
Hopefully the ASA might take some action on these and other homeopaths - I won't necessarily know about it because they do not need to adjudicate further on any homeopath. After several cases the ASA already knows that there's no good evidence for homeopathy and that it doesn't work so there's no point in revisiting the evidence and adjudicating. Instead each new complaint about homeopathy is handled by the Compliance team who, frustratingly, don't publish their activities. I don't think any of the homeopaths (from my complaint) have been selling homeopathic remedies in breach of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) regulations.
Since getting regulatory bodies to take action on misleading health advertising is a long, slow process I thought I'd try a parallel approach of creating a new Wikipedia page about the therapy. Wikipedia's pages can feature prominently in search engine results so I'm hoping that the page might appear when families are searching for information. No guarantees of course! No sign of the page in search results yet but it's only been 24 hours.
*our - I did put in a complaint however the timeline was such that the PSA had already had its meeting and taken action before I did, so mine's unlikely to have contributed much to the outcome.
After writing about the new Wikipedia page on Twitter I got a fair bit of push back from homeopaths and CEASE therapists who get a bit cross when anyone points out that they're making unsupported claims about an implausible treatment. One of them created a new account with a username that is typical of the lack of insight of some homeopaths I've spoken to (see screenshots below). Of course this certainly seems a bit intimidating and might put people off from writing about their activities on Twitter but it doesn't actually stop people from undertaking those activities (or getting other people to mention them instead).
Is it really like that I wonder ;)
A few more screenshots below.
There's still a lot to be done on CEASE. Getting the ASA and SoH to persuade homeopaths to remove misleading claims is only one small part. They are still attempting to treat children with autism which is beyond their level of competence and a safeguarding issue. The MHRA can block the sale of the 'remedies', local councils can take action around safeguarding and Trading Standards can prosecute.
Labels: #homeopathy, alternative medicine - homeopathy, ASA - Advertising Standards Authority, CEASE - Complete Elimination of Autistic Spectrum Expression
Library of Things - borrow household stuff as well as books
Libraries of Things are community-run projects which let people borrow community-owned items for a small fee, for a week or so. Items can include musical instruments, camping equipment, household tools (drills, waffle-makers), arts and crafts and whatever the community makes available.
Inspired by @MooseAllain's post about a local project in Frome :) I looked for a directory and didn't find one so this is the next best thing.
Love this 'Library of Things' in Frome. Such a brilliant idea @SHARE_frome pic.twitter.com/xPB5uP87tQ
— MꙬse Allain (@MooseAllain) July 14, 2018
Google is full of suggestions, I just picked a few - another good way to find more is to do an image search for Library of Things and click on the different logos. Also search Twitter.
Community fridges (avoid wasting food within use by date)
Frome has a Community Fridge and Brixton has a People's Fridge.
Libraries of Things
Library of Things - Crystal Palace / Upper Norwood
https://www.libraryofthings.co.uk/
Share Frome
https://sharefrome.org/
Borrow Don't Buy - Plymouth
https://www.borrowdontbuy.co.uk/
Local Tool lending library - worldwide
http://localtools.org/find/
Pimlico Toy Library
http://www.pimlicotoylibrary.org/
Oxford Library of Things (coming soon, as of Nov 2017)
https://www.lowcarbonwestoxford.org.uk/news/buy-can-borrow-coming-soon-oxford-library-things/
from Low Carbon West Oxford (see also Facebook)
Guildford Library of Things (opened June 2018)
https://www.guildfordmakerspace.org.uk/guildford-library-of-things/
https://www.guildford.gov.uk/article/21781/Guildford-s-Library-of-Things-Now-Open
Benthyg - benthyg@rumneyforum.org.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/cardiff-now-library-you-borrow-13836782
Dublin Library of Things
https://www.weshare.ie/library-of-things
Brighton, MI - Library of Things
http://brightonlibrary.info/library-of-things/
Capital Area District, Lansing, MI - Library of Things
http://www.cadl.org/find-books-and-more/lot-heading/browse/
Hillsboro, Oregon - Library of Things
https://www.hillsboro-oregon.gov/departments/library/explore-the-collections/library-of-things
Connetquot Public Library, Bohemia, New York (electronics / hardware)
http://www.connetquotlibrary.org/services/library-of-things/
Ann Arbor District Library - Unusual Things to Borrow
https://aadl.org/catalog/browse/unusual
Kitchener, Ontario - Library of Things
http://kwlot.ca/
Repair cafes
https://repaircafe.org/en/
Restart Project
https://therestartproject.org/
Labels: borrow don't buy, community fridge, community library, Library of Things, people's fridge, share library
Learning Morse Code online
Click the pic above (or https://morse.withgoogle.com/learn) and then on Play a demo on desktop to go through the interactive Morse-learning demo. I discovered this thanks to this post from Lifehacker.
Google have arranged things so that smartphone users can type or receive a series of Morse dashes and dots. It's rather good fun and you can also do it on a desktop too (link above). The intention behind this is not just fun but as part of their programme to help people with more accessible communication. In the example given, someone can use head movements to produce either a dot or a dash and the sequence of these is converted into English text (or can be converted into any language).
To introduce this they've also created a really simple and clear method for training people in Morse code (morse.withgoogle.com/learn) which is fun and delightful - really good use of visual design - and I'd learned all the letters within an hour. The morning after I can still remember most of them. Isn't the U for Unicorn (.._) cute.
There are several 'directions' in learning Morse and this uses only one of them. You are given a letter in English - P - and you have to respond with the correct Morse letter - . _ _ . It's quite similar to how I learned to touch-type. First you start with f and j which are the 'home' keys on a keyboard, they have the little raised bit so your fingers can always find them. Then the other letters are brought in and soon you're confidently typing gibberish like fdf dfd jkj kjk and so on and after two weeks you're 50+ words a minute.
'Real' Morse, although no longer in official use (it's not used by the military and I think even amateur 'ham' radio enthusiasts are no longer required to be proficient), would never learn it just like that - you'd hear a series of dots and dashes and have to be able to transcribe back into English letters and numbers, and into words. This system doesn't teach that. Similarly it doesn't teach the reverse in that it doesn't present you with ... _ or _ ... and wait for you to provide V or B respectively (not a criticism, it's really fun and I think it's great and I know more Morse now than I ever did).
Learning Morse uses several 'sensory modalities' in that you have to listen (or see) and press buttons or write and ideally you'd learn to cross-convert an English letter to Morse and a Morse letter to English.
This morning I tried the Morse Code machine tester from Boy's Life (even though I am a girl, ) and was pleased that I got most of them right (but got a few wrong). In the picture below it's the letter 'H' shown.
I am fascinated by Morse Code, its history and use, and always feel that I want to be able to make sense of the dits and the dahs. However there's absolutely no reason for me to do so, so no impetus to learn beyond my curiosity.
This enthusiasm probably began about fifteen years ago when I was lying in bed at my parent's house fiddling about with a bedside radio and I came across a radio station broadcasting a series of beeps and beeeeps and wondered what it was. I tried to write them down but of course I couldn't work out where one letter began and ended, or where the sequence started. It took a few listens to make sense of where the spaces were and, with a bit of Googling later and I eventually worked out that the letters were CHT _._. / .... / _ and that it wasn't a radio station but just the Chiltern Non-directional radio beacon for aircraft which was pinging out its location info which my radio had picked up. My parents lived within radio-listening distanced from the Chiltern beacon which is located at RAF Northolt (you can hear it in this old Audioboom of mine). Further googling also led me to this song 'The Slow Train' by Andy Lewis, which features the beacon as a backing track.
Morse is kind of a binary thing (well, not really as there's ON (dot or dash) and OFF (silence) with the transmitting units being built up to form letters, words and numbers. It let people send messages via telegraphy through a series of electrical pulses - not wildly dissimilar to the way in which nerves work - which converted the signal to marks on a bit of paper that were meant to be read. Early telegraphy operators found that they could just as easily translate into dots and dashes the sound the device made as it converted the electrical signal into an indentation on a paper tape. The paper tape became unnecessary and later when Morse was used in radio communications people realised it was quicker just to hear it as an audio transmission rather than as something you translate from a written page. [Wikipedia's page on the history of Morse code]
Below is a picture I took at the Orkney Wireless Museum showing the Morse alphabet. I was surprised to see accented letters.
Make your own Morse key USB keyboard
Test yourself in Morse
Quiz: How well do you know Morse code? (27 April 2018, BT)
Morse Code test (1728.org)
A real-world test for certification with the Radio Society of Great Britain
Labels: Google, Morse code, Morse typing trainer, online courses
Library of Things - borrow household stuff as well...


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What is happening to Judge Kavanaugh is reprehensible. A constitutional judge and an man of integrity and faith is being accused of vile deeds completely contrary to his character. The enemy wants desperately to destroy him and what he stands for but God will decide the outcome. May we rally our prayers on Judge Kavanaugh's and our nation's behalf.


text:
Маринко Петровић (Пирот, ? - Видин, 1813), познат и као Маринко Пиротски, био је титуларни пиротски војвода из времена Првог српског устанка. Поред Мите Пиротског и Ранче Пироћанца, био је један од најистакнутијих учесника Првог српског устанка из пиротског краја.

Биографија
Према народној традицији, Маринко Петровић рођен је у селу Присјан поред Пирота. Његов отац Петар био је трговац, те је Маринко као дечак имао могућности да научи читање и писање у Темачком манастиру. Према неким наводима, био је један од предводника Пироћанаца у борбама против Османлија још од времена Кочине крајине с краја 18. века.

Извесно је да је Маринко као хајдук учествовао у буни која је избила у Пиротској нахији 1805. године, након чијег гушења и турске освете је један део Пироћанаца одлучио да пребегне у устанички део Србије. Карађорђе је 1806. одобрио Пироћанцима Мити и Маринку Петровићу да заједно са Хајдук Вељком нападају Турке у Понишављу. Након успешног напада на Белу Паланку, хајдучке чете повукле су се у околне планине. По ослобођењу Тимочке крајине од стране Карађорђевих устаника, Маринко је са још неколико пиротских старешина 1807. године прешао у Гургусовац (данашњи Књажевац) где је најпре именован за буљубашу, а потом за бимбашу добровољаца из пиротског и софијског краја.

Мита и Маринко Петровић именовани су за титуларне војводе устаничке Србије од стране Карађорђа 1808. године. Пиротска нахија остала је изван устаничких акција и османска власт у њој била је неупитна свих година трајања Првог српског устанка. Стога су Мита и Маринко као "пиротске војводе" без своје територије били задужени за пограничне области устаничке Србије и њихову одбрану од османског надирања. У периоду од 1806. до 1810. године, Маринко је био учесник битака на Делиграду, Гургусовцу, Малајници и Бањи.

Средином 1812. године Маринко Петровић добио је титулу кнеза. Након његовог напада на неке Турке и отимања њихове стоке, Турци су се жалили Совјету и Карађорђу па је у Гургусовац упућен изасланик са задатком да испита случај и ухвати Миту и Маринка. Истражујући случај, Карађорђев изасланик утврдио је да су Маринко и Мита невини и да је њихов напад на Турке био реакција на претходне турске преступе и пљачку српских сељака. Тако су њих двојица остали у Гургусовцу да чувају границу и сакупљају добровољце.

Током 1813. као војвода помиње се и Благоје Маринковић, Маринков син, који је најпре био у  Карађорђевој личној служби, да би потом био постављен за војводу соколске нахије.

Приликом угушења Првог српског устанка и пада устаничке Србије, Маринко Петровић ухваћен је код Звездана, близу Зајечара, а затим одведен у Видин и тамо погубљен. Тело му је бачено у Дунав. Због истакнуте улоге у устаничким борбама, Маринко Петровић налазио се на списку педесеторице најважнијих представника Првог српског устанка чије је изручење Порта тражила од Аустријанаца након слома Србије 1813.

Види још
 Пирот за време Првог српског устанка

Референце

Умрли 1813.
Пироћанци
Учесници Првог српског устанка

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


A new phishing campaign is packing a triple-threat attack in an effort to convince users to help the criminals in their credential-harvesting efforts.
The new campaign, reported on Jan. 21 by researchers at AppRiver, tells victims that their email accounts are infected with not one but three "deadly viruses" and will be shut down for security reasons if they don't immediately respond.
Those who do are taken to a hacked WordPress site chock-full of code that asks for credentials and stores them away in the attacker's vaults if provided.


An apparatus and process for dispensing a measured quantity of liquid product from a container. The apparatus includes a pour chamber and a density timer.
An apparatus and process for dispensing a measured quantity of liquid from a container. The apparatus includes a pour chamber having a dam, a spout, a vent, and a timer that is independent of flow in the pour chamber.


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During World War II, after Japan attacked the Aleutian Islands off Alaska's coast, the United States forcibly evacuated the islands' natives and quartered soldiers in private homes. That hitherto unremarked violation of the Third Amendment gives us a fresh perspective on what "Property" means in the U.S. Constitution. As a general legal matter, property includes not just real estate – land, fixtures attached thereto, and related rights – but also various kinds of personal property, ranging from tangibles such as books to intangibles such as causes of action. That knowledge would, if we interpreted the Constitution as we do other legal documents, tell us just about everything we need to know about the scope of constitutional property. Case law and commentary do not speak as plainly, however, raising troubling questions about what "Property" means each of the four times it appears in the Constitution. In particular, some authority suggests that the Takings Clause protects personal property less completely than it does real property. The unjust treatment of Aleutian natives during World War II shows the risk of giving constitutional property so peculiar and narrow a definition. This paper describes the troubling inconsistencies that afflict the law of constitutional property and invokes the Third Amendment, that oft-forgotten relic of the American Revolution, to argue for giving "Property" a plain, generous, and consistent meaning throughout Constitution.
As Tom points out, much of the above represents clear violations of the Takings Clause and other parts of the Constitution, in addition to the Third Amendment. Yet, unlike in the contemporary case of the internment of the Japanese-Americans, no one in government even considered the possibility that the Aleuts' constitutional rights had been violated.
Even when the federal government belatedly gave the Aleuts partial compensation for their losses in the 1980s, officials never admitted that the Aleuts had suffered violations of their Third and Fifth Amendment rights. Ultimately, the surviving Aleuts had to settle for a long-delayed, relatively paltry, $12,000 in compensation. The failure of officials to even consider this obvious violation of the Constitution is, as Tom notes, extremely telling. It does not paint a flattering picture of our constitutional culture, especially when it comes to property rights. It's worth noting that the era when these violations occurred was also the period when constitutional property rights were first demoted to their present second-class status (though it's far from clear that the government would have acted differently had a similar situation arisen earlier).
Tom does an excellent job of tracing the implications of the Aleutian episode for Third Amendment jurisprudence, constitutional theory, and property rights. I don't agree with all of his analysis. For example, I'm not convinced that this episode proves that constitutional protection for personal property is as important as that for real property. At least when it comes to violations by state and local governments, the latter is more likely to be endangered for reasons I discussed in Part I of this article. In this case, most of the harm inflicted on the Aleuts arose from the expropriation of their real property (their land and homes).
Despite a few such disagreements, I highly recommend Tom's article to anyone interested in property rights, constitutional theory, and – of course – the much-maligned Third Amendment. After reading the sad tale of the Aleuts, you will never again take your Third Amendment rights for granted!
UPDATE: The original link to Tom Bell's article did not work. I have now fixed the problem. Thanks to various readers for pointing it out.


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Jadespark Project
Humanities I Culture I Stories
Emotionality
Definition of emotion
Anatomy of emotion
Development of emotion
Ethics for emotion
Definition of mentality
Anatomy of thought
Development of thought
Ethics for mentality
Imagination is a mix of thought and emotion where thought preponderates. When during emotional development thought becomes more prevalent than emotion, feeling becomes imagination.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqt4Gv6Pz9A
Imagination = emotion + thought
Thought preponderates in imagination.
Imagination is more complex, more abstract than feelings.
Emotionality is the source of artistic creativity.
IMAGINATION IS THE MIND'S POWER OF VISUALISATION
A thought can shape a mental image in the mind based on our observations and personal experience. Imagination makes intellectual, artistic, cultural and ethical life possible, because we become able to think more abstract and complex thoughts. In imagination emotion still contributes to thought. Emotionality activates mentality, a process which results in the development of feelings and imagination.
Feeling and imagination are the outcome when emotion and thought intermingle in various degrees. Pure emotion (excitement, arousal) per definition lacks thoughts, is mentally blind. There is no knowledge to be found in emotions. Insight resides only in thoughts. The more thought in an emotion preponderates, the more concrete the mental image becomes and imagination unfolds. Imagination makes creativity possible.
Imagination is abstract thinking. When mentality develops thought becomes clearer and more complex. It can shape more abstract concepts, and not just reflections of everyday's objects and events. Thanks to imagination ideologies can be constructed to formulate a world view in politics, religion, science, arts and philosophy.
THERE'S NO KNOWLEDGE TO BE FOUND IN EMOTIONALITY, ONLY IN MENTALITY.
EMOTIONALITY LENDS VIVIDNESS TO MENTAL IMAGES OF THOUGHT.
emotion as motivation
Pure thinking feels cold and dry and we need to feel vitalised to become active. The required vitality is provided by emotions as motivation so that we can develop mentally through emotional experiences. Once intellectual development makes us capable of controlling emotional impulses, the role of emotion as motivation in our lives is fulfilled. Then the intellect takes over and we become indeed rational.
The famous psychologist Sigmund Freud created the method of psychoanalysis, his views on dreams, sexuality, childhood etc. In Vienna he saw his colleague Josef Breuer treat a patient called Anna O with a talking cure. The more she talked and pulled up traumatic memories, the more her symptoms were reduced. A breakthrough – Freud encourage his patients to talk freely and so the entire branch of psychoanalysis was invented.
Freud's discovery: our personality is shaped by unconscious motives (subconsciousness). But that subconsciousness can be discovered by talking and self-discovery.
Cognitive Appraisal theory
Thinking must occur first before experiencing emotion (pioneer: Richard Lazarus). Situations leads to thought which leads to physiological response.
Schachter-Singer theory
Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer formulated their Two-Factor theory in 1960s. They postulate that cognition can define emotion. You must be physically aroused and cognitively label that arousal.
Spillover effect experiment:
college guys + injection of hormone epinephrine (adrenaline). Some of subjects were told to expect symptoms of feeling all revved up, others were told nothing would happen. Then waiting with an actor that acted irritated or super happy. Subjects were influenced by the actor. The subjects decided cognitively what they were feeling. Those told to feel something reported very little emotion as they blamed their physiological reaction on the drug. The cause of physiological arousal has to be identified to label the response as a particular emotion. The arousal spurs emotion, but cognition gives it a name.
CANNON-BARD THEORY
Under scrutiny the James-Lange theory turns out to be incomplete, because they are many bodily responses that can cause totally different emotions. Sweating hands and a pounding heart can be a sign of fear or romantic excitement. That's why Walter Bradford Cannon and Philip Bard came out with the Cannon-Bard theory which states that bodily reactions and subjective experience of emotion somehow occur simultaneously but separately.
Today there's a consent among experts that cognition (everything pertaining to mentality such as perception, memory, thinking etc.) plays a big part in emotions and that there are various dynamics between mentality and bodily response that make up our different emotions and feelings.
Source: http://bit.ly/2vXyJHo
The physician and professor Oliver Sacks can't recognise his own face in the mirror. Sacks has a form of prosopagnosia, a neurological disorder that impairs a person's ability to perceive or recognise faces, also known as face blindness. This is another peculiarly excellent example of how a brain function is localised and how sensation and perception are separate faculties.Sacks can recognise his coffee cup on the shelf, but he can't pick out his oldest friend from a crowd, because the specific sliver of his brain responsible for facial recognition is malfunctioning. There's nothing wrong with his vision. The sense is intact. The problem is with his perception, at least when it comes to recognising faces. Prosopagnosia is a good example of how sensing and perceiving are connected, but different.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/mar/05/booksonhealth.whauden
http://nyti.ms/2xLqj6C
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/09/14/filter-fish
http://www.momentmag.com/uncle-xenon-the-elemental-oliver-sacks-2/
https://archive.org/details/openmind_ep1217
In 1848, Phineas Gage was working on the railroad, tamping gunpowder into a blasting hole with an iron rod, but the gunpowder ignited. The resulting explosion caused the rod to shoot like a bullet up through his left cheek and out of the top of his head. There's brain in between those two places.
Amazingly, Phineas stood up after the accident, and walked over to a cart, described what had happened, and was driven back to his house, all while he was conscious. After a few months of convalescing, he was pretty much healed up and moving around like he used to. But Phineas was no longer like himself. Whereas the old Phineas was mild-mannered and soft-spoken, the post-spike-to-the-brain Phineas was surly and mean-spirited and vulgar.
The case of Phineas Gage is an example of how brain functions are localised and how physiological factors are connected with physical and biological ones.
http://www.uakron.edu/gage/story.dot
http://www.uakron.edu/gage/adaptation.dot
http://www.uakron.edu/gage/lobotomy.dot
Optical illusions prove that perceptions can be misleading and that form perception is a difficult task. A number of factors influence our perception: expectations, context, culture, emotions and motivations.There are many famous examples of the brain trying to make sense out of the raw data provided from the senses. Some of those are the famous vases, faces or the duck/bunny figure illusions.
Rubin's Vase
Duck or rabbit?
Such things let us recognise that we simplify and organise information by distinguishing between figures and grounds (faces or vases illusion). The relations flip back and forth in our minds, though the figures themselves are always there.
The same distinction between figure-ground applies to all our senses, not just the visual sense. Our mind groups things together by proximity, continuity and closure.
The mind groups shapes together by closure.
Your sensory organs pull in the world's raw data, which is disassembled into little bits of information, and then reassembled in your brain to form your own model of the world.
How our attention tunes out most of the stimuli we receive from our senses can be best shown in the famous example of the Moonwalking Bear. Check it out to experience it for yourself.
Our narrow attention spans can also be exposed through magic tricks. Magicians use our perceptual incapability to notice small changes in our environment, thus creating certain effects which we, based on our experience, would consider impossible.
Thinking derives from mental learning. Learning is the process of acquiring information. Primitive thinking starts as automatic processes of associations and they occur already among highly developed animals. Mentality in the manifestation of the brain learns by creating more connections between its nerve cells. There are different ways of learning, but the most primitive one is associative learning.
Automatic learning: conditioning
The automatic ways of learning are the most primitive ones and they already occur among animals. They are about conditioning processes and the most famous researcher into this was the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov. He focused on the observable behaviours instead of trying to interpret the unobservable internal mental processes.
As a medicine man he studied dogs' stomachs and discovered that dogs salivate at a mere indication of a dinner. He conducted famous experiments to explore how dogs can associate originally neutral stimuli with the delivery of food and so learn to react to the stimuli accordingly.
Neutral stimuli are events which normally don't cause any particular reaction in dogs. However, if you frequently pair the presence of meat powder with neutral stimuli such as a certain sound, a shining light etc., the dogs start drooling when the stimulus occurs, although no food has been presented yet.
The conclusion is that animals exhibit associative learning. They can connect neutral events with certain events, a method of learning which turns a neutral stimulus into a conditioned one, because it evokes a reaction which normally would be caused by another event. This process of associative connecting is the most elemental form of how mentality learns.
Handel, Steven. "Classification of Emotions". Retrieved 30 April 2012. http://www.theemotionmachine.com/classification-of-emotions/
Denton DA, McKinley MJ, Farrell M, Egan GF (June 2009). "The role of primordial emotions in the evolutionary origin of consciousness". Conscious Cogn. 18 (2): 500–14. PMID 18701321.
Aristotle believed that emotions were an essential component of virtue. In the Aristotelian view all emotions (called passions) corresponded to appetites or capacities. Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Book 2. Chapter 6.
http://www.constitution.org/ari/ethic_02.htm#2.6
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2723854/
The idea that emotions developed naturally as a consequence of evolution came, unsurprisingly, from Charles Darwin himself. In his 1872 book "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals" Charles Darwin argued that emotions evolved via natural selection and serve a function that aids animal and human survival.
Modern views consider basic and social emotions as factors that developed to adapt human behaviour to natural and social environments. Emotion is an essential part in human decision-making and it competes with our urges, on one hand, and with our higher rational faculties of abstract reasoning, on the other hand.
Urges and basic emotions are the faculties that we human beings share with animals. At our primitive stages we strive after pleasant experiences and avoid unpleasant ones, because that's how our body responds to outer stimuli. Bodily satisfaction stimulates us on the most basic level. That explains why sexual pleasures, alcohol and adrenalin are commonly preferred choices of many people.
Charles Darwin (9 April 1998). The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Oxford University Press. pp. 401–. ISBN 978-0-19-977197-4.
Anon (January 1873). "Darwin's "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals"". Quarterly Journal of Science: 113–118. http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S220.htm
The Emotional Brain
The neurobiological explanation for human emotion is the pleasant and unpleasant mental states organised in the limbic system of the mammalian brain.
Emotions are enhancements of animal arousal patterns that happen via neurochemicals such as dopamine, noradrenaline and serotonin which prime or suppress the brain's activity levels. Those inner processes manifest themselves as body movements, gestures and postures.
Reptiles react to their environment by using pre-set body movements and programmed postures. With mammals, the olfactory sense gained more importance which is proposed to have developed into mammalian emotion and mammalian memory.
The olfactory lobes are proportionally larger than in the reptiles and the odor channels might have developed gradually to what would later become the limbic system, which is the seat of emotions.
Source: Givens, David B. (1998). "Emotion". Center for Nonverbal Studies. Archived from the original on 23 May 2014. Retrieved 7 May 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140523192511/http://center-for-nonverbal-studies.org/emotion.htm
"[E]motion is any mental experience with high intensity and high hedonic content (pleasure/displeasure)."
Cabanac, Michel (2002). "What is emotion?" Behavioural Processes 60(2): 69-83.
James-Lange theory
Historically, there's been a number of theories that contributed to our understanding of emotions. In 1884 the American psychologist William James argued that feelings and emotions were only the result of phy-sio-logical phenomena. James proposed that the perception of an event could trigger a bodily response, and this bodily reaction is what constitutes an emotion.
Source: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/James/emotion.htm
The Danish psychologist Carl Lange made a similar proposition and nowadays the concept that feelings and emotions are our awareness of bodily reactions to external stimuli is called the James-Lange theory.
According to this theory we experience emotions because our bodies react physiologically to outer stimuli, i.e. we are trembling not because we are afraid. We are afraid because we are trembling.
Cherry, Kendra. "What Is the James-Lange Theory of Emotion?". Retrieved 30 April 2012. https://www.verywell.com/what-is-the-james-lange-theory-of-emotion-2795305
http://parrhesiajournal.org/parrhesia13/parrhesia13_redding1.pdf
"Theories of Emotion". Psychology.about.com. 13 September 2013. Retrieved 11 November 2013. https://www.verywell.com/theories-of-emotion-2795717
Dalgleish, Tim. "The emotional brain". http://bit.ly/2vXyJHo
Animals & Feelings
"Our emotional feelings reflect our ability to subjectively experience certain states of the nervous system. Although conscious feeling states are universally accepted as major distinguishing characteristics of human emotions, in animal research the issue of whether other organisms feel emotions is little more than a conceptual embarrassment".
Panksepp, Jaak (2005). Affective neuroscience : the foundations of human and animal emotions ([Reprint] ed.). Oxford [u.a.]: Oxford Univ. Press. p. 9. ISBN 0-19-509673-8.


The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is stepping up its work to end the huge ATLAS consortium contract with the launch of a tender to enable MODNET Evolve to launch individual procurement projects to replaces the ICT services provided by the consortium.
The MoD is looking for a strategic partner, initially on a two month engagement, but with a potential 22 months to follow, to help manage new services through their procurements and conduct preparations for exit, transition and integration with other ISS Services up to contract award. The work is expected to build on the work that ISS has already done to facilitate the ATLAS transition, the tender said.
The contract, which is worth an initial £400,000, sees the MoD essentially looking for help to run technology procurements, rather than looking for replacement vendors at this stage. Yet it does appear, from this listing of this requirement for a partner, that the Ministry is aiming to disaggregate the outsourced ISS/DII environment next spring.
The MoD has already been working with Roc Technologies to provide the groundwork for how the DII services will be broken up. In June it also announced the bidders for the MODNET EVOLVE Operational Service Management contract which will oversee the new arrangements. Atos, BT, Fujitsu and Capgemini, which all have well-established relationships in defence IT contracting, are among the selected names.
The deadline for asking questions about the partner tender is this Thursday, September 20, with a closing date for applications of a week later. The starting date for the work is expected to be Wednesday October 31.
Discussing why the work is being done and the problems to be solved, the MoD explained that the Information Systems and Services (ISS) disaggregation of its legacy monolithic contract with the ATLAS consortium which ends in March 2019, is consistent with the Cabinet Office's strategic priorities of increasing competition by breaking large contracts, encouraging SME involvement and building capability within ISS to take ownership of critical functions.
The MoD said that ISS has made "significant progress" on managing the disaggregation of ATLAS. It said the remit of the overall portfolio is well understood, critical dependencies have been identified, service re-procurement packages are reasonably well defined, and three 'invitations to negotiate' have already been issued and are at different stages of maturity. The three Future Operational Service Management (FOSM) procurements – for Help desk functionality for Defence, SIP-Service Integration Partner and TSP-Test Service Partner – are to build in-house capabilities within ISS.
Essential skills required will include recent experience of running large ICT procurements of up to £500m total contract value for complex government departments or private sector equivalents; recent experience of setting up and managing a complex ICT delivery portfolio of interdependent projects in organisations of similar complexity and size (around 200,000 users); and again, recent experience of planning and enabling exit and transition from large (multimillion pound) legacy ICT contracts to multiple new services providers.


Reminder: The statistics used in this post come from IBM's 2008 Global Making Change Work study.
Project success rates were 23% higher when the amount invested in change was greater than 11% of the project budget....Organizations that invested less than 11 percent in change had a 35% success rate; those that invested more than 11 percent had a 43% success rate.
Not only does investing this money in change increase your chance of success over competitors that don't invest the money, it also increases your chance of success above the average 41% of projects that succeed in general.
Let's convert this into dollars. Based on these statistics, a project with a $1M budget must invest a minimum of $120,000 in Change Management (I'm using a 12% investment, since that's just more than 11%). I've been on projects with much larger budgets that have invested much less in Change Management.
Why is there such a lack of budget for Change Management? I think the number one reason is that people don't understand what Change Management is and the value they'll receive on their investment. I believe that the second most common reason, though, is that many projects don't know how to create a Change Management budget. They can't figure out what the money would be spent on, so they see no reason to set any money aside.
Although it will vary a bit by project, I've listed the top 5 Change Management line items that require budget.
Outside Help: Most companies are not equipped to handle the full range of Change Management activities internally. We don't expect the finance guy to possess the skills required to do his own coding, so why do we expect he should be able to do his own Change Management? Although many companies have the best intentions about having members of their project team deal with Change Management, it's a good idea to budget for outside consultants or contractors. If you're still not convinced, I refer you back to my earlier post on the need for a professional Change Manager to increase your project's chance of success.
Training: Training is one of the most expensive activities covered by Change Management. A one-hour computer-based training course with all the bells and whistles created by an external company can easily cost you anywhere from $15,000 - $45,000. Even if you go with a more basic approach, good training development and delivery is still extremely costly. In addition, most companies end up needing to hire contractors to help with the training development. This cost can quickly add up.
Rewards and Recognition: In today's tight economy, with many companies operating with a skeleton crew, employees are being asked to take on more and more responsibility without necessarily receiving an increase in compensation. Asking (or telling) your employees that they now need to work on a project in addition to completing their day-to-day jobs can result in revolt. Setting aside a budget to do some simple Rewards and Recognition throughout the project, whether it's holding team dinners or providing small denomination "Thank You" gift cards, can help your employees feel appreciated and motivated.
Field Communications: This item won't apply to everyone, but if you have a large set of employees in the field (e.g., Sales People), it's a good idea to set aside budget for communicating with them. Many companies prefer to meet with these groups in person, which can run up a hefty tab. Even if all of the communications will be done through remote means, holding webinars and developing quality electronic communications carry a price tag. I've also found that many companies feel the need to have "fancier" communications and events for their field departments. If this is true at your organization, make sure to plan accordingly.
Sustainability: Many project plans end at Go-live. A few continue for 2-4 weeks post Go-live. Very few recognize that just because a change has been implemented, doesn't mean it has been adopted. To really ensure that a change becomes embedded in your organization, you need to consider the need for on-going Change Management activities. What will you do about training new employees or those who were on leave during the project? How will you communicate and train employees about on-going changes to a system? What do you do if a month after go-live, you discover people aren't using the new tools and processes? And who will be responsible for implementing any new Change activities that are required to deal with these issues?
And thus ends my analysis of IBM's Making Change Work study. If you're not yet convinced that Change Management is a necessary part of any project, please leave a comment explaining why. If you're a believer, what do you find to be the most compelling argument in favor of Change Management?
Thanks for your response, Norman. I absolutely believe small businesses can be successful in change. Best of luck, and hope the rest of the blog posts are helpful, as well!
Its really good to know about that some facts and other points given here are quite considerable and to the point as well, would be better to look for more of these kind for your field of business.
Do We Really Need Change Management?


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Fate/Grand Order Mobile Reaches 5 Million Downloads
January 25, 2019 January 26, 2019 by admin 0 Comments
Android, Aniplex, Fate/Grand Order, iOS, News, Originals, Sony Music Entertainment Japan
The mobile version of Fate/Grand Order that released in June of 2017 has now surpassed 5 million downloads on iOS and Android devices worldwide.
The mobile free-to-play RPG is quite popular, having made publisher Aniplex, a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment Japan, lots of money over the course of its lifetime. Following its public success, it has also gotten some critical acclaim such as the "Award for excellence in the "Games of the Year" category at the Japan Game Awards 2018 organized by the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA) this past September." In reaction to the success it has seen Fate/Grand Order will have a "5 Million Downloads Campaign" that begins on January 30, 2019 and will reward players with daily log-in bonuses, increased success rates for Servanta nd Craft Essence enhancements, and the acquisition quest of the Royal Brand Mystic Code is returning.
The celebratory campaign also marks the return of the limited time ★5 (SSR) Caster-class Servant, Leonardo da Vinci, as character players can enjoy an increased chance to summon the limited-time Servant to their teams. This is the first chance players have had to summon Chaldea's own universal genius since her original (and until now only) appearance during Fate/Grand Order's First Year Anniversary event, held in July of 2018.
Fate/Grand Order is currently available in United States, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, and Vietnam with five languages supported.
In September of 2018 it was reported that Fate/Grand Order had made nearly 9 billion Yen (or about $80 million in USD) just in the month of September. Comparatively Pokemon Go made $70 million during the month of October 2018.
Due to the strong reactions to Fate/Grand Order in the United States, there is currently a Fate/Grand Order U.S.A. Tour 2019 that begins in Los Angeles, California on February 23-24 with more locations and dates to follow. Tickets went live last week and the tour will include some special guests and exhibits of the game. Some exhibits include: Jeanna d'Arc amd Jeanne d'Arc (Alter)'s flags, Nero Claudius's Astus Estus, Gilgamesh's sword, Ea, Leonardo da Vinci's staff, Sakata Kintoki (Rider)'s Golden Bear, and Altria Pendragon (Alter)'s Excalibur Morgan. A PlayStation VR "experience" of the game will be coming to PlayStation 4 on Febraury 26, 2019 and will let you "interact" with Mash Kyrielight.
The post Fate/Grand Order Mobile Reaches 5 Million Downloads by Steven Santana appeared first on DualShockers.
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Q: Multiple Rows into Multiple Columns Dataframe in R with distinct 1st column as column header I'm new to R, and I would like to transform Multiple Rows into Multiple Columns Dataframe in R with distinct 1st column as column header
For example:
> dat <- read.table(text = "Company    Loc 100000012,104 100000012,105
> 100000012,107
> 100000012,102
> 100000012,166
> 100000012,126
> 100000012,169
> 100000012,42
> 100000012,43
> 100123545,50
> 100123600,21
> 100123600,10",
> header = TRUE)

transforms to the following
> 100000012,100123545,100123600
> 104,50,21
> 105,,10
> 107,,
> 102,,
> 166,,
> 126,,
> 169,,
> 42,,
> 43,,

Many thanks!

A: Try this:

*

*Skip the header, as the separator is missing.

*Set the separator to ","

*Name columns manually

dat <- read.table(text = "Company    Loc 100000012,104 100000012,105
100000012,107
100000012,102
100000012,166
100000012,126
100000012,169
100000012,42
100000012,43
100123545,50
100123600,21
100123600,10", skip = 1, sep = ",")
names(dat) <- c("Company", "Loc")
dat
#>      Company Loc
#> 1  100000012 107
#> 2  100000012 102
#> 3  100000012 166
#> 4  100000012 126
#> 5  100000012 169
#> 6  100000012  42
#> 7  100000012  43
#> 8  100123545  50
#> 9  100123600  21
#> 10 100123600  10

Created on 2020-03-16 by the reprex package (v0.3.0)

A: Here is a base R solution, using lapply + split, i.e.,
datout <- data.frame(t(do.call(rbind,
                               lapply(u<-lapply(split(dat,dat$Company),`[[`,2),
                                      `length<-`,
                                      max(lengths(u))))),
                     check.names = FALSE)

such that
> datout
   100000012  100123545  100123600
1        104         50         21
2        105         NA         10
3        107         NA         NA
4        102         NA         NA
5        166         NA         NA
6        126         NA         NA
7        169         NA         NA
8         42         NA         NA
9         43         NA         NA

DATA
dat <- structure(list(Company = c(100000012L, 100000012L, 100000012L,
100000012L, 100000012L, 100000012L, 100000012L, 100000012L, 100000012L,
100123545L, 100123600L, 100123600L), Loc = c(104L, 105L, 107L,
102L, 166L, 126L, 169L, 42L, 43L, 50L, 21L, 10L)), class = "data.frame", row.names = c(NA,
-12L))

A: Here is a tidyverse approach:
dat %>%
  mutate(rn = row_number()) %>%
  pivot_wider(id_cols = c(Company, rn), names_from = Company, values_from = Loc) %>%
  as.data.frame() %>%
  select(-rn) %>%
  mutate_all(~(.[order(is.na(.))])) %>%
  filter_all(any_vars(!is.na(.))) %>%
  unite(result, everything(), sep = ',')

Output
     result
1 104,50,21
2 105,NA,10
3 107,NA,NA
4 102,NA,NA
5 166,NA,NA
6 126,NA,NA
7 169,NA,NA
8  42,NA,NA
9  43,NA,NA

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Will You Pay for Hulu on the iPad? It May Be Your Only Choice.
February 19, 2010 at 5:00 am PT
Will Hulu come to the iPad? Probably. One day. But you had better get ready to pay for it.
Hulu and its owners, three of the big broadcast TV networks, want to bring some version of the Web video service to Apple's device.
But the most likely scenario is one in which access to Hulu on the iPad comes as part of a subscription package, multiple people familiar with the company tell me.
Hulu has been free for Web users since it launched in 2008. But its broadcast owners–GE's (GE) NBC Universal, News Corp.'s (NWS) Fox and Disney's (DIS) ABC–have repeatedly said they want to introduce some sort of premium version.
Depending on who you talk to, the pay service is either supposed to help the money-losing Web site turn a profit or compensate the networks for the eyeballs and dollars Hulu is supposedly siphoning away. Or both.
The problem is figuring out a way to keep the existing site free while adding new bells and whistles that consumers pay for. One idea the company and its backers like: Turning Hulu from a "one screen" service–one you're only supposed to watch on your computer–to a "three screen" offering by adding support for TVs and mobile devices.
"Just three screens alone is pretty enticing," for consumers, says an executive at one of Hulu's parent companies.
If you want, you can hook up your computer to your big-screen TV with a cable and watch Hulu that way. But Hulu hasn't aligned itself with devices and software that make the process easier, as Netflix (NFLX) has. Meanwhile, there's no Hulu for devices like Apple's iPhone, even though rival YouTube, owned by Google's (GOOG), loves smartphones.
And while you could argue that the iPad isn't necessarily a mobile device, since 3G Internet access is an optional feature, Hulu and the broadcasters that own it are likely to classify it as one. Like many other content owners, the video service sees the device as an opportunity to charge for something it has been giving away on the Web.
All the sources I talked to cautioned that Hulu and its owners had yet to agree on a definitive plan for a premium service. And this needs to be resolved before they can tackle device-specific issues.
"It's a tricky balancing act that we're trying to fine-tune before we go out," one source tells me. "Everyone's concerned about making a strong offering at a good price, and not undercutting the existing business."
And if Hulu does decide to head to the iPad, it will involve some work for both engineers and lawyers.
Hulu, like almost all Web video, uses Adobe's (ADBE) Flash, which is a no-go for the iPad, so that would require a workaround of some sort. It's doable, but not a snap.
And if Hulu decides to define the iPad as a mobile device, it would also need its content owners to grant it mobile rights, which it doesn't actually have. Again, doable. But the broadcasters are already making money from other mobile services, like Verizon's (VZ) V Cast. So they have to tread carefully.
All of which makes it very unlikely that you're going to see Hulu on the iPad when it begins shipping at the end of March, no matter how badly Apple (AAPL) would love it.
A rumor that the service would launch alongside the iPad surfaced in the wake of Steve Jobs's New York media tour earlier this month. And I don't think that's a coincidence. But I don't think that makes it so, either.
Tagged with: ABC, Adobe, advertising, Apple, Apple Tablet Feature, blogs, broadcast, computer, digital, Disney, entertainment, Flash, Fox, free, GE, Google, Hulu, Internet, iPad, MediaMemo, NBC Universal, networks, News Corp., package, Peter Kafka, premium, profit, software, Steve Jobs, subscription, television, TV, V Cast, Verizon, video, Web


Purchase 50 or more Little Anne Manikin - Rib Plate Mk.2s and download your free support pack worth £100.
Purchase 200 or more Little Anne Manikin - Rib Plate Mk.2s and you can have personalised covers absolutely free!
Replacement Rib Plate suitable for use with the Laerdal Little Anne Manikin.
The new and improved rib plate allows for more realistic chest compressions, enabling learners to accuratly practice their CPR skills.


Chefs will be demonstrating techniques and recipes during the main event from 2 to 5 pm. The focus will be on authentic Italian cuisine. Chefs will be demonstrating in the Vintner's House Club Rooms. Samples will be shared!


text:
Tsering Wangdu Shakya
Institute for Asian Research, University of British Columbia
Canadian Research Chair in Religion and Contemporary Society in Asia
Tsering Shakya, a native of Lhasa, is a renowned scholar on both historic and contemporary Tibet. He earned his Ph.D. in Tibetan Studies from London University's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). His most expansive work to date, The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947 (1999), is the first comprehensive account of Tibet's recent history. He was also co-editor of the first anthology of modern Tibetan short stories and poems, Song of the Snow Lion, New Writings from Tibet (2000), as well as a study of the relationship between senior British colonial officers and Tibetan elite as depicted in rare, previously unpublished photographs taken by members of the British Mission in Lhasa in Seeing Lhasa: British Depictions of the Tibetan Capital 1936-1947 (2003).


"This recording is a collection of music obtained through influential experiences, discoveries and friends over this past year travelling, hosting events at Transient and living in Edmonton. The selections emphasize attention to detail in production/recording techniques, introspective/deep/melancholic vibes and hi-tek rhythmic structure. This 2 hour mix captures an array of ambient, experimental, IDM, dub, techno, electro, jungle, ghetto tech and hip hop recorded in Edmonton, Alberta."


text:
Q: My login code keeps giving me an error Anytime i try to login in with my login file it gives me the error which is set in the code, but i cannot figure out what is wrong with it.
Here's my code:
<?php
    include 'inc/dbc.php';
    include 'inc/functions.php';
?>
<?php
    function get_client_ip() {
        $ipaddress = '';
        if ($_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP']) {
            $ipaddress = $_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP'];
        }
        else if($_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR']) {
            $ipaddress = $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'];
        }
        else if($_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED']) {
            $ipaddress = $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED'];
        }
        else if($_SERVER['HTTP_FORWARDED_FOR']) {
            $ipaddress = $_SERVER['HTTP_FORWARDED_FOR'];
        }
        else if($_SERVER['HTTP_FORWARDED']) {
            $ipaddress = $_SERVER['HTTP_FORWARDED'];
        }
        else if($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']) {
            $ipaddress = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
        }
        else {
            $ipaddress = 'UNKNOWN';
        }
       return $ipaddress;
    }
?>
<?php
if(isset($_GET['user']) && !empty($_GET['user'])) {
    $username = $_GET['user'];
} else {
    $username = $_SESSION['username'];
}
    $my_name = $_SESSION['username'];
    $firstname = getuser($username, 'firstname');
    $middlename = getuser($username, 'middlename');
    $lastname = getuser($username, 'lastname');
    $aboutme = getuser($username, 'aboutme');
    $email = getuser($username, 'email');
    $dob = getuser($username, 'dob');
    $address = getuser($username, 'address');
    $website = getuser($username, 'website');
    $country = getuser($username, 'country');
    $city = getuser($username, 'city');
    $state = getuser($username, 'state');
    $phone = getuser($username, 'phone');
    $gender = getuser($username, 'gender');
    $rank = getuser($username, 'rank');
    $avatar = getuser($username, 'aavtar');
?>
<!DOCTYPE html>

        <title>EWC Login</title>
        <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/login.css">
        <link rel="stylesheet" href="//maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/font-awesome/4.3.0/css/font-awesome.min.css">

                    <?php
                        if (loggedIn() == true) {
                    ?>

Is this you? Home

                                    <img src="images/users/<?php echo $avatar;?>">

<?php echo $firstname . ' ' . $middlename . ' ' . $lastname;?>

                                        <?php echo $gender;?>
                                        <?php echo $dob;?>
                                        <?php echo $rank;?>
                                        <?php echo $country . ', ' . $city . ' ' . $state; ?>

You are already logged in. Click here to logout.

                    <?php
                        } else {
                    ?>
                    <form method="post">
                            <?php
                                if (isset($_POST['submit'])) {
                                    $username = stripcslashes(mysqli_real_escape_string($mysqli, $_POST['username']));
                                    $password = stripcslashes(mysqli_real_escape_string($mysqli, $_POST['password']));
                                    $pw = sha1($password);

                                    if (empty($username) && empty($password)) {
                                        echo 'Username and Password cannot be empty';
                                    } else {
                                        $check_login = mysqli_query($mysqli, "SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = '$username' AND password = '$pw' LIMIT 1") or die(mysqli_error($mysqli));
                                        $rows = mysqli_num_rows($check_login);
                                        if ($rows == 1) {
                                            mysqli_query($mysqli, "UPDATE users SET login_ip = '$ipaddress' WHERE username = '$username' ") or die(mysqli_error($mysqli));
                                            $_SESSION['username'] = $username;
                                            header('location: home.php');
                                        } else {
                                            echo 'Your entries are Invalid';
                                        }
                                    }
                                }
                            ?>

                          <input class="form-control" name='username' type="text" placeholder="Username...">  Forgot Username?

                          <input class="form-control" name='username' type="password" placeholder="Password...">  Forgot Passowrd?

                            <input class="form-control" name="submit" type="submit" value="Login">      Don't have an account?

                    </form>
                    <?php
                        }
                    ?>

PS: session_start(); is in the functions file! Also if you need more code please ask! Thanks in advance.

A: You have two inputs bearing the same name attribute name='username'
<input class="form-control" name='username' type="text" placeholder="Username...">
<input class="form-control" name='username' type="password" placeholder="Password...">

Your password input should be named "password" and not "username".
Sidenotes:

*

*It's best to add exit; after your header, otherwise your code may want to continue executing.

*Regarding the use of stripcslashes(); I cannot say for certain, but it may/could be doing some harm and stripping possible valid characters, especially for hashes. If you're still experiencing difficulties, try to remove it from your code.

Regarding password storage
I noticed you are using sha1 for password storage. It's not the best nowadays.
Consult my footnotes about this.
I recommend you use CRYPT_BLOWFISH or PHP 5.5's password_hash() function.
For PHP < 5.5 use the password_hash() compatibility pack.

Pulled from ircmaxell's answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/29778421/ which uses PDO with prepared statements and password_hash().
Just use a library. Seriously. They exist for a reason.

*

*PHP 5.5+: use password_hash()

*PHP 5.3.7+: use password-compat (a compatibility pack for above

*All others: use phpass
Don't do it yourself. If you're creating your own salt, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG. You should be using a library that handles that for you.
$dbh = new PDO(...);

$username = $_POST["username"];
$email = $_POST["email"];
$password = $_POST["password"];
$hash = password_hash($password, PASSWORD_DEFAULT);

$stmt = $dbh->prepare("insert into users set username=?, email=?, password=?");
$stmt->execute([$username, $email, $hash]);

And on login:
$sql = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = ?";
$stmt = $dbh->prepare($sql);
$result = $stmt->execute([$_POST['username']]);
$users = $result->fetchAll();
if (isset($users[0]) {
    if (password_verify($_POST['password'], $users[0]->password) {
        // valid login
    } else {
        // invalid password
    }
} else {
    // invalid username
}

Add error reporting to the top of your file(s) which will help find errors.
<?php
error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors', 1);

// rest of your code

Sidenote: Error reporting should only be done in staging, and never production.

Footnotes:
Here are a few articles on sha1 that you may want to read:

*

*Is SHA-1 secure for password storage?

*https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/67486/is-sha1-weak-for-ssl

*https://www.bentasker.co.uk/blog/security/201-why-you-should-be-asking-how-your-passwords-are-stored

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-1

*http://php.net/manual/en/faq.passwords.php

*Why are common hashing functions such as md5 and sha1 unsuitable for passwords?


text:
Copyright trolls are out in force around the world. And the pandemic is their perfect excuse
Guests and co-authors
Worldwide, cases of individuals receiving notifications for illegally downloading films and music are common. During the pandemic, with people staying more at home and the number of streaming services growing, P2P sharing technologies such as torrenting have again grown in popularity.
Along with it, there's also been a growth of notifications sent by copyright trolls seeking to get money from users who, in fear, end up not seeking their rights and paying immediately what these trolls demand. In many cases users are wrongly notified, IPs are poorly identified or in many cases it is virtually impossible to know exactly who actually downloaded the files illegally.
The use of P2P sharing apps, such as those using the Torrent protocol, is not illegal - as in sharing personal files or files not protected by copyright. The situation becomes more complicated when file sharing of copyrighted material takes place.
"There is no doubt that under US copyright law, sharing copyrighted works without the permission of the copyright owner is illegal," says Mathew Sag, Georgia Reithal Professor of Law at Loyola University of Chicago School.
Sag adds that "United States copyright law provides copyright owners with the option of statutory damages, and these damages can range from a minimum of $750 to an astounding maximum of $150,000 and it also allows for a successful copyright plaintiff to be reimbursed for their reasonable litigation expenses."
Copyright trolls
All of this, says Sag, "give[s] enormous ammunition to plaintiffs in file sharing cases to demand comparatively high settlements for comparatively minimal alleged infringement." And this gives rise to what many have called Copyright Trolls, "actors that make a business out of copyright enforcement," explains Cara Gagliano, Staff Attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
"A key difference between copyright trolls and other rights holders is that trolls actually want people to infringe the copyrights they hold, because that's how they make their money—they typically aren't the content creators themselves," Gagliano explains.
And Farzaneh Badii, Executive Director of the Internet Governance Project at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, agrees, saying that the "rationale behind their actions is to generate revenue. They use and lobby for laws they can make profit from and the positive effect of these laws and harsh enforcement on the society is unfounded and mostly anecdotal."
Issues with identification
A big problem involved in the Copyright Troll's actions and lawsuits is that it is hard to identify one specific user who has actually downloaded copyrighted material. This leads to awkward cases such as when RIAA sued a 66-year-old grandmother, Sarah Seabury Ward of Massachusetts, for illegally downloading over 2,000 songs in 2002. But her computer, a Macintosh, was not even compatible with the program she was accused of using, Kazaa.
More recently, in 2019, a retired police officer in his 70's was falsely accused of sharing several adult films using BitTorrent after his IP address was wrongly identified. In Brazil, over 70,000 people have received out-of-court settlements demanding compensation last year for downloading three blockbuster movies. And in Sweden, also last year, 42,800 people were targeted by copyright trolls for allegedly sharing files through torrent.
"An IP address alone can't tell you who downloaded a specific file, which is not necessarily the Internet subscriber to whom that IP address is registered. Any number of people (e.g., family members, roommates, guests) can access the Internet from the same IP address, not to mention the fact that IP addresses can be spoofed," explains Gagliano
In other words, says Omar Kaminski, a lawyer specializing in digital law, "there are situations in which an IP leads to a machine at a certain time and place, but there is no record of who used the machine."
Copyright trolls' methods are similar, but the laws of different countries vary enormously as to who can be held responsible for illegal downloads and how evidence can and should be obtained. In Brazil, massive IP collection is illegal, and it is extremely rare for users to be criminalized for illegal downloads, with lawsuits being directed to those who make a profit from the activity.
Different legislations and threats
In Germany, explains Badii, "the wifi providers and ISPs are liable for copyright infringing if their service is used to commit the infringement." Meanwhile in the US there are several methods lawyers use to go after alleged copyright infringements and users.
"In some jurisdictions they have to get a court order or some other legal order to get the personal information. They might also go through an easier and faster process (like a government agency tribunal). If the personal information is not protected by appropriate laws, the ISP might hand in the personal information even without a court order. And in some jurisdictions the ISP has to send the notice the lawyer has sent to the alleged copyright infringer," explains Badii.
And, Sag explains, due to cases of misidentification, "copyright trials tend to back off from these if the person gets a lawyer. So you don't see this turn up in the court cases very much," such as Cobbler Nevada, LLC v. Gonzales, 901 F. 3d 1142 (9th Cir. 2018) that states that the IP address subscriber is not liable for copyright infringement.
So, the copyright trolls' tactics often resort to "threatening to sue for improbably high statutory damages figures as a way of extracting settlements," says Gagliano.
Other common tactics, she further explains are "Targeting large groups of anonymous defendants identified by IP address; using cookie-cutter, poorly substantiated litigation tactics to keep their costs down; and targeting vulnerable marks, such as individuals or nonprofits that can't afford legal counsel."
To make things worse, "some trolls specifically focus their efforts on pornography downloads, using the threat of public embarrassment to help coerce settlements," adds Gagliano.
Lame excuses: when trolling backfires
Copyright trolls "claim to have infallible technology, and yet bizarrely may also send infringement notices to people who could not have infringed," says Sag, adding that "their methods are suspect, to say the least."
And sometimes this leads to backfire, such as in 2020 when copyright troll Richard Liebowitz was sanctioned, explains Gagliano, "for his pattern of violating court orders and repeatedly lying under oath."
"Liebowitz has been repeatedly sanctioned by courts across the country, but the consequences last year were particularly noteworthy—he was fined over $100,000 by a federal court in New York and has been temporarily suspended from practicing as an attorney in the Southern District of New York," she adds.
Badii comments that copyright trolls will tell you that "they want to protect the rights of the authors, that copyright is good for innovation and creativity! Some claim that they are protecting the Internet from dangerous materials, they argue they want to keep us safe."
But when they use such excuses, Badii notes, "I imagine Fake Gucci bags attacking the Internet."
In the end, "it's all very opaque," says Yasodara Cordova, an MPA/Edward S. Mason Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School in Massachusetts. To her, "once again torrents are being criminalised and torrent is a decentralised technology. It's quite easy to censor or hold someone responsible for misuse of centralised platforms (such as Facebook), but the governance of decentralized networks is much more complex."
In addition to the relentless pursuit of easy profit, the action of copyright trolls also aims to undermine decentralized networks and impose centralized governance on the Internet, where users' privacy is lower, and it becomes easier to identify alleged offenders.
About the author: Raphael Tsavkko Garcia is a Brazilian freelance journalist published by Al Jazeera, Foreign Policy, Undark, The Washington Post, among other news outlets. He also holds a PhD in Human Rights from the University of Deusto.


text:
Architecture for the Commons
Throughout this book, the potential threats to democratic and participatory societies from the perspective of design have been discussed. Trends have been identified that have augmented and accelerated the growth of economic inequality in the pursuit of technological progress. It has become imperative to question the metrics of value that deserve acknowledgement, as the continuation of a inward-looking or autopoietic tradition of disciplinary practice of architecture outlines a future with further power asymmetries.
It is no longer an option not to question and reflect on the ethos of our production. The production of value and meaning begs the identification of who is the recipient of such value and challenges us to consider forms of practice that align with progressive ideologies. This book has identified a recipient of value in the form of the Commons: not only in the disembodied collective knowledge that we share but also in the social systems of commoners that contribute to local and global knowledge scaffolds for rendering others with opportunities.
We have determined that the concentration of capital has found in vertical integration a mechanism to drive efficiency, but its implementation further exacerbates an asymmetric distribution of wealth. Discrete Architecture has been offered as an alternative, where a design framework can give rise to cooperation and coordination between different parties. Understanding parts in design establishes value for distributed systems, resisting the rise of monopolies, both economic and ideological.
This volume has put forward the idea that geometry can encapsulate knowledge and that repeatable solutions under a discrete framework can lead toward value production in the form of combinatorial surplus. The design of encapsulated knowledge into discrete tectonics is an act of commoning seeking to develop positive externalities through a process of social appropriation.
The role of parts and discrete tectonics allows designers to design down the threshold of access, enabling a dialogue between expert users that can embed knowledge and cooperative coordination into objects that share some degree of compatibility. The proposition of a discrete paradigm offers a non-unified framework for local coordination and self-provision. It does not attempt to establish totalistic guidelines but rather encourages local dialogues between autonomous units.
We have discussed how digital platforms can offer opportunities for education and self-provision but are in urgent need of redesign and regulation, as contemporary examples have become mechanisms for extractivism and behavior manipulation, able to erode democracy. Digital platforms and information sharing should seek not only openness but also clear objectives aligned with social progress. Without this, we will continue seeing Open Source projects in the hands of corporations accentuating the social struggles of our time. Knowledge propagation has been discussed not only through technical mechanisms like Open Source but also through the construction of infrastructure that could populate a literacy ladder, designing down the barrier of entry and supporting social mobility.
Platforms play an important role in the global adoption of digital networks for the generation and reproduction of culture. This comes with increasing issues and ethical imperatives as commercial enterprises have exploited underregulated digital networks for the collection of capital and market advantage. Still, the democratization of platform production has allowed for new voices to design alternative forms of interactions, considering and respecting the value of social production and effectively developing mechanisms for local value to remain in the hands of those to produce it.
Finally, the role of Commons as social systems has been identified in their capacity to populate a literacy ladder. This ladder breaks the behavioral modification and predictability established by surveillance capitalism and allows for the proliferation of new cultural production that is not predetermined by a market logic. The diversification of value systems enabled by the Commons puts forward a reexamination of canonical and disciplinary conventions that are powerful in the discipline of architecture. It also suggests that a sense of value needs to be grown from within as a form of self-provision rather than being validated by an external body. Its existence is in itself an act of legitimization.
Architecture for the Commons is in this sense an infrastructural framework that allows for design to remain as a question mark, a blank space, an undetermined space of potential without domain or predictable actual. Only in its production and in resonance with its coproduction is it able to define its meaning.