The following photographs were taken with a 35mm focal plane camera at an exposure of 1/30s, which results in an annoying bright diagonal band across the screen. The prints are on 13x9cm rather brown and vinegary-smelling "silk-finished" paper, so instead I've scanned the original negatives, which are now rather dusty and scratched, though the results are somewhat clearer.
The trapezoid distortion is a result of my having to shoot from above the axis of the tube in order to avoid reflections from a bright window behind the camera.
Some 35mm colour reversal slides were kindly scanned for me by John A Butler, and are much clearer, being taken (on-axis) from the screen of the new Forgestone set. The pages transmitted at Christmas 1978 and afterwards were photographed on panchromatic negative stock and I've taken the liberty of colourising them using, as far as I can remember, the original colour scheme.
Note the old-fashioned way of labelling sub-pages. The third of four pages would these days be marked "3/4". Then, it would have been "A B C D", with the "C" flashing slowly. Ceefax had a maximum of four sub-pages, but Oracle sometimes had most of the alphabet strung across a page. It was Ceefax who instigated the change when they introduced new equipment that could transmit more than four sub-pages.
The pages on the Wireless World decoder were selected by thumbwheels on the front panel, so it was not necessary to show the selected page in the top left corner. I opted not to freeze the header display once the page had been captured, so many of these shots don't show the correct number in the page header.
CEEFAX AND ORACLE entered official service in 1976, and all my photographs were taken during that period. Before getting to them however, here are some that appeared in the press during the experimental years 1973-75.
UNTIL 1974 CEEFAX and ORACLE worked on different systems. This Oracle test page from April 1973 was transmitted on the original system that had no colour or graphics capabilities. Unlike the final system, in which a full row of text was sent on each data line, here text was transmitted piecemeal, ten characters at a time, with each chunk labelled with its position on the screen. The system allowed for 50 pages, each with up to 22 rows of 40 characters, and the text was clearly intended to be displayed black-on-white, as we tend to see on our computers today.
THIS CEEFAX news headlines page from Sat 6 Oct 1974 was displayed on a GEC colour receiver fitted with their experimental teletext decoder. Again, the page shows no colour or graphics, though both would have been available to the Ceefax editor of the day.
THIS ORACLE news index page from Wed 16 Apr 1975 has coloured text, but no graphics. The familiar 2×3 block graphics were available at this time – indeed, p115 boasts a line graph of an Actuaries Index featuring them – but they were not yet used to enhance text pages. The teletext receiver was displayed at an event at the IBA HQ, Crawley Court, in Winchester, though unfortunately it was set up facing a large panoramic window.
Note that, as with many of my own pictures below, the page number in the header row does not freeze when the required page has been captured, so that the number in the picture does not correspond to the page displayed.
CEEFAX and ORACLE were very keen on viewer participation, as this shot from September 1976 shows. That's me – third from the bottom!
Another way to attract feedback was to advertise birthdays, as in this promotion linked to the ITV 21 celebrations. I sent in a postcard for some relatives, and the result was these two screens.
The first uses the teletext 2×3 block graphics, and the second uses text only. That's because Oracle were kind enough to send out thermal printouts, which could contain only text, to the lucky birthday girls and boys.
The Wireless World decoder was originally fitted with a generic ASCII character generator ROM. The 1976 specification led to manufacturers producing teletext-specific ROMS. A modification was published allowing a Texas Instruments TIFAX ROM to be fitted in the WW decoder, and this convenient ORACLE test page shows the "before" and "after" results. It seems to have taken me a fortnight prior to Christmas 1976 to install.
The handful of glyphs which were introduced with the Tifax ROM together with a few others, such as the "£", "$" and "@" signs were specific to the UK Character Set. Later specifications allowed for a further seven international variants so that accented characters and currency symbols could be accomodated. The set to be used is determined by three control bits in the header row (Packet 0) and can be different for each [sub]page.
Later specifications still of what was now known as "Level One Teletext" allowed for individual glyphs to be defined by information transmitted in row numbers higher than 24 and the default transmitted character in any given position on the screen could be overwritten by a suitably equipped decoder to give the correct glyph. It could look rather odd in practice – a page of text appears as normal, and then a moment later some of the characters change shape!
This animated graphic is a composite of the above two test pages showing a close-up of the characters displayed by the generic ASCII ROM and the new Tifax ROM. The 'Two Vertical Lines' character fourth from the bottom has merged into a single white block, because of the character-widening circuitry intended to overcome the low video bandwidth. The lines should be side-by-side like this: ||.
The 1976 specification introduced four new display modes – Double Height, Background Colour, "Discrete" Graphics and "Held" Graphics, whereby the most recently transmitted graphics character could be displayed instead of the blank character normally used in place of a "control" character.
Flushed with success at constructing the WW decoder, I designed a new board to display these new modes. It seems to have taken me about a month, just after Easter 1977 to install. Note that the colour change is specified to take place at the right-hand edge of a character, though the WW decoder (because all colour changes originally took place invisibly during a black space) had the change occur mid-way through a character. You can see that the changes from blue to yellow, prior to the word "HOLD" near the middle of the page, are half a character early. I corrected this later.
Double Height, Background Colour and Concealed Text in action.
This creditable rendering of the LWT logo looked a mess without the new facilities, but unfortunately I didn't take a "before" picture. Note that in the 1976 specification there was no provision for black text on a coloured background, though this was brought in later in the "Full Level One Facilities" (FLOF) specification that also included the concept of four coloured Fastext links at the bottom of the page. Ceefax very rarely used black text, though other services, notably Channel Four's 4-Tel magazine produced by Intelfax, more frequently did so.
Videocraft made one of the few add-on commercial teletext decoders, and these are two of the pages that ORACLE provided such firms for display in shops and trade shows.
CEEFAX were very wary about introducing New Technology (a dispute with ACTT had put ORACLE off the air for many months) and so it wasn't until 1978, when agreement had been reached to use an appropriate VDU (as they called monitors in those days) that they started to try them out on air. These shots show a couple of the designs transmitted as a test. I turned off the background colour for the first picture, to show how it would have been displayed on an old-style decoder.
You will note that I have added a blue background to the clock at top right, which is permanently cut into the tv picture. Other peculiar "bespoke" effects were to follow.
In the early years of teletext, CEEFAX in particular had an informal, "chummy" atmosphere, and silliness such as this example from 1978 was not uncommon.
Over the spring and summer of 1978 I constructed a Forgestone colour receiver. This was a state-of-the art design in kit form, and the huge plywood cabinet I built for it allowed me to mount the Wireless World teletext decoder internally. It had a 22″ screen which I underscanned to produce the full rectangular picture, and the teletext display was adjusted to be the full width of the screen. I ran off a roll of colour slide film as a record of the initial picture quality, and this included several teletext shots.
This was the run-up to the famous "Winter of Discontent", and the news stories reflect the climate of the time. ITV was just emerging from a long technicians' strike, and programmes and ORACLE were returning to the screen, though more strife was to come.
CEEFAX on 1 was always formal and newsy, while on 2 it tended to let its hair down. Following a similar page structure to 1, 2 had more background news and features. At one time it changed its name to "Orbit", though the header rows always showed "CEEFAX".
This index page and weather map from CEEFAX on 1 show that the design hadn't changed from the early days.
Here in this incarnation of CEEFAX on 2 however, there's a distinctly busier look to the design, with the new facilities in evidence.
The very first CEEFAX magazine was transmitted on one channel only, then it was duplicated on the other, with BBC2 using an updated set of "control codes". Originally both had page numbers in the 100s on one day and 200s the next. Eventually, a different service was transmitted on each channel, with BBC1 using Magazine 1 and BBC2 magazine 2, and the old control codes were abandoned.
The two services continued like that for many years, until in the late eighties CEEFAX was relaunched with several magazines on each channel. Many pages were common to both, many were different, and some were unavailable, or switched channels, at various times of day and on different days of the week.
The Great British Public were not ready for such a complex service and soon it changed to a simpler format, with most pages duplicated on both channels and available all day and all week.
This engineering test page started life as a combined clockcracker, ASCII character, graphics shape and control code test, and the new facilities were "bolted on" in this later version. Codes in the ASCII range 0-31 are not intended for display – they indicate to the decoder the atrributes required for subsequent characters on the line – Yellow Text, Double Height, and so on. Each change requires its own character and takes up a space in the text. In fact in the original specification each occurrence of a control character was to be replaced by a black space, but with the new facilities coloured spaces or graphic characters may be displayed to improve the appearance of the page.
The Tifax character generator ROM contained glyphs for the characters in the range 0-31 and it was an easy matter to have the decoder display them, thus identifying the control characters and showing how some of the pages were composed. The second shot shows the same test page with control characters displayed, and the animated detail shows the glyphs for some of the control characters more clearly.
The clockcracker test is a special arrangement of two characters that ensures that the longest possible sequences of 1s or 0s are transmitted consecutively in order to test or "crack" the frequency of the clock oscillator. The only way to ensure that the clock generator – the heartbeat of the decoder – is in step with the transmitter is by comparing it with the pulse that occurs during a 1-to-0 or 0-to-1 transition – when consecutive ones or zeroes are transmitted there's no pulse. If transitions are too far apart it's possible for the decoder to miss a beat, and subsequent characters along the line will be corrupted. In this BBC test page two rows of clockcracker characters are sent alternately. On even rows the ÷ sign and white block give a sequence of …/01111111/11111110/… while on odd rows the Red Text/NUL sequence gives …/10000000/00000001/… The trick was to adjust the frequency of the clock oscillator carefully whilst observing the clockcracker display for minimum errors.
As an aside, here is a later version of the Engineering Test Page simulated in a graphics package. Held-graphics colour bars appear on Row 7 and a held-graphics sequence including 'conceal' character codes is included on Row 5. The animation simulates pressing the 'Reveal/Conceal' key every five seconds or so.
When ORACLE (and CEEFAX for that matter) began broadcasting, the magazines were inserted into the video signals emanating from London, and could only be received in the regions if they passed through all the intervening equipment undisturbed. If a local programme (or adverts, or continuity announcement) were on-air, there was no teletext. Eventually "Data Bridges" were installed at all ITV and later BBC studio centres so that the teletext signal could be stripped off the sustaining video feed from London and inserted into the signal going to the local transmitter. In addition, the London signal was cleaned up, which improved reception, and local pages could also be inserted.
If the signal from London failed, the ITV regional Data Bridges inserted a simple test magazine 1, comprising 99 pages of the caption shown here, and a clockcracker on p199. Although the ITV company was identified, the date and time were not generated dynamically. There was also a generic ORACLE caption occasionally transmitted from London, and it was that that was seen during the prolonged ITV-wide strike of 1978-79 when both programmes and text were off the air.
Prior to the 1977-78 industrial action at Oracle, the pages were only updated during weekdays and the news service did not appear in the evenings. However, the full service was now beginning to appear.
ITN provided the news service for ORACLE, and had its own magazine on the 200s. Note the headlines in upper case – ITN newsflashes were also all in upper case white text, which made them look more like agency tickertape.
ORACLE has always used most of the eight possible magazines, originally transmitting them sequentially, in numerical order, at the rate of four pages per second. When the number of data lines permitted was doubled to four per field, the IBA launched "High-Speed ORACLE" and transmitted four magazines, one on each data line, which unfortunately is perceived by the viewer as only two pages per second (the rolling numers of the other six, in different magazines, are not seen). ORACLE quickly had a rethink.
Later, when more than twelve or more lines became available, the situation was more complex, and it was possible to put two or more magazines sequentially in each stream (group of lines) which made access seem faster by increasing the speed of the rolling numbers in the Page Headers, while having parallel streams meant the viewer did not see all the magazines rolling by while waiting for the selected page.
The ITN pages were now available on a Sunday – and a Bank Holiday weekend to boot! Meanwhile CEEFAX on 2 devoted a whole section to the aestival festival.
Newsflashes were one of the novelties of teletext from day one. It was possible to have them interrupt your viewing with all sorts of things you didn't want to know. CEEFAX newsflashes were quite frequent – ORACLE ones less so, particularly in the early days when the service wasn't updated after 1800 and at weekends.
Because the Wireless World decoder was a set-top box with buttons and switches (the remote control came later) it was annoying to have to get up to clear each newsflash manually, so I put in a timer that erased each one after about fifteen seconds. I can't understand why that's never been a standard feature of decoders.
I wonder how many viewers habitually selected the newsflash page in those days (or even knew it was there)? I tended to watch the subtitles instead, but I well remember the Iranian Embassy siege story starting to unfold by newsflash while watching the Embassy Crucible Snooker Championships, so I was probably less annoyed or surprised than most when live coverage switched from one Embassy to another.
For a time, CEEFAX provided a "Latest Page" feature on p190, whereby the last page to be inserted anywhere in the magazine was also placed on p190. This was ideal for shop displays, or keeping up with different sports results, for example.
By 1978 it had been reduced simply to a menu of some of the latest pages, before disappearing completely.
Teletext page numbers come in three parts – the Magazine number; a two-digit Page number; and a four-digit Time-code number. The idea was that some pages would only be transmitted at certain times, and you could key in that time code to receive that version of the page. One practical use of this feature is the "Alarm Clock" whereby the page could be required to appear at the top of any given minute. Later, it was realised that a more appropriate use would be to identify each sub-page of a rotating page by adding the appropriate time code – eg 1980012 for sub-page 12/15 of page 198, so you could select just one page of a set.
There was also another ingenious application. A commercial enterprise advertising on ORACLE invited you to phone a premium rate number and be allocated your own "sub-page". Having done so, you would then select page 777xxxx and see a menu of features. You would then key the appropriate number on your phone, and your requested page would be transmitted immediately. If you just keyed in 777 with no sub-page, you could see everyone's selected pages fleetingly, but they were immediately erased.
Sadly, the alarm clock feature fell out of use, though there's no reason why – it would not interfere with the use of the codes to identify sub-pages.
There were grandiose plans proposed for CEEFAX, ORACLE and education, and the new medium was seen as a replacement for the expensive schedules and booklets supplied to schools each term. There were a few pages containing listings and text and simple graphics relating to a few series, and later on, Telesoftware was used to a similar end. However, nothing much survived of the early ideas, though it's worth noting that RAI, the Italian public service broadcaster, still broadcasts telesoftware on its teletext pages.
ORACLE and Southampton University did a good deal of research into teletext subtitles, and when they eventually started their composition was slightly different from those on CEEFAX. ORACLE subtitles began life on p199, which could be obtained by pressing "999" on most handsets. I often wonder if this was the origin of the idea of using p888 on all services which was introduced on 1 April 1981.
From that date, only subtitles were included in Magazine 0 (the 800s), which was also given its own exclusive data line in the blanking interval. This move allowed subtitles to be inserted into the video signal by equipment not connected with the main teletext system, and this was done in Ceefax from 1985, which allowed subtitles to appear on both BBC1 and BBC2 programmes at the same time. Previously a programme on one channel would occasionally start without subtitles if a subtitled show on the other channel was overrunning, though it was possible to insert an 'apology' subtitle to that effect.
This ORACLE information page was on p150 – the same as the CEEFAX newsflash page – hence the redirection to ORACLE's p250 Newsflash page, which was aimed at owners of the 'manual' decoders of the day, where page numbers were selected on thumbwheels and full page/boxed text displays were toggled with a switch. The bottom four rows of this page were boxed and would have appeared as a newsflash/subtitle cut into the picture on the WW decoder, though a later decoder would either display the whole page or just the boxed text (depending on the information set in the page header) – turning to "TEXT" as directed wouldn't switch between the two as suggested here.
Proper subtitles linked to programmes were rarely transmitted before 1980, and until then Page 170/270 contained static text which changed on a daily basis, cut into the tv picture, purporting to be "CEEFAX Subtitles". They were never double height, as real subtitles invariably are, and they often exhibited the strange sense of humour peculiar to CEEFAX.
The test card was received from an out-of-area transmitter, hence the snowy picture. Such poor reception often results in incorrect teletext characters, though I think on this occasion the odd spelling of "subtitles" may be due to an ironic sense of humour on the part of the Editor of the Day.
One Christmas CEEFAX transmitted an animated graphical subtitle which depicted the Three Wise Men travelling to Bethlehem. It was shown regularly throughout Christmas Day. CEEFAX used to push the boat out at Christmas, with a fortnight of special features, stories, quizzes and puzzles. Nowadays – nothing special. I suppose it's just a job ruled by bean counters like any other, now.
This stage production of this Latin and Old German language work was subtitled in English by CEEFAX. The subtitles were single height, pre-typed, and inserted manually (by several pairs of hands, in fact!) in the way such captions are these days sometimes inserted in to live scripted programmes.
This four-part serial had "précis subtitles". At the end of each scene a newsflash-style box appeared explaining to befuddled deaf viewers what had just happened. As far as I know the experiment was never repeated, though the idea has been resurrected as a feature of the new digital so-called 'interactive' service, whereby comments and critiques have been available as captions in Promenade concerts and Shakespeare plays, for example. Ironically, although the programme itself may be subtitled, the 'interactive' version never is.
This short promotional film about CEEFAX that had been shown on several occasions had a special screening one lunchtime complete with closed CEEFAX subtitles. This was probably the first showing of a programme that had been subtitled in the way we now expect – that is double height, coloured, and synchronised to the videotape time code.
"The year 1979 will be remembered as the year in which, for the first time, a television programme was broadcast on the network with accompanying subtitles transmitted on CEEFAX.
Blankety Blank was a game show involving very little dialogue, but plenty of on-screen text, and so was deemed an ideal choice for the first light entertainment series to be subtitled, in 1979. When ORACLE subtitles began, they had a slightly different style from CEEFAX's in that subtitles were often built up row-by-row as the dialogue progressed instead of the whole screenful of three or four rows appearing straight away. This proved the better format for quiz shows – for a long time CEEFAX used to present the answer at the same time as the question in fast-fire quizzes.
The final subtitle shot shows one of the earliest regular subtitled programmes, from about 1980. It was a Sunday evening BBC1 series about a small charter airline business (not to be confused with the later one starring Roy Marsden made by Yorkshire Television).
The subtitle actually belongs to the previous scene – I "held" it while I was taking the photograph. The white rectangle at top left is where the page number selected by the recently added remote control appears. It was completely unlike the present day page selection – in fact almost entirely opposite. On pressing "page" on the handset, page acquisition was inhibited (and so served as a hold-page function) and the white rectangle appeared, boxed, showing the selected page number, in black, as the next three keys were pressed. When the page was acquired, the number appeared white-on-black as normal, and the box disappeared from the tv picture. All the teletext functions operated in the tv, as well as the text, mode, so it was possible to select pages in the background, and switch to them once they had been captured.
At this stage, I had modified the character generator to give a one-pixel gap between letters instead of three. Comparison with the earlier shots shows how much more legible this was.
Satire was the order of the day as the Winter of Discontent bit harder. It was set to be a dreary Christmas on the broadcasting front up here in the frozen north as this ORACLE ITN news story explains. CEEFAX managed to put a slightly different spin on events as was their wont on festive occasions, and these two versions of their rotating news page demonstrate the unique ability of teletext to keep up-to-date as stories develop.
Esmeralda was the name CEEFAX gave to its original computer (though she had a predecessor – a thirty-page core-store that had to be programmed in binary).
The one that replaced her early in the 1980s was dubbed Selene. Thereafter presumably they were just called by the letters in the barcode on the cardboard box they came in, as CEEFAX was taken over by News and Current Affairs and the BBC was taken over by a pervading lack of imagination.
Nowadays text services are served from the same faceless machine that generates the schedules, programme ideas and the virtual-reality reality show presenters.
Back in 1978 though, despite the gloom and despondency prevalent at the end of Sunny Jim's reign, CEEFAX managed a Christmas and New Year magazine packed with puzzles, quizzes, stories, humour, competitions and, yes, satire, before it was apparently outlawed during subsequent regimes.
Meanwhile, I modified the Wireless World decoder to display a red background on the centre of the Header Row, as well as making the whole row double height.
The page numbers did not "freeze" when the page had been captured, as was the case with more modern decoders. This news page would have been in the 200s, and the fact that 703's header is displayed means that the magazines were still being transmitted serially, rather than in parallel with each magazine on a different tv line as was the case later (when you only saw the headers from the selected magazine).
Finally, an oddity from 1991, captured on my BBC Microcomputer with a Morley teletext adaptor. The file was transferred to my Archimedes, and thence via a DOS disc to my Power Mac, where it was converted to a GIF file. Despite the rather circuitous route, I can assure you it hasn't been edited along the way.
My faithful "Beeb" died in the early nineties, and with it went the teletext adaptor. I don't seem to have captured any other teletext pages, and this is the only one I transferred to the Archimedes.


text:
The musical rumble that makes listeners love 'West Side Story'
Sep 26, 2016 7:31 PM EST
PBS NewsHour PBS NewsHour
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/musical-rumble-makes-listeners-love-west-side-story
Transcript Audio
On this day nearly six decades ago, "West Side Story" premiered on Broadway. And the music of the Sharks and the Jets, and star-crossed lovers Tony and Maria is as vibrant as it was in 1957. Jeffrey Brown sits down with composer and musician Rob Kapilow to discuss what it is about Leonard Bernstein's hit musical style that has allowed the love story to live on for decades.
Read the Full Transcript
JUDY WOODRUFF:
Finally tonight, on a light note: On this day in 1957, "West Side Story" debuted on Broadway.
Composer and musician Rob Kapilow is back to tell us why the music has withstood the test of time.
Jeffrey Brown sat down with Kapilow recently.
JEFFREY BROWN:
Ron Kapilow, welcome back.
ROB KAPILOW, Composer:
It's great to be here.
So, "West Side Story," one of the most famous musicals in history, but not quite what it was intended to be, I guess.
ROB KAPILOW:
I think that's true.
You know, Leonard Bernstein had already written two his musicals, "On the Town" and "Wonderful Town," and those shows are filled with Bernstein's love, facility, and affection for the popular music of the day. But they're lighthearted musicals, fundamentally.
And now he wanted to do something serious, and he got together an incredibly serious crew of guys. I mean, we had Jerome Robbins, who did serious ballets. We had Arthur Laurents, who wrote serious plays. We had Leonard Bernstein, and they wanted to do something serious.
That was the amazing thing about Bernstein. He could actually do both, and he crossed over. And this whole piece is really about, in a way, the conflict between those two worlds, between the serious world.
This is going to be, he called a tragic musical comedy, if that's not an oxymoron.
Tragedies get turned into operas all the time.
In fact, tragedy is the lifeblood of opera. It's not really an opera unless somebody dies at the end. But people don't usually die at the end in a Broadway musical.
And this one had a body count of three, with two of them dead at the first act curtain. I mean, that is not the stuff of a Broadway musical, not to mention a classic Shakespeare play, "Romeo and Juliet," as the background.
Most people, of course, know "West Side Story" from the film, the musical version.
True. True.
So use the song "Maria," a famous song.
Famous song.
Show us what turned out there.
Well, there's a great moment in the middle of "Maria," which shows this battle intention between opera and Broadway.
The orchestra is playing the music of the opening as if it's become somehow Tony's subconscious mind.
ACTOR (singing):
Maria. I have just kissed a girl named Maria, and suddenly I found how wonderful a song can be.
Beautiful chord, and all the warmth.
Now, that's what the orchestra is doing, but, above it, in the film, Tony, as if rhapsodizing about this Maria, the sound and the single word gets higher and higher in pitch, until finally climaxes up here, Maria, and then in the film, sings this.
Maria. Maria. Maria. Maria. Maria.
Now, that's kind of operatic, but it's lower in pitch.
We're not holding you to just sing it again.
But — exactly. No one's vocal chords are straining. No one's blood vessels are bursting. It's doable eight times a week, and for the public, it was perfectly successful.
Right, but that's not the opera version that Bernstein wanted.
That's not what he wanted. He comes from the world of being one of the great opera conductors.
I mean, was there ever a more over-the-top, larger-than-life, operatic personality than Bernstein? So, he writes a version that goes higher, and higher, and higher, and finally climaxes on a high B-flat held for 10 beats.
Maria!
This is something right out of "La Bohem" or "La Traviata." You literally see the vocal chords bursting.
Now, eventually, they had to get rid of it, and Bernstein was so depressed because he was constantly writing to his wife, they're getting rid of all my favorite parts, the operatic parts. But he realized that for a tenor to sing a high B-flat for 10 beats eight times a week would be hospital-casualty material.
So that's gone from the musical.
That's gone. They lowered it in pitch. He doesn't have to sing the high notes
But, interestingly, later in his life, in his head, he thought, I really do want to hear this with opera singers, and he actually went back later and recorded it with opera singers, with the incredibly high B-flat.
Your argument is that somehow in the tension between this opera and musical, high and low, I guess, something great happened.
One of the great things about Bernstein was that he moved so effortlessly between the worlds of serious music and popular music, and he spoke both languages absolutely as if they were vernacular.
And what's interesting is the tension between what he brought to the world of the Broadway musical was the entire world of serious classical music, yet he also spoke it in a natural way that other classical composers didn't. And the end of this piece is a perfect example.
The most beautiful song I ever heard.
It ends with opera, but not the high opera that we think of opera, but the intimate world of opera, a floated voice, a falsetto voice, not the first Maria, Maria, not the second one, Maria, but a final one that resolves Maria for the first time in the piece, Maria.
And while a tenor, only an operatic tenor can do it well, floats this high note, the orchestra goes, and we end the perfect merging of Broadway musical and the world of opera.
"West Side Story."
Rob Kapilow, thank you so much.
Thanks, Jeff.
GWEN IFILL:
You should have heard Judy and I singing along. It was something.
Listen to this Segment
PBS NewsHour from Sep 26, 2016
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Texas' coaching carousel is moving quickly.
The Longhorns are expected to name Houston head coach Tom Herman as their new coach as early Saturday, according to ESPN's Heather Dinich.
The move comes after athletic director Mike Perrin announced the firing of head coach Charlie Strong Saturday morning. Strong was dismissed after the team's 31-9 loss to TCU, which marked his third losing seasons in as many years at Texas.
Herman is 22–4 in two years as the Cougars' head coach. He led the team to a one-loss season and a Peach Bowl victory over Florida State in his first year at the helm. Houston also has marquee wins over No. 8 Oklahoma and then-No. 5 Louisville this season.
Herman won a National Championship in 2014–15 as offensive coordinator at Ohio State under head coach Urban Meyer. He coached as a graduate assistant at Texas from 1999–2000.
A pair of Longhorns were named finalists for two of the nation's highest honors on Monday, as running back D'Onta Foreman was named a finalist for the Doak Walker Award and punter Michael Dickson was one of three players to qualify for the Ray Guy Award.
Foreman's selection as a finalist comes on the heels of his 51-carry performance against Kansas on Saturday. He currently leads college football in rushing yards, compiling 1,863 yards in 10 games. His 2016 campaign places him third all-time in Longhorn history in rushing yards in a single season.
Dickson's path to Ray Guy consideration has been far from smooth. He struggled last year in his first season with the burnt orange, often flustered by defenses rushing at him as he prepared to kick.
But the Australian has adjusted quite well in 2016, booming 22 punts over 50 yards on the year. He has averaged over 47 yards per punt, good for No. 4 in the nation.
Until then, Foreman and Dickson will have one more opportunity to impress voters on the field, facing off against TCU on Friday. Kickoff is slated for 2:30 pm from Darrell K Royal–Memorial Stadium in Austin.
Update (6:30 p.m.): Athletic director Mike Perrin denied reports of Strong's firing in a statement. He said Strong is preparing to coach against TCU on Friday.
Update (6:26 p.m.): Strong will coach the team's final regular season game before stepping down, according to the Brian Davis at the Statesman and ESPN.
Original story: Texas will fire head coach Charlie Strong before the team's final game, according to the Austin American-Statesman. However, the announcement may not come until Monday, according to the report.
The decision comes after the team fell 24-21 to Kansas on the road, the biggest upset loss against the spread in program history.
Strong entered the 2016 season with pressure to turn the program around after finishing 6–7 and 5–7 in his first two years, respectively. However, the team fell short of expectations with a 5–6 record with one game to play. The loss to a one-win Jayhawk team — Kansas hasn't beaten an FBS team since November 2014 — puts Texas in danger of missing a bowl game for the second straight season.
Strong will finish with a 16–20 record in just under three seasons as Texas' head coach.


text:
Jimmy Carter Becomes Oldest Living American President
The 39th commander-in-chief is now 94 years and 172 days old — surpassing George H.W. Bush, who was 94 years and 171 days old when he died
Jimmy Carter can add another title to a lifetime of achievements: He's now the longest-living U.S. president, NBC News reported.
As of Thursday evening, the 39th commander-in-chief was 94 years and 172 days old — surpassing George H.W. Bush, who died in November at 94 years and 171 days old.
"We at The Carter Center are grateful for his long life of service that has benefited millions of the world's poorest people," said Deanna Congileo, a spokeswoman for the Carter Center.
Carter was the first American president born in a hospital and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.


text:
'use strict';

/**
 * Module dependencies.
 */
var mongoose = require('mongoose'),
    Schema = mongoose.Schema;

/**
 * Position Schema
 */
var PositionSchema = new Schema({
    name: {type: String, required: true, trim: true},
    value: {type: Number}
});

/**
 * Expense Schema
 */
var ExpenseSchema = new Schema({
    created: {type: Date, default: Date.now},
    vendor: {type: String, required: true, trim: true},
    user: {type: Schema.ObjectId, ref: 'User'},
    positions: [PositionSchema],
    sum: {type: Number}
});
//ExpenseSchema.virtual('sum').get(function() {
//  var result = 0.0;
//  for(var i = 0; i < this.positions.length; i++)
//    result += this.positions[i].value;
//  return result;
//});

/**
 * Validations
 */
ExpenseSchema.path('created').validate(function (created) {
    return !!created;
}, 'Creation date can\'t be blank');

ExpenseSchema.path('vendor').validate(function (vendor) {
    return !!vendor;
}, 'Vendor can\'t be blank');

PositionSchema.path('name').validate(function (name) {
    return !!name;
}, 'Name can\'t be blank');

PositionSchema.path('value').validate(function (value) {
    return !!value;
}, 'Value can\'t be blank');

/**
 * Statics
 */
ExpenseSchema.statics.load = function (id, cb) {
    this.findOne({_id: id})
        .populate('user', 'name username')
        .populate('positions')
        .exec(cb);
};

mongoose.model('Position', PositionSchema);
mongoose.model('Expense', ExpenseSchema);

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Residencies & Exchange
Press Main Page
Sean Griffith's latest installation creates inhabitable drawings
What on Earth are they thinking? Inside the mind of a performance artist
73 Tontine Street
CT20 1JR
M: +44 (0) 7930 641065
An ActIve Ghost
New Photographic Works by David Christian
Curated by Theresa Kneppers
Part of HOP Projects CT20 2019 Curatorial Residency Programme
Exhibition Opening: Friday 31 May 2019, 5-8PM
Opening times: Saturday 1 & Sunday 2 June, 11:30 AM - 5PM
Saturday 01 June, 10:00 – 13:00 | FREE DROP-IN workshop led by Theresa Kneppers | Urban Room Folkestone
A collaborative workshop exploring infrastructures' potential for flexibility and resilience at 10-1pm on Saturday, June 1st, at Urban Room in tandem with the exhibition "An Active Ghost" a new series of photographs by David Christian, at HOP Projects. This project takes inspiration from the history of Folkestone as a former shipping port, ferry terminal, and trade centre; and considers its current and past roles as a portal to Europe and beyond.
Sunday 2 June, 15:00 onwards | FREE Walk with David, Theresa and Pavement Pounders. Meeting at: HOP Projects CT20, 73 Tontine Street, Folkestone, CT20 1JR
Images by David Christian
For HPCT20 2019's Curatorial Residency Programme, Theresa will present new photographs by the artist, David Christian, for an exhibition called, An Active Ghost. This project takes inspiration from the history of Folkestone as a former shipping port, ferry terminal, and trade centre; and considers its current and past roles as a portal to Europe and beyond.
The exhibition will focus on the contemporary and Victorian infrastructure: including now disused train tracks, bridges, train station; along with the modern infrastructure for the Eurotunnel including its terminal; and the roadways, and overpasses which lead to and from it. Looking at this infrastructure, both past and present, as historical markers on the landscape we will utilise a constellation of narratives to consider the social, transport, trade and shifting uses of these aspects of the man-made industrial landmarks in the landscape. We will work with the writer and researcher, Edwina Attlee, to produce written pieces that consider these aspects of the built history of Folkestone. This written work will be shown alongside a series of large-format photographs.
The show will be a document of the traces of the area's transport infrastructure. The intention is to propose that although some of these structures no longer serve the functionality they were originally created for, this does not mean they are defunct but that their meaning and usage has shifted, and has been adapted to serve the community differently. My goal for the project is to highlight the connection between a site's past and present; perhaps altering the way a viewer sees, considers and relates to the landscape, which is especially relevant at this moment when we are reconsidering and renegotiating our relationship with Europe and the wider world.
Pipes in Folkestone Warren
Sam Johnson-Schlee
Is there anything that can't be piped? From photons in a fibreoptic cable to sewage, all of human life is shuttled through pipes. There is a pipe at the heart of the steam locomotive, that sped along rails and disciplined time so that everyone knew when the working day was whether it was light or dark. It is with pipes that we have negotiated the most resistant parts of our landscape, carving tunnels through mountains, cliffs, and the seabed.
Before we began to pipe people to Paris we built tunnels through the cliffs between Dover and Folkestone. The problem with a pipe is it depends very much on its capacity to hold its contents – the moment they crack or shift or wear out they start to leak or become blocked, and are useless altogether.
In 1915 at Folkestone Warren, a train emerged from its tunnel having been told just in time to slow down. The earth ahead had slipped away and it rolled onto the track, which slipped 50 metres towards the sea where the train eventually derailed. At the Warren, where Edwardians used to like to picnic, the combination of heavy ground and chalk meant that wet winters threatened further land slips. More pipes were made, this time bored into the ground to promote drainage, and walls were built to hold back the earth.
Whilst we can partially defend ourselves against the weather and the sea, we have not yet found a way to pipe away the threat altogether. In 2015 a storm undermined a stretch of coastal line at Shakespeare Beach on the same line. The sea wall there has since been reinforced with what Network rail refer to as granite armour.
Where trains run through tunnels between Folkestone and Dover, the sea is wearing away the cliffs that contain them. There is nothing to do about it. The plan is to let it go, to remove the thing which the tunnels tunnel through. There is a plan for the sad moment at which the pipes fail: "As such, it is recommended to allow this ongoing erosion to continue in the knowledge that the rail line will become inoperable at some point within the next century."
Rather presumptuously the plans laid out in the Environment Agency's South Foreland to Beachy Head Shoreline Management Plan 2006 promise graciously to "allow" the continued erosion of the cliffs. The coastline will be permitted to form itself. The rising sea will undermine the chalk and reclaim part of the land above sea level. In compensation for the pain the ocean will suffer as temperatures rise, and glaciers melt, the sea will claim back some of what it had allowed, for a while.
Theresa Kneppers


text:
/**
 * NCtoolKit © 2007-2017 Luís F.Loureiro, under zlib software license.
 * https://github.com/nczeroshift/nctoolkit
 */

#ifndef NCK_DATE_H_
#define NCK_DATE_H_

#include "nckCoreConfig.h"
#include <time.h>

_CORE_BEGIN

class Date{
public:
	Date();
	Date(long timestamp);
	~Date();

	int GetYear();
	int GetMonth();
	int GetDay();
	int GetHours();
	int GetMinutes();
	int GetSeconds();

	long GetLong();
private:
	time_t m_Timestamp;
};

_CORE_END

#endif // #ifndef NCK_DATE_H_


text:
Q: DataSet not Filled after using ReadXml Method C++/CLI I was trying to read XML data from file and load it to Dataset, but i always get an empty dataset, here is my Code:
bool Replacer::Load_XmlTmp(System::String^ File_Path, System::String^ ErrMssg)
{
    ErrMssg = "";
    try
    {
        SnippetDataSet->ReadXml(File_Path, System::Data::XmlReadMode::ReadSchema);
    }
    catch (System::Exception^ e)
    {
        ErrMssg = e->Message;
        return false;
    }
    return true;
}

Noting that i have no Exceptions caught
here is my XML file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Menu-DataSet xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
    <Snippit>
        <Original>NA</Original>
        <Replacment>NA</Replacment>
        <Type>NA</Type>
        <File>NA</File>
        <SnippitID>NA</SnippitID>
        <BugReportNum>NA</BugReportNum>
        <WorkAroundJustification>NA</WorkAroundJustification>
        <SW_Version>NA</SW_Version>
        <IsReused>NA</IsReused>
        <IsReplaced>NA</IsReplaced>
        <BugTRAQ>NA</BugTRAQ>
    </Snippit>
</Menu-DataSet>

Here is the DataSet properties when being watched in debug:

A: I've Found the reason for this behavior, The visual Studio debug has problems displaying contents of the DataSet, but actually the DataSet is filled with the XML data

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Home News & Analysis Merrill Lynch shelves Asia platform sale
Merrill Lynch shelves Asia platform sale
Merrill Lynch's global real estate principle investments division has halted plans to offload its Asian real estate investment management business. The platform may be placed on the market again late second quarter 2010.
Jonathan Brasse
Merrill Lynch has placed its plan to divest the management of its Asian real estate investment management platform on ice until late second quarter 2010 in a sign of improving market conditions in Asia.
The sale of the platform, which includes the management of $4billion in committed capital including $2.65 billion from its Asian Real Estate Opportunity Fund, was being led by the bank's global real estate principle investments group from New York.
Before deciding to suspend the sales process, Bank of America-owned Merrill Lynch had reduced its shortlist to two bidders: ING Real Estate Investment Management and LaSalle Investment Management. The former is currently one of three bidders vying to acquire the management of Citi Property Investors' $8 billion global platform.
It is unclear at this stage whether a completely new sales process will be instigated next year or whether the current situation will simply thaw.
PERE reported in September that Merrill Lynch was considering retaining the Asia business while market conditions improved. Since then, the platform is believed to have benefited from sales and improved valuations across its various target markets including China, where it has sold more than $100 million of assets since being placed on the market during the summer.
The decision to suspend the sale is also thought to have been taken in light of the departure of Bank of America chief executive officer Ken Lewis in October. One source close to the matter said: "In the last couple of months since he announced his departure, a lot of initiatives have been placed on hold. When turmoil happens at the top nobody takes risks. They want to see what happens first." Yesterday Bank of America annouced it had promoted its chied of consumer banking, Brian Moynihan, to replace Lewis.
The platform is led by Martin Seol, who took charge in March this year, however the sale was being led by Doug Sesler, head of global real estate principle investments.
The firm's smaller European platform, however, is a step closer to being offloaded. Its head, Roger Barris, is believed to be in the midst of negotiating a management buyout on behalf of its European team. Barris joined Merrill Lynch in 2004, following spells at Starwood Capital and DB Real Estate. He led the team from London but is planning to relocate the business to Switzerland.


Bartlett, Burr-Kirven and Potoa'e lead the position group.
Knowing how and when to make adjustments comes with college football. Look no further than how the Washington Huskies have handled their linebacker situation over the last 18 months.
Tevis Bartlett and Ben Burr-Kirven were special teams standouts. Benning Potoa'e was a big body with potential. They were role players but made the contributions necessary to help UW reach the College Football Playoff semifinal in 2016.
A year later, the trio became full-time starters who helped the Huskies win 10 games, reach the Fiesta Bowl and become one of the top defenses in the nation.
Bartlett and Burr-Kirven are seniors, while Potoa'e is a junior. As the Huskies prepare to open spring practice on Wednesday, they're three figures who give UW one of the deepest and most experienced linebacker units in the Pac-12, if not the nation.
Keishawn Bierria was a three-year starter and a two-time all-Pac-12 second team selection. He was also the emotional engine who drove the linebackers. Bierria is gone and the Huskies must find his successor.
There are plenty of options, starting with DJ Beavers and Brandon Wellington.
Beavers was a freshman who played in all but one game when the Huskies made the CFP semifinal in 2016. He started the team's final four games and became a starter after UW lost star Azeem Victor to a leg injury against USC. Beavers, who is 6-foot-1 and 220 pounds, showed promise by amassing 40 tackles over 12 games. But he sustained a foot injury in 2017 fall camp and was limited to 13 tackles over five games.
Wellington, who is 6-feet and 224 pounds, played 14 games as true freshman in 2016. The former Eastside Catholic star played in 11 games while backing up Bierria. He enters camp having played in 25 career games.
Any conversation about UW's linebackers is going to start with Bartlett, Burr-Kirven and Potoa'e.
Bartlett (6-2 and 238-pounds) entered 2017 with 37 tackles in his first two seasons, then made 48 as a starter.
Burr-Kirven, who is listed at 6-feet and 221 pounds, was arguably the team's biggest surprise on either side of the ball. He replaced Victor, who was later removed from the team following a DUI arrest, led the Huskies with 84 tackles.
Potoa'e, who is 6-3 and 275 pounds, started 10 games and made 27 tackles to go with three sacks.
Bartlett, Beavers, Burr-Kirven, Potoa'e and Wellington provide experience, depth and flexibility. Those assets will be key as UW seeks to develop the rest of its linebackers going forward.
Bartlett and Burr-Kirven will graduate after the season while its possible one good season could see either Beavers, Potoa'e or Wellington depart after their respective junior seasons.
Don't worry too much. The Huskies have 14 linebackers going into fall camp and the group includes a few familiar names who've been waiting to make their mark. Two of those players — Camilo Eifler and Ariel Ngata — are former four-star prospects.
Eifler is a sophomore who played in 13 games last season. Ngata was redshirted in 2017 but emerged as the team's Brian Stapp Special Teams Scout Squad MVP.
Washington signed four linebackers for its 2018 recruiting class. None of them are going to be in spring camp.
Ale' Kaho was one of the biggest additions Huskies coach Chris Petersen and his staff received leading up to the early signing period last December. The former BYU commit backed off his pledge and selected UW over Alabama. Kaho (6-1, 218 pounds) was a composite four-star prospect considered to be the No. 7 inside linebacker in the nation by 247 Sports.
MJ Tafisi, a three-star prospect, is the second inside linebacker in the class. Tafisi (6-2, 224 pounds) racked up 418 tackles over his high school career.
Jackson Sirmon, the son of former Huskies assistant Peter Sirmon, was the second player to join the class. The younger Sirmon (6-2, 224 pounds) was a three-star prospect was the No. 26 outside linebacker in America, per 247.
Zion Tupuola-Fetui is also a three-star prospect who was the No. 52 outside linebacker in the nation. Tupuola-Fetui (6-2, 250 pounds) was the No. 3 player in the state of Hawai'i.


text:
altoValue
What are OKRs? A brief intro to Objectives & Key Results
OKRs is a management and strategy execution methodology that consists of three pillars/main components: the Objectives (O), the Key Results (KR), and the OKR Cycle.
The Objective is a memorable, short, qualitative, and inspirational description that answers the question What do we want to achieve? A good Objective must inspire and motivate all stakeholders and employees within the organization. Therefore, there is a strong emphasis on choosing the right wording as statements such as 'become profitable' might not spark the same enthusiasm across the hierarchy of an organization, even though it appeals greatly to senior stakeholders. Instead, formulating an action-oriented Objective that relates to the company's mission or vision is much more motivational and inspiring. Thus, an Objective should be a challenging one that directly impacts a critical business metric and represents where a company wants to go.
Accordingly, the Key Results are determined by the answer to the question How do we measure if we get there? More specifically, KRs are a set of – aspirational but not impossible – metrics that measure the organization's progress towards the set Objective and whether the latter is achieved. It is important to note that since KRs describe how a company is going to fulfill a certain Objective, they should focus on the business outcome, rather than the specific actions that need to be done (the output). Without Key Results, Objectives have no use – they are merely aspirations.
With this management structure, many highly successful companies and their top-leaders that use OKRs have achieved their company strategy to continuously innovate and grow.
Let's look at an example of a complete OKR now. Consider a team that wants customers to choose them over their main competitor. This sounds great, but how will they know that? As it was mentioned, there is no goal without measurement, which is why the following Key Results were formulated (den Haak 2021):
Objective: Customers choose us over [competitor]
Key Results:
Increase the percentage of customers that prefer our product to the competitor's in a blind test from 30 to 75 percent
Increase the average order rating from 3.1 to 5.0
Now that you know how to write a good OKR and you've seen an example of a company-wide OKR, we can look at some more indicative examples break down per company function.
Let's say the Marketing team wants to raise awareness for a new product launch. Their OKR could be:
Objective: Drive launch awareness through PR activities
Publish 12 online press pieces with min. 400K views & 2.5K shares
Reach 500K views on Instagram by hiring top-5 industry influencers
Accordingly, one of the HR team's OKRs might look something like this:
Objective: Build a culture of employee engagement
Achieve grade 9 on the engagement index
Reduce our employees' attrition rate by 3 units
Lastly, an OKR example written by an Engineering & Tech team could be the following:
Objective: We ensure that releases are delivered on-time
Engineering team contributes 100 story points
90% of code is reviewed within 48 hrs
Identified min. 5 front end improvements by adding 100 automated tests
"Companies who set their goals quarterly are more likely to be top performers in their industry"
Finally, the OKR cycle is the system for achieving the organization's OKRs. The OKR cycle may vary from business to business and the version to be adopted (e.g., a quarterly cycle) highly depends on the organization's structure, culture, and specific needs. Interestingly, it has been reported that companies who set their goals quarterly are more likely to be top performers in their industry. In summary, one OKR cycle consists of two parts. The first is the monthly check-ins with the team to self-assess, discuss possible obstacles, give status updates (confidence level), make quick readjustments, and increase the team's commitment. The second part is the reflect & reset sessions at the end of each quarter which allows teams to reset their OKRs in the pursuit of their yearly OKR while reflecting on and reviewing their performance.
OKRs usage provides companies with a holistic oversight of all goals and processes, leading to a high growth rate, cost reduction, enhanced cross-team alignment, as well as a high degree of both employee satisfaction and engagement in the company's vision.
Want to learn more about who created the OKR methodology and why companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Nike use it? Read all about it here!
den Haak B. (2021). Moving the Needle with Lean OKRs: Setting Objectives and Key Results to Reach Your Most Ambitious Goal. Business Expert Press.
Why are OKRs so popular?
Exclusive content and events that revolve around OKRs and more delivered to your inbox
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meet@altovalue.com
© altoValue 2022


text:
Watch! 'Racing Wives' Stars Whitney Dillon & Mariel Lane Reveal How They Mesh With The Other NASCAR Spouses
August 3, 2019 11:00AM by Jane Meeker
The new CMT show premiered on Friday, August 2.
Racing Wives stars Whitney Dillon and Mariel Lane revealed to OKMagazine.com that they're doing their best to fit in with the rest of their costars on the new CMT show, which premiered on Friday, August 2.
Racing Wives centers around the lives of NASCAR's most prominent wives. Whitney is a former Tennessee Titans cheerleader who is now married to NASCAR's Austin Dillon. Mariel is also a former Tennessee Titans cheerleader who is married to a member of Austin's pit crew Paul Swan.
Whitney and Mariel are best friends, and they admitted that it has been a little tricky to mesh with their costars. The two felt that they were "targeted" coming into the show.
"We had a massive target on our back. Not only that, we were NFL cheerleaders and we were just different. We didn't grow up in racing. We had no idea what the rules were and you can see in the show," Whitney said. "We actually break every rule that they have without even knowing," Mariel added.
Whitney continued, "I do think there's a lot of jealousy because Mariel and I, we are not afraid to be ourselves. We are goofy and we don't care what people think about us and I feel like a lot of people wish that they were like that."
To learn more about the Racing Wives drama, watch the interview above and let us know your thoughts in the comments below!


Berkeley Electric Cooperative is committed to providing safe, reliable and affordable energy, while enhancing the lives of those we serve.
For a print copy of the by-laws please contact your local district office or download a PDF copy.
Para una copia en español haga clic aquí.


The present day metropolitan Hyderabad has turned out as a glittering example of an amalgamated city combining its old world charm, vibrant culture and historical past with an exuberant economic growth owing to the numerous enterprises that have taken root here offering a life full of opportunities to those who seek it.Apart from being an IT hub enriched with the glorious and monumental past of the Mughal Empire and its grandeur, it has also become the most sought after destination for sectors like Banking & Finance, Bio-Technology, Engineering, Medical Sciences, Pharmaceuticals, Research and many others.
In this era of foreign direct investment, Hyderabad has also managed to capture the attention of global investors leading to foreign investment in the fields of Real Estate, IT, Research, Pharmaceuticals etc on a very large scale.
Along with this, various new local businesses, public-private partnerships and enterprises have made the city a fertile ground for budding professionals. With the rising number of professionals moving to Hyderabad from all over the country in pursuance of better job opportunities as well as higher living standards, the sky rocketing prices of real estate and the expense of living in a metropolitan have left many bereft of their dream of owning a Home in this City of Pearls.
Professional's colony which is a part of a much larger integrated township, namely, Fortune Butterfly City situated on the Sri Sailam Highway comes to the rescue of those who wish to buy a comfortable yet luxurious accommodation at an affordable price in a serene and tranquil natural environment away from the hustle and bustle of the city.
The professional's colony is fully equipped with the basic amenities and much more. The colony is far away from the commotion and chaos of the city yet in close proximity to facilities like cinema theatres, restaurants, shopping malls, clubhouses, gyms, spas, health and fitness centres.
This makes the place a highly desirable location for those professionals who aspire to have a more private life outside of the office without missing out on the finer delicacies of life.This colony is a novel project aimed at making the life of those working in the corporate sector, a little less challenging by providing them with a peaceful ambience to relax in after a stressful day at work along with the scenic beauty resembling that of the countryside which is soothing to the soul.So, if you are looking for something like that, grab the opportunity before it is gone!!!!
FORTUNE BUTTERFLY CITY:The Fortune Group proudly announces our Fortune Butterfly City Celebrating Its 10 Years success with Vision, Mission, Commitment and the same will be continued in the Years to come. On this occasion the management wants to thank each one of them who have supported in all these years especially our beloved customers.
We make ourselves approachable and accountable to our clients in pursuance of an honest professional relationship for maximum customer satisfaction. One such project which showcases the authenticity over and above the finesse with which our company works is the Fortune Butterfly City, a serene and blissful 3600 Acres Integrated Township development located on the Sri Sailam Highway between Kadthal and Dasarlapalli which boasts of 100% Vaastu & DTCP approved layout, 60 & 40 feet wide interconnecting roads, underground power supply, water supply & drainage in addition to rain water harvesting and 24*7 security system in place. We are well versed with the age old adage of 'Carpe Diem i.e; Seize The Day' and that is exactly what we thrive for day in, day out.We are perfectly capable of enduring setbacks yet still yield favourable outcomes. Our sole focus isn't only on economic development and stakeholder's benefit but also on the integrated sustainable development of human life and the environment conjointly with a view to achieve the highest possible Quality of Life. The basic concept of Fortune Butterfly City is that it will have separate colonies for highly qualified Doctors, Scientists, Professionals, CEOs and NRIs. The close proximity of the city to Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in addition to the availability of city owned Taxi/Cab service designed specifically to cater to the needs of the foreign nationals as well as NRIs, will be conducive to its groundbreaking success.All in all, Fortune Butterfly City is a captivating place where you will experience happiness, comfort, contentment, peace of mind, serene beauty and a true sense of freedom, all of which you deserve. So, grab the opportunity, come experience the various hues of life in here and it is bound to leave you mesmerised!!!
If there ever is a place where you can experience life as it should really be then this is the place to be!!!


Access for Women in Energy (AccessWIE) organised a roundtable dinner discussion on offshore Brazil. The event, which took place on 30 November 2011 in London, was hosted by Norton Rose, a leading global law firm, in collaboration with Deloitte, a UK-incorporated multinational professional services network.
Participants came from a variety of institutions including: Aegis, Baker Hughes, Centre for Global Energy Studies (CGES), Deloitte, DLA Piper, Eversheds, MEC International Ltd, Norton Rose, Oil Council, Opus Executive Partners Ltd, Petrobras, Petrofac, Royal Bank for Scotland (RBS) and the Windsor Energy Group (WEG).
Dr Carole Nakhle, Director of AccessWIE, chaired the discussion, which focused on oil and gas in offshore Brazil, and addressed issues such as the country's challenges and opportunities in the sector, the role of Petrobras, energy resource management, energy financing, the opportunity of shale gas in Brazil, regulatory framework and country risk.


Trees And Sewer Lines: Can They Get Along? - Spray Foam Insulation-- Worth the Price?
Trees And Sewer Lines: Can They Get Along?
You know the value of planting trees. They add appeal and value to your home as well as benefit the environment. They bestow grace and beauty on your property. Unfortunately, they do not mix well with water and sewer lines. When planting trees, you need to take precautions to keep their roots from growing into your water and sewer system.
Before you plant, contact the appropriate local government department or the national 811 "Call Before You Dig" line. Surprisingly, not everyone takes this convenient step that can prevent expensive repairs in the future.
Larger trees should be planted well away from sewer lines because of their deep and spreading root system. Experts recommend that you avoid eucalyptus, figs, poplars, rubber, fruitless mulberry, and Modesto ash trees. For trees that will be planted closer to the lines, choose types with a smaller root ball, such as certain magnolias, cherry, wintersweet, quince, crabapples, and myrtle trees.
You can also employ the use of barriers to keep your lines safe from tree roots. Metal and wooden barriers can be placed vertically six to twelve inches below the pipe to keep roots away. You can also use potassium hydroxide and copper sulfate near the lines to discourage root growth.
Slow flowing drains along with a gurgling noise are your first signs of root trouble. Simple clogs can also cause these issues, but you need to investigate whenever your plumbing exhibits problems. If you experience a total pipe blockage, then roots may be the cause. If left untreated, your sewer and water lines can totally collapse, an expensive repair issue.
Some tree roots can be cleared by an auger. Chemical treatments can also sometimes solve the problem. If the infiltration is too great, you may need to invest in a camera or borescope that can be inserted into the lines so you can see the extent of the damage and know what repair steps you need to take. In the most severe cases, your lines may need to be dug up and replaced.
The best course of action is to know where the lines are located and then to plant trees that are friendly to water and sewer lines. Once roots invade your lines, you have a potentially expensive and inconvenient problem on your hands. Take the time to plan your landscaping with your utility lines in mind, and you will save yourself a great deal of trouble.
To learn more, contact a company like Drain-O-Rooter.


text:
Q: Remove items from array in MongoDB The database I have is a list of contacts with a structure like this
{
        "_id" : ObjectId("5bb4fff62dba3129388423fa"),
        "user_id" : 1,
        "custom_list_id" : "VDFLVPMK",
        "list_name" : "New Test List",
        "contacts" : [
                {
                        "email" : "test1@gmail.com",
                        "first_name" : "Jane",
                        "last_name" : "Doe",
                        "address" : "",
                        "subscribed" : true,
                        "date_added" : ISODate("2018-10-03T17:44:30.975Z"),
                        "date_changed" : ISODate("2018-10-03T17:44:30.975Z")
                },
                {
                        "email" : "test@gmail.com",
                        "first_name" : "John",
                        "last_name" : "Doe",
                        "address" : "",
                        "subscribed" : true,
                        "date_added" : ISODate("2018-10-03T17:49:58.795Z"),
                        "date_changed" : ISODate("2018-10-03T17:49:58.795Z")
                }
        ]
}

I am trying to remove one person in the contacts without removing everything in the list. I am trying to run the command in the MongoDB terminal and it is not doing anything
Command
 db.customer__list__info.update({contacts:[]},{$pull:{'contacts.email':'test1@gmail.com'}})

Result
WriteResult({ "nMatched" : 0, "nUpserted" : 0, "nModified" : 0 })
What I would like is for it to get rid of everything inside the { } with the specified email.
Any help would be much appreciated.


text:
/*
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */
package com.facebook.presto.sql.analyzer;

import com.facebook.presto.sql.tree.Node;

import javax.annotation.Nullable;

import static com.google.common.base.MoreObjects.toStringHelper;
import static java.lang.String.format;
import static java.lang.System.identityHashCode;
import static java.util.Objects.requireNonNull;

public class RelationId
{
    /**
     * Creates {@link RelationId} equal to any {@link RelationId} created from exactly the same source.
     */
    public static RelationId of(Node sourceNode)
    {
        return new RelationId(requireNonNull(sourceNode, "source cannot be null"));
    }

    /**
     * Creates {@link RelationId} equal only to itself
     */
    public static RelationId anonymous()
    {
        return new RelationId(null);
    }

    @Nullable
    private final Node sourceNode;

    private RelationId(Node sourceNode)
    {
        this.sourceNode = sourceNode;
    }

    public boolean isAnonymous()
    {
        return sourceNode == null;
    }

    @Override
    public boolean equals(Object o)
    {
        if (this == o) {
            return true;
        }
        if (o == null || getClass() != o.getClass()) {
            return false;
        }
        RelationId that = (RelationId) o;
        return sourceNode != null && sourceNode == that.sourceNode;
    }

    @Override
    public int hashCode()
    {
        return identityHashCode(sourceNode);
    }

    @Override
    public String toString()
    {
        if (isAnonymous()) {
            return toStringHelper(this)
                    .addValue("anonymous")
                    .addValue(format("x%08x", identityHashCode(this)))
                    .toString();
        }
        else {
            return toStringHelper(this)
                    .addValue(sourceNode.getClass().getSimpleName())
                    .addValue(format("x%08x", identityHashCode(sourceNode)))
                    .toString();
        }
    }
}


What I am about to say is categorically NOT political. It is a simple factual analysis, the implications of which you may not like. However, as you will see, thankfully there is a simple solution.
Be subjected to uncertainty, change and disruption as everything adapts to the new world of Brexit and President Trump. Moreover, even if the long-term impact of those things is positive (as we all hope), in the short to medium term change is never comfortable, and uncertainty always makes things more difficult.
It is also a fact that there is very little any of us can do at a macro level – the votes have been cast, "Brexit means Brexit", and the budget deficit is a reality.
However, at micro level, we do all have a very real choice to EITHER… do nothing other than whinge when things get painful, OR… do something to make things better for you, your family, business, community and country.
A consensus is now emerging that, regardless of how we voted, we all have to pull together and do what we can to make things work for everyone. So that is precisely what we have decided to do.
Obviously, there's nothing we can do for whingers.
90-minute online meeting with a world-class expert – from the comfort of your own desk, Steve Pipe will show you how to get crystal clarity over (a) the specific issues facing you and your business, and (b) precisely what to do about them. And being a former UK Entrepreneur Of The Year, international keynote speaker and globally published research, he really does know what he's talking about.
To confirm that seat, please click here.
I'm really looking forward to being at the meeting with you.
PS Please feel free to forward this invitation to anyone you know who might feel the same. And remember, the meeting is categorically not political. Instead it is 100% about the business and financial issues that you must now do something about.
Brexiteers – one for all and all for one!
Brexit and what's the plan?
Carillion – What were the signs of financial weakness?


text:
Q: How to replicate the package check time performed on CRAN? I've been trying to reduce the check time on a package I am submitting to CRAN. On my local machines, check time is somewhere between a minute (i7 CPU) and 2 minutes (i5 CPU). However, CRAN reviewers keep pointing out the check time is over 10 minutes. The only way I could find to reproduce such long check times is by uploading my package to http://win-builder.r-project.org/, where it indeed takes > 600 s to check.
I wish I could reproduce this check time locally so I am not dependent on a remote solution. The only difference I can see between Win builder and my local machine is the OS (Win vs. Linux) and how Win builder seems to be doing multiarch checks (i386 and x64).
I am not sure how to reproduce this locally. I have tried R CMD check with seemingly-relevant switches like --multiarch and --force-multiarch but it doesn't seem to be doing anything differently. I guess I have to install some extra packages like r-cran-i386 or whatever, but I couldn't find anything of the sort in my repositories ("R" can be such a PITA of a search expression) and the instructions on README files like the one on https://cran.r-project.org/bin/linux/ubuntu/ didn't get me far enough.
I am already using --as-cran, and am aware of solutions like this, though I think installing R i386 on a separate VM containing a 32-bit OS defeats the purpose of what I am trying to accomplish.


text:
Home /License to Give
License to Give
License to Give: Specialty plates already raise funds for natural areas, and two new ones could help protect species of native fish
Jon Elliston
WNC Staff
North Carolina drivers can choose one of the state's 156 specialty license plates to show support for their alma mater or their favorite club or cause. And if Jon Jicha, a professor of design at Western Carolina University, has his way, two more will be added to the roster soon. An avid angler, Jicha has designed one plate to tout WNC's native brook trout and another to highlight a popular native saltwater fish, the red drum. "These are fish that I've always wanted to fight for, to demonstrate the uniqueness of these species," Jicha says.
The plates, which cost $30, are facing a crucial deadline: Each has to have a minimum of 500 applicants by July 1 to become an official option. The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission is taking applications for the brook trout plate (see details and apply at ncwildlife.org), and the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries (www.portal.ncdenr.org/web/mf) is taking those for the red drum plate. Proceeds from the tags will go to preserving both species' habitats.


Fractures or broken bones in the lower extremities of the horses usually exist typically somewhere between the radius, right here. Okay. The carpus or the carpal bones, the cannon bone, the fetlock, the pastern, the short pastern or coffin.
Fractures can occur at any time in these areas, due to, well if it's a race horse it's not unusual for you to see a chip fracture off the distal-lateral radius, which is really common or any of the carpal bones, the first or second, upper row which is the ulnar radial or central carpal bone. The cannon bone can get dorsal fractures. You can get a condylar fracture which is, you know, a front to back fracture of usually the lateral portion which can get a medial as well. You can get a sagittal fracture through the pastern.
You can get chip fractures and/or fractures of the short pastern. The coffin bone could sustain a chip fracture on the extensor process here. Or on the actual wings of the coffin into the feet. Or you could fracture the navicular. These are, all these areas are pre-disposed to this because of the amount of concussion or use of the horse. Race horses, we see these things fairly commonly.
Chip fractures in this area of the carpus, cannon bone and fetlock are very, very common. You know, I have a radiograph x-ray machine up there. My computer is full of digital radiographs of fractures in all these areas. It's a little bit less common in the coffin bone, but it does occur from time to time in all breeds and species, all breeds and types or uses. But it's more common probably in the thoroughbred.
The major complications associated with these fractures are loss of use. A race horse chip fractures the carpus, they basically are going to have to either have removal or time off for, if it's a small fragment, to dissolve…to get quiet down basically for the symptoms to subside and/or respond to an injection, if that's the course that you choose.
Cannon bone fractures, if it's a softer fracture, the preferred treatment is a lag screw fixation or a compression fracture, you know, to go ahead and put a screw in here and compress the fracture line.
Coddler fractures we see lag screw fixation, usually one or two. Pastern the same thing, lag screw fixation. Coffin joint fractures – removal, same thing with fetlocks, removal of chip fractures.
Wing fractures, we can either go ahead and nerve the horse or try to compress that fracture in. Typically the only fractures that work for compression in the coffin bone are basically if they're sagittal, right down the middle.
After a horse has had a fracture you have to evaluate how they've recovered. Okay? If the carpus stays distended, the horse stays lame it's a problem. Then you have to make a decision to go ahead and decide if this horse needs a career change or needs a change in the level of competition he's going to be at.
Or possibly he's going to be retired and used for, you know, maybe just recreational use. Or if it's breeding stock whether not you can go ahead and utilize him to be breed.
Others can come back and compete. So, each injury is unique on how they respond to the therapy. If it's either intra-articular injection, chip fracture removal or internal fixation by compression screw or lag screw depending on location. And whether or not they have gotten sound enough to go ahead and go back to the selected use with which they were purchased or used. Whether it be a race horse, jumper, standard bred, pleasure horse or whatnot.
Or, if they need to be retired or they need basically an occupation change. If it was a race horse, maybe they could survive as a horse that's in the flat or basically as a show horse. You have to kind of evaluate each injury as you see fit or how they respond to therapy that's been intervened upon.


Can't make the race, sign up for the virtual race option.
*You must register by September 27th to be guaranteed a shirt, we cannot guarantee a shirt or size for registrations placed after this date.
*Awards not picked up on race day will be available at the Bodies Health & Fitness starting on Monday following the race. You can pick up during normal business hours: M-F 9-5pm, Sat 8-10am. You have 2 weeks to pick up your awards.


text:
Q: How to efficiently perform closest neighbor interpolation with Numpy I have an image that for the sake of this issue is just a numpy array. I want to filter the image to remove noise in form of isolated transparent pixels (more generally, I also would like to remove lines, but this the next problem).
Let's set a playable example:
a = np.ones((10, 10), np.uint8)
a[5,5] = 0    # isolated hole
a[5,6] = 2    # the neighbour to clone

Leading to this matrix:
       [[1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1],
       [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1],
       [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1],
       [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1],
       [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1],
       [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 2, 1, 1, 1],
       [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1],
       [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1],
       [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1],
       [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1]]

Well, the problem is that when there is a 0 in the matrix, I want it to be replaced by the closest neighbour (2 in this case, but perhaps an average of the four, if easy to implement, would be better).
Can this be done without explicit loops?

A: Detect the 0 entries in a using boolean array indexing. To calculate the described average, use scipy.signal.convolve2d with mode='same' and the following kernel:
kernel = np.array([[0, 1, 0], [1, 0, 1], [0, 1, 0]]) / 4

Finally, replace the found 0 entries in a with the corresponding entries from the convolution result. See this code snippet:
import numpy as np
from scipy.signal import convolve2d

a = np.ones((10, 10), np.uint8)
a[5, 5] = 0
a[5, 6] = 2
print(a)

kernel = np.array([[0, 1, 0], [1, 0, 1], [0, 1, 0]]) / 4
b = convolve2d(a, kernel, mode='same')
a[a == 0] = b[a == 0]
print(a)

The result is:
[[1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1]
 [1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1]
 [1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1]
 [1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1]
 [1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1]
 [1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1]
 [1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1]
 [1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1]
 [1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1]
 [1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1]]

Since you initialized a as np.uint8, the actual replacing value 1.25 is truncated to 1. If you initialize a as np.float32, you'll see, that 1.25 is correctly placed there.
----------------------------------------
System information
----------------------------------------
Platform:      Windows-10-10.0.16299-SP0
Python:        3.9.1
NumPy:         1.20.1
SciPy:         1.6.0
----------------------------------------

EDIT: The hardcoded kernel won't work correctly for corner and border pixels, if you just wanted to calculate the average of the only two/three neighbours. Maybe, set up the kernel without the division, and store three different convolution results, each divided by 2, 3, or 4 and pick the correct values w.r.t. the presence of corner, border, or regular pixels.


text:
Q: How to find resistor values for the Voltage range
Here is the circuit. What is the formula to solve for R1 if given Vcc=5v, R2=50k, and I want the output range from 1-4v?

A: Why don't you choose the potentiometer end-to-end resistance value then choose R1 and R3 to each drop 1 volt. Then your wiper will extend from 1 volt up to 4 volts.
So if you choose the pot to be (say) 6 kohm then R1 = R3 = 2 kohm.
Or, if the pot is 10 kohm then R1 = R3 = 3.333 kohm: -

The advantage of this is that pots are usually more stable ratiometrically with temperature rather than as a rheostat. Another possible advantage is that the current drawn from the 5 volt rail is constant and the wiper resistance is not brought into play hence no error terms produced by it (assuming it connects to a high impedance circuit).

A: You can try this approach:
The voltage across the pot is :
$$V_{POT} = 4V - 1V = 3V$$
and the POT current is
$$ I_{POT} = \frac{3V}{50k\Omega} = 60\mu A $$
And now using Ohm's law we can find
$$R_1 = \frac{5V - 4V}{60\mu A} = 16.67k\Omega = 16k\Omega$$
And R3
$$R_3 = \frac{ 1V}{60\mu A} = 16.67k\Omega = 16k\Omega$$
But you need to change your circuit slightly

simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab

A: If you assume no current flows out of the output then Ohms law gives you.
$$I = V_{CC}/(R_{1} + R_{2} + R_{3})$$
and also
$$V_{out}=R_{3}*I$$
which means that
$$V_{out} = 5*R_{3}/(R_{1} + R_{2} + R_{3})$$
Solve for Vout = 1V when R2 = 50k and Vout = 4V when R2 = 0, everything beyond this point is basic maths.
From R2 = 0 we get...
$$4 = 5*R_{3}/(R_{1} + R_{3})$$
$$4*R_{1}+4*R_{3} = 5*R_{3}$$
$$R_{3} = 4*R_{1}$$
Plugging that into R2 = 50 we get
$$1 = 5*R_{3}/(R_{1} + R_{3} + 50)$$
$$R_{1} + 4*R_{1} + 50 = 20*R_{1}$$
$$15R_{1} = 50$$
$$R_{1} = 3.33k$$
$$R_{3} = 13.33k$$
If you re-arrange the equations above you can end up with a single equation for R1. This is a horrible way to do it but possible:
$$R_{1} = \frac{R_{2}*V_{Min}}{\frac{V_{CC}*V_{Max}}{V_{CC}-V_{Max}} - V_{Min}*(1 + \frac{V_{Max}}{V_{CC}-V_{Max}})}$$
$$R_{3} = \frac{R1*V_{Max}}{V_{CC}-V_{Max}}$$
Where Vcc is the supply voltage, Vmin is the minimum required output, Vmax is the maximum required output, and R2 is the maximum value of R2. It is assumed that the minimum value for R2 is 0. All vaules are in kOhms.
Putting those number in we get:
$$R_{1} = \frac{50*1}{\frac{5*4}{5-4} - 1*(1 + \frac{4}{5-4})}$$
$$R_{1} = \frac{50}{20 - (1+4)}$$
$$R_{1} = 3.33$$
$$R_{3} = \frac{3.33*4}{5-4}$$
$$R_{3} = 13.33$$