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Brooklyn Park 7-Eleven robbed at gunpoint
Robber caught after search
stevecoleimages/Getty Images/iStockphoto
A suspect robs a store at gunpoint. (Photo courtesy of Getty Images)
BROOKLYN PARK, Md. — A Brooklyn Park 7-Eleven was robbed at gunpoint shortly after midnight Monday, Anne Arundel County Police said.
Officers responded to the convenience store located at 4000 Ritchie Highway, where a clerk said a suspect came in, displayed a weapon, and fled with an undisclosed amount of cash, police said.
Additional officers responded, including K-9 units, and searched the area for the suspect. The alleged robber, 39-year-old Darrell Wayne Strickland, of no known address, was found and arrested in the area of Potee Street and Patapsco Avenue. He was charged with armed robbery, robbery, first- and second-assault, reckless endangerment, and theft.


You will need special clearance to get past this team of Cow Security Wall Decals. Ear pieces, dark tinted glasses, blazers, and funky sneakers, these cows mean business in the most humorous way! Get on the VIP list and tell these cows to Moooove aside.


text:
Great Lakes Today
WBFO Seniors News Desk
Neglia returns from star-like treatment in Argentina
By Eileen Buckley • Oct 17, 2011
Sergio Neglia in Argentina where he performed a tribute in honor of his late father at the Colon Theatre
Negali's facebook photo
Ballet dancer Sergio Neglia has returned from his native Argentina where he performed a tribute in honor of his late father at the Colon Theatre.
Neglia says he is re-energized as he prepares for this weekend's performance of Baba Yaga. Neglia was treated like a movie star as he danced before an audience who recalled his father's ballet career 40-years-ago.
"It was unbelievable. I mean it was incredible 3,500 people screaming the Neglia name again after 40-years. It was the most powerful thing I felt. I was shocked of all the power of the massive crowd," said Neglia.
Neglia never anticipated the reception he received in Argentina...He says they remember the legacy of his late father.
"The newspaper -- La Nacion -- The Nation -- very important newspaper. It's 200 years old, and the person who was doing the interview...she started crying because she saw the performance of myself when I danced the 6th (September) last month, but she through myself she started bursting into tears because she said I could not believe the similarities you both have," said Neglia.
But now as Neglia sits at his studio, he says it is back to the reality of running his dance company and preparing for Baba Yaga, the story of a hideous witch who lives in a hut. It has become one of Neglia's premier shows.
Two shows are planned, first their "On-Time" school program for Buffalo School children this Friday.
Neglia's executive director and wife, Heidi Halt said the program provides a free performance for city students.
"Where we bring in probably about 800 children either at low ticket prices, drastically reduced, or corporate sponsors so they come for free," said Halt. "I love to perform for the kids. That's one of the greatest parts of performing. It is hard because its in the morning and it's complicated to prepare...but the kids that's says it all," said Neglia.
And since Negila's star performance in Argentina, The Colon Theatre has asked him to return and bring his version of Baba Yaga to Argentina in 2013.
Neglia Ballet

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Experience the true flavour of our local pinot noir and other wine varietals at three premium vineyards, each hosting our small group tours for wine tasting. Enjoy a stroll tour through the vines and into New Zealand's largest underground wine cave. This relaxing tour travels just a short distance from Queenstown and gives you the opportunity to explore, get yourself a lunch or an extra glass of your favourite wine at your leisure.


text:
A Santa Chiara egy templom Altamura történelmi városközpontjában.

Története
A templomot 1682-ben építették a klarisszák számára egy korábban itt álló görög ortodox templom helyén. A hozzátartozó kolostor épületét egy századdal később építették. Ezt napjainkban is klarisszák lakják.

Leírása
A barokk templom homlokzatát fülkékbe helyezett szobrok díszítik (Szűzanya, Assisi Szent Ferenc és Szent Klára). A harangtorony a templom jobb oldalán áll. A templombelső egyhajós, gazdagon díszített értékes 17-18. századi szobrokkal és festményekkel.

Források
Chiesa e Monastero di Santa Chiara

Altamura vallási építményei
Olaszország barokk vallási építményei
Altamura barokk építményei
Az Altamura-Gravina-Acquaviva delle Fonti egyházmegye templomai, kolostorai

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Legislature restores its $130M budget,…
Legislature restores its $130M budget, concluding legal battle with Dayton
Minnesota House Speaker Kurt Daudt, right, answers a question as Gov. Mark Dayton listens during a question and answer session on the upcoming Legislative session at the Minnesota State Senate Building on Tuesday, Feb, 13, 2018. (John Autey/ Pioneer Press)
By Kyle Potter | Associated Press
The Minnesota Legislature moved quickly on Thursday to restore its $130 million operating budget, putting the months-long legal battle with Gov. Mark Dayton over his veto of that funding behind to rest as the legislative session gears up.
After months of bickering and a costly legal case that consumed much of the spring, summer and fall of 2017, Thursday's votes brought the battle between branches of government to an unceremonious close. The approval by the House and the Senate comes just two days into the new legislative session, and Dayton has said he'll sign it.
"We have a level of understanding that this was going to happen," House Speaker Kurt Daudt said. "I'm glad that we're moving forwarded and it will be good to put this behind us."
The episode began in May, when Dayton signed the bulk of a $46 billion, two-year budget but used his line-item veto pen on the Legislature's $130 million budget, hoping to bring Republican legislative leaders back to the negotiating table to rework several costly tax breaks and other measures.
But Republicans called it a blatant constitutional violation and sued Dayton, bringing the case all the way to the Minnesota Supreme Court. The state's highest court upheld Dayton's veto late last year, forcing the Legislature to hobble into session running on emergency funds and further inflaming tension between the two sides.
Despite the quick restoration, some Republicans squeezed in some parting shots Thursday at the governor. Rep. Sarah Anderson called the situation "an embarrassment to the state of Minnesota, to see a governor who thinks he can just eliminate a branch of government."
Many Democrats in both the House and Senate voted against the bill to restore the funding for themselves and their staff, arguing the Legislature should have also ratified a new contract with modest raises for the state's 33,000 public employees.
The budget approved Thursday does not include any additional funding to cover the Legislature's legal tab in its case against Dayton, though it's still unclear how much that may be. And though lawmakers will continue collecting a $14,000 annual raise — the Legislature's new, $45,000 salary set by a voter-created panel took effect in July — the budget approved Thursday did not increase to account for that higher pay.
Senate Minority Leader Tom Bakk said that exclusion would force the Senate to cover the bigger paychecks by dipping into its budget reserve, to the tune of $2.2 million over the two-year budget cycle.
3 reasons why the DHS commish matters — and 3 why she/he doesn't
Drug thieves are creative, and assisted living facilities struggle to protect seniors
MN DHS has not started investigation into top child care fraud investigator. She's made $42k while on leave.
Kyle Potter


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Transformation is Upon U.S. ~ Pluto Returns!
The United States experiment is being tested, and how we fare in the process depends upon the consciousness that each of us brings to the table.
Photo by NASA on Unsplash
The orbit of Pluto fluctuates between 246 & 249 years to revolve around the Sun, so after 246 years, the long-anticipated Pluto Return is happening tomorrow on February 20, 2022, and then again (because of the yearly retrograde that Pluto has) on July 11, 2022, and lastly on December 28, 2022, when he will return to the exact degree and minute when the U.S. was declared, and thus received her birth chart…
I have written about this in past blog posts:
"One of the most potent aspects this year is the United States will have her Pluto return. What this means is that he will arrive at 27°33' of Capricorn, which is where he was when the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia, on July 4, 1776. Unlike the Sun, which returns to the natal spot every year, Pluto moves so slowly that this is the first time that the U.S. will receive this return!
There has been much anticipation and perhaps trepidation about this. Pluto (Roman) or Hades (Greek) is the god of the underworld. He rules that which is beneath the surface and is associated with bringing the shadow (both collectively and on an individual basis) to the surface."
"The transformative nature of Pluto gives us a huge opportunity to bring to the surface our deepest shadows…our core wounds, which we have been doing our best to repress and deny.
Because the U.S. is having its Pluto Return, it is an especially powerful time for us Americans to re-imagine what this country can represent and be, but while the United States is intensely at the center of much of the drama, the whole world is getting a cosmic reboot.
When our shadows are made visible, we can no longer pretend that they aren't there. We must do something about them!
What is your vision for the world? Create your plan and act on it. This is not the time to procrastinate or be blind-sided. Now is the time. We chose this time. We have been forged for it!"
Freedom Isn't Freedom Unless Everyone is Free
Pluto in Capricorn has been working to expose and uproot the unjust authority structures that have been entrenched in our world.
He has had some strong help from a few of his neighbors through the years as they have and will continue to agitate him and provoke the unearthing of our individual and collective shadows…
From June 24, 2012, through March 16, 2015, Uranus in Aries squared Pluto 7 times.
In 2019, both Pluto and Saturn stationed on Pluto's south node at 20° Capricorn, striking an ominous, "Oh yes, this is happening and there is no avoiding it" energy.
2020 began with a powerful conjunction between Pluto and Saturn and precipitated the COVID adventure that we've all been in.
We also had 3 Jupiter/Pluto conjunctions in 2020.
And we had 5 Eris/Pluto squares, which began on January 26, 2020, and ran until October of 2021.
All of this has set certain transformational energies and potentialities into motion!
Both Venus & Mars will join with Pluto on March 3rd. Mars will arrive first and on his own, so this could be a pretty intense aspect, given Mars' propensity for war and Pluto's more destructive side, but then several hours later Venus will join with Pluto, bringing a "Let's make love, not war" ethic.
This Pluto return could feel pretty menacing, particularly given the current events and struggles our country has had leading up to now.
I am hopeful, however, that we will come through this dark time in our history because…
Pluto is trine the North Node in tomorrow's chart, which indicates a fated and positive outcome. We will have the strength and will to work through the challenges that we've been facing.
There is also a square to the Moon, which indicates that the people could suffer during the beginning of this transit by cutting ourselves off from others. This is a great time to "build those bridges" and create networks of mutual support.
This spring, Jupiter in Pisces will form an exact harmonious sextile with Pluto, which also shows up in the final chart in December. With resolve we can face our collective shadows and overcome our country's challenges!
Transformation is definitely in the air!
I do expect some facets of our country's make up to change. The number of stars on our flag may not be 50 when all is said and done.
Hopefully, our electoral system will be fixed for the better.
We are each co-creating our reality. May we all envision the world we want to live in!
If you would like some clarity and guidance during these unprecedented times, then consider my charts, reports, and other services HERE
May you live the life of your dreams!
Pluto Return
US Pluto Return


Coloring Pages, Cute Baby Kitten was posted April 18, 2017 at 2:43 pm by italien-forum.info . More over Cute Baby Kitten has viewed by 5357 visitor.
Coloring Pages, Cute Kitten Coloring Pages was posted April 15, 2019 at 10:33 am by italien-forum.info . More over Cute Kitten Coloring Pages has viewed by 22 visitor.


text:
Nikoides danae är en kräftdjursart som beskrevs av Paulson 1875. Nikoides danae ingår i släktet Nikoides och familjen Processidae. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Tiofotade kräftdjur
danae


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Omar calls for US to 'return to table' after report on Iran's uranium threat, blames Trump
US offers new evidence indicating Iran involvement in oil tanker attacks
U.S. prepares to send more troops to Middle East; reaction and analysis from the 'Special Report' all-star panel.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn, one of Congress' most vocal critics of President Trump, placed the blame squarely on the White House after Iran announced it could enrich uranium up to 20 percent -- just a step below weapons-grade level.
The tension between the U.S. and Iran has been increasing in recent days after a high-profile attack on two oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. blamed Iran for the attacks, which the country denied.
Iran said it would break a limit on uranium stockpiles established by the 2015 agreement with world powers that was intended to restrict the Islamic Republic's nuclear program in exchange for an easing of international sanctions.
Omar said, "none of this would be happening if Trump didn't back out of the Iran nuclear deal." She said the U.S. should get back to negotiations with Tehran and reinstate the Iran nuclear deal.
Trump declared Iran was responsible for the attacks in the Gulf of Oman, pointing to video released by the U.S. Navy that they claimed showed an Iranian vessel removing an unexploded mine.
"Iran did do it and you know they did it because you saw the boat," Trump said during an interview on "Fox & Friends" last Friday. "They're a nation of terror and they've changed a lot since I've been president, I can tell you."
Omar took to Twitter on Monday condemning Trump's decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal shortly before the Pentagon approved sending 1,000 more troops to the Middle East in response to the attack.
Critics slammed Omar for "appeasing the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism."
Iran's announcement raised pressure on Europeans trying to save the accord a year after the U.S. withdrawal.
President Hassan Rouhani already has warned Europe that a new deal needs to be in place by July 7 or the Islamic Republic would increase its enrichment of uranium.
Rouhani, greeting France's new ambassador to Tehran on Monday, similarly warned that time was running out on the deal.
"The current situation is very critical and France and the other parties to the (deal) still have a very limited opportunity to play their historic role for saving the deal," Rouhani said, according to his website.
Fox News' Edmund DeMarche and The Associated Press contributed to this report


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La tía Cato es una película colombiana perteneciente al género  documental, estrenada en el año 1994.

Sinopsis

La tía Cato es una cantadora de lumbalú, baile de muertos de San Basilio de Palenque. Esta descendiente directa de Catalina Luango de Angola, mujer mítica de Palenque que siempre aparece cuando alguien se va a morir, nos cuenta quién es este personaje, qué es el lumbalú y los kuagros, la forma natural que rige la organización social de los palenqueros.

Referencias


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To find people to help in your upcoming Challenge Group, start with the people closest to you. Initially, they are going to be the most willing to trust you and be interested in what you are doing.
You created your initial Contact List of friends and family before you started this training. Visit it again and see if you can add any names to the list you may have left out (Don't forget to use the Memory Jogger in the Coach Online Office (COO)).
With your list ready, now for the fun part—time to invite! You've shared your WHY story on social media so now that your friends and family are aware that you are a new Team Beachbody Coach, it's time to show them what you have to offer!
and that you really want to help them. Share your story with them and then ASK THEM TO JOIN YOU in your Challenge Group.
Example: [after you share your story in a separate post] "You can see I'm really excited about coaching and I can't wait to start helping people. My first focus is to help those closest to me, and positive experience in the Group would be a great help to me as I get my coaching business started.
There are many mediums you can use to invite them to your Group, but remember the most impactful way is face-to-face. Of course, this isn't always timely, so the next best thing is the phone, then private messaging on social media (the voice feature is the most personal). It's not enough to simply post a blanket invite on Facebook – a common coach mistake. It's perfectly fine, and even recommend to post one, but you can't rely on that alone to attract customers.


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Lantertronics
DIY electronics, programming, music, and gaming
Writing CD-R images that the Nuon "game console" can read
I put "game console" in quotes because the Nuon wasn't really marketed as such -- although it probably should have been. Much like the Phillips CD-i, VM Lab's Nuon was conceptualized as technology that could be included in DVD players to give them game-playing functionality. It came out around the same time as Sony's Playstation 2.
You've heard of the Playstation 2. You probably have never heard of the Nuon.
There's reasons for that.
It turns out that marketing game consoles that incidentally can play DVDs was a much better strategy than marketing DVD players that incidentally can play games.
It has a fascinating quad-core architecture -- fairly rare for 2001 -- and it flopped on the market. It came to my attention because VM Labs released a consumer SDK for it, which is also a fairly rare thing. So, of course, I had to get one.
The fan site Nuon Dome hosts a variety of CD-R images of homebrew games. Ideally, one simply writes a file called NUON.CD to the top level of an ISO9660 CD image. I tried this using the Yaroze Classics, Breakout, Snake, and VG Music. All of these gave "No disc" errors. It turns out you need to also include a dummy file (at the top level to pad the CD) with a filename whose name that comes earlier than NUON in alphabetical order. I tried using BombNewYear.zip, which was contained the source code for one of the Nuon games. It was around 15 megabytes. Discs written with the padding file worked fine. I wrote them using an LG Slim Portable DVD Writer, Model SP80NB80, at the lowest speed the writer supports, which is 10x. I used the macOS program Burn. The CD-Rs were Verbatim 700 MB, 52x, 80 min media.
There was a disc that worked OK without padding, namely BOMB, but it had several additional files to include of the form level?.pcm (where ? is the numbers 1 through 5). I think these inherently provided the need padding.
At this point I decided to keep including the padding file, and successfully made discs for Same Game (shape version) and the slow Atari 800 emulator that runs M.U.L.E. I decided to test other media, and successfully wrote discs for the 2600-style Pac-Man, Pac-Man Tournament Edition, and Same Game (colors version) on Maxell 700 MB, 80 min media.
Actually... I started this blog post in the middle of the story. The experiments described above were conducted on the second Samsung DVD-N501 I have obtained. The first one appeared when I didn't have any official Nuon-compatible movies or games, so I solely tried burned CD-Rs of home-brew games. Only a few burns of Decaying Orbit would occasionally start up. After burning dozens upon dozens of CD-Rs in different ways, most failing in different ways, I finally picked up the game Ballistic (one of only eight games officially released) and the Nuon-enhanced movie The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (one of only four such movies officially released). Both official releases seemed to work fine, so I assumed I was doing something wrong in burning the CD-Rs, but at one point I went back and checked the official releases and neither ran. I then finally realized that the first DVD-N501 I obtained had a failing DVD drive that increasingly giving up the ghost as I was using it.
This lead me to obtain the second DVD-N501. When I went back and tried the many Maxell CD-Rs I had created -- some on my Mac with Burn, others on a Windows 10 computer with imgburn (careful, it will install a bunch of other software you don't want unless you explicitly tell it "no," repeatedly) -- I discovered most of them played fine: Decaying Orbit, Ambient Monsters, Chomp, Sheshell, and even Doom. At that point I wasn't keeping accurate records, but I can tell from looking at the discs that the ones that didn't have the padding file were the discs that showed the "no disc" error. Some of the programs had additional files, like music files, that seemed to provide the needed padding for the machine to find the NUON.CD file.
I'm hoping to talk a few of my Vertically Integrated Project Retrofuturistic Hardware students into trying to write games for it, or at least get the development environment up and running.
- February 20, 2020 No comments:
A 1987 Themed Homebrew Computer
I've long had dreams of designing 70s/80s style game consoles/computers "from scratch" (where "from scratch" is vaguely defined). One of my students has started down a 70s path with the COSMAC VIP with the 1802 processor.
I was thinking of starting another development effort focusing on the year 1987. Besides me starting my junior year of high school, that year saw the appearance of VGA, so we could justify using a 15-pin VGA cable and not something weird, along with the appearance of PS/2 ports (not to be confused with Playstation 2) for keyboards and mice, which are plentiful. We could use 9-pin Sega Master System style controller ports, which are like the Atari 2600 port with an extra button. (Lots of manufacturers used DB-9 jacks for their controllers; there's a guide on wikipedia).
A general principle (on any project like this) would be to use chips and technologies available in that time period. For instance, we could use GAL22V10 PLDs, but not modern FPGAs. (One exception would be to use bigger RAM chips that are available now just to lower the chip count; one could imagine just using more chips in an earlier era). Another general guiding principle would be to avoid surface mount parts, especially anything with a tiny pitch.
I got some chips from eBay along such lines. They would be also interesting to experiment with on their own:
I bought 4 each of the following (they're interesting 64-pin chips; like a 40-pin package but smaller spacing between pins):
V9958 display chip used in MSX2+ computers. It's the last in the line of chips that started with the TMS9918 used in the TI 99/4A and the Colecovision (Z80 CPU) and the Vtech Creativision (6502 CPU), and it's backward compatible with an earlier chip, the V9938, and even the TMS9918. These chips use external video RAM (up to 192 KB) that's separate from the main CPU RAM; this contrasts with most other video chips of the era.
YM2610 sound chip -- FM synthesis and ADPCM sample playback. Used in some Taito arcade boards and the SNK NeoGeo, and quite similar to the YM2608 used in NEC PC computers. You can hear lots of examples of YM2610 music on youtube. I picked the YM2610 since its sample playback is flexible; the YM2608 has built-in drum sounds, which are nice but you can't change them.
As far as CPU, well, lots of folks have used the Z80; that's well travelled territory. I was thinking of the 65C816, which is an extension of the 65C02 with 16-bit registers but an 8-bit external data bus. It has a 6502 compatibility mode. It's most famously used in the Apple IIGS (providing backward compatibility with the original Apple II line) and the SNES. I conjure it was originally chosen so the SNES could play NES games -- of course, the SNES can't play NES games, but I bet is was a design goal that got dropped somewhere along the line. (Notice I'm not going with a 68000 since I want to stick with an 8-bit bus; the V9958 and YM2610 use an 8-bit bus). This machine could be in honor of Chuck Peddle, the designer of the 6502, who sadly died last year.
Instead of using an actual 65C816, I've been looking at the 65C265, which is a 65C816 with a truckload of peripherals and expanded I/O that that makes it more like a microcontroller. It has the additional advantage of addressing the full 24-bit address space without the weird multiplexing that the 65C816 uses to keep the pin count low. It comes in both surface mount and PLCC packages; the later lets it be used as a through-hole part in an appropriate carrier. It came out a bit after 1987, but I feel it would be worth taking a bit of artistic license here.
Western Design Center makes two "single board computers" for the 65C265: the W65C265SXB (around $48), which has 32K SRAM and 128K Flash ROM in a PLCC, and the W65C265QBX, which is isn't much more than a breakout board. I just bought a couple the fancier boards, the W65C265SXB, from Amazon. WDC also a reference design called The Mench Computer (not to be confused with the W65C265QBX, which is also called "The Mench"), although that webpage looks like it is out of date. (I just noticed that it implements the full 6-button Sega Genesis controller standard, which is pretty cool).
As a "stretch goal," we could add a co-processor in the form of a NEC UPD77C25 DSP (in our case, we'd use the UPD77P25 which is one-time programmable instead of masked ROM); it has an 8-bit external data bus, a 8.3 MhZ clock, and comes in a 28-pin DIP or a 44-pin PLCC. I will attach the datasheet. The reason this caught my attention is that it's the "real" chip appearing in some SNES carts labeled "DSP-1," where it is used to do 3D calculations, among other things. Someone even managed to dump the masked ROM code in the various DSP1 versions.
Other Design Efforts
There's two main projects ongoing to create a 6502-inspired machine:
The Commander x16 by the 8-Bit Guy, aka David Murray, uses the 65C02. His team even has an emulator for it. One of his design goals is to avoid using FPGAs unless he absolutely has to, under the constraint that he wants to only use parts that are currently being manufactured; the latter constraint means they had to resort to using an FPGA for graphics. For my project, I value avoiding FPGAs and modern parts over avoiding parts that are no longer in production, and hence am happy to use the V9958 and YM2610. Although they are no longer manufactured, they are plentiful on ebay for reasonable prices (although one must watch out for counterfeits). Everyone should watch his videos (Part 1 and Part 2) describing his philosophy and design process. Many folks are helping David with it; just typing Commander x16 into the youtube search field will yield lots of interesting work.
The C256 Foenix headed by Stefany Allaire, uses the 65C816. Stefany is building the machine she imagines Commodore would have build if their 8-bit line kept going, including imagining the custom chips they might have designed. Hence, she makes extensive use of powerful FPGAs. This is awesome, but it differs from both the 8-Bit Guy's vision and mine.
Dan Grise is building a homebrew computer with a 65C816 and a V9958; I'm very interested in following his progress. I'm hoping by using the 65C265 we could avoid needing so many support chips.
Naming the Thing
There are lot of computers with numbers in the name: Commodore VIC-20s and 64s, Dragon Commander x16s, Dragon 32s and 64s, Radio Shack TRS-80s, Sharp x6800s, NEC PC-9801s and PC-9821s, Atari 400s and 800s, Atari 2600s, 5200s, and 7800s, Amstrad CPC 464s, etc.
Since we're imaging that this could have been a computer released in 1987, it should be called Something87, or perhaps with a hyphen, like Something-87. I briefly thought of calling it the Peddle-87 in honor of the designer of the 6502, but I wouldn't want to imply that he created it or that his estate approved of it. I asked friends to think of words associated with 1987, and after reading that I came up with Gnarly-87 or Gnarlycomp-87, but promptly decided I didn't like that either. Any ideas?
Alternate Paths
Instead of the 65C265, we could try a Z8S180 or Z8L180, which are enhanced Z80s with additional peripherals, available in 64-pin DIP and 68-pin PLCC. We would probably go for the Z8S180, which can go up to 33 MHz. (The Z8L180, a low power 3.3V version, only goes up to 20 MHz, but we probably want to use 5V anyway). This might be a fun parallel effort, but if we go for just one path, I'm most interested in the 65C265. The Z8S180 version could also be a later effort.
This project would naturally lend itself to a division of labor, with different people specializing in different parts, and lots of opportunities for software development. The various parts could be tested separately; for instance, there's all sorts of projects where people interfaced Yamaha soundchips with an Arduino of some sort. Lessons learned in any part of the project could be relevant to many other projects.
- February 01, 2020 1 comment:
The NEC PC-98 is alive!
I have a PC-FXGA card that plugs into the special "C bus" of NEC PC-98 computers, which were only released in Japan. The PC-FXGA is basically a card with the chipset for the NEC PC-FX game console, which was also only released in Japan, and allowed enthusiasts to develop their own games with the GMAKER or GMAKER/Plus SDK in addition to playing PC-FX games through the PC-98's CD-ROM drive. This caught my attention, since it's fairly rare for companies to provide end users with tools to write games for their consoles; usually these are covered under NDAs. (Incidentally, the PC-FX apparently didn't use any copy protection.) There was also a version of the PC-FXGA developed for DOS/V machines.
The PC-FX focused on doing high-quality full motion video, and not 3-D graphics, like the Playstation and the Nintendo 64 focused on. This turned out to be a bad decision by NEC, who got obliterated by Sony. The PC-FX had better FMV than any of its competitors -- but heavy use of FMV does not generally make for better games. Of course, I have an unhealthy fascination with failed game consoles, hence I found a PC-FXGA on ebay.
Anyway, since I had a PC-FXGA card that needs a NEC PC-98 computer, I bought a PC-9821 Cx2 via fromjapan.co.jp. It didn't come with a hard drive, so I got an IDE-to-Compact Flash adapter to replace it. I found some hard drive images here:
https://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?PHPSESSID=05ffqo53eedl2539g54rav6od3&topic=5463.0
In particular, it gave this download link: http://nfggames.com/PC98/HDDimages/PC98HDD.7z (542MB, so I wrote 542 on that CF card; it also came with a simpler 128MB image, so I wrote 128 on that CF card.)
The 542MB has apparently had a tool called CONV98AT applied to it that lets it be read and written to as an ordinary Window partition on a regular PC. Apparently this is NOT true of your usual PC-98 disk; trying to mount one on a Window machine without applying the CONV98AT tool can cause problems.
I ran into trouble since the 5V and 12V of the power connector on my IDE-to-CF adapter is swapped relative to the connector on the motherboard. Putting 12V into a 5V input on a CF card did not make the card very happy; it started to smell very bad and get very hot very quickly. I threw away any toasted cards. I also bought a 2nd adapter to use; the original is probably fine, but I figured I might as well get a new one to reduce variables while I sorted out the issue.
So now that I am not jamming 12V into the 5V input, the hard drive images boot OK instead of trying to catch on fire. Floppy disk drive seems to work fine. The CD-ROM drive opens and closes and spins up; I haven't been able to read anything off it yet. I probably need to find the right driver or something. PC hardware configuration in the 80s and early 90s was always a pain. It turns out it's much more of a pain when most of it is in Japanese.
Interestingly, the PC-FXGA allegedly has a 3-D graphics chip on it, the HuC6273 Aurora, which isn't present in the PC-FX.
- January 29, 2020 No comments:
Aaron Lanterman
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Edupocalypse Now: Education and Innovation in the End Times
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Barrow's fantastic home form was illustrated with their win over Luton Town in midweek. A result that has us pricing the Blue Square Bet Premier title market much nearer a two-horse race.
With Fleetwood Town and Wrexham both winning in midweek they were cut to 8/15 and 11/8 respectively.
Luton have been drifted to 16/1 with all other clubs removed from the market due to the gap between first and fourth extending to 19 points.
Barrow are now likely to keep their record of not losing at home to the champions in the league since they were promoted back to the division in the 2008/09 season.
The Bluebirds host Forest Green Rovers on Saturday and are the 6/5 favourites to maintain their position as the second best home team in the division. Visitors Rovers have a good away record though, with just three defeats on the road. They are 15/8 to win the game, with the draw offered at 23/10.
Leaders Fleetwood Town are the shortest priced favourites of the weekend at home to Alfreton Town. The Cod Army can be backed at 1/4 which can surely only appeal to accumulator punters. Alfreton are 8/1 to win the game but a better bet could be one that exploits the home side's leaky defence. 'Both teams to score' is 4/6 and that looks a very good bet and has happened in 11 of Fleetwood's 17 home games.
Second -ced Wrexham travel to Stockport. An away win is favoured at 8/11 with a home win priced at 3/1. Stockport have just one point from a possible 24 against sides in the top five and you'd have to expect Andy Morrell's men to have too much for them.
Southport visit Ebbsfleet in a 2pm kick-off as they look to consolidate their play-off position. The Sandgrounders are clinging on to the final play-off spot with both Mansfield and Kidderminster poised to go above them if results work out on the day. Liam Watson's team are 8/5 to win in Kent. An Ebbsfleet victory is priced at 7/5, a victory which would almost certainly assure their safety in the division.
If Ebbsfleet do win then a Kidderminster success away at bottom club Bath City would take them into the play-off zone.
The Harriers are priced at 4/5 to inflict a defeat on The Romans that would leave them with a huge gap to make up in their fight for survival.
Mansfield Town could also move into fifth if both Ebbsfleet and Bath City do them a favour. The Stags are 8/13 favourites to win at home to Tamworth. A line of form from the past seven days could make Tamworth a value bet at 15/4. Marcus Law's team beat Newport in midweek who themselves beat Mansfield last weekend.
Braintree Town will be odds-on to maintain their position at the top of the second half of the table with a home win over Kettering Town.
With just one win in their last eight league matches Lincoln City need to improve before they get dragged back into a relegation scrap. David Holdsworth's side are the Evens favourites to win at home to AFC Telford United. The visitors can leapfrog them in the table with a win at 12/5.
It's quarter final weekend in the FA Trophy and six Blue Square Bet Premier teams make the line up along with Wealdstone from the Ryman Premier and Northwich Victoria from the EvoStik Northern Premier.
Those two sides are packaged at 8/1 under 'Non Blue Square' team in our outright market for which team will win the competition.
Luton Town are the 3/1 favourites in the outright market and are 8/13 to beat Gateshead at Kenilworth Road in their 'last eight' tie.
An away win is offered at 4/1 which could be a value price if Luton boss Gary Brabin decides to rest players.
The game of the round takes place at Blundell Park where fifth and sixth in the Blue Square Bet Premier face-off for a place in the semi-finals. Grimsby are the 11/10 favourites to beat York City who themselves are priced at 21/10.
Cambridge United are the 7/2 second favourites to win the FA Trophy as they are a short price in their quarter-final at home to Wealdstone. The U's are 1/3 to win the tie on the day. Newport County are a best price of 11/10 to win their difficult match away at Northwich Victoria.


On behalf of the families we serve, we would like to thank the many people who made this year's Pearl Anniversary Gala a huge success! The 2019 Gala was sponsored by Nations Lending Corporation, GenOn, Performance Health and LaCentre Conference & Banquet Center. It was a night of celebration as we showcased the many ways in which CRS has helped make a difference in the lives of income-eligible families living in Avon and Avon Lake. The generosity of our sponsors, advertisers, donors and 407 guests allowed us to raise over $82,000. It is because of this generosity that CRS is able to continue its mission of diminishing the effects of poverty in Avon and Avon Lake.
These beautiful diamond stud earrings were hand-selected in Antwerp, Belgium by Theresia Oreskovic, owner of Peter & Co. Jewelers in Avon Lake.
Valued at $6,500, these solitaire diamonds are mounted in a 3-prong setting with post and friction backs in 14k white gold. The natural diamonds are brilliant cut, with a total weight of 1.07 carats, color grade F, a clarity grade of SI with a laboratory report from the American Gem Society.
Congratulations to Carol and Chuck Froehlich! They were the lucky winners of the Jewelry Raffle!


Rabbi Sherman is the heart of the Temple Etz Rimon community. In addition to leading worship services, she officiates at life-cycle events, teaches adult education classes, directs the Religious School, and provides pastoral counseling to our congregants and families.
Rabbi Sherman has been serving the congregation since 2009, when she was ordained at Hebrew Union College, Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles. While a student, she served Congregation B'nai Israel in Kokomo, Indiana and Congregation Etz Hayim in Merced, California. Rabbi Sherman also worked as a Rabbinic Intern at Congregation Shir Ha-Ma'a lot in Irvine, California and was a Rabbinic Chaplain in the Spiritual Care Department at UCLA Medical Center.
Rabbi Sherman grew up in Orange County and spent her youth as a camper and CIT at Camp Swig in Saratoga. While earning a Bachelor's Degree in Social Ecology at University of California at Irvine, she worked as the Camp Director and Youth Advisor at her home congregation, Temple Beth Sholom in Santa Ana. She then earned a Masters Degree in Social Work at the University of Southern California. Following graduation, she was the Special Assistant to the CEO and later the Director of Children's Services at a Los Angeles-based substance abuse treatment center for women. Rabbi Sherman later worked for a nationally recognized, non-profit agency as an advocate and public policy analyst. There she coordinated collaborative projects aimed at improving and integrating substance abuse and child welfare services for children and families across California. Rabbi Sherman is married to Harvey and they have two daughters and a yellow lab named Annie.
Rabbi Sherman's love for Judaism is evident in everything she does. Her wide range of academic knowledge and professional experience is augmented by her love of liturgy, her passion for social justice, her integrity, her compassion, and a true rabbinic heart.


Economists see everything from an economic perspective.
2008-724 17Dec08 Mr. Economic Universe.
Weak state of the global economy.
2008-676 25Nov08 Stock market deep sea roller coaster.
Stock market coming off a very low base.
2008-669 21Nov08 Stock market plunger coffee.
Esoteric look at the stock market plunge.
2008-660 18Nov98 Revised capitalism 101.
world economic collapse is causing a complete rethink of the concept of free market capitalism.
2008-617 23Oct08 Keeping the recession monster at bay.
Worldwide recession threatening despite massive financial system bailout.
2008-599 15Oct08 Credit expressed as plants.
Credit going from very easy to very hard to get.
Quirky look at the stock market meltdown and global warming.
if we are to stop rising sea levels due to global warming.
The convergence of the falling stock market and the rising price of oil.
2008-549 17Sept08 Bare bear market.
Quirky look at the extent of the loses in the current bear stock market.
2008-545 16Sept08 The credit crunch.
The impact of the credit crunch on small investors.
2008-535 11Sept08 "Backs to the wall" today.
String of major financial institutions in difficulty is rocking Wall Street.
2008-441 1Aug08 Economic fortune teller.
2008-435 30July08 Economy still going fast.
Esoteric look at the world economic slowdown.
2008-422 24July08 Easy to get a home loan.
Economic musings in light of so many people defaulting on home loans in recent times.
2008-319 13June08 Modern vacuum cleaners.
High price of petrol a great strain on many people.
2008-309 6June08 Signs that the price of petrol is beginning to bite.
Rising price of petrol beginning to bight economically.
2008-207 24April08 Safe investments today.
directors had syphoned money off into their own accounts.
2008-068 18Feb08 Different levels of exposure.
Quirky look at exposure to the subprime mortgage market.
2008-022 30Jan08 Superannuation nest egg.
Stock market plunge wiping a lot of value of Super Funds.
2008-012 25Jan08 The annual economic cycle.
Quirky look at the economic cycle.
2008-013 25Jan08 Tidal fluctuations based on the Stock Market.
Esoteric look at the current Stock Market instability.
2008-004 22Jan08 Inflation and the economy.
The damaging effect of high inflation on the economy.
2008-002 21Jan08 Dangerous times for investors.
Subprime mortgage crisis and stock market plunge.


Will Amazon's Kindle Be Free By November?
Amazon has announced a new software update for the latest version of its Kindle e-reader. The free upgrade, while relatively minor, delivers several enhancements that Kindle users have wanted for some time. A new Public Notes feature allows Kindle users to make book notes and highlights available to other Kindle enthusiasts. And Kindle e-books now have real page numbers that match those in printed books.


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Wilderness Bill Bounces Through Congress
By News Staff on March 19, 2009 in Past Posts
After being two votes shy of passage a week ago, the large land use bill that includes the Eastern Sierra San Gabriel Wild Heritage Act, also known as the Boxer-McKeon Wilderness Bill, has shifted back and forth through the halls of Congress.
Bundled up into a larger collection of bills known as the Omnibus Land Management Act of 2009, the larger bill has passed the Senate once but was two votes short in House a week ago.
The bill then went back to the Senate, where Thursday, 77 Senators approved tacking the omnibus bill onto yet another bill that will go back to the House of Representatives as the Revolutionary War and War of 1812 Battlefield Protection Act. The vote was 77 in favor to 20 who opposed.
With the bill sent back to the House, it will take a simple majority, or 218 votes, to pass this new conglomeration of bills. When the land use bill came up for a vote last week, it required a two thirds vote to pass, a higher threshold, but at a level that gets the bill passed without debate or changes. Last time the bill received well 282 votes, two shy of the two thirds, but well over the 218 votes that are needed to pass this time around.
The bill is now listed as H.R. 146. You can track this bill through the system online at opencongress.org.
Sidewalk Projects Raise Tree and Money Questions
Mountaineering Presentation at Mammoth High


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Movie Summary & Analysis (2)
November 4, 2021 September 26, 2018 Elizabeth
We know at the very least one mega church is going to be that includes it and shall be using it for a research sequence. That makes good sense to me. Personally I want extra would do that with the flicks thought of blasphemy attributable to totally different dogmas.
We shall see July 26, 2013, which is the discharge date Marvel and Disney have confirmed thus far. I really hope they centralize the story extra in Asgard this time. It's an important realm that we didn't get to see enough of in the first Thor. I hope they plan on doing this for future Marvel movies involving Thor. Another helpful thing is that many also embody critic reviews to judge whether it's value your time and money to see this movie, especially when you'll be attending a theater displaying. It will also be beneficial when the movie features unknown actors and actresses to give a small sample of their fashion and character. Take benefit of movie trailers, particularly the next time you go to the theater.
I additionally grew up on Frank Miller's Batman, as well as most of the 80s Batman comics, which is why I was kinda put off by the best way The Joker was written in Burton's Batman film. Later I realized it was because he was adapting the character extra from the early 60s Batman. The funniest thing is that you just all who bash the movie, do not give any particular examples of simply how MNS botched it up exactly for us non-followers of the present that do not know. All I preserve hearing is he tousled the true storyline of the cartoon,..effectively IMO, he has to condense and edit a lot to make a film. While I agree that the acting was very sub-par, the SFX had been decent, and the story-line was made for us non-fans of the show. I don't suppose there can be a 2nd film although. I do not know what y'all are speaking bout. The film was great and I know that to be true as a result of my father hates films and has most cancers and I go over there n watch it twice per week. So make the remainder so I can watch them with him befer he goes.
I cherished this film. I am glad he made it in any other case I would by no means have heard of it nor been introduced to a wonderful story with nice characters. Im not a child and I haven't got time to sit down around and watch cartoons all day or learn comedian books. I don't think it would fail at the Box Office. You have introduced an entire new world to a totally completely different viewers. The TV & Comic e-book followers can keep at home and continue doing what they have at all times performed and the rest of us can go to see the movie 🙂 Please hurry up!!!! Here are the films that haven't been confirmed but rumors have been floating round to their potential release dates in 2013.
As the story moves forward, new characters shall be introduced, and that means there shall be new additions to the forged. I am Number Four stars Kevin Durand, Callan McAuliffe, Dianna Argon, Teresa Palmer, Timothy Olyphant and Alex Pettyfer. The movie is produced by Michael Bay and is directed by D. J. Caruso. It is barely affordable to suppose that the identical group that was liable for the success of the first movie will keep to do the second movie within the collection. The sequel could have the anticipated duel between Green Lantern and his arch nemesis Sinestro! That's a battle comic fans are dying to see on the silver display screen, and I think it will be value seeing. However, whether or not this comes out in 2013 or 2014 continues to be up within the air. I'm leaning more in the direction of 2014, but the rumor is 2013. It focuses on realism and making it really feel like those that you understand. I assume it does accomplish that, feeling very very similar to real life!
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With a Kindle Fire Tablet you get a HD screen, speedy processor and over 33 million songs, movies, apps, TV shows, books, and games to download. You also get unlimited, free cloud storage just for being an Amazon customer. Find out more about the range of Amazon tablets at Carphone Warehouse below.
Amazon Kindle Fire tablets are lightweight, portable and have beautiful HD screens for watching movies and TV shows. You can also download over 33 million films, games, TV shows, eBooks plus much more directly from the Amazon Store. And so that you have somewhere to store it all, you also get free, unlimited cloud storage to save space on your tablet.


Outrage! Pamela Anderson Should NOT Have Been Booted From 'DWTS!' It Should've Been Niecy Nash!
Simply put, Pamela Anderson is a national treasure. Like American pie. Or the Declaration of Independence.
Niecy Nash, on the other hand, has more than overstayed her welcome on the dance floor in my opinion. Yes, she's funny… but that's because she HAS to be funny to distract from her performances! This show is, or at least it's supposed to be, a dancing competition — and Pam consistently outperformed Niecy week after week.
The only justice in this whole situation is that Pam held strong and seemed totally unfazed by the travesty. She didn't break down and cry like that pansy Jake Pavelka. She stayed totally classy and dignified, as she thanked everyone for giving her the opportunity to dance.
Pam — such a class act, even until the very end.
What do you guys think — were you just as surprised (and devastated) as I was by Pam's departure? Or am I the last remaining member (slash president and founder) of the Pamela Anderson Fan Club?


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Home > Shop Our Shelves > Non-fiction > Policing the Black Man: Arrest, Prosecution, and Imprisonment >
Angela J. Davis
Policing the Black Man: Arrest, Prosecution, and Imprisonment
A comprehensive, readable analysis of the key issues of the Black Lives Matter movement, this thought-provoking and compelling anthology features essays by some of the nation's most influential and respected criminal justice experts and legal scholars.
Policing the Black Man explores and critiques the many ways he criminal justice system impacts the lives of African American boys and men at every stage of the criminal process, from arrest through sentencing. Essays range from an explication of the historical roots of racism in the criminal justice system to an examination of modern-day police killings of unarmed black men. The contributors discuss and explain racial profiling, the power and discretion of police and prosecutors, the role of implicit bias, the racial impact of police and prosecutorial decisions, the disproportionate imprisonment of black men, the collateral consequences of mass incarceration, and the Supreme Court's failure to provide meaningful remedies for the injustices in the criminal justice system. Policing the Black Man is an enlightening must-read for anyone interested in the critical issues of race and justice in America.
The End of Policing
Policing the Planet: Why the Policing Crisis Led to Black Lives Matter
Chokehold: Policing Black Men
Policing the City: An Ethno-graphic


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Behavioral Issues Come to Children with Migraine
June 5, 2018 January 19, 2013 by wisdom
A new study in Cephalagia shows that children who have migraine headaches are much more likely than other children to also have behavioral difficulties, including social and attention issues, and anxiety and depression. This is no surprise to me.
Marco Arruda, director of the Glia Institute in São Paulo, Brazil, together with Marcelo Bigal of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York studied 1,856 Brazilian children aged 5 to 11. The authors were studying how children's behavioural and emotional symptoms correlate with migraine and tension-type headaches.
Children who experience migraine had a much greater overall likelihood of abnormal behavioral scores than controls, especially in social, attention, somatic, anxiety-depressive, and internalizing domains. Children who experience tension-type headaches were affected in the same domains as migraine sufferers, but to a lesser degree.
For children with either migraine (23%) or tension-type headaches (29%), more frequent headaches correlated with increasingly abnormal scores on the behavior scale. Behavior that was most often seen were those characterized as internalizing — behaviors directed towards the self. 19% of controls were reported to have issues with internalizing behaviors, while over 50% of migraine sufferers were affected. Externalizing behaviors, such as being aggressive and breaking rules, were found to be no more likely among the children with frequent attacks of headache than among the controls.
Other studies have also shown children with migraines are more likely than their peers to have other physical or psychological issues, including anxiety, depression, and attention and hyperactivity problems. However, not as many studies have explored tension-type headaches in children.
The prevalence rate for children with migraine has been reported to be 3% to over 20% of children as they move from childhood to adolescence.
Clearly this study shows that doctors should be interested in preventative strategies for children who experience both migraines and tension-type headaches so that other behavioral issues that can result can be minimized. Even with reduction of migraine headaches in these children they may still benefit from traditional therapy that can be used to further improve their lives.
Source: Marco A Arruda and Marcelo E Bigal. Behavioral and emotional symptoms and primary headaches in children: A population-based study. Cephalalgia, 2012
Categories Headaches Tags anxiety, attention, behavioral issues, chronic headache, depression, headache, hyperactivity, migraine, psychological issues, tension type headache Post navigation
Acheiving Optimal Peformance with Biofeedback and Neurofeedback
The Risks of Cheerleading


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Q: Log4Net: RollingFileAppender, new instead of override I'm using Log4Net to log to files. I wish to let the logs be seperated by date so i use a datepattern:
<DatePattern value=".yy-MM-dd.'xml'" />

However, if the program is shut down and started again, the same file is either overwridden, or appended to (by AppendToFile property). I would like that if the program has previously been started on the same day, another file with a incremented count be created instead.
The directory might look like this:
Logs/
  log.15-01-03.xml
  log.15-01-04.xml
  log.15-01-04.0.xml
  log.15-01-04.1.xml  //program opened 3 times on the 4th of jan. '15
  log.15-01-05.xml

So, roll on date and count on session. Any Ideas?
Also, if i would like backup files of all logs, should i use a second appender, to a Logs/Backup/ directory, or is there a fancy way in Log4Net?
my RollingFileAppender is currently setup like this:
<appender name="RollingFileAppender"
          type="log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender">
  <File value="Log/log" />
  <DatePattern value=".yy-MM-dd.'xml'" />
  <Layout type="log4net.Layout.XmlLayout" />
  <RollingStyle value="Date" />
  <MaxSizeRollBackups value="2147483647" />
  <CountDirection value="0"/>
  <StaticLogFileName value="false"/>
  <Encoding value="Unicode"/>
  <ImmediateFlush value ="true"/>
  <PreserveLogFileNameExtension value="true"/>
</appender>

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Why is video such a powerful communications tool?
"Of all the arts, the most important for us is the cinema"
The leaders of the Russian Revolution were fascinated with the power of film as a propaganda and educational tool for a largely illiterate population. The reason for this was the medium's ability to inspire emotion among groups of people.
One hundred years on, film/video remains the most potent tool available for generating emotion in a dispersed audience. It's the ability to move us that makes good cinema completely spellbinding, and why, historically, TV advertising has been so lucrative. We are moved because we empathise directly with what happens to the characters on screen.
Storytelling is an essential tool in any corporate communicator's arsenal. It's when it's combined with the natural properties of film that it becomes the most powerful communication tool available to humanity. This is because video is most effective when used to portray human emotion.
Empathy is a key evolutionary skill. It's fundamental to our ability to form cohesive social groups. It allowed our forebears to benefit from not having to fight sabre-toothed tigers literally alone. It allows us the same benefit, metaphorically speaking. When we see or hear about people experiencing specific emotions, we've evolved to feel those same emotions. For example, if we see someone who's suffering from the cold, we feel a little of that suffering. This makes us more likely to offer a jacket, blanket or space by the fire. These emotions assist the survival of the species, and are part of our intrinsic need to seek out experiences, understanding and companionship. These are fundamental elements in what makes us human.
The mechanics behind empathy have long baffled neuroscientists. To begin with, it was assumed that the emotion was as a result of a logical, mental interpretation in order to predict other people's actions. Then, in the early 1990s, Italian researchers studying the brains of macaque monkeys made a breakthrough. They discovered that the same area of the brain lights up in monkeys that are just watching their fellow monkeys reaching for food as in those who are doing the reaching.
This led to the discovery in the brain of what are called 'mirror cells'. This profoundly changed our understanding of neurochemistry. These cells allow us to understand other people's actions, not by thinking through what they are doing but by directly feeling the emotion that they are feeling. When you see someone frown, for example, your frowning mirror neurones fire up too, creating the sensation in your own mind that you associate with frowning. You don't have to experience what the other person is experiencing to make them frown; you feel the emotion directly and effortlessly.
Professor Talma Hendler, a neuroscientist at Tel Aviv University in Israel, studied brain scans in order to understand the chemical basis for empathy. She found there are two types of empathy at work, which are illustrated by where they occur in the brain. The first and more advanced type is what she calls 'mental empathy'. This requires the viewers to think outside themselves – to mentally put themselves in the other person's shoes – and think about what they may be experiencing. The second is called 'embodied empathy'. This is a more intuitive and primal empathy, which you might experience when watching someone get hurt.
As part of her studies, Prof. Hendler showed Aron Aronofsky's film Black Swan to a number of subjects, while monitoring their brain activity. I watched this intense psychological thriller on a very bumpy flight in what was the most potently dramatic cinema experience of my entire life - but that's another story. As Natalie Portman's character experiences hallucinations at the depths of her psychosis, the audience develops – temporarily – the same brain chemistry as a genuine schizophrenia sufferer. Watching a film of someone with a psychological illness effectively gives the audience the symptoms of a psychological illness.
This makes film an invaluable tool for marketers. What better way of illustrating the refreshing nature of your beer than by transporting your audience to a hot desert and then showing some bottles sticking out of an ice bucket, complete with condensation? The advertisers are generating the perception of genuine thirst and potential refreshment for the audience. This fact explains the continued value of video as a tool to persuade and influence.
This power is illustrated in full gut-punching style in this film for Breast Cancer Now. Watching this it is impossible not to feel some of the pain and anguish of Chantelle and her family. It is impossible because we are biologically designed to feel these emotions. Through the skilful use of film we can construct an experience for the viewer which pulls their emotions in different ways. Think of the terror of the beach scene in Saving Private Ryan, the romance of Lady and the Tramp, the fear of Jaws. All effective video communications rely on this attribute, even information heavy corporate comms should have a dash of emotion. If there isn't room for a bit of human emotion in your comms, you shouldn't be using video as the medium. That said, communications without emotion are not worth communicating as no one will remember them, because emotion is essential to forming memories.
Roche: LeanSixSigma - no matter the subject, animation is a great way of communicating information as it allows the addition of character and emotion effortlessly.
A strange quirk of this empathy is that we have a tendency to project emotions, motives and thoughts onto the characters that we're watching. It doesn't even need to be a real person in order to elicit this effect. To empathise with a character, we just need to be able to attribute what we perceive as human emotions and objectives to them. Once this has taken place, we immediately and unconsciously decide whether we a) like them, and b) can trust them. It's this quirk that allows animation to work.
Whether we're looking at a duck, a ball or a collection of pencil lines on the screen that make up a drawn character, the effect is the same. We do find it easier if the item has a semblance of a face. The more like us the characters are, the easier we find it to empathise with them. The concept and ridiculousness of this is brilliantly illustrated in Spike Jonze's lamp ad.
There are other things that a filmmaker can do to increase the amount we empathise with a subject. For example, we're also programmed to empathise more with children or those with childlike characteristics. Characters that are small, have big eyes or have a cuddliness to them (i.e. that are cute) are more easily relatable. We feel more is at stake in their survival and so care more about their concerns. This is our base programming at work – human genes working to secure their own survival. Music also has the effect of increasing the level of empathy with characters that viewers feel, because it adds to the illusion of their own vitality and personality.
Most people have got an idea of the different steps that go into the production of a video. Here, we thought we'd take a moment to outline each of the different steps so that you can see how it all fits together. Of course, the way different companies, producers teams make films might be slightly different. The general principles explained below should ring true though.
Want a little help creating effective briefs? You can download it right here.
Once we have this, we can start to think about how you are going to achieve all those objectives. This is known as creative or scripting. Creative tends to go through a number of iterations, until everyone is happy with it.
Once we have an agreed creative idea, we can start to organise all the things that are required to accomplish it. This will include an outline of the different actors/interviewees, props and locations. Making a film is very similar to organising an event. The event of physically making the film is called production.
The hands-on production of the film is usually relatively short compared to the rest of the project. It is also often the most expensive stage in the project. This is because we can have lots of people in the same place at the same time. As we covered earlier in the book, the cost of the production phase has come down drastically since the days of scores of crew being required to get a decent-looking result. Today, a single self-shooting director/filmmaker can achieve a surprisingly high-quality output. That said, there are still elements that can add to the cost of the project. These include a large number of actors/extras, shooting in locations that require travel/accommodation for the team, and specialist production elements such as drones, underwater cameras and cranes.
Once it's all been shot – 'in the can', if you like – the film then goes into the edit. An editor goes through all the material that was gathered during the production phase and selects the best moments from what could amount to hours of material. Many purists argue that this is true filmmaking, as it's where the film is actually made.
The first step is to get to an initial assembly cut. This is made up of all the best shots, which are pulled into a basic running order. This is also called a rough cut. The film now goes through a series of back-and-forths between the editor/producer and the various project stakeholders. If the editor is 'chunking' (splitting) the video for a number of different edits to be shared on social channels, he/she will tend to work on one main output, to get that right before moving on to the other cuts. This allows the editor to familiarise himself/herself with the footage, and to establish a style that the stakeholders are happy with.
It is said that, in the process of making a film, the creators actually produce three: there is the film that was initially conceived in the creative phase, the film that they believed they shot during production and then the film that is actually there once the editor has finished his/her work. Needless to say, it is the third film that remains to be shared and known by the world beyond the production team. This trope underlines an important aspect of filmmaking: be clear on what you are trying to achieve, but be prepared to incorporate positive additions as they occur. It is almost impossible to plan for every single eventuality that might befall the production. The best work comes from taking the events that occur – a beautiful sunset, a perfectly timed bird flying through the shot or an accidental nudge of an edit that just works – and being ready to integrate them.
Once the project sponsor is happy with the edit, it is sent for a few final tweaks. At this stage, the titles, graphics and any final visual flourishes are added to the film. The picture is then considered to be 'locked'. This means that no one can make any more changes to the project's visuals.
Then, the edit is colour graded. This step tweaks and stylises the colours to make sure that they are all uniform and stylistically fit the story. For example, adding a blue hue to scenes filmed at night.
The film is then sent to have the audio finished off. This includes having any sound effects and composed music added. Then, the sound designer tweaks all the levels of the audio to make sure that the volume is consistent, the dialogue is audible and it all sounds right. With modern content becoming as disposable as it has, this may not happen on every production. In that case, it comes down to the editor to give the film a once-over to make sure it is all good instead.
We now have the finished output/outputs, but the whole process has been for nothing if the target audience don't get to see it/them. This is where the delivery method comes in. There are many, many different ways of getting your content seen, from Facebook banners to bus-mounted video screens. What is really worth doing, though, is including the distribution method in the briefing phase. This allows the production to be tailored to make the most of the displays that the outputs will be shown on or the different ways that people view each platform.
It's in extremely valuable idea and it works with almost everything. From meetings to wedding planning to project management. Taking a moment to think about what you are trying to achieve before you begin a process is an extremely useful and valuable thing to do. It means you know exactly where you're heading before you start towards it.
You need to be completely clear on your reasoning. Clarity of focus and purpose is what defines effective corporate content. It is too easy to start before taking the time to agree among the stakeholders what the video / video project will be used for.
Resist the temptation here to seek consensus among stakeholders by including too many disparate goals. Many people will use the fact that you are creating a video to include other messaging. Bear in mind that everything included in the final output that doesn't specifically work to achieve the goal you set out will detract from its effectiveness. This may sound overly severe – of course films can be about more than one thing. You need to stop your film's effectiveness from being watered down by including too many messages.
This is why the briefing stage is so important. It takes time, skill and discipline to agree on and write a really good, clear brief. This can be an extremely valuable experience, as it requires an alignment among the different stakeholders in the process. Having agreed on the content, you should write a brief that is clear and concise, but that is readable and engaging. You should try to bring what you are after to life, as the more effectively you can do this, the more likely you are to capture the imagination of someone who might know a potential subject. So many of the briefs that we receive as a company are dull, verbose and complicated. This makes sense, as they are very specific business documents, but they tend to elicit better responses if they are clear and have a little life to them.
little lighter on the information on the basic ones.
The time taken to make sure that you have thought a bit about it will save you far more time, money and annoyance in the long run. Almost every project that doesn't end up as desired can be traced back to an incomplete or poorly thought out brief. It doesn't need to be super complicated, but it will help you make more-effective films.
If you'd like to know more, you can follow this link to download our Writing a Winning Brief Worksheet. This will help you to fill in a brief more accurately and thoroughly, giving you the perfect jumping off point for whatever your next project is.


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We deliver solutions to companies and authorities to make better and more rational decisions, simulate possible scenarios, and enable advanced automation.
Why Preference?
Preference develops methods for structuring complex, ill-structured problems in a format that is intuitive and easy to understand, transparent as well as easy to change.
This format takes into account both qualitative inputs based on experiences, opinions, and hypotheses along with quantitative data in both small and large amounts.
Our patented algorithms based on multi-year research work to provide recommendations on the best possible decision-making options by using inputs organized in the format above.
Several of our employees have a doctorate in Computer Science and Mathematics, as well as long experience from leading major projects and advice in risk and decision analysis for large companies.
Kjell Borking
Kjell has vast experience from the Swedish and international IT market. Kjell's area of competence is business development, management and development. He has been active in the IT business since 1967 and started many successful companies in IT. The first one in 1976 exploiting the then new relational databases (1022), one producing a maintenance management package sold all over the world, 1995 a company developing software for Business intelligence/Data warehousing. In 2002 he formed a management consulting company combining management consulting skills with business intelligence techniques to implement the visions.
Love Ekenberg
Professor Dr. UNESCO Chair
Love is a specialist in risk and decision analysis. Love has an extensive experience from a diversity of sectors, such as decision making in societal end environmental planning, risk modelling and analysis from the telecom sector and evaluations of strategies for insurance policies. He has done extensive assignments in logic verification of complex industrial systems, particularly for the Swedish nuclear industry. He also has substantial experience of project management in large national and international projects and is the author of well over 200 scholarly articles and books on these and related areas. He is PHD in Mathematics, full Professor of Computer and Systems Sciences at Stockholm University as well as Senior research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria.
Aron Larsson
Ph.D. in Computer and Systems Science M.Sc. in Computer Engineering Master of Business Administration
Aron works as a consultant with a focus on the development of applicable methods and models of analysis in the area of risk and decision analysis. Aaron is a specialist in methods and processes for multi-criteria analysis and decision problems with multiple stakeholders. He has conducted risk and decision analysis projects in several areas such as investment, environmental measures, traffic, mine and energy. He is also working on the development of the decision tool DecideIT and as a researcher at Stockholm University in the development and applications of computer-based methods for risk and decision analysis in the community. Aaron is an associate professor of computer science with a specialization decision theory and artificial intelligence, as well as an MBA from Industrial Economics.
Ross Tsagalidis
M.Sc.Director Marketing and Sales
Ross started early 80´s as CTO IT/CAD and later as Dir InfoSec and Safety at Siemens-Nixdorf Nordics. Subsequently as Dir InfoSec at Celsius Defence Industry. Since Y1996 he progressed as Business Manager Nordics for Marketing and Sales at Network Systems Corporation, USA. Y1999 he´s recruited as CEO for Telmis AB, a Telemedicine company. A couple of years later as Chairman of the Board and CEO for Novius AB. He progressed later at ENEA AB as Business Manager in Marketing and Sales as well as Team Consultant Manager. Later as Chief Engineer in InfoSec at the FMV. On behalf of the Swedish Armed Forces (SwAF) he designed and established a process and a methodology for Information Security Assurance and he established and maintained a collaboration program SwAF – Universities.
RT has a degree in mechanical engineering as well in Computer Sciences and Security Informatics there he holds a M.Sc. from KTH and SU. He has also curricula in business economics, personal administration, information operations and information warfare as well, in Sweden, USA and UK. He maintains a particular interest and operates as senior advisor in AI for Security, Cybernetics and for Business Intelligence and Sales Analytics.
Jim Idfeldt
PhD in Computer Sciences
Jim is a management consultant with a focus on strategic risk and decision analysis. Jim has a MSc. and an MBA from Industrial Management and Engineering and also possesses a Ph.D. in risk and decision analysis. Jim is also responsible for the development of the decision tool DecideIT and spin offs thereof.
For the last six years Jim has worked with predictive modelling for the Intrum group, developing scorecards and strategies supporting the collection business. During the last two years he has been in charge of all scoring related activities in the Intrum group, consisting of 25 countries. Before that Jim was working as a senior financial analyst within the international market of purchase debts for several years
Mona Wilcke
Board member – CEO, SU Holding
Mona Wilcke is a member of the board and she has a Ph.D. science and a broad background within investment and in startup companies. She is the CEO of SU Holding AB that is also co-founder of Preference AB.
Mats Danielson
Vice President, Stockholm University Scientific Advisor, Preference AB
Mats has many years of experience as an IT and management consultant and has created and developed large-scale software systems in such areas as risk and decision analysis. He has also designed nationwide ICT systems, including systems for electronic commerce. Mats holds a PhD from the Royal Institute of Technology and is currently a Full Professor at Stockholm University (SU) conducting research in Information Technology and Decision Analysis at the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences. He also has a business degree from SU. He has written over one hundred scientific papers in risk and decision analysis and other areas.


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Q: How do I get distinct count values of 2 columns? Lets say I have 2 columns, a and b.
Column A contains these values:
a
b
c
d

Column B contains these values:
e
d
c
b
a

What can I do to get the absolute distinct values from BOTH columns?
Meaning if i want to have a count on both columns, the result is to be 5. Because a, b, c and d are repeated in column B but not e.

A: SELECT A
FROM YourTable
UNION
SELECT B
FROM YourTable


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The five players to have produced the most assists for Lionel Messi
'We don't like it' – Tuchel responds to Lukaku comments after Chelsea striker seemingly admitted he was unhappy
Thomas Tuchel has issued a response to Romelu Lukaku after the forward indicated he is unhappy at Chelsea.
Comments emerged on Thursday in which Lukaku suggested he was unhappy with his role in west London after an indifferent start to the campaign, fitness and form issues having hindered the Belgian since his £97.5m club-record move from Inter Milan last summer.
The 28-year-old discussed his start to the season during an interview that was filmed earlier this month, admitting he is 'not very happy' with his role in Tuchel's side.
"Physically I'm doing great. I'm just not very happy with the situation, but that's normal," Lukaku said to Sky Sports Italia. "I think the boss has decided to play a different formation but I have to stick at it and get on with it professionally.
"I'm not happy with the situation but it's my job and I mustn't give up."
Since those comments, Lukaku has returned to the side and netted two in two games for the Blues and has played an influential role, though Tuchel says that the forward's comments are 'not helpful' as Chelsea look to rediscover their form, having won just one of their past four Premier League fixtures to fall eight points behind Manchester City.
The German says he is keen to not exaggerate the issue, however, and says Lukaku's comments do not reflect the forward's 'work, attitude and behaviour' on the training ground.
"We don't like it of course. It brings noise that we don't need and it's not helpful," Tuchel admitted at his pre-match press conference ahead of Chelsea's clash with Liverpool on Sunday.
"We don't want to make more out of it than it actually is. It is easy to take lines out of context, shorten lines, make headlines and then realise later that it is not so bad.
"If there is something then it is behind closed doors, for sure.
"Like I said, this is what you read into it. It is very easy, in general, to take lines out of context and make headlines to get the focus.
"I totally understand the process and that is why it is a lot of noise, not a little noise. But still, we are not here to read the headlines.
"We can take the time to try and understand what is going on because it does not reflect the daily work, attitude and behaviour which Romelu shows here at Cobham.
"If you are such a big player like Romelu, it is always in the public. He should know what kind of value he has when he speaks out with messages like this. Everything is easier when we win."
Read – Sir Alex at 80: Five of Sir Alex Ferguson's greatest moments
Read Also – Best of 2021: Our end-of-year Premier League awards
Lukaku issues public apology to Chelsea fans following controversial interview comments
Tuchel says it's time to 'move on' after accepting Lukaku apology
Lukaku to return to Chelsea fold following 'productive' talks with Tuchel
Tuchel unsure when Lukaku will return as he reveals he consulted with Chelsea players over dropping £98m striker
Lukaku suggests Chelsea were not his first choice destination and aren't a 'top level' club
'Zero chance' of Lukaku leaving Chelsea in January despite interview comments
ChelseaRomelu Lukaku


This highlights the need for businesses to take steps to ensure that any downtime can be minimized and the good news is that businesses are responding. According to a recent study from Spiceworks, a massive 95 percent of organizations have a disaster recovery plan in place, with 90 percent including data integrity and backups in their DR plans.
Other areas covered include maintaining network and internet connectivity (62 percent), power/electricity continuity (57 percent) and local server/application uptime (57 percent). However, only 28 percent of businesses include cloud or hosted services in their DR plans, which is surprising given how many firms now rely on cloud-based platforms.
What this reveals is that there isn't a one-size-fits-all approach to disaster recovery and businesses need to invest in identifying their unique needs and make sure they are picking a DR solution that best suits their specific requirements.
The first question businesses need to answer is, 'how do I want my DR solution to fit into my existing infrastructure? Generally speaking, most businesses exploring disaster recovery solutions fall into one of three buckets – organizations that have physical data centers and want their DR to sit on this physical infrastructure, organizations that have physical data centers but want their DR solution to be in the cloud and organizations that want their data center infrastructure and DR to be cloud-based.
For organization that store their data on physical data centers and want DR to sit on this physical infrastructure, they often require a separate replica environment that is able to deliver all or part of the customers' services. This can be a costly approach, as businesses have to factor in the costs associated with maintaining the facility, paying for power and purchasing additional hardware.
The other categories - organizations that have physical data centers but want their DR solution to be in the cloud, and organizations that want their data center infrastructure and DR to be cloud-based – both rely on a cloud provider's data center as a recovery site.
Although there are positives and negatives of each approach, cloud-based systems are proving to be the most cost-effective and efficient way of minimizing the impact of an incident. However, as previously mentioned, the most effective disaster recovery plan is one that caters to the business's specific needs.
Understandably, the processes and solutions needed to implement disaster recovery in these three environments – i.e. on-premise, hybrid, or cloud – will be different. Depending on the organization's requirements, a plan can be drawn up, taking into account the nature of the different infrastructures that need to be protected and the business impact of downtime.
So, what do businesses need to keep in mind when drawing up a DR plan and how can they make sure they choose the right solution?
For any disaster recovery strategy, the first step is to match business applications to service-level objectives, of which there are two specific measurement parameters: recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO).
RPO indicates the data loss tolerance of business processes in case of a disaster (i.e. the amount of data loss than can be accepted to business requirements), while RTO represents the time required to restore business services after an outage. Different apps will have different requirements depending on their importance and the type of business. For example, major online retailers such as eBay or Amazon will require their core e-commerce systems to have low RPOs and RTOs, whereas the 'accounts reporting' app in a smaller business may be able to be offline for up to 24 hours.
By mapping their environment and analyzing the risks and requirements of specific applications, businesses can identify the DR solution – or solutions – that will be the most effective in meeting RPO and RTO parameters. They might realize that an on-premise approach best aligns with future objectives, or that moving everything to the cloud is the best way to meet their customers' needs.
Businesses may also have to consider the level of technical skills available internally. While this is unlikely to be an issue in bigger organizations that have large IT teams, smaller companies that simply don't have access to the required skills may have to opt for a managed cloud-based DR service.
Ultimately, it's vital to remember that different requirements require different approaches. Implementing the right disaster recovery solution comes down to meeting specific needs, so businesses have to analyse their infrastructure and take these needs into account.
In this age of continuous availability expectations, businesses simply cannot afford to fall victim to downtime. Businesses must certainly invest in solutions to prevent disasters but on the unfortunate occasion when those solutions are not able to prevent the disaster from happening, businesses must be prepared to respond immediately – or risk the wrath of unhappy customers.