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Volkswagen : optimizing traffic flow with quantum computers
- Volkswagen Group launches world's first pilot project for traffic optimization with a D-Wave quantum computer in Lisbon
- To be used on a MAN bus fleet in Lisbon during the WebSummit technology conference (November 4 to 8)
Press release from Volkswagen
October 29th 2019 | 2039 readers
Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash
Volkswagen is launching in Lisbon the world's first pilot project for traffic optimization using a quantum computer. For this purpose, the Group is equipping MAN buses of the city of Lisbon with a traffic management system developed in-house. This system uses a D-Wave quantum computer and calculates the fastest route for each of the nine participating buses individually and almost in real-time. This way, passengers' travel times will be significantly reduced, even during peak traffic periods, and traffic flow will be improved. Volkswagen is testing its traffic optimization system during the WebSummit technology conference in Lisbon from November 4 to 8 - during the conference, buses will carry thousands of passengers through the city traffic in Lisbon.
Martin Hofmann, Volkswagen Group CIO, says: 'At Volkswagen, we want to further expand our expert knowledge in the field of quantum computing and to develop an in-depth understanding of the way this technology can be put to meaningful use within the company. Traffic optimization is one of the potential applications. Smart traffic management based on the performance capabilities of a quantum computer can provide effective support for cities and commuters.'
Vern Brownell, CEO of D-Wave, says: 'Volkswagen's use of quantum computing to tackle pervasive global problems like smart traffic management is an example of the real-world impact quantum applications will soon have on our cities, communities, and everyday lives. Since we built the first commercial quantum computer, D-Wave has been focused on designing systems that enable quantum application development and deliver business value. Volkswagen's pilot project is among the first that we know of to make production use of a quantum computer, and their ongoing innovation brings us closer than ever to realizing true, practical quantum computing.'
System includes two components: passenger number prediction and route optimization
The Volkswagen traffic management system includes two components - passenger number prediction and route optimization by quantum computing. For predictions, the development team from Volkswagen is using data analytics tools to identify stops with especially high passenger numbers at certain times. For this purpose, anonymized geo-coordinates and passenger flow data are used. The objective is to offer as many people as possible tailor-made transport possibilities and to ensure optimum utilization of the bus fleet.
For the pilot project in Lisbon, 26 stops were selected and connected to form four bus links. For example, one of these runs from the WebSummit conference facility to the Marqués de Pombal traffic node in the city center.
The Volkswagen team intends to continue the development of this prediction component. The idea is that bus operators should add temporary links to their scheduled services to serve stops with the largest passenger numbers. This would be a meaningful approach for major events in the city area, for example.
The Volkswagen experts have developed a quantum algorithm for route optimization between the stops. This algorithm calculates the fastest route for each individual bus in the fleet and optimizes it almost on a real-time basis. In contrast to conventional navigation services, the quantum algorithm assigns each bus an individual route. This way, each bus can drive around traffic bottlenecks along the route at an early stage and avoid traffic jams before they even arise.
The experts from Volkswagen expect this development to have a further positive effect. As the buses travel along individually optimized routes which are calculated to ensure that they can never cause congestion themselves, there will be a general improvement in traffic flow within the city.
Volkswagen intends to develop the system to market maturity
In the future, Volkswagen plans to develop its traffic optimization system to market maturity. For this reason, the Volkswagen developers have designed the system so that it can generally be applied to any city and to vehicle fleets of any size. Further pilot projects for cities in Germany and other European countries are already being considered. Volkswagen believes that such a traffic optimization system could be offered to public transport companies, taxi companies or fleet operators.
Volkswagen and quantum computing
Volkswagen is cooperating with its technology partners D-Wave and Google, who provide the experts with access to their computer systems. In 2016, the Volkswagen team already successfully demonstrated congestion-free route optimization for taxis in the Chinese capital Beijing. Since then, the development of the algorithm has been steadily continued and it has been protected by patents in the USA.
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Crossing the borders with Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Israel
October 8, 2016 wimvincken	2 Comments
Map of Middle East: Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria
The borders between Israel and the two countries with which it has signed peace treaties, Egypt and Jordan, are open to both tourists and locals. The borders between Israel and the two counties which it didn't sign any peace treaties with, Syria and Lebanon, are not open to anyone. This article tells about all the relevant and detailed information you need to access Egypt and/or Jordan for tourists.
Note: most Western governments recommend avoiding all non-essential travel to the Sinai because of recent attacks against tourists by radical Islamists.
Too many times I've repeated the instructions for groups and individual tourists what to do and how much it cost to cross the borders from and with Israel to Egypt and/or Jordan. So this article about all the relevant information to do just that. If you have additional questions, contact me on the contact page or contact me by email or phone, or go to my profile page.
Blue, Purple & Green Lines
The UN-certified international border between Israel and Lebanon is known as the Blue Line; the Israeli–Syrian ceasefire line of 1974 is known as the Purple Line; and the pre-1967 border between Israel and the then-Jordanian West Bank is known as the Green Line. In many maps of Israel on this site, you see those blue, purple and green lines.
Border History
Britain and France determined the future borders of Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan (Jordan) and Iraq in the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916.
Visas, Security & Entry Stamps
Israel no longer stamps tourists' passports – instead, it issues you with a playing card–sized slip of paper.
Land Crossings: Your Options
Israel–Jordan: Jordan River/Sheikh Hussein crossing (map), south of the Sea of Galilee; Yitzhak Rabin/Wadi Araba crossing (map), just north of Eilat/Aqaba
West Bank–Jordan: Allenby/King Hussein Bridge crossing (map), just east of Jericho (controlled by Israel)
Israel–Egypt: Taba crossing (map), on the Red Sea just south of Eilat
Gaza–Egypt: Rafah crossing (map) (often closed)
Fees for land border crossings (not including visa fees, if applicable) are as follows:
Israel: You don't pay anything on arrival, neither on departure. But you pay at departure NIS 107 to travel to Jordan or Egypt and NIS 182 via the Allenby/King Hussein bride border crossing.
Egypt: When arriving from Israel, you pay (Egyptian) £75 on arrival and £2 on departure (to Israel)
Jordan: When arriving from Israel, you pay JD5 and on departure JD10 (to Israel)
A Yom Kippur All Israeli land borders and airports closed.
A Eid Al-Hijra/Muslim New Year Land crossings with Jordan closed.
A Eid al-Adha Taba crossing with Egypt and Palestinian wing of the Allenby/King Hussein Bridge closed.
A Ramadan All crossings may close early.
Crossing the border with Lebanon or Syria
Israel's borders with Syria and Lebanon are shut tight. Unless you're a UN peacekeeper, the only way to get to the other side is through Jordan – but if you've already been in Israel this can be tricky.
Travel To/from Jordan
While the two land crossings between Israel and Jordan are quick and efficient, the Allenby/King Hussein Bridge crossing between the Israeli-controlled West Bank and Jordan is not always as smooth.
Israeli exit fees can be paid at the border in a variety of currencies or by credit card. To save a handling fee of 5NIS, pay in advance at any Israeli post office (cash only) or online (https://borderpay.co.il).
Jordan River/Sheikh Hussein Crossing
Sheikh Hussein Bridge Crossing Jordan River
Generally far less busy than Allenby/King Hussein Bridge, this crossing (04-609 3400; http://www.iaa.gov.il 6.30am-9pm Sun-Thu, 8am-7pm Fri & Sat, closed Yom Kippur & Al-Hijra/Muslim New Year ) is in the Jordan Valley 8km east of Beit She'an, 30km south of the Sea of Galilee, 135km northeast of Tel Aviv and 90km northeast of Amman.
Jordan issues on-arrival visas (JD40) for many nationalities. The Israeli side lacks an ATM, but you can get a cash advance at the currency-exchange window, open whenever the terminal is. For travelers heading to Jordan, getting through Israeli border formalities usually takes no more than half an hour. You then have to take a bus (7NIS or JD1.50, twice an hour) to cross to the Jordanian side of the river (walking across is forbidden).
On the Israeli side, taxis (052 328 8977), which wait at the border, can take you to Beit She'an (50NIS, plus 5NIS per suitcase) and destinations around Israel, including Tiberias (240NIS), Jerusalem (550NIS) and Tel Aviv (580NIS). Kavim bus 16 connects Beit She'an with Kibbutz Ma'oz Haim (11 minutes, five or six daily Sunday to Friday), a walkable 1km west of the crossing.
On the Jordanian side, regular service taxis travel to/from Irbid's West Bus Station (JD1, 45 minutes). A taxi costs about JD20 to Irbid and JD40 to Amman. Nazarene Tours links Nazareth with Amman (80NIS, 4½ to five hours), via the Jordan River/Sheikh Hussein crossing, on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
Departures are at 8.30am from the company's Nazareth office, near the Bank of Jerusalem and the Nazareth Hotel (not to be confused with the office of Nazarene Transport & Tourism in the city center) and at 2pm from Amman's Royal Hotel (University St). Reserve by phone at least two days ahead.
Yitzhak Rabin/Wadi Araba Crossing
Yitzhak Rabin-Wadi Araba Crossing
Located just 3km northeast of Eilat, this crossing (08-630 0555, 08-630 0530; http://www.iaa.gov.il; 6.30am-8pm Sun-Thu, 8am-8pm Fri & Sat ) is handy for trips to Aqaba, Petra and Wadi Rum. A bonus: thanks to the Aqaba Special Economic Zone, Jordanian visas issued here are free. Most hotels and hostels in Eilat offer day trips to Petra.
A taxi to/from Eilat (10 minutes) costs 45NIS. If you're coming by bus from the north (eg Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or the Dead Sea), it may be possible to get off on Rte 90 at the turn-off to the border or at Kibbutz Eilot, but from there it's 2km on foot through the desert (along Rte 109).
Once you're in Jordan, you can take a cab to Aqaba (JD10, 15 minutes), from where you can catch a minibus for the 120km ride to Petra (JD5, 2½ hours); minibuses leave when full between 6am and 7am and 11am and noon. Alternatively, bargain for a taxi all the way from the border to Petra (around JD50, two hours).
Allenby/King Hussein Bridge Crossing
Allenby-King Hussein Bridge Crossing
Linking the Israeli-controlled West Bank with Jordan, this busy crossing (02-548 2600; http://www.iaa.gov.il; 8am-midnight Sun-Thu, 8am-3pm Fri & Sat, closed Yom Kippur & Eid al-Adha, hours subject to change) is 46km east of Jerusalem, 8km east of Jericho and 60km west of Amman. It is the only crossing that people with Palestinian Authority travel documents, including West Bank Palestinians, can use to travel to and from Jordan and the outside world, so traffic can be heavy, especially on Sunday, around holidays and on weekdays from 11am to 3pm. Try to get to the border as early in the day as possible – times when tourists can cross may be limited and delays are common. Israeli citizens (including dual citizens) are not allowed to use this crossing.
Jordan does not issue on-arrival visas at the Allenby/King Hussein crossing – you'll have to arrange a visa in advance at a Jordanian embassy, such as the one in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv.
However, if your visit to the Palestinian Territories and/or Israel started in Jordan, you won't need a new visa in order to cross back into Jordan through Allenby/King Hussein Bridge, provided you do so within the period of validity of your Jordanian visa – just show your stamped exit slip.
The bus across the frontier costs JD7, plus JD1.50 per piece of luggage. Bring plenty of cash (Jordanian dinars are the most useful) and make sure you have small change. There are no ATMs, but both sides have exchange bureau. This crossing can be frustratingly delay-prone, especially if you're traveling into the West Bank and/or Israel. Chaotic queues, intrusive security, luggage X-rays (expect to be separated from your bags) and impatient officials are the norm; expect questions from Israeli security personnel if your passport has stamps from places such as Syria or Lebanon or you're headed to less touristed parts of the West Bank. There are separate processing areas for Palestinians and tourists.
Shared taxis run by Abdo (%02-628 3281) and Al-Nijmeh (02-627 7466), most frequent before 11am, link the blue-and-white bus station opposite Jerusalem's Damascus Gate with the border (30 minutes, 40NIS); the charge per suitcase is 5NIS.
Private taxis can cost as much as 300NIS, with hotel pick-up as an option.
Egged buses 948, 961 and 966 from West Jerusalem's Central Bus Station to Beit She'an (and points north) stop on Rte 90 at the turn-off to Allenby Bridge (12.50NIS, 40 minutes, about hourly). Walking the last few kilometers to the crossing is forbidden, so you'll have to take a taxi (50NIS).
To get to/from Amman's Abdali or South bus stations, you can take a servees (shared taxi) or minibus (JD8, 45 minutes); a taxi costs about JD22. JETT (+962 6 566 4141; http://www.jett.com.jo) runs a daily bus to the border from Abdali (JD8.50, one hour, departure at 7am).
Travel To/From Egypt
Taba Crossing
Taba Crossing, Egyptian side
This crossing (08-636 0999; http://www.iaa.gov.il; h24hr), on the Red Sea 10km south of Eilat, is the only border post between Israel and Egypt that's open to tourists. There's an exchange bureau on the Egyptian side. Check travel advisories before taking this route as the security situation in South Sinai is changeable.
You can get a 14-day Sinai-only entry permit at the border, allowing you to visit Red Sea resorts stretching from Taba to Sharm el-Sheikh, plus St Katherine's. If you're planning on going further into Egypt, you'll need to arrange an Egyptian visa in advance, eg at the Egyptian consulate in Eilat or the embassy in Tel Aviv.
Local bus 15 links Eilat's central bus station with the Taba crossing (4.90NIS, 30 minutes, hourly 8am to 9pm Sunday to Thursday, 8am to 3pm Friday and 9am to 7pm Saturday). On the way back to Eilat this line is known as bus 16; departures are 40 minutes later. A taxi costs about 30NIS.
Rafah Crossing
With a few exceptions, Egypt has kept the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Sinai closed since 2013. When or if it reopens, it is unlikely to be usable by leisure travelers.
Israeli Border Control
Israeli Border Control at Airport
Israel's rigorous entrance procedures are a source of annoyance for some and a breeze for others. Don't be surprised if you are asked questions about your reasons for traveling, trips you've recently made, your occupation, your acquaintances in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and possibly your religious or family background.
If you are meeting friends or family in Israel, you might want to have their full name, address and phone number handy (a letter confirming you're staying with them is ideal). If you have hotel reservations, a printout may help – or be completely superfluous.
If border officials suspect that you're coming to take part in pro-Palestinian political activities or if you have an Arab or Muslim name, they may ask some probing questions; on occasion they have even searched laptops.
Sometimes they take an interest in passport stamps from places such as Syria, Lebanon or Iran, but often they don't. The one sure way to get grilled is to sound evasive or to contradict yourself – the security screeners are trained to try to trip you up. Whatever happens, remain calm and polite.
Israeli airport security – whether you're flying in on an Israeli carrier or flying out on any airline –is the strictest in the business. It unabashedly uses profiling, but not necessarily in the way you think.
In 1986, a pregnant Irish woman, Anne Mary Murphy, almost boarded an El Al 747 in London with Semtex explosive hidden in her luggage – it had been placed there without her knowledge by her Jordanian boyfriend, Nezar Hindawi, who is still in prison in the UK.
Ever since then, Israeli security officials – at Ben Gurion airport and at airports abroad – have been on the lookout for anyone who might unwittingly serve as a suicide bomber, with young, unmarried Western women near the top of the profiling list.
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2 thoughts on "Crossing the borders with Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Israel"
El says:
Thanks for the great information ! Do you think ıt doable nowadays to cros from Egypt to Israel to Jordan vıa the Sinai?
wimvincken says:
This is extremely tricky with the bandits and terrorists. Not a good idea.
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Perfect Buildings in the world: Perfect Buildings Blog
Cathedral of Guadalajara in Jalisco, Mexico
The Cathedral of Guadalajara started to be constructed on the 31st of July 1568 and concluded on the 19th of February 1618, ordered by King of Spain Felipe II. Few people know it has the official title of "Basílica de la Asunción de Nuestra Señora de la Santísima Virgen María", because it was consecrated to her.
Aya Sofya, Turkey
Aya Sofya is the great architectural landmark at the heart of Istanbul, with its four minarets poised like moon-bound rockets. Constructed in the 6th century AD as an Orthodox church, it later became a mosque and, since 1935, a museum. The enormous structure was built in just five years, and its musk walls are topped by an imposing dome, 31m wide and 56m high. The dome's base is ringed by windows, so that from within the structure, the dome seems almost to hover ethereally above the building.
Taj Mahal Mausoleum, India
An immense mausoleum of white marble, built in Agra between 1631 and 1648 by order of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his favourite wife, the Taj Mahal is the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world's heritage.
Encyclopedia for the Israeli Tourist & Tour Guides
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Charlie regularly gives talks at festivals, gardening clubs and other groups about how building his own garden helped him overcome the grief he felt when he lost both his parents, about gardening generally, about his book Skymeadow and about his work on the Modern Slavery Garden.
The Modern Slavery Garden designed by Juliet Sargeant won a Gold Medal and The People's Choice award at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2016. Charlie has been involved in campaigning on modern slavery issues since 2011.
If you would like to contact Charlie in a professional capacity please do so through the contact page of this website.
Copyright © 2021. Charlie Hart


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Victor Klemperer
V K
A professor of Romance languages in Dresden, Victor Klemperer wrote several major works on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French literature before he was expelled from his post in 1935. He lived through the war in Dresden with his wife, Eva. Klemperer's secret diaries were thought for many years to have been lost or suppressed by the Communist authorities of East Germany, where Klemperer lived after the war. He wife deposited them after his death in 1960 in the Dresden Landesarchiv, where they remained until they were uncovered by Victor Nowojski, a former pupil, who edited and transcribed them for publication in Germany. Their reception there was a national event. The diaries have been translated into twelve languages.
Martin Chalmers has translated, from the German, books by Hubert Fichte, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, and Erich Fried. He is a frequent contributor to the New Statesman and The Independent, and lives in London.
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Half of this entry should be relatively self-explanatory — these are albums that, for various reasons, just missed our final cut. All of them are worth your listening time, and them falling just outside of the top 30 really shows just how much good music came out of Japan.
The other, though, is a bit complicated. I'm not sure J-Pop…here referring to the upper echelons of the Japanese music industry, the stuff topping the Oricon Charts and monopolizing TV air time…produced many great albums in 2016. A few exceptions, sure, but overall not much I'd consider being particularly incredible. However, a lot of deeply interesting and relevant full-lengths came out, all of them mostly good but more notable than great. Those get some space here, too.
Apologies to For Tracy Hyde, Lovely Summer Chan, Paellas, Shugo Tokumaru and any other album that came out too late in the year to get enough spins.
Moment of honesty to start off with — every single release Orange Milk Records put out from a Japanese artist this year (and plenty from elsewhere, too!) was fantastic. CVN, the solo project of Jesse Ruins' Noboyuki Sakuma, has the good luck to land at #31 for me, but Matters still shakes my head around wherever I put it. If his best work in Jesse Ruins managed to balance dreaminess with a lurking unease, Matters uses sonic texture to plunge right into that dark zone, the songs here rattling forward on heavy percussion and with vocal samples adding to the persistently shadowy mood. Get it here.
No J-Pop release in 2016 sounds as miserable as Ryoseibai. Try, if you can, to ignore the scandal that surrounded the release of this album back in January and set in motion the breakdown of a group who just a year prior seemed like an intriguing new entry to the mainstream. You don't need any of that, even if it makes it seem all the juicier. No, this is 17 songs frequently finding Enon Kawatani sounding exhausted about life, singing from the perspective of a burned out office worker and as a "serial singer" who sounds ready to hit Townwork, and as a guy tired of romance (!!!). It's bloated and ultimately too much of a drag…but when the band is on, they create a knotty backdrop for Kawatani to sing about two sides being equally wrong (which…hmmmmmm I don't know). Ryoseibai was pulverized in the wake of tabloid revelations, but remains interesting thanks to how done with everything it sounds.
The two best ways to use the singing synthesizer technology Vocaloid is to either push it in an experimental direction or double down on its digital properties and make pop in a style similar to Perfume. Mameyudofu goes for the latter, and comes up with the best Vocaloid-featuring release I heard all year. Nothing complicated — just a lot twinkling synth patterns, piano notes and computerized voices pushing it all forward. Get it here.
Not many funk odes to the web, but not many artists make a "My Love Is Online." Hyogo-based producer The Hair Kid teamed up with Akita Momo for a number that made dial-up sounds and AOL mail alerts sounds intimate, and followed it up with the sweltering "Plastic New York" with Q.i. That would be a solid one-two punch, but this release gets extra force from one of the best sets of remixes on any release here this year, including dissected remakes from Okadada and a breezer of a rework via Pasocom Music Club. Get it here.
Here's an exceedingly hot take — Cosmic Explorer is a fine album. Perfume, in 2016, are a group enjoying a comfortable existence. They've reached the pinnacle of J-Pop, and probably will stay entrenched their for the foreseeable future (even if producer Yasutaka Nakata isn't necessarily pushing their sound forward anymore, they still have choreographer MIKIKO on their side, which might be more important moving forward). This, their fifth release, is less sonic about face and more comfort food. It's primarily a collection of singles, and one improving on Level3's flawed album edits. Here, formerly forgettable cuts such as "Cling Cling" feel rejuvenated, while "Pick Me Up" and (especially) "Flash" offered elegant takes on EDM. Incredible? No, but Perfume already shifted the J-Pop paradigm once. This is solid, and that's enough.
This list could just be clogged up by all the solid juke releases that trickled out of Japan this year (and the top 30 features a handful too). It was a banner year of sorts, with lots of strong releases and the godfather of the nation's scene DJ Fulltono heading on a successful tour of the U.S. alongside one of the weirdos to emerge from the juke scene, Foodman. Boogie Mann has been near the top of the heap for some time, and We Turn Up offered a concise explainer why that was, full of darty tracks reveling in their skitteriness and drawing samples from all over the place (hey Kendrick Lamar, we see you). Just an all-around release from one of the scene's most important figures. Get it here.
If We Turn Up picked the brain of one of the scene's finest, the stuffed-tight Juke Shiyouya releases from Omoide Label showed just how far reaching the style has comes. Across two collections, and featuring 38 tracks, this set highlights familiar names (CRZKNY, Hiroki Yamamura) and a lot of lesser known creators offering a new perspective on the Chicago-born style. Yeah, there's some stuffing here, but also some exciting mutations. Get volume one here, and volume two here.
Technically, Especia still exist in trio form and releasing solid tunes. But lets not kid ourselves, Carta marked the end of Especia, the idol group toying around with absurd vaporwave imagery but ultimately making a modern-twist on city pop. Their final full-length together isn't as thrilling a document as Gusto, but Carta has been aging nicely over the course of 2016, and features some of their finest numbers (just pretend "Clover" doesn't exist, thanks).
Ano(t)raks' compilation albums remain as useful as ever in offering a glance into the nation's indie-pop scene, and Azur highlighted a wide variety of styles, from coastal guitar pop (I Saw You Yesterday) to wonkier electro-rap-pop (Native Rapper). Get it here.
Truth in advertising here. This project took one of the most crushing sounds you are likely to encounter on a daily basis in Japan, looped it and found some beauty in the overwhelming mess of sound effects and general clanging. It's a logical inclusion in the Wasabi Tapes catalog, seeing as that imprint fancies jarring noises and how even the most cacophonous sounds can become beautiful (or at least entrancing) when played around with a bit. Also, far better than sitting in an actual pachinko parlor. Get it here.
Something sounds just off on nearly every song on Reol's debut album Sigma. A group though Reol herself occupies the spotlight, they draw heavily from contemporary American and Korean pop music. Which, hey, plenty of J-Pop acts have attempted to do. Critically, though, Reol doesn't get it quite right. A song like "Give me a break Stop Now" clearly wants to be, like, 2NE1, but the way her voice skips at times and the track as a whole sounds like its about to break apart — miles away from the hyper-controlled production of K-Pop. This feeling of sounding familiar but just a touch wrong, and subsequently more interesting than a carbon copy, runs throughout, and makes Sigma one of the legitimately stranger releases to find widespread embrace in Japan this year.
Artists rarely pivot into new forms without some time spent figuring it all out. Collapse marked Seiho's turn from high-energy bass music towards something more experimental, more formless. Reminds of the Osaka artists' pounding sound remained on cuts such as "Plastic" and "Peaches And Pomegranates," but Collapse also featured spacier number marked by jazz spasms ("The Vase") and twisty synth work ("Deep House"). It's an intriguing step forward full of great ideas, but one still adjusting to new realms. I think whatever comes next will be the really exciting development. Get it here.
Thematically, Utada and Hamasaki made the same album in 2016. It isn't too surprising, as both are basically of the same generation, and are no longer the young pop stars towering over the J-Pop landscape at the end '90s. They are adults trying to reckon with that very fact, and all the baggage that comes with it: responsibility, love, personal changes, death. Sonically, the two went different paths. Utada mixed piano-guided ballads with more uptempo pop, and featured young outsiders Kohh and Nariaki Obukuro stopping by. Hamasaki embraced traditional Japanese sounds and electric guitars, give or take one better-left-unheard Globe cover tacked on to the end. Yet both dabbled in the same pain, delivered in flawed packages (collections featuring primarily soul-searching ballads will do this, even when you have two J-Pop artists actually good at them).
Of course, the narrative didn't play out this way. Utada retreated from the public eye for six years, building anticipation for her return and gifting her the air of an artist licking the wounds of life and coming out with capital A "art" at the end. Hamasaki, meanwhile, has never learned to vanish for too long, and she's better known for her popular downfall, punctuated by decreasing album sales and thousands of K-Pop fans heading for the exits before her headlining A-Nation sets. She got grilled in a Twitter-popular parody of the meme-song "PPAP." Utada made the event album of 2016 in Japan. Hamasaki's was used as a cheap ploy to get streaming service subscribers.
Yet both were haunted by the same ghosts. I think both are flawed as album, and am not quite sold on them, especially Fantome, the one that has received far more praise. Yet that one is also among the — if not the — biggest J-Pop release of 2016, and it's interesting that an album where its most talked about song is all about the desire to just space out for a couple hours ("Nijikan Dake no Vacance" with Sheena Ringo), and its big pop moments clouded by uncertainty and doomed longing ("Michi," "Tomodachi"). It's human in its imperfection — it is very much an album not ideal for the hyperbole-saturated era we live in, though good luck convincing that to those who can only speak in .GIF files. Yet all the positives I can point toward that one also remind me of her J-Pop compatriot Hamasaki, who floated in the same territory on M(a)de. Both were the sound of artists representing a specific time dealing with what has already happened, while trying to look forward.


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package org.example4.declaration.beta

class BetaClass {

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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Home > India > News > PTI
Cops crack down on SIMI; Key terror suspect held
Last Updated: March 27, 2008 18:48 IST
In a major drive against outlawed Students Islamic Movement of India, 13 of its top leaders, including one wanted by Karnataka and Mumbai police in connection with terror activities, were arrested in Madhya Pradesh and a large cache of weapons seized from them.
The crackdown by Madhya Pradesh Police, along with central security agencies, began in and around Indore on Wednesday night and neighbouring Dhar district of the state during which top brass of the banned outfit was arrested.
Among the prominent SIMI leaders arrested were Shibly Peedicaal Abdul, wanted in connection with Mumbai train serial blasts of July 2006, former SIMI Chief Safdar Nagori and his brother Kamruddin Nagori, chief of the outfit's operations in Andhra Pradesh, and Hafiz of Karnataka.
Police sources said intelligence agencies had been keeping a tab on their movement for quite sometime before they were arrested.
Shibly is considered a prize catch as he is alleged to be part of the conclave which had met in Ujjain ahead of the Mumbai serial blasts that left over 180 people dead and hundred others injured on July 11, 2006.
Police recovered weapons, money and some documents from them. Some of the activists were arrested from Pithampur in Dhar district, a few km away from an army range.
Describing the operation as a 'big achievement' for the police, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said in Bhopal that 'weapons and computers have been found from arrested persons. Investigations are on into SIMI's plans to expand its network in the state'.
Karnataka DGP K Srinivas told PTI over phone from Bangalore that a team of policemen has been despatched to Indore to interrogate Shibly.
Inspector General (Indore range) Anil Kumar identified the prize catch as P A Shibly and said he was wanted by Bangalore police.
From A small-town origin in Kerala [Images], Shibly was working in a multinational company and later set up his own firm, which police suspect is involved in money laundering for the organisation.
Perceived as India's top terrorist and a key figure in SIMI-linked network that carried out a string of terror strikes across southern India since 2003, Shibly, a computer engineer from Kerala who escaped last month's police sweep against terror suspects in Karnataka, is alleged to be among SIMI operatives who helped organise the serial bombings in Mumbai trains.
Shibly is believed to have participated in a conclave of SIMI members at Ujjain from July 4-7, 2006, where plans to revitalise the 'jihad' in India were discussed. Several members of the cell which executed the Mumbai serial bombings later participated in it.
Another important leader Safdar Nagori, son of a retired assistant sub-inspector of police, had been absconding since the ban was imposed on the outfit on September 27, 2001.
He is facing the charge of spreading religious discord since 1997-98.
The arrests came a little over a month after central security agencies and Karantaka and Andhra Pradesh Police arrested Raziuddin Nasir and Kerala-origin computer engineer Yahya Kamakutty who were allegedly planning bombings in Goa [Images], Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai.
© Copyright 2008 PTI. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of PTI content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent.


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allison@ragsdalellc.com
clay@ragsdalellc.com
Environmental & Property Rights
Securities Fraud & Personal Injury
The Legal Advocate for People Injured by a Vaccination
Our Clients: Children and Adults harmed by a vaccine
Where: Our Firm is in Birmingham, Alabama. Our clients come from everywhere in the United States; the cases are filed in Washington, D.C. in the Court of Federal Claims
What is a Vaccine Injury: Vaccines work by prompting our immune system to recognize and attack foreign invaders. But on rare occasions, one's immune system has a case of mistaken indentity and attacks our cells instead, like friendly-fire in battle. That is referred to as autoimmunity or autoinflammatory and includes many different disorders.
Another type of common injury occurs when the nurse improperly inserts the needle in the upper part of the shoulder causing long-lasting, debilitating pain. (Shoulder Injury Resulting From Vaccine Administration (SIRVA).
There are other types of injuries that a vaccine may cause, but these are the most common.
Why Choose Ragsdale LLC: The experience of many years in the courtroom, and the knowledge from successfully representing scores of clients in the Vaccine Court. We are selective in accepting a new client so that every client's case receives the full benefit of our attention, experience and legal judgment.
How much will it cost you to hire Ragsdale LLC for your Vaccine Claim?
There are no attorneys' fees or costs charged to our clients, and we do not take a percentage or contingency fee out of any award you receive. Our fees and costs are paid separately out of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund.
More Information About the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program
Immunizations, while beneficial, do carry a small risk of catastrophic adverse reactions. In 1988, Congress created the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) to compensate the unfortunate individuals injured each year by vaccines. Compensation is funded by a 75 cent charge on every vaccination. A specialized court within the Court of Federal Claims in Washington D.C. decides whether the vaccine caused the injury and if the injured person will be compensated.
VICP claims are often very complex and are defended vigorously by the attorneys with the Department of Justice. The cases usually require extensive and expensive medical research and expert testimony.
The cases filed in the VICP are for injuries that are debilitating, painful, and costly. Because serious adverse reactions to vaccines are rare, treating physicians often do not make the connection between the disease and the vaccine. Most patients, physicians, and even lawyers are unaware of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. If you suspect that a vaccine may have caused you or a loved one to acquire a serious medical condition, including those listed below, we encourage you to call or email us. There is no charge.
We are also fortunate to be located near the physicians and researchers at two world-renowned research hospitals: The University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine and Children's of Alabama. They have been willing to share their expertise with us in these complex areas of medicine.
Some Examples of Vaccine Injuries
(Epilepsy, Infantile Spasms)
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)
Encephalopathy
Shoulder Injuries from Vaccine Administration (SIRVA)
Arthritis, Arthropathy
Meningitis (aseptic)
Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) or Acute Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy (AIDP)
Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy (CIDP)
Transverse Myelitis; Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis (ADEM)
(Devic's Disease)
Bronchopneumonia, Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (SIRS)
Vaccines Covered by the Compensation Program
Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis
(DTaP, DTP, DTP-Hib, DT, Td, Tdap and TT)
Polio (IPV and OPV)
Haemophilus Influenzae Type B (Hib)
Measles, Mumps, and Rubella
(MMR, MR, M, R)
Hepatitis B (HBV)
Varicella (VZV)
Pneumococcal Conjugate (Prevnar 13)
Rotavirus (RV)
Meningococcal (Menactra)
Important Notice Regarding Flu Shots & Guillain-Barre Syndrome
Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) can strike anyone, and it can be triggered by flu shots and other vaccines. Most people recover from GBS, but it is a long and painful process.
The Health and Human Services Department has approved changes to the Vaccine Injury program that could improve one's chances of obtaining compensation, especially with regard to flu vaccine-induced Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) and shoulder injuries related to vaccines (SIRVA). The time for filing the claim will be extended from three years to approximately eight years. Anyone who has acquired GBS or a shoulder injury following a flu vaccine should consult an attorney knowledgeable about vaccine litigation.
No representation is made that the quality of legal services to be performed is greater than the quality of legal services performed by other lawyers.
Ragsdale LLC
517 Beacon Pkwy W


flag.. nat'l anthem.. sports.. tv shows.. Eminem !! (trump broke him.. rip Marshall), award shows.. CHICK FIL A.. weather /POLLEN.. what else will you ruin? all because this loss blindsided you? c'mon, get over it ! you either lose or learn, right? life is too short !! go escape into some book so good you won't want to finish it. <3 ..we're on the same team !
anthro 101 : symbols needed for people to remain civilized in society.. stop wrecking ish !


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Q: minimal model of $A_\infty$ structure Hi all,
I am reading about minimal model of $A_\infty$ structure. So far, I find two different ways of the construction, given by Kadeishvili and Kontsevich, Soibelman.
1) The construction of these two minimal model looks quite different, although we know they should be quasi-isomorphic. Is there any direct homomorphism between this two model?
2) Is there any other algebraic construction of minimal model of $A_\infty$ structure?
Thanks!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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/**
 * Function:工场模式. <br/>
 *
 * @version
 * @see
 */
package com.kind.samples.patterns.factory;


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Family Planning Improves the Lives and Health of the Urban Poor and Saves Money
(April 2010) This year's World Health Day (April 7) focuses on the importance of urban health. Urbanization is occurring so rapidly in some parts of the world that cities are not able to keep up with increased demand for environmental, health, and educational services, not to mention the employment, housing, and transportation needs of a population that may double in size in less than 25 years. Three-quarters of those living in the cities of the developing world live in slums or slum-like conditions, often without access to sanitation and safe drinking water. Because of these unhealthy conditions, rapid population growth in urban areas is especially associated with increased health problems. Urban slums have much higher rates of illness than nonslum areas of the same cities and health and social problems related to the environment, violence, injury, and noncommunicable diseases are more common.1
As one of the least expensive, most cost-effective interventions with the most lasting impact on health, family planning is often overlooked as an essential strategy to improve urban health. Even though family planning services are less available in rural and remote parts of least developed countries, the poor who live in urban areas have more difficulty, for a variety of financial, social, and cultural reasons, accessing family planning services than do wealthier residents. With half of the world's residents now living in urban areas, improving the access of the poor to family planning services in urban areas should be a high priority, especially since the majority of urban residents in many countries live on less than US$2 per day.
Rapid Rise in Unintended Births
The majority of urban population growth (60 percent) is due not to the in-migration of people from rural areas, but because births among urban residents outpace deaths. As infant and child mortality has declined, this rate of "natural increase" has become especially high in urban areas of sub-Saharan Africa, some of which are growing at 4 percent per year. This phenomenal growth has proven difficult for governments and the environment to accommodate. In addition, urban families face the higher costs and greater complexities of city living and want to have fewer children than rural residents. Many urban women report that they have more children than they intended to have. While most wealthier urban women have access to contraception, poor women have less physical and financial access to high-quality reproductive health services and to an affordable range of contraceptives that meets their needs. As the growth of urban areas continues unabated, the value of reducing unwanted and unplanned births by enabling equitable access to contraception should not be underestimated. It is one of the most sensible and cost-effective investments that urban planners can make.
The Number of Women of Reproductive Age Is Rapidly Increasing
Because of past high fertility, rapid urbanization is likely to continue. In sub-Saharan Africa for example, the number of women of reproductive age will grow by 35 percent in the next 10 years. Unless women are able to limit their family size to the number of children they want to have, the number of births over this same period will increase by 33 percent. This will fuel even more rapid population growth in urban areas and make the provision of health and other services more challenging.
Poor women who desire to delay a pregnancy or stop having children but are not using a modern method of contraception have an especially high "unmet need" for family planning. In Senegal and Ethiopia, for example, one in every three women ages 15 to 49 who live in urban areas has an unmet need for contraception. Nigeria has one of the lowest levels of unmet need in sub-Saharan Africa—13 percent among urban women and 17 percent among the poorest women. However, because Nigeria is by far the largest country in Africa, the number of women with unmet need, 4 million, is large and it is growing as the demand for family planning increases. The millions of women with unmet need for contraception contribute directly to rapid population growth as well as to high rates of maternal and infant death.
Family Planning Prevents Abortion and Maternal Deaths
Women in sub-Saharan Africa have a one in 22 lifetime risk of dying of causes related to pregnancy and delivery. While maternal mortality has declined since 1990, by 26 percent in Latin America and 20 percent in Asia, it has only fallen by 2 percent in sub-Saharan Africa.2 Women who give birth before age 18 or after age 35, or who have closely spaced pregnancies are at a greater risk of death. In many countries of sub-Saharan Africa, early marriage and childbearing is common. In Mali, Malawi, Mozambique, and Niger, for example, half of all women have given birth by age 18.3 Women who give birth before age 20 are twice as likely to die of pregnancy-related causes as are older mothers. Family planning can avert these deaths by enabling young, sexually active women to delay their first pregnancy until they are older and more physically and emotionally mature. However, contraceptive use among sexually active women, whether married or unmarried, is very low in most countries of sub-Saharan Africa. In Nigeria, just 3 percent of married women and 37 percent of unmarried women ages 15 to 19 use a modern method of contraception.4
In selected sub-Saharan African countries, including Nigeria and Kenya, between 25 percent and 41 percent of unwanted pregnancies are aborted, and in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole, 99 percent of the nearly 5 million abortions that occur each year are conducted by persons lacking the necessary medical skills or under unsafe conditions or both. Sub-Saharan Africa has the world's highest proportion of abortions performed among young women ages 15 to 19 (about one in four). As a consequence, abortion is a leading cause of death among young African women. In East Africa, including Kenya, unsafe abortions account for 17 percent of maternal deaths. Assuring that young people have the family planning information and services they need could significantly reduce deaths due to abortion as well as deaths from other maternal causes. Globally, fulfilling unmet need for contraception is estimated to prevent 50,000 deaths due to abortion and 90,000 deaths due to other maternal causes each year. Fifty-five percent of the lives saved would be of women in sub-Saharan Africa.5
Family Planning Averts the Deaths of Infants and Children
Spacing births at least two years apart is one of the most important and successful strategies for improving birth outcomes and the survival of infants. Infants born less than two years after a previous birth are about twice as likely to die in the first year of life as an infant born three years after a previous birth. Infants and children born to mothers who are under age 20 are also much more likely to die in the first days, months, and years of life. In Senegal, for example, one of every 10 infants born to women under age 20 dies in the first year of life, as opposed to one in 17 among women who give birth between ages 20 and 29. Use of family planning can avert these deaths by enabling young women to avoid pregnancies that occur too early, are unwanted, or too closely spaced. In Senegal alone, family planning could avert 1.3 million unintended pregnancies, 400,000 abortions, and 200,000 deaths to children under 5 over a 10-year period. Filling unmet need for contraception also significantly reduces the cost of providing universal vaccination coverage and other health interventions for children, and facilitates the ability of governments to improve overall societal health.6
Family Planning Is a Key but Greatly Underutilized HIV-Prevention Strategy
The importance of family planning to reducing mother-to-child transmission of HIV has not received sufficient attention. Each year, more than 577,200 unintended pregnancies among HIV-infected women in sub-Saharan Africa are prevented through the use of contraception, which already prevents more HIV infections among infants than antiretroviral therapy (ART).7 While it is essential that all women in need of ART have access to it, more than half a million additional unintended pregnancies to HIV-positive women could be averted each year if all women in the region who did not wish to become pregnant had access to modern contraception. In South Africa, more than 400,000 annual unintended pregnancies could be averted among HIV-positive women, preventing more than 120,000 HIV-positive births.8
Family Planning Promotes Environmental Sustainability and Expansion of Education and Health Services
Investing in family planning not only saves lives but results in large savings to the health, education, and environmental sectors. With fewer children to educate, governments can extend safe water and sanitation services to a greater share of their populations. This will in turn have benefits in terms of reduced water-born illnesses and deaths due to diarrhea. When population growth occurs more slowly, there is also less pressure on scarce land and water resources and less environmental degradation due to deforestation, salinization of soil, and air pollution. In Kenya, for example, meeting unmet need for family planning at a cost of $71 million can be expected to reduce expenditures on education by $115 million, on immunization by $37 million, on water and sanitation by $36 million, on maternal health by $75 million, and on malaria by $8 million. For every dollar spent on family planning, Kenya would recoup $3.79 in savings in these sectors alone.9
Equity in Access to Family Planning for the Poor Is a Matter of Health and Human Rights
There is near universal agreement among governments that every child has a right to be wanted and women and couples have a right to decide freely on the number of children they will have. In most societies, poor women are the least likely to be able to exercise the right to use contraception, in part because they are the least able to pay for family planning services. Until poor women have the same ability to exercise that right as wealthier women, urban areas will grow not only in size but in level of inequality. The percentage of people living in poverty will continue to increase and income inequality between rich and poor will grow larger.
Governments and urban planners should ensure that the poor are the recipients of public funds that subsidize and aim to improve the quality of reproductive health services. Without this assurance, subsidies and incentives are more likely to be utilized by those who do not need them as much.10 And investments in reproductive health and family planning are among the most cost-effective that governments can make. In Kenya and Nigeria, for example, the cost of protecting an urban couple from an unwanted pregnancy for a year through the provision of clinic-based services is only $4.27.11 This small investment is worthwhile for the benefit of individuals and families and for the greater society. World Health Day 2010 is an appropriate time to give family planning the attention it deserves.
Karin Ringheim is senior policy adviser at the Population Reference Bureau.
African Population and Health Research Center, Population and Health Dynamics in Nairobi's Informal Settlements, Report of the Nairobi Cross-Sectional Slums Survey (NCSS) (Nairobi: APHRC, 2002).
Susheela Singh et al., Adding it Up: The Costs and Benefits of Investing in Family Planning and Maternal and Newborn Health (New York: Guttmacher Institute/UNFPA, 2009).
ICF Macro, Demographic and Health Surveys, Mozambique, 2003; Malawi, 2004; and Mali, 2006 (Calverton, MD: ICF Macro).
National Population Commission and ICF Macro, Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey, 2008 (Abuja, Nigeria: NPC and ICF Macro, 2009).
Singh et al., Adding it Up.
Scott Moreland and Sandra Talbird, Achieving the Millennium Development Goals: The Contribution of Fulfilling the Unmet Need for Family Planning (Washington DC: The Futures Group/Policy Project, 2007).
Heidi Reynolds et al., "The Value of Contraception to Prevent Perinatal HIV Transmission," Sexually Transmitted Diseases 33 no. 6 (2006): 350-56.
Derived from: Heidi W. Reynolds, M.J. Steiner, and Willard Cates Jr., "Contraception's Proved Potential to Fight HIV," Sexually Transmitted Infections 81 (2005): 184.
Constella Futures, POLICY Project, and Health Policy Initiative, 2005-2007. For more information, see Rhonda Smith et al., Family Planning Saves Lives, 4th ed. (Washington, DC: Population Reference Bureau, 2009).
Davidson Gwatkin, Overcoming Global Health Inequalities—Where Next?, Population Reference Bureau Policy Seminar, Dec. 16, 2009.
Moreland and Talbird, Achieving the Millennium Development Goals.


text:
Kanawha teachers protest proposed dress code policy
The Charleston Gazette
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- West Virginia's teachers unions are protesting a dress code proposed by the Kanawha County school board that would regulate when teachers can wear blue jeans, and would ban shorts, T-shirts, flip-flops and some other clothing items.
The first draft of the policy -- unveiled in special session Thursday -- also requires hair and nails to be clean and neatly groomed, and beards and mustaches "to be neatly trimmed...
Cedar Lakes to become for-profit business center
By Staff and wire reports
Parkersburg News and Sentinel
Low-income students to benefit from SAT changes
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The College Board announced major changes to the SAT on Wednesday, including cutting back the test's possible points and changing its categories, revamping content to align more closely with current college courses and waiving college application fees for low-income students.
The SAT, which was last updated nearly a decade ago, will use a 1,600-point scale, instead of its existing 2,400-point scale, and will...
Teacher pay raise now at $1,000 again
By Hoppy Kercheval
WV MetroNews
The House Finance Committee Wednesday tried to straighten out a pay raise plan for school teachers and service workers that was botched in the House Education Committee two days earlier.
Finance Committee members switched the raise package back to a one-year $1,000 across the board increase for teachers, from a three-year $6,000 raise approved by the Education Committee.
The $6,000 raise plan surprised key lawmakers, the teacher...
Some W.Va. schools already 'Move to Improve'
By Jessica Lilly
West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The Senate recently passed the "Move to Improve Act" which could change the daily grind in state classrooms. The bill is in response to the Healthy Lifestyles Act, which was passed by the legislature in 2005 without a mechanism to assure implementation. Lawmakers say they're trying to address an epidemic of childhood obesity in West Virginia.
Children and teens spend more than half of their waking hours at school.
Kym Randolph, Director
WVEA Communications
1.800.642.8261 ext. 211


text:
Khan Sahib Fath Muhammad Khan, Rais of Maler
1566 - 1600 Khan Sahib Fath Muhammad Khan, Rais of Maler. b. at Maler, 1543, eldest son of Khan Muhammad Ishaq Khan [Khwaja Maudad], Rais of Maler, educ. privately. Succeeded on the death of his father, 1566. m. (first) a Rajput lady from Jhal (d.s.p.m.). m. (second) 1594, an Afghan lady from Rupar, regent for her elder son 1600-1624. He d. at Maler, 1600, having had issue, two sons:
1) Saif ul-Mulk, Nawab Muhammad Bayazid Khan Bahadur, Asadu'llah Jang, Nawab of Malerkotla (s/o the Afghan wife)
2) Khan Sahib Muhammad Bahawal Khan [Babbal Khan]. b. at Maler, 1595 (s/o the Afghan wife), educ. privately. He was k. by his cousin, Sultan Khan, at Kotla, 1653.


text:
FUTURE IS NOW —
Analysis confirms coordinated hack attack caused Ukrainian power outage
BlackEnergy was key ingredient used to cause power outage to at least 80k customers.
Dan Goodin - Jan 11, 2016 5:42 am UTC
The people who carried out last month's first known hacker-caused power outage used highly destructive malware to gain a foothold into multiple regional distribution power companies in Ukraine and delay restoration efforts once electricity had been shut off, a newly published analysis confirms.
First known hacker-caused power outage signals troubling escalation
The malware, known as BlackEnergy, allowed the attackers to gain a foothold on the power company systems, said the report, which was published by a member of the SANS industrial control systems team. The still-unknown attackers then used that access to open circuit breakers that cut power. After that, they likely used a wiper utility called KillDisk to thwart recovery efforts and then waged denial-of-service attacks to prevent power company personnel from receiving customer reports of outages. In Saturday's report, SANS ICS Director Michael J. Assante wrote:
The attackers demonstrated planning, coordination, and the ability to use malware and possible direct remote access to blind system dispatchers, cause undesirable state changes to the distribution electricity infrastructure, and attempt to delay the restoration by wiping SCADA servers after they caused the outage. This attack consisted of at least three components: the malware, a denial of service to the phone systems, and the missing piece of evidence of the final cause of the impact. Current evidence and analysis indicates that the missing component was direct interaction from the adversary and not the work of malware. Or in other words, the attack was enabled via malware but consisted of at least three distinct efforts.
The report stresses there's no evidence BlackEnergy or its recently developed KillDisk component was the direct cause of the outage, which so far has been shown to affect about 80,000 customers. The analysis also cautioned that evidence showing some past BlackEnergy infections relied on booby-trapped Microsoft Office documents to spread are no indication such a vector was used in the recent Ukrainian power grid attacks. Still, this weekend's report leaves little doubt the blackout was the result of a highly coordinated hacker attack that relied on BlackEnergy as a key ingredient.
"We assess currently that the malware allowed the attackers to gain a foothold at the targeted utilities, open up command and control, and facilitate the planning of an attack by providing access to the network and necessary information," Assante wrote. "The malware also appears to have been used to wipe files in an attempt to deny the use of the SCADA system for the purposes of restoration to amplify the effects of the attack and possibly to delay restoration."
Saturday's report from SANS ICS team was consistent with what security firms ESET and iSIGHT Partners reported last week.
theramenmanSmack-Fu Master, in training
So how close is the US power grid to the Ukrainian one, design wise?
Depending on the part of the US, quite a bit. I did some electronics work for quite a few major east coast utilities and basically a lot of them aren't even connected to the internet and are using half a century old phone lines for real time data monitoring. Everything else is pretty much done with manual commands sent by calling up the operators in the control room. The newer utilities and some of the older ones upgrading their infrastructure use "secured" systems made by Siemens and GE (and maybe ABB, dont recall) and mostly parter off with a big name telco, ie: Verizon, to transmit data and commands and whatnot through their fibers.
I'd assume Ukrainian systems are much much different and probably use older Russian/Soviet designs and would honestly probably be pretty trivial for anyone with inside knowledge of said systems chough*Russian Govt*cough to screw things up pretty badly, especially considering the proximity.
I think to an extent many American utilities are resistant to the whole connected grid concept and refuse to install systems for remote control and although that decision may be rooted in greed/unwillingness to spend money upgrading infrastructure, it does result in a bit of a safer grid (at least safer from cyber attacks) because, well, there's nothing to hack. At worst, you'll be able to read some real time data about how much power is being transmitted, not much else.
Dan Goodin Dan is the Security Editor at Ars Technica, which he joined in 2012 after working for The Register, the Associated Press, Bloomberg News, and other publications.
Email dan.goodin@arstechnica.com // Twitter @dangoodin001


text:
Revolt at Monroe County Correctional Facility ends peacefully
Brian Myszkowski
Pocono Record
A revolt among maximum custody inmates at Monroe County Correctional Facility ended peacefully with no one injured on Wednesday night.
Warden Garry A. Haidle issued a release Thursday morning detailing the attempted insurgency, which occurred at 8:10 p.m. Jan. 7 as 13 to 15 maximum custody inmates refused orders to lock into their cells.
What exactly sparked the event is uncertain as of Thursday morning.
"That's under investigation now at the DA's office, and my administration, we can't give any details out at this time until they finalize that," Haidle said.
As the inmates continued to disobey orders from the guards and began acting hostile toward the staff, supervisors utilized a pepper ball launcher to control the situation. The inmates continued to resist, and in order to ensure staff safety, guards and other workers exited to the secure sally port area of the unit where they maintained surveillance of the area.
The inmates proceeded to barricade the unit doors, and attempted to craft makeshift weapons from broken broom handles.
At that point, the Facility Corrections Emergency Response Team (CERT) was activated, and assistance was provided by the Monroe County Sheriff's Office, the Monroe County District Attorney's office, and the Stroud Area Regional Police Canine unit. Haidle responded to the facility with the deputy wardens.
According to the release from Haidle, the team in the secure sally port held a discussion with the inmates, and the situation was resolved with the inmates complying and locking into their cells.
CERT and the assisting agencies followed up by entering the unit and conducting proper operational procedures. No injuries were reported, and no weapons – outside of the broken broom handles in the common area – were found.
Despite the calm ending, the entire facility will remain on lockdown pending further investigation.
The Prison Board was made aware of the events as the situation took place, and the Jail Administration and the Monroe County District Attorney's office will continue the investigation, with "proper action(s)" forthcoming.
"We're going to review the rest of the activities of the unit, the behavior of the unit – which everything seems to be calm – and then we'll probably return to normal operation – our normal operations during this pandemic. And we'll keep the unit that was involved in lockdown, with sanctions put in place … until the near future," Haidle said, noting that the unit lockdown will likely continue for the next five to seven days, though it could extend further depending upon the prisoners.
Haidle thanked everyone involved in controlling the incident, stating that "it was a team effort that made this disturbance end peacefully."
"This situation was handled with the utmost professionalism displayed by the Correctional Staff, Supervisors, CERT, Sheriff's Deputies, MCDA Detective and SARPD canine officer," Haidle said in a written statement. "I believe the proper protocols that were followed and initiated by all staff involved resulted in this incident ending in a controlled and peaceful outcome."
This is a developing story, and will be updated as new information becomes available.


text:
import numpy
import six

from . import classes
import os

def make_tables():
	print("Creating tables")
	classes.Base.metadata.create_all(classes.db_engine)

def recreate_tables():
	try:
		os.remove(classes.db_location)
	except WindowsError:
		print("---------------WARNING-------------------:\n Database not recreated!")
		pass  # likely that the file doesn't exist. Try to create tables now
	make_tables()

def shorten_float(original, places=8):
	"""
	Used in order to make floats a consistent length for unit tests - it's OK to shorten them because with 8
	decimal places we should be able to test if the code is functioning correctly. Beyond that the small specifics probably
	aren't super important
	:param original: The original number
	:param places: The number of decimal places to shorten it to (obeys rounding rules)
	:return: new number with specified number of decimal places
	"""

	if original is None or numpy.isnan(original):
		return None

	format_str = "{0:." + six.text_type(places) + "f}"
	return float(format_str.format(original))


Size matters. Which is one of the main reasons the Internet of Things (IoT) is, and is likely to remain, a very dangerous place.
"The embedded-system space makes the attack surface of the non-embedded space trivial by comparison," said Dr. Daniel Geer, keynote speaker at the Security of Things Forum in Cambridge, Mass. on Wednesday.
He said he is "entirely sympathetic" to the reason for that monoculture. "Making everything almost entirely alike is and remains our only hope for being able to centrally manage it all in consistent manner," he said.
But, he said it is a clear risk-management decision, with major central control implications: "Would you rather have the inordinately unlikely event of an inordinately severe impact, or the day-to-day burden of everything being different all the time?" he asked, noting that the choice comes with a trade-off. "When we opt for monoculture by choice, we had better opt for tight central control," he said.
A third major problem, Geer said, is that embedded devices tend to be long-lived, but also lack a remote management interface. "A fundamental question," he said, "is whether immortal embedded systems are angelic or demonic.
That system, he said, is more fragile than most people think. "As society becomes more technologic, even the mundane comes to depend on distant digital perfection," he said, using the nation's food supply as an example.
"Our food pipeline contains less than a week's supply, and that pipeline depends on digital services for everything from GPS-driven tractors to drone-surveilling irrigators to robot vegetable-sorting machinery to coast-to-coast logistics to RFID-tagged livestock," he said.
"Is all the technological dependency and the data that fuels it making us more resilient or more fragile?" he asked.
Those that do have such an interface, "must be sufficiently self protecting that they are capable of refusing a command.
The only way for the user to "fix" the problem is to, "unplug all the devices, throw them in the dumpster and install all new ones," he said.
And that, of course, won't fix it either, because the new ones are, "likely to have the same vulnerability spectrum that made this possible in the first place. So this is not quick trip to big box store, but rather flushing the entire design space and pipeline inventory of every maker of home routers," he said.
Geer said one way to deal with the problem is "a very important work now appearing under the title of 'Language Theoretic Security,' or LangSec," which posits that for software to be trustworthy, it needs to be able to recognize valid inputs "as a formal language," and reject the rest.
And the bottom line, he said, is that the monoculture, as convenient and relatively low-maintenance as it is, may not be sustainable. "Is it time to say that software per device has to be as unique as possible?" he said.
And the only answer, he said, is to reduce the interdependence of billions of devices. "It cannot and will not be damped by any laying on of supply chain regulations," he said.


An audio recording from Yossi Alpher, former director, Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University.
On March 11, 2015 at MEI, Yossi Alpher presented his newest book Periphery: Israel's Search for Middle East Allies on the history of a little known Israeli foreign policy doctrine and gave his thoughts on Netanyahu's speech before Congress.
A Nightmare Group in Syria Could Target the U.S.
Read more about A Nightmare Group in Syria Could Target the U.S.
The chamber of horrors of the Syrian civil war has spawned a terrorist group so extreme that it has been rejected even by al-Qaeda — and this toxic group is now establishing a safe haven in the city of Raqqah in northern Syria that could soon be used to attack foreign targets.
There are at least three myths that have grown up around the terrible events on Sept. 11 of last autumn.
"The Obama administration is working with its allies to frame a strategy to combat what might be called 'al-Qaeda 2.0' — an evolving, morphing terrorist threat that lacks a coherent center but is causing growing trouble in chaotic, poorly governed areas such as Libya, Yemen, Syria and Mali," writes David Ignatius.
"But this one-sided approach — always opting to kill instead of capture — is a major weakness of America's current approach to counterterrorism. It deprives us of significant amounts of intelligence about what Al Qaeda is thinking and planning, and information that could help find other senior terrorists. After all, it was intelligence from a detainee that helped American forces track down Bin Laden."
As soon as Paul Doty launched what is now Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in 1974, he began planning a scholarly journal on international security. He shrugged off colleagues' concerns that there would be little market for such a journal.Thirty-six years after the first issue appeared in the summer of 1976, the Belfer Center's quarterly International Security consistently ranks No. 1 or No. 2 out of over 70 international affairs journals surveyed by Thomson Reuters each year.


text:
Q: Use of flink/kubernetes to replace etl jobs (on ssis) : one flink cluster per jobtype or create and destroy flink cluster per job execution I am trying to see feasibility of replacing the hundreds of feed file ETL jobs created using SSIS packages with apache flink jobs (and  kuberentes as underlying infra). One recommendation i saw in some article is "to use one flink cluster for one type of job".
Since i have handful jobs per day  of each job type, then this means the best way for me is to create flinkcluster on the fly when executing the job and destroy it to free up resources, is that correct way to do it? I am setting up flinkcluster without job manager.
Any suggestions on best practices for using flink for batch ETL activities.
May be most important question: is flink correct solution for the problem statement or should i go more into Talend and other classic ETL tools?

A: Flink is well suited for running ETL workloads. The two deployment modes give you the following properties:
Session cluster
A session cluster allows to run several jobs on the same set of resources (TaskExecutors). You start the session cluster before submitting any resources.
Benefits:

*

*No additional cluster deployment time needed when submitting jobs => Faster job submissions

*Better resource utilization if individual jobs don't need many resources

*One place to control all your jobs

Downsides:

*

*No strict isolation between jobs

*

*Failures caused by job A can cause job B to restart

*Job A runs in the same JVM as job B and hence can influence it if statics are used

Per-job cluster
A per-job cluster starts a dedicated Flink cluster for every job.
Benefits

*

*Strict job isolation

*More predictable resource consumption since only a single job runs on the TaskExecutors
Downsides

*

*Cluster deployment time is part of the job submission time, resulting in longer submission times

*Not a single cluster which controls all your jobs

Recommendation
So if you have many short lived ETL jobs which require a fast response, then I would suggest to use a session cluster because you can avoid the cluster start up time for every job. If the ETL jobs have a long runtime, then this additional time will carry no weight and I would choose the per-job mode which gives you more predictable runtime behaviour because of strict job isolation.


Stash is no longer a free service.
That's right: After I just got done posting about how Stash is pretty rough around the edges and needs some work (though shows a lot of promise), they sent an email to their existing users giving them 10 days to decide to upgrade to a paid plan.
The rate is reasonable and simple--$3/month, no options to choose from. Additionally, existing testers, if they subscribe within their 10 day limit, will become premium users that get a few bonus features, and a discounted rate of $2/month.
The real question boils down to, for $2 or $3 per month, is Stash still a viable alternative to the excellent (and free) Instapaper?
This does change my recommendation slightly. The barrier to entry for using Stash is now larger, and Instapaper has one more serious point in its favor. So if you're perfectly happy with Instapaper and don't particularly need any of the features Stash is offering, you've got one more question to ask yourself: Is it worth spending money to try out another service that's known to have some quirks and a poor Android experience?
I, for one, have decided to upgrade and fork over $2/month. For a total of $24/year, I'm already seeing some benefits to my workflow in using Stash, mainly from the incredibly useful browser extension that lets me categorize and set tags and reminders right away when I add something to my stash.
Your mileage may vary. I will likely continue to share my experiences with Stash as the service evolves, and will report back if I decide to switch to another service as well.


Admissions Directors from Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and Columbia School of Nursing will present information about various options for a nursing career and the educational options to help students get there. Pizza will be provided. RSVP to premedicine@Davidson.edu by Friday, September 21.


Francois is a young man of eighteen who spent his life running with the local bandits, robbing trade caravans and starting fights everywhere. Unfortunately, his cockiness eventually got the better of him and he lost a fight he instigated with several members of the town guard, after they shoved him around for no apparent reason other than a cheap laugh.
He received a lashing and a long scar running down his face, forever blemishing his appearance. He swore vengeance against the corrupt guards of the town of Relenign, and while he took up a nobler cause than robbing people on the road, he still enjoys fighting people who don't deserve to be attacked and has no problem with killing.


Our grosgrain ribbon options come in a variety of colors and widths, including polka dot patterns. Nothing says festivity and fun like polka dots! This cute pattern makes an excellent choice for whimsical craft projects, cheerful gift wrapping and gift accessories, and fun activities for children. Prices Shown are Per Spool Price, Not per Yard. Please note: 3/8 Inch Polka Dots only have 1 Row of Bigger Dots because if it's size. 7/8 has 2 rows of bigger dots.


text:
RARE..Scalextric Morris Mini Minor Limited Edition... NUMBER 27/4000
Celebrating 50 Years of the MINI The MINI was officially launched on August 26, 1959, and became an instant megastar of the 20th century's brightest decade and a true icon of motoring history. Introduced to the world as the darling of the Swinging Sixties, the MINI evolved into a racing champion, dominating the rally scene of the late 1960s, and has now set the standard in 21st century cool urban transport; the diminutive MINI really has made it BIG. The MINI has changed in many ways over the past 50 years but the obsession with the car continues. Scalextric pays homage to the first ever MINI to roll off the production line 50 years ago; straight into the motoring hall of fame.


text:
/*globals describe, beforeEach, it, expect*/
(function( _, Backbone, undefined ) {
  'use strict';

  describe( 'Flashback - Collections.', function() {

    var Flashback = Backbone.Flashback,
        Memento   = Flashback.Memento;

    var Model = Backbone.Model.extend({
      defaults: function() {
        return {
          id: _.uniqueId(),
          foo: null
        };
      }
    });

    var Collection = Backbone.Collection.extend({
      model: Model
    });

    var collection, manager;

    var model0JSON, model1JSON,
        id0, id1, id2, id3;

    var originalOrderIds;

    beforeEach(function() {
      manager = new Flashback();

      collection = new Collection([
        { foo: 10, bar: 50 },
        { foo: 20, bar: 60 },
        { foo: 30, bar: 70 },
        { foo: 40, bar: 80 }
      ]);

      model0JSON = collection.at(0).toJSON();
      model1JSON = collection.at(1).toJSON();

      id0 = collection.at(0).id;
      id1 = collection.at(1).id;
      id2 = collection.at(2).id;
      id3 = collection.at(3).id;

      originalOrderIds = [ id0, id1, id2, id3 ];
    });

    it( 'removing an element and restoring a collection does not change element order', function() {
      var memento;

      expect( collection.at(0).id ).toBe( id0 );
      expect( collection.get( id0 ) ).toBe( collection.at(0) );
      expect( collection.pluck( 'id' ) ).toEqual( originalOrderIds );

      // Remove from the collection start.
      memento = new Memento( collection );
      collection.remove( collection.at(0) );

      memento.restore();
      expect( collection.pluck( 'id' ) ).toEqual( originalOrderIds );
      expect( collection.get( id0 ).toJSON() ).toEqual( model0JSON );

      // Remove from the collection middle.
      memento = new Memento( collection );
      collection.remove( collection.at(1) );

      memento.restore();
      expect( collection.pluck( 'id' ) ).toEqual( originalOrderIds );
      expect( collection.get( id1 ).toJSON() ).toEqual( model1JSON );
    });

    it( 'adding an element and restoring a collection does not change element order', function() {
      // Add to collection middle.
      var memento = new Memento( collection );
      var model = new Model({
        foo: 50,
        bar: 90
      });

      var newOrderIds = originalOrderIds.slice();
      newOrderIds.splice( 1, 0, model.id );

      collection.add( model, { at: 1 } );
      expect( collection.pluck( 'id' ) ).toEqual( newOrderIds );

      memento.restore();
      expect( collection.pluck( 'id' ) ).toEqual( originalOrderIds );
    });

    it( 'restoring a collection from a memento does not change ids', function() {
      var test = new Model({ id: 'test' });
      expect( test.id ).toBe( 'test' );

      var id0 = collection.at(0).id;
      expect( collection.get( id0 ) ).toBe(collection.at(0));

      collection.set( collection.toJSON() );
      expect( collection.at(0).id ).toBe( id0 );

      var memento = new Memento( collection );
      expect( memento.state[0].id ).toBe( id0 );
      memento.restore();
      expect( collection.at(0).id ).toBe( id0 );
    });

    it( 'saves the state of a collection', function() {
      expect( collection.length ).toBe(4);

      manager.save( collection );
      collection.remove( collection.at(0) );
      manager.save( collection );

      expect( collection.length ).toBe(3);
      // It no longer exists in the array.
      expect( typeof collection.get( id0 ) ).toBe( 'undefined' );

      manager.undo();
      // Check if ids are the same.
      expect( collection.get( id0 ).id ).toBe( id0 );
      expect( collection.get( id1 ).id ).toBe( id1 );
      // Check if values are the same.
      expect( collection.get( id0 ).get( 'foo' ) ).toBe( 10 );
      expect( collection.get( id1 ).get( 'foo' ) ).toBe( 20 );
      expect( collection.length ).toBe(4);

      manager.redo();
      expect( collection.at(0).id ).toBe( id1 );
      expect( collection.at(1).id ).toBe( id2 );
      expect( collection.at(0).get( 'foo' ) ).toBe( 20 );
      expect( collection.at(1).get( 'foo' ) ).toBe( 30 );
      expect( collection.length ).toBe(3);
    });

    it( 'mementos maintain references to models after collection addition/removal', function() {
      manager.save( collection.at(0) );
      collection.at(0).set( 'foo', 200 );
      manager.save( collection.at(0) );

      manager.save( collection );
      collection.remove( collection.at(0) );
      manager.save( collection );

      manager.undo();
      expect( collection.length ).toBe(4);

      manager.undo();
      expect( collection.get( id0 ).get( 'foo' ) ).toBe( 200 );
      manager.undo();
      expect( collection.get( id0 ).get( 'foo' ) ).toBe( 10 );
    });

    it( 'batch-saving of multiple models at once', function() {
      expect( collection.at(0).get( 'foo' ) ).toBe( 10 );
      // Attempt to save an array.
      manager.save( collection.models );

      collection.at(0).set( 'foo', 200 );
      collection.at(1).set( 'foo', 210 );
      manager.save( collection.models );

      manager.undo();
      expect( collection.at(0).get( 'foo' ) ).toBe( 10 );
      expect( collection.at(1).get( 'foo' ) ).toBe( 20 );

      manager.redo();
      expect( collection.at(0).get( 'foo' ) ).toBe( 200 );
      expect( collection.at(1).get( 'foo' ) ).toBe( 210 );
    });

    it( 'batch-saving of multiple collections at once', function() {
      var tempCollection = new Collection([
        { foo: 217, bar: 300 },
        { foo: 'b', bar: 'c' }
      ]);

      var rect1 = tempCollection.at(1);

      manager.begin( rect1 );
      rect1.set( 'foo', 123 );
      manager.end();

      manager.begin( [ collection, tempCollection ] );
      collection.remove( collection.at(0) );
      tempCollection.remove( rect1 );
      manager.end();

      expect( collection.length ).toBe(3);
      expect( tempCollection.length ).toBe(1);
      expect( tempCollection.at(0).get( 'foo' ) ).toBe( 217 );

      manager.undo();
      expect( collection.length ).toBe(4);
      expect( tempCollection.length ).toBe(2);
      expect( tempCollection.at(1).get( 'foo' ) ).toBe( 123 );

      manager.undo();
      expect( collection.length ).toBe(4);
      expect( tempCollection.length ).toBe(2);
      expect( tempCollection.at(1).get( 'foo' ) ).toBe( 'b' );

      manager.redo();
      expect( collection.length ).toBe(4);
      expect( tempCollection.length ).toBe(2);
      expect( tempCollection.at(1).get( 'foo' ) ).toBe( 123 );

      manager.redo();
      expect( collection.length ).toBe(3);
      expect( tempCollection.length ).toBe(1);
      expect( tempCollection.at(0).get( 'foo' ) ).toBe( 217 );
    });
  });
}) ( _, Backbone );


We are grateful to many individuals, churches and schools for their donations of non-perishable food items on a regular basis in response to our Tin-a-Week appeal.
Our stock of food is used to help those in the community (mainly families with young children) who are struggling to make ends meet. Most households who we support are referred to us by Social Services and other agencies. Sometimes we offer short term support to help them through an unexpected crisis. Some clients are given long term support because of the nature of the issues they are dealing with. Our aim always is to give a 'hand up' rather than just a 'hand out'.
The Salvation Army in Addlestone has been running 'Tin-a-Week' project for about 15 years. During 2017 we were able to provide over 1,000 food parcels.
Penny Potter, our Community Support Worker, coordinates the Tin-a-Week project. She always welcomes donations of food and household essentials, and she is also keen to enroll more volunteers to help with this project.