So that's it! We are going official! We said we were taking a bit of time out to reflect and that's what we have done. And the result of that reflection is….
At noon on 14th Jan 2012, Letham Nights became a 'constituted body'. Phwoarr!
This means that we are now an official voluntary organisation with a chair, treasurer and secretary and a bank account. This is very exciting. We will now be able, if we can get our act together, to organise online ticketing. We will be able to apply for grants more easily. Most of all, we will be able to have committee meetings (ORDER! ORDER!) with minutes, and once a year (obviously) an Annual General Meeting! Woohoo!
More importantly, look out for details of the next Letham Nights which will be on 3rd March with the highly talented and entertaining….
We're back! Get yer bookings in!
LN#16 – 19th Feb – Buckley's Chance and the Howie Fyffe Experience for a night of country rhythm and blues. Kicking off with a twang….!!
LN #17 – 2nd April – The Return of the Bevvy Sisters – booking now – first refusal to those who pre-booked for 18th Dec.
We have still not been quite brave enough to get the online ticketing sorted so in the meantime booking arrangements are the same as usual: let us know by email/ phone/ txt. We will put you on our list and pay on the door on the night. Contact details below.
Don't forget to put these dates in your diary too….
Letham Nights now supports small enterprises across the globe through Kiva, an amazing online microcredit organisation. We aim to support small businesses in the entertainment sector – earning a living by making, selling, performing music.
Join the Letham Nights On Loan group and contribute to the success of our selected entrepreneurs.


text:
Euripus ankaeus är en fjärilsart som beskrevs av Semper 1887. Euripus ankaeus ingår i släktet Euripus och familjen praktfjärilar. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Praktfjärilar
ankaeus

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


I am sitting at my desk attempting to type, trying not to move my head around too much. Any motion sets the room spinning. Normally by day #5, I'm a lot better but this time that's not the case. It's times like this that my failing eyesight really gets me down. It's depressing to live in a fuzzy world but add dizziness to that and I feel helpless.
Today (June 6th) is the anniversary of our first date, thirty-four years ago. I can remember it like it was yesterday. When Richard walked through the door, my heart told me it would be forever!
I had no idea what I was going to write when I sat down at my desk a few minutes ago.
I always love happy endings!


In this lesson, you will learn about these four cloud deployment models.
The public cloud is the cloud that most people are familiar with. The cloud infrastructure is available to everyone over the Internet. The cloud service provider (CSP) owns, manages, and operates the public cloud. The infrastructure is at the premises of the CSP.
You pay for the services, storage, or compute resources you use. Customers that use the public cloud use shared resources. One advantage of the public cloud is that you don't need to buy and maintain the physical infrastructure. Your connection to the public cloud could be over the Internet or a private WAN connection.
The private cloud is a cloud model where a single organization uses the cloud.The organization or a third party could own, manage, and operate the cloud. A combination of the two is also possible. This cloud can exist on-premises or off-premises.
Organizations that want more control over their cloud or that are bound by the law often use private clouds.
One difference between traditional virtualization and cloud computing is how we deliver services. Traditional virtualization often uses manual intervention to deliver a service. Cloud computing uses orchestration and automation to deliver a service without manual intervention.
Public cloud providers can also emulate a private cloud within a public cloud. We call this a virtual private cloud. Amazon AWS and Google Cloud call this Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). Microsoft Azure calls this Virtual Network (Vnet). VPC and Vnet isolate resources with a virtual network unreachable from other customers.
The community cloud is a private cloud for organizations that share common interests. For example mission objectives, compliance policies, and security. This cloud can exist on-premises or off-premises.


text:
Governor Haley Barbour
CLeVan@bgrdc.com
More than 25 years in Republican leadership at the White House and at the federal and state levels, matched by nearly three decades in Washington lobbying. Maintains strong relationships with Republican leadership and governors from both parties.
Two-term Governor of Mississippi, Chairman of Republican Governors Association, Reagan White House Political Director, Chairman of Republican National Committee.
Haley Barbour, Founding Partner of BGR Group, returned to BGR in January 2012 after serving two consecutive terms as Governor of Mississippi, including two years as the Chairman of the Republican Governors Association. At BGR, he heads advocacy coalitions, lobbies on behalf of his clients and remains a major force in Republican party politics and elections.
Gov. Barbour began his political career in 1968, dropping out of college to work on Richard Nixon's presidential campaign; in 1976, after supporting Ronald Reagan for the GOP nomination, he ran Gerald Ford's fall campaign in the Southeast. In 1982, he ran for U.S. Senate in Mississippi but lost to incumbent John C. Stennis. Gov. Barbour later served as Political Director of the Reagan White House. In 1987, he founded the government affairs firm that later became BGR Group.
From 1993 to 1997, Gov. Barbour served as Chairman of the Republican National Committee, managing the 1994 Republican surge that led to GOP control of both Houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years.
In 2003, he was elected Governor of Mississippi, assuming office in January 2004. During his tenure, Gov. Barbour led his state to adopt what the Wall Street Journal called the most comprehensive tort reform in the country. His team generated numerous large economic projects in the energy, aerospace and automotive fields, including Toyota's selection of Blue Springs, Miss., for the company's newest U.S. auto assembly plant, which was the most sought-after economic development project in the United States that year. In Gov. Barbour's eight years as governor, per capita income in the state increased by 34 percent.
After Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, Gov. Barbour received national recognition from the bipartisan American Legislative Exchange Council for his swift response to the worst natural disaster in American history. In 2015, he published America's Great Storm: Leading Through Hurricane Katrina, a memoir of the year after the storm from the Governor's perspective and lessons in leadership from the mega-disaster. For his efforts to rebuild the Mississippi Gulf Coast, he received the Thomas Jefferson Freedom Award. Other awards during his tenure as Governor included being named Governor of the Year by Governing Magazine, receiving the Gulf Guardian Award by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in recognition of his work to rebuild Gulf Coast ecosystems, and receiving the Adam Smith Award from BIPAC to honor his pursuit of the principles of free enterprise.
The Hill newspaper has listed Gov. Barbour as one of Washington's top lobbyists annually since his return to the firm in 2012. He also received the prestigious Bryce Harlow Foundation Business-Government Relations Award in 2018. In 2019, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos appointed Gov. Barbour to serve as Chairman of the National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also called The Nation's Report Card.
Gov. Barbour received his JD in 1973 from the University of Mississippi, which now has two centers named after him: the Haley Barbour Center for Manufacturing Excellence, which provides real world experience in manufacturing to students majoring in engineering, business and accounting, and the Haley Barbour Center for the Study of American Politics, which offers classes and symposia on campaigns and elections as well as an intersession for students each January in Washington.
A native of Yazoo City, Miss., Governor Barbour still resides in his hometown with his wife, Marsha. They have two sons and seven grandchildren.
2020 Campaign Insights by BGR's Founding Partner Gov. Haley Barbour
Former Mississippi Governor, BGR Group Founding Partner Haley Barbour on the passing of Rep. John Lewis
Republican Governors Paved the Road to Recovery Before the Coronavirus Crisis Began
Lessons From Katrina and Other Mega-Disasters
HottyToddy.com – "UM Winter Session Students Get Close-Up Look at Government in D.C."
'Learn Their Issues' to Engage Minorities, Former Mississippi Governor Advises
The Hill – "Haley Barbour, Ed Rogers, Lanny Griffith and Loren Monroe are Top Lobbyists of 2018"

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The New Brunswick Heart Centre is launching a new workplace wellness initiative. The competition runs from January 2009 until June 2009 and has been dubbed the "2009 New Brunswick Heart Centre Health Improvement Challenge". This program has been developed by a team of cardiologists, including Dr. Greg Searles, Dr. Rob Stevenson, and Dr. Sohrab Lutchmedial, with support provided by Trudy Arbo, Sue Morris, Cleo Cyr and Francine Bordage (pharmacy, nursing and administration).
This program is designed as a competition, enrolling five teams of participants in a friendly challenge to improve cardiovascular health. Teams will be assessed at baseline for factors such as weight, waist circumference, lipid profiles and blood pressure, and over the course of 6 months will try to improve upon these starting levels with a combination of lifestyle interventions. In June, results will be tabulated, with prizes awarded for both individual and team accomplishments. Following this, ongoing maintenance efforts will be encouraged to maintain the benefits long-term.
The program embraces the concept of leading by example: setting a good example for our colleagues and patients by encouraging the adoption and maintenance of an active and healthy lifestyle. We will not necessarily enforce any one diet or exercise program. Instead, each team will have a physician leader who will work with his team to individualize a program for enacting healthy changes. General principles of healthy diet and exercise will be taught through a series of seminars co-ordinated by the cardiac rehabilitation program.
The Cardiac Health and Wellness program has organized a series of TGIF lectures regarding various topics related to overall health and wellness to be run throughout the duration of the competition.


You can send your marines to accomplish something if they have no idea how to do it. Some marines are better at doing one thing than another, and other marines are better at other things. There are many things from this book that can be learned when leading your fellow marines. In chapter eleven "Even Vivid Vic" meaning; I came, I saw, and I conquered, they decide to make Ender Wigging start battling one team a day sometimes two or three in a day. He hasn't even been in command of his team for a month yet and they are pushing him to test his limits and how he handles himself and his team.
No matter what they put up against him though he was able to think quickly on his feet, he handled his team very well and was able to defeat everything they threw at him. What I learned from this is that things are not always fair or equal, you have to be ready for the worst. You wont know If the next battle you fight, will be evenly matched or outnumbered thirty to one. That Just means you will have to think smarter and quicker than your enemy and be able to conquer anything that they throw at you.
Also In the same chapter Ender Wigging decided to surprise his teachers, mentors, ND competition by instead of making a formation like they have been trained to do, he decided to split his team up into individual platoons and have them carry out different tasks at the same time. During his first battle the opposing force did not expect Wigging's team to be split up Like they were and was quickly conquered. What Wigging did surprised everyone and he defeated many teams by having each platoon accomplish multiple tasks at once.
This taught me two different things, first it taught me to do the unexpected and don be readable. If you keep doing the same thing ever again your opponent will be able to learn your tactics and he will be able to read what you're going to do and be able to counter It. Wars have been around since the beginning of time, as long as there have been people wanting something other people have and/or trying to have more power, etc. Wars have been around. Wars have changed quite a bit since the beginning of time though.
For example back In colonial times all the military members would create big formation and march down to the front lines and all stand in a line and shoot and the enemy who is doing the same thing. In the present day now instead of formations we are split up to handle effective when attacking an opposing force. Also by separating your forces it makes it harder for the enemy to get a kill on us because instead of having a big group to fire at there are now smaller groups and it is harder take them down. The second thing that it taught me was that as I mentioned in the previous paragraph it is more effective and tactful.
By separating your force into smaller groups and sending them to accomplish multiple tasks at once you can get multiple tasks done at the same time so you can move on and push forward to defeating your enemy. For example if you are trying to infiltrate a building with enemy personnel inside you can split your formation into three groups and have group maneuver round to the back side and cover all possible escape and the other group goes around to disable power and communications while the main group awaits at the front entrance for the order to infiltrate the building.
If you really wanted to get tactful, you could have more groups sent to accomplish different tasks like a group of snipers, a group to rescue hostages if any, a silent group to drop in from the roof and tautly take out enemy personnel while the main force has them distracted. One of the things this book has really helped me to understand and learn more about was being a good leader and training your team.
It takes a lot to be a leader, smart, strong both physically and mentally, knowing your marines, knowing what you are capable of, how to out think your enemy, thinking outside of the box, etc. Being a leader also means you have to know your marines, earn their respect their loyalty, create a family or brotherhood, and understand them and know how to talk to them, only then will you have a team that will follow you through any condition and situation no matter what the odds because they trust you to lead them through anything and everything and not break down.
You have to know your marines and look out for their welfare, always be there for them. In the book one of Ender Wiggins fellow comrades named Bean goes to him after training and talks to him in private about how the team is getting along and how to improve himself and become a platoon leader. Ender helped him and gave him tips and advice on what he could do to improve himself and become a platoon leader. You must be able to talk to your marines and understand them so that you can help them and improve them.
Also when training your marines you have to know what the strengths and weaknesses are of each member of your team so that you can deploy them in accordance with their capabilities. You should be able to understand each other like hand signals, certain gestures, etc. So that you can effectively carry out the plan effectively and efficiently without any problems or confusion. Enders Game is a very good book to read and I would recommend this book to anyone, it is a good and easy read.
I learned a few things from it, like how to not be readable in combat because it could get you into a bad situation or even killed. I also learned more about how to lead your fellow marines in combat. You also have to be able to think quickly and ma sound and timely decisions and be ready for any situation and think on your feet. In the book Ender was pretty much a genius when thinking tactically and when he had to accomplish a mission, he was able to adapt to any situation and overcome it effectively. All in all anybody that reads this book will learn something from it and it is also very interesting to read.


text:
Updating Magic Universe
Debris traces the solar magnetic field
What started as a bonanza for comet spotters becomes a new tool for exploring levels in the Sun's atmosphere that have been hard to see up to now. The SOHO spacecraft (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) has identified more than 1400 small "sungrazing" comets that fly close to the Sun and evaporate. In July last year, the comet observers using SOHO's Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) team alerted colleagues operating the newer SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory) to a larger-than-usual sungrazer heading for its doom.
As he reports in the current issue of Science magazine, Karel Schrijver from the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center in California tracked Comet 2011 N3 SOHO by extreme ultraviolet light with his Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on SDO, which observes highly ionized atoms. What he learned about the comet and about the Sun I'll tell below as a concise update for Magic Universe. Meanwhile the word is that SDO also observed Comet Lovejoy last month, when it survived a close encounter with the Sun, passing behind it and reappearing on the other side.
Here are a few relevant paragraphs from my story about Comets and Asteroids in Magic Universe.
The big comet count came from another instrument on SOHO, called LASCO, developed under US leadership. Masking the direct rays of the Sun, it kept a constant watch on a huge volume of space around it, looking out primarily for solar eruptions. But it also saw comets when they crossed the Earth-Sun line, or flew very close to the Sun.
A charming feature of the SOHO comet watch was that amateur astronomers all around the world could discover new comets, not by shivering all night in their gardens but by checking the latest images from LASCO. These were freely available on the Internet. And there were hundreds to be found, most of them small 'sungrazing' comets, all coming from the same direction. They perished in encounters with the solar atmosphere, but they were related to larger objects on similar orbits that did survive, including the Great September Comet (1882) and Comet Ikeya-Seki (1965).
'SOHO is seeing fragments from the gradual break-up of a great comet, perhaps the one that the Greek astronomer Ephorus saw in 372 BC,' explained Brian Marsden of the Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 'Ephorus reported that the comet split in two. This fits with my calculation that two comets on similar orbits revisited the Sun around AD 1100. They split again and again, producing the sungrazer family, all still coming from the same direction.'
The progenitor of the sungrazers must have been enormous, perhaps 100 kilometres in diameter or a thousand times more massive than Halley's Comet. Not an object you'd want the Earth to tangle with. Yet its most numerous offspring, the SOHO-LASCO comets, are estimated to be typically only about 10 metres in diameter.
Update January 2012
In July 2011 a larger than usual sungrazer spotted by SOHO was tracked across the face of the Sun by a newer spacecraft, the Solar Dynamics Observatory, SDO. Named as Comet 2011 N3 SOHO, it evaporated to the point of invisibility after 20 minutes, but not before the event had transformed the game from comet-spotting fun to highly productive cometary and solar physics.
Led by Karel Schrijver from the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center in California, the SDO team was able to gauge the size of the comet. Initially it was up to 50 metres wide. This opened the way to investigating the sungrazers in much more detail. It should become possible to learn more about the composition of these comets, according to how they boil and rupture in the intense heat.
As for solar physics, the miniature tail of the dying comet lit up magnetic field lines at altitudes high in the solar atmosphere that otherwise are almost impossible to detect. Seeing the lines traced by sungrazers at different heights above the Sun will make it possible to trace more accurately the links between the magnetism near the visible surface and the vast field that reaches out into space and influences the Earth.
Karel Schrijver et al., Science 20 January 2012, vol. 335, pp. 324-328 DOI: 10.1126/science.1211688
NB: Movies are available at http://www.sciencemag.org/content/335/6066/324/suppl/
3 Comments	| 1a) Magic Universe, 1c) Comets	| Tagged: amateur astronomers, Atmospheric Imaging Assembly, Brian Marsden, Comet 2011 N3 SOHO, Comet Ikeya-Seki, Comet Lovejoy, comets, Ephorus, Great September Comet (1882), Karel Schrijver, LASCO, Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center, Magic Universe, Science magazine, SDO, SOHO spacecraft, solar magnetic field, sungrazing comets	| Permalink
Target comet spotted
Updating Comets
Rosetta spies Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko
The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft, launched in 2004, has just gone into hibernation until 2014, as it continues to cruise towards its far-flung rendezvous with a comet. Once there it will drop a lander on the nucleus and then accompany the comet as it orbits towards the Sun. Before Rosetta went to sleep, its camera OSIRIS was able to pick out its target, Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko,160 million kilometres away among the background stars. This is the picture released today from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS).
Caption: Seen in the second enlargement from the crowded starfield of the Scorpius constellation, the comet became visible as a single point of light to the 10-cm OSIRIS telescope on Rosetta, thanks to exposures totalling 13 hours. Credits: ESA 2011 MPS for OSIRIS-Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA.
"We had not expected to be able to create first images from so far away," says the lead investigator for OSIRIS, Holger Sierks of MPS.
The press release from MPS is here http://www.mps.mpg.de/en/aktuelles/pressenotizen/pressenotiz_20110608.html
And from ESA here http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEM38RJ4LOG_index_0.html
By the way, next week (15 June) I'll be taking part in an ESA TV programme about Rosetta and its predecessor Giotto, at ESOC, ESA's mission control in Darmstadt.
Added 12 June: The event will start in the afternoon at 16:30 CEST. (15:30 BST) and will be webstreamed live at www.esa.int
Leave a Comment »	| 1c) Comets	| Tagged: Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, comets, ESA, ESOC, European Space Agency, Giotto, Holger Sierks, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, MPS, OSIRIS telescope, Rosetta	| Permalink
Kennelful of Pluto puppies
Pick of the Pics and Updating Magic Universe
A kennelful of Pluto puppies
Three successive images from the Hubble Space Telescope show two remote objects in the Solar System inching across the sky in front of a distant galaxy (bottom left of each image). The near-vertical streaks are due to the objects moving while Hubble was watching. They are small "trans-Neptunian" objects – comets or asteroids – orbiting the Sun at about 43 times farther out than the Earth. They appear to be companions, at about half the separation of the Earth and Moon. Credits: a negative version of part of Fig. 3 in Fuentes et al., Astrophysical Journal (see references); imagery from HST/ACS/WFC
Soon to be published is the discovery of 14 new members of the Solar System in the so-called Kuiper Belt beyond the most distant "real" planet, Neptune. They are 40-100 km leftover scraps from the building of the Sun's family of planets. To find them, a team from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Northern Arizona University, led by Carlos Fuentes, trawled through existing images from the Hubble Space Telescope.
As Halley's Comet and 15 other regular visitors came from the trans-Neptunian Kuiper Belt, I suppose I should be updating my Comets book, but although it mentions "Halley-class" comets orbiting not far beyond Neptune, it doesn't name the Kuiper Belt. That important feature figures in Magic Universe, which was written two decades later and is more receptive to updating on this point. Here's the most relevant section in the story called "Comets and asteroids: snowy dirtballs and their rocky cousins".
5 Comments	| 1a) Magic Universe, 5 Pick of the pics	| Tagged: ACS/WFC, Alan Stern, Astrophysical Journal, Carlos Fuentes, Charon, comets, David Jewitt, Donald Yeomans, dwarf planet, Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt, Eris, Halley's Comet. Magic Universe, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Hubble Space Telescope, Jane Luu, Kuiper Belt, Mauna Kea, Northern Arizona University, Oort Cloud, Pluto, Trans-Neptunian objects, Triton	| Permalink
Comets from sister stars
Upating Comets
Did our comets come from sister stars?
How did the Solar System acquire its never-ending supply of comets to keep startling us? An explanation comes in today's Science magazine, from Harold Levison and David Kaufmann of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, working with Canadian and French colleagues.
The presumed source of supply is a very distant cloud of 100 billion or more comets, loosely bound to the Sun, called the Oort Cloud. The new report suggests that, in the tight cluster of stars in which the Sun was born, comets were scattered hither and yon in close encounters between stars, and many of our comets were captured from the Sun's sisters.
In this extract from Comets I am at pains to stress that Jan Oort wasn't the inventor of the distant comet cloud.
Ernst Öpik is an Estonian astronomer and musician who has recently been running the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland. For most of his long life he has adopted the role of cosmic garbage-sorter, concerning himself with the stray material of the Solar System. In 1932 he calculated that an invisible cloud of comets and meteors, surrounding the Sun at enormous distances, could survive throughout the long lifetime of the Solar System. In 1950 the doyen of Dutch astronomers, Jan Oort of Leiden, who is better known for classic work on the nature of galaxies, reworked Öpik's idea. He emphasised a different aspect of it, namely that passing stars would cause a few of the objects to fall out of the cloud and into the heart of the Solar System, to become observable as 'new' comets.
Thus was the fabulous Öpik-Oort Cloud conceived, as the source of the comets. I abridge the name to the Öoo Cloud and defend this coinage on grounds of sight and sound. It looks like an untidy collection of roughly round objects of various sizes, and it is pronounced 'Er, oh!' – just what a neophyte comet lover is liable to utter when he is first told that there are many billions of the things out there.
1 Comment	| 1c) Comets	| Tagged: Armagh Observatory, Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy, comets, Comets: Speculation and Discovery, David E. Kaufmann, Edmond Halley, Ernst Öpik, Harold F. Levison, Jan Oort, Jia-Qing Zheng, Leena Valtaoja, Leiden Observatory, Martin J. Duncan, Mauri J. Valtonen, Mauri Valtonen and Leena Valtaoja of the University of Turku, Nigel Calder, Oort Cloud, open star cluster, Ramon Brasser, Science magazine, Solar System, Southwest Research Institute, Star cluster	| Permalink
Comets and life 4
Updating Comets and Magic Universe
Did comets spark life on Earth?
Part 4: Life footloose in space
In Part 1 of this series, I mentioned that in Comets, written 30 years ago, I made fun of propositions from the astrophysicists Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe about viable entities living in comets and being delivered ready-made to the Earth, scattered from the comets' tails. What follows fulfils a promise to look at Chandra's present ideas — I hope with an open mind.
To back-track a little, there's a 100-year history of eminent scientists, driven by despair about explaining the very improbable chemistry of life by home cooking on the Earth, suggesting that life came from elsewhere. Of course, their scenarios didn't explain the origin of life, they merely transferred it somewhere else. Out of sight, out of mind, perhaps.
1907 Svante Arrhenius (yes, the CO2 warming pioneer) suggested that bacterial spores escaped from an alien planet, were driven through interstellar space by the pressure of sunlight, and revived when they reached the Earth.
1971 Francis Crick (yes, of DNA fame) with Leslie Orgel proposed that intelligent beings in another part of the Galaxy spotted the Earth as a suitably wet planet and sent bacteria in a spaceship to seed it.
1979 Fred Hoyle (yes, celebrated for the origin of the elements) with Chandra Wickramasinghe said that life on Earth began in comets, and diseases still come from them.
It was hard not to chuckle over their book Diseases from Space, because Hoyle and Wickramasinghe's account filled the sky with germs, in a distant echo of the old superstition that comets portended plagues.
John Gadbury (1665) linked comets and catastrophes -- "Famine, Plague & Warrs" In actuality, bubonic plague afflicted London following the depicted 1664-5 comet. Obtained from the Royal Astronomical Society, this is an illustration in N. Calder, Comets: Speculation and Discovery.
3 Comments	| 1a) Magic Universe, 1c) Comets	| Tagged: bacteria, Chandra Wickramasinghe, comets, dessicated bacteria, Diseases from Space, Eton College, Francis Crick, Fred Hoyle, infrared spectra, nostrils, Origin of life, Svante Arrhenius	| Permalink
Part 3 Initiating biochemical action
Pascale Ehrenfreund rides again (as in Part 2) in the story in Magic Universe called "Life's origin: will the answer to the riddle come from outer space?". But please focus first on Wlodzimierz Lugowsky.
'I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule,' boasts Pooh-Bah in The Mikado. When Gilbert and Sullivan wrote their comic opera in 1885 they were au courant with science as well as snobbery. A century later, molecular biologists had traced the genetic mutations, and constructed a single family tree for all the world's organisms that stretched back 4 billion years ago, to when life on Earth probably began. But they were scarcely wiser than Pooh-Bah about the precise nature of the primordial protoplasm.
In 1995 Wlodzimierz Lugowsky of Poland's Institute of Philosophy and Sociology wrote about 'the philosophical foundations of protobiology'. He listed nearly 150 scenarios then on offer for the origin of life and, with a possible single exception to be mentioned later, he judged none of them to be satisfactory. Here is one of the top conundrums for 21st Century science. The origin of life ranks with the question of what initiated the Big Bang, as an embarrassing lacuna in the attempt by scientists to explain our existence in the cosmos.
After discussing possible "home cooking" of life by hypercycles, RNA catalysis or lipid catalysis, and touching on the possibility of false starts, the tale turns back to the sky in pursuit of the only hypothesis acceptable to Lugowsky.
2 Comments	| 1a) Magic Universe, 1c) Comets	| Tagged: Buckyballs, comets, Franz Krueger, Giotto spacecraft, Halley's Comet Vega-1 and Vega-2 spacecraft, Infrared Space Observatory, Jochen Kissel, Leiden Observatory, Magic Universe, Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, Orgueil meteorite, Origin of life, PAHs, Pascale Ehrenfreund, Prebiotic molecules, Wlodzimierz Lugowsky	| Permalink
Part 2: Cosmic carbon compounds
An earlier post, Part 1 under this heading, commented enthusiastically but briefly on a French team's find of extraterrestrial dust grains rich in carbon in the snow of Antarctica. https://calderup.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/comets-and-life/
I promised more to come, and here it begins. Part 2 deals with cosmic carbon compounds. Later, Part 3 will reconsider the initiation of biochemical action, and Part 4 will look at suggestions of natural life footloose in space.
There were far more comets around when the Solar System was young, in the "heavy bombardment" phase of Earth history lasting until 3.8 billion years ago. Water is abundant in interstellar space and available to build the icy nuclei of comets. Comets may have delivered most of the Earth's surface water, essential for life.
Carbon compounds are the other main ingredient for life. Comets' tails consist mainly of small dust grains released from the nuclei, including grains laden with carbon compounds that may have contributed to the origin of life on the Earth. Here's a general impression of important "prebiotic" molecules made in the vicinity of dying stars and newborn stars and available for incorporation into comets.
PAHs, polyaromatic hydrocarbons observable in interstellar space, could be ancestral to the aromatic compounds that have the very smell of life. Illustration from Pascale Ehrenfreund & Steven Charnley, 2000 – see reference. Graphic art: ©2000 R. Ruiterkamp
5 Comments	| 1a) Magic Universe, 1c) Comets	| Tagged: Alain Léger, Buckyballs, comets, Infrared Space Observatory, Jean-Loup Puget, Magic Universe, Origin of life, PAHs, Pascale Ehrenfreund, Prebiotic molecules	| Permalink


It is terrible to toot your own trumpet, but this is one of the ideas that we had for our wedding that I was so pleased with. Nick and I love our food and love supporting local producers, so we always knew this was going to be woven throughout our wedding. There were moments we worried we might be overfeeding people!
We have a wonderful local farm to where we live in Cheshire that makes its own ice cream – we practically live off the stuff. Somehow we wanted to incorporate this into our wedding day, and the only place we could think of when people might need something to eat and break up any standing around was after the ceremony.
So we set about creating our own ice cream stall that would greet our family and friends as they exited the church. We commandeered a nice old trestle table from my parents, which meant we didn't need to cover it.
Nick built a wooden cone holder by drilling holes into a plank of wood and attaching legs to it. Then I painted it with leftover paints (tester pots are great for small projects).
After we'd been to see the ice cream farm and selected our flavours, Nick used one of the tubs to measure out and make a box to hold them. That way it would look nicer from the outside (not plastic tubs) and hopefully make it easier to scoop the ice cream. This was also painted by me.
On the morning of the wedding the boys went down to the church and set up the stall at the back in the church yard. They used two long bamboo canes, fastened to the trestle legs, to string silk bunting between them.
This beautiful bunting was made by a good friend's mum Michelle Samuels, who is a talented seamstress and gifted us this bunting when we got engaged. It is made from off-cuts from her dressmaking (she makes wedding dresses).
My sister Izzy wrote out the three flavours – Farmhouse, Chocolate, and Raspberry Pavlova – onto a small blackboard, which was propped up against the box. We bought tiny cones from the ice cream farm, and borrowed their scoops.
After Nick and I had left the church beneath a shower of confetti, everyone headed off to get themself an ice cream. The best part about being the bride and groom was queue jumping.
So while everyone was munching on their ice creams, it meant they didn't get bored while we swanned around as the happily (and now married) couple – I love this photo taken by my sister Izzy, what am I doing?
I love this, everyone's really getting into it as well, and I love how it would have made everyone feel a sense of childhood fun and merriment. Fabulous!! I would love to share this in my next Link Love post.
This is so cute! We are thinking about doing something similar with an ice-cream van (getting married near the seaside so seems appropriate) but just wondered if the church/vicar had an issue with use of the church yard at all and you had to convince them? Or was it all pretty straightforward? Thanks!
How did you keep it cold…Just ice ??


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Category: United States World People History Language Miscellaneous Technology Internet Business Education Food Beauty Industry Science Anatomy Health Crafts Cars Home Finance Medicine Fashion Fitness Art Environment Travel Law Hobbies
Who are the Yurok Indians?
Native Americans History
Northwest Native Americans
Cahuilla Tribe
Indian Baskets
Indians Cherokee
Native American Dwelling
Native Americans Facts
Micki Elizabeth
Yurok (pronounced YOOR-ock) is a tribe of Native American Indians that has long lived on the Pacific Coast of Northern California in America. Yurok, which means "downriver people," is from the Karok language; Karok means "upriver." The Yurok Indians' culture went uninterrupted by non-natives for far longer than that of most other Native American tribes. Trappers in the early 19th century and the Gold Rush of the 1850s changed the way the Yurok lived.
The Yurok Indians hunted deer and other small game.
The Yurok tribe spoke its own Macro-Algonquin language called "Yurok," which is closely related to the language of neighboring tribes. They built box-like, individual homes with chimneys and pitched roofs out of redwood trees; they used only trees that had already fallen, however, as the tribe considers redwoods sacred. While many men and women wore little to no clothing, the deerskin clothing they made was heavily ornamented with shells from the Pacific Coast.
The Yurok fished for salmon.
For food, Yurok Indians relied mainly on acorns, which they could pound into a flour-like powder, and fish. They built canoes and used spears and nets to catch salmon, mollusks and other sea creatures. The men also hunted deer and other small game while the women collected nuts and berries to round out their diet.
Yurok villages were once ruled by the wealthiest man in each town. Thus, unlike many other Native American tribes, wealth was of importance to this group. The tribe's monetary system was based on the shell of a mollusk known as the dentalium, though other measurements of wealth included items such as woodpecker scalps and obsidian. The Yurok Indians believed in what many consider modern ideas, including individually owned land and what one would today call a lawsuit.
While the Spanish and other non-native people did make infrequent visits to the Yurok Indians' land beginning around the 1500s, the tribe went relatively unfettered until trappers arrived in the early 19th century. Even the rough terrain often inhabited by the Yurok did not deter the trappers, nor would it keep away the groups that flocked to the area during the Gold Rush of the 1850s. The Yurok Indians lost much of their land and about 75 percent of their population during the gold expeditions as they were forced onto reservations. Missionaries began to impose Western-style customs and education on the tribe around this time.
The Yurok Indians comprise the largest group of Native Americans in the state of California with over 4,400 in-state members. They live on the Yurok reservation, consisting of over 63,000 acres (25,495 hectares), on rancherias along with Native Americans from other tribes. In 1993, the Yurok Indians adopted their own constitution dealing with the laws of their territory. The residents of the Yurok Indian reservation are now ruled by a council that they may elect.
United States World People History Language Miscellaneous Technology Internet Business Education Food Beauty Industry Science Anatomy Health Crafts Cars Home Finance Medicine Fashion Fitness Art Environment Travel Law Hobbies
What Is the State Fish of California?
What is the Yurok Tribe?
What is the Cahuilla Tribe?
What are Sioux Indians?
Who are the Mohawk Indians?
Who are the Oneida Indians?
Who are the Miwok Indians?


Sometimes you have to be your own inspiration.
Hello, my loves. How are you? Me, I'm doing good! I know, it's been a long time since I've truly posted and truthfully it has been with good reason. I'm going to get real and personal with you guys for a minute, and fore-warning this is going to be a text heavy post.
The past two years have been a real struggle for me, personally and professionally. I feel like I've gone through a lot of changes and I've definitely done a LOT of thinking (probably more than necessary). I've always been very honest with my blogging and felt that if I was not feeling it, I just wouldn't blog. I didn't want to 'fake blog' and be unauthentic. So instead of pretending, I just stayed away. Over the past two years my professional life has been crazy busy. Usually I have a busy season and slow season, last year that was not the case. From the end of 2014 straight through until about a month ago has been none stop, from one event to the next with no breathing time, most times working on multiple events at once. Then on top of that I had a lot going on in my personal life between schooling, competing in a beauty pageant, obtaining my scuba certification and still trying to keep up a social life. There were so many times where I became overwhelmed and so many times I just wanted to quit everything. To some people this may not seem like a lot but for me at the time, it was – so much so that I began to lose my sense of self. Everything seemed like a chore, the things that I once loved seemed like a burden and I was so stressed that I just began to shut everything out. It wasn't until India in April of this year that I started to find myself again.
When I was in India, I (almost) completely detached from everything that was going on in my life. The pageant was well over but I still had a lot of insecurities that arose during that time. I made it a point to finish my schooling before I left for the trip. And I let my job know to expect me to have very little communication while abroad, so they would not be able to ask me anything work related. I used this trip to focus on myself and to fully experience where I was and what I was doing, in the moment as it was happening. Of course I still checked in with my friends and family at home and updated social media, but it had been a long time since I had had a new experience, and I wanted be in the moment for every minute of it. And I did. I came back feeling refreshed and like new again with a new outlook on life.
After returning from India, I tried as hard as I could to maintain this mentality but it wasn't easy, and shortly after I fell back into the routine of being stressed and wanting to run away from it all. Unfortunately there was no way to escape and I just pushed through as best as I could until it was over.
Some how I managed to get through it all, but I found even after my events finally slowed down and my personal life was back to normal it was hard to find myself again. I tried everything I knew possible from reading inspirational books, to spending time with friends, to literally rearranging and organizing my life. But nothing seemed to work. I was at a point where I wasn't sure what I wanted with my life, where I wanted to be or what I wanted to do. I almost came to a point where I wanted to shut down my blog completely so I can just figure things out, but there is something in me that just can't let go. So I decided to do something that I should have done a long time ago. I started to re-read my old posts, from the beginning. I wanted to rediscover why I started this blog in the first place and figure out what it is I'm trying to achieve. I'm still trying to figure out my end game, but I did learn that when I started this blog I was fearless, inspired and interested in everything I was writing about. From outfit obsessions to red carpet to daily outfits and my extreme obsession with Victoria's Secret. I wrote because I was interested, inspired and wanted to share my thoughts. I don't know when it happened, but at some point over the years I lost that drive and confidence that I once had. My goal now, is to get back to that, and what better way to start, than by reliving the moments that made me feel alive. Over the next few months I will be doing some flashback blogging, catching you up on what has been going on in my life and reliving my favourite moments from the past two years. Bare with me as I take you on a journey to help rediscover myself and my love for blogging, through memories and my favourite fashion moments.


Pitching coach Chris Bosio said Thursday he was fired by the Detroit Tigers for using the word "monkey Youth Tarvarius Moore Jersey ," but insists he didn't say it in a racial or demeaning context.
That could make for compelling drama against White Sox right-hander Reynaldo Lopez (2-5 Donte Jackson Jersey , 3.59 ERA), who throws hard. Lopez will make his 16th start of the season and the 30th of his young career.
In four career starts against the White Sox, Lynn is 2-0 with a 1.78 ERA. The 6-foot-5, 280-pounder has walked three and struck out 33 in 25 1/3 innings.


Showing results by author "Tom Wolfe"
A decade ago, The Bonfire of the Vanities defined an era - and established Tom Wolfe as the prime fictional chronicler of America at its most outrageous and alive. Now Wolfe is back with a pitch-perfect, coast-to-coast portrait of our wild and woolly, no-holds-barred, multifarious country on the cusp of the millennium.
Many among America's wittiest, most perceptive, and popular writers join to read their works aloud at a fundraiser to benefit the homeless. Authors participating include Garrison Keillor, Maya Angelou, Laurie Colwin, Tom Wolfe, and Calvin Trillin.


Professional burglars know their trade. Professional burglars are studious, observant and constantly lurking in the background of a likely target, either a home or office. Burglars analyse traffic and personnel movements around targeted properties. In either residential or commercial parks, burglars look for settings that will enable them to make one big score or a series of burglaries at the same time. Their goal is to get in, get out and never return.
Burglars are organized. They make plans. They look for unusual ways to access a property. They identify several exit routes and move quickly. Burglars find ways to identify specific targets. When a burglar enters a house, he or she knows the floor plan and what they are looking for and where the goods are kept. Burglars can get in and out of a home quicker than imagined. Professional burglars don't waste time savagingthrough the home or office. They get to what they want and take it and do not get sidetracked.
There are other burglars who are freelancers and steal because they think they can. Data collected by Iowa State University's Journal of Forensic Science reveals that neighborhood burglaries most often involve a person known to the homeowner. The majority of home burglars either livesor works within two miles of the violated property.
This is scary stuff. The chances are good that somebody in your neighborhood may well have thought about robbing you. Assuming you have a home or office security system, this means that you must periodically change passwords. If you have children, instruct them not to reveal the password to de-activate the system.
If your system has video capabilities, make sure the targeted areas and the cameras are aligned properly. The ideal home or business security system can help reduce the chance of burglary by an alarm system connected to a provider who notifies the police.
Unoccupied residences, including homes where the inhabitants are on vacation, are targets. In addition to activating your alarm, leave set a number of lights to go on and off while you are away. If you have a trusted friend or neighbor, ask them to check the house once a day.
Many communities have begun to organize neighborhood watch programs that are very organized.When you review your security images, look for suspicious movements. Most importantly, be watchful. Most burglars visit the targeted area more than once before they strike. If you see unidentified, unoccupied vehicles parked in the neighborhood for no how reason either jot the plate number down or take a photo with your phone.
If people are aimlessly spending time in the neighborhood, don't be afraid to approach them and ask if they need assistance. Home or office security systems are great but personal involvement and cooperative watchdog groups are the best deterrent for burglaries.
This article was provided by Wireless Alarm Systems Specialist, Broadsword Security.


Getting Started with Arduino is a self-help book on learning how to use Arduino and start prototyping right away. From starting to adding final touches to your project, this book has everything about prototyping.
Written by Massimo Banzi, this book was published by Maker Media in 2014. Massimo us the co-founder of Arduino project. Previously, he has held workshops and spoken as a guest speaker at many prestigious institutes. He later decided to write a book on the subject of Arduino. The 245 pages book is all about computers and everything you need to know about them. It is one of the best books about using Arduino out there as it is extremely easy to read especially if you have prior knowledge of the subject. Helpful for techies and non-techies alike, this book guides you through the seemingly hard project of prototyping and using Arduino.
The book starts with a complete introduction of the latest Arduino release and prototyping.
It has a step by step instruction method where the first step in gathering your required components with the last step being the final touches you add to your project.
All you need to make the Projects mentioned in this book is Arduino, USB cable, and an LED. The Arduino works easily on Mac, Linux or Windows.
This book guides the reader on interactive design and physical computing while shedding light on the Arduino board and its software environment.
There is detailed information about basic electronics terms and application. After that, the writer goes on to the complex task of explaining how to prototype on a solderless breadboard.
You will be able to talk to the computer and cloud along with being able to draw schematic diagrams.
Following the instructions in this book, you will have custom design plant-watering system for your own convenience.
You can use the download option below to download Getting Started With Arduino Pdf ebook free.


The foam industry has matured and evolved over the years with the development of the chemical engineering industry. Whether the foams are poured, extruded or expanded in rolls or buns stock, Sergeant Corp can help you with more efficient sources for your needs. Multi-density and combined types of foam are now available from local sources and in convenience sizing.


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Biden Names John Kerry as Climate Envoy
Nov. 24, 2020 10:11AM EST Climate
Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is seen on October 19, 2015 in Madrid, Spain. Denis Doyle / Getty Images
President-elect Joe Biden announced Monday that former Secretary of State John Kerry will sit on his National Security Council (NSC) as Special Presidential Envoy for Climate.
Kerry's appointment was announced alongside other key foreign policy and national security roles and signals that the Biden administration plans to make fighting the climate crisis an integral part of its foreign policy.
"This marks the first time that the NSC will include an official dedicated to climate change, reflecting the president-elect's commitment to addressing climate change as an urgent national security issue," the transition team said in a statement.
Today, I'm announcing the first members of my national security and foreign policy team. They will rally the world… https://t.co/bAisIQk5P6
— Joe Biden (@Joe Biden)1606162380.0
Kerry has a long history of engaging in climate diplomacy, The Washington Post reported. He has represented the U.S. at every major climate conference for the past 30 years and, as Secretary of State under President Barack Obama, played a key role in negotiating the 2015 Paris agreement. More recently, he started the organization World War Zero to unite people from all political persuasions and walks of life around the goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050. Kerry also co-chaired the Biden campaign's climate task force with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), which was designed to make policy suggestions and bridge the gap between party moderates and supporters of Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
"The work we began with the Paris Agreement is far from done," Kerry tweeted in response to his appointment. "I'm returning to government to get America back on track to address the biggest challenge of this generation and those that will follow. The climate crisis demands nothing less than all hands on deck."
Biden's choice of Kerry won wide approval from environmental groups.
"The big question has been, 'How serious is the new administration about climate change?'" senior Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) vice president Nathaniel Keohane told Grist. "This is a tremendously important signal. It says that the Biden administration is committed to making climate change front and center in terms of how we engage with the world."
While Kerry is seen as a moderate, according to The Guardian, his role on the campaign's climate task force has earned him the respect of the more progressive wing of the climate movement.
"He was quite the diplomat in terms of trying to make sure that all sides were represented and that we could reach compromises that we could all live with," Alabama environmental activist and panel member Catherine Coleman Flowers told The Washington Post. "He had a good understanding of the climate crisis."
Sunrise Movement co-founder Varshini Prakash also spoke favorably of Kerry's role on the panel.
"I served with Sec. Kerry this summer on the Biden-Sanders taskforce and one thing is clear: he really does care about stopping climate change. That's something we can work with," she tweeted. "An encouraging move from the Biden team — now I'm keeping my eyes peeled for a domestic equivalent!"
Biden is expected to name a White House climate policy coordinator in December who will focus on domestic climate policy, The New York Times reported.
However, the effectiveness of both roles may depend on whether Republicans retain control of the Senate after the Georgia runoff elections in January. Kerry's position does not require Senate confirmation, but he may have a harder time convincing other countries to take more aggressive action if the U.S. does not seem to be pulling its weight. Diplomatically, he faces a challenge no matter what, given President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris agreement Kerry helped negotiate. While Biden intends to rejoin the agreement immediately upon taking office, the U.S. departure still burned the international community.
"Kerry's challenge is 'fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me,'" Rachel Kyte, dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, told The New York Times.
Correction: A previous version of the headline stated that John Kerry is the first-ever climate envoy. That is incorrect, as the Obama administration also had a climate envoy. Kerry is the first full-time climate official to sit on the National Security Council.
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Guy Hollaway Architects' Three-Story Skatepark Secures Approval
By Khanya Mtshali • March 28, 2016
Three-story skatepark covered in metal mesh in Folkestone, England. (Courtesy Guy Hollaway Architects)
Local government has given the go-ahead to a multi-tiered skatepark designed by Guy Hollaway Architects (GHA) to be built in the town of Folkestone, England. After multiple proposals from GHA and the design consultancy Maverick, the plans promise a state-of-the-art urban sports facility.
Inside in the different levels of the urban sports facility. It will play host to skateboarding, BMX-ing, scootering, cycling, and rollerblading activities among others. (Courtesy Guy Hollaway Architects)
This project's arrival comes at a time where skateparks face an uncertain future in Britain. Last year saw the closure of ad hoc skatepark Bristo Square in Edinburgh, Scotland. Down in London, plans to remove the iconic Southbank skatepark were halted by the "Long Live Southbank" group with the support of London mayor, Boris Johnson.
This 10,700-square-foot structure features three floors, each containing quarter-pipes, ramps, and ledges. Two layers of metal mesh outline the skatepark to create natural ventilation on all three levels. In addition to skateboarding, the facility includes spaces for BMX-ing, rollerblading, and scootering. There are also plans for a bouldering gym, cycling center, boxing club, cafe, and rooftop area.
(Courtesy Guy Hollaway Architects)
With $12.8 million in funding secured from The Roger De Haan Charitable Trust, construction on the site can begin. The skatepark is expected to be ready for opening within the next two years. Folkestone's wider district of Shepway—and the members of the Shepway District Council, who approved the design—hope that it will become a national and international attraction while offering a recreational facility for local youth. With a monthly membership, residents will be offered lower prices as a way of protecting and expanding the local skate and BMX scene.
The facility will also have a cafe and a boulder gym. (Courtesy Guy Hollaway Architects)
Cycling folkestone united kingdom Skate Park Skateboarding
July 20, 2017 Tony Hawk is building a skate park in downtown Detroit
May 1, 2017 An historic skatepark is replicated—and memorialized—in Tampa
April 14, 2017 Morse code facade wraps a skatepark in Norway
August 25, 2016 Revamped McCarren Park Skatepark opens in Williamsburg, Brooklyn


On the 9th May, 2 days following the general election, we as 'Tax Dodging Bill' campaigners marched up to 10 Downing Street to make sure that returning Prime-Minister David Cameron and his government did not forget about their promises on tackling tax dodging.
The Conservatives have promised to raise £5 billion a year by clamping down on tax evasion, and aggressive tax avoidance and tax planning, which they seek to achieve with efforts outlined in their manifesto as continuing to "lead international efforts to ensure global companies pay their fair share in tax" and "consider the case for making international country-by-country tax reporting information publicly available on a multilateral basis".
As campaigners we held our placards, our wheelbarrow full of chocolate coins – which represented the £3 billion we could raise through a Tax Dodging Bill, chanted "make tax fair" and spoke to several media sources, including BBC Radio, about why it is necessary for a bill to be introduced that prevents tax avoidance.
The Tax Dodging Bill campaign and large numbers of the public (80%) are sceptical on whether the government's pledges are sufficient to raise the £5 billion, as promised. New legislation is needed in order for the Conservative's promises to be met and so that the public can be reassured that those who avoid paying tax will face tough consequences. The new legislation needs to place tougher sanctions on those who avoid tax, create more transparency and also stop companies from exploiting underdeveloped countries with tax avoidance.
These goals could be achieved by closing the loophole in the Diverted Profit Tax, ensuring that UK tax rules consider the impact that they have on developing countries, making country-by-country reporting for all sectors, not just the financial sector and also committing to rigorous reviews on all tax breaks and scrap any that do not benefit society or the economy. This Bill needs to be drafted for the 2015 Queen's speech, as this is the Conservative's first opportunity to deliver their first manifesto and proposals on new legislation.
We campaigned outside Downing Street immediately following the new government being elected because we wanted to show how much the public is concerned about tax dodging. Our goal on the 9th May was to get our voices heard with media coverage, which we achieved and we will be following up on the campaign on the 9th June with the Restless Welcome in Parliament to put pressure on MPs to introduce a Tax Dodging Bill.
Add your voice! Send a letter to David Cameron here.


IT was a parish dance, a November evening in the mid-1960s, and a handsome young fella buys a pretty young lady a bag of salt and shake crisps and a bottle of cola.
They were strangers then, but in a few weeks' time they will celebrate 50 years of marriage. I know them well because they're Jeannie and Gabriel Polland, my mum and dad.
It is a fact of family life that it begins with strangers' meeting - attraction happens but the life story and interests, talents, gifts and foibles of the other are totally unknown.
The foundation of our culture and society begins in strangers' meeting. It doesn't finish there either, for along come the children, and these children are again strangers.
The newborn are strangers to parents and to siblings alike. Yet how beautiful is it to see the child welcomed into the family.
It rolls on through the generations as we welcome grandchildren and nieces and nephews.
We might have a chocolate box image of Christ, but he asks us to see him in an unromantic way: in the thirsty and hungry, the sick and in prison, the naked and, yes, the stranger.
We see this most particularly in Christ's last week, his holy week. On Holy Thursday, he is hungry to eat with his disciples, the prisoner in a courtyard, the naked one forced to suffer great pain and then thirsty on the cross; Christ is all these things in His passion.
And when the suffering is over - on Easter Sunday, the day of victory - Christ is the stranger.
Mary Magdalene thinks he is the gardener, the disciples on the road to Emmaus think he is out of touch and his own Apostles all but scream every time he appears, thinking he is a ghost.
He is the stranger - the risen, glorious Christ is the stranger we must welcome. We need to learn that.
Look at the news of the last week: what welcome is given to the stranger arriving at a border with only hope outbalancing fear?
Look at the news of the last month: what welcome is given to the unborn, unseen stranger called unplanned, unwanted, not yet human?
Look at the news of our lifetimes: what welcome is given to the stranger who sings a different song, is a different colour, even only wears a different colour?
Christ urges us to welcome the stranger. Look at this icon for the World Meeting of Families, look at the family around you, look at the family pictures on your mantelpiece, and see that it is in the family that we learn first to encounter and welcome the stranger.
The family is where we meet Christ and learn to go into the world and meet, with love, the stranger.
Fr Conor Stainton-Polland is a priest of the Archdiocese of Liverpool. The 'Icon of the Family' for the World Meeting of Families was at St Patrick's Church in Belfast this week.


As people are waiting for one of the biggest launch of 2016 in mobile industry, none other than the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. Some bad news coming for the iPhone 7 lover.
One of the biggest leaks about the device was about the upgraded Camera. iPhone 7 plus will have bigger camera then the smaller version. According to the report, iPhone 7 plus is moving for the dual Camera Technology, leaving iPhone 7 behind on that front.
The Dual Camera technology can be used in different ways, either to mimic optical zoom or to create wide angle lenses. It will be interesting to see how this technology is being used in the new iPhone 7 Plus.
This technology will take the iPhone 7 plus ahead of the other competitors like Galaxy S7, S7 edge and Note 7.
As the earlier leaks suggested that the device will have the Smart Connectors, which latter was omitted by many of the blogs and subjects experts, creating lots of confusion about the feature, but now the confusion is cleared and Smart Connectors will only feature in iPhone 7 Plus and not on iPhone 7 and that was the reason for the confusion.


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RAMON TULFO
MY BIG MOUTH by Ramon Tulfo
Social Media: The Old Dog and New Tricks
Today, we celebrate National Social Media Day. The holiday was founded in 2010, by a website known as Mashable.com. It celebrates how important social media has become.
I worked in radio stations, newspapers, and television stations. In fact, my show, Isumbong Mo Kay Tulfo, is an industry pioneer and mainstay for public service shows with an investigative touch.
I didn't think much of social media. It was through the efforts of my loved ones and my dedicated staff that I realized how important social media could be.
Isumbong Mo Kay Tulfo already had its own Facebook page. I then decided it was time to join the online world. Now, I have my own Facebook and Twitter accounts.
I think that social media will supplant other media in ten years. Newspapers, radio, and television news shows and outfits will need their own social media platforms.
Social media has made journalists of everyone. It has democratized journalism. Everybody is now a journalist in his or her own right.
Social media, like current journalism, is subject to abuse, fake news, and other similar problems. Because of this, it is important that veteran journalists should adapt to the new world of social media.
I see it as a way to reach out and help more people. I see it as a way to share my thoughts, unfiltered.
It is a new way to communicate with what is now a global community.
It is the future of news media.
I said before that this old dog is learning new tricks. I realize now that I am not that old yet, and I have many more tricks to learn in this online world.
Mabuhay tayong lahat, and let us all celebrate National Social Media Day.
Romy Maganto, RIP
Romeo Maganto, a bemedalled policeman, was laid to rest yesterday, Sunday, June 24.
Maganto, one of the very few police generals who neither graduated from the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) nor the Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA), was admired by millions for his raw courage.
His courage bordered on foolhardiness or stupidity.
His fellow officers, who were PMAers or PNPAers, laughed at or mocked him for his foolhardiness.
But he always got the job done. In places where he was assigned, peace and order became the norm. He cleaned up Ilocos Norte, fighting the New People's Army (NPA) when he was the PNP provincial director there.
Maganto, who had retired, died of natural causes.
Romy Maganto was a relatively honest cop. Relatively, hindi garapal. By the way, wala namang pulis na santo.
Romy, you deserve a lasting rest in peace.
Values Education Is More Important!
There's a push to teach good manners and right conduct in schools, specially for the child.
I think schools should teach children the right values.
Without the right values, our children won't see why they should be good people, why they should respect others, and treat others as they would treat themselves.
Science, math, and social studies are important, but values should come first before skills.
I feel strongly that values education is more important than skills. I feel that people should know in their hearts what is right and wrong. Without that basic learning, our children's futures will be very bleak.
Teachers themselves should also be responsible when teaching values to our children. Many parents are now very busy with work. Teachers are practically parents when they are in charge of children in school.
The values that teachers want to impart in our children should be ones they believe in. This means that teachers themselves should be good examples. If they want students to be patriotic, then they should be patriotic. If they want students to be responsible, then they, too, should be responsible. Good values are learned when children see excellent examples, not because they are told that these values are important.
Good values are far more important than good manners and right conduct. It's a good idea to teach children how to behave properly.
For example, helping an old woman cross a busy street is better than greeting her "good morning" and then leaving her to avoid speeding vehicles in the middle of the street.
Finally, let's visit the Constitution of the Philippines.
Article XIV, Section 3, says schools "shall inculcate patriotism and nationalism, foster love of humanity, respect for human rights, appreciation of the role of national heroes in the historical development of the country, teach the rights and duties of citizenship, strengthen ethical and spiritual values, develop moral character and personal discipline, encourage critical and creative thinking, broaden scientific and technological knowledge, and promote vocational efficiency."
As you can see, instilling values in our children is not just something we should do, it's enshrined in the Constitution, the basic law of the land.
Murder in a Nueva Ecija Chapel
Richmond Nilo was a Catholic priest, a man among men, a man of action. Like Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, he was murdered.
The cowards shot through a window of the Nuestra de Senora de la Nieve Chapel, in Nueva Ecija, killing Fr. Nilo while he was preparing to celebrate mass on a Thursday. Fr. Nilo was the third priest to be killed in six months.
People say it may have been about a land dispute, or because he helped a rape victim.
The third angle that the police are looking into is disturbing. It is that it may have been about his debates with representatives of the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC). Fr. Nilo was known for questioning some of the fundamental beliefs of the INC.
He knew that he lived a dangerous life. He accepted it as part of his calling.
My first article in this blog was about my respect and admiration for Felix Manalo, the founder of the INC. I should make it clear that my admiration also extends to his son, Erano "Ka Erdy," and his grandson, Eduardo "Ka Eddy."
Ka Erdy initiated land reform programs, and extended the INC's reach across the world. He was at the helm when the INC went on air in 1969, and when the New Era University was founded in 1974. The Central Temple was built in his time.
He was a man who believed that the INC's money should be used to do good, to create institutions and infrastructure that would benefit the INC.
His son, Eduardo "Ka Eddy" Manalo, continued his father's work for the INC, by extending the INC's reach into the internet. More churches have been built abroad, and the Philippine Arena was put up.
The Manalo family should be recognized for their vision and will.
This is why I do not think that the Manalo family members are directly involved in Fr. Nilo's death. If the INC were involved, it would be because of other people.
These are the brigands, the rogues within the church. They disgrace the INC.
Video from VeritasDipolog AbsoluteTruthLover
It is healthy for the representatives of different Churches to debate with each other, in order to reach an understanding.
But if it is true, that Fr. Nilo was shot because of the machinations of a cabal in another Church, then that's asking for a dangerous situation.
Days before he was murdered, he challenged INC representatives to a public debate.
If that was the reason for his murder, then the cabal within the INC does not respect freedom of expression which is enshrined in our Constitution.
Learning What is Right and Proper
The Department of Education wants to add more subjects in good manners and right conduct in school.
That is putting the cart before the horse. If we want to have true good manners and right conduct, then we should start with having proper values first.
Many people are worried that the world is going to hell. It's as if being a decent, God-loving human being is slowly going out of style. We're not talking only about crime here, but a general breakdown in the core human values that every good person should have.
It used to be that we parents could take care of passing on our values to our children.
However, let's be honest: The world isn't giving us much time anymore.
OFW families, for example, bear this pain more than many others do. Children are left with one parent to practically raise them, while the other makes sure there's enough money to give them a good life.
The country has become a nation of contract workers. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, there were 2.27 million Filipinos working abroad as of 2017. The figures could have jumped by now, and that's not taking into account those working abroad who are unregistered.
Lack of time with the children, combined with distractions and bad influences, makes for a nation with a youth population with a weak moral fiber.
Values such as honesty, integrity, and patriotism should be part of a person's foundation. These values are required components of a person's character.
Over the years, I have seen the evils of the world. It is why I fight against all of them with Isumbong Mo Kay Tulfo. It is why I take up the cudgels for the oppressed and the distressed.
What I think is this: many people have grown up without proper values.
Many of the crimes that you read, hear, and see in the news are committed by people who grew up with weak moral values, or no values at all.
Important values must be taught in schools.
They should already have proper values by the time they reach ten years old. Yes, it is important that they know their reading, writing, and arithmetic. But without proper values, children will not know what is good, what right, and what is just.
Let's start at the pre-school level, and learn about honesty and integrity along with the ABC's.
Discipline, of course, should form part of the curriculum.
I shouldn't say this, but teachers themselves should have good moral standing. If our educators will teach proper Filipino values to the next generation, then they should have those themselves.
I disagree with the notion that we should take shorten the time for teaching values in order to have more time for math, science and social studies.
That's ridiculous.
In the formative years of a child, the shaping of moral values and acquisition of knowledge should go hand and hand.
Our schools must bombard our youth from pre-school to Grade 4 with values. Ages 4 to 10 are formative years.
If we want to be a strong nation, let's starts with teaching our children honesty, integrity, discipline and patriotism or love of country.
If our future generations don't believe in anything good, then the world will really go to hell.
Felix Manalo, my Idol.
As my readers know, I have been very critical of the Iglesia ni Cristo in some of my past articles and statements. However, let's set the record straight.
The founder, Felix Y. Manalo, is one whom I consider as similar to Buddha, Martin Luther, and Brigham Young. Buddha, who founded Buddhism, taught people about the Middle Way, about balance between the material and spiritual worlds. He believed that the right view, action, intentions, speech, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration were important for one to reach enlightenment. Martin Luther was a believer that the Bible was the only source of divine knowledge from God, and that salvation and eternal life was the gift of God's grace through belief in Jesus Christ. Brigham Young was the second and longest-serving President of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints, known as the "Lion of the Lord" for his force of personality.
All of them were courageous men, who dared to ask questions and stood up for what they believed in. Just like these venerable people, Felix Manalo, too, was one who stood up for his beliefs, and formed the Iglesia ni Cristo as a foundation for those who believed in the Lord as he did.
I have to say, I respect the foundation of the INC. I respect and admire what it does for its flock. It's a large family. It's a social security system for its believers in need of help, which is what a family should always do for its own members. The INC is also very loyal. In short, the INC, at its best, and in the vision of Felix Manalo, is a spiritual North Star that guides the INC family.
This would not have happened if Felix Manalo were not a Spiritual Explorer, a man who dared to ask questions, and to build on what he believed in.
However, the INC is under attack from within. There are those within it who want to turn it simply into a political tool, a mass of votes traded for influence or money. It makes one wonder where the dream and vision of Felix Manalo are these days. Let me end by saying that yes, there are brigands in the organization, and that they are doing the Iglesia a disfavor. Who these are, I know, because the sources come from within.
I hope that the vision of Felix Manalo will prevail in the Iglesia ni Cristo. After all, the INC is a testament to Felix Manalo's life and beliefs. As for the brigands, they should go to hell.
Journalist, Philanthropist, and now, a Blogger!


The furtive fallacy is one of the many smokescreens that are used to cover the fact that the reasoning is based on one of the three fallacies of Agrippa's trilemma. Whenever a logical fallacy is committed, the fallacy has its roots in Agrippa's trilemma. All human thought (without Divine revelation) is based on one of three unhappy possibilities. These three possibilities are infinite regress, circular reasoning, or axiomatic thinking. This problem is known as Agrippa's trilemma. Some have claimed that only logic and math can be known without Divine revelation; however, that is not true. There is no reason to trust either logic or math without Divine revelation. Science is also limited to the pragmatic because of the weakness on human reasoning, which is known as Agrippa's trilemma.
The Furtive Fallacy occurs when outcomes are asserted necessarily to have been caused by the malfeasance of decision makers. This is generally applied to history.
At the very least, this theory of government corruption is highly speculative. That is not to say that there is no corruption in government.
"The new health care law was designed to destroy the United States."
It seems that the U.S. Government is very bad at doing this, but it's difficult to determine motives other than by Divine revelation. While this law is very expensive, redistributes money from workers to non-workers, and places limits on freedom of choice, some evidence of intent would be needed to make such a statement.


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Alaska Vacations | Alaska Adventure | Big Sky Country - Glacier Adventure |
Montana Family Adventure | Montana Mountain Bike | Montana River Trips |
The Southwest - Arizona Mountain Bike | Bryce & Zion Biking | Hawaii - Multisport
Alaska Vacations
In only seven days, this wonderful itinerary offers a representative cross section of Alaska from the varied wilderness interior to the rugged maritime environments, traversing three major mountain ranges and hundreds of miles of marine sanctuary and coastline in this tour accessible to all. By being small and mobile, we can leave the crowds behind and explore treasures unavailable through other means, allowing a true sense of self-discovery. From visiting many unspoiled frontier towns and the national parks of Denali, Wrangell-St. Elias, and Kenai Fjords; to exploring a remote ghost city, to traversing famous Prince William Sound to view whales, bald eagles, and glaciers; this overview of Alaska goes far beyond what the merely conventional tourist will ever see. While many means exist to visit the wild North, the only way to truly experience it is to get off the beaten track. This 7-day itinerary provides a wonderful option to enable a tremendous and personal overview, without sacrificing several weeks or all idea of comfort. Staying each night in lovely and unique accommodations and dining in restaurants, this tour still retains a very definite spirit of adventure in the places and people we visit. If longing to see some of the real Alaska, but don't care to camp, then this is the tour for you.
For the active traveller who wants a truly hands-on experience, these backcountry safari adventures offer a personal and interactive approach to experiencing the best of Alaska in an eco-friendly manner. The wilderness of Denali National Park, Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, Chugach National Forest, Chugach National Park and Kenai Fjords National Park is the focus. These fully guided adventures feature overnights at wilderness lodges in Denali National Park and on the Kenai Peninsula as well as guided activities, interpretive programs, delicious meals, and transportation during the tour. Three separate seven or eight day itineraries are offered to accommodate a variety of interests and desired levels of activity. A wide variety of departure dates are available.
Big Sky Country - Glacier Adventure
Montana has 10 national forests, 12 wilderness areas, and over 16 million acres of public lands to explore.
Mountaineers can find day hikes, multi-day treks, wilderness adventures, and technical rock and ice climbing in Montana. Glacier Park alone has over 1,000 miles of trails. For the real adventurer, many remote areas of the state remain virtually uninvestigated and they're climbing potential unexplored. Our guides are available to lead your climbing adventure.
Montana Family Adventure
Let Compass Adventure Tours help find your space under the Big Sky. Among our Montana staff guides are native biologists, botanists, geologists, naturalists, and historians whose knowledge and infectious love of the outdoors will add immeasurably to your vacation. Our guides receive extensive training and your safety is their primary concern. Compass Adventure Tours offer a variety of activities. Outdoor adventures include fly-fishing, whitewater rafting, trail rides, llama treks, backpacking, float trips, kayaking, photography, dinosaur digs and much, much more. We can even customized your trip to make it an adventure of a lifetime.
Montana Mountain Bike
We've chosen some of the best cycling routes in Montana for your perusal. They're graded by difficulty and length, so you can find a short, easy ride that's just right for you and your family, or a longer multi-day adventure. Go to the index below for a list and description of the currently-available rides. We're adding more rides all the time, so check back before you throw your bikes on the rack and head for the Big Sky Country.
Lake Koocanusa Loop - Road Bike
Flint Creek Ramble - Road Bike
Big Hole River - Road Bike
Wolf Creek Foothills Loop - Road Bike
Columbia Falls Out and Back - Road Bike
Two Moon Park - Mountain Bike
Alkali Creek - Mountain Bike
Pioneer Mountains/Crystal Park - Road Bike
Clark Fork River Trail - Mountain Bikee
Red Rocks Lake Wildlife Refuge - Mountain Bike
River's Edge Trail - Road Bike
Montana River Trips
Big Sky Country offers some of the most exciting white water rafting and scenic river trips in the nation. From Montana's snowy peaks and the Yellowstone Plateau, pristine waters converge and flow through spectacular canyons and valleys. Experience the thrill of whitewater on a raft trip down the Alberton Gorge, near Missoula, or the tranquil beauty of the wild and scenic Upper Missouri, near Fort Benton. You can explore Montana's rivers in many ways, Compass Adventure Tours offers a variety of trips on driftboats, rafts, kayaks and canoes.
The Southwest - Arizona Mountain Bike
While most of America is beset by winter's chill, the Sonoran Desert of southeastern Arizona is basking under warm, crystal-clear blue skies. This exhilarating mountain bike tour features great Sonoran single-track rides. Designed for advanced-intermediates, this trip also offers expert options for those who seek a test of their strength, skill and endurance.
Trip price includes all meals (dinner Day 1-lunch Day 6), all accommodations, park entrance fees, T-shirt, water bottle, support vehicle, historical information packet, professional guides and bicycle riding instruction.
Bryce & Zion Biking
Deep canyons, the startling hoodoos of Bryce and the rock temples of Zion, the breathtaking array of color, the variety of vegetation, the high alpine setting of the Dixie National Forest — this is the Bryce/Zion Alpiner.
From Cedar City, you'll explore the scenic Cedar Breaks region. The ride to Cedar Breaks is spectacular as you climb through beautiful Cedar Canyon along cascading Cedar Creek to Cedar Breaks' summit at 10,200 feet. After a short, but rapid descent, you're in the ski resort village of Brian Head where you'll spend the evening at the Cedar Breaks Lodge.
It's on to Bryce in the heart of Utah's "Color Country." A beautiful ride through the sandstone formations of Red Canyon carries you to the open expanse of the Paunsaugunt Plateau and Bryce Canyon where you'll spend the next two nights.
Hawaii - Multisport
Balmy island evenings, amber sunsets, palm-fringed white and black sand beaches, lush green tropical rainforests, spectacular vistas of mountains and the crashing surf, the thrill of watching red-hot lava flow into the blue sea — this is the Big Island of Hawaii. You'll explore on country roads the very best parts of the largest of the 124 islands that comprise the state of Hawaii.
Prices include lodging, three meals a day (except one lunch on some trips), drinks and snacks from the van, maps and written route directions, all support vans and trailers as required, taxes, all gratuities to waiters (except for items that you pay for), and baggage handlers, leadership, all maintenance on rental bicycles, all park entrance fees, sea kayaking, rafting, canoe rentals, wildlife cruises, boat rides, snorkeling, and tourist attractions where noted in the trip descriptions, and ferry boat tickets where the ferry ride is part of a day's standard cycling route.


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Boy, 8, killed in Aurora hit-and-run crash
By Luke Wilusz Mar 26, 2019, 11:59am CDT
Share All sharing options for: Boy, 8, killed in Aurora hit-and-run crash
Lake Street and Plum Street in Aurora. | Google Maps
An 8-year-old boy died after he and his grandfather were hit by a vehicle while crossing the street Monday evening in west suburban Aurora.
The boy, his 53-year-old grandfather and his sister were walking across Lake Street at 7:42 p.m. at the intersection with Plum Street when a southbound vehicle on Lake hit the boy and the grandfather, according to a statement from Aurora police.
The boy and the grandfather were taken to a hospital, where the boy was pronounced dead, police said.
The grandfather remains hospitalized Tuesday morning, but his condition is unknown, police said.
The vehicle drove off after the crash, police said. It was found parked on a nearby residential street a short time later with heavy front-end damage.
Witnesses told investigators that at least two people got out of the vehicle and one of them ran away from the area on foot, police said.
Authorities are still trying to identify the driver or passenger, and anyone with information is asked to call police at 630-256-5000.


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(Variaciones Fantasma) o Thema mit Variationen in Es-Dur für Klavier (Tema con variaciones en mi bemol mayor para piano), WoO 24 es una de las últimas composiciones de Robert Schumann compuesta en 1854. Las variaciones fueron escritas justo antes de su internamiento en un sanatorio mental y actualmente es una de obras menos interpretadas y difundidas del autor.

Historia
El WoO 24 constituye la última obra de Schumann antes de ser internado en el sanatorio mental de Endenich, Bonn. Wolf-Dieter Seiffert escribió en el prólogo a  que, durante aquella época de su vida, Schumann creía estar rodeado de espíritus que tocaban música para él, siendo esta tanto "maravillosa" como "horrible". Estos espíritus le ofrecían "las más magníficas revelaciones", pero también le amenazaban con enviarle al infierno. Seiffert escribe que entre los días 17 y 18 de febrero de 1854 Schumann escribió un tema que, según él, le fue dictado por ángeles, sin reconocer que se trataba en realidad de un tema que él mismo había escrito tiempo atrás. Algunos días más tarde comenzó a escribir una serie de variaciones sobre este mismo tema.

Mientras se encontraba trabajando aún en la composición de estas variaciones, el 27 de febrero, se lanzó a las heladas aguas del Rhin de las que fue finalmente rescatado y llevado a casa. Después de sobrevivir a este intento de suicidio continuó trabajando en ellas. Al siguiente día completó la obra y envió el manuscrito a su mujer Clara que, por recomendación del médico, había sido ya separada de él.

Movimientos
Esta composición consta de los siguientes movimientos:
 Tema –  (Tranquilo, serio)
 Variación  I
 Variación II –  (como un canon)
 Variación III –  (Algo más animado)
 Variación IV
 Variación V

Influencia
Hay una serie de obras en las que se cita el WoO 24.
 Johannes Brahms: Variationen über ein Thema von Schumann in Es-Dur (Variaciones sobre un tema de Schumann en mi bemol mayor), Op. 23 (1863) para piano a 4 manos.
 Aribert Reimann: Sieben Fragmente für Orchester in memoriam Robert Schumann (Siete fragmentos para orquesta en memoria de Robert Schumann) (1988)
 Tori Amos: "Your Ghost", canción incluida en el álbum Night of Hunters de 2011.
 Mathias Énard: Boussole (Brújula), novela de 2016.

Referencias

Enlaces externos

Composiciones para piano de Robert Schumann
Música de cámara de Robert Schumann
Composiciones para piano solo
Composiciones de 1854
Variaciones
Composiciones en mi bemol mayor


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Q: Optional dependencies in OSGI SCR framework I am using the SCR framework in an OSGI felix platform to inject service references in my Components. This works great, except for optional dependencies. So if I have two components Foo and Bar, where Foo is given below:
@Component
public class FooImpl implements Foo {
    Log log = LogFactory.getLog(this.getClass());
    @Reference(cardinality=ReferenceCardinality.OPTIONAL_UNARY)
    Bar bar;

    public void bindBar(Bar bar) {
        log.info("bar bound: "+bar);
    }
    public void unbindBar(Bar map) {
        log.info("bar unbound: "+bar);
    }

    @override
    public void fooHello() {
        log.info("Hello, this is an implementation of Foo");
    }
}

this works, as long as the bundle defining the interface of Bar is deployed in my OSGi platform. If no Bar implementation component is activated in the platform, SCR is still happy and will activate my FooImpl component, ofcourse without reference to any Bar implementation. However, if the Bar interface is not deployed in the platform, SCR crashes during activation of my component, likely due to an exception from the inspection of my component via reflection, but I could not determine that definitively.
So, is there a way to deploy an OSGI bundle with optional dependencies that are not present in the platform that include SCR Components that have optional references to interfaces coming from these optional OSGi dependencies?

A: OSGi dependencies can be used to inject implementations of some types, like BarImpl class implementing Bar interface which can be injected to @Reference Bar bar field. Optional dependencies mean that your OSGi component can use some service, but doesn't require it to work.
However, if OSGi doesn't know type you are trying to use as a field, you will get an exception and it is a valid behaviour. You simply can't use a class if its field has unknown type - and its true not only for OSGi but for Java in general.
A good approach here is to split bundle containing Bar implementation to two bundles:

*

*bar-api containing Bar interface,

*bar-impl containing OSGi service BarImpl.

bar-api is still required by FooImpl, but bar-impl is truly optional and disabling it in the Felix console won't break referencing components.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Accommodating sporting excellence
University of Glasgow Sport is delighted to announce the latest partner to our sports bursary programme for 2015/ 2016.
University of Glasgow Residential Services will be accommodating sporting excellence by offering discounted Halls of Residence fees to selected athletes so they can focus on their academic studies and sporting careers without having to worry about the costs of coming to University. The value of the agreement is equivalent to the annual cost of one en-suite room in the University of Glasgow.
This new initiative will hugely benefit talented athletes at the University and see a select number of first year sports bursars (who will be staying in University of Glasgow residencies) receive discounts on their first year's accommodation costs.
In exchange, sports bursars will become ambassadors for Residential Services, promoting their contribution to delivering an excellent student experience, to our students, through their first class accommodation provisions and services through a series of blogs and testimonials throughout the year.
Grant Reilly, Marketing & Business Development Manager for University of Glasgow Sport said, "It is great to see other student services departments investing in our sports bursars as they can add considerable value to the University' reputation and help raise our profile on the international stage and help inspire other students to make the University of Glasgow their number one choice of academic institution".
Calum Hill, Service Development Teacher at University of Glasgow Sport, who oversees our sports bursary programme said, "This initiative will provide invaluable support to even more talented athletes who work tirelessly to perform at the highest levels both in sport and academically. We are delighted that Residential Services can offer this support in addition to the first class accommodation they already provide our athletes".
Karen Morton, Head of Residential and Cleaning Services at the University of Glasgow said, "Residential Services are delighted to support University of Glasgow Sport in offering a great student experience to talented athletes who chose to study and live at University of Glasgow. Everyone will be keen to hear about the selected athlete's progress throughout the year".
If you are a talented athlete looking to study at the University of Glasgow, visit Scholarships and bursaries for more information.
First published: 31 August 2015
<< August


CLEARWATER, Fla. (FOX 13) - Two teens have been taken into custody after a Friday morning car burglary turned into a high-speed chase in Pinellas County. However, deputies have now uncovered that one of those teens involved in Friday's events was the sole survivor of a deadly SUV crash back in 2017.
Authorities said 15-year-old Keondrae Brown, along with a 17-year-old suspect, took off on foot when they saw a sheriff's car patrolling the unincorporated Clearwater area Friday morning.
The pair eventually jumped into a stolen vehicle, speeding down U.S. 19. They were later caught and arrested after attempting to hide in the woods near the Pinellas Trail.
This isn't the first time the 15-year-old's name has made headlines. Back in the fall of 2017, Brown was the only one to walk away from a fiery crash that killed three teens.
The boys were accused of stealing a car from a Clearwater dealership. After being located by deputies, the teens attempted to flee. Their car reached speeds of up to 140 miles per hour before crashing into another vehicle.
The driver of the vehicle, 16-year-old, Keontae Brown, Keondrae's brother, died in that crash.
Just over a year later, Brown has found himself in an all-too familiar position. The teen is now behind bars just weeks before his sixteenth birthday for the same crime that cut his brother's life short and almost ended his own.
Over a year later, a message Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri shared after the crash still rings true.
"This has got to change. law enforcement can't fix this. Parents, family members, caregivers, others need to step up and figure out why these kids are out at three, four o'clock in the morning stealing cars. We're doing all we can," said the sheriff during a 2017 press conference.
Brown's mother told FOX 13 that she hopes his arrest might be a blessing in disguise and the wake-up call her son needs to turn his life around.
Brown was charged with one count of Grand Theft Auto, one count of Loitering and Prowling, and one count of Aggravated Fleeing and Eluding. The teen also had six active juvenile pick-up orders for various charges. The 17-year-old involved in Friday's incident was charged with one count of Grand Theft Auto.
Additional charges are pending against both teens.


In earlier days, we were very much connected with nature. Everything was pure and safe for us. Initially even for diseases there was no need to seek for a doctor but the different herbs, spices, and other home products.
Herbal remedies represent alternative medicine,s, when prescription drug are too expensive and often carry a huge list of potential side effects. Herbal remedies are great as they do not contain any harmful substances.
It is not a new phenomenon, even though it has just recently come to light as an alternative to prescription drugs. In fact, many of the medicines that are given out by doctors of all types have herbal origins to them. Drugs that we use everyday such as aspirin and even penicillin were both derived from herbal medicines.
Herbal or natural remedies are based on plants and herbs that can treat most ailments without the cost or side effects of commercially-produced medications. Traditional medicines just suppress the symptoms while herbal medicines find the root cause of problems and thus eliminating it. Herbal medicines are prepared from the different parts of the plant and plant extracts. Herbal medicines are prepared by mixing various plant parts like roots, stems, leaves, bark, flower juices, etc.
Listed below is a range of medicinal herbs for common ailments.
It is recommended that a good reference book be used to obtain the herb's full medical properties.