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Roots Canada Company's Strategic Analysis Research Paper
Name of Company-Roots Canada
Physical address: 1400 Castlefield Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M6B 4C4, Canada.
Telephone Number: 416-781-3574.
Toll-Free Number: 888-307-6687.
http://canada.roots.com/.
We will write a custom Research Paper on Roots Canada Company's Strategic Analysis specifically for you
Executives including HR and Apparel VP's
Michael Budman- Co-Founder and President.
Don Green- Co-Founder.
Robert Sarner- Director of Communication & Public Affairs.
James Connell – Apparel vice president.
Laura Clark – HR and payroll director ("Roots Canada: Company Fact Sheet" par. 3).
Current organizational mission
The companys mission is to respect the culture in all regions where it operates, comply with local laws and regulations, and respect its employees who are tasked with the responsibility of manufacturing the companys products. Under its code of conduct, the company is fully committed to protecting the environment, ensuring wellness, and health.
Current ownership and management alternatives
The company is fully privately owned by two individuals: Michael Budman is the company president and a co-founder. The second co-owner is Don Green.
Country of ownership- Canada.
Main business activity- manufacturer/ producer/processor ("Businessweek: Roots Canada Ltd." par.4).
Current goods/service category
Apparel.
Leather Goods.
Roots Home Design.
Business-to-Business/Wholesale.
Licensed Products.
SWOT Analysis – Current and Long Term
Strengths- enjoys the Canadian heritage and strong linkage with the Canadian society offers good and high-quality products, has a code of conduct, attractive store appearances and layout, a privately owned company, online presence, and clothed Canadian Olympic team from 1998 to 2004
Weakness- the company is not publicly traded and cannot get capital from the financial markets, its products are relatively expensive, many product lines under the same brand name, and excessive diversification of its product lines
Opportunities- Opportunities for expansion into foreign markets such as Europe, outsourcing to reduce costs, opportunities for research and development, be listed in the Canadian Stock Exchange, and differentiating its products from those of the competitors
Threats- stiff competition from major players such as Hudsons Bay and the Gap.
Profit – latest results and projections
The gets USD $257,000,000 in annual sales.
The companys logo-the beaver- is its main positioning tool. The logo makes its customers identify with its brand as a typical Canadian brand. The company equally has Canadian value which further strengthens its position as a homegrown brand.
Identification of Consumers
Boys.
Overall Strategy
Goods/services strategy
The companys overall strategy is to deliver a consistent brand experience to both its online and in-store customers. The company is committed to enhancing its customer's shopping experience. Owing to their extensive marketing, customers can get information on products, their prices, and quality of experience even before visiting the stores. This is done through emails, website displays, and print advertisements. The company is in the process of integrating its inventory, customer service, and other systems to deliver exceptional service to its customers ("Globelink: VP of eCommerce and Marketing, Roots" par. 5).
Location strategy
Online sales.
Retail outlets.
The company uniformly prices its products regardless of whether they are sold online or in retail outlets.
The companys pricing strategy is determined by the type of product. Products for the mass market are priced cheaply compared to products for the affluent. Product prices equally vary depending on size and target market.
Promotion strategy
Youtube videos, making use of social media (Facebook, Twitter, Roots website and a blog), making calls, celebrity advertisements, encouraging current customers to refer their friends and family.
Website advertisements, print media, emails, and calls from company agents.
Specific Activities
Sponsored kayaker Adam van Koeverden a renowned world champion
Environmental initiatives- the company uses recycled materials and non-toxic materials to build its stores
The companys president Michael Budman is an executive member of Waterkeeper Alliance, an agency that works with other stakeholders in both Canada and the United States to preserve and protect rivers.
For many years, Roots has collaborated with various environmental groups, for example, Friends of the Earth, Canadian Wildlife Federation, Environmental Defense, the World Wildlife Fund, the David Suzuki Foundation, and the Toronto Green Awards to protect the environment ("Prezi: Roots Canada BOH4M" par. 10).
Businessweek: Roots Canada Ltd . 2013. Web.
Globelink: VP of eCommerce and Marketing, Roots. 2013. Web.
Prezi: Roots Canada BOH4M. 2013. Web.
Roots Canada: Company Fact Sheet. 2013. Web.
This research paper on Roots Canada Company's Strategic Analysis was written and submitted by your fellow student. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly.
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IvyPanda. (2021, January 14). Roots Canada Company's Strategic Analysis. Retrieved from https://ivypanda.com/essays/roots-canada-companys-strategic-analysis/
"Roots Canada Company's Strategic Analysis." IvyPanda, 14 Jan. 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/roots-canada-companys-strategic-analysis/.
1. IvyPanda. "Roots Canada Company's Strategic Analysis." January 14, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/roots-canada-companys-strategic-analysis/.
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IvyPanda. 2021. "Roots Canada Company's Strategic Analysis." January 14, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/roots-canada-companys-strategic-analysis/.
IvyPanda. (2021) 'Roots Canada Company's Strategic Analysis'. 14 January.
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The United states should be isolationist
Isolationism is a form of foreign policy in which a state seeks to avoid all international entanglements, including political alliances, commitments, organizations, and trade agreements. There are usually two parts to such a policy. First is non-interventionism, meaning the state will not involve itself in international military alliances and will not engage in conflict except to protect its own vital interests. Second is protectionism, wherein the state sets up legal barriers to trade and to cultural exchange. The United States held to a policy of isolationism for most of its history ending permanently only in the 20th century with the Second World War and subsequent Cold War. A number of American politicians, scholars, and a growing number of concerned citizens have begun to advocate a return to isolationism. They cite the risks and costs of American involvement on the world stage and decry its position as de facto world police, which they see as not only an expensive endeavor, but also dangerous to the security of the state. They also argue that the dangers of its trade deficit brought on by a lack of trade barriers create the risk of the United States becoming the economic thrall of its creditors. Opponents of such views point out that the decades since the United States has become the primary actor on the world stage have been marked by an unprecedented degree of stability and prosperity across the globe, and that its withdrawal from world affairs might create dangerous disorder. They also cite the fact that the American economy, dependent on free trade, would contract and its people's standard of living would diminish should it pursue a policy of isolationism. Debates on this issue revolve around the issues of whether the United States has a moral right to withdraw from the international system, whether such withdrawal would be overly harmful to world security and stability, and whether it would be inordinately harmful to the United States' own society.
28%Agree72%Disagree
alex55 Countries & Places
I'm only a fan of the non-interventionism side of isolationism.
dcahill75 Agree +3Reply
I voted no before I read your explanation and admit I do not have enough knowledge to make and "informed" decision on this. But my guess vote stands because of the globalized economy. Non-interventionism is a for sure good idea. I tend to think a world wide government, or at least a world wide economic structure (good or bad) is just around the corner whether we like it or not.
So "should"? Maybe. "Could or would"? Highly doubtful.
VicZinc Disagree +2Reply
1. Protectionism is an awful idea, read some Panzer please. 2. A partial isolationst stance is one thing, having no military alliances at all is preposterous.
iamthewalrus Disagree +2Reply
In response to iamthewalrus:
In times of peace, why do we need military alliances?
Additionally, have you ever read George Washington's farewell address?
dcahill75 Agree 0Reply
Quote: The United States held to a policy of isolationism for most of its history ...
"Manifest Destiny" ring a bell?
How about the Monroe Doctrine?
How about starting wars under false pretenses?
All that is closer to "colonialism" than "isolationism".
Walt_OReagun Disagree 0Reply


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We were playing GURPS, and I made a offhand comment that you could make a bomb directional by having parts of a bomb explode at slightly different rates. Say you have a bomb in front of a target, do explosives shockwaves only reflect off hard substances, like the ground or a back plate? I tried googling explosive lens, shaped charges, but I couldn't find anything.
You can indeed focus explosive power in many different ways, shockwaves behave much like any other wave, with constructive/destructive interference, diffraction and reflection, resonance effects, propagation rates etc. The detonation wave that moves through the body of the explosive itself is also under the influence of these effects.
The "Misznay–Schardin effect" describes how a planar sheet of explosive will produce a planar blast wave parallel to the explosive surface, which allows us to manipulate the shape+propagation of some detonations.
Shaped charges take advantage of this effect and use a detonation wave travelling up a hollow cone to collapse a liner inwards and forwards.
The "SIMON" ballistic breaching device produces a neat little explosion tailored to be "just enough" to blow a door open.
Nuclear weapons utilise shaped blocks of different explosives that detonate at different velocities to shape the inwards-travelling detonation into a near-perfect spherical implosion.
Shockwaves will reflect off objects, and yes, harder objects will reflect more of the waves energy with more or less of the energy absorbed into the structure depending on many things.
Shockwaves can also be diffracted through different densities of air/gas as well.
These effects can even be pronounced on a large scale, causing increased destruction in unexpected areas, and less in others.
It should be noted that these are still bombs, and whilst a blast can produce focussed or shaped force, they still explode in all directions (equal and opposite reactions and all that). A claymore mine (which uses Miznay-Schardin to produce a specific spread of fragments) has the words "front towards enemy" on the front, this is just where the shrapnel is, it will still kill you if you are too close in any direction.
You can take measures to change this, but eventually you start constructing a gun.
They're mostly engineers or stem graduates, so I need to do my homework. GURPS is too realistic sometimes.
Two waves can travel through each other without effecting one another. If you use an explosive and a solid, you can get the result you are looking for. Otherwise, the best you can hope for is to create deconstructive interference, which will always fail to completely cancel the original explosive, because the center of its detonation is a different point. If you have a shell of one explosive material surround a ball of another explosive material and explode them with just the right timing, you can negate the ball's shock-wave, but not the shell's shock-wave.
In short, you need a solid in between the two explosions to get a shape charge. You might, might, be able to create a shape charge using 2 explosions in 2 different fluids. This is because how waves move from one fluid to another is complex and weird.
What exactly do you mean by "directional bomb"? What effect are you going for?
Originally it was a thrown satchel that did damage in a circle but it was hard to throw or plant the satchel far enough away without getting hurt. That's when we started asking about how to make the bomb deal more damage in one direction, like a claymores. Then I made the guess that a smart enough person could design a similar effect, but without the metal wall to reflect the blast.
You won't get around Newton's third law. You can't have a bomb that only exerts force in one direction.
You can have a bomb that has a tight, sharp blast in one direction (=towards enemy, ideally) and a wider, half-globular blast in the other direction, which will not reach as far.
Alternately, reverse that. A spread, short-range2 broad damaging blast towards the enemy (enough to cause problems, without needing such precise rotational control upon release, just more enthusiasm to get it closer), and maybe two or more balancing1 spikey-jets of force facing mostly backwards but somewhat sideways to skirt the deployer.
1 Not necessarily totally balanced, either way, but experimentation in handling would have to be used to see how much over/under-push you can have before it causes more problems to the operator than worthwhile as you get more rocket-exhaust roughly towards them or exhausted payload 'matter' propelling itself back.
2 Technically, it's just when the inverse square drops it below damaging levels, for a given steradial cone-ish area of effect. But I think we can all agree it's not the cut-off-distance of the fictional explosive in (IIRC) George's Marvelous Medicine, whichever design and orientatiin we go for.
sardia wrote: Originally it was a thrown satchel that did damage in a circle but it was hard to throw or plant the satchel far enough away without getting hurt. That's when we started asking about how to make the bomb deal more damage in one direction, like a claymores. Then I made the guess that a smart enough person could design a similar effect, but without the metal wall to reflect the blast.
I did say thats not how claymores work. They do not have a metal plate that reflects rearwards blast forwards. You do not want to stand behind a claymore.
And any metal plate will be very strongly propelled backwards unless it was very massive. You can get away with it if the plates mass is very much in excess of the explosive mass - and funnily enough, this is the exact situation that a gun represents, where the "plate" is the barrel, breach and other mass of the gun itself.
To be honest I think what you really want IS a gun.
You want to be able to project explosive force, at short-ish range, without injury to the person deploying the weapon.
Thats what they invented 40mm grenades for, and they even do a semi-armour-piercing shaped charge version.
But also, for reference: there is such a thing as a "ballistic blanket" which is essentially a very heavy, padded and reinforced shield made of various fabrics and fibres. It is precisely used for when soldiers want to be able to be closer to a detonation (like a satchel charge or wall breaching charge) than would otherwise be safe. This is, in effect, an extrapolation of a claymore with a very massive backing plate - only the "plate" can be much less massive because it is in contact with you, and not with the explosives.
tl;dr - no you really cannot have an explosive that only explodes in a single direction.
Go nuclear or go home!


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Podcast: Diary of a Law School Applicant's Cycle Episode 2 (The Waiting)
In this episode, we continue our interview series with "Barb," a current applicant. Barb is a splitter with a 176 LSAT and a 3.1 GPA, and she's also a non-traditional applicant with 10+ years of full-time work experience after college. In this interview, she and Mike discuss the many emotions and anxieties that come up after you hit that "submit" button, what to expect as far as a timeline for hearing back from schools, and the potential implications of the Omicron variant for admitted students' days.
You can listen and subscribe to Status Check with Spivey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, and Google Podcasts.
Another note, for applicants who may be beginning to think about preparing for the academic rigors of 1L — our Pre-L program just started accepting students, and we are temporarily offering last year's rates through January 15. More below:
Prepare for 1L with Our One-on-One Pre-L Classes
To help you get a jumpstart on what law school actually entails and on 1L preparation, we are launching our eighth year of Pre-L packages for applicants enrolling in Fall 2022.
This year, we're offering last year's Pre-L rates for anyone who signs up by January 15th. The 2022 packages have added content and resources, but we have locked in our 2021 prices through that date. The sessions can take place later in the year; the discounted pricing applies to those who sign up before the 15th.
Pre-L offers one-on-one training in law school prep, career prep, and/or writing training. We have different packages to prepare you for the hidden curriculum of 1L, the turbulent job market, and the rigors of learning lawyers' key skill: legal writing. We've helped students at top schools earn the results they want and prepare for a fast-paced job cycle. If you're interested in reserving a spot, send a note to info@spiveyconsulting.com, and we'll set up time for a quick phone call to discuss availability and which package/s would work best for you.
Full Transcript:
Mike: Welcome to Status Check with Spivey, where we talk about life, law school, law school admissions, a little bit of everything. Today is law school admissions focused. We're rejoining "Barb," an applicant we've been discussing the cycle with as she progresses through the cycle. She's a super splitter, so a score the high 170 range, but a GPA from years ago that's below all the medians of all the schools she'll be applying to.
This one's interesting because Barb has submitted 13 of 15 of her applications. Understandably, hasn't heard anything. It's only been a couple weeks, but we spend a great deal of time talking about how much that silence can get to you. How much anxiety is produced when the future is uncertain, which is a position so many people right now are in. If you're in the cycle, even if you've heard from some schools, great obviously, but your future is still uncertain.
And there's a lot of people that haven't heard from a lot of schools. I talked with Barb after the podcast, which incidentally, that's not her name, we're just trying to keep things confidential. And my best guess is maybe 15%, 17% of admits have gone out yet. I mean if you think about it, some schools haven't even admitted yet. So we have 80% of admits coming.
So a lot of people are in this waiting period, and we talk a good deal about that and how to make the waiting sort of more pleasant, and maybe what you can proactively do during the waiting aside from hammering schools, asking them for results. So without further delay, here's Barb.
I am joined once again with Barb, who is in the throes of this cycle, and I'm going to let Barb sort of catch us up on where she's at. You certainly don't have to say the schools you've applied to, maybe you can give us a range or whatever, Barb, and what's going on since we last talked.
Barb: Yeah. So it's finally the middle of December. December's finally here. I have submitted applications to 13 schools. I have two more that I've decided to submit that required a little extra writing, but I plan to finish in the next three to four days. So yeah, I'm mostly done. I started submitting the week before Thanksgiving. It took me about four or five days to get everything in since every school has slightly different requirements to meet. So yeah, and then after Thanksgiving it took, you know, probably a week to 10 days for all of the confirmation emails, application complete emails, status check logins, all of those things to roll in. And then since then it's been radio silence.
Mike: Radio silence after just a week, right, Barb?
Barb: Yeah, yeah. But boy, it feels real quiet after all that work you put in and you submit everything and then you just sit there and wonder.
Mike: So for doing this for 22 years, what you just told me, I mean, I get people who reach out after six hours of submitting in panic that they haven't heard. I don't have great news for you, but I think it's good for not just you but for everyone to hear this. It can take a week, it can take a month, it can take literally six months. And I don't have a psychological intervention. Dr. Guy Winch was on our podcast, and he did talk about how to wait. My only intervention would be, pretend it's going to take six months, and your expectations are going to be pleasantly exceeded.
Barb: It's been a challenge because you're right. Logically, I know there is no reason for me to have heard anything at this point. And I know that. Logically, I know that. But it is so different when, you know, when you're working on applications, you have these tasks that keep you busy. There's always something to be working on. There's a thing to edit, to write, to procure, someone to reach out to. And then you submit them. And that part of your brain doesn't have those same tasks to distract anymore. So, definitely that portion of the process, and based on the way the law admissions subreddit has changed over the last four to six weeks, I would guess a lot of other people are also in that same place with a lot of nervous, anxious energy, and not as many outlets for it to go into.
Mike: Yeah. And we could talk about it either one of those two things, healthy outlets. For example, I play this game called Bloons TD5 on my iPhone. Actually, I'm not sure that's healthy, but I do get a five-minute escape from the stresses of being misquoted in the media. If I didn't have a stress fractured foot, I'd be trail running every day. So there's lots of healthy things you can do obviously to free your mind. Meditation. But I'm actually curious on the unhealthy one, which is how often are you on Reddit? How many threads are you reading?
Barb: I'm going to be really honest with you. I did not take my own advice that I gave in the last podcast where I was like, "Oh yeah, I only check it once or twice a week. I filter by the, you know, the top post. So I only read the ones that are the most popular." I have noticed over the last week, week and a half, the amount of time I spend on that subreddit, I am afraid to know the count of the hours. In the last few days, I've tried to be a lot more conscious of it and not just mindlessly go there. But it's interesting you bring up one of the interviews you did because I just started reading a book called Unwinding Anxiety. Are you familiar with this book?
Mike: No, but we should have the author on our podcast.
Barb: Yeah, yeah. So it just came out this year. So it's really great because it includes the COVID world, which I think makes the book super interesting and important. The author is Judson Brewer, he's an M.D.
Mike: Oh, yeah, yeah. He's at Brown.
Barb: Yeah. He's an MD/PhD, and his book is phenomenal. Unwinding Anxiety is his newest book, and I think it's great because it's written from the perspective that everyone has anxiety and he is explaining why. And I found it so illuminating. It's so helpful for this process. And one of the things he says is that anxiety comes from a place where your prefrontal cortex wants to predict the future. It wants to know what's going to happen. And reading that, it just dawned on me for so many reasons, those of us that are applying to law school right now, we have no idea what's going to happen truly.
With LSAT scores being so unpredictable, applicant volumes, number of applications per applicant, like you being misquoted. You know, you're using your own knowledge and making your best educated guesses, but even you don't know what's going to happen. And his book has really shown me that this part of the cycle especially, is just the perfect storm for anxiety and worry and just turning your brain into a mess.
Mike: We had Dr. Gabor Maté on, he spoke on the podcast on anxiety, and he talked a good deal about how you're comparing your insides with other people's outsides, but you don't know their insides. So this is one of the problems with Reddit. What you're seeing is what they're saying, vis-à-vis thought-out messages. But you don't necessarily know what other people are thinking.
Now, sometimes Reddit can be helpful because there's some people in there that are going to say, "Hey, isn't anyone else in the same, but I am, I've applied to schools and I haven't heard." And that's probably soothing. But I would say that for every one of those posts, there's five to 10, "Hey, I'm so excited that I just got into Princeton Law School." And while you're happy for that person, subconsciously, that's got to be a little bit like, "When am I going to hear from Princeton Law School?"
Barb: Yeah. And I've started to wonder too, you know, the way my mind works. You know, when I want to predict the future, I'll go looking for more information and some of the websites — there's multiple, so I won't name them — but places where you can go and see the data points, and it's self-reported, right. But it's a GPA, it's an LSAT score. It's where they applied. It's the date they got in. It's how much scholarship money they got.
And I believe that all these resources are valuable, but I think maybe we haven't thought about their impact on us as people or the extra stress, worry, comparison. I think that there's got to be some kind of balance there. I don't feel like I've figured it out, certainly. So I don't know what the answer is. Because I do believe all these things are resources. You know, the subreddit is how I learned that I could ask or fee waivers. I got so many additional fee waivers, application fee waivers from schools simply because I asked. I wouldn't have known to do that without the subreddit. So I'm certainly not someone that has the answers.
Mike: I can talk about both those, if you want.
Barb: Yeah.
Mike: Those make people money. We are not completely disillusioned by the fact that if we created one of those, we would double our website traffic and be in the top 50,000 in the United States websites. But we've resisted on principle. So let me tell you what I — and I'm not judging other people's principles. Let me tell you what my principles are. The predicting ones that are out there, even if LSAC who has all the data and is not self-reported, so they wouldn't be lying and people do lie on those websites —
Barb: Oh yeah.
Mike: — So even if LSAC were to do it, it would be horrible because it would only give you the previous cycle's chances, not the current cycle's. Last year was like the case study on the predictive modeling in being wrong. So law schools can't stand the predictive ones, because it has nothing to do with the current cycle, and on principle, we're not going to do it. Also, we work close to a lot of law schools, we work with a lot of law schools. So we're not going to do something that no one in the legal admissions industry thinks is a good idea.
Now, the sites that show what's going on during the cycle may be a little bit better, but I will say this: every year, there are people with the exact same numbers who get admitted to the same school, waitlisted to the same school, and denied from the same school. Also, every year the cycles occur at completely different paces, sometimes unintentionally so. Sometimes you're filtered into the wrong pile. I've seen many schools admit lots of people and then have to say, "Sorry, we didn't mean to admit you." That's a very public facing thing that happens. At a private level sometimes, schools mean to read people's files a lot sooner and they get filtered into the wrong bucket.
So my point is, even with these data points that you're seeing real time, okay, "I was just admitted to Brown Law School." I'm going to just make up names so no one gets upset. Okay, great. But that's a micro, micro, micro level data point that has little to do with the macro level cycle. So I wouldn't put too much emphasis on it. Let me give you a real-life example. There was a top 14 law school that got rid of it, but used to have a preferred track program. So they would invite you preferred track. They used to waitlist a ton of the people they invited to apply preferred track. And I would get an incredible amount of emails and phone calls, "Oh my gosh, my cycle is doomed because this school waitlisted me." And I would say, "Just wait a month." Because I could see these people's — they were telling me their data, their LSAT and GPA. A month later, they're admitted to Harvard, Penn, Columbia, and then two months later, maybe Stanford, maybe Yale. And they had long forgotten about the school that had panicked them a month ago because the school was prob— I don't want to put words into the school's mouth, but they might have been yield protecting.
So to the extent that, you know, we can all give the cycle time, maybe not get obsessed with what individuals got admitted today. You don't know if they're connected to that law school, you don't know if they started an elephant refugee camp in Afghanistan — and that was like the best, true story, best essay the school had ever seen, et cetera, et cetera — all you know is here's these little scatter plot data points and it's going to churn me up for days by looking at it.
Barb: Yeah. And it speaks really well to kind of where I started to spiral earlier in the week, like you're saying it's data points. One, you don't know if they're telling the truth, and then two, there's so much information that's missing. So I've been trying to find other things to fill my time. Another thing that surprised me when I finally finished my applications, you know, I spent frankly months working on my written components, brainstorming ideas, you know, I talked about a few of my personal statement ideas with you last time. I had multiple friends and colleagues editing, reviewing multiple drafts. So much time is spent on these written components, and then you go into the LSAC website, you fill everything out, you attach certain documents, you review the PDF — which, there was one where I attached the wrong documents — review every PDF, thankfully. And I'm looking at these applications and I'm thinking, "How on earth do they decide with these materials?" You know, I got to the end of the process and I was so tired of reading and writing about myself. I got to the end and I just thought, "Man, I'm over myself." How are these schools supposed to decide based on what feels like such a limited selection, such a specific selection of materials in an application? I was sort of baffled at the end of it, with how I felt.
Mike: It's so much about differentiation, because when you read 12 personal statements in a row, all about, "This summer, I interned at X," you do like even start tuning out that limited information even more so. And then when the 13th personal statement is, "My grandfather told me to get on a train and go to this cemetery and find his grandfather's tomb and this is what I reflected on the train trip back," that personal statement is going to so pop. It's not so much that they know that person any better, but that person stands out so much more. That's why differentiation helps, because even the limited information, the spectacular is still limited. But if it's differentiating, that admissions person's going to remember you better and think about you more throughout the cycle. Particularly if you're waitlisted, that admissions officer is always like, "In the back of my mind, if I have room, I want to take this person."
Barb: That's interesting. I was surprised when I got to the point of actually submitting applications. You're kind of looking at this 15-page PDF. I'm thinking, this is how they do it, really?
Mike: Is that why you applied to two more schools? Because you're like, well, all right, I need to hedge my bets because all these schools have limited information on me?
Barb: Not necessarily. Actually, the two additional ones have public service fellowship programs, and to apply for them, you apply as part of the application process, which I didn't realize. So there were some additional written pieces and an additional letter of recommendation that I needed to get, and it just took me a little longer to get those done, since I also want to submit for the public service public interest fellowship funding at the same time.
Mike: I could probably guess what those two schools are. You have —
Barb: You want to try?
Mike: No, I don't want to name schools.
Barb: Okay.
Mike: I'm saying Princeton and Brown.
Barb: Sorry, yeah!
Mike: I think that at least one of them is very highly ranked. Is that right?
Barb: I mean they're both top 50.
Mike: Yeah, yeah, okay. So you said you had questions for me.
Barb: That was what was front of mind, you know, the getting to the end of the process. And I guess for lack of a more nuanced term, not feeling very impressed with myself when I submitted applications and wondering if other people feel that way. If you kind of have all this buildup and then get to the submission point and kind of, you wonder what you're supposed to be doing.
Mike: Yeah. It's actually one of the leading theories on why people have midlife crises, no different. You go through life saying, "I'm going to get to this gilded part of my life and have checked off all these boxes," and one of two things happens. You've either checked off all the boxes and, "Oh, this isn't so spectacular, right?" Or you get to that point in life and you haven't checked off all the boxes. In your case, you haven't heard from law schools yet and you're like, "I didn't check off all the boxes and it sucks." You're going through the same thing that psychologist after psychologist says causes people to go through midlife crises. You have completed what they told you to do, and you still have completely imperfect feedback. Human beings crave feedback.
One thing I've learned in managing employees is obviously you want to give positive feedback, but it's better to give negative feedback than never any feedback at all. Humans crave feedback. So Anna Hicks, our COO, is you know recording this and on it, and she would probably say, "Yeah, Mike gives positive, but sometimes he lectures me on things he would do differently." Because it's much more important to share with people than for people to sit out there in the ether not knowing anything. You're in the ether right now. And it's not just you Barb, it's so many applicants. You're going to get feedback though I promise you, it's coming.
Barb: I know. I know. It's just an interesting place to be. I'd be curious to see if you all, and I know it's not just you, but other folks in your company that also pop up on the subreddit from time to time. The tension has just ratcheted up on the subreddit. Yeah, this is something else I wanted to mention. Furball Friday has reemerged where people post photos of their pets on Friday. I posted a photo of my dog. It was getting downvoted. I had looked at it and I was like, "Oh wow. A lot of people like, like this." And then later in the day I was like, I went to my spouse and I was like, "Oh, look at this like funny post I made of dog." It had fewer votes —
Mike: Yeah, that's terrible.
Barb: — than when I had seen them before.
Mike: Some people are exercising their own anxiety and doubt —
Barb: I know. I know. And that's the thing, because it's a golden retriever, right? Who in their right mind is going to downvote a golden retriever? And it just was this moment where like, thankfully I was able to laugh about it. I thought it was pretty funny. I still do. And it just was a real moment of empathy for what folks are going through. If the anxiety, the stress about this process that they're holding onto is so strong like the way they're taking it out is downvoting people's pet photos on the sub… it's just, I thought it really was an illuminating moment for how people handle or frankly don't handle the process.
Mike: Yeah. It's what you would call a maladaptive reaction. There's few nice things about getting older, but one of them is these things really just start bouncing off of you. You know, people will lie on Reddit about what — just wait until you're Supreme Court Justice. You have admits coming, just wait, just wait. And for some of the people out there on Reddit, here's where like I would say like, just, even if you don't believe in karma — which I guess I probably don't think there's really such thing as karma — some of the people that are downvoting your golden retriever are going to go on to be successful, and they are going to have unhinged people attack them falsely online. And they're going to have to learn coping mechanisms for that too, because the worst coping mechanism is to punch back online. That never goes well. Trust me, the five times I've responded to lies about me online, I'm zero for five in being glad that I responded to the lie. They're downvoting your dog on Reddit. They don't know you. It's a complete stranger.
Barb: I know, that's what's so funny. I'm like, you don't have any idea what's going on here. So it was illuminating. I will say about the sub recently, the day of "Michigangate" as people are calling it, the holiday email… boy that was a really delightful day to be on the subreddit. I will say that, because I applied there, I'll be very open about that. So I got the original email, which I'll be honest, annoyed me, so I didn't even read it. I didn't even scroll down to click the link that caused all the problems. So I got the response from Dean Z and some of the memes on the sub. That was pretty enjoyable.
Mike: It happens every year. I remember many years ago, Berkeley did the same thing. But unlike Michigan, who I think recovered very well — I was young, I was in my 20s, and it was a lesson for me — Berkeley sent out three successive emails. You could hardly read them there were so many typos. And what my brain as a young, 20-year-old registered was, "Okay, I'm probably going to have some life gaffes" — slow down when you do, and correct yourself slowly.
Barb: Yeah. And Dean Z's email was great. I mean, like I said, I applied there. I respect them immensely. You know, this is not an irredeemable mistake. People are human, but it was a fun day. Some of the meme templates on the sub were making me laugh. I felt like for one day we were all on the same page.
Mike: So having been on Reddit for how many years I have, before then being on other message boards, what I would say is things get a lot more tense. People start fighting, people start making up stories, and it's going to happen. It's going to happen every cycle. But also, people start venting in hilarious ways. I have experience with both sides. You're going to see some hilarious memes and posts. There's hilarious memes and posts from previous cycles. If you want to kill some time in a positive way, go back and read some previous cycle memes. I mean, they did one and it was so spot on. It was a Family Guy episode where that someone dubbed in words about how subjective the admissions process is, and it is very subjective. And that's good to know when you're looking at those data websites. Anna Hicks, our COO, and I were two of the family, I think I was like Peter Griffin or someone. People made incredible movies, incredible movies of law school admissions terminology that were hilarious. Maybe that's a good, healthy way to kill time.
Barb: That's a good point.
I do have one more question, and this is thinking forward. Frankly, the law schools may not know this yet, so you may not know either, but obviously as Omicron is taking over everything right now and our lives and our planning and our health and all of this, I had had hope that whatever ends up happening there, we may be… we're hitting a point where in the spring, admitted student days, for in-person type events would be happening. Are you hearing anything from schools, any chatter about Omicron and increasing case rates and things maybe are shifting the way law schools are thinking about handling the spring admissions events?
Mike: Yeah, so right before this interview I got off the phone with an Associate Dean of a law school, and it was never brought up yet. We did a blog on it, incidentally. Over the last two years, I've gotten to know not only epidemiologists and virologists, but a viral evolutionary specialist, which I didn't even know was a field. So it hasn't come up yet. But let me give you a data point. Cornell University already has 900 COVID cases. I think a third are — I pronounce it Omicron, maybe I'm pronouncing it wrong.
Barb: I don't know.
Mike: It doesn't matter. And obviously we know it's going to be the dominant strain probably in early 2022. What I would say is, I don't think it's going to change the learning modality. So I think learning is going to be in-person with the opportunity to be remote if you're sick or immuno-compromised. I don't think you're going to see these fully remote schools because the history of viruses is almost always that they become more transmissible, but less lethal. The common cold was probably much less transmissible — I think the common cold is 113,000 years old, and I think from some of the coronavirus specialists we've talked to, it was probably a lot like COVID 100,000 years ago. The virus doesn't want to kill the host. So they tend to mutate less severe, more transmissible over time. And this is just me sort of speaking sideways, but speaking sideways having talked to experts. My best guess is, for financial reasons and the fact that these things will likely mutate to be less severe, we're not going to see remote learning required anymore, but you bring up a really good point.
If I had to guess, and if Omicron really is much more contagious like we're seeing in South Africa and Europe, then I think you very well might see Zoom admitted student programs, and here's going to be the lever. Once one major school does it, it makes it a lot easier for other schools to say, "Thank goodness, now we can do it." So look for that first domino to fall.
Barb: Okay. I'll keep my eyes open.
Mike: Yeah. If I had to guess, I would say there's at least a 50/50 chance that admitted students' programs will be remote, but that's me. I have no insider information on that to be clear.
Barb: Yeah. Okay. I was just wondering. I know everything's so volatile. Things change so fast and with the holidays approaching, it's a tricky time, but I just wondered if you had any insight into that. So I guess we'll all see what happens together.
Mike: I mean, it's really going to be, are we in an outbreak? And if so, do you want to fly in people from all over the country to stay at the law school for three days? The answer's probably going to be no. So I'm actually now even leaning — and some law schools are going to get really mad at me for saying this, but I mean probably more than 50/50, I'm like 60/40. Yeah. You'll see a lot of remote.
Barb: We're gradually speaking this into reality over the podcast.
Mike: Well, I mean, they talk about influencing the market, so maybe we should just end the podcast right now. So what we'll do is, let me tell you about your future a little bit.
You're going to get some waitlists and some denies, and I know they're coming. I can't tell you when they're coming. So I think for you, you're probably going to hear some yeses from the lower end schools you applied to in the pretty near future, late December, much more likely the first two weeks of January, you'll start hearing things.
Barb: That's what I'm expecting too. Yeah. I mean you think about people as humans, people take time off for the holidays. Universities are closed. I just sort of figure at this point, I'm just going to unplug best I can, read some more books, do some puzzles, spend time with folks and try to ignore the process until I hear something
Mike: To the extent possible… you can't control once you submit, and no one else who's saying anything online can have a clue as to your results, including me. I just have a notion of the pace. So, I would keep that in mind. I'm going to down — I get a free Audible credit January 1 — I'm going to download the book you recommended, what's the name one more time for the listeners?
Barb: Unwinding Anxiety.
Mike: Okay. By Judson Brewer. Dr. Judson Brewer.
Barb: Yeah, I got it from my local library. So, big plug for libraries.
Mike: I suspect we'll be talking mid-January, because I suspect you'll have a few yeses then.
Barb: Yeah. And I'll keep you posted too, because a few of the schools I applied to have interview processes. So I'm hoping maybe to get some bites on that with the virtual interviews. I did one of the Kira interview processes. So if anything changes with interviews too, I'll keep you updated.
Mike: But don't over fine-point that either, like some people are going to be getting interviews and some people not yet.
Mike: Yeah. It's not like a one-to-one correlation of it.
Mike: Keep reading. Good to connect. We'll see you in 2022.
Barb: Sounds good. Happy New Year.
Mike: Stay safe.
PodcastCOVID-19TimingAdmissionsInterviews


text:
Film: Diamonds are Forever
http://www.journeyman.tv/film/4519
REPORTER: Ginny Stein
For over 40 years in an arid, landlocked country in the heart of Southern Africa, a quiet economic and social miracle has been taking place. Despite the ethnic and economic turmoil that surrounds it, Botswana has risen to become the star of Africa. Around the world, for a thousand years, that most valued gemstone - the diamond - has adorned the bodies of the rich and famous. These sparkling stones have transformed Botswana from one of the poorest countries in the world to, so far, one of the most prosperous and stable countries in Africa.
KGOMOTSO MPHETLHE: These ones are fancy, they get polished, sometimes they lose their greenness but the white ones will always remain white ones.
Kgomotso Mphetlhe says her life has also been transformed.
KGOMOTSO MPHETLHE: I am what I am because of the diamonds, whoever is out there, is out there because of the diamonds, the schools, the infrastructure, the whole development that you see, it's because of the diamonds.
When, in 1966, Botswana gained independence from Britain, the nation's best-kept secret was made public. The country had diamonds - and lots of them. At independence, the capital, Gaborone, was a remote cattle station on the edge of the Kalahari Desert. Now thanks to the revenue from the mines, it is a thriving modern city. It's how Botswana manages its wealth that singles out this tiny African nation from some of its other resource-rich near neighbours.
NTETLENG MASISI, BUSINESS AND TRADE CONSULTANT: Good governance. A government that is not looking at enriching itself, a government that is not looking at using diamonds to fight within and outside. A government that used diamonds to bring about health facilities, education and a markedly improved quality of life.
Unlike other African countries, where the discovery of diamonds has turned into a curse - with the so-called blood or conflict diamonds fuelling exploitation, subversion and division in Botswana - the nation's geological wealth - worth about US$3 billion a year - has been shared.
MATOME MALEMA, ORAPA MINE GENERAL MANAGER: In Botswana, the legislation is such that all mineral rights are vested in the Republic of Botswana. They don't belong to a tribe or to a community - they belong to the country.
But 50% of the diamonds go to the giant of the diamond business, DeBeers. The Republic of Botswana and DeBeers formed a company, Debswana, to mine and market the diamonds to the world.
NTETLENG MASISI: Well, if you go back to the level of our sophistication at the time when we went into partnership with them you will realise they did a lot for us. Because, at the time, we didn't really know where to begin, what to do, and we really needed somebody like that to hold our hand and walk us through.
Ntetleng Masisi says it was a business partnership borne out of necessity.
NTETLENG MASISI: The earnings, the earnings from our exports of diamonds have really done a lot for us. Agriculture used to be our mainstay and it used to bring us the revenue for government, but once the diamonds came in there was a marked difference - a very big difference.
Kgomotso Mphetlhe started working at the Diamond Trading Company of Botswana straight from high school. She now sorts and grades the precious stones.
KGOMOTSO MPHETLHE: Young as I was, I think I had the passion for learning more about diamonds, as I think you know most Botswanans are not exposed to diamonds. They hear about them but they haven't seen them, most of them. So for me it was an opportunity to actually come and touch them and work with them and feel what they are like.
As a child Mphetlhe grew up in a poor rural community. But her country was transforming and so were her ambitions.
KGOMOTSO MPHETLHE: It has always been my dream that I own my own home and I had even set a timeframe for it. I set that before I reach the age of 35 I should have my own home and that I am paying the mortgage and comfortably set.
She reached that goal ahead of schedule, and now at 34, she's one of Botswana's growing middle class. And this is source of Mphetlhe's and Botswana's wealth - Orapa, 'the resting place of lions', on the northern edge of the Kalahari Desert.
JOSHUA DODO, ORAPA MINE: This is the mine that has built this country. All of the resources, the money that has come out it has been invested into building this country.
Since mining began here in 1971 more than 336 million tonnes of soil has been pulled out of this pit along with 272 million carats of diamonds. Although the global economic crisis saw jobs cuts last year and the mine suspended operations for a number of weeks as demand worldwide slowed down, they say there are enough diamonds here to keep miners busy for decades to come.
JOSHUA DODO: It is going to get bigger. Since 1971 we have mined two cuts, we are on cut number two. And we will be going for a third cut which will start possibly in the next five or six years from now.
Mine manager Matome Malema says unlike most companies that exploited Africa's resources, and like many who continue to this day, DeBeers did not simply plunder.
MATOME MALEMA: One would probably reflect back and say that if you look back at some the major mining companies in the world, their relationship with governments across the world has not been the best that they could be, but in the case of Debswana's you've got this 40 41-year relationship that has moved from strength to strength you know over the years.
This clinic has gone from very humble beginnings to a fully fledged hospital with money from the mine. But it's not just for the mine workers - the entire community has access to the facilities. Dr Mwamba Nsebula has worked here for almost a decade.
DR MWAMBA NSEBULA: It was a house, a 1-room house, like a first aid station. Together with the exploration as the mine was set up, it became two rooms and then with that, we added on more buildings and now we are now at the state where we have a high-care unit, a resuscitation room, we have a theatre and we have several wards to accommodate inpatients.
Dr Nsebula says the company cares for two reasons.
DR MWAMBA NSEBULA: One is a selfish reason - that we want our workforce to remain productive for as long as possible, but also because the company cares, and would like to demonstrate that caring attitude by partnering with the government and providing a service to the community.
Botswana made an early decision to grow its own workforce with diamond revenues funding education abroad. Mine general manager Matome Malema owes both his education and his career to diamonds and Debswana.
MATOME MALEMA: And when I finished high school I actually got a scholarship from Debswana, so Debswana basically trained me to become the metallurgical engineer that I am at the moment, and I came back to Debswana and worked my way up the ranks. So it is a typical story of a rural boy moving from a rural boy to a general manager of one of the largest mines in the world.
REPORTER: Pretty good going?
MATOME MALEMA: Very much so.
But for a country that prides itself on being the world's largest diamond producer, there is one hurdle it is yet to overcome. And that's being able to sell the diamonds it produces at home for jewellery to be made locally. DeBeers has long controlled the sale of diamonds on a global scale - now it's being pushed to give more back to Botswana.
REPORTER: So it's time to value add?
NTETLENG MASISI: Yes, it's time to value add, but then you don't do it in a manner that will destroy partnerships like those. Because you still do need them, because diamonds are a very delicate product to market and so you don't scorn your partners when you think you are there.
Botswana's wealth has a cost - now totally reliant on money from diamonds - the country's welfare, and future, is now in the hands of the diamond traders and at the whims of the international market. But for Kgomotso Mpetlhe, spending time in one of the growing number of shopping malls that cater for Botswana's new middle class, the possibilities appear endless.
KGOMOTSO MPETLHE: I think there are so many opportunities that are still coming, so I want to put myself in a level that I will be able to achieve what I am dreaming of achieving. So, like, in South Africa, women who are in the mining industry, there are women running the show, so I think I want to be one of those. That's my dream.
Reporter/Camera
GINNY STEIN
ZLATCO PUSKAS
ROWAN TUCKER-EVANS
Translations/Subtitling
OLGA van BAREN
Original Music composed by
Journeyman Pictures Ltd. 4-6 High Street, Thames Ditton, Surrey, KT7 0RY, United Kingdom
Email: info@journeyman.tv


text:
Q: Interpretation of functional regression models for scalar response I have an application scenario in which I want to determine a single outcome from the course of a series of measurements.
I decided to give functional regression a try, so I read and ran the example from chapter 9 of Ramsay's Functional Data Analysis with R and MATLAB, where the annual precipitation is modelled using the daily temperature curves of Canadian weather stations.
Fig 9.3 on page 139 shows the regression coefficients $\beta(t)$:

At the moment, my interpretation of this is that high temperature has a negative effect on precipitation early in the year and a positive effect at the end.
Unfortunately, however, I was somehow unable to find enough information to convince myself that this is truly the right way to interpret $\beta(t)$, so I played around with the data and tracked the regression slopes of a series of separate linear regression models, one for each day:

While rise and fall of the coefficients in the second half of the year are also visible this way, the estimates never become negative or even close to zero.
As a result, I am now more confused than before. So my questions are:
What am I missing?
Have I perhaps completely misunderstood the way functional covariates work?
Thank you very much in advance!

R-Code to reproduce the plots:
library(fda.usc)

annualprec = log10(apply(daily$precav,2,sum))

tempbasis =create.fourier.basis(c(0,365),65)
tempSmooth=smooth.basis(day.5,daily$tempav,tempbasis)
tempfd =tempSmooth$fd

templist = vector("list",2)
templist[[1]] = rep(1,35)
templist[[2]] = tempfd

conbasis = create.constant.basis(c(0,365))

Lcoef = c(0,(2*pi/365)^2,0)
harmaccelLfd = vec2Lfd(Lcoef, c(0,365))
lambda = 10^12.5
betabasis = create.fourier.basis(c(0, 365), 35)

betafdPar = fdPar(betabasis, harmaccelLfd, lambda)

betalist = vector("list",2)
betalist[[1]] = conbasis
betalist[[2]] = betafdPar

fRegressList = fRegress(annualprec,templist,betalist)

annualprechat = fRegressList$yhatfdobj
resid = annualprec - annualprechat
SigmaE.= sum(resid^2)/(35-fRegressList$df)
SigmaE = SigmaE.*diag(rep(1,35))
y2cMap = tempSmooth$y2cMap
stderrList = fRegress.stderr(fRegressList, y2cMap,SigmaE)

betaestlist = fRegressList$betaestlist
betafdPar = betaestlist[[2]]
betafd = betafdPar$fd
betastderrList = stderrList$betastderrlist
betastderrfd = betastderrList[[2]]
par(mar=c(4,4,1,1)+.1)
plot(betafd, xlab="Day",ylab="Temperature Reg. Coeff.",
     ylim=c(-6e-4,1.2e-03), lwd=2)
lines(betafd+2*betastderrfd, lty=2, lwd=1)
lines(betafd-2*betastderrfd, lty=2, lwd=1)

###

lm.series <- sapply(1:nrow(daily$tempav),function(x){
  coef(lm(annualprec~1+daily$tempav[x,]))
})
plot(t(lm.series)[,2],t="l",ylim=c(0,max(lm.series[2,])),
     xlab="Day",ylab="Temperature Reg. Coeff.")
abline(h=0,lty=2)

A: This is the right way to interpret the functional linear model although you should be careful for the months where 0 is contained in the confidence bands. This interpretation is explained in page 257 of Functional Data Analysis by Ramsay and Silverman (2nd edition) with this example.
The problem of fitting a univariate linear model for each day is that you are falling for omitted variable bias. This problem arise when your omitted covariates are correlated. This is the usual case for functional data (the temperature of one day is strongly correlated with the following and previous ones) and is one of the first motivations for using a functional models when covariates altough discrete may be represented as functional.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
package com.mycila.testing.plugins.jetty.locator;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;

import com.google.common.collect.Lists;

class SysFileLocator
        implements FileLocator {

    /**
     * {@inheritDoc}
     *
     * @throws FileNotFoundException
     *
     * @see com.mycila.testing.plugins.jetty.locator.FileLocator#locate(java.lang.String)
     */
    public Iterable<File> locate(
            final String path)
        throws FileNotFoundException
    {
        final String value = System.getProperty(path);
        if (value == null) {
            throw new FileNotFoundException("property '" + path + "' does not locate any file");
        }

        final File file = new File(value);
        return Lists.newArrayList(file);
    }

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Pittcon is the World's Largest Annual Conference and Exposition for Laboratory Science, i.e, the super bowl of lab conferences. Who's who of the lab research world is set to be here and a must visit for any distributor or lab decision maker.
Being organised in Atlanta, Georgia this time around from March 6th to 10th 2016 (trust us, these four day's won't be enough to absorb everything here).
The event offers a unique opportunity to get a hands-on look at the latest innovations in lab technologies and techniques and to find solutions to laboratory challenges. The robust technical program offers the latest research in more than 2,500 technical presentations covering a diverse selection of methodologies and applications. Pittcon also offers more than 100 short courses in a wide range of topics and the once-a-year chance to network with peers from around the world.


My little girl Evelyn has hirchsprung disease. She was born with this illness and has had so many ups and downs over the years. She is going to be having bowel management which is a week long treatment to find the right emma solution that works with her system. We will need to be close to the hospital for test and i am trying to raise money for hotel and other expense that we will have during this time.


text:
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StrongVPN Rating:
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Fact checked and verified
StrongVPN - Full Review
For the security-conscious internet user, a VPN is an essential bit of software that provides a safe tunnel for data to travel through while hiding it from the attention of criminals, ISPs and other parties that can make use of your personal information.
With so many potential options on the market, an inexperienced user may not know which VPN to choose from – and that's where we come in. We've tested some of the best and most well-known VPNs available according to a strict set of criteria, and today we're looking at StrongVPN.
A VPN keeps your information secure by re-routing your internet connection through a server in another location, which could be anywhere in the world. This circuitous route inevitably means slower internet speeds, and some VPNs retain speeds better than others.
StrongVPN is inconsistent in this regard – connecting to a server based in the UK would allow us to retain around 60% of our internet speed, but this figure dropped to below 30% if we connected via a server based in the US. The service does automatically connect to the fastest possible connection, but if you require a server in a specific location you may find that speeds are frustratingly low at times.
StrongVPN ranks somewhere in the mid-range of VPNs in terms of its server base. With a little under 1,000 servers covering 40 countries, the server base is nowhere near the size of those offered by Cyberghost or NordVPN, but plenty for the average user to find a fast and stable connection – and the range of countries available means you should be able to access a wide range of content libraries (see the Streaming section below).
Any VPN worth the name should offer strong security measures as a fundamental feature. StrongVPN uses AES-256 encryption to protect your details and has a no-logs policy, which means it does not retain any information of your online activity.
One downside of this product is that a number of its additional features are only available on certain devices. The automatic kill switch, which disconnects you from the internet entirely if your VPN connection drops, is limited to desktops, while split tunnelling (the ability to define which apps go through the VPN and which do not) is only available on mobile devices. A package that includes these features on all devices would be a significant improvement.
If you are subscribed to a streaming app, you may be aware of the restrictions that many have put in place. Services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime vary their content libraries by region.
This makes sense in many cases, where certain shows are unlikely to have a worldwide audience – but if you're a fan of foreign films or have a favourite show that is aired in another region, it can be annoying when you're unable to access it.
Luckily, some VPNs can bypass the software used to restrict access by routing your connection through a server based in the region where the content is available.
When we tested it, StrongVPN was able to access a range of Netflix content libraries as well as iPlayer, Hulu and Apple TV – so if you regularly stream shows on your TV, StrongVPN could open up a world of new options.
The use of torrenting software is subject to a never-ending legal dispute, with many companies demanding it be made illegal to prevent the sharing of copyrighted material.
Wary of falling foul of the law, some ISPs now ban P2P software outright, but StrongVPN allows you to get around these restrictions by masking the data you send and received, preventing your ISP from knowing that you're using the software.
The terms of service make it clear that you must only use the VPN for legal purposes, but aside from that there are no restrictions on torrenting. Having said that, it is worth consideration that StrongVPN is based in the US, where legislation on P2P data transfer is ongoing – so you cannot be sure that the service will continue to support torrenting.
For regular gamers, a VPN can have additional uses. Some ISPs 'throttle' the bandwidth available to you at peak times of the day, meaning your device can't reach the internet speeds you are usually capable of. This can lead to your game suffering from lag or even dropped connections, which makes gaming a frustrating experience.
StrongVPN's method of hiding your data prevents your ISP from seeing that you are playing games and limiting your bandwidth. Of course, as we've already mentioned, the VPN itself can slow down your connection, but during testing we were consistently able to reach speeds high enough to enjoy uninterrupted gaming sessions.
Depending on your point of view, StrongVPN's list of price plans is either reassuringly simple or just downright inflexible. There are two options available – a rolling plan that costs $10 per month, or a 12-month plan that costs $34.99 (which works out at $2.91 per month). As an added incentive, each of these plans comes with 250gb free cloud storage.
StrongVPN offers a 30-day money-back guarantee in lieu of a free trial. If you do not find the service suitable, simply contact them to cancel your plan and request a refund.
Our top 3 rated VPNS
NORDVPN: 9.5/10
SURFSHARK: 9.5/10
EXPRESSVPN: 9/10
How good is StrongVPN?
StrongVPN is a reliable and trustworthy VPN that provides good security as well as a number of additional features at a reasonable price.
Is StrongVPN free?
StrongVPN is not free. Prices range from $10 for a monthly rolling plan to $34.99 for a year-long plan, and there is a 30-day money-back guarantee if you want to try it out to see if it suits your needs.
Does StrongVPN work for Netflix?
During our testing period, StrongVPN was consistently able to connect to a range of different Netflix libraries, as well as content from other streaming services.
How safe is StrongVPN?
StrongVPN uses military-level AES-256 encryption and has a policy of not logging information, so there is no reason to think your details or online activity are at risk through using the service.
While speeds are a little inconsistent and certain features are limited to specific devices, StrongVPN did everything we needed it to – offering secure, stable connections capable of supporting online gaming, streaming HD video and using P2P software. Available for under $3 per month if you subscribe to the year-long plan, we can recommend StrongVPN as a cost-effective service that won't let you down.
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VPNReactor.com is an independent source of information about VPNs, VPN providers and web security and privacy related products. All of our reviews are written honestly and with the best judgement of our team. Our content is intended for informative purposes only and should not be construed, nor relied upon as, legal advice.
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text:
Q: Laravel: How do I register a route at runtime? I have a Laravel application with a StandardModel and StandardConnector trait that I'm applying to the vast majority of my Models and Connectors.
By including Route::resource in the routes file, these have functions for all the standard routes and work perfectly, so /invoices shows the index page, /invoices/1/edit shows the standard edit page, etc.
I want to build a route of /invoices/uploadcsv to make standard functionality - can I override Route::resource in some way so that every scaffolded model and controller immediately has this route, and it passes to the uploadCSV function of the Controller?
Thanks,

A: I want to just give below method as an option to dynamically change route targets conditionally.
<?php

Route::post('{model}/upload', function($model){

    switch ($model) {
        case 'foo':
            return App::call('\App\Http\Controllers\FooController@uploadCsv');

        case 'bar':
            return App::call('\App\Http\Controllers\BarController@uploadCsv');

        default:
            abort(404);
    }
});

Route::get('{model}/show-upload', function($model){

    switch ($model) {
        case 'foo':
            return App::call('\App\Http\Controllers\FooController@showUpload');

        case 'bar':
            return App::call('\App\Http\Controllers\BarController@showUpload');

        default:
            abort(404);
    }
});

A: See the file named \Illuminate\Routing\Router. You will get all resource methods.
You can try to create your own Router class and implements those classes.
Also add your own uploadCSV function.
Or
Just add a route to that method separately, before you register the resource:
Route::get('upload', 'FooController@uploadCSV');
Route::resource('foo', 'FooController');


The 14th meeting of the Committee for Cooperation in the field of energy and natural resources was held in the Ministry of Energy of Russia under the chairmanship of Deputy Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation Anton Inyunitsin and Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy of the Republic of Korea Woo Taehee on June 14, Caspian Energy News (www.caspianenergy.net) reports with reference to the press service of the Ministry of Energy of Russia.
The meeting participants noted that the present energy cooperation between Russia and the Republic of Korea is developing progressively and dynamically.
Signed at the meeting were two more documents such as a three-sided Memorandum about Understanding between Inter RAO OJSC, Rosseti OJSC and the Korean Company KEPCO, which imply the possibility of linking energy systems of the two countries with a high capacity electricity transmission line in order to export electricity from the Russian Federation to the Republic of Korea as well as a Memorandum of Understanding on long-term cooperation in science-technical sphere between Rosseti OJSC and KEPCO.


In this post we'll focus on improving performance in your games, by making use of spritesheets.
When using separate assets in your game, the amount of draw calls your GPU needs to make is huge. This has a big performance impact and can lead to framedrops, which we want to avoid at all times.


CLAY, W.Va. - The director of a West Virginia nonprofit group who was placed on leave after making a racist comment about first lady Michelle Obama on Facebook plans to return to her job this month.
The Charleston-Gazette reports a letter from the agency's acting director Leslie McGlothin to the West Virginia Bureau of Senior Services says Taylor is on suspension and scheduled to return to work Dec. 23.
The nonprofit provides services to elderly and low-income residents in Clay County. It is funded through state and federal grants and local fees.
Whaling said in a statement sent to news media that she was referencing the change in the White House and said she wasn't racist.
But Whaling later resigned following a backlash about the comment.
The Clay Town Council accepted Whaling's resignation in a meeting in November.
Council member Jason Hubbard issued a brief statement condemning the "horrible and indecent" post and said racism and intolerance "isn't what this community is about." He apologized on behalf of the town to Michelle Obama and anyone who was offended.
African-Americans make up about 4 percent of West Virginia's 1.8 million residents, according to the U.S. Census.


text:
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Research Publications for Steve W J Bird
Welcome to the University of Waikato research publications search. This database includes all research publications produced by the University from 1998.
Author's Publications
Publications By: BIRD, Steve W J
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Evans, S. O., Jacobson, G. M., Goodman, H. J. B., Bird, S., & Jameson, M. B. (2020). Comparison of three oral selenium compounds in cancer patients: Evaluation of differential pharmacodynamic effects in normal and malignant cells. Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology, 58. doi:10.1016/j.jtemb.2019.126446
Other publications by:
JACOBSON, Gregory M (Greg) :: BIRD, Steve W J
Bird, S. (2020). Sparse transcription. Computational Linguistics, 46(4), 713-744. doi:10.1162/COLI_a_00387
BIRD, Steve W J
Evans, S. O., Jacobson, G. M., Goodman, H. J. B., Bird, S., & Jameson, M. B. (2019). Comparative safety and pharmacokinetic evaluation of three oral selenium compounds in cancer patients. Biological Trace Element Research, 189(2), 395-404. doi:10.1007/s12011-018-1501-0
Jacobson, G. M., Voss, L. J., Klockars, A., Bird, S., Dimitrov, I., Denny, W. A., . . . Harvey, M. G. (2019). Transcriptional changes in response to ketamine ester-analogs SN 35210 and SN 35563 in the rat brain. BMC Genomics, 20(1), 10 pages. doi:10.1186/s12864-019-5649-6
Open Access version at:
JACOBSON, Gregory M (Greg) :: KLOCKARS, Anica :: BIRD, Steve W J :: OLSZEWSKI, Pawel K
O'Donnell, S., Beaven, C., Jacobson, G., Bird, S., & Driller, M. (2019). Melatonin and sleep responses following exercise in elite female athletes. New Zealand Journal of Sport and Exercise Science, 2(1), 23-33.
O'DONNELL, Shannon L :: BEAVEN, Christopher M :: JACOBSON, Gregory M (Greg) :: BIRD, Steve W J :: DRILLER, Matthew W (Matt)
Abós, B., Bird, S., Granja, A. G., Morel, E., More Bayona, J. A., Barreda, D. R., & Tafalla, C. (2018). Identification of the first teleost CD5 molecule: Additional evidence on phenotypical and functional similarities between fish IgM + B cells and mammalian B1 cells. Journal of Immunology, 201(2), 465-480. doi:10.4049/jimmunol.1701546
O'Donnell, S., Bird, S., Jacobson, G., & Driller, M. W. (2018). Sleep and stress hormone responses to training and competition in elite female athletes. European Journal of Sport Science, 18(5), 611-618. doi:10.1080/17461391.2018.1439535
O'DONNELL, Shannon L :: BIRD, Steve W J :: JACOBSON, Gregory M (Greg) :: DRILLER, Matthew W (Matt)
de Oliveira, G., Bertone, E., Stewart, R., Awad, J., Holland, A., O'Halloran, K., & Bird, S. (2018). Multi-Parameter Compensation Method for accurate in situ fluorescent dissolved organic matter monitoring and properties characterization. Water, 10(9), 1146. doi:10.3390/w10091146
O'Donnell, S., Bird, S., Jacobson, G., & Driller, M. W. (2018). Sleep and stress hormone responses in training and competition in elite female athletes. In European Journal of Sport Science Vol. 18 (pp. 611-618). Conference held at the Avantidrome, Cambridge, New Zealand: Taylor & Francis. doi:10.1080/17461391.2018.1439535
O'DONNELL, Shannon L :: BIRD, Steve W J :: DRILLER, Matthew W (Matt)
Bird, S. W. J., & Muncaster, S. (2017). Antimicrobial peptides within the Yellowtail Kingfish (Seriola lalandi). In Blue2Green Marine Biotechnology Convention 2017. Conference held in Tauranga, New Zealand.
BIRD, Steve W J :: MUNCASTER, Simon P
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We have the latest vacancies from Sheerness and Sittingbourne Job Center's. BRFM's Job Spot is back for another week, as we share the latest vacancies from Local Companies.
Harts holiday park Leysdown are holding a recruitment open day 2nd and 3rd February between 10am and 2pm. They are looking to employ part time cooks, waiting staff and glass collector. If you are interested please go along on the day or find them on facebook to register your interest.
"Cosgrove Leisure Holiday Parks will be holding a Recruitment Open Day at the Sheerness Jobcentre on Tuesday 29th January.
Several Positions available at all Cosgrove Leisure Parks in Eastchurch, Minster, Leysdown & Sheerness.
Don't forget Sheerness and Sittingbourne Job Center's have more jobs on their files. Good luck if you are looking for work, Listen to BRFM for more Job Vacancies and check back here regularly for more updated job vacancies.


text:
Journalist and human rights activist Azimjon Askarov died today in prison in Kyrgyzstan. Askarov's son told CPJ this photo showed the journalist's "last summer in freedom." (Photo: Sherzod Askarov)
Journalist Azimjon Askarov dies in prison in Kyrgyzstan
July 25, 2020 11:52 AM EDT
New York, July 25, 2020 – In response to the death of award-winning journalist and human rights activist Azimjon Askarov in a Kyrgyzstan prison today, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement:
"Azimjon Askarov's death is a direct result of Kyrgyzstan authorities' disregard for his health and basic human rights. This is a tragedy that could have been prevented," said Gulnoza Said, CPJ's Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. "A brave, courageous, outspoken journalist and human rights defender, Askarov should not have spent one day in prison, let alone the last decade of his life. We express condolences to his family and call on Kyrgyz authorities to establish the cause of death and assist his family in transporting the journalist's body and burying him in Uzbekistan, according to his last wishes."
Askarov's son Sherzod Askarov confirmed the journalist's death to CPJ via messaging app.
The journalist's wife, Khadicha Askarova, told CPJ via messaging app that Askarov had been sick, unable to walk, and had a fever for the past two weeks. She told CPJ that she suspected he contracted COVID-19 in prison, but said the prison administration did not test him for the virus.
On July 24, Askarova told CPJ that the journalist was transferred to Prison Colony 47 near Bishkek, the capital, "apparently for diagnostics" and added, "I hope he will come out alive. He served several years in that prison and it was awful."
Askarov, who turned 69 in May, was imprisoned in June 2010 for his coverage of ethnic conflict in southern Kyrgyzstan, and previously spent more than a decade reporting on alleged corruption among law enforcement in the country. Authorities refused to drop his life sentence, despite calls from CPJ and other international organizations, including from the U.N. Human Rights Committee. In May, Askarov lost his final cassation appeal at the Supreme court.
Askarov received CPJ's International Press Freedom Award in 2012.
[Editors' note: This article has been corrected in its final paragraph to remove a line stating that Askarov was the only CPJ awardee to have died in prison; Eritrean journalist Fesshaye Yohannes also received CPJ's award and died in detention.]
Azimjon Askarov
Available in: Русский


Exposure of the enemies devices!
What the enemy meant for evil, God is turning it all around for good.
I see a bunch of neon signs. They are brightly highlighted. They are all in a bunch.
God is highlighting the enemies tactics, His schemes His devices, and His lies.
Those who are for Him and those who are not. Those who are saying they are doing the LORD's work , but are not.
"If My People, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My Face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land," (2 Chronicles 7:14).
"He who dwells in the secret place of the most high shall rest under the shadow of the almighty," Psalm 91:1.
Come and sit with me for a while.
Come under my authority, come.
There is a greater place I must take you.
It is time. It is time for changes to come upon this earth and it starts with you.
You, My People. My love, My love, My love will carry you through.
"I set you up here, but why do you find yourself down here?
I have called you to the greater things. Don't let the atmosphere shift you to the wrong way of thinking.
Align yourself up with My Word once again. Don't sway like that reed. I AM calling you to stand firm upon My Word.
You will not be shaken by what comes your way. You are strong and you are my courageous warrior and you WILL NOT back down!
Not now, now is not the time to back down. Throw off that weight that so easily entangles you.
Father, I come against every lie, every accusation, every curse and declare it knoll and void. Every witchcraft prayer is broken now in the NAME OF JESUS!
Those that come against us, you shall come against!
IT WILL BE DONE..! BY TRUE FAITH TO OUR FATHERS. AMÉN..!


one of the questions authors get asked a lot is, where do you get your ideas from? In my case, it's often from movies, something I've read in the paper, something I saw online, or–more often than not–from a dream. The start of Kissing Sin came from a dream, which gives you an idea just how weird my dreams can be. I have even been known to wake up with the words 'don't bite me' on my lips. Luckily, my ex used to sleep like a log (wish he'd snored like one, too!), so I never actually woke anyone but me up.
In other neat news, Chris (friend and fellow lulu) snagged one of the Deadly Desire ARCs and started reading it. I got an email a day later saying I kept her up half the night and made her cry buckets. So, the emotion in DD obviously works!


We love having plants indoors, especially vegetables. They make the indoors a refuge in the darker winter months and whet the appetite for outdoor gardening in the spring. A lot of indoor greenery definitely improve our mood in the bleak, frozen winter. Beyond just starting seedlings indoors, there are several things we grow strictly indoors or longer term in pots which are appropriate for anyone with restricted space.
Hot Peppers like a long growing season and can be grown to harvest indoors in pots. The intense greenery livens up the indoors and many varieties don't mind cooler temperatures as long as they are protected from frost.
Lettuce or brasica greens, such as collards, love cooler temperatures and often taste better grown in a cool environment. Fresh salad greens in winter are always a bonus, quick growth and harvesting as baby greens means you can have multiple crops in a tiny space. The same goes for Spinach and Kale.
And of course, the age old favorite, herbs, but with the increasing varieties available there are so many more interesting options than just rosemary and thyme. We currently have little pots of Vietnamese Coriander and an Asian Chive. After many years we finally managed to kill our Rosemary during our recent move and will have to get a new one started soon. It had started to resemble a bonsai and flavored many, many meals before going on to the great compost pile in the sky.
Our favorite is Figs. We have a large Brown Turkey Fig in a pot. It produced a bumper crop of amazingly tasty figs last spring and provides beautiful greenery nearly year round. Slow growth keeps the size manageable for an indoor tree, and has even sprouted a few babies from figs which had dropped in the pot.
We had a beautiful dwarf Calamondin that provided tiny sour citrus which can be used like a lemon or lime. Positives include slow growth, tolerant of lower temperatures, likes to be a bit crowded in its pot. Sadly, it did not survive the move and needs careful watering. We have been looking for a replacement for this favorite plant.
Houseplants are an amazing thing which brings colour and life into any room. Why go with the staid palm or spider plant, when you grow something interesting and beautiful, which yields such wonderful harvests?
Even us, with our extensive plant habit, are in some respects starting over with indoor plants. We sold the vast majority of our collection, and only kept a few plants for the move. As we mentioned, some of the plants survived the horrible drive cross country in the 110 degree heat index and other's, sadly, did not. So, comparing notes, what do you grow indoors which works well for you?


text:
title: Heroku
localeTitle: Heroku
---
\## Heroku

Heroku es una plataforma en la nube como un servicio (PaaS) que admite varios lenguajes de programación que se utiliza como modelo de implementación de aplicaciones web. Heroku, una de las primeras plataformas en la nube, ha estado en desarrollo desde junio de 2007, cuando solo era compatible con el lenguaje de programación Ruby, pero ahora es compatible con Java, Node.js, Scala, Clojure, Python, PHP y Go. \[1\] \[ 2\] Por esta razón, se dice que Heroku es una plataforma políglota ya que permite al desarrollador construir, ejecutar y escalar aplicaciones de una manera similar en todos los idiomas. Heroku fue adquirida por Salesforce.com en 2010 por $ 212 millones

#### Más información:

*   [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroku)


text:
about estrella
about james murch
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James Pattinson
July 9, 2017	/ Clients/ Posted by: server_aw0nn88s
Australia/Victoria/Melbourne Renegades
James Pattinson is one of Australia's leading fast bowlers and was one of the most exciting prospects in Australian cricket when he burst onto the scene in Test cricket with five-wicket hauls in his first two matches in 2011 against New Zealand. He was subsequently was named Man of the Series.
Just prior to this, he was given a Cricket Australia contract at the age of just 20 and was then picked for the Test tour of Sri Lanka when he had only six first-class matches to his name. He made his ODI debut for Australian in Bangladesh in the same year. In 2013, he represented Australia in a Test Series against India on a flat Chepauk surface and this was the first and only time an Australian fast bowler has picked up a five-wicket haul at Chepauk.
He has represented Nottinghamshire in County Cricket in England and has also had stints with the Kolkata Knight Riders and the Mumbai Indians in the IPL and was part of the Mumbai Indians squad that took out the 2020 title.
Twitter: @_jamespattinson
Instagram: jimmypattinson
More athletes we manage
Marcus Jackman
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Eamonn Vines
Keely Small
Lachlan Stevens
Rohan Browning
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Zak Evans
Annabel Sutherland
Cathy Freeman
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Mitch Davey
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Marcus Harris
Cam McClure
Cooper Connolly
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Tanveer Sangha
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Yeah she failed the concubine trick so she pulled another scheme.
One thing I'm wondering is Why GTY had to scheme to get ML in the drama? He had to do it in the book cuz no one was on his side and ML barely knew him, but in the drama, he and ML had many interactions with each other. He was in a position where Sheng family would be happy marrying ML off to him. The only obstacle may be Grandma but if ML told her how he had helped her several time she would have accepted him. Besides, ML actually was fond of him this time. Why couldn't he just ask for ML's hand directly so that she could be proud and high. Instead everybody is thinking ML was just a replacement for Rulan. Why didn't he think that honesty and sincerity would work? He was in a very advantageous position yet he still had to use such underhanded method? And he wasn't being honest with ML either. He only told her when everything was already done. What? He didn't think that ML would accept him? It never crossed his mind that maybe it was against her will? At least he could have hinted to her what he was gonna do beforehand.
Well said @anzomi thanks for saying that After reading your post it made me realize GTY can manipulate anyone he wants but it doesn't mean he would always win at the game/life he is playing with. It is by a chance he did win this time and there was a chance he still could have lost Ming Lan in the end. He gave her the opportunity to see how Dr He's kindness could affect their future if she married to him. She chose to let him go.
Everyone action aren't always black and white because there are a lot of possibilities of how it will end depending on the individual.
it's a good question and I agree. ML could have defended him and helped him to persuade her granny.
I wonder if he was uncertain she would and he wanted to be sure to marry her. Personally I think she would have been happy to marry him.
The only other thing I have in mind is that there was a social expectation/pressure. Since he was the son of a marrquis, successful general he couldn't marry the daughter of a concubine.
But this could be the foundation of their issues later. QH kept declaring his feelings because to him ML was a replacement. GTY knew he got her through scheming.
The only thing I have in mind is that there was a social expectation/pressure. Since he was the son of a marrquis, successful general he couldn't marry the daughter of a concubine.
We also have to remember their little argument at the snack shop when he confronted ML about his first proposal attempt and also the fact that he had made it public that he would only marry a di daughter. Correct me if I'm wrong but everyone still perceived ML as shu born until Daniang pointed out that she is registered under her so she is considered a di daughter of the Shengs. I think that's why they added little things like that in the drama so that they can keep the GTY had to scheme to get ML aspect of the novel. I don't know if anyone has posed the question in interviews with the director/writer though so that's just my guess on it.
I lost that part. Thanks!
I meant mostly QH's perception of her being a second choice for GTY and then still believing she loved just him. I hope that QH wouldnt' have confessed his feelings if he thought she was happy and in love and really loved. So it was just a wrong perceptiong, if not I would dislike him more. And this would spark GTY's insecurities because he could feel a second choice especially if she said that.
Yeah but that was his past life. Wouldn't asking for ML, a shu daughter, prove that his view on status has changed? Instead of asking for the di daughter and get the shu daughter as a replacement? Maybe ML and Grandma now knows that he really wanted ML but others don't, so wouldn't that kinda cheapen ML's value?
@linhlinh111 Someones reputation isn't so easily restored even today. In ancient china aswell as other ancient kingdoms restoring your reputation was no easy thing. Grandma still wouldn't choose him.
I did watch episode 39 of the uncut version. Waiting for the TV version. I think madam liang looked sad she didn't get ML as a daughter in law. Molan looked jealous and took a grip on something just to calm herself . I don't know what it was, looked like some round type candy. Sorry i can't find the right word for it.
Values or not, they will still have to scheme to marry Ming lan, because even if ML vouch for his character, grandma would have gotten angry that she doesn't tell her anything and that would have further not allow them to marry. It's like embarking on QH 2.0 proposal. If it wasn't what happened for this wedding, danniang wouldn't have adopted ML and ML would still have been a di daughter. If he had proposed outrightly, Rulan would still be the first to be considered as she is shu daughter and GTY is now an official,and she is also the eldest.. He could have told ML his plan but like what ML said when he eventually told her the plan that wasn't he worried about rulan's reputations at all. So ML wouldn't have supported that plan and she wouldn't want to hold onto any stupid promise that might not work. So working alone to make the mission accomplished is the best choice ever. At least, no one was under the burden of waiting and he wasn't under the pressure 9f disappointing someone. He did it silently and quietly as possible. ML has a great value now than ever, because she married grandly and as a shu daughter, if it was a direct wedding, the wedding might be grand but there will be a lot of rumors as to her reputations again that she is just trying to get everyone in high positions.. But now they all think Rulan was the stupid one and ML is pitiful to have been a replacement. So they are all happy for her that she got to be a madam after all her predicaments... This is a well thought out plan by GTY to not only marry ML but to also raise her reputations in the society.
We are on a romance overdrive.Not that I mind.
Jealous Molan I love it.
If he ask for her directly, (1) grandma who has a very low opinion of him would not agree. (2) I wouldn't bet on Minglan's feeling for him, he has mentioned marriage a few times but she's never caught on, which means that she's never genuinely considered him as a possible match. Yes, she has respect for him, but there's no guarantee that she'll choose him, who has a complicated background that she's very much aware of, over Dr. He who is much more simple. (3) Big Madam would be very angry that he chooses ML over Rulan, this is not good for Minglan; so with the scheme, he manages to make Big Madam gladly hand Minglan over to him, without any jealousy or anger, she even went around proudly advertises ML as a "di" daughter of her. (4) WIth everyone believe that Minglan ending up with him is only "accidental", no one will consider her a target of jealousy or some sort of weakness that can be used against him.
In the end, everyone in Sheng house is satisfy and happy; Minglan''s never be targeted by anyone and her status and value is higher than ever.
Well said @hello210. I think because of the era they are in scheming seems to be the way of life.


A few years ago I bought four really cool chairs to put around my kitchen table. They were two sets, actually, that I decided would look great together. Used and refurbished, white wrought iron with seats that had been re-covered in yellow and gold tones. Total whimsy.
As it turned out, though, I wasn't crazy about how they looked in the room. The proportion was off. They got kind of lost in my old, charming kitchen. I've since bought new chairs in a sleek contemporary style and I love how they look with my solid oak pedestal table. It works beautifully.
In the meantime, my friend Kathi graciously stored the yellow and white ones in her small storage space. It was a welcome solution for me at the time because I had built some kind of fantasy around those chairs. I saw them in a sun room or an alcove. They evoked possibility.
Last week, with much going on in Kathi's life (the emotional and physical clearing and selling of parental homes), we determined it was time for my chairs to find a new home. She needs the space in her unit.
Do you want to find a new place to store the chairs?
Well, I'm not planning to move any time soon. And even if I did, I don't envision a cottage with a sun room.
Well, let's go at this from another direction. If someone handed you cash and you could do anything with it, what would you add to your life?
Not a beach house or mountain getaway?
Yes. I'd prefer to rent those and have the freedom to move about.
Geez, the chairs are cool, but it's not like they belonged to Virginia Woolf or Jane Austen.
Sell the chairs. To a loving home.
Yes. This felt so good that I must apply it to my life as a whole.
As in, what else do you really, really want at this time of major transition?
Precisely. Let's take this a little further.
OK, what else do you really, really want?
I hear you. How about we limit it like this – what three things do you really, really want most right now?
Um, that took you all of 10 seconds. How did it feel?
And the rule moving forward?
Anything I spend significant time on from here needs to further one of those three things or it should be reconsidered.
Yes. I would tell any of my coaching clients the same. I'd hold their feet to the fire. And they'd be exhilarated by it. Over the moon, even.
Yep. That's how it's done. Thoughtful living. Focusing time wisely. Being willing to bend and even change. Letting go of one vision and creating another.
Funny, right? Ripple effects of a seemingly small moment. Chairs as gauge. Infusing a routine thing with meaning.
And here Kathi thought she was the one clearing space.