A small group of CEOs share a higher ambition: to create long-term economic value, generate wider benefits for society, and build robust social capital within their organizations all at once. As they pursue this ambition, they're realizing more of their organizations' potential.
1. They forge powerful strategic visions from a more comprehensive view of their organizations' resources.
2. They build widespread commitment and capabilities to achieve those visions by steadily nurturing their organizations as communities of shared purpose.
3. They have the strength of character to commit themselves and their organizations to those visions over the long term.
In 2009, as Citibank's share price plunged to less than a dollar and HSBC's profits dropped to less than a third of what they'd been in 2007, Standard Chartered Bank posted its seventh successive year of income and profit growth—without any help from emergency government funding. While the financial industry as a whole was facing a crisis of legitimacy, Standard Chartered was raising its standing with key customers and regulators alike, increasing its overall lending by 13%, its mortgage lending by 21%, and its loans to small and medium-sized businesses by 14%.
What accounts for the bank's strong performance in such a troubling time? One explanation is that before the downturn, Standard Chartered had developed a distinctive business model, which everyone faithfully continued to execute. "We had a very clear strategy, and we stuck to it. Everybody understood it, and we were very, very focused," says the bank's CEO, Peter Sands.
In addition, Standard Chartered had a culture that helped it steadfastly carry on through the meltdown. The employees, says Sands, realized that in such an environment, "you didn't think about your particular business unit or your particular part. You had to do the right thing for the bank, the right thing for the client." This was not the common reaction in the industry. It was more typical to hear of people protecting their own areas, breakdowns in teamwork, and internal conflicts. "That's just the way most organizations perform under acute, acute stress and information overload," Sands reflects.
While its model and its culture, as well as its geographic footprint, gave Standard Chartered clear advantages, what really made the difference, we contend, was a new take on leadership. Sands is one of a group of CEOs who have been evolving a superior approach to running their companies. We call them "higher-ambition leaders" because, unlike many executives, they are not content with achieving only strong economic returns. Rather, they strive to generate high performance on three fronts at once: creating long-term economic value, producing significant benefits for the wider community, and building robust social capital within their organizations. Many CEOs, of course, do well in one of these areas, but what sets higher-ambition leaders apart is their ability to unlock their organizations' full human and business potential to excel in all three.
Higher-ambition CEOs have led their companies to remarkable success, often in the face of daunting challenges. Doug Conant brought Campbell Soup, whose stock price had suffered a steep three-year decline, back to life by focusing on a business everyone thought was dying: condensed soup. After a failed merger, Leif Johansson tripled Volvo's share price by selling off the company's flagship car unit and transforming Volvo into the world's foremost manufacturer of commercial vehicles. At Standard Chartered, Peter Sands and his predecessor, Mervyn Davies, turned an institution its own employees thought was mediocre into a respected global leader that sailed smoothly through the economic storms of 2008 and 2009.
These CEOs have led their companies to remarkable success, often in the face of daunting challenges.
In the past four years we have conducted in-depth interviews with these and 33 other such higher-ambition CEOs from around the world. We believe that they have discovered a better way to manage in the 21st century and that many more executives can follow their example. It doesn't require heroics—but it does require a certain grit and a comprehensive approach to building strategies and the organizations that deliver them.
• They forge a more powerful strategic vision by drawing on an expansive view of their companies' heritage and cultural, organizational, and social assets.
• They build the widespread commitment and capabilities to achieve that vision by developing the organization into a community of shared purpose, marked by high levels of emotional connection, trust, and respect.
• They have the strength of character to commit themselves and their organizations to that vision over the long term.
By increasing trust and commitment, these leaders create a higher-energy, lower-friction organization that can deliver greater economic value. With resources generated by improved financial performance, they build more social capital within the organization and social value outside it, generating further economic value and spurring the organization to even greater heights.
Let's look more closely at how higher-ambition leaders accomplish all this.
Like all general managers, higher-ambition CEOs seek to create sustained competitive advantage. But these leaders are singular in their desire to connect the firm's strategy with the sensibilities and passions of its people. By developing a new, more powerful understanding of their firm's unique character, capabilities, and organizational strengths, these leaders produce something that is more than strategy in the traditional sense. We think of it as a company's fundamental strategic identity.
In March 2010, Standard Chartered came out with a bold statement of its brand promise: "Here for good." The dual meaning (here to do good; here for the long term) fit perfectly with the bank's desire to create both economic and social value. The very public commitment was a direct response to the financial crisis, but the phrase resonated because it was also an expression of a strategic identity nearly a decade in the making.
Back in 2001, Standard Chartered was not at all sure it would be around for good—or even much longer. The midtier international bank was a perennial takeover target, described by its own employees as "average." Though it had grown rapidly through acquisitions, its profits had fallen from their 1997 peak, and its direction was under serious debate. "There was a feeling of organizational drift," Sands recalls. "If you talked with people around the group, you would get a very different take on priorities." Late that year the board dismissed the CEO and replaced him with Mervyn Davies, who in turn recruited Sands as his CFO.
The bank was in a precarious position: "If we didn't sort it out, we would get taken over," says Sands. To reinforce the point, Davies and Sands brought in investors and analysts to talk directly to the bank's top 300 or so managers. The investors were seriously unhappy. Not only was the share price languishing, but the bank's capital structure was deeply inefficient. "We were bleeding money, and nobody had really paid attention to it," Sands says.
Davies and Sands quickly began to address the bank's weaknesses but also worked to identify its strengths, which they sought to harness to a meaningful purpose that could underpin a sustainable economic model.
The first steps they took were traditional enough: They embarked on a comprehensive portfolio review of every operation in every country and sold off underperforming assets and businesses. They also reviewed the performance of every one of the bank's top 100 managers, 30 of whom ended up leaving. The rationalization refocused the bank on Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, where Standard Chartered had institutional history, deep local knowledge, and strong relationships—important sources of competitive advantage in what were the fastest-growing regions of the world.
In its first year the project raised enough funds to restore the sight of 56,000 people, twice its goal. "We thought, well, that's very interesting," Sands says. "Let's go for a million people over three years. We hit that. We then said, 'One million is a good thing, but the problem is still very big. Let's go for 10 million.'" By the end of 2010, "Seeing Is Believing" had restored the sight of over 2.5 million people across the bank's markets and had reached another 7.5 million through preventive care.
The purpose and impact of this program went far beyond "corporate social responsibility." The success of "Seeing Is Believing" was a powerful demonstration of the company's business potential. "We went from having a lot of subscale, well-meaning initiatives to doing something that really makes a difference," Sands says. By concentrating resources, being focused, and being ambitious, people across the bank realized, Standard Chartered could do the same in its businesses.
And it certainly needed to. Restructuring and selling assets was not going to be enough to keep potential acquirers at bay. Davies and Sands had to devise a way for Standard Chartered to capitalize on its strengths to create distinctive value. And so, even while under pressure from a banking crisis in Hong Kong, the pair led the bank's senior executives in fashioning a long-term, highly ambitious vision, articulated in a crisp 104-word statement of strategic intent.
Called "Leading the Way," the document described a vision of Standard Chartered as "the world's best international bank," which would beat its competitors not by matching their size but by combining global reach with deep local knowledge to become the "right partner" for its customers. This was hardly an original positioning; in fact it had long been the holy grail of international banking. But it was a goal competitors were finding hard to achieve: HSBC had traditionally had strong country CEOs but weak global lines of business; Citigroup had the opposite problem.
Davies and Sands were not going to settle for one or the other. Instead, they made a bold choice to manage through a complex three-dimensional matrix in which country CEOs, business heads, and global functions were all represented. Country CEOs were given the authority to deal directly with important local stakeholders and to play directly in local capital markets. In such dealings large international banks have been known to find advantage in ambiguities in local regulations, but Standard Chartered decided to take a higher road: It wanted to become a "trusted insider." Doing so required the bank to be viewed by local governments as a constructive force. Accordingly, country CEOs were expected to treat local regulators as partners in developing well-?functioning markets rather than push the limits allowed by local laws.
It takes more than incentives to make a complex matrix structure work, however. People must feel comfortable working directly with others, outside traditional lines of command, so that decisions don't continually get bumped up the hierarchy. They need to be able to appreciate different points of view, working styles, and national cultures, and to build relationships within a company that are strong enough to transcend those differences. To realize their vision, Davies and Sands would have to change the prevailing mind-set among the staff.
Davies and Sands also made collaborative skills a central part of personnel evaluations and were prepared to terminate managers who, after coaching and support, were not effective collaborators. But beyond that, they found a wide range of ways to celebrate and connect the bank's many constituent cultures, from creating affinity groups to taking new approaches to acquisition integration.
When the bank acquired additional operations in Pakistan and Taiwan, for instance, it held a "welcome week" across the entire organization and dispatched ambassadors from the acquired businesses to operations throughout the world. Sixty Taiwanese, in pairs of two, visited 30 country organizations, both to share an understanding of their business and its Taiwanese context and to take back to their Taiwanese colleagues an understanding of each of the operations and countries.
The payoff for creating a working matrix organization able to carefully balance all the constituent interests—the country managers, the business managers, the regulators, the local customers, the international customers—was profound. Standard Chartered began to achieve the goals that rivals HSBC and Citi struggled with—to be strong both within and across all its local markets.
As Standard Chartered lived into its customer-focused strategy, its sense of its strategic identity as "Here for good" came more clearly into focus. Following the 2003 SARS outbreak in Asia, for instance, many banks pulled back support for their customers in the hard-hit hotel and travel industries. Standard Chartered did the opposite, proactively asking its customers if they needed additional lines of credit to weather the crisis. During the 2008 financial crisis, the bank leadership went a step further. As one of the few financial institutions with the liquidity to continue lending, Standard Chartered was uniquely placed to win over many prized new customers. But it chose not to so that it could concentrate all its capital and resources on existing customers. The bank has also been a force for wider societal good by including worker and environmental safety requirements in its dealings with customers in such industries as mining, forestry, and ship breaking, where many jobs are hazardous.
Triple matrices are not for the faint of heart. As the Standard Chartered story illustrates, ambitious strategic visions depend heavily on ambitious organizational capabilities. What makes them possible is the consistent, focused attention that higher-ambition leaders pay to building a community of shared purpose. Shared values, strong emotional attachment, and high levels of mutual trust and respect enable organizations to operate at elevated levels long enough to allow these visions to take root and come to fruition.
Leif Johansson's transformation of Volvo provides a particularly vivid demonstration of the power of a community of shared purpose. The sheer size of the challenge Johansson overcame is highlighted by the downfall of an illustrious predecessor.
On December 3, 1993, Pehr G. Gyllenhammar, Volvo's chairman and the highest-paid executive in Sweden at the time, was forced to resign. He had been the principal architect of a proposed merger between Volvo and Renault, which was intended to create the world's sixth-largest car and truck maker. But Volvo would retain only 35% of the combined entity, essentially transferring control to the French government, which at the time owned Renault. Swedish newspapers objected vociferously, Volvo's unions went up in arms, and as the date approached several of Volvo's largest shareholders announced their opposition. The deal died, and along with Gyllenhammar, four other board members resigned. In the following years, Volvo struggled to find direction, until Johansson was recruited as CEO, in 1997.
Less than two years later, he sold off the iconic car division to Ford. The deal sent shock waves throughout Sweden, but Johansson did not go the way of Gyllenhammar. Instead he began a decade-long effort that would transform the remaining business into the world's leading manufacturer of commercial vehicles.
Johansson, like other higher-ambition leaders, succeeded because he not only crafted a winning strategy but also, through a steady, deliberate focus on Volvo's needs as a social institution, created an organization with the ability to execute it. He understood that his goals could be achieved only by reinforcing people's emotional attachment to the company and by building much higher levels of trust and mutual respect. That's because the path to turning Volvo into a global powerhouse led through major acquisitions and radical reorganizations, which would require people from different countries and functions to work together for the first time in wholly new ways.
Johansson began the cultural transformation by breathing new life into an existing values initiative, which had been led by a task force of younger employees and had been languishing for some time. He charged the members with defining values in psychological and emotional terms. The ones they articulated, such as "energy" and "passion," eventually became part of "The Volvo Way," a guiding document addressing culture, values, and desired behaviors used in hiring and promotion decisions throughout the Volvo Group.
By focusing in his first two years on reshaping the culture as well as the strategy, Johansson had laid the groundwork for a dramatic move. He bought Renault's truck business, including the U.S.-based Mack Trucks, for $1.6 billion in Volvo stock and used the acquisition to catalyze dramatic growth. Where his predecessor had been forced to leave for merely attempting a deal with Renault, Johansson was now in a position to make fundamental changes to Volvo's organizational structure. He broke up Renault trucks, Mack trucks, and Volvo trucks, setting up a single power-train division and gathering purchasing, product planning, and product development into a centralized "3P" organization.
Imagine, for example, what sort of fortitude Doug Conant needed upon stepping in as CEO of Campbell Soup, in January 2001. Campbell was a once-great company in a steep decline of its own making. Comfortable margins and a near monopoly in the U.S. market had lulled it into overreaching for profit growth. In the late 1990s, trading on its strong market position, Campbell raised prices, opening the door to competition from Progresso and store brands, which quickly scooped up market share. Campbell responded not by lowering prices but by cutting costs.
"And that's when they started to do things like take the chicken out of the chicken noodle soup," Conant says. The company entered what he calls the "circle of doom," slashing advertising, which caused sales to drop even further, leading to layoffs in R&D that stalled product development, depressing sales further still. By the time Conant was recruited, the share price had fallen from its 1998 high of over $60 to under $30.
Year after year, Conant relentlessly drove progress on two measures: total shareholder returns and the level of employee engagement.
Many leaders introduce these kinds of programs, but to ensure that the Campbell Success Model would be more than words, Conant established just two simple performance metrics, one for each component. Economic value was measured by total shareholder returns relative to peer companies. Social value was measured by the Gallup Employee Engagement Index. Year after year, Conant relentlessly drove steady progress on those two measures. Campbell reversed its spiral as it steadily brought on board people who could innovate better products, which generated more revenue that could be invested in brand support, which produced more revenue that could be invested in R&D, and so on.
That kind of self-deprecating humor is typical of these CEOs, who as a group displayed a greater awareness of their limitations than their peers commonly do. As Johansson puts it, being CEO "may affect you with a personality disorder by making you think you know everything. But you don't, actually." Johansson and Conant and the other leaders we met emphasized the role of the complementary team around them, insisting that achievements were actually collective, even though often attributed to the CEO.
What difference did their leadership make? Under Conant, Campbell regained its ability to outperform its peers, while achieving world-class levels of employee engagement and winning multiple awards for its civic contributions. Under Davies and Sands, Standard Chartered steadily grew profits before taxes from $1.1 billion in 2001 to $3.2 billion in 2006 and $6.1 billion in 2010. Its workforce swelled from 29,000 in 2002 to more than 85,000 in 2010, and its commitment to sustainable finance has been recognized by its inclusion in both the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index and the FTSE4Good Index. Under Johansson, Volvo tripled its share value and became recognized as one of Sweden's most respected brands for sustainability.
We make no claim that the leaders we spoke with are the "best" CEOs or are without faults. But we do believe they are articulating an approach that is a better way to lead complex organizations in the 21st century. We hope that the examples described here will help raise the level of your own leadership ambitions. It is hard to imagine a more energizing, meaningful way to spend your professional life than to play a central role in building a higher-ambition company.


Hawkpack is a "plain looking" resource pack designed to make Minecraft look better, but not overly realistic. It significantly improves the appearance of Minecraft while maintaining the same classic Minecraft look.
This texture pack features 32×32 resolution, which means it only slightly bumps up the resolution of Minecraft. If vanilla Minecraft works without issue on your system, then you shouldn't have trouble running the Hawkpack Resource Pack either.
One cool feature with Hawkpack is that different quality materials now look totally different from one another. Your Diamond Sword, for example, now looks and feels way stronger and more powerful than a Wooden Sword.
It's also important to note that Hawkpack majorly edits some of vanilla Minecraft's colors, giving some objects a totally new and unique look. While some elements of vanilla Minecraft are maintained, others have been changed for the better.
If you're looking for a realistic texture pack, then the Hawkpack mod is not a good option. If you're looking for a 32×32 texture pack that improves the resolution of vanilla Minecraft while maintaining the unique Minecraft aesthetic appeal, then Hawkpack could be an excellent option.
Step 2) Download the 32x version of Hawkpack from here.
Step 6) Start playing and enjoy!


From April-June 2017, 11 members and four new partners joined ABTA, with five dual Members, two retail members and four trading as a principal.
Between them, the members offer travel experiences that range from tailor-made holidays, golfing holidays to day trips, camping and business travel.
From 1 July 2016 – 30 June 2017, ABTA welcomed 54 new members in total.
ABTA says its membership remains stable at around 1,200. Aggregate member turnover has increased to £36.4 billion, up from £33.5 billion the previous year. In total, 24 new partners joined between 1 July 2016 – 30 June 2017.


AG SOILWORKS CALIFORNIA conducted a field day at Gonzales, California where we had the opportunity to present a side by side trial of our CAT 865 (500HP) using our patented Ag Soilworks Vibrosoiler vibrating ripper up against a D8R using a traditional slip plough with both units ripping at 3ft depth.
An independent study was undertaken by Dr Alf Cass, soil scientist pictured right, with extensive soil pitting at three (3) different locations.
With over 10 years experience in vineyard, orchard and forestry development, the Soilworks method of soil amelioration has been shown to create a uniform soil bed for plant growth and root development. In all types of developments our growers consistently achieve accelerated plant growth and uniform development of crops within each block. Using the Vibrosoiler we can concentrate all the organic matter and top soil to the planting line which means increased uptake of nutrients by the plant. Plant roots are directly concentrated in the ripping line directly under irrigation which produces larger root systems and increases the drought tolerance of the plant.
Traditional ripping methods are commonly used with most commercial crop developments in the US because, up until now, there has been no alternative options for the grower. Cross ripping is ideal if you want to 'plough' a field but if you are planning a commercial crop development you should consider all your options. Cross ripping works the general area only with no specific attention to the block and planting layout.
This 'hit and miss' approach often results in many vines planted in unworked ground. Developments undertaken using a slip plough ripping process generally display shallow rooted vines, with poor drought tolerance and limited access to organic matter and nutrients.


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Jay Z's newly acquired and relaunched streaming music service Tidal claims only one difference from Spotify and the rest: superior audio quality. Is it worth switching? Here's a simple test that'll help you decide whether it's worth forking over £20 a month for the best of the best quality.
In the test, you're presented with five songs, each in both low and high quality. You'll be able to switch between them as they play, and even listen again if you would like. Whether or not you can distinguish doesn't just have to do with the quality of your hearing: the environment you're in, the gear you're using, and whether or not you've trained your ears for close listening all play a part as well.
I first wrote about this test last autumn, but it's worth revisiting in the wake of Jay Z's hype parade. Remember: no matter how high you score, you were probably listening really carefully. Chances are that if you're on a streaming music service you're listening to tunes in noisy environments like public transportation or the train. Hell, you're probably listening in the background at work as Gchat notifications pipe up every other minute. Can you hear those bass flourishes over the sound of your screaming child?


Digital Presence Development for Leading Landscape Design Firm.
Amitabh Teaotia Designs is a leading multi-disciplinary landscape consulting, design and build firm servicing its clients globally.
Developed captions with the details of the projects that ATD was handling. After all, that communicates the work of our client.
Strategy and creation of the content that is relevant to their organizational brand and engage their audience.
Developing Instagram community and managed to get decent number of followers in just a week's time.
We are developing their online presence to project them as a leading landscaping firm based out of India.
We are consulting them with the content creation, digital marketing and social media community building.


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Meat poultry Broiler welfare Poultry welfare
Taiwan working to "eradicate" avian influenza
TAIWAN, 13 November 2018 - Taiwan's Council of Agriculture said it plans to eradicate avian influenza virus by stepping up monitoring and prevention measures at domestic poultry farms as it opened its new Research Center for Avian Influenza Control and Prevention
By: Ryan Johnson
The new research centre will focus on data collection and visualisations of this data to show changes in AI conditions to prevent and control outbreaks. Monitoring farms will be set up in 22 townships and the centre intends to work with the Ministry of Health and Welfare's Centers for Disease Control, promoting collaboration between physicians and veterinarians.
To read the full article from the Taipei Times, click here
Ryan Johnson
Editor at The Poultry Site
Ryan worked in conservation from 2008 to 2017, during which time he operated a rainbow trout hatchery and helped to maintain public and protected green spaces in Canada for the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. As editor of The Poultry Site, he now writes about challenges and opportunities in agriculture across the globe.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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May 16, 2017 / 5:21 PM
101-year-old British veteran becomes world's oldest tandem skydiver
By Daniel Uria
A 101-year-old British World War II veteran became the world's oldest tandem skydiver after leaping from 15,000 feet in Devon, England on Sunday. Screen capture/Inside Edition/AOL
May 16 (UPI) -- A 101-year-old British daredevil became the world's oldest tandem skydiver after hopping from a plane in England.
Verdun Hayes first went skydiving for his 100th birthday and decided to give it another try in Devon on Sunday, when he completed a 15,000 foot tandem dive.
"Last year's skydive was an amazing experience," he said, according to CNN. "I must have got a bit of a taste for it, because it just made me want to do it again."
At the age of 101 and three days, Hayes edged out the previous record holder, Canadian Armand Gendreau, by just 35 days.
Hayes was joined by eight family members on his record-breaking jump including his son Bryan, grandson Roger and great-grandsons Joe and Stanley.
"He would class himself as a bit of a daredevil," Hayes' grandson-in-law Ian Honnor said. "He did a gliding session when he was 90, but he's never done anything of this nature."
Hayes, who served as a Lance Corporal in the D-Day campaign during World War II, attempted the record to raise money for The Royal British Legion.
He ultimately raised $3,100 for the British charity that supports members of the armed forces, veterans and their families.
Honnor said Hayes had wanted to sky dive for many years, but his wife wouldn't let him. He added that his grandfather-in-law may soon find himself back in the air for some other stunt next year.
"It wouldn't surprise me if he does it again in a year's time," Honnor said. "And he's also talking about wing walking. So I'll now be looking into that to see if it's medically possible."
Latvian sky diver performs 'world's first drone jump' from 1,082 feet Tennessee teen skydives for elaborate promposal Skydiving instructor catches falling toddler with one hand
Odd News // 21 hours ago
Two men sentenced after trying to smuggle drugs in baked bean cans
Jan. 15 (UPI) -- Two men who tried to smuggle cocaine into Britain in cans disguised as baked beans and condensed coconut milk have been sentenced to a total of 15 years in prison, authorities say.
Odd News // 1 day ago
$1 million jackpot is Pennsylvania man's fourth major lottery prize
Jan. 14 (UPI) -- A Pennsylvania man won a $1 million prize from a scratch off lottery ticket -- marking his fourth major lottery jackpot since 1999.
Large, green fireball lights the night sky over Hungary
Jan. 14 (UPI) -- A large green fireball illuminated the night sky over Hungary and was captured on video from various locations around the country.
Wandering seal leads police on slow-speed chase to law firm in England
Jan. 14 (UPI) -- Police in England said a seal wandering near the center of a town led officers on one of their "slower pursuits" when it fled to a nearby lawyer's office.
Wedding ring found on Chicago sidewalk returned to owner
Jan. 14 (UPI) -- A Chicago man who found a wedding ring on a sidewalk said he was able to return the lost item to its owner after his social media post went viral.
'World's largest' cast-iron skillet travels down Tennessee highway
Jan. 14 (UPI) -- Drivers on a Tennessee highway encountered an unusual oversized load traveling down the road -- a 14,360-pound cast-iron skillet said to be the world's largest.
Escaped wallaby captured after days on the loose in Belgium
Jan. 14 (UPI) -- A wallaby that escaped from a Belgian recreation park was safely recaptured when the marsupial was spotted in the area after multiple days on the loose.
Indian artist breaks Guinness World Record with massive drawing
Jan. 14 (UPI) -- An artist in India broke the Guinness World Record for largest drawing by an individual when he created an artwork that covers 6,781.04 square feet.
Odd News // 2 days ago
Sugar glider flies into London man's sixth-floor apartment
Jan. 14 (UPI) -- A London man said he was awakened in the early morning when a sugar glider flew through an open window into his sixth-floor apartment.
Listening to mom leads to lottery jackpot of over $1M
Jan. 13 (UPI) -- A Michigan woman found listening to her mother to be a profitable choice when it led to her winning a $1,682,998 lottery jackpot.


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Advocates say Google Play continues to disregard children's privacy law and urge FTC to act
Jeff Chester, CDD jeff@democraticmedia.org; 202-494-7100
David Monahan, CCFC, david@commercialfreechildhood.org
BOSTON, MA and WASHINGTON, DC — March 31, 2021—Today, advocacy groups Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) and the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) called on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate Google's promotion of apps which violate the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). In December 2018, CCFC and CDD led a coalition of 22 consumer and health advocacy groups in asking the FTC to investigate these same practices. Since then Google has made changes to the Play Store, but the advocates say these changes fail to address the core problem: Google is certifying as safe and appropriate for children apps that violate COPPA and put children at risk. Recent studies found that a significant number of apps in Google Play violate COPPA by collecting and sharing children's personal information without getting parental consent. For instance, a JAMA Pediatrics study found that 67% of apps used by children aged 5 and under were transmitting personal identifiers to third parties.
Comment of Angela Campbell, Chair of the Board of Directors, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, Professor Emeritus, Communications & Technology Law Clinic, Georgetown University Law Center:
"Parents reasonably expect that Google Play Store apps designated as 'Teacher approved' or appropriate for children under age 13 comply with the law protecting children's privacy. But far too often, that is not the case. The FTC failed to act when this problem was brought to its attention over two years ago. Because children today are spending even more time using mobile apps, the FTC must hold Google accountable for violating children's privacy."
Comment of Jeff Chester, executive Director of the Center for Digital Democracy:
"The Federal Trade Commission must swiftly act to stop Google's ongoing disregard of the privacy and well-being of children. For too long, the Commission has allowed Google's app store, and the data marketing practices that are its foundation, to operate without enforcing the federal law that is designed to protect young people under 13. With children using apps more than ever as a consequence of the pandemic, the FTC should enforce the law and ensure Google engages with kids and families in a responsible manner."
press_release_google_play_3_31_21.pdf, google_play_complaint_final_with_exhibits_3_31_21.pdf


Canada's industry minister Navdeep Bains deserves credit for his determination to bolster innovation in Canada. But new government incentives in the name of "leadership" are unlikely to help.
The federal government wants to give new entrants to Canada's wireless market a leg up against the Big Three providers when it auctions off the next block of wireless spectrum.
On Friday, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada launched a consultation on the framework to auction spectrum licences in the 600 MHz band, a particularly valuable block of radio frequencies needed to power the growing demand for mobile communications.
Of the 70 MHz of spectrum available, the ministry proposed setting aside 30 MHz –43 per cent – for facilities-based wireless providers that have less than 10 per cent of the national wireless subscriber market share.
That includes regional carriers Shaw Communications Inc.'s Freedom Mobile and Quebecor Inc.'s Videotron. But it excludes incumbents BCE Inc., Rogers Communications Inc. and Telus Corp., which each serve roughly 30 per cent of Canada's approximately 30 million wireless subscribers.
Set-asides are "used to address issues of market power," the ministry stated.
"There is a risk that competition in the post auction marketplace could suffer without measures to facilitate regional carrier's access to spectrum," it stated, noting the Competition Bureau's recent conclusion that the presence of regional carriers results in lower prices.
The ministry proposed making the licenses non-transferable for five years in order to deter speculation. Videotron recently made millions selling set-aside spectrum that it never used to Rogers and Shaw.
The auction for the remaining 40 MHz would be open to all bidders. The ministry, which is seeking comments on its proposed auction rules and format, proposed kicking off the bids at $1.537 billion or $219.5 million per 10 MHz block. The U.S. auction of spectrum in the same band yielded $19.8 billion in revenue for 84 MHz.
Should the ministry proceed with its proposed process, new entrants will have preferred access to slightly more spectrum than they did in the 2008 auction that ushered in new competitors Wind Mobile (now Freedom), Mobilicity (purchased by Rogers) and Public Mobile (bought by Telus). That year, 40 per cent of the spectrum was set aside for new entrants as part of the Conservative government's push to increase competition in the mobile industry.
The government first announced plans to auction the 600 MHz spectrum band two years ago. It will take at least two years from the launch of the consultation to actually auction the low-band spectrum, which is particularly useful in tough spots such as elevators and basements. Its deployment is anticipated to be critical for next generation 5G networks and the ever-expanding demand for mobile data.
RBC analyst Drew McReynolds believes the proposed framework is largely consistent with investor expectations.
"Importantly, the proposed 30 MHz set-aside for regional wireless players is undoubtedly a positive for both Quebecor and Shaw," McReynolds wrote in a note to clients.
Interested parties have until Oct. 2 to submit comments to the ministry.
Bell, Shaw and Videotron declined to comment and Telus did not respond to a request for comment on Friday afternoon.


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Fauci says omicron variant is `just raging around the world'
by: JOSH BOAK, Associated Press
Posted: Dec 19, 2021 / 10:33 AM EST
Updated: Dec 19, 2021 / 04:23 PM EST
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — The COVID-19 omicron variant is "just raging around the world," the White House's top medical adviser said Sunday as President Joe Biden prepares to issue "a stark warning of what the winter will look like" for unvaccinated Americans.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country's leading infectious disease expert, told NBC's "Meet the Press" that "the real problem" for the U.S. hospital system is that "we have so many people in this country who are eligible to be vaccinated who have not yet been vaccinated."
The prospect of a winter chilled by a wave of coronavirusinfections is a severe reversal from the optimism projected by Biden some 10 months ago, when he suggested at a CNN town hall that the country would essentially be back to normal by this Christmas. Biden has been careful not to overpromise, yet confidence in the country has been battered by an unrelenting wave of COVID-19 mutations and variations that have left many Americans emotionally exhausted, dispirited and worried about infections.
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, tried to defend the president's earlier promise in a separate interview Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."
"The idea about hoping and having an aspiration to be independent of the virus after a period of time is understandable and reasonable," Fauci said. "But the one thing that we know from, now, almost two years' experience with this virus is that it is really very unpredictable."
With the threat that rising infections could worsen the supply chain challenges facing the United States and fuel inflation, Gov. Jared Polis, D-Colo., said Biden should stop talking about vaccination as two shots and a booster and instead call it "three doses" that are needed to maximize protection.
Polis pivoted to inflation that is running at a nearly four-decade high, saying Biden in his remarks on Tuesday about the omicron variant needed to show the country how he is addressing the rising cost of goods.
"We can do very concrete things that actually reduce the costs for Americans," Polis said on NBC, noting that Colorado is cutting vehicle registration fees and making it free to register a new business.
The administration is expecting a series of breakthrough infections with the surge of holiday travelers. Fauci said most people who have been vaccinated and gotten a booster should be fine if they take precautions such as wearing masks in crowded settings including airports.
Biden plans to speak Tuesday on the status of the fight against COVID-19 and discuss government help for communities in need of assistance, White House press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted. She also said he will be "issuing a stark warning of what the winter will look like for Americans that choose to remain unvaccinated."
Fauci was asked on CNN whether he expected a record numbers of cases — and what about hospitalizations and deaths. "Yes, well, unfortunately, I think that that is going to happen," he said.
Fauci told NBC the president would again urge people to get the booster shot, highlight increased availability of testing, discuss "surge teams" for besieged hospitals and explain how important it is to provide vaccines for the rest of the world.
"The one thing that's very clear, and there's no doubt about this, is its extraordinary capability of spreading, its transmissibility capability. It is just, you know, raging through the world, really," Fauci said. "And if you look even here in the United States, you have some regions that start off with a few percent of the isolates that are positive, now going up to 30%, 40%, and some places 50%."
Psaki's announcement Saturday on Twitter came after Vice President Kamala Harris said in a Los Angeles Times interview that the Biden administration "didn't see delta coming. I think most scientists did not — upon whose advice and direction we have relied — didn't see delta coming." She added: "We didn't see omicron coming. And that's the nature of what this, this awful virus has been, which as it turns out, has mutations and variants."
The vice president's words raised doubts as to the administration's strategy for addressing the pandemic. Biden had effectively declared independence from the virus at a White House celebration on July Fourth to mark progress with vaccinations inside the United States, yet the global nature of the pandemic meant that the disease could evolve as others around the world waited for immunization.
Fauci told NBC he saw the variants coming and he thought Harris' statement "was taken a bit out of context," adding he believed she was referring to "the extraordinary number of mutations … particularly with omicron. No one had expected it that much but we were well-prepared and expected that we were going to see variants."
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FILE – Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during the daily briefing at the White House in…
FILE – Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2021. U.S. health officials said Sunday, Dec. 5 that while the omicron variant of the coronavirus is rapidly spreading throughout the country, early indications suggest it may be less dangerous than delta, which continues to drive a surge of hospitalizations. President Joe Biden's chief medial adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told CNN's "State of the Union" that scientists need more information before drawing conclusion's about omicron's severity. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
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Icaro 2000 presents one of the stringent tests performed on its helmets in order to obtain EN 966 certification for free flight and micro light sports.
Remember that the tests that have to be passed to obtain EN 1077 ski helmet certification are not as demanding as those for EN 966.
In the EU and Switzerland, it is obligatory to wear an approved helmet for each sports activity. Every sport has its own characteristics, and therefore the corresponding helmet is specifically tailored to the requirements. In the case of hang gliding, paragliding and microlight flying, tests are particularly severe. Every helmet should have a label inside specifying the standards for which it was tested, and in Europe the respective legislation is EN 966. Anyone selling a helmet has to ensure that it is certified for the sport in which it will be used. Selling an uncertified helmet is an offence liable to criminal prosecution!
All our helmets have been tested and certified by CSI, a company authorized by the Italian Ministry of Transport and recognized by the German TUV. This company issues certification for all helmets manufactured in Italy, including ours, which are designed especially for free flight, in accordance with European standards (EN 966). Our helmets were designed and built specifically to be as light as possible. However they optimize safety for hang glider and paraglider pilots, as shown by the information below.
The helmet provides protection by reducing the rate of deceleration of the head during an impact. This is achieved by absorbing kinetic energy. In the case of very minor bumps, the rate of deceleration is reduced simply by the gradual compression of the innermost polyurethane padding layer. In the case of a more abrupt jolt, deceleration is attenuated by the permanent deformation of the inner shell, made in expanded polystyrene. When the amount of energy to be absorbed is much higher, as in a violent impact, the only way of offering protection is by the controlled breakage of the rigid outer shell. In other words, a helmet shell that is too robust will not necessarily offer the best protection, and on the contrary it may actually worsen the situation by increasing the rate of deceleration through the rebound effect. The controlled breakage principle determines the optimal shell material and thickness, so that, in the case of a violent impact, it breaks while absorbing the maximum amount of kinetic energy. This same principle is used in the car industry. In the event of a crash, the front or rear part of the car will progressively collapse, absorbing the impact energy and maintaining the inner cell of the car intact, protecting the passengers. Therefore, it is normal that the helmet's outer shell should break on strong impact in order to absorb the shock and prevent its transmission to the head. This is why, even though it may seem a contradiction in terms, a helmet must be handled and used with great care. During storage, it must not be exposed to strong pressure, above all in the chin protection and side areas, which are where the helmet should progressively break in order to provide the necessary protection in case of high impact. Likewise, if powerful pressure is deliberately exerted onto the helmet, the surface varnish may split. Cracks on the varnish around the facial area usually appear when the chin protection is strongly pressed backwards. In case of very strong impact, the helmet MUST break in these specific areas! The fact that a free flight helmet should be light is not concerned with just reducing the overall weight of the pilot-craft system. In fact a heavy helmet increases the risk of neck injury on impact due to the increased inertia.
A helmet has an outer shell in a composite fibre material, and a crushable foam inner shell, in expanded polystyrene. The innermost layer consists of the comfort lining, made in expanded polyurethane and transpirant, non-allergenic textile. This part of the lining enables the helmet to be adapted to different sizes (by means of replaceable lining sections), and it makes it more comfortable. In some models, it may be removable and washable. The helmet may have vents, for internal ventilation and air circulation. The chin strap usually has a rapid fastening system, along with Velcro strips to prevent the ends of the straps from flapping about. The visor is a component that increases protection against cold air and intense sunlight. It is made in anti-abrasion thermoplastic material; it may also be anti-fogging. Just as for high-quality sunglasses, the visor is made of a series of high-technology layers, and so it should be treated with care in order to prevent scratching. The visor should be replaced when vision is impeded by small surface scratches.
When you purchase a helmet, the most important consideration is ensuring that the helmet is exactly the right size. Therefore it is important to take your time when choosing a helmet. Try on several different sizes, and for each, fasten and adjust the chinstrap. The helmet should not be so loose that it moves around, but neither so tight that it exerts continuous pressure on your head. In the former case there is the risk of it sliding down and obstructing your vision in flight, and of slipping on impact, exposing parts of the head that should be protected. In the latter case, the inner layer of the helmet is already compressed, reducing its capacity for absorbing impact energy. Therefore, when trying the helmet on, try to pull it off, moving it back and forth: if it tends to slip off or move around, it is too large. Lean your head forwards, grip the helmet's rear edge, and try to pull the helmet off. If it slides off, it is not suitable for the shape of your head. Another important factor to be considered is the choice between full face and open face helmets. The full face helmet provides protection for the chin area. If, while trying on the helmet, it does not perform satisfactorily for just one of these criteria, you should try another size or another model. Never purchase a second-hand helmet, even if the price seems attractive. There is no way of discerning its real conditions (whether it has been involved in an accident, etc.).
Once you have chosen the most suitable helmet, make sure that you wear it correctly. For safety, it should always fit snugly, and the strap should be tightly fastened. Remember that the helmet should be worn at all times when practising your sport, in order to exploit the protection that it provides, whatever impact may occur. Though it is true that a helmet can never guarantee total protection for the head when subject to the forces produced by whatever type of impact, this is no excuse to forego wearing a helmet. Before using the helmet, read the instructions and follow the suggestions provided on how to attain a correct fit. Do not use the helmet without fastening the strap. An unfastened helmet will fall off during the first impact, leaving the head defenceless for successive impacts. It may even fall off during flight. Do not fasten the helmet using just the Velcro strips. The Velcro that may be present on the strap is not the principal fastening device: it serves purely to stop it flapping in the wind. If you keep your helmet in your harness pack, don't sit on it, and ensure that it is not exposed to pressure under the weight of other packs and bags. To ensure maximum performance, never modify your helmet, whatever the circumstances. The helmet can be seriously damaged by paints and varnish, by all types of chemical solvent, and by excessive heat. Therefore do not add painted decoration; do not wash with petrol or solvents; and do not leave your helmet exposed to the sun. If the helmet is a model with a visor, change the visor if vision is unsatisfactory due to surface scratches. A helmet does not have a fixed lifespan. In the absence of any minor or major impacts, a helmet will continue to offer optimum protection for many years. However, it is a good rule to replace it after five years, so that you can benefit from the additional protection provided by the latest generation of helmets. As in all fields, performance of these products is increasing continuously as a result of ongoing research and development – such as that conducted by Icaro 2000. If the helmet undergoes an impact, whether minor or major, it must be replaced even if there is no visible damage. In fact the inner shell will have suffered a degree of permanent deformation, because it has absorbed the impact. Likewise, if the helmet suffers a sudden blow – such as falling from a table onto a hard floor – microscopic cracks may develop in the outer shell, reducing its capacity for absorbing a more serious impact at a later date.
If you witness an accident, keep calm. Report the accident immediately, if possible by phoning for an ambulance (dial 118 in Italy) or the appropriate mountain rescue team. Never move an injured person, unless this is absolutely essential because of a situation of greater danger. Only medically-qualified personnel know exactly how to deal with injuries. If the spinal column is damaged, moving the injured person could damage the spinal cord, causing permanent paralysis. If the victim is wearing a helmet, do not remove it, but just open the visor to facilitate respiration. Keep the victim calm, and, if possible, cover him/her. Shock provokes shivering and a sensation of cold. Do not give the victim alcoholic drinks. Stem the flow of blood from wounds, protecting your hands with gloves or similar, throwing them away later if they have been soiled with blood. Do not apply tourniquets: if you place a tourniquet in the wrong position, you could worsen the situation. Never put the victim into a private car. Wait for the ambulance.
The names and the logos Icaro, Icaro 2000, 4fight, ICE are registrated trade marks.
For all of us at Icaro 2000, the name "4fight" has nothing to do with war, please read more about it.
There is only a copyright if you read the name of the fotographer near the picture.


As the thickness of sound absorber is often confined by the necessity of worker's maintenance and access in the practical engineering work, the consideration of maximal sound absorption on the sound absorber with limited thickness becomes important and essential. In this paper, by using the simulated annealing (SA), a stochastic relaxation technique based on the analogy of the physical process of annealing metal, a single-layer absorber, including (1) one layer of perforated plate; (2) one layer of acoustic fiber; (3) one layer of air space; and (4) a rigid-backing wall, is optimized under the thickness constraints. A numerical case in dealing with pure tone noise of 350 Hz was exemplified. Before optimization, a sample was tested and compared with the experimental data for accuracy check of mathematical model. Results proved that SA optimization provides a quick and efficient approach on the design of single-layer sound absorbers under fixed thickness.
Сitation: Ying-Chun Chang, Long-Jyi Yeh, Min-Chie Chiu. Optimization on constrained single-layer absorbers by simulated annealing. Electronic Journal "Technical Acoustics", http://www.ejta.org, 2004, 4.
 L. J. Yeh, M. C. Chiu, G. J. Lai. Computer aided design on single-layer perforated absorbers under space constraints. Proceedings of the 19-th National Conference on the Chinese Society of Mechanical Engineers. 2002, pp. 635–643.
 S. Kirkpatrick, C. D. Jr. Gelatt, M. P. Vecchi. Optimization by simulated annealing. Science, 1983, vol. 220, N°4598, pp. 671–680.
 A. Metropolis, W. Rosenbluth, M. N. Rosenbluth, H. Teller, E. Teller. Equation of static calculations by fast computing machines. The Journal of Chemical Physics, 1953, vol. 21, N°6, pp. 1087–1092.
 M. C. Chiu. Compact acoustic board for low frequencies: experimental study and theoretical analysis. The 180-th National Conference on C.S.M.E. 2001, C3, pp. 719–724.
 M. E. Delany and E. N. Bazley. Acoustical properties of fibrous absorbent materials. Applied Acoustics, 1969, 13, pp. 105–116.
 K. U. Ingard and R. H. Bolt. Absorption characteristics of acoustic material with perforated facings. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1951, 23, pp. 533–540.
 R. H. Bolt. On the design of perforated facings for acoustic materials. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1947, 19, pp. 917–921.
 D. A. Bies and C. H. Hansen. Engineering Noise Control. Unwin Hyman, 1988.
 Jinkyo Lee, W. Swenson, Jr. George. Compact sound absorbers for low frequencies. Noise Control Engineering Journal, 1992, 38(3), pp. 109–117.
 Rayleigh, Lord. The Theory of Sound, Macmillan. London, 1896.
 C. N. Wang and J. H. Torng. Experimental study of the absorption characteristics of some porous fibrous materials. Applied Acoustics, 2001, 62, pp. 447–459.
 Alex Cave, Saeid Nahavandi, Abbas Kouzani. Simulation optimization for process scheduling through simulated annealing. Proceedings of the 2002 Winter Simulation Conference, pp. 1909–1913.


text:
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HomeCalendarLatest NewsMDIS unveils Jewellery Design courses and facilities through joint venture with JDMIS
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MDIS unveils Jewellery Design courses and facilities through joint venture with JDMISLatest News
JDMIS' brand new 5,200 square foot facility is situated in the MDIS Campus in Singapore.
Guest-of-Honour, Dr Intan Azura Mohktar, Deputy Chairman, Education Government Parliamentary Commission, graced the official opening of JDMIS at MDIS.
The newly renovated school spans four dedicated classrooms, two specialised jewellery manufacturing workshops, a computer-aided design (CAD) lab with state-of-the-art 3D jewellery software, a Designer's Lounge where students and graduates can meet up and practise their craft, and also a "Creative Jewellery Studio" (CJS) - a fully functional retail space that allows students to launch their jewellery brands and careers.
JDMIS' flexible, modular programmes - certificate courses that lead to diplomas and advanced diplomas, include fine jewellery design, precious metal arts, fashion jewellery arts, gem trade practises, trends and jewellery entrepreneurship. The school also provides educational experiences beyond the classroom - overseas expeditions to a pearl farm in Indonesia by global leader in eco-pearling Atlas Pearls, to gem mines and markets in Sri Lanka with Sapphire Capital Group, as well as to the famous UBM Jewellery and Gem Fair in Hong Kong. These field expeditions allow students to experience first-hand jewellery procurement, logistics, and trading.
"Our partnership provides synergies that allow both institutes to tap on each other's strengths for long term, sustainable growth. JDMIS' programmes complement our School of Fashion and Design's curricula and allows us to offer more diversified programmes and courses to nurture future-ready graduates," said Dr R Theyvendran, MDIS Secretary-General.
Ms Tanja Sadow, Dean and Founder of JDMIS, concluded: "Through this partnership, we are able to pair our expertise in educating jewellery designers, fabricators and entrepreneurs with MDIS' focus in providing skills-based education. It also allows us to offer our unique and comprehensive programmes to a wider base of local and international students."
Founded in 2007, JDMIS is Singapore's only specialised jewellery school providing end-to-end jewellery education. The school's founder and dean, Mrs Tanja Manuela Sadow is an award-winning designer and renowned jewellery educator with more than 30 years of experience across the United States, United Kingdom, and Singapore.
Since its establishment 10 years ago in Singapore, JDMIS has trained over 5,000 individuals across 56 countries, as well as top local and international brands. Alumnus Ernest Yeo, shared: "I am very impressed with the quality of JDMIS' courses; the lecturers and my learning experience with the school was most fulfilling and engaging. JDMIS not only functions as a training school, it has also created a unique community filled with budding jewellery enthusiasts, designers, artists, entrepreneurs and many others from all walks of life, which facilitate the exchange of knowledge, ideas and rich experiences."
"I was a broadcast engineer but I've always had a passion for jewellery. Now, I finally get the chance to do what I love – design jewellery and launch my own brand, EY Designs. JDMIS made it happen for me."
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text:
Q: The right way to install stable-baselines? I am trying to install stable-baselines and run the first two lines from Getting Started section of the online manual but no option is working. I started with
pip install stable-baselines

Now when I run:
import gym
from stable_baselines.common.policies import MlpPolicy

I get
No module named 'tensorflow.contrib'

This apparently is because tensorflow version 2 doesn't have tensorflow.contrib. But version 2 was released in Sept 2019.  Do I really have to use only tensorflow version 1?
What is the right way to install stable-baselines and run that simple example?

I tried
pip install stable-baselines3

in a virtual environment. This gives a different error:
In [2]: from stable_baselines.common.policies import MlpPolicy
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ModuleNotFoundError                       Traceback (most recent call last)
Input In [2], in <module>
----> 1 from stable_baselines.common.policies import MlpPolicy

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'stable_baselines'

In [3]: from stable_baselines3.common.policies import MlpPolicy
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ImportError                               Traceback (most recent call last)
Input In [3], in <module>
----> 1 from stable_baselines3.common.policies import MlpPolicy

ImportError: cannot import name 'MlpPolicy' from 'stable_baselines3.common.policies' (/home/raph/RL/stable-baselines/venv/lib/python3.8/site-packages/stable_baselines3/common/policies.py)

A: To quote the github readme:

Note: Stable-Baselines supports Tensorflow versions from 1.8.0 to 1.14.0. Support for Tensorflow 2 API is planned.

The same github readme also recommends to use stable-baselines3, as stable-baselines is currently only being maintained and its functionality is not extended. Thus, I would not expect the TF1 -> TF2 update any time soon.
If you can not install this version of tensorflow, I suggest to use stable-baselines3 and follow the examples. The code you posted above is not consistent with the stable-baselines3 docs, which import the MlpPolicy as
from stable_baselines3.sac.policies import MlpPolicy

A: According to the stable-baselines documentation you can only use Tensorflow version 1.8.0 to version 1.15.0.
If you want to run Tensorflow 1, and you want to use pip as your package manager, you'll need to install python version 3.7 or lower. I did the following in my ubuntu terminal
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa
sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3.7
sudo apt install virtualenv
virtualenv --python=/usr/bin/python3.7 <env-name>
source <env-name>/bin/activate
pip install tensorflow==1.15.0
...

Alternatively, you could try using this guide, which gives instructions as to how to migrate something to Tensorflow version 2.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
CoLab Market
Cole Minty
Working at Lamenza Corporation as an Intern
Before I joined the team at Lamenza Corporation, I was pretty nervous as I didn't know what to expect with the job. Thankfully, the previous digital marketing intern, Joanna, was available to train me. Joanna is a student like myself so I really wanted to get some insight into the role, I interviewed Joanna about her of her experience at Lamenza.
Cole: What was the biggest factor for accepting the job at Lamenza?
Joanna: To be honest, I accepted the job at Lamenza because of a school course I was doing during the summer. I would get a credit for working there and it was close to me in Mississauga so it was easily accessible, and it was a paid internship so it was just like a win-win-win. Like I was going to get work experience, my credit, and I was going to get paid! Plus, they were one of the first companies to get back to me when I was applying to, I just said "okay, yeah, I'm gonna take that one!"
Cole: What did you like most about the job?
Joanna: There are a couple of things, one would be that the work that I got to do was pretty exciting to me. The school program that I was in had a lot of theory, so I wasn't really doing a lot of practical stuff like design. So, the fact that I had all this knowledge of skills like coding and theory, but then the first major project at Lamenza was to revamp the design of their website- I was like, "ok this is awesome!"
I just thought that I was doing a lot there that felt like it was something new to me and that I wasn't really doing stuff like that at school so I was just learning so much more.
The second thing would honestly be like, Farah and Sonal. They are so much fun to talk to and Farah is one door down from my office so we would get to talk, and she has such a big personality that it makes it so much fun to come in!
Cole: How do you think you did in the position?
Joanna: I think I was…alright, hahaha. I definitely think it would have been nice to have someone, like a higher-up, who knew exactly what I was supposed to be doing at times so I didn't have to do so much self-learning. But at the same time, self-learning was such a great opportunity in the position, especially as a student. For me personally, I wasn't so well-versed in all the Adobe programs, so I had to go out there and learn myself.
I think it would be really awesome if, for example, a student intern didn't know something that would make them better at the job then they could get training sessions during their internship. Other than that, I think that self-teaching was pretty cool.
Cole: I don't think you give yourself enough credit! From the way everyone talks about you here, it seems like you were a really big help around the office. Did you feel like you had the necessary training, tools, resources, and working conditions to be successful in the role?
Joanna: Other than the whole, "well, I felt that I didn't know enough" thing, I felt that I had the proper support there. Farah was so helpful and Sonal was so helpful in just providing feedback that I really needed. If I was just working, I could be like "can someone help me with this?" or "I'm just not getting it!", you know, and they were there to really try to understand and give me constructive criticism or advice.
And whenever I needed a meeting with Lavinia, every week she was always there to talk and she would always make the time for me, too, because I wasn't in the office as much as everybody else. I thought they did a really great job at checking up on me in my position and being supportive.
Cole: What was the relationship with your manager, Sonal, like?
Joanna: I think they did really well at following up with me all the time and making sure I'm on track and really just being there for me. Sonal did such a good job at being there for me, like, as a friend. Whenever I would go up for meetings with her, we would spend time just talking about how our weekends were, or how our week is going, or how school is going, so I definitely would never dread going into work because I knew it wouldn't just be, you know, work work work. It would actually feel as though I loved being there, talking with everyone and having relationships with everybody, so they did such a good job at making me feel welcomed and not stressing me out with the workload or anything.
Cole: How did you feel about your their overall managing style?
Joanna: It's hard to really say, but Lavinia for example, would often send me emails if she didn't catch me in the office, as in it wouldn't be a big deal if I missed her and we wouldn't panic about it, she wouldn't give me a hard time, we could set up a phone call meeting or something so it was extremely accommodating to my schedule, and she was really open to anything I said about the work, like my opinions on things.
Sonal, you know like I said, she was just such a friend to me, so it was easy to talk to her all the time and for her to be my manager and to update her on every single thing I'm doing or every single thing I'm struggling with in my work.
Cole: Do you have any suggestions for improvement around the office?
Joanna: I actually think Lavinia does a great job at making sure that everybody gets recognized and gets the chance to recognize somebody else through things like TinyPulse. Every week or so she changes the TinyPulse question that gets sent out and you can answer anonymously. So, for example, you can answer how satisfied you are with the job, or a project, or something that you can rate 1 - 10 and then explain. But also on that platform you can log in and get the ability to recognize other employees of Lamenza, then you can write a comment about how they did such a good job and write the qualities you feel they showed, like 'respecting others' or 'working collaboratively'. You can also attach like a $5 gift card that the company has already paid for, which I think is super cute and just really great because it like, warms my little heart when someone would recognize me, and then I would try my best to recognize someone else.
Cole: Under what circumstances, if any, would you consider returning to the company?
Joanna: Well, if Lamenza just wanted to take me back for another full-time position, that would be really great. I know right now with everything going on it's kind of tough with the workload going on at Lamenza, but whenever CoLab opens up, and you guys need more employees or anything, I wouldn't mind coming back so long as I wasn't committed to another position that I love and adore.
Cole: Do you have any feedback for Lamenza that you would like to share?
Joanna: I feel like I have no serious complaints except for the fact that the snacks in the upstairs kitchen are all so healthy! Sometimes I just want to go upstairs and have, like, a cookie. But really, I'm so grateful for the opportunity and the fact I was even able to stay on the team for a whole year, which was not expected. I thought it was only going to be a summer term thing, but they let me stay on and even accommodated me while I was working full time at another retail store and also studying,
They were so, so nice to me and the work itself helped me learn a lot because I would teach myself a lot of things, and I really had to push and motivate myself to work on some of those things. It was a very big learning curve for me, but it was also something huge that I feel like really set me up for success in the future. It helped me work towards a goal and be disciplined and kind of be a perfectionist, but not too much of one, or else the work would never end! I learned to use some new programs through the job, got experience with web design and coding and worked on things I may not have gotten the opportunity to elsewhere.
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The Roller Coaster Week Moodscope blog.
Just wanted to share with my Moodscope family what a roller coaster of a week it's been... and then ask you to share what your week has been like.
Of prime importance has been the safe arrival of my 5th grandchild, Selina Rose, born to Rachel and Richard. For this, my heart sings in gratitude.
Before this, I spent time with Dan Sullivan – a wise man, who just talks sense. He walked me through his model of continuously improving the quality of life. This starts with progressively getting rid of everything that annoys him! I appreciate many irritations cannot be removed but there is a lot that can be done. Does that squeaky hinge unhinge you? Oil it!
His second strategy is to challenge the things he has to do in life that are only OK. They don't energise him. So he seeks to outsource them. This can be achieved sometimes through technology. The washing machine is my friend! I'm old enough to remember that my parents and their parents had to dedicate whole days to washing as part of their weekly routine. Now, the machine does the work, does it better, and gives me back the gift of time.
His deeper insight was to help me realise that some of the things that don't do anything for me (but that I need to do to continue living in this Society), such as accounts – these things are actually (and incredibly) enjoyed by other people. My sister loves spreadsheets! So by clinging on to these tasks, because I think there is some moral value in suffering, is nuts. Let them enjoy what they enjoy and thus help me, and I'll do something in return for them that they don't like doing. There are, for example, a lot of people that don't like Social Media where I love it! I also LOVE mowing grass. Now, I bet there a few thousand people out there that would love to have a neighbour who would mow their lawn with passionate enthusiasm!!!
Finally, Dan's goal is to get us to liberate time so that we can invest it in the third category: our unique gifts and talents. His motto is to outsource everything which we do not excel at.
What if you haven't got the funds to do this? Can you trade? Can you do the 'OK' stuff in your downtime rather than giving it prime time? There will be a way to free up more time to do the stuff that only you can shine in.


Meet Singles in your Area!
What is your favorite candy bar? On this scorecard, participants are to score or rate each of their dates for future reference. What is your favorite animal? Do you like pickles? If you need more ideas, visit Favorite Things Questions.
Have you ever done anything extreme like skydiving? What is your favorite place to eat? Have you ever been here before? It works just like regular speed dating at a restaurant. What is your favorite dessert? On the other hand, many organizers offer niche events such as nights for graduates only, gays and lesbians, older men with younger women and vice versa, book lovers, ethnic events, and religious affiliation such as Christian speed dating.
Icebreaker questions are designed to poke around about certain topics in an effort to open up more conversation. Lightning Speed Dating just announced events specifically for this community — as well as an upcoming app where you can input your likes and dislikes about your dates in real time and receive compatible matches that same night.
What is your favorite website? When men talk, it is for giving information. Procedures Speed dating almost always is conducted the same way, with a few variations on the placement of the daters, the time limit and so forth. What do you do for work?
Many of these simply specify an age range for ladies and gentlemen; sometimes a slightly older range is specified for men.
The process is simple as well — all you have to do is give someone a thumbs-up if they catch your eye. In most cases, the women sit and remain seated for the duration of the speed-dating event.
The communication that men use is to give information and the Do you play in the snow or rain? How many close friends do you have? Do you have any pets?
These questions will give you a quick impression of the other person. Do you enjoy your current job?
You also are not allowed to talk about where you're from, to rule out those who only want to date someone from their own area. Conversation Rules While three to five minutes is not much time to delve into deep conversation, it often will yield enough of a first impression so that you can make a judgment on whether or not you and a date would be compatible.
If you like the way the prince is answering your questions, then start dating him. How do you like your burgers? If you had to kiss any animated character, who would it be? Favorite Things Asking people about their favorite things shows that you are interested in getting to know what they like!
What is one thing that you absolutely cannot stand? Do you like to travel?
When do you see a pothole, feet before, the last second, 'what pothole'? What is your astrological sign? What are your plans for the rest of the day?
What is your favorite sport? On a holiday, where do you go? How do you like your coffee? What is your favorite fruit?
Canada, and Australia with speed dating events, venues, and providers in their area. If you had to pick any animated character to portray you in a documentary about your life, who would it be?
When the bell sounds again, the men get up and move to their right to start a new "date.


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Q: In which table access_token stored when we use EntityFrameworkCore with Identity Server4? In which table access_token stored when we use EntityFrameworkCore with Identity Server4?

A: Access_Token are not directly stored in [PersistedGrants] table
The key of this table is made up of access_token + ":" + grant which is then hashed using sha256
This makes it difficult to guess the access_token
Hope this helps.


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VOTE FOR ME VOTE FOR ME VOTE FOR ME VOTE FOR ME!!! Pretty please!
Hi, and thanks for stopping by! Vote for me? For what? Let me explain. Over the Christmas holidays I was surfing the best website in the NHL- www.edmontonoilers.com and I saw a contest they were taking entries for- "Celebrate Hockey Moments" Here's the gist from the Oilers website
"Celebrate Hockey with the Oilers. We want to see your hockey memories. From ages one to one hundred, show us all the on-ice action you've caught on video. Submit your video memories for the chance to see them online, at Oilers games and on Oilers telecasts and become the star of Oil Country. Find your hockey memory. Whether it's a hockey blooper, a great goal, or a great hockey moment you've captured on video, we want to see it! The sky is the limit, from basements, to backyard rinks to Rexall Place, we want to celebrate hockey memories."
This REALLY caught my attention. The prize is certainly nice, a 42" TV if I remember correctly. However, I didn't enter this contest to win the TV. Yes, I will be honest, I entered to "become the star of Oil Country"
I have long been honest about my goals in broadcasting- to make it to the next level. I read about this contest and it hit me like a jolt of electricity. "Why not enter a video of some great Bulldog moments with me doing the play-by-play?"
I don't care if I win the TV, I just want my name and my abilities noticed. If even one Oiler fan, or one member of the Oilers staff looks at my video and says "this guy is not bad" then I have gotten somewhere. I've heard it a thousand times- "you're the best play-by-play guy I've heard" "listening to you do a game is like listening to the NHL" or my personal favorite "you are the next Jim Robson" That one is especially interesting because Jim Robson, the former voice of the Canucks got his start here in Port Alberni where I work now, CJAV radio. I can't say how much I appreciate it when I hear comments like this. It motivates me and stokes the fire within to keep working hard, to keep pushing to get better. For the fans, the parents, the players, and LASTLY for myself. I don't let comments like this go to my head. I don't even agree with them. But I sure do appreciate them and it really tells me that I am on the right path and I am doing what I should be doing. No, I'm not in the NHL. I'm in junior A hockey. But I'm working hard to advance. I love being where I am and where I work, but my goals are higher.
Back to the contest- Entrants were asked to submit a 60 second video, and a description of what the video was, why it was a "special moment"
Here's the jist of my description of my "celebrate hockey moment" story.
How does one celebrate hockey? I believe what we celebrate hockey by LIVING in the moment. We celebrate by feeling the thrill of victory when OUR team wins. And what makes victory even better? Simple- when it's SUDDEN VICTORY, and when it's over your biggest rival. The team you love to hate. You love to beat them, you hate to lose to them. My celebrate hockey moment video is of two sudden victory moments "golden goals" for the Alberni Valley Bulldogs over the Nanaimo Clippers, their biggest rivals. Think "Battle of Alberta" and Edmonton and Calgary, but instead this is the "Battle of Vancouver Island" The second game winning goal is for the Bulldogs 18th, yes 18th!!! win in a row. When you watch the video and see, hear, and FEEL the emotion from the fans, the players, and the broadcaster, it's all about CELEBRATING HOCKEY. The broadcaster that you hear is ME. I am truly blessed to be able to live the game and be a part of it. This is me and my moments, CELEBRATING HOCKEY.
Well, wouldn't you know it, I checked the Oilers website today and I MADE THE CUT!!!!! But I'm not happy just getting to the final 24. I'd rather win the whole darn thing. That's where you people come in. I don't imagine that I will get too many votes out of the die hard Oiler fans as my video isn't dripping blue and copper like alot of the other ones. But it is CELEBRATING HOCKEY right?
To any Nanaimo Clipper fans- I'm sure you don't enjoy the video too much. I know I wouldn't if it were the reversal, Clippers beating Dogs. If anything, I hope Clipper fans don't take offense to this but actually take this as a compliment- It says something about your team and your program and what you have accomplished when someone's best moments are when they manage to beat your team.
If you think I'm deserving, if you think the Bulldogs, their fans, or the BCHL are deserving of some recognition, I urge you, no, BEG you, to click on the link below, and then "click here to view recent submissions and vote for your favorite entry" MY VIDEO IS VIDEO #21.
http://www.edmontonoilers.com/contests/hockeymoments/index.php#
It doesn't appear that there is a limit on how many times you can vote, so go crazy! If anything, if I get alot of votes the Oilers and their fans might give me a second look as opposed to the other ones.
VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE.
I have also uploaded the video onto youtube, and have explained the story behind the video, in the hopes that Edmonton fans will see what we are about and how these are great moments.
Here is my video!
Wish me luck, and PLEASE VOTE, and even more importantly SPREAD the word! Inlaws, outlaws, friends, family, enemies, pets, the more the better!
Dogs take 5 of 6, final pics.
Great 5 out of 6 point road trip, finished with a 6-3 win in Trial. Final roadie pictures below.
Banners in Trail FLIN FLON, MAN, and TRAIL BC, only places left with the Queen at the end of the rink, as far as I know
MEMORIAL means something, ladies and gents, boys and girls.
Mural outside the rink in Trail
Jumbo tron and the operation centre, quite the set up!
Views out of the press box- left, right centre.
Cool trees on the way up to Trail
Special treat for "Melly" at the pregame meal for his 21st birthday. Bradyn later went out and got a goal, and the team got a win. Great birthday!
One last picture from Penticton I missed.
Alright, thats it. Bed time. Early wake up and on the long bus home tomorrow morning.
Dogs break streak, more great pictures from the road!
What a poetic finish last night, with Marcello Renallo scoring the game winning goal against his old team for the Dogs to break the losing streak. The boys made it interesting until the end, and even at times appeared to be trying their best to lose the game. But they held on, and they now have 3 out of 4 points so far. Tonight it's the Trail Smoke Eaters as the Bulldogs face the only team in the league they haven't seen yet, 52 games in!
Some pictures from the road- More to add later but here's what I have for now. This is one block from the rink in Kelowna. I fought the urge to go in there and host the morning show, LOL
Former Bulldog Volunteers Roy and Howard Stevens. They used to be the "net guys" during the intermissions taking care of the nets during the ice clean. They now live in Lake Country, but came to Kelowna sporting lots of Bulldog gear. You can take the boys out of the valley but you can't take the valley out of the boys!
Three shots of Memorial Arena in Penticton, "the museum"
Looking back into Kelowna heading to Penticton.
Hello from chilly Kelowna, Dogs hit interior again
Greetings from Kelowna Memorial Arena. Certainly a nip in the air up here in the pressbox as the Bulldogs gameday skate goes on below me. After leaving Port Alberni 830am yesterday the team travelled all the way to Kelowna, checked into our hotel, and headed right downtown to Prospera Place to watch the Kelowna Rockets host the Prince Albert Raiders in Western Hockey League action. A couple of former BCHL'ers on the ice last night- 2002-2003 Alberni Valley Bulldog Chris Ray is now the captain of the Rockets, and coming into relief in goal after the Rockets fell down 3-0 early in the second was Torrie Jung, last year's back up standout for the Cowichan Valley Capitals. Jung played well, but the Rockets were never really in this one as PA won 4-1. Hopefully another PA can get a win tonight!
This morning it was a 730am breakfast at the Hotel and then right here to the Kelowna Memorial Arena for the skate. Beauty old barn this one! A couple of good news items. It looks like Anthony Gorenszach has been given the green light to play so hopefully we will see him tonight or this weekend. "Tony" was aquired by the Dogs at the trade deadline but has not yet played. From all "on the record" comments I've received, Gorenszach arrived ALOT more hurt than "day to day" as the Bulldog were told his condition was. I really like him as a player so here's hoping he can boost the back end defensively and offensively, special teams and 5 on 5. Also the Bulldogs have picked up an affiliate player from Kimberly of the KIJHL, d-man Jordan Forman. Not sure on the spelling. Looking foward to see what he can do this weekend as well.
Lastly- here's the "feature guest" interviews for the second intermissions of the 93.3 The Peak FM Bulldog broadcasts this weekend. Tonight from Penticton my guest will be Westside Warriors play-by-play voice Kevin Parnell. Friday here in Kelowna Tim Kehler, Trail Smoke Eaters coach and GM will by my guest. Finally, Saturday in Trail I will be joined by former Bulldog Joe Scali, now at Cornell University. Tune in, enjoy, and hopefully I will have a win or two or three to bring back home to you in the Valley and on the Fanzone. Send those emails HERE
The Bulldogs have won four in a row in the Interior- Quesnel, Vernon, Salmon Arm, and Merritt, in that order. It will take a monumental effort to get off the 8 game losing streak, and an even bigger effort to win all three, but these guys have done it before and I know they can do it again. SIXTY MINUTES. PHYSICAL. UNSELFISH. DESPERATE. GOALTENDING. SPECIAL TEAMS. My buzz words/keys I guess. Keys to any team....
Before I go get my coach and player interviews as game day skate has ended below me, here's some pictures.
After returning down to the bus after the ferry crossing, Harrison May points out the damage on the windows and says "Hey BC Ferries, don't park us next to a CATTLE TRUCK next time, PLEASE!"
Kelowna Memorial Arena, press box. Always thinking about the press last. Who put that beam there!
End view.
Memorial means- FOR THE VETS, boys and girls.
Rink and Museum all in one!
Thats all for today, thanks for viewing!


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Tag Archives: Popcaan
30 August 2018 · 14:51
Jamaican singer Popcaan has come from being Vybz Kartel's protege to a superstar in his own right. He broke big in 2010 when he joined Vybz Kartel and Gaza Slim on the nowadays classic Clarks tune. It was followed by a stream of singles and collaborations and his debut Where We Come From was put out in 2014.
That set was produced by NYC's Dre Skull and he's also in charge of Popcaan's second album Forever, a 17 track set where the duo presents a tasty blend of dancehall, pop, reggae, R&B and electro.
In the Jamaican singles-based industry an album could be a collection of singles, but Forever is more than a collection of songs. It's a cohesive body of work that bubbles with emotion and struggles and Popcaan is both care-free and introspective and spiritual. But it's not really raw and gritty, it's rather polished and clean, although lyrically Popcaan can be on the slack side. It's sex rather than romance.
His expressive voice if often soaked with Auto-Tune, but it still works pretty well. The melodies are infectious and the choruses are catchy. He's at his best in the deep and powerful Firm & Strong, on which he is joined by a 20 person choir. The last minute or so is pure goosebumps.
Dancehall is everywhere these days and Popcaan has toured with Drake and collaborated with both Jamie XX and Gorillaz. And hopefully this album can help to further elevate dancehall and his career.
Tagged as Dancehall, Dre Skull, Forever, Music, Popcaan
Lucas DiPasquale graduates from Youtube
Canadian youthful Youtube sensation Lucas DiPasquale made a name for himself recording acoustic Popcaan mash-ups and putting them on Youtube. His clips exploded and a major label contract has now kick-started his dreams.
His first effort on Universal was the excellent single Do It Like, a combination with Stylo G, Kardinal Offishall and Konshens. And his debut EP features two new combinations – one with rockstone deejay Assassin aka Agent Sasco and one with Popcaan himself.
Post-Secondary is produced by acclaimed Jamaican dancehall producer Stephen "Di Genius" McGregor, son of legendary Jamaican vocalist Freddie McGregor, and Mojam. It hosts five tracks, of which one is an acoustic live version of Do It Like, and was recorded between Canada, Jamaica and the UK.
That four of the biggest artists on the dancehall scene is collaborating with Lucas DiPasquale says something about his Universal's hopes for him, but also something about his artistic abilities. He's a solid singer that nails his patois and hooks, but he's nonetheless outshined by his Jamaican and British contemporaries, especially Konshens who absolutely murders the last verse in Do It Like.
Post-Secondary is dancehall for the charts and Lucas DiPasquale might be able to make some cross-over success.
Tagged as Konshens, Lucas DiPasquale, Music, Popcaan, Post-Secondary, Reggae, Youtube sensations
Blown away by Popcaan's debut album
Popcaan's debut album Where We Come From is an extraordinary dancehall album. It's surprisingly consistent and perfectly tailored for Popcaan's youthful and bright singing style.
For those of you who doesn't already know about Popcaan, he's like the heir of Vybz Kartel's Portmore Empire. He became a global reggae phenomenon in 2010 when he made an appearance on Kartel's monster hit Clarks, and he has since dropped hit after hit after hit. Many of them being upbeat and pounding dancehall, often with a clear melody, such as Ravin' and Only Man She Want.
Where We Come From is something completely different compared to what Popcaan has put out before. The set is produced by NYC's Dre Skull with support from Dubbel Dutch, Jamie VYP, Anju Blax and Adde Instrumentals. Popcaan and Dre Skulle have previously worked together on riddims such as Kling Klang and Loudspeaker, the latter supports Popcaan's hard-hitting The System, which pops up on the album.
This is evocative and almost cinematic slow-rolling dancehall with electro blasts and beautiful melodies. Popcaan sings his ghetto tales over dark beats with deep bass lines. Sometimes it gets optimistic though, like the distant xylophone echoing in and out on the otherwise melancholic Ghetto (Tired of Crying). That particular cut also has an unexpected and hopeful finale.
Best of the 13 tracks are however the anthemic Where We Come From and album opener Hold On, two of Popcaan's best efforts to date.
Where We Come From is truly remarkable and an exceptional and unique dancehall effort that hopefully can start a new trend in the otherwise very busy and non-consistent dancehall industry.
Tagged as Anju Blax, Dancehall, Dre Skull, Popcaan, Popcaan debut album, Where We Come From
07 May 2014 · 14:39
Finally time for Popcaan's debut album
Dancehall singer Popcaan got his break a few years ago when he appeared on Vybz Kartel's monster smash single Clarks. From then on he has delivered a number of popular singles and cuts from one riddim albums. My personal favourite is The System on U.S. house producer Dre Skull's Loudspeaker riddim.
And finally Popcaan is on the way to drop his debut album Where We Come From, with Dre Skull serving as executive producer.
The sultry lead single Everything Nice was put out a while ago, and now it's time for the second single off the anticipated album, that will be out on June 10.
Love Yuh Bad pairs Popcaan's signature melodiousness and catchy rhythmic flow with skipping percussion and driving strings. It might be that Popcaan's debut album will be in the same vein as the Vybz Kartel's Kingston Story, a slow and electro-flavoured set produced by Dre Skull.
Tagged as Clarks, Dancehall, Dre Skull, Popcaan, Popcaan album, Vybz Kartel, Where We Come From
01 February 2013 · 12:09
Discover the contemporary Jamaican dancehall scene
Noisey – a music site curated by Vice – recently went to Jamaica to explore the culture and people behind the contemporary dancehall scene. The documentary is executive produced by the recently reincarnated Snoop Dogg aka Snoop Lion and hosted by Vice Media producer Codine Williams, and includes great footage of Jamaica today and interviews with dancehall newcomers and veterans, such as the incarcerated Vybz Kartel, his protégé Popcaan and Lady Saw.
In the first episode Codine Williams visits Gaza, the Kingston area made famous by Vybz Kartel, to meet his crew and get people's perspective on the controversial dancehall icon.
The second episode focuses largely on Popcaan and also glimpses into Jamaican club culture and its provocative fashion.
Tagged as Dancehall, Jamaica, Lady Saw, Noisey, Popcaan, Reggae, Vice, Vybz Kartel
Half-year report – 15 favorite tunes
I'm not a big fan of contemporary dancehall. It's too often poorly produced, poorly mixed and poorly mastered without tasteful and turbulent bass lines. Instead you get an overuse of auto-tune and boring generic beats.
But things might have changed in the course of just a couple of months. I don't know if my music taste has changed, but there have been a rather large amount of exceptional dancehall tunes and riddims for the first six months of 2012.
The one drop scene has of course also produced its fair share of excellent cuts and riddims. Several from Europe, and often voiced by Jamaican conscious singers and deejays. UK-based producers Frenchie, Mafia & Fluxy and Curtis Lynch have all released great material this year. Same goes for Swiss production team Weedy G Sound Force.
When browsing through the reggae and dancehall year so far you soon realize which two artists rule the scene at the moment – Tarrus Riley and Popcaan. This is also reflected in my list with 15 favorite tracks for the first six months of 2012, listed below.
All tunes have been released as singles or as part of a one riddim compilation. Tracks appearing on a full-length single artist album have been ruled out.
Song title – artist (label – riddim)
Capital Offence – Captain Sinbad (Maximum Sound – Rudebwoy be Nice)
Selecta – Rayvon (Ranch Ent. – Kingston 13)
Final Move – Cornadoor & Kabaka Pyramid (Weedy G Soundforce)
Original Dancehall Days – Starkey Banton (Mafia & Fluxy – Bun n' Cheese)
We Run It –Tarrus Riley (Charlie Pro)
Chant Rastafari – Tarrus Riley (Maximum Sound – Most Royal)
Go Down – Machel Montano (Mixpak – Loudspeaker)
It's a Party – Elephant Man & Tarrus Riley (Romeich – Stinking Link)
Shots – Voicemail (Akom – Full Swing)
No Barbershop – Conkarah (Lifeline – Rock Fort Rock)
Badmind a Kill Dem – Popcaan (UPT 007 – Juicy)
Chill Spot – Chris Martin (Chimney – Chill Spot)
Independent Ladies – Gaza Slim (TJ – Summer Wave)
Blood Thirsty – Jah Mali (Necessary Mayhem – Possessed)
Fire Fire – Capleton (Dynasty – Kush Morning)
Curious on the tunes? Check out this Spotify playlist with twelve of them.
Tagged as 2012, Chris Martin, Dancehall, Elephant Man, Popcaan, Reggae, Tarrus Riley