text:
What is the Longest River in Australia?
Although Australia may not be known for its rivers, it's home to some significant ones. This includes its longest, the Murray River. This one is located in southeastern Australia, making up much of the border between New South Wales and Victoria before heading into South Australia and emptying into Lake Alexandrina, a 250-square body of water, and then the Southern Ocean. Lake Alexandrina is located 60 miles southeast of Adelaide.
The longest river in Australia has varying reports as to is total length due to the various definitions of where it starts. The consensus is that it's the country's longest regardless of its exact length. Most estimates put it between 1,450-1,600 miles long, making it roughly a third of the length of the world's longest river, the Amazon.
Geoscience Australia, a research agency run by the Australian government, has defined the Murray River's length is 1,558 miles.
From the Alps
No, not those Alps, not the ones that stretch across eight European countries. Where the Murray River originates is the Australian Alps, this continent's highest mountain range. This is where Australia's highest peaks are located, ones that reach at least 6,600 feet in elevation, and it's here where snow becomes water and makes its way along the Murray River.
Murray River Trail
Would you like to experience the longest river in Australia up close and personal? Head out on the Murray River Trail, which provides opportunities to explore its river towns and the landscapes that can be viewed along this waterway.
Navigate it instead
About 1,240 miles of the Murray River is navigable, which means that it's the world's third-longest navigable river. The only ones with more navigable mileage are the Amazon and Nile Rivers. For that reason, many pass on taking advantage of what the Murray River Trail has to offer and instead just get on the water. In most sections of the river, its conditions are quiet and peaceful.
Are you hungry?
Nineteen out of every 20 oranges produced in Australia are created in the Murray-Darling Basin while slightly more than half of Australia's apples are also produced in this region. Additionally, the Murray River is the source of water for more than a million Australian households.
Too much water!
Although Aussies are thankful for how much the Murray River provides to their country, there was a time when this waterway was filled with way too much water: the 1956 Murray River flood. Some areas of the river were flooded 60 miles from where it usually flows. Fortunately, nobody died as a result of this disaster.
Other Australian rivers of note
The Darling River, Australia's second-longest at 960 miles according to Geoscience Australia, connects with the Murray River in Wentworth. It gets its start well to the northeast of Adelaide, towards Brisbane, before making its way through much of the outback. However, it should be noted that it sometimes gets so dry that it doesn't really flow for part of its length.
The third-longest river in Australia is also a tributary of the Murray River. It's the Murrumbidgee River. It gets its start just southeast of Canberra before meeting up with the Murray River at Boundary Bend in an area just east of Mildura. According to Geoscience Australia, this river's length is 925 miles. Several Aboriginal tribes have traditional lands along this river as well.
Australia's fourth-longest river is the Lachlan River, which is a tributary of the Murrumbidgee River. Most notably, it's got wetlands along its entire length, which is atypical for Australian rivers.
Enough about the Murray River and its tributaries!
But you want to know the longest river in Australia that is not at all connected with the Murray River? That would be Cooper Creek. It's 690 miles long and located to the north of Adelaide. A lot of history exists in connection to this waterway as Indigenous Australians have lived here for 50,000 years. Meanwhile, it's perhaps best known as where the Burke and Willis expedition, which went from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria and almost all of the way back, met its tragic end with the deaths of Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Willis in 1861.
Meanwhile, the longest river outside of southeastern Australia is the Flinders River, which comes in at 625 miles. It's located in Queensland, getting its start in the Great Dividing Range before heading northwest towards and into the Gulf of Carpentaria. Burke and Willis met their turnaround point here. This river has never had many people live around it, and it's, for the most part, undeveloped. However, a number of Indigenous Australians have lived in the area over the years. Today, about 7,000 live in the area.


(PRLEAP.COM) The Princess Kristin, a new book by Jack Graybill, has been released by Dorrance Publishing Co., Inc.
The Wizard of Meisendorn-on-the-Rhein has died, leaving his only daughter with the secrets of his magic. As Kristin, the Wizard's daughter, learns more, she becomes a hero to the town of Meisendorn, using her wits and talent to heal the sick and help the poor. Soon she meets the charming and noble Prince Friedrich and wins his heart. But their story doesn't end there with happily ever after.
The Prince and Princess face a series of daring adventures and vile villains: the Demons' Tower, with its host of bandits and undead; the bloodthirsty army of the evil Dreltholst Veister; the cunning witch Hex-aba with her grotesque minions. And, of course, the most exciting adventure of all: the adventure of raising a family.
The Princess Kristin is an epic of sword-and-sorcery fantasy and romance in which true love really does conquer all.
Jack Graybill was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in the heart of Amish country. He graduated from Franklin & Marshall College, only a few blocks from his house. His most prized award was a Master of Arts degree from Columbia University in New York City.
During the Korean War, Jack served on a destroyer-minelayer as Communications Officer. After his discharge, he taught mostly middle-school students in public and private schools. He also taught at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey.
Jack is the author of The Monster Gets a Hug and a Kiss and Compleet Bear. Besides writing, Jack enjoys biking, hiking, and travel. Over a period of 37 years, he has biked 40,000 miles, most of them east of the Mississippi River. He and his wife, Letty, have traveled in six of the seven continents. They have a daughter Kristie and two teenage grandchildren, Olivia and Owen.
The Princess Kristin is a 530-page paperback with a retail price of $76.00. The ISBN is 978-1-4809-5641-1. It was published by Dorrance Publishing Co., Inc of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. For more information, or to request a review copy, please go to our virtual pressroom at www.dorrancepressroom.com or our online bookstore bookstore.dorrancepublishing.com.


text:
Malting barley growers protest outside Guinness
Margaret Donnelly
Malting barley growers outside the Guinness storehouse in 2017
Malting barley growers protested today outside Guinness in Dublin, saying they are 'frustrated' with how they are being dealt with over prices and specifications.
The move comes a week after the growers protested outside Boormalt in Athy. Over 100 malting barley growers protested outside the Diageo-owned Guinness site today in Dublin 8.
A spokesperson for the group said they were feeling "pressurised" by Guinness over changes to specifications to grain this year. "This is a last resort for us today, but we have to get the message to the people that we are supplying.
"The specification changes meant growers had no confidence in forward selling. Further, with contracts not being sent out until the end of May, farmers were in a difficult position. Seed was out in January, so contracts and changes should be presented to farmers before they sow a crop, he said.
"Over 100 growers attended today and we handed in a letter outlining the issues for the growers, including the changes we have had to specification. We were there today out of frustration and not being negotiated with properly and we feel pressurised by Diageo.
"We outlined in the letter that specification changes are very difficult to deal with, including that we are using older seeds varieties that have limited yields." He said a representative from Diageo met with the growers briefly and took the letter from them."
According to the growers, the IFA met with Diageo last week, but did not relay to tillage farmers the outcome of the meeting. The growers said they were also in the dark about further meetings between the IFA and Diageo.
However, Mark Browne, IFA Malting Barley Committee Chairman and Chairman of the Boormalt Steering Group (which comprises growers and Boormalt representatives), said talks with Diageo were ongoing and growers had been kept informed, through text and letters. He also said that there is meeting scheduled for next Monday in Carlow.
A spokesperson for Diageo said the protest at St. James's Gate by the growers is completely unwarranted and unnecessary.
"Diageo Ireland has a contract to purchase malt from a malt supplier (Boortmalt) and not directly from farmers. Hence all price negotiations regarding malt barley are between Boortmalt and the farmers and they should continue their dialogue as this is the appropriate forum for pricing issues. Diageo Ireland has always been supportive of Irish farmers and farming in Ireland and will continue to be so."
Farming IFA Malting Barley

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Graphic novels as a gift: 10 ideas for adult readers
Posted by Marie Volkman
Graphic novels are very popular with their readers and it is not without reason that their popularity continues to rise. The comic novels, which are mainly aimed at adults, come to their readers on the couch with impressive drawings and exciting topics and offer evening entertainment. In times of digitization and fast pace, graphic novels are welcome opportunities to slow down and are therefore also a gift on festive days.
Graphic novels are serious, drawn novels in which all topics have now found a home. Readers will find everything their heart desires here: Whether fiction, such as true crime stories and fantasy stories, biographies or non-fiction books, everyone can find the right illustrated story for themselves.
Graphic novels are novels with multi-faceted drawings
The style of the illustrations is as varied as the themes of the stories. Here you can find cartoon, comic or manga influences. The graphic novels usually don't pretend to be silly. Completely different from what is planned for Mickey Mouse magazines, the stories are therefore rarely directed at children and are therefore perfect as gifts for adult readers and comic fans.
Graphic novels as a gift or to browse for yourself
We have summarized our editorial highlights of the graphic novels for you. This resulted in 10 ideas that not only make an ideal gift for festive days, but also as a companion through the current "stay home - stay safe" time of the pandemic.
"The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl" was written by the writer Ryan North. The young heroine is already well known to fans of Marvel comics. Half human, half squirrel, Doreen Green goes to college and really only has one wish: she wants to be normal! But with her fluffy tail and a squirrel by her side as her best friend, that seems impossible. Plus, there are tons of dangerous enemies waiting to take on Squirrel Girl.
Marvel's Squirrel Girl in a comic book novel. Image: Marvel
On the hunt for bad guys with Marvel's Squirrel Girl
Readers can expect a mix of well-known and lesser-known Marvel villains. Squirrel Girl was a previously underrated Marvel character that should get a lot more exposure. Ryan North achieved this in an entertaining way with his graphic novel.
In "Persepolis" the reader travels into the childhood story of the author Marjane Satrapi, during the Islamic revolution. Between her own poverty and the noticeable worries of her left-wing parents, Marjane lived a childhood in which the houses of her neighbors were bombed and all western values were suppressed by the state. Meanwhile, her parents, who are defying the regime, are considering emigrating to America.
Persepolis is an impressive biography about the desire for freedom
But then the child-like Marjane gets older and begins to rebel against the oppression in society. Between fear, jeans and dreams of a better world, the graphic novel Persepolis tells a touching story that tells the reader about life during the Islamic revolution. The story starts in the childhood of the author and ends when she is a young adult.
Graphic novel Persepolis is about oppression and the desire for freedom. Image: Edition Moderne
Persepolis is a moving and impressive biography of the author Marjane Satrapi, who gets by with simple black and white drawings without losing any of the feelings that the graphic novel seeks to convey to the reader. Together with the young self of the author, they experience feelings of oppression, otherness and the desire to escape from them.
Graphic novel with a Guy Fawkes mask. Image: Panini
In "V for Vendetta" V is an anarchist revolutionary. He lives in a fascist state, with an almost mindless population. All resistance was unscrupulously crushed by the government. It remains a surveillance state with a corrupt police force. But V defends himself by saving people, killing members of the government and doing everything possible to overthrow the iron regime. At the same time, V encourages the reader to think in his very own, melodramatic way.
V for Vendetta fights for social freedom
The story V for Vendetta poses the question of how much personal commitment a life in social freedom is worth to the reader or whether the desire for comfort wins out. Today we know V's Guy Fawkes mask as the hallmark of the Anonymous movement. The graphic novel story was first published in 1982 as a satire on the highly controversial Thatcher government led by the "Iron Lady". The theme of the comic novel is still topical and of great social importance. V for Vendetta has already been filmed and written in several types of literature.
Sci-fi fans should check out the graphic novel "bitch planet take a closer look. The author Kelly Sue DeConnick describes in her comic dystopia what if men would banish all "nonconforming" women to a prison outside the planet. Appropriately written in the style of the 60s and 70s, women are initially suppressed here, but then strike back in superhero fashion!
Graphic novel Bitch Planet is a comic book anthem to women. Image: Image Comics
In Bitch Planet, superheroes fight stereotypes
In Bitch Planet, all women become heroes! You get by without the typical stereotypical body features. The story, which fans of the series "Orange Is the New Black" may particularly enjoy, shows in an action-packed way how misplaced social expectations of the appearance of women are.
"Mouse" von Art Spiegelman tells us his very personal family story. About the outbreak of World War II and the consequences for the life of a Jewish family. With clear words and impressive pictures, Spiegelman describes not only the fall of freedom, but also the subsequent escape from captivity in Auschwitz and the life path after this time.
Maus tells of a Jewish life in Holocaust times
A life in which there was little acceptance for Jewish people. We travel with his family to Poland, Auschwitz, Sweden and New York. The people were drawn as animal races. Jewish people are mice, Nazis are cats, Poles are pigs, and Americans are dogs. Maus is a brutal and at the same time tearful story about the life of a Jewish family during the Holocaust.
A queer graphic novel. Image: Cross Cult
"Stuck Rubber Baby" shows life between the 1950s and 1960s in the homophobic and racist American South. According to the author Howard Cruse, the attitude there is not completely different today. The graphic novel is not a biography of Cruse, but he has incorporated his own experiences. Told from the perspective of protagonist Toland Polk, Stuck Rubber Baby clearly describes the impressive effort to heal his unwanted "gayness" and achieve the goal of becoming more racist.
Stuck Rubber Baby tells a disturbing queer story
While Polk is beginning to learn to suppress his true feelings, the Ku Klux Klan carries out an attack on a meeting place for local civil rights activists. They advocate the values of a free society, plus the fact that his pseudo friend is part of the movement. Polk has to decide if he wants to belong to the wrong thinking people or finally to stand by his own feelings. Stuck Rubber Baby went through the roofs of the underground queer comics scene for a reason. The graphic novel by Cruse asks the right questions and impressively tells the suffering behind false social constraints and values.
"Palestine" by Joe Sacco is comic journalism. For this graphic novel, which describes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Sacco interviewed people from both sides. He researched, questioned and experienced the situation with his own eyes. The result of his observations is a touching story that puts the Palestinian experiences somewhat in the foreground.
Palestine is a testimony to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Always more with an empathetic look at the personal stories of the people than at the political events. We learn something about the ruthless everyday life in Palestine and the feeling of having to live as a suspected terrorist, because that's how the media describe its inhabitants. Palestine tells the reader impressively about the harrowing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and about the people who have to live behind this brutal, political network.
The real world becomes torture in blankets. Image: Faber and Faber
"blanket" by Craig Thompson describes what it is like to sleep in the same bed with someone for the first time. This sentence hits the heart of the partly autobiographical graphic novel. Blanket's story begins in Craig's childhood, when he has to share a bed with his brother. A bed that serves as a fraternal battlefield, but also as a shelter.
Blankets tells of the escape from an extremely religious family
A shelter from the demands of his extremely religious parents, who raise their children according to strict Christian values, from the tyrants of his provincial town and later as a refuge from the confusion of his young love for Raina. Blankets tells a strong and at the same time touching story that tells about a life that lies somewhere between extremely controlling parents, Christian guilt, first love, emotional confusion, fears and the flight into art.
"Fun home - A Family of Marked Ones is an autobiography by author Alison Bechdel. While she was in college, her father died suddenly, leaving his family with a mountain of unanswered questions. The graphic novel-turned-Broadway musical explores the history of Bechdel's family.
Fun Home tells the impressive story of a family
She wants to reveal who her father was and why he was hiding his sexual identity. But above all, she wonders what exactly happened on the day of his death. At the same time, it is about your own self: your sexual orientation, sadness, joy and your view of the dark secrets of the Bechdel family.
"Black Hole" by Charles Burns is said to be an autobiographical graphic novel that was originally published as a comic book. The author, Mr. Burns, is also believed to be a friend of Matt Groening. The story of Black Hole takes place in the 1970s and is about the unhappy youth in the suburbs of Seattle. Burns describes teenagers loitering in the forest in a dark and harsh way. They run away from their life and try to forget. Meanwhile, they take drugs, have sex, find love, loneliness, and death.
Black Hole is a disturbing story with a serious background. Image: Pantheon
Black Hole is a disturbing growing up story
Yet all of these teenagers are suffering from a strange sexually transmitted disease at the same time. The effects seem fatal as they suffer from open wounds, growing animal tails and they begin to shed their skin. Each of them deals with this dark fate in their own crazy way and some even begin to murder. Black Hole divides the readership and bluntly plays with topics such as alienation from normality, growing up, the AIDS / HIV issues of the 1970s, sexuality, violence and science fiction.
Fantagraphics Studio Edition: Charles Burns' Black Hole * Buy
Marie Volkman
Co-founder of the portal; Coordination: social media
Last updated on 26.01.2023/XNUMX/XNUMX / Affiliate Links / Images from the Amazon Product Advertising API. * = Affiliate links. Images from Amazon PA API
Previous World of Warcraft: Shadowlands - More fun by leveling up quickly?
Next Xbox Series X: Mistake allegedly renders console useless
Cyberpunk 2077: RPG is back with mega-patch 1.2
On diving station: 5 good board games with water
Surviving the Aftermath: Second Expansion is coming
Cascadia author brings new board game: Tabriz
PGA Tour 2K23 in the test: The best golf simulation
Dodgeball on PC and consoles: new party game from Ubisoft
January 31, 2017 | News, video Games


Frederick was the center of the world for two weeks.
About 130 students from 30 countries gathered July 14 through today at Hood College for the seventh annual UNESCO International Model United Nations summer camp.
This year's conference allowed the young diplomats to role play as members of the U.N. Security Council; General Assembly; Economic and Social Committee; Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organizations; and the World Health Organization.
Debates, workshops and creative projects on current global issues bonded the students in pursuit of a more peaceful and just future.
Guy Djoken, executive director of the UNESCO Center for Peace in Frederick, called the camp the only political simulation of its kind that brings students from across the globe.
The opportunity gives young adults the communication and networking tools they need to make the world a better place, Djoken said.
For R'ona Denys, of France, the camp demonstrated the importance of leadership. Living with other students and leaving Europe for the first time were lessons in maturity, she said.
While Martin Siimann, 20, of Estonia said the camp was a chance to find new friends and "do something good in a bigger picture." His most memorable days were those without dress pants and ties.
The group took field trips to New York, Washington, and historical sites such as Antietam, where they took a break from solving the world's problems to canoe.
Informal outings let the kids be kids and brought them together as a team, Siimann said.
Maldives native Mohamed Sadhadh Khaleel, 19, had never participated in anything like the camp before. But he wanted to meet people from across the world and follow his passion for international politics.
"So many lives are being lost to war and corruption," Khaleel said.
Language barriers were sometimes an obstacle for the mock diplomacy, Khaleel said.
Many participants spoke of the deep friendships forged in a short amount of time. Their bond shows that international communication and peace are possible, Djoken said.
Follow Rachel S. Karas on Twitter: @rachelkaras.


Hawaiian Meatballs - Hawaiian Meatballs recipes have been collected over the years. At Annies Recipes you can easily navigate through thousands of other tried and true, easy and quick to prepare recipes.
Hawaiian Cookies - Hawaiian Cookies recipes have been collected over the years. At Annies Recipes you can easily navigate through thousands of other tried and true, easy and quick to prepare recipes.
Hawaiian Muffins - Hawaiian Muffins recipes have been collected over the years. At Annies Recipes you can easily navigate through thousands of other tried and true, easy and quick to prepare recipes.
Hawaiian Fruit Cake - Hawaiian Fruit Cake recipes have been collected over the years. At Annies Recipes you can easily navigate through thousands of other tried and true, easy and quick to prepare recipes.
Hawaiian Cookies recipes have been collected over the years. At Annies Recipes you can easily navigate through thousands of other tried and true, easy and quick to prepare recipes.
Hawaiian Meatballs recipes have been collected over the years. At Annies Recipes you can easily navigate through thousands of other tried and true, easy and quick to prepare recipes.
Hawaiian Muffins recipes have been collected over the years. At Annies Recipes you can easily navigate through thousands of other tried and true, easy and quick to prepare recipes.


text:
Jill Magid (born 1973) is an American conceptual artist, writer, and filmmaker. Magid's performance-based practice  "interrogates structures of power on an intimate level, exploring the emotional, philosophical, and legal tensions that exist between institutions and individual agency."

Magid has frequently worked by forming personal relationships with governmental systems of power, including police and intelligence agencies, questioning these structures of authority on a human level by embedding herself within them. Other projects intervene at contested sites of corporate control, bureaucratic process, and the law.

Life
Jill Magid was born in Bridgeport, CT in 1973. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and received an MS in Visual Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She currently lives and works in New York with her husband Jonny Bauer and their two sons. She serves as an adjunct professor at The Cooper Union.

Exhibitions
Magid's work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at numerous institutions, including Tate Modern, London; Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; San Francisco Art Institute; Berkeley Museum of Art, California;  Tate Liverpool;  the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam;  Yvon Lambert, Paris and New York; Gagosian Gallery, New York; The Centre d'Art Santa Mònica, Barcelona; and , The Netherlands.

Magid is represented by LABOR, Mexico City.

Awards and residencies

Magid is an Associate of the Art, Design and the Public Domain program at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, and was a 2013-15 fellow at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics. Previously, Magid was an artist-in-residence at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam from 2000-2. She has received various awards, including the Calder Prize 2017, the Basis Stipendium from Fonds Voor Beeldende Kunsten in the Netherlands in 2006 and a Netherland-American Foundation Fellowship Fulbright Grant from 2001-2002.

She is also the author of four books, and her project The Barragán Archives is the subject of the book The Proposal, published by Sternberg Press.

Selected works

Evidence Locker
Evidence Locker was a 2004 collaboration with Liverpool's City Watch (Merseyside Police and Liverpool City Council) – then England's largest citywide video surveillance system. Wearing a red trench coat for thirty-one days, Magid periodically contacted on-duty police to train their public cameras on her. Sometimes, the surveillants located her on their own.

City Watch stores CCTV footage for only thirty-one days "unless requested as evidence"; requested footage, in turn, is kept for seven years in a digital "Evidence Locker" on the organization's main computer. Despite her collaboration with the organization, Magid could only obtain access to her footage by formally submitting thirty-one Subject Access Request Forms, detailing the time and nature of the evidentiary incidents. Building upon her implicit intimacy with the CCTV observers, Magid filled out these legal documents as if writing letters to a lover. The collected letters form her 2004 book, One Cycle of Memory in the City of L.

After filing the forms, Magid received over eleven hours of CCTV recordings, constituting her own personal evidence locker. The artist edited this footage into a number of videos, including Final Tour (2004), which comprises a series of time-lapse sequences of the artist motorcycling through the city at sunset, backed by Georges Delerue's score from Le Mépris. In Trust (2004), a CCTV operator communicates with Magid via mobile phone, guiding the artist – eyes closed – through the city's public spaces.

As a whole, Evidence Locker contributes to contemporary debates around public surveillance by giving a nuanced, focused take on the "emotional and philosophical relationship between 'protective' institutions […] and individual identity."

The Spy Project
In 2005, Magid was commissioned by the Dutch secret service (AIVD) to make a work for its new headquarters, as per the law's stipulation that "a portion of the budget for the new building be spent on an art commission." The organization solicited the artist to help improve its public persona by providing "'the AIVD with a human face.'"

Magid spent the following three years meeting with eighteen willing employees in non-descript public places, from restaurants and bars to airport meeting points. AIVD restricted the artist from using recording equipment, so she collected her contacts' personal data in handwritten notes, which informed her later series of neons, sculptures and paper works. Magid also drafted a report of her meetings, amassing the details of individual contacts into a collective persona that she referred to as "The Organization."

The first exhibition of the project, Article 12, opened at "Stroom" Den Haag, The Netherlands in April 2008 – the same month AIVD took residence in its new headquarters. The show also marked the official end of the artist's commission. Named after the article that protects personal data, Article 12 never entirely disclosed the identities of Magid's contacts, but nonetheless inverted "the surveillance duties of the agency" by publicly displaying materials associated with its employees.

Magid invited AIVD personnel to review the exhibition a day before the opening; the agents returned, during its run, to confiscate several works. A draft of Magid's report, in turn, was delivered to the artist with redactions of "any information that might compromise her sources' identities," as well as "some of the artist's descriptions of her own thoughts and feelings."

The artist "protested against the censorship of her own memories," prompting AIVD to suggest that she "'present the manuscript as a visual work of art in a one-time-only exhibition, after which it would become the property of the Dutch government and not be published.'" Magid's 2009/10 exhibition at Tate Modern, Authority to Remove, marked the fulfillment of this request: the uncensored report sat securely behind glass. In its penultimate state, the project thus expressed "what it means to have a secret but not the autonomy to share it."

AIVD entered Tate Modern, in 2010, to permanently confiscate Magid's uncensored manuscript. A paperback of the redacted version, Becoming Tarden, was published in 2010.

Failed States
On January 21, 2010, a man attempted to enter the Texas State Capitol to speak with a Senator's aide. Immediately upon exiting the building, he fired six shots into the sky. Magid, coincidentally, was on a trip to research the history of snipers in Austin; her eyewitness account of the shooting aired on several media outlets.

The motivations of the young shooter, Fausto Cardenas, remain unknown. He was charged with perpetrating a terrorist threat to the government, but the trial date for his case was continuously delayed. Fausto accepted a plea bargain, in August 2011, "ultimately silencing himself."

Magid responded strongly to "the symbolic gesture of six shots into the sky, the fateful setting, the silence that refuses to ground [Fausto] in political rhetoric or personal instability." For Closet Drama, her 2011 exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum, and the subsequent Failed States, the artist drew thematic and formal connections between Fausto's act and Goethe's nineteenth-century poem, Faust. Acting "as eyewitness and dramaturge," Magid linked themes of tragedy and futility between Fausto and his nominal relative, even bringing texts of Faust's monologues into the gallery space as implicit stand-ins for the shooter's silence. Goethe's epic was originally written as a "closet drama," "a play to be read rather than performed". In Magid's hands, the gallery transformed into a "stage to be read," with language, sculpture, video and image creating an intertextual weave between stories and events, individuals and publics, actions and aftermaths.

The day of the shooting, Magid met with a reporter, "CT," who had previously embedded with the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over a series of meetings, the artist decided to train to embed with CT on his next trip to Afghanistan. CT informed her that they would navigate the country in a "hard car" – usually a Mercedes – armored to withstand gunfire while blending into traffic. Magid promptly decided to armor her 1993 Mercedes station wagon and, as part of her 2012 exhibition at AMOA-Arthouse, Austin, parked the car in the spot where Fausto had parked on the day he fired his six shots.

Auto Portrait Pending
In 2005, Magid signed a contract with Lifegem, a company that specializes in turning cremated bodies into diamonds. The artist specified that, upon her death, 8 ounces of carbon from her remains will be transformed into a one-carat, round-cut diamond estimated to cost about $20,000, to be set in a gold ring.

Auto Portrait Pending is exhibited as an incomplete form of Magid's self-portrait. A contract containing three sections (a corporate contract, artist's preamble and a private beneficiary contract), a ring box and the unset gold ring make up its existing parts. The beneficiary contract allows for ownership of "the artist (in symbolic terms) until her death, after which her ashes will be transformed into a jewel to be put in the ring on permanent display." At the beginning of the beneficiary contract it is stated that the funeral and artwork are to be completely separate. The beneficiary who is unknown at this time must be a collector or institution with a substantial collection where the piece will remain in permanent display. In her own words, "The beneficiary is usually the loved one. The husbands gets the wife, the wife the husband, etcetera. I specify the beneficiary as a collector."

"Representation is exchanged for reality. It is a kind of Faustian pact (a recurring motif for the artist, in fact) with Magid bartering for eternal existence in the form of a carefully curated gemstone commodity, offering her own body as an artwork in the making, and in so doing tying herself in very strange relationship with an unknown Beneficiary: technically she becomes their property-to-be."

The Barragán Archives
From 2013 through 2016, Magid explored the contested legacy of the late Mexican architect Luis Barragán. While Barragán's personal archive and the vast majority of his architecture are located in Mexico, his professional archive is owned by the Swiss corporation Vitra, under the auspices of the not-for-profit Barragan Foundation. The foundation firmly controls the rights to Barragán's name and work, and has kept the archive closed to the public. Magid's project asks "what can happen to an artist's legacy when a corporation owns and controls the rights to his work."  Through a series of objects, installations, performances, and a feature film, it explores the "intersection of the psychological with the judicial, national identity and repatriation, international property rights and copyright law, authorship and ownership."

The project has been the subject of a number of exhibitions. These include "Women with Sombrero" at Art In General, New York (2013) and Yvon Lambert, Paris (2014), "The Proposal" at Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Switzerland and the San Francisco Art Institute (both 2016), and "A Letter Always Arrives at its Destination: The Barragán Archives" at Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City (2017). The project was chronicled by Alice Gregory in a series of articles for the New Yorker in 2016 and 2017, and is the subject of Magid's film, The Proposal.

The Proposal (Film, 2018)
Magid's first feature film, The Proposal (83 min, 2018), was commissioned by Laura Poitras of Field of Vision, who also served as executive producer. The film explores Magid's relationship to Luis Barragán, and builds on her work stemming from his archive. The narrative starts with her in her studio in New York and then moves to Barragán's home, recreating aspects of his life, and delving deeper into his relationships, connections and personal moments from his life. The film unpacks a narrative exploring "...forms of power, public access, and copyright that construct artistic legacy", as Magid explores the split of Barragán's archive - a personal verse a professional one- upon his death. The professional archive (along with the rights to the Barragán name) was purchased by Rolf Fehlbaum, the chairman of Vitra a Swiss furniture company, as an engagement present for his at the time fiancée Federica Zanco "in lieu of a ring", as Magid repeats through the film. Since the purchase of the archive this portion has not been exhibited. Through the film, Magid examines the scenario, critically, and creates a situation centered around the idea of love; love of an artist, a human and marital love. She sets out to create an engagement ring from a small portion of Barragán's ashes and brings the ring to a meeting she arranges with Ms. Zanco, in exchange for the archive's return to Mexico she will give her the engagement ring. Magid proposes a portion of the man, for the archive. At the time of the film Zanco has not accepted her proposal, but Magid's offer still stands. The film premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival, receiving numerous awards. The film is distributed in the US and Canada by Oscilloscope Films, played in over thirty cities across the US after opening at New York's IFC Center and Los Angeles' Laemmle Monica Film Center, and in museum contexts including the Tate Modern and the Centre Pompidou.  It was a New York Times critics' pick, and was reviewed in The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe, among others.

Books

One Cycle of Memory in the City of L (2004) comprises the thirty-one Subject Access Request Forms Magid filed to obtain access to CCTV footage from Evidence Locker, her 2004 collaboration with Liverpool's City Watch. These forms ask for the time and nature of the incidents in question, which Magid supplied along with expressions of affection for their implicit recipients. In the artist's work, an intimacy can form between a pedestrian and her surveillants, and a bureaucratic document can testify to that relationship.

Lincoln Ocean Victor Eddy (2007) emerged from a five-month period Magid spent shadowing a New York police officer during his nightly rounds through the city's subway system. The book forgoes the mediating structure of legal documents, as in One Cycle of Memory in the City of L, by providing a diaristic account of Magid's feelings towards her companion – a shift to character-driven writing that continues in the artist's later books, Becoming Tarden and Failed States.

Writing in The New York Times, critic Roberta Smith describes Magid's text as "quietly heart-rending novella, a kind of tunnel vision of two people moving along parallel tracks while the city hums around them. The relationship is never consummated, but 'Lincoln Ocean Victor Eddy' spells love."

Part of The Spy Project, Becoming Tarden (2010) is a non-fiction novel that emerged from Magid's interviews with eighteen agents of the Dutch secret service (AIVD). Following Magid's submission of a draft, in 2008, the organization censored forty percent of the contents, from compromising information to the artist's personal descriptions and recollections. AIVD conceded to allow Magid to exhibit the uncensored report – only once – "'as a visual work of art.'" Following its secure display in 2009/10 at the Tate Modern, the Dutch government assumed ownership of the manuscript.

In a letter to AIVD, Magid remarked: "'The book, Becoming Tarden, is a memoir of our involvement. I had dreams of publishing it as my first novel. You are its only reader. Seize it. Strip it. Hold it in your building and seal it under glass. I comply.'"

A redacted paperback version of Becoming Tarden was published in 2010.

Failed States (2012) departs from the project of the same name, shifting focus to "CT," a former embedded war correspondent who helps train Magid to embed in Afghanistan. The artist formerly played the role of incidental witness to Fausto's shooting, but in the book, actively seeks out training with a "personal desire to engage the war on terror and its media representation through becoming an eyewitness."

This non-fiction novel marks a new stage in Magid's writing: unlike previous works, its contents never enter the gallery space. The topics of the Closet Drama and Failed States exhibitions, in turn, are barely mentioned in the book.

Critical response

Magid's work "is incisive in its poetic questioning of the ethics of human behavior and the hidden political structures of society. Her intelligent conceptual strategies engage the viewer in an absorbing aesthetic and intellectual experience that turns conventional assumptions of power, secrecy, control and social space inside out."

"Ms. Magid […] seems motivated by an urge to infiltrate and personalize, if not sexualize, the anonymous social and technological systems that surround us. She pursues an idiosyncratic kind of body art descended from artists like Vito Acconci, Adrian Piper and Sophie Calle."

References

External links
Jill Magid's website
LABOR Gallery artist page
"Jill Magid On The Proposal," Artforum, September 2016
"500 Words," Artforum, May 2012
Kunitz, Daniel. "Texting: The Artist as Writer as Artist." Art Info, 3 June 2011.
"Open Secret: Pamela M. Lee on the Work of Art Between Disclosure and Redaction," Artforum, May 2011.
Thomas, Elizabeth. "Jill Magid: Closet Drama." Berkeley Art Museum exhibition brochure.
Crow, Kelly. "An Artist Delves Into the Lives of Spies." The Wall Street Journal, 19 September 2009.
Rubin, Elizabeth. "Jill Magid." Bidoun #10.
Lovink, Geert. "Surveillance, Performance, Self-Surveillance: Interview with Jill Magid." Institute of Network Cultures, 29 October 2004.

Living people
1973 births
Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning alumni
Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni
American women artists
Jewish women artists
Jewish American artists
American multimedia artists
American performance artists
21st-century American Jews
21st-century American women

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


0:09Skip to 0 minutes and 9 secondsHistorians often talk about war with a kind of reverence, even awe. Heroic deeds, great man, battles won and battles lost. Even criticisms-- the lions led by donkeys, the rage against war-- come with a kind of admiration for the spirit and the bravery of those who suffered and died, for those who suffered and survived.
0:34Skip to 0 minutes and 34 secondsAll those who fought in the Great War in the Easter rising in the Ireland of 1919 to 1923 are gone. And that poses the question of how we understand them now. It may be easier if we see them plainly, if we deal in brave men winning or losing for causes deeply felt, for belief profoundly held. If we see triumph and failure, heroism and death, if we let our pulses quicken, our chests swell with pride, whatever anthem is sung.
1:04Skip to 1 minute and 4 secondsThis kind of history has been knitted into the fabric of who we are in North in South, of who we are in Britain and in Ireland. There's no undoing that, and perhaps there should not be.
1:17Skip to 1 minute and 17 secondsBut does this history tell us what it was to fight when choosing to go to war may well have come from a mixture of motives far more complicated than the obvious reasons we might have seen on many people's parts?
1:31Skip to 1 minute and 31 secondsDo we default too readily to the stylised wars of our imaginations? The wars of poets, novelists, filmmakers? The wars won well? The wars of noble and nearly always poignant deaths? Should we ask instead what it was to fight when fighting meant doing whatever it took to survive, to come home, to see again what was loved or missed? When fighting was enjoyable? When fighting became the one thing you were good at? When fighting with something you didn't really want to leave behind?
2:04Skip to 2 minutes and 4 secondsHistory can be protective and reverential towards the dead, but often far more uneasy about those that the fighting left behind, the scarred and injured reminders of causes perhaps later compromised, of promises made and never kept.
2:21Skip to 2 minutes and 21 secondsThis week we are not interested in the great men of our various wars great and small. You can find them elsewhere lauded and applauded. Are there far more ordinary, more challenging, more diverse experiences to seek that may just tell us more of what it was to fight or not to fight, to loathe and to enjoy all kinds of wars? Ethel Burrows died in Belfast in the 27th of August, 1920. She was 16 years old. She had been shot two days before as crowds clashed and police and military fired to clear the streets. She was out with her friend, Minnie Stevenson, after a hard week's work, walking about on her Saturday off.
3:03Skip to 3 minutes and 3 secondsWe might not like to think of fighting as being about killing a 16-year-old girl, but fighting can be about the things not meant, the deaths in the wrong places, the unfortunates who found themselves somehow in war's way.
3:18Skip to 3 minutes and 18 secondsThis week, we need to think about what it was to fight, what drove some to act and others not. We need to consider those who fought less obvious, less orthodox kinds of wars. When did war overstep its mark? Not necessarily by our modern, maybe more squeamish standards, but by the standards of the day, however they were set? We need to think what were asked of those who did fight, whether in war or revolution, or however the fighting is defined, and begin to measure some of the mark it made on those the fighting left behind.
Before we address some of the specific questions raised by this week's theme, we would like you to reflect on how we conceive of war and revolution.
How is our perception of the realities of fighting shaped by the formative role this period has played in Irish history? Do we revert to stylised notions of war, constructed piecemeal from films or fictional accounts?
We want you to consider what you think of the use of violence, and how those views inform your approach to the history of revolution and war.


Elegant and affordable commercial-grade 2-Temp Water dispensers with rugged designer finish provide clean, refreshing for up to 30 people. Standard filtration and premium, high capacity filtration available.
Rugged and economical 2-Temp Point-of-Use dispensers with designer finish provide clean, refreshing water at any location – from a supplier you can trust. Provide clean, refreshing water for up to 30 people at any location. Standard filtration and premium, high capacity filtration available.
Single, 1/4 turn, quick-twist 5 micron carbon block filter: removes sediment, rust, pipe scale, chlorine taste and odor. 2000 gal. capacity.
High capacity, single 1/4 turn quick-twist 0.5 micron carbon block filter with scale inhibitor: Removes sediment, rust, pipe scale, chlorine taste and odor. 10,000 gal capacity.


You don' t have to start streaming the video, we just need Video Link. Listen to millions of songs of up- and- coming artists.
Object Moved This document may be found here. For faster download speeds download recovery , to better manage your downloads, resuming download Go!
Scottish/ Irish music Tolkien music, songs Ren Faire ee mp3 downloads. Clip Extractor supports. Zilla Download Manager and Accelerator software for Windows. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click " Accept" below then you are consenting to this.
MP3 Downloads made easy free with our mp3 , fast sound search engine. Hip- Hop Songs, mp3 download.
Add your favorites to your own playlists download , interact with bands purchase songs. To start this download lagu you need to click on [ Download] Button. Get the latest updates on NASA missions learn about our quest to reveal the unknown , watch NASA TV live benefit all humankind.
Improve your downloads with Go! Remember that by downloading this song you accept our terms and conditions.
Free Music Downloads - A CD Worth of Great Celtic Music. We strive to make it as easy mp4, mov, avi, wmv, as fast as possible for you to convert your favorite YouTube videos to any format including mp3 many more. Just type in your search query choose the sources you would like to search on click the search ee download One Piece We Go Mp3. Thank you for your interest in the Brobdingnagian Bards' Free Music ing the links below you can listen and download our Free Celtic MP3s with nearly two dozen free Celtic muisc downloads to choose ee mp3 downloads.
Once we have converted the. Once you click ' GO' you will need to wait a minute two until we convert from YouTube to mp3.
It can play more than 20 kinds of music data including WAV RA, MID , MOD, MP3, video data such as AVI, MOV, MPG as well as audio video CD 2. Gov brings you the latest images videos news from America' s space agency.
The ABC Song is a really important song for the classroom. Manage downloads - No more lost files easily see what is in progress find your finished downloads. Our service works it works directly with the website that host the video ( usually - youtube) to deliver functioning download links for each video.
We made the use of our soundcloud to mp3 converter as easy as possible just copy the soundcloud link in the textfield click " Download MP3". As we go on mp3 download. The Original Celtic Renaissance music group with over five million free Celtic MP3 downloads served.
As we go on mp3 download. Total albums: 18122 Total songs: 525591 Total size: 2270 GB We offer you easy searching options.
We' re not proud of this but we' ve had to disble youtube playlist processing seeing how users request playlists with 5000+ videos. Go Music is a Music Audio Player with stylish design, multiformat support, light structure which combines the built- in Equalizers to your musical experience. Q: How to download online video and audio using Savemedia?
Once we have converted ET Download - Find the latest free software apps, reviews for Windows, iOS, Mac, downloads Android. Plus de 20 millions de titres MP3 à petits prix sans DRM Just click on Download LAME MP3 Encoder. YouTube Clip Extractor is a free program to download videos from YouTube convert them to any popular format turn to a ringtone if needed. You can teach the letters using the flashcards videos then sing the song in the classroom.
With JetAudio users can play, enhance audio, enjoy full screen video, record tune in. It plays various multimedia files in one player. Mp3 for nvert download youtube videos to mp3 ( audio) mp4 ( video) files for free.
To download your free instrumental mp3 of " Here We Go Looby Loo" tap , hold, on mobile devices) on the following link, right click ( then choose " Save link as. Free MP3 Download.
As we go on mp3 download. Download songs bios, play radio; with lyrics, news, photos, music videos playlists. JetAudio will satisfy both convenience and expertise. As we go on mp3 download.
More information The cookie settings on this website are set to " allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. Once you click ' GO' you will need to wait a minute two until we convert from YouTube to mp3. JetAudio is an integrated multifmedia player. Never lose a download again with this Download Manager and Download Accelerator software for Windows.
We were thinking of your needs while creating Online Flvto YouTube Converter. When the downloading is finished we will show you the download URL from where you can download your mp3 file. Welcome to Mp3Juices - a popular free mp3 search engine tool.
Enjoy downloading Kaleo – Way Down We Go. HOME · ABOUT US · CELTIC LYRICS · WRITE US · PODCAST HOW TO SAY BROBDINGNAGIAN?
Answer: as explained above with infographics, the process is fairly simple. After that everything will go automatically behind the scenes.
We couldn' t aggree more. As we go on mp3 download.
When your browser asks you what to do with the downloaded file select " Save" ( your browser' s wording may vary) pick an appropriate folder. Enjoy downloading One Piece – We Go. HOW TO DOWNLOAD LAME MP3 Encoder: 1. Please be patient while we do this. ( Without the actual spotify software except for removing DRM from Spotify songs , for example in my car) ( Without the actual spotify software, for example in my car) - - No recording. Its powerful features can fulfill all your musical needs.
For the file that you want to download. Over decades of time the mp3 file format stays as the most popular music format.
Great bands deserve great sound? ; Find special app, open video you' d like to download , convert to mp3 in your internet browser , like facebook youtube.
Plus de 20 millions de titres MP3 à petits prix sans ee download Kaleo Way Down We Go Mp3. Can i download songs i like as mp3 and play them anywhere? There is no registration or software needed.
Consequently, we have decided to make this new version available to you, revised by us. Bresso is a free mp3 portal that offers links to free mp3 music downloads search, and sites where to download music.
We also have an mp3 music search page, an mp3 help page, music news and music lyrics search page.
We value our visitors' comments and we look forward to receiving URLs of new free music downloads sites that we have not added to our list file sharing and storage - 15 GB free web space. Easy registration.
Fast test MP3s by Most Recent Added MP3s by. A Marà Tà Boa Mp3 Years Years Sanctify Karaoke Version your favorite YouTube videos as mp3 files without the latest version of RealPlayer or RealTimes and get the latest features!


The only mountains where you can surf!
There are many WiFi hotspots providing free of charge internet access across the entire ski resort. Only one single login is required and you are ready to surf the internet to your heart's content. State-of-the-art devices allow for fast downloads and uploads of up to 1MBit/s!
Get ready to be surprised: Depending on your location, we provide you with up-to-date information about the ski resort, events and offers!
Share photos, holiday greetings and fun – simple and direct from the pistes at Nassfeld!
thanks to the free of charge Wi-Fi hotspots!
Whether the impressive mountain panorama of the Carnic Alps with stunning views across the surrounding mountain ranges, a striking freeride pose in meter-deep snow, a sunny snapshot or a great "nice surprise" moment directly from the piste - the impressions are uploaded and sent quickly and easily by smartphone via free of charge Wi-Fi.
Are you Nassfeld's Next Top Model? Press the button; put your best smile on and maybe you really become Nassfeld's Next Top Model!


Local Waste Services & Kurtz Bros. will accept all forms of yard waste such as brush and tree branches (cut in 4 ft. lengths and no longer than 2 feet in diameter and bundled with approved material and less than 50 lbs.). Leaves, grass, sod and mulch (placed in cans (clearly marked yard waste), 50 lbs or less or in paper yard waste bags (again, 50 lbs or less) placed opposite (preferably opposite side of driveway) of the trash and recycle.
recycle facility (Kurtz Bros.) requirements.


[[abstract]]This dissertation analyzes the pricing and hedging problems for quanto range accrual note under the HJM-framework with Levy processes for instantaneous domestic and foreign forward interest rates. We consider both the effects of jump risks of interest rate and exchange rate on the pricing of the notes.
The pricing formula for quanto double interest rate digital option and quanto contingent payoff option are first derived, then we apply the method proposed by Turnbull(1995) to duplicate the qaunto range accrual note by a combination of the quanto double interest rate digital option and the qunato contingent payoff option. Furthermore, using the pricing formulas derived in this paper, we obtain the hedging position for each issue of range accrual notes.
In addition, by simulation and assuming the jump to be compound Poisson process, we further analyze the effects of jump risk and exchange rate risk on the coupons receivable in holding a range accrual note.


text:
Barney's Blog
Windows Server 2012 Thoughts
Windows Server 2012, for many IT pros, is far more relevant than Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 or even Office 2013.
The new server OS just shipped and we want a hands-on look. Did you beta test Windows Server 2012? Are you using the finished version? Care to share your thoughts in a Redmond magazine article?
If so, e-mail me at dbarney@redmondmag.com and I'll be in touch.
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/10/2012 at 1:19 PM9 comments
Doug's Mailbag: Skipping Windows Generations
Can you skip Windows 7 and migrate straight to 8 from XP? Here's what some readers think:
I think that you'll have a smoother experience by upgrading to each OS once it fits your business needs. The bigger question is why are we upgrading? What problems does it solve/create? Are there alternatives? How will applications work? Do they need to be upgraded? Does the upgrade require new hardware? How much user training is required? Etc.
In your opinion piece on Gartner's recommendation that IT not skip Win 7, you said this:
'Ever since I've known Microsoft it has told IT not to skip operating systems, that skipping one level only makes moving to the next harder. Of course it doesn't hurt that Microsoft gets paid for each step along the way.'
Sorry, but that's flat-out wrong. Microsoft enterprise licenses have included downgrade rights pretty much always. A Win 8 license allows an enterprise to install Win 7 today and Win 8 next year without paying Microsoft 'for each step along the way.'
Just plain sloppy, and straight-up Microsoft-bashing. You're better than that.
Disclosure 1: I work for Microsoft.
2: I am not an authorized spokesman for the company.
3: I recall recently reading that current EAs were modified by Microsoft to include downgrade rights from Win 8 to Win 7 but I do not have a handy reference to cite.
In this case, where the two OSes are very similar, I can see no structural reason to not skip Windows 7 and go straight to 8. However, I do agree that changes in Windows 8 make testing and evaluating essential. Apart from the interface change there seem to be some AD Domain networking related quirks in Windows 8 that weren't there in 7, and I am not sure that program compatibility is exactly the same between the two either. Of course end user training must be considered given the significant change in the interface. Some wish to downplay that part but experience has taught me that changes much smaller than this one are enough to create havoc.
-Andre
Share your thoughts with the editors of this newsletter! Write to dbarney@redmondmag.com. Letters printed in this newsletter may be edited for length and clarity, and will be credited by first name only (we do NOT print last names or e-mail addresses).
October Ultra Easy on Patches
I've been writing this newsletter for seven years and can't remember a Patch Tuesday with only one "critical" fix (although last month's patch beat that with 0 critical updates). But that is what Microsoft is planning to do next Tuesday.
The critical fix is for a remote execution flaw in Windows Server and Office. Hackers gain entry through a malicious file that is either viewed or opened. Not exactly original.
While there is just one critical fix, there are six important bulletins hitting SQL Server, Windows, Lync and Office.
Paul Allen's View on Win 8 Sounds Just Like Yours!
Paul Allen is two things we aren't: he's a billionaire and Microsoft co-founder. For those reasons I'm paying attention to what Allen has to say about Windows 8. And what he says is surprisingly like what you all told me when I wrote a Win 8 review based entirely on the experiences of Redmond Report readers.
Allen generally likes the new OS, whereas my readers were entirely mixed. But he has the exact same concerns about the schizophrenic interface that jumps between the iPad-like UI to the more familiar traditional Windows interface.
Like you, Allen finds this confusing. As a life-long techie, Allen has a few workarounds such as tweaking Windows 8 to always open IE 10 as a desktop rather than a Metro app -- a browsing interface preferred by Paul.
Microsoft developers probably should have pulled Allen in early in the process as he found one disconcerting problem: bookmarks saved in Metro don't appear in Desktop (and vice versa).
Posted on 10/05/2012 at 1:19 PM1 comments
Microsoft Store Rapper Backfires
A rapper named Machine Gun Kelly (he probably was born this way) was invited to perform at Microsoft's new store in Atlanta.
Microsoft should have done some research. A simple Google or even Bing search would have revealed the guy is an attention-seeking nut. Seems Machine Gun has a habit of getting arrested during publicity stunts (he needs a few more stunts as I had never heard of the guy).
One store opening attendee filmed the performance in which Kelly leapt on a table, stomped on computer and released a flurry of expletives denigrating the computers he was hired to promote.
He eventually came down from the tables (not sure when he came down on whatever he was possibly on besides a monster ego trip) and was led away by security.
F5 Helps Move VMs to Windows Server 2012
F5 has a networking device with one of the coolest names in the business. While Cisco might name a network WAN tool Cisco BPX/IGX/IP WAN Software, F5's core product is BIG-IP.
Big-IP is a suite of networking products focused on application delivery. Now there is a related tool, the Microsoft Virtualization Gateway, that moves virtual machines (VMs) to Windows Server 2012 where they can run under Hyper-V.
The tool can be standalone, work with Hyper-V and can be added to the BIG-IP application delivery controller suite.
However, you can't just rush out and buy the gateway -- you'll have to wait until Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012 first service packs ship.
Q&A with Bruce Mackenzie-Low: Avoiding Private Cloud Disruption
A growing number of shops are building private clouds on top of Windows Server. Yet like all datacenter platforms, IT pros must ensure uptime of private clouds. As a Master Consultant at Hewlett-Packard Co., Bruce Mackenzie-Low provides third-level support for applications running on Windows and specializes in clustering and crash-dump analysis. Ahead of his Live! 360 worshop, Bruce answers some questions on how to keep your private cloud up and running.
Q: How do we keep our cloud running with as many nines of reliability as possible?
A: Use Windows failover clustering technology! Nothing provides better uptime than leveraging Windows failover clusters to keep your applications up and running.
Q: Do OS or app problems most often take down cloud apps?
A: Most OS problems that you may run into have already been encountered by someone else. So most likely there's a corresponding hotfix that will address your OS issue. Application outages, however, can be more challenging to troubleshoot due to the custom nature of most installations and the interoperability with third-party components.
Q: What are your three top tips for analyzing and preventing cloud crashes?
A: Use the new Windows Performance Toolkit to monitor and troubleshoot hangs and slowdowns. Proactively install recommended hotfixes from Microsoft. The No. 1 cause of system outages is outdated drivers exploiting known issues with existing hotfixes. There are recommended hotfixes for many components of the OS such as Windows Server 2008 R2-based failover clusters and System Center Virtual Machine Manager, to name a few. Most crashes are caused by outdated antivirus software, so be sure to update yours anytime you update Windows.
Don't forget to catch Bruce's workshop, "Minimizing Cloud Service Disruption by Analyzing Application and OS," during Microsoft's Live! 360 in December. Mackenzie-Low will explain how to configure Windows servers to capture system and process memory dumps; how to force memory dumps when the OS or app is hanging; and how to set up the Windows debugger to analyze systems and process crash dumps to discover failing components or drivers.
Gartner Says Don't Skip Windows 7
IT vets sometimes pay Gartner thousands of dollars for its advice, and vendors pay multiples of this to work with Gartner (in hopes to get the huge research house on their side). I don't think this puts Gartner in the pockets of vendors necessarily, which, if the case, would be a good reason not to believe it. But I don't generally believe Gartner because it is so often wrong.
Ever since I've known Microsoft it has told IT not to skip operating systems, that skipping one level only makes moving to the next harder. Of course it doesn't hurt that Microsoft gets paid for each step along the way.
Gartner loves this Kool-Aid and just released a report suggesting that exact same thing, that XP shops should not go directly to Windows 8 but move to Windows 7 first. In all other upgrades I'd say this is poppycock. Two upgrades are both twice as hard and expensive.
But Windows 8 is different, very different. Here Gartner is arguing that Windows 8 is not ready to be a mainstream upgrade, and for the time being should serve IT as a niche operating system for "special projects."
Here's Gartner's rationale: There are two types of Microsoft OS upgrades. Some, like Windows 2000, are "plumbing releases" because the underlying technology is so different. The release that follows is generally a "polishing release." This turns the plumbing release into something IT actually trusts and wants to use. Windows 8 is both a plumbing and polishing release. Windows XP was a "polishing release." Apparently so is Windows 7.
One reason Win 8 is polished is because its applications compatibility is generally good with Windows 7 (and Windows 7 is generally good with XP). But good is not perfect, and both OSes require some new apps or some fiddling to get old apps to work. If you go from XP to Win 7 to Win 8, you'll have to do this twice.
My view, for which I require no hefty consulting fee, is to look at Win 8 on its own. If you like and trust it, why bother with a Win 7 interim step? But because Win 8 is so different in user interface, give it a lot more testing and thought than you ordinarily might. Make this the basis of your decision rather than some Gartner theory.
Do you believe you have to upgrade OS by OS without skipping a generation? Answers readily accepted at dbarney@redmondmag.com.
Posted by Doug Barney on 10/03/2012 at 1:19 PM13 comments
Microsoft's Turf War
With the opening of two new stores near New York City last week, Microsoft now has 25 physical locations up and running.
Most notably is that one of these stores now resides three doors down from an Apple store. While Microsoft said this was inadvertent, it did say that choosing locations that are in close proximity to direct competitors has been a practice of the company.
Microsoft has certainly taken a page out of the Apple playbook with the design of its stores, with their modern décor, Apple-esque layouts and their very own version of Apple's Genius Bar called the Answer Desk.
The company hopes to have partners use these locations as a sort of clubhouse to develop relationships with consumers and other partners.
Look for even more stores to pop up in the coming months. Microsoft is planning to open up 34 temporary stores in malls across the country to sell its Surface tablets.
Have you been in a Microsoft store? How do they compare to Apple's retail locations? Let Doug know at dbarney@redmondmag.com.
-- By Chris Paoli
Posted by Chris Paoli on 10/01/2012 at 1:19 PM2 comments
Windows 8's Media Bug
Brace yourself for this bombshell: Microsoft is releasing a new OS that has some bugs.
Now that that the initial shock has worn off, know that Redmond columnist Brien Posey still likes Windows 8 -- even with the (near to) launch-day bugs that we have all grown accustomed to.
Brien found the biggest issue he had in his short time with the new version of Windows was with Windows Media Player. He said that the sound would play without the video for both saved movie files and DVDs. This issue was found in both the Metro-style (for a lack of a better term) UI and the more familiar Desktop interface.
But Brien found the easy solution of using a third-party app for media takes care of this.
As someone who has always used a third-party app for videos (VLC Media Player), this doesn't sound like a near enough of a deal breaker to turn off some from upgrading. And if this turns out to be one of the more severe launch issues, Windows 8 may have one of the smoothest launches in recent memory (ignoring the constant Metro bashing).
I typically wait until the first service pack is released before making the switch. But with Microsoft offering Windows 8 for $40 to Windows 7 users, I am contemplating picking up a new OS on or around launch for the first time.
While your shop may be happy with sticking with Windows 7 for a while, what are your plans for your personal computer? Also, have any entertaining stories of Microsoft launch-day bugs? Share with us in the comments below.
Posted by Chris Paoli on 10/01/2012 at 1:19 PM14 comments
Windows Server 2008 Given Support Lifeline
Windows Server 2008 is about four years old, which would normally mean next year it would enter "extended support." This would mean that free incident support would end and the warranty would expire (but you would still get patches).
Instead, mainstream support is prolonged for an extra year and a half -- all the way 'til January 2015.
The timing of Windows Server 2012 is behind the support extension, Microsoft explains in a blog. "The Microsoft policy provides a minimum of five years of Mainstream Support or two years of Mainstream Support after the successor product ships, whichever is longer."
Don't expect the same leeway with XP. Support for that is still set for April 2014.
Exchange 2010 To Get Third Service Pack
If you want to run Exchange 2010 on Windows Server 2012, you'll need Service Pack 3, which may not arrive until the first half of next year.
I'm sure Windows Server 2012 product managers (all 100 of them, if I were to guess) aren't happy with the wait. That means Windows Server 2012 must be quite a bit different than Windows Server 2008. It also means these product managers are going to have a hard time selling their new server to shops with Exchange, which is nearly every Microsoft shop I know of.
It may be that this service pack will ship around the time Exchange 2013 releases, which some are guessing could be in February (but others expect later).
Are you using a mail system other than Exchange? Tell your tale at dbarney@redmondmag.com.


text:
← everything is harder once you reach man's estate
The sound of a motorhorn separated us like thieves. →
17 March, 2015 · 9:42 am
It is a small town and it will guard you.
Nora Webster, by Colm Tóibín
Back in 2011 I loved Colm Tóibín's Brooklyn. He managed the remarkable feat of writing an engaging novel about a rather passive young woman who encounters essentially nothing but help as she makes her way through life. In lesser hands it would have been excruciatingly dull, but in fact it made my best of 2011 list.
In Nora Webster, Tóibín returns to the territory he staked out in Brooklyn. The time now is the late '60s/early '70s rather than the '50s, but we're back in the town of Enniscorthy and characters who first appeared in Brooklyn crop up in minor parts here too. Tóibín is creating his own fictional geography, as Hardy and others did before him.
Isn't that just the most godawful cover? Mercifully I read this on kindle. That Observer quote by the way is a paraphrase, and actually fairly misleading. It's not a love story.
Nora Webster is a fortysomething widow, with two daughters each of whom has left home and two younger sons both of whom still depend on her. Her husband, Maurice, was the love of her life and died relatively young. Now she's steeped in grief and trying to find a life without him.
Enniscorthy is a small town, one where everybody knows everybody and they all know each other's business. As the novel opens Maurice is newly dead and Nora spends her evenings receiving visitors who are well-meaning but also nosy, each demanding her time so they can express their condolences.
Nora's eldest son, Donal, has developed a stutter since his father's death. The younger, Conor, seems less obviously affected but with his brother is ever-watchful and suspicious of any potential threat of further change. Both boys have been hit hard, and Nora doesn't know how to speak to them of what's happened or even to what extent she should.
Nora Webster shares with Brooklyn an emphasis on ordinary drama in normal lives. It soon becomes clear that Nora largely neglected the boys while Maurice was dying, so intent on trying to be there for him that she forgot they needed her too. She's a conscientious mother though, one who has made mistakes but who cares deeply for her children.
She thought back to that time, but certain images were so filled with detail, certain hours so filled with pure, unforgettable moments, that the remaining time seemed as though it had been watched through glass covered with rainwater. Walking with Maurice into the lobby of the hospital in the knowledge that he might not come out of there alive. The moment when he had said he would like to go one more time to look at the sky and that she was to wait for him in the lobby, let him do it alone. And then the watching as he began to cry when he reached the door.
Without Maurice, Nora needs to return to work. As in Brooklyn those around the central character are largely keen to help. A friendly nun to help her back to an old job, left when she married all those years ago. She runs into a petty and domineering office manager who proves something of a small-scale enemy, but there are hints that even this foe has a humanity beyond that Nora sees. Again as in Brooklyn, there are people who may not be easily likable, but no villains.
What follows then is a gradual tale of Nora adjusting to life without Maurice. She sells their holiday home, as much because she can't bear to return to it without Maurice as because she needs the money. She works, looks after the boys, starts to socialise again with friends and family. Nothing particularly unusual.
Eilis in Brooklyn is young and has choices. Nora has far fewer. She's older, she's not emigrating to a new country, she has children. She's constantly aware of the judgements of those around her, concerned when she buys new clothes or has her hair dyed of what people will think and whether it's too soon since Maurice's death to consider such things. It's not that she's easily cowed, she's distinctly not, but she's one of these people and she has to live with them.
For a moment, Nora felt impatient with her [daughter]. She was starting her life, she could live where she liked, do what she liked. She did not have to get the train back to the town where everybody knew about her and all the years ahead were mapped out for her.
What works wonderfully here is the sense that Nora and Maurice had a rich and fulfilling marriage. It's evident she loved him deeply, and him her. A lesser novelist would make her finding her own way a voyage of self-realisation, in which she puts aside the limitations he'd placed on her so as to find her true self. Tóibín instead shows that where she had chosen one life, which meant leaving other possible lives behind, now she has to choose another life; not better or truer, merely different.
Later in the novel Nora takes up an interest in music, joining an appreciation society and taking singing lessons. Maurice had no interest in such things and would have found them pretentious, a suitable subject for gentle mocking. For all his many merits, he was a conservative man born of a conservative time and culture. One of the many threads running through this novel is the sense of small-town Ireland as a provincial place suspicious of culture or interests everyone else doesn't already share.
Nora remembered a night in the new Assembly Hall of the Presentation Convent when Maurice and herself and Jim had gone to a fund-raising concert for the St Vincent de Paul Society. Laurie O'Keefe was conducting an orchestra. As her style grew more vigorous and expressive, Maurice and Jim began to laugh quietly and she had nudged Maurice in disapproval. Halfway through the concert Jim had to make his way to the toilet, all the while silently shaking with laughter. Nora had given Maurice a fierce look before he had to follow Jim. Neither of them returned to their seats. Afterwards, she remembered, she had found them both standing sheepishly at the back of the hall.
Tóibín is particularly brilliant in his quiet portrayal of depression, of Nora's deep glacial grief; the impossibility of conversation after the enormity of a death.
At the moment the only topic she could discuss was herself. And everyone, she felt, had heard enough about her. They believed it was time that she stop brooding and think of other things. But there were no other things. There was only what had happened. It was as though she lived under water and had given up on the struggle to swim towards air. It would be too much. Being released into the world of others seemed impossible; it was something she did not even want. How could she explain this to anyone who sought to know how she was or asked if she was getting over what happened?
Slowly though she does of course return to life. As the book progresses Nora's character reasserts itself. It becomes apparent that in fact she's a fairly formidable woman, determined and intelligent and held in a certain amount of fear and respect by most of those who know her. She's too independent-minded to be easy company, with ironically her marriage to Maurice having perhaps made her more approachable with his easy manner making social inroads for the both of them.
The book becomes shot through with a certain humour, not least as Nora realises how much of what goes on around her she's left out of because people are too intimidated by her to tell her about it. She learns of a sister's engagement by accident through her own daughter, the sister having been too scared of Nora's disapproval to tell her. She starts to express political opinions, something she'd previously left to Maurice and which decidedly discomfits the men around her.
Unfortunately, while there's much here to praise, this isn't as successful a book as Brooklyn. Partly that's because with Nora as self-contained and closed-off as she is she tends not to talk much with the other characters, which meant that at times they became hard to distinguish. Nora and the boys are sharply defined, but her sisters and aunts blurred together for me and from time to time I had to flick back to check who someone was. That's forgivable in something like The Luminaries, but not really in a novel as small screen as this one is.
Worse, I became utterly confused at one point by the chronology. Tóibín uses the age-old technique of having the characters establish period by reference to tv news reports that Nora or the children watch. That's fine, except that unfortunately my knowledge of late 1960s/early 1970s Irish politics is near non-existent. At one point I thought the action had moved on by a decade or so, only realising I was wrong by the fact the boys were still in school. I had to resort to google in the end to work out what year it was.
Looking back at my comments on Brooklyn I see that I mention that I spent the first half of that thinking it was set in the 1930s rather than the 1950s. Tóibín is tremendous at evoking space, sound, how light plays in a room, but he's frankly terrible at period. His characters exist in a timeless Ireland of memory. Both Brooklyn and Nora Webster are ostensibly set in specific decades against a specific backdrop of events, really though they're set in the endless years of Tóibín's own childhood.
It'll be interesting to see how Nora Webster settles into memory. There's much to love in it, not least Tóibín's incredible prose which remains an utter joy to me. He can describe an empty room in a way that fills it with utter beauty.
The problems though of characterisation for the supporting cast and the muddy sense of time weakened it for me considerably. Still, Nora Webster herself is an incredible creation, an utterly credible and flawed human being who though quite ordinary is extraordinary in the way only real people can be.
Plenty in the press, mostly much more favourable than I've been above. None I've seen so far in the blogosphere. If I've missed some though please do let me know in the comments.
Filed under Irish fiction, Tóibín, Colm
Tagged as Colm Tóibín, Nora Webster
15 responses to "It is a small town and it will guard you."
Lee Monks
17 March, 2015 at 10:04 am
Excellent review. I wonder if Toibin is conscious of his failure to set a specific time-period to mind. Perhaps that's not merely a failing and is intentional? As you say, Toibin's Enniscorthy really is a fictional, timeless place. Perhaps he wilfully disolocates a sense of chronology? I'm not sure.
Anyway, I've put this one off for a while. I won't forget reading Brooklyn in a hurry: got me out of a bit of a reading lull, and I can never figure out how he's doing what he does.
Guy Savage
I wasn't tempted by this as I didn't care that much for Brooklyn. Of course, the book is getting a lot of good press. What it is with these horrible book covers and blurbs that don't match the content?
TV references of the 60s and 70s and I would be more than a little lost.
Overall it still sounds good, in spite of your reservations but since I have Brooklyn and still not read it, I might read that first.
I'm glad he avoided the self-realisation thread. It's often a tad corny.
The cover is abysmal.
Max, I have this to read, but it might be a difficult book for me. I can see a few parallels between Nora and my own mother: both born and raised in Ireland, both widowed at a young age. There are some differences as my mother moved to England in the early sixties when she married my father. Still, that quote on Nora's grief strikes a chord.
I still haven't read Brooklyn, so I should probably start there especially as you think its the better of the two. As a slight aside, Academy Street (the Mary Costello novel I've just reviewed) has been compared to Brooklyn, so you might be interested in that one.
Also, have you read Stoner by John Williams? Your comments on Toibin's ability to make an ordinary life seem quite extraordinary remind me of Stoner – Williams does much the same there.
roughghosts
I have heard very mixed responses to this from readers. I have not yet read Brooklyn either though I own it. I have this uncomfortable feeling that Toibin is one of those authors whom I respect and love to hear interviewed but don't read (Atwood would be another).
Nora Webster was the first book I read this year and I loved it. I thought it was better than Brooklyn mainly because I thought Nora was a stronger character than Eilis! As for the prose – I'd agree with you on that empty room comment! For me his writing is beautiful – I think only John Banville can compete at evoking a sense of place and mood!
Lee, good question. I doubt it's intentional, given the clues in the form of TV shows etc, but admittedly they do also serve the purpose of showing how grand events are mere backdrop to most lives.
If it is intentional though I don't think it works, as I was thrown from the narrative confused as to how much time had passed and ended up on google. However you cut it that's not a good outcome.
Guy, the cover sort of matches, in that she's a woman, she has a car and she goes to the seaside, but yes it's grim isn't it? Utterly generic.
Caroline, overall it still is, but I thought Brooklyn better. I do think the newspaper reviews have been a bit too kind though, it's good but it's not great and he's capable of great.
Jacqui, definitely Brooklyn first I'd say. I haven't read Stoner, though I plan to. What did you make of suggestions that it was sexist? Any truth to that?
I'll check out your Costello review.
Rough, it's possible, it's funny sometimes how there can be writers we recognise are good but we just don't connect with personally. It can't really be helped though, it would be strange if every writer connected with every reader even where the writer is talented and the reader potentially interested.
Mixed responses doesn't surprise me.
Col, she's definitely that. Nora is a great character, a superb creation. Haven't read Banville, but perhaps given your comment I should. I have his The Sea.
Here's a quote that didn't make the review, to illustrate the room point:
"Nora had forgotten how high the ceilings were in the rooms upstairs. The room was filled with a heavy watery grey light that hit against the grey carpet, the walls painted white, the rich blue lampshades, the blue cushions on the sofa, the blue curtains, the patterned rug and the long full bookcase, and gave the room a sort of opulence that no one coming up the lane or looking at the house from the outside or walking through the dead orchard could expect."
18 March, 2015 at 9:15 am
Thanks, Max. I'll try Brooklyn first.
Stoner's excellent. Not sure I love it quite as much as others seem to, but it's a deeply affecting story. (Slight aside, but I preferred Evan S Connell's Mrs. Bridge and Wallace Stegner's Crossing to Safety…all three are great novels though!) Stoner's wife, Edith, is a thoroughly unlikeable character, but I didn't find the novel misogynistic or sexist. I've heard that claim but couldn't see it myself, not for a story set in academia in the first half of the 20th century. I'd be very interested to hear what you think of it…
Cathy746books
Hi Max, I haven't read this one but have heard a lot of mixed reviews about it. I did enjoy Brooklyn though and it has stayed with me for much longer than I thought it would. Would you be happy for me to link your review to my Reading Ireland Month challenge?
theliterarylollipop
I've been misled by countless cover comments before… unfortunately, I can no longer trust them. 🙂
I didn't like Brooklyn enough to read this one but I enjoyed reading your review. I would have been lost in the news references too.
This cover is awful because it's so mundane. It looks cheap and it clashes with Toibin's subtle prose. He deserves a Gallimard cover: the title of the book, his name and nothing else.
PS: I'm looking forward to your review of Bonjour Tristesse.
Mrs Bridge is definitely on my list. Don't know the Stegner.
Cathy, sorry for the slow reply. Mixed is fair, and I'd be delighted if you linked to me if it's not too late.
Literary, none of us can 🙂
Emma, if you didn't like Brooklyn you're right to skip this, since it's much the same but a bit weaker.
Just been writing up my Tristesse quotes, so in the next day or so hopefully.
Mrs Bridge would make my all-time list – it's remarkably incisive. I ought to reread it one day.
Pingback: Colm Tóibín, 'Nora Webster' - Tredynas Days
Pingback: Nora Webster by Colm Tóibín (2) – life in a small town in Ireland | JacquiWine's Journal


text:
Australian regulators weekly wrap Monday 27 April 2020
Leave a Comment / Bank / By admin
Never miss an update bysigning up to receive emails hereor by following me onLinkedIn here. You can also access past editions of the Australian regulators weekly wrap byclicking here.
Prudential standards and FAR (APRA): APRA has announced new commencement dates for six prudential and reporting standards that have been finalised but are yet to fully come into effect. CPS 226 Margining and Risk Mitigation for Non-Centrally Cleared Derivatives (phase-in of initial margin requirements); APS 220 Credit Risk Management;APS 222 Associations with Related Entities; ARS 222.0 Exposures to Related Entities; ARS 222.2 Exposures to Related Entities??Step-in risk, have all been pushed back to 2022. CPS 234 Information Security (third-party arrangements transition provision), has been pushed back to 2021. Interestingly, APRA has also stated that [its]work on product responsibility under the Banking Executive Accountability Regime has now been subsumed into its work on the Financial Accountability Regime (FAR) APRA intends to release further information on product responsibility when the Government consults on the exposure draft legislation and the implementation timeframe for the FAR.So we are waiting on The Treasury then for FAR, and a large number of other reforms to see when they will come in e.g. breach reporting. The Treasury need to provide more information to the financial industry so it can focus on the immediate challenges of COVID-19.
Modern slavery??no deferral (Legislation): theModern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth) (Act) commenced operation on 1 January 2019. It requires reporting entities subject to the Act to produce an annual modern slavery statement reporting on the risks of modern slavery in their supply chains. You can read more about Australias modern slavery reform, and its key differences to the UK reforms, in past ARWW briefing. Most initial annual statements are due on 31 December 2020, and they take some decent time to prepare given the need to trawl through supply chains. Interestingly, despite concerted lobbying given the COVID-19 disruption, the Australian Border Force has just released an information briefing which is notable for what it does not say i.e. no deferral more than what it does say e.g. how to address COVID-19 in modern slavery statements. (In short, if the measures entities are taking to address modern slavery are delayed by COVID-19, that should be divulged in detail in the statements themselves.) You can read the briefinghere, and while how to regulatory guidance is always welcome, my personal view is that this update is bit underwhelming
Directors duties / COVID-19 (ASIC): ASIC Commissioner John Price delivered a speech on directors duties in the context of COVID-19, which I found to be quite interesting (my top read of the week!). In particular, because he notes??consistent with other commentators that the recent freeze on insolvent trading laws does not affect other directors duties. He then finishes with this vaguely ominous paragraph under the heading ASICs approach to enforcement: Whether action is taken[i.e. by ASIC]depends on the assessment of all relevant circumstances, including what a director or officer could reasonably have foreseen at the time of taking relevant decisions or incurring debts.In other words, just because insolvent trading has been suspended does not mean it is the wild west from ASICs enforcement perspective. I agree, and think it is a sensible communiqu to directors. It is one of a number of other insolvency quirks that will trip up unwary distressed entities later on. Take statutory demands. Yes, the time-frame to respond is 6 months, but the time to set it aside in court is still 21 days. Another one is reporting covenants in major contractual documentation. The Morrison Governments relief measures as far as insolvency is concerned are actually quite narrow, taken in the context of all these other considerations.
Mayfair 101 (ASIC):on 16 April 2020, the Federal Court made interim orders restraining Mayfair Wealth Partners Pty Ltd and Online Investments Pty Ltd from promoting their debenture products and prohibiting the use of specific words and phrases in their advertising, including term deposit, bank deposit, capital growth and term investment. It follows an application made by ASIC for an interim injunction on 3 April 2020, which ASIC was mostly successful on??the Federal Court declined to restrain Mayfair from issuing and accepting new investments in their debenture products. The judgment for the interim junction ishere, and it is a logical one??Mayfair is not a bank and should not connect itself with one to investors??which shows ASICs continued focus on misleading & deceptive advertising. Anderson J stated that: My view, in summary, is that there are serious questions to be tried in relation to Mayfairs promotion of the Mayfair Products, and that the balance of convenience favours the award of an interlocutory injunction. The undertaking proffered by Mayfair is inadequate in light of the need to protect the public from what this Court may determine, after a full trial, to be serious statutory contraventions. The inadequacy of an undertaking in these circumstances is cemented by the failure of Mayfair to provide sufficient detail to support its assertion that the imposition of an injunction would be detrimental to its financial position.
Omnibus bills (Legislation):the states are busy passing legislation to allow themselves to plugs gaps which are popping up from the social distancing measures imposed by the Federal Government. Using Queensland as an example, theCOVID-19 Emergency Response Bill 2020(Qld) was passed last Wednesday and assented to on the Thursday. The Expiry Date of the Act is 31 December 2020.The Bill is availablehereand the Explanatory Notes (Ref ?637) are available on theTabled Papers page here. The legislation is essentially enabling legislation for wide regulation-making powers (yet to come), as: Part 3, deals with the regulation-making powers relating to signing, witnessing and mortgage VOI; Part 4, deals with statutory timeframes; Part 5, deals with Proceedings including a regulation-making power, and power of court, to modify statutory time limit relating to proceeding (very interesting!); Part 7, deals with Retail leases and other prescribed leases (regulation making power)??including the power to prescribe a code by way of regulation; and Part 8, deals with Residential tenancies and rooming accommodation (regulation making power). NSW and other states have similar legislation. The really interesting parts for me is the measures to deal with issues around electronic execution and witnessing of mortgages, deeds and other instruments. That is causing more than a number of headaches at the moment (read more about thathere), so it is good that the States are finally moving on these issues. The Federal Government needs to as well, in particular bringing theCorporations Act 2001(Cth) within the ambit of theElectronic Transactions Act 1999(Cth)
Thought for the week:survive, reset and thrive. Broadly, that seems to be the narrative for many entities and business functions within them in response to COVID-19. Mostly, we are in the first two phases. The reset phase, from a regulatory perspective, involves identifying where energies can be redirected given the shifting policy landscape i.e. given the changed legislative / regulatory guide timetable and what relief can be obtained from regulators e.g. no action letters for delays caused by COVID-19, particular interpretations of key obligations, etc. Those actions will create regulatory breathing room, so attention can be focused on key areas for the business.
(These views are my own and do not constitute legal advice. Photo credit Tom Wheatley)


Instead of sitting on its hands during the tsunami that has stricken Japan today, Google has put together a Person Finder tool where people worried about the plight of their loved ones can look them up by name. There are only a few thousand records up on the site at the moment, but it should still be a useful repository for missing person data, particularly since mobile networks were taken down by the tsunami's damage earlier this morning. Information should also start piling up as recovery efforts continue. Let's just hope this Person Finder won't have to be used for too long and things can be brought back to normal soon.
The system can be used for those looking for both Japanese residents and for tourists visiting the country.
It is the second time in the space of a month that Google has deployed the service following a huge earthquake which hit the New Zealand city of Christchurch in February.
Sendai Airport in North East Japan was hit by the tsunami shortly after the quake, which is estimated to have taken place around 150 kilometres offshore.
Google has now pushed the tsunami alerts to its main homepage too.


text:
Sometimes ist ein Lied des Synthie-Pop-Duos Erasure, das sie im Oktober 1986 als vierte Single insgesamt veröffentlichten.

Nach drei weniger erfolgreichen Singles aus dem Debütalbum Wonderland gelang dem Duo Erasure sein internationaler Durchbruch mit dem Lied Sometimes. Das Lied erreichte Platz 1 in den südafrikanischen Single-Charts sowie Platz zwei in den britischen Singlecharts, den niederländischen Singlecharts und den deutschen Singlecharts. In den USA kam Sometimes bis auf Platz 4 der Hot Dance Club Play Charts.

Geschrieben und komponiert von Vince Clarke und Andy Bell zeigt Sometimes den typischen Erasure-Sound – eine schnelle, tanzbare Melodie, akzentuiert durch Clarkes Analog-Synthesizer und Bells Gesang über das Verliebtsein.

Das Musikvideo zeigt die Band auf dem Dach eines Gebäudes, auf dem Vince Clarke eine Akustikgitarre spielt und Andy Bell singt, während sie sich tanzend durch weiße Decken, die an Wäscheleinen hängen, schlängeln.

Coverversionen dieses Liedes existieren von Drop the Bomb (innerhalb eines Megamixes, 1990), Condition Icon (1998), Dressed in White (1999) und And One (Liveversion, 2009).

Quellen

Popsong
Lied 1986


Lissa Bryan: Veni, Vidi, Scripsi!
I'm feeling a great sense of accomplishment.Tonight, I validated my novel and became an official NaNoWriMo winner. See the shiny new badge over at the right? Honestly, I almost feel like printing it out and slapping it on my lapel like an "I Voted Today!" sticker.
The entire novel, which I've tentatively titled Daughter of the Wind and Waves, clocked in at around 60K, but I already had a start before I began NaNoWriMo. I'm estimating I'm at about the half-way point in the story, so I still have a lot of work to do.
This is the first novel that I haven't "pre-written" in my head, and so it makes me very nervous. I finally broke down and got a pre-reader, and she assures me it's a good story, but I worry about ones I've re-written and revised in my head a a dozen times, let alone something I'm working out as I go.
Congratulations!!!! I'm so proud of you!
Congratulations! Way to stretch yourself by trying something new and accomplishing your goal.
Thanks! It's the only way we grow, and I'm determined to learn to be a better writer with every project.