An externship program at TopLine Federal Credit Union teaches students and educators about the essential skills needed to excel in business.
Many credit unions offer financial education courses and classes. And for good reason, it is one of the many ways credit unions support their members and communities. Providing financial education is one of the public policy roles of credit unions and contributes to the industry's tax exemption. Now, TopLine Federal Credit Union ($345.6M, Maple Grove, MN) is championing another life skill that is also critical in today's economy: How to be a good employee.
Countless quality potential hires enter the work force after the closing of every academic semester. But because these previous students lack certain professional skills and real-world experience, many businesses disregard the legitimacy of their candidacy. TopLine bridges the gap between theory and application through an externship program that highlights the skills many institutions expect from a new hire.
TopLine's externship began when assistant vice president of marketing, Vickie Erickson, joined a local chamber of commerce committee that brings together business leaders and education advocates. The committee develops scholarships, mock interviews, job shadowing, and mentor programs for area students and teachers.
TopLine's externship, a one-day job shadow, aims to address the practical deficiencies that arise in a classroom-only curriculum. It is open to teachers and students from middle school, high school, and community college. Students earn valuable firsthand business experience. Teachers use the experience to build a stronger course syllabus and better prepare students for internships, part-time jobs, or full-time employment.
Looking for educational experiences in the professional world is a common concept for college and university students, but this is not the case with primary and secondary students. It can be difficult for businesses and professional organizations to reach middle and high school minors. And cutting through the noise to attract the attention of teachers can be just as tough. The in for TopLine came in the form of guidance counselors.
Guidance counselors from four area high schools partnered with Erickson to create the credit union's externship program. During the job shadow, participants spend 30 to 45 minutes with various departments and transition through several roles, including that of the CEO.
TopLine customizes the job shadow based on what interests the participant. Credit union employees in each department explain their role and what they do; they also provide personal background, such as where they went to school, what subjects they liked, and what their career path and professional progression has looked like over the years.
For teachers, the shadow allows them to identify tangible tips and skills — such as what to expect in an interview or what to include on a resume — they can take back to their classroom and teach their students.
The shadowing program has earned the credit union positive PR and has introduced a new group of potential members to the credit union movement. But according to Erickson, the real benefit is the stronger connection the credit union has with its community.


Easter all wrapped up! This gorgeous Easter Treat Box is perfect for Easter for all little ones, but particularly for those children who are not great Chocoalte Lovers.
This box contains: 1 Bunny Dust jar filled with yellow sherbet and some springtime sprinkles along with a Strawberry Lollipop dipper, 1 Apple Sprinkle Lollipop, 1 Lemon flavoured Bunny Lollipop, 1 Fruit Salad flavoured gold beaked Duck lollipop and 1 Orange flavoured gold topped Carrot Lollipop.
A perfect alternative Easter treat.
We are able to personalise the tag for you - just let us know who we need to add!
As this is a perishable food item, returns will not be accepted unless faulty.


One thing I learned as a photographer is that every so often you must do a shoot just for you to push your creative juices a little further. Creative Sessions are also great for your clients to see your potential as a photographer to go outside of the "safe" routine of posing, wardrobe, location etc. I was super excited my friend Tiffany agreed to model for me in her 9th month for a maternity session, just about a week or two before her due date. I planned out the entire shoot including her wardrobe, which is a gorgeous embroidered gown from ASOS Maternity line and I made a flower crown with fresh hydrangea flowers to complete the look.
I made a little road trip north to the cutest college town of Athens, GA, home to the University of Georgia (Go Dawgs!) and the beautiful UGA Botanical Gardens. I was super excited to learn about the gardens and that it was free for anyone who cares to visit. We had an amazing time getting barefoot in the plush grass and soaking up all of what surrounded us. Tiffany looked amazing in her gorgeous gown and beautiful red flowing hair surrounded by beautiful light surrounding her.


Place the base posts about 4m apart from each other.
Best thought of as a simplified version of cricket. Divide players into 2 teams or alternatively have everybody as a fielder and individuals take turns to bat. Batting team line by the base post/stump that will be used as the wicket. Fielding team spreads out and appoints a bowler and backstop.
If the batter hits the ball or if it touches the batter in any way they must run to the other stump and back again. The batsman can make as many runs as he/she likes so long as they are not caught or bowled out. To be caught out a member of the fielding team has to catch ball before it hits the ground. To be bowled out the fielding team has to hit the wicket stump/base post with the ball before the batsman reaches it. Whole runs are only scored if the batsman manages to run to the other stump and back to the wicket.
Next Article Next Article: Duck!


Across the city, we are hearing more and more about gun violence.
For those of us that have been impacted by this kind of violence, we are flooded with painful memories each time we hear about a new incident. As a young man growing up in Rexdale, I buried friends. Years later as a leader working with youth in our community, I watched young people bury their friends. It hurt. It still hurts today. If this is what you want your city to fight for, join our movement here.
One thing is clear. We need community-based, localized and intentional strategies to address gun violence. In my community of York South-Weston, we are working locally. We know what the impact has been on our families. Important conversations and actions are happening but it's not enough. While we need a grassroots approach, it must be part of a city-wide strategy, driven by parents and community leaders, that includes non-profit organizations, private sector, schools and religious institutions. To be effective, this cannot be a strategy led or written by city staff who don't know what it's like to be in our shoes. It has to come from our communities. As your City Councillor I would push for such a strategy so we can ensure safer communities for all of our families.
We need to find better ways for the City to support local communities to implement their own approaches that are linked to a city-wide strategy. If elected, I am committed to launching local community safety committees that will work together to build a plan that includes educators, youth, and parents. Our local police services would work closely with each community safety committee to understand neighbourhood priorities and concerns.
How could we make this happen? That's a conversation we need to start having.
We also need to look at the causes of violence. What role does poverty play? Young people need opportunities to work and be engaged. They need their parents to spend time with them; not working three or four part-time jobs that combined still don't pay a living wage. Parents need affordable childcare and housing.
What tools does the City have to address these issues? That's the kind of conversation we need our councillors to start having and that's the kind of conversation I'll push for at City Hall.
If this is what you want your city to fight for, join our movement here.
It's time for a change that's informed by you and working for you.


text:
MPBN Specials
A Downeast Smile-In: The Sea
Ayuh. Marshall Dodge didn't invent Maine humor but he certainly helped to bring it into the mainstream. In 1958 he, along with partner Robert Bryan, created the now classic "Bert and I" albums that popularized the dry wit and quirkiness of Maine humor. In these rarely seen specials from 1970, Dodge brings many of these tales to life. Includes footage of the humorist performing to a live audience.
Maine State Spelling Bee 2012
2012 Maine State Spelling Bee competition features Maine's top 15 grade school spellers
Obama Touts Health Care Reform in Portland, Maine
President Barack Obama visited Maine to tout the benefits of health care reform
2010 State of the State Address
Maine Governor John Baldacci's State of the State Address, January 21, 2010.
Special | 1h 6s
Maine Governor John Baldacci's State of the State Address, March 10, 2009.
Special | 1h 3m 41s
Things That Aren't There Anymore
Ride the rails into both Union Stations and take a break at Auto Rest Park
More Things That Aren't There Anymore
Featuring the grand Poland Spring House and Bangor's Bijou Theater
A Downeast Smile-In: The Woods
"You can't get there from here". Or can you? Tune in and find out
A Downeast Smile-In: The Farm
"Life on the farm is kinda laid back." Especially when Marshall Dodge is telling the tale
Welliver
A revealing 1992 portrait of the late American artist and Maine resident Neil Welliver
In "The Sea", Dodge tells some classic Maine nautical tales.
Victims of physical, mental and financial abuse speak out in this special.
The scourge of Alzheimers and other forms of adult dementia affects millions.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Learning to say nothing
Music. Sport. Life. It's all in here somewhere…..
Listening to Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood…..
Some readers may perhaps find it a little strange that it has taken me until the closing months of 2012 to arrive at a considered view of Messrs Clapton & Winwood's spasmodic series of reunion gigs and product 'opportunities' which, after all, have been going on for about 5 years now.
On the other hand, that's probably somewhat to the point; back in the day I would have been on the case at once – after all, these two were major deities in the pantheon of rock gods who strutted their fitful hour upon the stage, then (we assumed) disappeared to Hawaii or Malibu or Woodstock to 'hang out' with other rock stars and loads of beautiful girls, take loads of drugs and (eventually) put together another album's-worth of songs that tugged at the social fabric and suggested that the younger generation were more fitting custodians of contemporary society than their elders.
Ugly work, but someone had to do it……nowadays, though, the low spark of high-heeled boys is just a distant glimmer of what it used to be and nobody says much any more about fighting in the streets or changing the world. The torch has passed to another generation and when The Who sing about everyone f-f-f-fading away at the end of the Olympics, you sense that they might even be singing about their own g-g-g-g-generation. It seems that even pill-popping mods from the mid-60's have become commodified and the anger that drove Pete Townshend's original lyric has just dissolved into grumpiness, cynicism and empty spectacle. No wonder I feel able to approach Winwood and Clapton at a more leisurely pace . They're not quite Stadtler & Waldorf yet, but it's definitely more about relaxation than revolution these days.
Winwood & Clapton on stage in 2011
Seen through that kind of lens, Steve & Eric are nowadays really just a couple of ageing geezers whose voices won't quite make those high notes anymore and whose recent solo records hardly sell at all compared to the glory days of the 1970's. And they are far from being alone; every major city in the UK has bands composed of ex-members of this or that or the other band who used to be a big deal and who now get together once in a while in the function rooms of suburban pubs to run through a few of the old favourites – in this town, it's generally ex-members of bands like The Move or the Steve Gibbons Band (or both) who are involved in this kind of thing and if you're a fan, it's no doubt a slightly nostalgic night out.
This is really what Steve and Eric are doing, but such is their residual clout in the minds of fans, promoters and journalists that they're able to stage their bouts of nostalgia to packed houses in huge venues across three continents and record companies will still produce DVD's and double CD's of it all. It's a measure of the stature they once had and an increasingly rare event as most of the heavy hitters from that era -for example, Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin – are unlikely – for one reason or another – to tour again in any major way, leaving only the possibility of a last hurrah from The Rolling Stones to turn back the clocks to when these dinosaurs really did roam the Earth and draw a line under the whole Rock & Roll epoch.
In some respects, Eric Clapton has in any case been backtracking through his career highlights since well before the Millennium rolled around. There have been excursions with B B King and J J Cale ( and if A.A. Milne or e.e. cummings were still alive….) and studio projects based around Robert Johnson's slim songbook. There have been onstage reunions with Cream and with John Mayall – and of course with Winwood, leaving The Yardbirds about the only rolling stone Eric hasn't revisited.
Winwood has been slower to accept the role of a living museum piece and through the 1990's pressed ahead with a series of albums of original material which largely failed to match the illustrious standards of what had gone before. There was one last hurrah with a reformed version of Traffic who released a reasonable final album ('Far from Home') , toured extensively in the USA, supporting bands like the Grateful Dead and played their final gig (though none of us present realised it) at Birmingham's Symphony Hall in September of 1994.
Apart from that and the odd appearance on Jools Holland's TV show, Winwood seems to have concentrated on promoting his career in North America and his profile in the UK has quietly diminished. There was the obligatory 4 CD retrospective in 1995 and even a mildly diverting BBC documentary called 'English Soul' which showed a man largely at peace in his Cotswold hideaway where he has taken on the role of occasional church organist and pillar of the local community. When one of his daughters got married there last year, Charles and Camilla were in attendance and the child of the north Birmingham suburbs seems more than comfortable in his new role as a country squire.
By contrast, Clapton has been a troubled soul for most of his life and even the briefest trawl through his biography inevitably uncovers a catalogue of highs and lows that few can match – and live to tell the tale. Murky family history, controversial and ill-chosen racist outbursts, high-profile encounters with fame, drugs and alcohol and the tragic deaths of those near & dear to him contrast with passionate affairs, a fiendishly complex love life and a 'jet set' lifestyle, lived in the fierce glare of the spotlights.
Eric with his Granny in 1971
Over the years, we have seen the hair get longer and lanker, then be shaved to a grey stubble, the weight has ballooned to saloon bar habitué proportions then miraculously melted away to leave a gaunt ascetic , who sometimes looks more like an accountant or an opthalmologist than a seriously talented guitar player. Because, that is one thing that has remained constant – for all his refuelling problems, his serial affairs and paternity issues, for all the glitzy guest star performances around the world, Eric remains one of the world's premier blues rock guitarists. He has outlasted those whose talents and technique exceeded his own as well as those lesser souls who simply aped his style. He only needs to pick up that guitar and the music takes him; he is lost and 'in the zone' and the accumulated detritus of the years just slips away.
In the end, he is, like Keith Richards, a survivor and his mild and self-effacing approach in interviews or, for example, when cast in the role of Musical Director and M.C. for the 2002 'Concert for George' (Harrison) at the Albert Hall belies the wild excesses he has experienced over the years.
So, if Clapton has caromed erratically off the walls of luxury apartments, rehab rooms and 5-star suites around the world whilst Winwood has slowly ripened in the mellow Gloucestershire sunshine – and I accept, of course, that such a view represents a colossal over-simplification – then what has brought them together at this juncture? Is Eric just being comprehensive in his trawl through his list of former colleagues? There was the feeling with the reuniting Cream that he might just be working off some previous dodgy karma, but Winwood and Clapton even emerged from the Blind Faith debacle on sufficiently good terms that Steve was an active participant in the 'rehab band' assembled by Pete Townshend for the 'Rainbow' project just a few years later. These two do go back an awfully long way – to 1966 and Joe Boyd's 'Powerhouse' project at least – and there seems every likelihood that they do actually get on. Musically, neither of them have strayed far from the blues and R'n'B that initially inspired them, although Winwood has occasionally ventured a little further afield, stylistically speaking, in his session work with the likes of Jade Warrior and Talk Talk.
Strangely it seems to have been a peculiar brand of English political conservatism that may have triggered their most recent collaboration. Winwood's status as part of the Cotswold 'squirearchy' would probably have made it almost mandatory for him to espouse the views of the Countryside Alliance, whilst Clapton's involvement may have been triggered by his friendship with former Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters. Clapton played a gig with Waters at Highclere Castle in Berkshire in 2006 to raise money for the Alliance – who were, at the time, fighting the Labour government's attempt to ban foxhunting. His involvement was reported thus: "Clapton's spokesperson confirmed "Eric supports the Countryside Alliance. He doesn't hunt himself, but does enjoy rural pursuits such as fishing and shooting. He supports the Alliance's pursuit to scrap the ban on the basis that he doesn't agree with the state's interference with people's private pursuits." (www.contactmusic.com).
Steve Winwood in his Squire outfit.
Given their mutual enthusiasm for the preservation of rural barbarism and the rights of the individual, a reunion was perhaps inevitable and it duly happened back at Highclere in May 2007 for another Countryside Alliance fundraiser where Winwood and his band (introduced by another Alliance apologist, the nauseating Jeremy Clarkson) were joined on stage by Eric Clapton for the latter half of their set. Winwood subsequently guested at the Clapton-curated tri-annual 'Crossroads' Festival in the USA, after which Clapton played on Winwood's 'Nine Lives' album and some New York dates were booked into Madison Square Garden for early 2008. Beyond any shadow of a doubt, we were now entering the realms of a full-on reunion, but whilst it might have looked like Blind Faith Mk. 2, that was never going to happen,as Winwood made clear in a BBC interview from later in 2008 – "The idea of reforming Blind Faith arose fairly early on but it was decided that it wasn't going to be that, because we didn't want to limit it to that material. We wanted to touch on our own material."
And, in a way, the interest this project holds for me lies in the songs that Steve & Eric have chosen for the setlists on this tour. It would have been easy to churn out a predictable 90-minute set of Blind Faith, Traffic and Cream covers, but what I will confess that I do like about this project is the interesting choices the two of them made in selecting their repertoire. Whilst there was a degree of inevitability about the appearance of over-familiar pot boilers like 'Pearly Queen' and the sickly 'Wonderful Tonight', there are also some genuinely left-field choices, particularly from Winwood's side of the garden fence. I would never have believed that we would ever see him performing songs like 'No face, no name & no number' or 'Midland Maniac' on stage again.
Even Eric's selection is not altogether predictable, with less familiar songs like 'Tell the Truth' and 'Double Trouble' given a run out, usually to good effect and the version of 'Layla' played at the Royal Albert Hall follows the revised arrangement that we first heard on Clapton's 'Unplugged' album. In terms of cover versions, many observers have commented on the inclusion of no less than 3 songs connected with Jimi Hendrix and the fact that on most nights, the band's set would climax with a 15 minute plus version of 'Voodoo Chile' – Winwood of course played and sang on the original version back in 1968. Perhaps they both felt that history hasn't been that kind to Hendrix and that songs like 'Little Wing' were due another airing. Taking on 'Voodoo Chile' is another matter; this is one of those 'holy grail' tracks for Hendrix fans, but to be fair to our boys, they carry it off with considerable élan.
Naturally, it doesn't always work; a truncated version of Traffic's 'Glad' sticks out like a sore thumb and songs like 'Presence of the Lord' haven't worn particularly well. On the whole though, the 'everyday' titles and the occasional variations would have kept Steve, Eric and their cast of accomplices – including ex-Grease Band stalwart, Chris Stainton and bassist Willie Weeks who played on the 1976 'Steve Winwood' album – on their toes. As mentioned any problems with high notes were glossed over by the vocal talents of Sharon White and Michelle John. There seems to be a welcome absence of windy or sententious pronouncements from the stage, with Clapton handling the MC role for most of the gigs I have heard and, overall, it seems to work just fine. There is nothing earth-shattering here; just a run through of 20 or so blues-based tunes with some accomplished playing from both the principals. I've only seen fragments of the Madison Square Garden video but both Clapton & Winwood seem to be enjoying themselves and the mood is one of relaxed joviality for the most part.
Clapton & Winwood in Blind Faith days; somehow it seemed more important back then……
The music these two have made over the years – both together and apart – has often produced some high-water marks in my collection ; the original 'Layla' album, the 'John Barleycorn must die' album, and numerous individual songs – the original Spencer Davis Group version of 'Gimme some lovin', Cream's 'Sittin' on top of the world' , Traffic's 'No face, no name and no number' and 'The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys', Blind Faith's 'Can't find my way home', Clapton's 1975 version of 'The Sky is Crying' – and so on. None of what Clapton & Winwood have produced via this reunion comes anywhere near these high-spots, but that's OK. This stuff can be enjoyed for its own sake and whilst the politics are pretty dubious these days, the playing is solid enough and the songs remain (pretty much) the same.
Posted in Music - Rock
Lisboa August 2012….some photos….
Just spent a week in this beautiful city.
How did it take me so long to get round to my first visit?
Hope to be back very soon.
The stunning, atmospheric Brasiliera Café
Room with a view; Largo do Chiado at 0600 from my hotel.
How does he do that? Street performer in Rua Garrett.
A noite…..
Beautiful doorways at Rossio Station….
Looking towards Sao Vicente Church…..
Posted in Travelling
Just because it can be done…..
From time to time, I'm sure that it dawns on most of us that we take the wonders of the internet for granted. Whether you want to pay a bill, watch a movie, check out bus timetables in Ontario, find a recipe for chicken cacciatore or read a blog like this – all of these things and many others besides are possible from the cosy surroundings of your own work-station or laptop or cellphone.
This is something that today's young hipsters very much take in their stride, but I am old enough to remember how it was back in the days when buying anything 'mail order' was a bit of an adventure, requiring faith, luck and a good deal of time. For that chicken recipe, you either had it in a cookbook or you rang a friend. Failing that, there was the local library, when it opened. As for watching movies, you either waited for it to come round on TV or you got yourself off to the local flea-pit.
Another area where the internet has had a massive impact is in travel. Booking flights and hotels is now ludicrously simple as long as you possess a major credit or debit card and know when and where you want to go. For independent travellers, I'm sure it is now possible to put together a comprehensive round-the-world itinerary without breaking sweat. It's all laid out before you like a giant smørgåsbord of possibilities, so all that's really required is the time you spend checking timetables plus a measure of agreement among the participants – and that's where it can get difficult.
I think that this eternal truth came home to me with considerable force about 2:15 one morning as I stared at the screen and pondered the monstrous carbon footprint involved in flying 3 people from Izmir to Antalya via Istanbul then out to the UK just a few hours later. The alternative was a rail and coach journey of up to 8 hours from Izmir via Denizli. Better karma but a day arguably 'wasted'. Decisions, decisions…..
In the end , what I was left with was a tightly-structured circular tour of Western Turkey that would take in Cappadocia and Istanbul and Ephesus within a fortnight's span. It met the Partner's timescales and took in those hotspots the Princess wanted to visit. It took account of the current uproar on the Turkish rail network with Istanbul essentially inaccessible from the Asian side, except by bus or plane. It allocated enough time in Cappadocia to visit the major sites and it finished on the Aegean coast near Izmir, allowing a day-trip to the Ephesus site and a day on the beach at Altinkum or near Kusadasi. It also flew in and out of Birmingham. It was a thing of beauty and it positively gleamed with bureaucratic efficiency. The only fly in the ointment came in the final 2 days where opting for a cheap but ethically dubious flight back to Antalya via Istanbul would have bought us an extra day on the beach.
Somewhere in the deepest recesses of my brain, the Travel Gnomes mopped their brows after several hours of frantic activity. Difficulties had been overcome, obstacles had been surmounted, alternatives had been identified. The decision on how to get from Izmir back to Antalya could wait until the following day. I fired off emails with the Itinerary attached to Partner & Princess and went to bed.
"What about here?"
To say that I was disappointed with their response would be a major understatement. Far from being thrilled by the fact that I had located really cheap flights from Kayseri to Istanbul and an interesting-looking hydrofoil & train package from Istanbul to Izmir, their lack of enthusiasm was almost palapable. Words were spoken. Lines were drawn in the sand. Fuelled by the outraged Travel Gnomes in my head, I basically went into a 24 hour sulk and resolved never to try to organise a family holiday again. Turkey was plucked and my elegant itinerary sent off to the Recycle Bin.
Of course, old habits die hard and 48 hours later I was back at the keyboard looking for something far simpler. By this point, there had been some more reasoned discussions; the Princess backed out completely – she has already been to Israel this summer, so is probably wiser in spending her time trying to find a job than swanning off with her parents. The Partner wanted to go in August rather than September as originally planned. After some discussion we settled on either Venice or Lisbon for a week and after 15 minutes on lastminute.com, I had found a decent package with tolerable flights and what looked like a good hotel in the Chiado district of Lisbon. Compared to the Turkish expedition, this Lisbon trip was like falling off a log and I could now see that whilst my Turkish Delight might have been impressively organised, there was no time for it to be a holiday at all. Just because it can be done doesn't mean that it should be…….
Even so, there's no holding those Gnomes; a few days later as we landed in Lisbon, they were busy reminding me that I had finally made it to Portugal, the only country in mainland Western Europe that I had never visited before.
Posted in The Net, Travelling
Welcome back my friends to the show that never, ever seems to end……
I am finding that getting old doesn't actually have a lot to recommend it, by and large. What's more, it's not just the physical battles engendered by a lifetime of bodily abuse, though it has to be said that those are challenging enough.
There are other aspects of ageing which are just as problematical as trying to cope with bits of one's body that no longer bend or stretch or function the way that they used to. These are often personality traits or behavioural tics that whilst considered amusing enough back in the day have now become entrenched and calcified. For want of a better expression, this might be referred to as the Victor Meldrew paradigm.
Thus far, I have managed to avoid mentioning the word 'Olympics' in this blog. That I need to say this reminds me of the old jazz buffs' joke about the definition of a gentleman being a man who can play the banjo – but doesn't. So, it might reasonably be asked why someone like me, who is generally well-disposed towards a number of top-line sports – football, cricket, baseball – is so negative about the London Olympics.
There are quite a few reasons, actually. One of the main issues would be that I find so many of the Olympic 'disciplines' unutterably tedious to watch – diving, fencing, archery, gymnastics, boxing, weightlifting – to name but six. I have no interest in any of these sports generally, so why, during the Olympics, am I supposed to fill my day with endless hours of the BBC's coverage of such events? Then, there are the politics and corporate skullduggery going on behind the scenes, but I can (reluctantly) accept that without the likes of Microsoft and the Coca-Cola Corporation and suchlike, the Games probably wouldn't be viable at all. It's the way of the modern world and whilst I may not like it, I just have to shrug my shoulders and deal with it. Then again, I (happily) don't live in London and won't have to contend with an artificially inflated level of Council Tax for the rest of my lifetime in order to pay for the inconvenience and hassle and the Limo Lanes.
Watching paint dry – the latest Olympic 'discipline'
So, having little interest in the Games as a whole, I just cherry-picked the bits I wanted to watch – specifically, the football and Usain Bolt – and ignored the rest. Elsewhere in the house, the Partner was gung-ho for it all from the Opening Ceremony onwards, whilst the Princess slowly became an enthusiast as well. I was doing pretty well, reining in my cynicism and disdain as the BBC milked the popular mood and ran the emotional gamut from A to B. Somewhere along the line, everyone seemed to have forgotten that about a year ago, there were areas of London just a few discus throws from the Olympic Stadium that were going up in flames. Instead, we were invited to join in this media-orchestrated Hallmark Cards Love-In which insisted that everyone in London was suddenly being nice to one another. In the broadsheets, I caught a passing glimpse (and then avoided) articles by heavyweight columnists who were suddenly writing about 'the Olympic effect' and how we had 'learned to like ourselves a little more'. People even began to talk openly of 'the mood of the nation.' Oh dear.
"I love everyone and I want to give all my cash to Boris Johnson"
Anyway, I was feeling quite pleased with myself, having avoided pretty much everything except the few events that did interest me – and, incidentally, all the gushing drivel from the BBC presenters. Then along came the final day of the whole thing and we accepted an invitation to go and have dinner with friends – the only friends we have who have openly espoused the Olympics. They had actually been to London to attend the Archery at Lord's Cricket Ground and the Synchronised Shove Ha'penny or something similar at some other venue. Fortunately, having not seen them for some time we had plenty of other stuff to discuss, but the TV in their flat was relentlessly glued to Olympic coverage and I realised to my horror that dinner had been timed to ensure that we were all fed and watered in time for everyone to sit down and watch the Closing Ceremony.
I had heard much about Danny Boyle's choreographed opening ceremony and the largely positive response it received. Expecting something similar, I suppose I just thought 'How bad can it be?' and sat back in the hope that it wouldn't be too long and that conversation could then resume or that we could then go home.
What I got was unmitigated Hell. If anyone ever asks me – and they probably won't – how I envisage Hell, I can now simply refer them to the three hours that ensued. This was Hell made flesh and some of the participants – Russell Brand, Liam Gallagher, Brian May – are among its minor demons as far as I am concerned. Of course, you can talk about the scale of the operation, the logistics of cramming thousands of athletes into the stadium during the course of two Elbow songs, the brilliant lighting and pyrotechnics and the willingness of the biddable audience to get on board with the constipated spectacle. However, no amount of discussion could make any sense out of what unfolded.
Hell. Note kitchen sinks being parachuted in…..
And, my, how it unfolded…and just when you thought it had finished unfolding, it unfolded a bit more. Apart from the ceremonial bit at the end where Sebastian Coe thanked everyone for their efforts and support and the faux-sombre dousing of the Olympic pilot light before the fireworks started, the whole deranged smørgåsbord seemed to be built around British pop music of the last 50 years. Having said that, everything still seemed to be locked into the 1960's and 1970's – thus, we got Ray Davies and The Who for real plus creepy necrophiliac footage of John Lennon and Freddie Mercury and The Kaiser Chiefs playing a respectably feisty version of 'Pinball Wizard', though, as far as I know, pinball is not an Olympic sport – yet.
There were those whose music was played – notably The Beatles and David Bowie – who were conspicuous by their absence and those whose music never featured at all – most glaringly, The Rolling Stones. I was, however, pleased that rumours of an appearance by New Order proved unfounded; the last thing the happy-clappy throng needed was being serenaded by a load of miserable Mancs. There was no reggae either; instead we got a token rapper and some dhol drummers to remind us of how multi-cultural we are.
There was some surrealism as well – some of it may even have been intentional. The Pet Shop Boys (well it was supposed to be them and they were possibly singing 'West End Girls') were whisked round the stadium in a dayglo rickshaw whilst dressed like a Salvador Dali vision of the functionaries of the Spanish Inquisition. Then for some unknown reason, we got a weird piece of video of the late Freddie Mercury doing a bit of rabble-rousing. This was merely a prelude to the full-on horror of the remains of Queen singing the loathsomely fascist 'We will rock you' – preceded by 2 or 3 minutes of ghastly guitar shredding from Brian May, whose grey curls now look like some kind of 'Elephant Man'-type fungal growth. More necrophilia came along via that weird video of John Lennon singing 'Imagine' whilst Yoko does the dusting in the background. '"Imagine there's no countries…" sang John…….sorry John, but then there'd be no Olympics. "Imagine no possessions…." Err, right, John – better not tell the sponsors about that one.
The most stage-managed piece of lunacy came courtesy of Eric Idle who seemed to be dressed as a 'Star Wars' stormtrooper, affected to be fired out of a cannon and then treated us all to a rousing singalong of 'Always look on the bright side of life', which was about as normal as things got – ironic that after all these years, it should be Monty Python making a stand for normalcy. After the Spice Girls had stood on top of some modified black cabs and done a couple of predictably shouty Spice Girl things about how we should take them seriously and not just ogle their legs and their tits in those micro-dresses they wear, things meandered on a bit and I have to confess to dozing through pipe bands, Annie Lennox doing her boring diva thing in a shipwreck, the band of the Grenadier Guards and some ballet dancers doing expressive dance – by this point it really was chuck in everything including the kitchen sink. What woke me up were the opening chords of The Who's 'Baba O'Riley' and there was a moment of dislocation as I adjusted to the fact that this was the real deal and not a Kaiser Chiefs karaoke.
The Spice Girls. On top of taxis. In dodgy costumes. They're really serious about their art, y'know.
The Who played a medley of about three songs, concluding with a thunderous rendition of 'My Generation' – an interesting choice for the final piece of diced carrot in this musical minestrone, considering its lyrics tell the tale of young outsiders taking lots of drugs as a way of distancing themselves from society.
And then it was finally over. I was grumpy and tired, an otherwise pleasant evening had been hijacked and I felt as though I'd been beaten up by the Teletubbies. What manner of impression this ceremony created in the minds of anyone watching from Uzbekistan, Ecuador or Tanzania is open to speculation. Personally, if I knew little about London and had watched that broadcast, I would have formed the inescapable conclusion that the whole city is essentially an open-plan lunatic asylum and would have shelved any plans to visit any time soon. And so, the Olympic torch moves on to Rio de Janeiro – and as far as I am concerned, not a moment too soon .
Posted in Media, Music - Rock, Television
Pre-season blues….
Whatever the loyalists say, Sir Alex Ferguson is gambling with his legacy now. United's pre-season performances have been patchy and pallid with Wayne Rooney in particular looking overweight, out of condition and totally disinterested. Perhaps as a result, the team have scored just 3 goals in 5 pre-season games against largely moderate opposition in South Africa, China and Scandinavia.
United have been linked with most of the summer's top transfer targets, all of whom have now gone somewhere else – just the same as every summer for the past 3 or 4 years. Lucas Moura was the latest to announce that he'd rather live in Paris than Alderley Edge, whilst United have managed just 2 signings: the unproven 18-year old Nick Powell from Crewe and the Japanese attacking midfielder Shinji Kagawa.
Shinji Kagawa – Park Mark 2?
United still need a creator and a destroyer in central midfield and whilst I have my doubts as to whether Moura was the answer there, Kagawa just looks like the now-departed Ji-Sung Park Mark Two so far and Powell is an unknown quantity for the forseeable future.
The other player strongly linked with us is Robin van Persie, Arsenal's erstwhile poster boy, who is out of contract at the end of the coming season and has said he wants to move on. He is also said to favour a move to United. Well, that's a bonus, I guess, but the fact is that Van Persie is 29 and shockingly injury-prone. He would probably do well for us – if we can keep him fit. The trouble is, Arsenal are clearly holding out for a bigger fee than United want to pay.
I would be happy to see Van Persie sign but central midfield is still the priority as it has been for about 3 seasons now and for all United's 'worldwide scouting network' and his own managerial status, Fergie has still to sort this out. Quite extraordinary for a man of his reputation and a club of United's stature. What are they doing with their time? 3-hour lunches? A nice nap in the afternoon? Watching the racing on TV?
I could understand if things didn't work out one summer and our target(s) decided they'd rather live in Madrid or Paris than Cheshire but this will be the third summer running that the cream of the world's young midfielders have slipped through Fergie's hands like so much sand. No, there has to be another reason for this and – footballers being what they are – it must be money.
As a result, almost unbelievably, we are – yet again – running the risk of going into a new season with a ragbag midfield of veterans, untried kids like Cleverley & Powell, converted defenders like Jones and – how could I forget? – Anderson the Eternal Nearly Man as our midfield options. David Silva & Yaya Toure must be having sleepless nights already.
The team needs a couple of high-quality imports in this area – Moutinho from Porto and Eriksen from Ajax could be good options now that all the A-List candidates have been snaffled up by so-called 'lesser' clubs. These 'lesser' clubs seem to understand that if you want the best you just have to pay the price sometimes.
It's all very well for Fergie to shake his head disbelievingly at the Moura fee, but he needs to crash in on the owners' imminent US flotation and persuade them that some of that money needs to come his way. Otherwise, like many fans, it's my fear that we are headed down the same road to mid-table mediocrity already trodden by Liverpool. I don't think Fergie would want his epitaph to be 'great manager, but he lost the plot a bit in later years and didn't rebuild the team when he should have done'.
Rooney has looked out of condition and disinterested in pre-season
Nothing is guaranteed, particularly when you are shelling out big bucks for raw, unproven talent, but sometimes you just have to follow your instincts and be prepared to take the hit if things don't work out. United have been doing that since Garry Birtles and there have been others along the way.
Look at Chelsea – Shevchenko's failure to cut the mustard here was seen as Abramovich's Waterloo and yet there he sits today with the Champions League trophy and a big grin on his face. It's in the nature of the game at this level that you have to gamble on young footballers from different cultures who come at a high price – and Chelsea are still doing just that.
Sir Alex understands this perfectly well and is known to like a flutter, so like most fans I wonder where all this recent prudence and caution is coming from. After all this is the man who has broken the UK transfer record on a number of occasions. The inescapable conclusions are either that our manager has lost his nerve or that his hands are tied in terms of transfers.
What's wrong with this picture? Aren't we supposed to be on Sky Sports News?…….
Like most fans, for all Fergie's protestations about the owners, I just feel that they are trying to do things on the cheap. If you look at their past business dealings, that would seem to be in their DNA – what they seem to care about is the 'brand' rather than the football club and that does not bode well for the future.
Don't know about anyone else but I cannot recall another pre-season where my expectations and sense of anticipation were so low.
Posted in Sport - Football
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learning2saynothing@hotmail.co.uk
Listening to The Blue Nile
Listening to.........James Taylor
Listening to Pete Townshend
In case anyone was wondering……
Teething Troubles….
Goodbye Eric
Nearly there…..
The Folly of Youth……
The ever-thinning ranks…..
Positively the last game of Fergie Time…
5-5, and they'll still be talking about this one in 20 years' time…
1970: All things must pass


text:
Phở (wymowa wietnamska ) – popularne danie kuchni wietnamskiej. Zupa, rodzaj rosołu  z makaronem i dodatkami. Tradycyjnie przyrządza się dwa rodzaje phở: phở bò z wołowiną i phở gà z mięsem kurczaka. Obecnie tworzone są różne wariacje z innymi dodatkami. Zdarza się, że do przygotowania zupy wykorzystuje się ponad 20 różnych składników.

Zupę najczęściej przyprawia się zieloną kolendrą i dosala sosem rybnym.

Przepis na potrawę powstał na początku XX wieku w północnym Wietnamie. Po roku 1954, w związku z migracjami spowodowanymi podziałem Wietnamu na część południową i północną, potrawa rozprzestrzeniła się również na inne regiony, wzbogacana lokalnymi składnikami. Obecnie phở jest popularnym daniem w całym Wietnamie, je się ją zarówno na śniadanie, jak i na obiad lub kolację. Phở zwykle je się pałeczkami, wypijając na koniec sam bulion.

Przypisy

Linki zewnętrzne

 Historia phở

Kuchnia wietnamska
Zupy

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Q: NodeJs Bull for Background tasks I have been using Bull for background tasks in my node application.
https://github.com/OptimalBits/bull
Now that node is single threaded by nature. Does bull use the same thread on which node application is running or it forks another thread and runs as a separate instance?

A: From bull quick guide:

The process function can also be run1 in a separate process. This has
  several advantages:

*

*The process is sandboxed so if it crashes it does not affect the
  worker.

*You can run blocking code without affecting the queue (jobs
  will not stall).

*Much better utilization of multi-core CPUs.

*Less connections to redis.

In order to use this feature just create a separate file with the processor:
// processor.js
module.exports = function(job){
  // Do some heavy work

  return Promise.resolve(result);
}

And define the processor like this:
// Single process:
queue.process('/path/to/my/processor.js');

// You can use concurrency as well:
queue.process(5, '/path/to/my/processor.js');

// and named processors:
queue.process('my processor', 5, '/path/to/my/processor.js');

1. This indicates, naturally bull doesn't create separate process for execution.
Basic guides: https://github.com/OptimalBits/bull#separate-processes

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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UCLA guard Michael Roll received a standing ovation when Bruins coach Ben Howland substituted for him with 35 seconds left in the Pac-10 Tournament semifinal contest against Cal.
Bears coach Mike Montgomery was one of those who put his hands together in tribute.
It was a proper sendoff for the senior who always seemed to deliver.
Meanwhile, UCLA senior forward Nikola Dragovic's career ended with a thud, a clank, a miss and an air ball. Dragovic was still on the floor when the game ended with UCLA's 85-72 loss to Cal in the Pac-10 Tournament semifinals on Friday at Staples Center.
Roll scored a career-high 27 points by making 8 of 15 shots. He scored his 1,000 th career point Friday, becoming the 49 th Bruin to do so. It's an honor that will feel a lot better once the sadness of the loss subsides. Dragovic took almost as many shots (12) as Roll, even though he didn't make most of his (three). He scored just eight points, missing seven of eight 3-point attempts.
His final two baskets were layups.
Roll and Dragovic are roommates, friends and teammates but couldn't be more different. Roll is an Orange County kid who was at UCLA for five years and endured injuries. He's never been a flashy guy.
He's watched as guys who came after him – Kevin Love, Russell Westbrook and Jrue Holiday – left before him for the NBA.
Dragovic is from Serbia and knew little English when he arrived, but usually always had a smile. He's had good days and bad days on and off the court. He was arrested twice and suspended, but never kicked off the team.
Howland surely wouldn't have had his back if he figured Dragovic was a troublemaker.
The Bruins finished 14-18 and out of the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the 2003-04 season, Howland's first at UCLA. But this loss will stick with Dragovic for a long time.
When he threw up an air ball against the Bears early in the second half, Howland called his number on the next possession.
"We needed him to make shots for us to win," Howland said.
Dragovic missed that shot, too.
There was no substitution for Dragovic.
Meanwhile, Roll was Mr. Dependable. He was consistent throughout his career. He never got in trouble, and tried to help Dragovic when he got in trouble.
On Friday, Dragovic forced way too many shots, missing nine of his first time. Dragovic had a shooter's mentality. When a shooter is in a slump, they keep shooting. They want to shoot their way out of it.
Dragovic never found his shooting touch.
Dragovic didn't have it Friday. Roll did.
Dragovic had a poor Pac-10 Tournament, making just 6 of 24 field goals.
Roll had 16 points in the first half. He needed just three more points to reach 1,000 for his career, and he got his 1,000 th point on a free throw courtesy of a Montgomery technical. And Roll didn't take his first shot of the second half until nine minutes expired.
But that's not what Howland will remember.
Every time Dragovic got the ball, Cal fans shouted at him to shoot it. One Bruins fan implored him to stop shooting it.
Cal's Patrick Christopher played solid defense on Roll, but UCLA needed him to keep shooting. He had the hot hand. Dragovic didn't.
Dragovic's missed shots had as much to do with Cal getting back in it as the defense on Roll.
UCLA led by as many as 10 points in the first half and didn't trail until early in the second half. The Bears took over later in the second half.
There was nothing Roll or Dragovic could do.
Their careers ended in the same way Friday, with a UCLA loss, but they couldn't have been more different.


text:
"What Made You This Way" by Enyinna Nnabuihe
When your home is built near a highway, you see everything—thefts, gangs, deaths, even prostitutes, at night. You have even seen two boys prancing the roads with their hands in each other's rear pockets. You didn't know what that meant, what they were; you thought they were mere friends when you saw them that evening, for you were barely seven. But now, as you remember all of these things that made you this way, blood rushing through your veins at the side of your neck to your groin, you are seemingly attracted to the memory of the thinner, taller boy, and you wish you were the muscular one ten years ago that felt the flesh of his buttocks through the rear pocket of his skinny jeans. You see, it is almost impossible to keep count of all the things you had seen that your mother and father, your sister Idara, and all those poke-nosing aunties called evil. If they knew you had grown to become what you saw, would they call you evil? Was it your fault? Why was your home even built near a highway to start with? Why was your window the one that graced the bloodstained roads that often paved the way for sex workers and the tear-rubber jeeps they preferably hopped into—their counterparts? Why did you glare at your windowsill more than you did at your family's television?
When your eyes have witnessed dangers, the art of tale telling suddenly becomes a bore, for you have told many in your days, and hence have the right to strike down a friend or a prattling fiend with the words, "You are lying. That never happened." And you are sure you're right, for you can smell the discoordination in a story; its composition, expression. You can tell when the prattling fiend breathes a lie—that inaccuracy that disjoints the entire plot and sabotages the presence of the main characters doing what the tale teller says they were doing and to whom they did it. You have seen so many things, the listeners know, so they do not argue; instead they praise you, condemn whom you condemn, and listen to what you have to say. For your house was built near a highway, and that is what made you this way.
You were eight when the first incident occurred. You will call it an incident, an occurrence, because that is what people call a happening that erupts from nowhere and nothing, and changes a person completely, leaving trails of a lasting memory. Like a fire outbreak, a burglary, this was an incident, and you had not expected it. You were eight but you looked five. Sochima, a friend of the family who was just a year older than you, was the first to crack this joke to your hearing. You took notice of some of his distinct characteristics; he'd always have this oily skin that glowed in all its blackness. His parents permitted him to keep his hair, so there was this sphere atop his head that bore a resemblance to a disco ball; you had said that, and you added, tracing the fingers of your right hand, like friendly snakes or worms in the bushy hair, "How does it get so curly?" He knew you admired the curls, but he admired your grammar, and your composure—in his own words, "how you walk like your leg doesn't touch the ground, and your fo-ne-tics." He admired that you weren't like all those other boys who had their heads buried in their PS Vitas and Nintendos all day, and all night, flicking and clicking and yelling.
When Sochima didn't mention your sister, ever, that's how you began to get closer to him. Everyone loved your sister, adored her, wanted to be near her. Had you been older than eight, and wiser, you'd have understood Sochima with one cursory gaze, but you weren't, therefore, you hadn't. But you knew and felt he was different, and you liked that, so he became your "bestest friend in the whole world." Before Sochima, during the weekends, you played with your sister and her friends—watching all the Disney shows and singing the theme songs or imitating the voices and actions of the characters when the power went out, impeding your viewing time. To your surprise, Sochima loved all of those things too, and together, you hid in his room and sang and mimicked your favorite stars and enjoyed bottles of Fanta and KitKats his mother offered you, because she liked you. If it hadn't dawned on her, every single time you sat cross-legged on her sofa adjacent to Sochima, or when you played ayó or board games, or when you asked her to measure your height with Sochima's to see if you were growing any taller, she mentioned how much the both of you looked alike. You smiled each time, because it made you related to him, it meant you were birds of the same feathers, and you fancied Sochima's resplendent feathers.
Above all games, you and Sochima loved to play archery—the one enhanced by PlayStation where the both of you had motion sensing joysticks, and you flung them at your wills. You were better at it, for you were more energetic than him, but sometimes you let him emerge the victor, because it was his game you played in his house and you didn't want him to get angry and quit talking to you when that was all you ever wanted to do: spend time with him. When you scrolled through the options of this particular game on one joyful Saturday in his air-conditioned living room, you noticed there were other sports challenges, not archery alone. You wondered how this boy could have all these games and still read the novels that laid in the shelves in his parents' study.
"Sochi," you called him. "Let's check out this table tennis."
"Can't you see I'm sweating? We just finished seven rounds of archery, rest oga." He was sprawled on his bed like a sweaty pregnant woman, and the meal of fufu and ofe nsala his mum had given him swelled his stomach to make it seem disproportionally bloated in relation to his thin frame. You had been offered the meal too, but you nodded, grinning keenly, meeting his mother's eyes, saying, "No, thank you" like your own mother had taught you. You didn't blame her, and Sochima's mother didn't like you any less, for it was the year the practicalities of juju were all over the news—first wives poisoning second wives' children, kidnappers giving children lollipops or biscuits, instantly brainwashing the child, or brothers charming their own blood, whom they had coveted their wives for as long as they could remember. So you found yourself watching him slurp and gulp and swallow and lick his fingers till he was done. As Sochima sweated from the rounds of gaming, you're sure he queried in his mind if you were made of steel that you'd been on an empty stomach, but hadn't grown weary. He didn't know behind that fence your homes shared, you were a different person, your parents weren't wealthy like his and didn't believe in frivolities like games. And you wanted to play what you could till your brain and fingers were so sore, you'd trek home like a zombie.
"Don't worry, I'll take it easy on you."
He smiled as he crackled the bones in his fingers and back, then said, "I trust you." From his response, you liked him even more, because then and there, he truly distinguished himself from any mortal being you'd ever shared air with. He'd noticed you were letting him win, and he didn't feel bad about it, not to talk of feeling threatened. He cherished your insincerity and your childish empathy and how you carried his feelings like a basket of eggs on your frail head.
The table tennis game was not as you expected; you couldn't see the opponents, just the ball flying in your direction and you kept swinging the joystick like your life depended on it. You were ecstatic although Sochima was winning genuinely this time. The gap between his two front teeth he was always conscious of was now overly conspicuous as he beamed. You wished that moment could freeze or you could replay it over and over again, but once you did, it was all erased by the interruption of his mother's scream.
"Don't you touch me!" It seemed to come from her room. You were extremely shaken when Sochima told you that his parents slept in different rooms, but that day, as you almost peed your jean trousers on hearing his magnanimous mother's scream, you were about to find out why.
His father's voice came into light after a few tosses of instruments—wooden spoons, stainless flasks, a pestle—deep-throated and scary, yet seemingly jolly and harmless, like the voice of the crab, Sebastian, from The Little Mermaid. "Woman, will you stop hurling those things and face me like the man you think you are?" His voice maintained a calm diminuendo, soft, smooth, a flawless allegretto.
It was when Sochima's father emerged out of the shadows with his wife's neck firmly groped in his clutch of a hand that Sochima tapped you and spoke without any hint of shame or shock, "Let's get out of here." But he was too late, he knew, when he looked down at your soiled pantaloons, and the silhouetted map of North America that had encompassed it. He sneaked a laugh out of his mouth, a bare sniffle, and you both raced to his room.
"Pick any trouser," he said, pointing to his closet, his eyes glimmering. "Or any shorts. I have never seen you wear shorts." Indeed, you hadn't ever. You adored how he paid attention.
You were surprised because he had so many clothes, and also because he'd treated his parents' wild fight like he was watching it on the TV, and when it became too loud and he couldn't find the remote control, he just changed his location instead of switching the TV off. As you stripped your wet trousers to his cold floor, you asked him, "How often do your parents fight like that?" You knew he would not want to answer such a sensitive question, but you asked anyways. You were curious and worried. You were eight, but you knew it wasn't healthy for a child his age to be witnessing abuses and aggressive fights as that. You knew, because your mum is a psychologist, and she counselled people in the house, married people. And even your parents, the closest they'd ever been to fighting was when your mum came back from a church revival really late and your dad was hungry, so he made food, over seasoned burnt beans, for everyone in the house—something he considered your mother's job, alongside "her hobby she calls therapy."
Sochima breathed a while and gave you the smartest retort you would ever hear, maintaining a smile. "Their fighting is only making me stronger and wiser, in good ways, so don't let it affect you in a bad one." It was curt and you folded it neatly and kept it in the pocket of his camo shorts that you picked up, admiring. He complimented your fashion sense, and looked toward the toilet in his room to take a pee, another thing you didn't have in your room, for you shared the toilet conjoined to the corridor with your sister and aunties. Strolling to the glowing cabinet, with marbles as walls, he made a passive comment: "Now, watch how normal people pee." He giggled like a jester, and you followed his trail, because you hadn't grasped the joke. Or had you? In a few seconds none of that mattered, you were both with your squirmy penises out, coloring the crystalline water in the toilet hole with orange from him, and yellow from you. You peed from the right, and he from the left, and your distinct springs of urine met at the center to form a magnificent yellowish-orange fountain that flowed into the waters with a gush. He smiled at you when he saw the fountain, and you smiled at him in return, because you knew it was out of his creativity that he initiated that. But you don't understand, Until now, why he held your own penis and splattered the little trickles of urine from it all over the toilet seat. Until now, you don't know why he dropped the penis, bent his neck, leaned forward and pressed his small lips against yours. You don't know why, but you wonder, for you feel that was what made you this way.
When Sochima's dad packed his belongings and left, Sochima cried. It was the first time you'd seen him cry. You noticed just one thing during his meltdown on your shoulder; that he acted like a girl. Maybe it was because your mum and uncle that was deported from Nashville, Tennessee trumpeted it all around the house as a desultory comment immediately Sochima left, and they were sure he couldn't hear them. Well, you got tired of hearing them, but they didn't stop. So, everyday he came over to avoid his parents' quarrelling, just before he left, you asked for his iPod and you listened to Don't Stop Me Now at the highest volume, repeatedly, because you couldn't confront them.
The night before Sochima's dad left, he slept in your house, in your bed, and the both of you played tinko tinko, and Concentration, both games that involved clapping of hands, so they were, by this uncle from Tennessee, classified effeminate. You didn't like this uncle; you are not sure if you do now. He had a very terrible first impression on you when he arrived at your family's doorstep with his luggage and his unkempt beards, looking like Hagrid from Harry Potter. When you mentioned it, you recoiled in disgust as he said you shouldn't be watching all that sorcery nonsense, because it encouraged witchcraft. That Harry Potter, a harmless film, harnessed the spirit of stubbornness in children, and inculcated an affinity for all things magical. Of course, on hearing this, your revivalist mother broke all the Harry Potter DVDs, and fearing that that sorcery would glue the pieces together under the orange moon, she spat rehearsed prayers as she burned them, confessing that she'd caught you with Sochima uttering mundane words, arrant gibberish, and asked, "Were those the spells they were using to trap the destinies of these, her innocent boys?" This uncle from Nashville, Tennessee said yes, and that is when and where you dusted your hands and declared that he was enormously dense and that was the true reason they'd sent him packing back to Nigeria. You were eleven, then.
This uncle never ceased to prick layers of your temper. At least, that's where you and your sister saw eye to eye; you were both disgusted by this uncle in all of his totality. Was it his phony gangster accent, or the fact that he sprayed "bitch" and "fuck" and a truckload of other cuss words around the house, like they were mosquito repellents, but made your mother ban you from uttering words coined by J.K. Rowling? Once, you, Sochima, Idara, your father and this uncle sat in the sitting room watching a game of lawn tennis. Everyone in the room was in support of Andy Murray because they didn't like Novak Djokovic's method of playing. You didn't give a damn, you subtly supported Djokovic, because he was sneaky like you and agile and had this smirk that bewildered his opponents, so he was able to shower them with borderline passes and swift serves that enhanced their perplexity and occasionally split their tennis knickers. During the break of the first set which the Serbian, Djokovic, had won, the camera whirled to the audience and caught two men with hairs on their faces, their pink lips, jammed in togetherness.
"Olorun maje!" your father screamed, aghast.
"Tufia!" went an overwhelmed Sochima.
"All these homosexuals are fucking disgusting," this uncle said, and your heart immediately sunk to your chest and zipped itself amongst stones and a picture of Sochima smiling with his gap tooth in view, that moment he grabbed your groin, and the glint you saw in his eyes when he kissed you. You realized that your sister hadn't passed a comment, that her mouth only hung ajar, and you wish you had been like her, but you were frightened and you heard yourself say, "As in," in agreement with your uncle. All of these made you this way.
So, even as you came home from boarding school one hot afternoon on April 12th, a day before Easter, and discovered a ginormous padlock on Sochima's door, you didn't squeal but your heart did. You later learned that your bestest friend had travelled abroad for an operation because his kidney was lacking, you heard, nothing more, for your mother couldn't explain further.
"Where?" you asked.
"I think India." She didn't even look at you when you asked, but as you sighed, and left the kitchen downcast, she said, "Kpele, oko mi, you will make other friends." You had written off her statement, stifling tears and mucus, because you didn't think it possible that any one on planet earth would be capable of replacing Sochima. But your mother, who told you sorry and called you her husband as most Yoruba mothers do their sons, was right.
There were many more like Sochima—the dancer at Bar Beach that taught you the gwara gwara and admired how your thin legs were able to bend that way, how those thin legs could still jump so high over the high-jump pole, and how you bent your vertebrae really low under that same pole when you played limbo. "You will make an exceptionally skilled dancer," he told you. There was the I Know Everything guy in your class in SS1, Fidelis, that answered all the Chemistry questions and got attention from teachers, so you summoned up courage to meet him to teach you. During lessons, you used your leg to caress the hairs on his leg and before you knew it, his hand was over your zipper. Indeed, you were learning chemistry. There was the South American boy, Pedro, who you met online on Instagram that had asked for your WhatsApp number and began to have flickering video chats with you. He sent you pictures of his mum taking a shower through the curtains and you laughed at how abundant with mischief he was. He complimented you once in a while, called you fine, your eyes cute, but there's something he said that was ought to change you. He said, with just the right amount of moustache and the español accent, you could pass off as Mexican, or Cuban. That made you download the Duolingo app, and in no time at all, you learned to say; "Mañana," which is tomorrow, "mostacho" for moustache, and "Mi nombre es Adedeji. Estoy Cubano y Nigeriano." He mentioned, in most of the chats, that he was bisexual, but really, you didn't care. Just as you didn't know what love was, you didn't know what it meant, and your curiosity had died with Sochima.
The dancer at Bar Beach was the kind of gay that didn't hide it. You exchanged saliva in one enclosed shed and you were so trapped in the moment that you hadn't heard your phone ring seven times. Your ringtone was Humble Beginnings by Bazzi, and it began with blaring trumpet sounds, so you were that into the moment. You and this dancer hadn't exchanged numbers because you hurriedly wiped your lips, ran out of the shed, and answered the eighth call that came into your phone. It was unexpectedly, Fidelis, and he was asking where you were.
"Where I am?" You were shocked. "How did you even get my number?" You replied his question with another one, a safe move you'd learned over the years.
He took note of it, and apologized and smiled, you felt his lips form an upward arc through the phone. Then he said, "I'm at your house. Don't you want to study for WAEC anymore?"
"I'm on my way. I went out," you said, buttoning your shirt, and running in the sands, back home.
When you got home, he called you "the Almighty cruiser" with his hands wrapped tightly, raised to the ceiling, in reverence to your partying dexterities. You understood Organic Chemistry more than him, so it was you who did the teaching this time. He watched you blab and explain and disperse spittle onto the textbooks laid before you. You were not sure if he was listening, but you weren't even listening to yourself. You were trapped in his eyes, his chestnut eyes, his smile, his oily face, the curls in his hair. He wasn't so muscular, like you, and you had wondered the first time your gaze met this Fidelis's if he was actually Sochima, but had changed his name and had forgotten about the first half of his life which had you in it. But when you'd seen Sochima's Instagram account and had frozen, but followed him and sent him a direct message, you knew Fidelis was just Fidelis, one of the many that were like Sochima.
Fidelis's lips pressed against yours kicked your fantasy away and brought you back to earth. You caressed the hair on his head and brushed through the curls. You both had something in common: Your eyes were open as you smooched, probably because your sister was at home and she could have barged into your room without warning. Hurriedly, you raced to the door and bolted it. You and Fidelis were young and happy and exotic and of the same age. You had a Chemistry exam in two days, but guess who cared? Neither of you. You romanced his body, and he romanced yours, and neither of you had any control over what happened next for one of the most voluptuous thirty minutes of your life.
That night as you read Akwaeke Emezi's Freshwater, picturing yourself with Ewan instead of Ada, a message you'd not been expecting thumped into your phone and the closeted creaks of your heart. Pedro had asked, Are you alone?
You replied, Yeah, what's up?
Then he said, I'm horny. You weren't surprised, because you'd known Pedro to be the one that never used long, cunning routes to get what he wants. Once, he'd sent you a screenshot of his sex chat with a Tanzanian boy, he said, with a large, uncut dick. You'd laughed at his effrontery and saluted him all the heart emojis on your keypad. On this day, you were just aghast that he felt your mood.
You typed, You can VC me, and immediately when you did, the fluctuating power went out. You wondered if your prayer warrior mother had caused it for you were on the verge of sin, but you just typed in a note of apology to Pedro, it's a little dark here, so you won't see me. Pedro said it didn't matter, that he was turned on by your display picture, and being super proud of the mustache you'd grown, he would masturbate to the image, for you. At first, he rubbed his fingers through the foliage of hair that entrenched his medium-sized penis and as he relaxed his way to those pulsated veins, his lingam bulged and it was no longer medium-sized, it was a bazooka. Pedro made these noises, these sounds, and they erupted something in you, so you grabbed a bottle of moisturizer from your chest of drawers, removed your shorts, the camo shorts you'd never returned to Sochima, which you now wore as boxer briefs. You found yourself stroking unremittingly and moaning like you were actually having sex, something you'd never actually had, and when it was done, sperm jetted out of the little hole Pedro had been stroking, and his lingam remained the same, inflated, with the pulsated veins, everything. You had already jetted out bottles of sperm with Fidelis, so nothing really came out of you. This is what made you this way. But is that what you told your revivalist mother who had seemingly been watching you throw libidos in the cold air of the night at the fair, veined lingam on your phone's screen?
"Adedeji!" she screamed. "What is going on here?"
You hadn't ended the call with Pedro just yet, but your phone fell from your grasp and crashed to the tiles on which you stood, for you were awe-stricken. You didn't have the words, you didn't have the right facial expressions; at that moment, you hadn't even a composure. Your legs were wavering flagella, your heart, Mark Henry on the wrestling ring. So, as you watched your mother march to her room, screaming obscenities, yelling "Blood of Jesus" times without number, you picked up your phone and saw how cracked it was. And you blushed, because Sochima had replied your desperate DMs of How has everything been, brooo? Where are you now? with an angry emoji with fumes of smokes as from a kettle, protruding from its nostrils. He'd typed, You thief. Hope you're here to return my shorts, and the blush on your face extended to your ears, you see, because he, who made you this way, had not forgotten you in the slightest.
Enyinna Nnabuihe was born in 2002 in Lagos, Nigeria. He is currently a student of Pharmacy at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University. In late March 2021, he signed to Whipik Stories as a chat story creative and has published multiple stories on the platform. He writes expansively on politics, happening tragedies, and the need of being oneself. When he isn't occupied with school, reading or extremely dramatic television series, he pours his heart into poetry and posts on his Instagram page, @enyinnawrites. Part of him has dreams of being a filmmaker.


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Nerf Rival: These Are Not The Blasters You Grew Up With… And It's A Good Thing
Nerf has never had a problem attracting an older crowd to their blasters, although a good chunk of former players do move on to playing airsoft or paintball instead. I mean, shooting foam darts still make for a lot of goofy fun, but if you want a game experience that simulates actual battle, foam darts don't exactly make for the most menacing ammunition. Hence, the new Nerf Rival line, which upgrades traditional blaster play to one that can stand up to the high-speed excitement of more grown-up shooting toys.
Instead of foam darts, the Rival line uses the new Nerf High-Impact Rounds, which are yellow foam balls that shoot, load, and connect in a way that's a lot more consistent with actual ammo. As such, the blasters are able to send them flying at speeds of up to 70 mph, allowing for some really fast-paced shooting action. Even better, the size of the ammo allows you to carry a lot more of them while on the move, with the blasters also getting more compact magazines as a result.
Despite the name and the speed at which they can fly, the High-Impact Rounds aren't going to leave a mark the way an airsoft pellet would. At most, you'll feel a very light sting, nothing more. They're also designed to bounce, so you can aim at walls and other surfaces to hit an opponent hiding in erstwhile impenetrable cover. Basically, the Nerf version of a banked shot.
The Nerf Rival line currently has two blaster models: Apollo and Zeus. Both come with way more power than traditional blasters, which they use not to shoot further, but to send the ammo flying at higher speeds at a straighter trajectory. That means, much more accurate shooting, making it a whole lot less frustrating during a serious head-to-head battle. Do note, the ammo is still foam, so if you play under windy conditions, strong winds can affect your shooting precision.
Apollo, the more affordable of the two blasters, is a spring-action blaster that holds seven rounds at a time on the easily removable magazine. You'll need to load each shot every single time, so you can't just go insane and unleash a fury on a cornered opponent. It comes with a trigger lock, a tactical rail (each magazine comes with clips that let you mount one on the rail), and a ready indicator. Oh yeah, this thing fires with a loud sound, making the act of pulling the trigger much more satisfying.
The Zeus, on the other hand, is a motorized blaster, with a bigger frame that accommodates a larger 12-round magazine. Because of the motor (and the six C batteries it requires), it's a lot heavier and noisier, although it does save you from having to cock each and every shot before you can fire. Reloading can be a bit slower than the Apollo (their individual placement on the blasters are different), but being able to unload much quickly on an opponent should make the extra work worthwhile. It also has a trigger lock and tactical rails.
Unless you're playing with little kids that can get hurt by the new ammo (Hasbro recommends the line for ages 14 and above), the Nerf Rival sounds like the perfect transition to anyone looking for a more realistic action in their toy blasters. And while it won't rival the realism of airsoft (not right now, anyway), it does offer a more affordable alternative, with the Apollo selling for just $24.99 and the Zeus going for $49.99. The accessory line is fairly limited (it's new, after all), but you can get extra magazines ($11.99 for a 12-round clip), extra foam ammo ($17.99 for 50 rounds), and even protective face masks ($14.99) that match the blue and red colors of the blasters to help extend the fun.
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Docker and Microsoft Collaborate to Boost Developer Productivity
Docker has increased its collaboration with Microsoft to help developers code and deploy to Microsoft Azure.
Source:Unsplash
One of the biggest challenges for developers is deploying software across platforms. Traditional methods often require developers to rework large portions of their code to be compatible with the target platform, something that Docker can help alleviate.
What Is Docker?
Docker is a popular development tool that helps alleviate cross-platform issues by bundling software into containers. A container is a package that contains the software and all the resources and dependencies it requires to function. Once the Docker Engine is installed on the target platform, Docker software containers can be run with minimal modifications.
The Docker Engine is currently available for both Windows and Linux. According to the company's website, "Docker Engine is the industry's de facto container runtime that runs on various Linux (CentOS, Debian, Fedora, Oracle Linux, RHEL, SUSE, and Ubuntu) and Windows Server operating systems. Docker creates simple tooling and a universal packaging approach that bundles up all application dependencies inside a container which is then run on Docker Engine. Docker Engine enables containerized applications to run anywhere consistently on any infrastructure, solving 'dependency hell' for developers and operations teams, and eliminating the 'it works on my laptop!' problem."
Why The Collaboration?
The increased collaboration with Microsoft is a good fit for both companies. Azure is currently in second place in the US cloud market, behind Amazon Web Services (AWS). One of the big advantages Azure has, however, is its focus on hybrid cloud solutions. In contrast, AWS has been a strong proponent of fully public cloud systems, only recently embracing hybrid more fully. Docker's strategy aligns nicely with Microsoft, as their software is designed to help companies migrate to on-premise, hybrid or public cloud platforms.
Regardless of the kind of platform a company uses, the task of migrating their legacy software to the cloud can be an arduous process. This can be especially true for some companies who choose Azure. The second main advantage Azure has over AWS, or third-place Google Cloud, is its deep Windows roots. As a result, many Microsoft-based shops have a much easier path toward adopting Azure than its competitors. Unfortunately, that also means those companies often have software that has been in use for years, or even decades, that suddenly needs to be migrated to a cloud-based infrastructure.
This is where Docker and Microsoft's increased collaboration will help. By better integrating with Azure Container Instances (ACI) and Visual Code Studio (VS Code), developers will have a much easier path migrating their legacy desktop apps to Azure. Developers will be able to take advantage of this ability either from within VS Code or from the Docker CLI.
"Using Docker we migrated our 15-year old core application to containers with no code changes, and using ACI we can run that same container at any scale we need," said Tejo de Groot, chief architect at WindSim. "The POC phase of the project was done in a couple of weeks with a minimal team, and we're aiming to be live on Azure in Q2 this year."
The fact that Docker and VS Code are two the most popular developer tools is another reason for the companies to work together.
"Developers want simplicity, agility and portability, and development teams want code to cloud solutions that won't slow them down," said Scott Johnston, chief executive officer, Docker. "Extending our strategic relationship with Microsoft will further reduce the complexity of building, sharing and running cloud-native, microservices-based applications for developers. Docker and VS Code are two of the most beloved developer tools and we are proud to bring them together to deliver a better experience for developers building container-based apps for Azure Container Instances."
"We are excited to expand our work with Docker to accelerate developer productivity by enabling them to use native Docker commands to run applications in Azure Container Instances," said Amanda Silver, corporate vice president of Product for Developer Tools at Microsoft. "This new seamless experience from desktop to cloud means developers can more quickly and easily collaborate and create applications to run in Azure."
A Competitive Advantage For Microsoft
Docker's collaboration with Microsoft is by no means exclusive. However, given how much Docker helps developers migrating from legacy software to the cloud, Microsoft possibly stands to gain the most from a deep collaboration between the two companies. Microsoft, more than the other cloud providers, has a deep appeal to the very companies that will most benefit from the features Docker provides.
As the coronavirus pandemic has forced companies to move to the cloud faster than they may have planned, Docker can help companies with even the most legacy software to make that transition as quickly as possible.
TagsDockerMicrosoftMicroservicesMicrosoft Azure
Matt is a tech journalist and writer with a background in web and software development.
DevelopersJune 3, 2020
Matt Milano -Technical Writer


Rejanne Dots dress is a charming Victoriana style polka dot dress in a deep burgandy red with full lining. Has a fluted cream frill around neckline and bodice. Button through with a tie belt. Long cuffed sleeves. Falls to mid length.


Recently, the SCDOT proposed a $483 million project to widen I-26 from Montague Avenue to Heriot Street in Charleston County. During the comment period prior to inclusion in the Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan, the Conservation submitted a letter to the SCDOT regarding better, more progressive alternative to widening the interstate. You can read our letter here.
The Charleston Region has long been recognized as a popular visitor destination for its exceptional natural environment and historic charm. Success in attracting new business investment has also increased due to the tri-county region's strong competitive assets including the South Carolina Ports Authority; academic, medical and research universities; military installations, and a technically-skilled workforce. The tri-county region is expected to reach 1 million residents by 2027.
Initiated by the Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Council of Governments (BCDCOG), the I-26 Regional Fixed Guideway Transit Alternatives Analysis study is the next step in securing an I-26 Corridor transit solution for the Charleston region. The purpose of the I-26 Alternatives Analysis is to enhance regional mobility along the I-26 Corridor between Summerville and Charleston with transit strategies designed to: Manage transportation demand; Support our diverse regional economy; and Create livable communities.
Expanding on our efforts to defeat the extension to I-526, the Coastal Conservation League developed a multimedia public relations campaign with the goals of: (1) improving the I-26 corridor between Charleston and Columbia—the economic backbone of our state, and (2) promoting legislation that requires the South Carolina Transportation Infrastructure Bank (SCTIB) to follow the same prioritization requirements that the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) is required to follow under Act 114 of 2007 (See "Highway Funding Prioritization" project page for more information).
In a state struggling to find money to pay for road maintenance and repair, and for major upgrades to support new businesses and population growth, it is imperative that our elected officials stop wasting money on nonessential projects and reallocate funding to priorities such as I-26. It is also critical that all state transportation projects be funded according to their ranking on SCDOT's prioritization list, and not at the request of a few powerful politicians seeking local favor or personal gain. The state's resources are too limited to allow this pork-barrel approach to continue.
Since last summer, the Fix 26 campaign publicized our position through outdoor billboards on I-26; full-color print newspaper ads; dozens of radio spots; and targeted digital ads on Facebook and associated social media sites. All of these advertisements have been driving traffic to the Facebook page where visitors can learn more about the issues, sign up for updates, and send letters to their elected officials.


Art of Marco Rivera: Panoramas! Finally!
Oh look, my panoramas for my final photography assignment last semester! Well, better late than never right? Plus I have an upcoming post related to one of these images. So I hope you enjoy these because I had a blast taking them around where I live.
This one is also my favourite and is from the other side of the previous photo. It definitely looks way more interesting.
Visual and Creative Arts Grad Show 2013!


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QualityHealth Home > Pain Management Health Center > What Causes Lupus?
By Lily Rodlin
About 1.5 million Americans suffer from lupus. The most common form is systemic lupus erythematosus, which accounts for nearly 70 percent of cases. It's an autoimmune disease that causes the immune system to attack normal tissue and organs, including the kidneys, heart, lungs and skin.
Lupus can be mild or severe. Although treatment has improves significantly over the past few decades, there is still no cure. It appears that the disease is on the rise, although some scientists suggest that this increase may be due to better diagnosis in recent years.
The Causes of Lupus
First identified in the 1850s, lupus is still widely misunderstood. The exact cause is still unknown. However, because this autoimmune condition tends to run in families, doctors believe that genes play a role. About 20 percent of patients having a sibling or parent who has the disease.
Also, according to the Lupus Foundation of America (LFA), if one identical twin has lupus, there's an increased likelihood that the other twin will also have it. Even if there's no family history involved, other autoimmune diseases (such as rheumatoid arthritis) in your family could increase your risk of developing lupus.
Lupus occurs more in some ethnic groups, notably people of African, Hispanic, Native American, Asian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Island descent, according to the LFA.
Even if you're genetically predisposed to lupus, the disease has to be triggered. Some of the possible triggers include an infection, sun exposure, childbirth, stress, injury, or medications such as antibiotics or drugs that increase photosensitivity.
Symptoms of Lupus
Lupus is often referred to as the disease of a thousand faces. It has many symptoms, some of which are similar to other diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia, which can make diagnosis initially difficult. Signs of this autoimmune disease include:
joint pain and swelling
extreme fatigue
butterfly-shaped rashes
chest pain or pleurisy
fluid retention or swelling in the extremities, legs and face
ulcers in the mouth or nose
abnormal blood clotting
Symptoms vary from person to person, and occur at different times, not necessarily all at once. Because these symptoms are common to other illnesses, it's important for you to get tested and properly diagnosed by a doctor, usually a rheumatologist.
Also, the LFA indicates that hormones play a role, especially estrogen. Because lupus symptoms increase before menstrual periods and during pregnancy (periods of high estrogen levels in the body), they indicate that this sex hormone may influence lupus.
Diagnosis of Lupus
Systemic lupus erythematosus is usually diagnosed by a rheumatologist, a doctor who specializes in autoimmune conditions. However, other forms of the disease can be diagnosed by a family doctor or internist, according the S.L.E. Lupus Foundation.
Your doctor will perform a series of tests, including a physical examination and blood tests. But, there's no single test that can confirm whether you have lupus. A diagnosis requires that you have (or have had) at least four of 11 symptoms - such as butterfly rash across the cheek, mouth or nose ulcers, photosensitivity, and a low red blood cell count.
If you are concerned that you may have lupus, it's important to see your doctor as soon as possible. Early diagnosis and treatment with medications such as anti-malarials, corticosteroids and immunosuppressants can significantly improve your symptoms and long-term health.
Lupus Foundation of America, SLE Lupus Foundation, Lupus UK
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Turn around you, whether you are walking in the street or hidden somewhere in a Savannah bush land, you'll see structures, moving objectives, communication gadgets, and consumable foods or medicines that have come to life thanks to serious research works by scientists spanning centuries of scientific evolution. Thanks to science and technology, measles was wiped out in 2000. You didn't have to turn around to realize how science and technology is everywhere – you only needed to continue staring at your screen.
The gadget you are using to read this and the infrastructure that has been put in place to allow you access this article are testimonies of how useful science and tech is. And that's not all. Serious research works in the past decade will see us enter a new era of science and technology. This will be an era where no one will ever again suffer from disability as people will be able to use robotic hearts, prosthetic that have feelings, the deaf will be able to hear, and the blind will see again. In fact, science and technology will allow us to forget about death and its effects.
The coming era, starting next year, will see us take tours to far flung places to enjoy a cold breeze at the beach without us ever leaving our living rooms. We will be able to attend and be present in a live real life physical Stadium to watch Arsenal thrush Man U 3-0 within the first 20 minutes – but without having to pay the expensive flight tickets or part with enormous amounts for the gate ticket – we will attend the matches simply by going into the bedroom and laying down in bed to enjoy the match. Yes that's not science fiction, it's a reality that's coming as soon – well – it is already happening elsewhere in the world.
The development of Internet of Things and more so Artificial Intelligence will see us never lack basic human needs ever again. In fact, the scientific community has reached a consensus that in the next few years, no one will ever have to work as all the work including those done by CEOs, Senior IT Administrators, Programmers, Project Managers, Production Managers, HR Managers, and all the other white and blue collar jobs will go to robots and other AI platforms like the Blockchain. You know that robots have already take almost all of your manual labor, right? Including the fact that it is no longer necessary to employ a house help, right?
But wait a minute – not so fast. Don't get excited yet. For the ordinary you and me to benefit from these technologies in this lifetime, governments globally and locally must support research in all scientific fields. But as Kenyans we know that our government has zero interest in Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Virtual Reality platforms, despite the fact that our neighbor Ethiopia is investing seriously in AI research. The saddest part is that governments of developed countries including Canada, the US and Britain have been cutting and continue to cut funds meant for scientific studies and research but are investing more in banking and war. Thanks to the war on science and technology, measles is creeping back to haunt humanity. As an individual that loves science and tech (and that's probably the reason you are reading this), you need to lend your voice to the call that governments should pour serious money to the scientific community.
The video below explains what I just said in figures and numbers.