text:
The Habsburg Empire May Be Dead, but its Honest Bureaucracy's Legacy Lives On
When I think Habsburg Empire, I think of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination famously marked the beginning of World War I and less famously, the decline of the empire itself until its dissolution in 1918. However, the silhouette of the empire still marks a psychologically different part of Europe, according to research by Sascha Becker and Ludger Woessmann. In their 2011 short paper, The Empire Is Dead, Long Live the Empire! Long-Run Persistence of Trust and Corruption in the Bureaucracy, (summarized here) they compared levels of trust on opposite sides of the long-gone Habsburg Empire border within five countries. Surprisingly, they found that the border was still meaningful. Within the border, firms and people have higher trust in courts and police. Outside the border--specifically in regions that were once part of the Ottoman empire--levels of trust are relatively lower. Historians have described the Habsburg bureaucracy as "fairly honest, quite hard-working, and generally high-minded" (Taylor 1948). According to Becker and Woessman, this lies at the root of the higher trust levels.
Taylor, AJP (1948), The Habsburg Monarchy _PHONE_: A History of the Austrian Empire and Austria-Hungary, Penguin Books (reprint 1990)


text:
There are many cases when we will want to measure a metric by a different angle or definition. For example, in some cases you would like to allow your end users to analyze average duration of a resource utilization in a different time unit (seconds, minutes, hours), count of participants by a different gender (male, female, all), average of product weight in either Lbs. or KG or an average amount of transaction in different currencies (USD, EURO, local).
Let's assume that you want to analyze for each month, the total amount of your transactions and for your users to select the currency in which they would like to view your dashboard.
Think about a table within your data source which includes a value for each of the amounts. Instead of showing 3 different values on a widget (one for each currency), you might want to consolidate all values into one to show a generic amount. In that case, your user should be able to toggle between the available currencies.
There are existing visualization solutions that provide ways to toggle between different views (Tabber, Switchable dimension, the measure changer) and a modeling solution called the transpose technique (can read more about it on the funnel analysis post). Both addresses the same need from a different angle.
The following solution suggests a different approach which doesn't involve the use of plugins, more than one widget or duplicating records. As opposed to the solutions described earlier, the following solution is highly recommended when dealing with big data volume or busy dashboards with already many widgets.
- Let's assume that this is the structure of your transactional table:
As you can see, for each currency we have dedicated column.
- For toggle between those values we'll need a field that will contain the different currencies. For that purpose, we'll create the following table (either on a flat file or within the EC):
Currency – we'll use it as the filter within the dashboard.
USD\Euro\Local – Boolean variables to be used within the widget formulas to affect the total amount per the use selection.
1 – random value to connect each of the 3 records in the Currency table with all the records of the Fact table. (Many-to-Many relation won't apply as on the dashboard we'll force one selection from the Currency table).
- Final step within the EC is to create the same dummy column on the Fact table with the same value (1), by creating a custom column:
And then simply connect between the tables:
On the dashboard side:
- Add a new filter on the Currency field from the currency table and define it as a radio button:
2. On the widget level, the value should contain the following formula:
[Total Local Amount]*[Max Local]+[Total USD Amount]*[Max USD]+[Total Euro Amount]*[Max Euro]
So, for each selection of the user, we'll multiply two out of the three total amounts by 0 and the selected currency by 1. For example, when the user selected the local currency, the formula would look like that:
[Total Local Amount]*1 +[Total USD Amount]*0+[Total Euro Amount]*0 = [Total Local Amount]
And when it will be changed to USD it will look like that:
[Total Local Amount]*0+[Total USD Amount]*1+[Total Euro Amount]*0 = [Total USD Amount]
And this is how it will look like on the dashboard:

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


- Aideen McCartney
6 tips for a calm and co-operative Christmas
Who's been playing with the fairy lights again?
The holiday season is almost upon us! As exciting as it can be, I know that for many families it can also be peppered with moments of stress, emotional breakdowns and challenging behaviour.
We've all seen it - the long-awaited event is underway, and despite being so excited and having counted down the days, your child has a total meltdown half way through, or they end up in a fight or say they want to leave.
This is a very common and totally normal scenario. As wonderful as holidays can be, they often bring changes to the normal routine and rhythm of life. Kids derive their sense of safety and security from the consistency and predictability of normal life. So when holidays come along, bringing new people, environments and expectations and often changes to sleeping and eating routines, all of this change can be overwhelming and overstimulating for children. Let's be honest, it's stressful for many of us adults too!
So here are 6 tips to help your family enjoy a calm and co-operative Christmas.
1. Plan the calendar carefully
Create a calendar that everyone in the family can read or follow in some way (e.g. using pictures) and talk in advance about what is happening from day to day. Predictability breeds co-operation.
Try to have a couple of do-nothing days, to balance out the organised activities. Everyone will relish some time to stay in their PJs and enjoy with their new things. Make sure you allow time to rest and recover between big events. Adequate rest will give you the stamina you'll need to get through it all!
2. Maintain as many routines as possible
Children gain a sense of security and comfort from familiar routines. Maintaining regular bed times and meal times will help make sure that your kids are getting the rest and nourishment they need to stay emotionally regulated and enjoy the festivities. It will also help you to avoid daily battles about what time is bed time ("but you let me stay up late yesterdaaaaaayyy!")
3. Get everyone involved
From decorating to setting tables to helping make food there are so many tasks and little rituals that children can participate in over the holidays.
It's valuable to learn early in life that everyone has something to contribute to making the celebration a success. It shouldn't be one person's job to organise it all! And everyone can benefit from the lovely feeling you get when you've been helpful. Be sure to offer your enthusiastic acknowledgement and gratitude.
Christmas cookies for everyone!
4. Mentally prepare
Prepare your kids for success in new or unusual situations by talking in advance about what to expect and what is expected of them. Discuss any rules that might be out of the ordinary (e.g. no one is allowed upstairs in Great Aunty Joan's house) so they can avoid getting into trouble for breaking rules they weren't aware of. Also discuss and come up with plans for any challenging situations that are likely to arise.
5. Have a backup plan
In the midst of the fun and merriment there are bound to be moments when the kids become overwhelmed, overexcited or overstimulated.
Have a plan in place for how you can give them space to calm down or the loving connection they need to regain their equilibrium. This might involve cuddles, snacks, baths, books or a break from the activities in a quiet area. If you're at someone else's house, you can ask your host in advance where you can retreat to if necessary.
6. Revise your expectations
As joyful as Christmas can be, it very rarely goes exactly according to plan. Try to avoid putting pressure on yourself or your children to have 'the best time ever'. Give yourself a break and revise your expectations about what is possible.
Remember that the most treasured memories are often made in the little moments of connection, between the big things
For more detail, check out my video on this topic. And for a printable guide that you can stick on the fridge or share with friends, please visit my Patreon page.
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Landscapes of the Passing Strange.
Reflections From Shakespeare.
By Rosamond Purcell and Michael Witmore.
W W Norton & Company Inc, New York, 2010. 128 pp., 72 color illustrations, 9½x9½".
Publisher's Description
In this collaborative work, photographer Rosamond Purcell and Shakespeare scholar Michael Witmore explore the transcendent emotion in Shakespeare's work through photographs, pairing the allusive power of images with the subversive effects of Shakespeare's language. The book takes advantage of oblique connections to reveal things that cannot be represented directly on stage.
Purcell has pioneered the technique of capturing reflections in antique mercury glass apothecary jars, resulting in haunting images that seem to move with the liquid quickness of ideas. These images are an attempt to capture Shakespeare's expansive imagination in action—what Coleridge called his'myriad-mindedness': they take a visceral journey into the world of his plays. Witmore has paired each photograph with a short passage from Shakespeare's plays with an uncanny sense of the playwright's intent.
Ordering Information


text:
From April 1997 to March 2004, the Wisconsin SmokeLess States® project, with first the Tobacco-Free Wisconsin Coalition and then SmokeFree Wisconsin as the lead organization, conducted statewide activities to reduce tobacco use, particularly among children and youth.
The project was part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) national program SmokeLess States® National Tobacco Policy Initiative.
Key Results: Among the results of the project are the following:
- Smoking rates decreased 50 percent among middle school students and 27 percent among high school students, and cigarette consumption decreased 11 percent among adults.
- Wisconsin increased its cigarette excise tax by 18 cents, from 59 to 77 cents per pack.
- Wisconsin put aside $23.5 million per year in funding for a statewide tobacco control program in 1999, despite a severe state fiscal situation (a $3.2 billion deficit); although these funds were later cut to $10 million per year, this was still the largest expenditure on public health in Wisconsin's history.
- Wisconsin increased the number of smoke-free communities: 19 cities and one county passed smoke-free restaurant ordinances and Madison passed a smoke-free workplace policy and a clean indoor air ordinance.
- Milwaukee passed one of the nation's strongest ordinances banning tobacco billboards/outdoor advertising.
- Wisconsin passed Youth Access legislation, restricting cigarette vending machines and the "give-away" of tobacco products to adult-only locations and allowing local communities to raise their tobacco license fees from $5 to $100.
- Wisconsin passed a SmokeFree Dorms bill, which bans smoking in all University of Wisconsin dormitories and residence halls.
- SmokeFree Wisconsin successfully fended off repeated attempts by the tobacco and restaurant industries to pass preemption legislation.
- SmokeFree Wisconsin helped create a new awareness in the state about the dangers of secondhand smoke and the need for tobacco prevention and control.


:
 1. Braces delimiting a macro argument do not create a scope (they are consumed on parsing the argument). However, some commands will themselves introduce a brace group in their expansion. The following will not be typeset ragged right, because the implementation of \emph expands its argument inside a brace group:
 \emph{\raggedright Some text I tried to typeset italic and ragged right.}
 2. The braces around a macro definition also do not create a scope, allowing us to write things like
 \newcommand\mybold{this: \bfseries}
 Everything after \mybold is now set in boldface.
 which produces:
 Everything after this: is now set in boldface.
 3. LaTeX's \begin{something} and \end{something} macros internally add a brace group, so they are scope delimiters.
share|improve this answer
AFAIK, LaTeX does use the "delimited arguments" in picture environment. – mbork Nov 18 '12 at 12:49
Hmm, you mean the arguments delimited by parentheses, _USER_? That's another case of "internal" use, I'd say. LaTeX uses the feature to define its command syntax, but you can't specify arbitrary delimiters to your own macros with \newcommand, \ProvideCommand, etc.-- and since the LaTeX Gods direct us to only use the LaTeX interface, arbitrary delimiters are effectively forbidden. (With the very partial exception, now that I think about it, of the \verb command.) – alexis Nov 18 '12 at 19:35
no one seems to have mentioned that latex files are sometimes converted automatically to (for example) xml/mathml, and such converters may require scoping by braces where (la)tex itself does not.
share|improve this answer
If a conversion tool is so simplistic that it cannot apply TeX's tokenization rules, it's not going to be very useful anyway. – alexis Nov 13 '12 at 20:22
_USER_ -- it has often been pointed out that only tex can effectively parse and process tex code. witness the file xii.tex. i'll leave it at that. – barbara beeton Nov 13 '12 at 21:14
Certainly, but the lack of braces around tokens is not what makes this difficult. – alexis Nov 13 '12 at 21:37
I like to write as few brackets as possible. I "learned" this style after reading the TeXbook, since Knuth defines many macros in such a way that no brackets are needed.
I find his style much nicer and economical than LaTeX's usual definitions, where one needs to use brackets in many places, e.g. \chapter{Some title}. His macros are usually terminated by \par, so you write
\beginchapter Some title
and you're done (you just need to make sure to have a blanck line following it). The definition is in manmac.tex in case you're curious (it actually requires the chapter number followed by a dot before the title, but the idea is what counts here).
For another example, look at how his "letter" format on pag. 403 requires no brackets in any place. That's sheer elegance, IMHO.
After reading the TeXbook I realized how superflous brackets can be if you define your macros conveniently.
That's just one aspect of the use of brackets though.
share|improve this answer
That's ok for plain, but bad for LaTeX (as _USER_ explains). – Martin Schröder Nov 16 '12 at 14:21
There are a few places in TeX where braces are a required part of the syntax but those are few. When it comes down to arguments then TeX accepts a single token without surounding braces so \mathrm i would work if "typeset". But try this:
\section{$\mathrm \x$}
and you will get a subtle error in your output (but no error message):
enter image description here
The reason is that \x is suddenly turned during processing into its components so what LaTeX sees when typesetting the TOC is $\mathrm log$ and thus only picks up "l" as the argument.
For this reason, the LaTeX manual claims that all arguments have to have braces even if this is technically not true.
Personally, I do not use braces in all such cases, but whenever the single token is a command one better think twice before omitting the braces because even if it appears to work it may not do so.
share|improve this answer
+1 for a very good example! I believe that something like \ProvideDocumentCommand exists that would overcome this problem? – yo' Nov 13 '12 at 13:46
_USER_ what you are thinking of is \DeclareRobustCommand because that is what would prevent the expansion messing things up. But my point was simply to show that because TeX is a macro language we have to understand that data gets expanded and not just "processed" once in a while and that has its own rules. Which is why the statement in your answer which i translate to "it doesn't matter" is simply not true always... it only doesn't matter sometimes and you need to know when which is non-trivial. And therefore LaTeX claims that they are always needed! – Frank Mittelbach Nov 13 '12 at 16:12
I don't say that braces does not matter generally. The OP clearly asks "... evevn if the result is the same", which I answer by saying: "If the result is the same, the result is the same", which is certainly a true statement. – yo' Nov 13 '12 at 19:50
_USER_ of course you are technically right: if there is no difference there is no difference. But my fear is that people reading your answer will take away from it not the wrong conclusion, i.e., not realizing that what appears to make no difference may be under certain circumstance result in a difference which is unfortunately the nature of the beast. – Frank Mittelbach Nov 13 '12 at 20:02
I added a disclaimer, you're right that it seems to be necessary. – yo' Nov 13 '12 at 20:53
The LaTeX book consistently uses {} in all cases so all the examples use that form, you always see a^{2} even though everyone knows that a^2 works just as well and arguably improves the look of the source.
When the command taking the argument is a macro and the argument is necessarily a single token, most people drop the brackets as a matter of course so
rather than
and that is effectively standard LaTeX syntax now as well.
However the equivalence between a single unbraced token and a brace group is most consistently implemented for macros. For TeX primitives sometimes they are equivalent and sometimes not. So you can go
\fbox{a} \fbox a
and they do the same thing (although I would never do the latter) but
boxes a but
\hbox a
! Missing { inserted.

More problematic are places where people omit brackets, relying on the parsing rules of a TeX primitive, which then breaks when you later load a package that redefines the command to give extra functionality.
A common example is sub or super scripting. You can go
which produces a to the half times b, but often it would be nice to redefine the ^ character to be an active character (or \mathcode"8000 character) with definition defined by \def or \newcommand If you do that, any properly braced usage still works but an example such as the above would then be equivalent to
The frac would then raise an error that it was missing its arguments.
A usage such as
would work whether the arguments of ^ where parsed as a TeX primitive superscript or as a macro.
Thus users ignoring the rules in the LaTeX book and not always bracing arguments can cause problems and limit the scope of package designers. (The standard LaTeX2e \frac and \mathrm and friends were explicitly designed to cope with that unbraced superscript use, on the grounds that keeping users happy was probably better than assuming they followed instructions.)
share|improve this answer
Your Answer


text:
Short description The Encyclopedia of Peace Psychology, available online or as a three-volume print set, features nearly 300 entries from international scholars that examine the psychological dimensions of peace and conflict studies. Entries provide key concepts, methods, and practices that define peace psychology in the twenty-first century. An invaluable resource for deepening our understanding of the contributions of psychology to peace, it also offers insights into constructive ways in which psychology can be applied by private citizens and policy makers for the promotion of peace and social justice around the world.
From the contents Topics Covered
Activism Aggression Biological perspective Children Civil society Cognition Conflict Conflict management Contact theory Coping Critical perspective Culture Decision-making Drama theory Dynamical systems theory Education Emotion Empathy Ethics Forgiveness Gender Global issues Group processes Human rights Ideology Indigenous peacemaking Influence processes Intergroup relations International relations Intervention methods Levels of analysis Liberation psychology Media Military Moral Nonviolence Obedience Peace psychology Peace studies Personality Political psychology Positioning theory Prejudice Reconciliation Refugees Research methods Resilience Social identity theory Social justice Social psychology Social representations Spirituality Stereotype Terrorism Threat Trauma Violence

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


text:
Through a variety of online curated resources and interactive events, this project will advance topics of relevance and importance to the DRK-12 community, the National Science Foundation, and society; support interaction and collaboration among DRK-12 awardees; and facilitate DRK-12 awardee engagement with policy and practice communities.
This award will extend and enhance the resource center (titled the Community for Advancing Discovery Research in Education, or CADRE) for the DRK-12 program. The project builds on the unique experience and expertise of investigators at Educational Development Center (EDC) that evolved over eight years in the development and implementation of CADRE. The multi-faceted approach of CADRE 2017 strengthens the network's virtual presence in order to (a) generate and disseminate knowledge and products that support research, policy, and practice around key issues in STEM education; (b) foster interaction and collaboration across projects to maximize the individual and collective potential of DRK-12 awards; (c) offer targeted professional development activities and resources that support early career researchers and developers; and (d) provide focused outreach and dissemination efforts to the DRK-12 community, other networks, and broader stakeholder audiences. The evaluation supports continuous improvement of the network's design and seeks to identify components that have promise for adaptation in future endeavors and by other networks.
Through a variety of online curated resources and interactive events, the project will advance topics of relevance and importance to the DRK-12 community, the National Science Foundation, and society; support interaction and collaboration among DRK-12 awardees; and facilitate DRK-12 awardee engagement with policy and practice communities. Informed by their expressed interests and needs, this award expands upon previous work to support the professional growth of early career researchers and developers, with a focus on broadening participation of individuals underrepresented in STEM. The network will support knowledge generation, synthesis, and dissemination with a lens on DRK-12 resources, materials, and tools within and external to the research and development community. The network will also contribute to the knowledge base on the design and implementation of networks intending to support knowledge management and collaboration. The DRK-12 portfolio includes an estimated 750 projects that are driven by the field yet respond to parameters established by the National Science Foundation. Understanding the scope of the portfolio, in relation to trends in research, policy, and practice, is important because collectively, the awards produce resources, models, and technologies that can influence the field. Convening the awardees through multiple virtual venues, and promoting collaboration and interaction among the projects, maximizes the collective potential of the projects. Supporting the development of early career researchers and developers, the project's impact extends into the building of the next generation of scholars. With an emphasis on communication and dissemination of the DRK-12 project findings and products in STEM research and development, the network will contribute to a more evidence-based understanding of STEM education.


text:
Beef Cattle Winter Water Needs Complicated this Year
Many area ponds are low due to the short rainfall during 2012. As cold weather approaches and shallow ponds freeze, there is concern among cattle producers about meeting the water needs of their cattle.
"Some farmers are already hauling water so it's a good idea to know how much water different classes of cattle need each day," said Eldon Cole, a livestock specialist with University of Missouri Extension.
Water requirements vary depending on the cattle's size, lactation status, ration they are eating and ambient temperature. Growing heifers, steers and bulls weighing 600 pounds require 5.3 gallons of water a day when the average ambient temperature is 40 degrees Fahrenheiht.
As the temperature goes up to 50 degrees, water needs increase slightly to 5.8 gallons per head per day. Intake at temperatures below 40 degrees does not change much.
Pregnant cows need 6 to 6.5 gallons at 40 degrees. Following calving, those same cow's intake for water jumps to roughly 11.5 gallons per day at 40 degrees and 12.6 gallons at 50 degrees.
Mature bulls require around 8.5 gallons per day at 40 degrees and below needs increase to 9.4 gallons per head at 50 degrees.
According to Cole, the moisture level of an animal's diet varies and that can influence actual water intake.
"A lot of high moisture haylage and silage will be fed in the coming months. The haylage may contain 50 percent moisture and an animal eating 25 pounds of it per day will consume about 12.5 pounds of moisture. This reduces the actual water need by about 1.5 gallons," said Cole.
Silage contains around 65 to 70 percent moisture and intake by cows may run in the 40 to 50 pound per day range, or even more. That adds up to over 30 pounds of moisture which amounts to nearly 4 gallons of water.
"In some areas cattle may be grazing pasture that contains around 50 percent moisture that helps reduce the actual gallons per day required," said Cole.
Cattle are sometimes given a supplement containing 10 to 30 percent plain white salt that allows them to be self-fed. Under these conditions, cattle may drink 50 percent or more water so be certain ponds, streams or other water sources provide ample water.
"Frozen water is less a concern now than in years gone by, thanks to the large number of automatic waters we now see in pastures. If you still rely on ponds, make sure after a cold snap that cattle have access to water daily," said Cole.
"I did a blog last summer on using the low or no water in an older pond as an opportunity to renovate or clean out the accumulated silt without having to drain the pond by opening the dam," said Jim Jarman, agronomy specialist.
Source: Eldon Cole, _PHONE_ and Jim Jarman, _PHONE_


text:
Created by: iRobot and the University of Chicago
Size: Prototypes run from the size of a ping pong ball to basketball size
Purpose: Shape-shift and fit through small spaces
The makers of the Roomba and Scooba took on a grant from the U.S. Army and the Defense Dept. to create a shape-shifting robot. The result is the Chembot. It moves by inflating and deflating as well as by pushing certain sections out and jumping along. Still in the realm of technology research, iRobot will not produce these soon. It could be a long while before we see a shape-shifting robot squeeze through a crack in the door.
See Chembot in action


A spectacular phenomenon
In French this disease is also called apoplexis: For humans, the term meant an vascular accident. For the vineyard it means a drying of the plant within hours often in summer, after a rain. It is also called Esca.
Wilting after a rain?
Esca on a vine of Chardonnay July 21, 2007
In fact, the wood of the vines is already contaminated by a fungus that destroyed part of the vessels that carry water (xylem) to the leaves. After a summer rain, heat and sunlight causes a marked increase in evaporation and transpiration by the leaves. To compensate, it is necessary that the vessels that carry water from the soil arenumerous and not damaged. It also requires that the soil is wet enough to provide water.If the plant evaporates / transpires more water than the soil can not bring him wiltingoccurs within hours : l'apoplexie.
Some varieties such as Sauvignon are more sensitive. If many vines (above 10%) are achieved you have a vine that is infected by a fungus that makes die every year. This vine is not qualitative, and will be even less next year.
The yield per hectare a fraud?
A quality criterion is the yield per hectare. Less the vines produce and more must be the quality.
The yield calculation is based on a theoretical number of vines a hectare. Each vine will produce essentially the same weight. In the case of a sick vine calculation will be based always on the same theoretical number of plants per hectare (this is the default for this quality criterion). But as there are many dead vines the winemaker can produce more in the stocks that remain (in France you must respect the Law of the yield per hectare), and it is not at all qualitatively. In fact the winemaker pushing the vines remaining to overproduce to compensate for the loss of dead vines.
For example: 7 tonnes/hectare for a vineyard is a good quality performance. 7 tonnes /hectare for a vineyard with 1/4 vines of dead is by no qualitative
Here a crucial observation that you can easily do
{jacomment on}
Vers le haut


text:
Oscilloscopes (or scopes) test and display voltage signals as waveforms, visual representations of the variation of voltage over time. The signals are plotted on a graph, which shows how the signal changes. The vertical (Y) access represents the voltage measurement and the horizontal (X) axis represents time.
Sampling is the process of converting a portion of an input signal into a number of discrete electrical values for the purpose of storage, processing and display. The magnitude of each sampled point is equal to the amplitude of the input signal at the time the signal is sampled.
The input waveform appears as a series of dots on the oscilloscope display. If the dots are widely spaced and difficult to interpret as a waveform, they can be connected using a process called interpolation, which connects the dots with lines, or vectors.
Trigger controls allow you to stabilize and display a repetitive waveform.
Edge triggering is the most common form of triggering. In this mode, the trigger level and slope controls provide the basic trigger point definition. The slope control determines whether the trigger point is on the rising or the falling edge of a signal, and the level control determines where on the edge the trigger point occurs.
When working with complex signals like a series of pulses, pulse-width triggering may be required. With this technique, both the trigger-level setting, and the next falling edge of the signal must occur within a specified time span. Once these two conditions are met, the oscilloscope triggers.
Another technique is single-shot triggering, by which the oscilloscope will display a trace only when the input signal meets the set trigger conditions. Once the trigger conditions are met, the oscilloscope acquires and updates the display, and then freezes the display to hold the trace.


How Arizona and Colorado are rethinking energy vs. water
How Arizona and Colorado are rethinking energy vs. water
Power plant image by Martin Nikolaj Bech via Flickr
Over the past few weeks, I've written a number of posts to help shed light on the fundamental connection between energy and water. Because many of our energy sources gulp down huge volumes of water, it's imperative that we break down the long-standing division between energy and water planning -- especially in drought-prone states such as Texas. I'd like to take a step back and look at how Texas' neighbors are addressing energy and water co-management. While Texas may be an extreme example, looking toward its immediate neighbors could provide ideas and best practices to improve the state's situation.
A number of western states face many of the same challenges as Texas. Electricity production is a major drain on the region's water supply. A study co-authored by Western Resource Advocates and Environmental Defense Fund showed that thermoelectric power plants -- such as coal, natural gas and nuclear -- in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Utah consumed an estimated 292 million gallons of water each day in 2005, roughly equal to the amount of water consumed by Denver, Phoenix and Albuquerque combined (and we're talking water consumption, not just withdrawals).
Additionally, electricity production, numerous thirsty cities and widespread agricultural activity all strain the water system, too. Because so many flock to western states for fishing, kayaking, rafting and other recreational water activities, setting the region's water system on a sustainable path is a critical economic issue. The exceptional challenges facing western states already have prompted some states to consider the energy-water nexus when planning to meet future water and electricity needs.
Arizona is at the forefront of innovative co-management policies that address the energy-water nexus. The Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC), the state agency charged with regulating electricity, has considered water in its electric resource planning for over 10 years. The agency has gone so far as to deny permits for proposed natural gas power plants partially because of their impact on groundwater supplies.
The ACC also has ordered Arizona Public Service (APS), the state's largest and longest-serving electric company, to consider building new solar farms, specifically noting solar energy's low-water needs. To APS' credit, the company has reported water consumption for its energy portfolio since 2009, although water has been a factor in energy planning for far longer than that. Since the 1980s, the Palo Verde nuclear plant has used treated wastewater from the city of Phoenix rather than fresh water, successfully offsetting 20 billion gallons of fresh water consumption each year.
One of Arizona's largest utilities, the Salt River Project (SRP), provides both water and electricity services to the Phoenix metropolitan area. Oddly enough, SRP considers water in its electric planning, but does not consider electricity in its water planning. In its electric planning, SRP estimates the monetary and social costs of new water supplies needed for power plants, but doesn't consider the explicit economic value of the water resource itself. Thus, despite SRP's admirable work on the energy-water nexus, it's not looking at the full picture.
While the electric side of the equation is making strides to bridge energy and water planning, the water side is farther behind. An illustrative example is the Central Arizona Project, a 336-mile aqueduct that delivers 500 billion gallons of water per year to Tucson and Phoenix. In addition to being the largest and most expensive aqueduct system constructed in the United States, it is also the leading electricity user in Arizona. Each year, the aqueduct uses 2.8 million megawatt-hours of energy (about a quarter of the energy produced by a coal-fired power plant) to move water across the desert and up mountains.
Some areas of Arizona are working to reduce water's enormous energy footprint. For instance, the city of Tucson has a robust water recycling program. By using recycled water rather than drinking water for irrigation, the city saves enough water to provide for over 60,000 families each year, reducing the city's reliance on more energy-intensive freshwater supplies.
Colorado is another state working to unite energy and water planning. The state's renewable portfolio standard, passed by voters in 2004, highlights renewable energy's smaller water footprint. The state also encourages the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to consider water resources in its electric planning and to include water usage when evaluating permits for new power plants. For the past three years, the state has required utilities to report water withdrawal and consumption information for all of its power plants.
Notably, it seems Colorado policymakers have realized the energy-water nexus is a two-way street. In addition to the state's electric sector considering water use, the state's water planners intend to include a segment on the energy-water nexus in their upcoming state water plan. Even some Colorado cities have stepped up to address the challenge.
Fort Collins quantified its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as part of its Climate Action Plan and, in the process, discovered that 26 percent of the city's GHGs came from its water and wastewater facilities. Within two years, city officials were able to reduce electricity use for water and wastewater by over 7 percent. Having a comprehensive climate action plan that acknowledges the connection between energy and water enabled city planners to identify novel energy savings and tackle the energy-water interconnection head on.
While all of the western states are threatened by the effects of climate change and the energy-water nexus, some states are doing more to prepare than others. Western states should look to regional leaders such as Colorado and Arizona as they develop policies to address this imminent challenge. Texas can learn from what other states in the West are doing. Our water and electricity planners should be looking at each other's sectors as a matter of course and adopting innovative solutions that reduce energy's water needs and water's energy needs for a sustainable future -- solutions I plan to investigate in my next post.
Editor's note: To learn more about water, energy and the convergence of sustainability and technology, be sure to check out VERGE SF Oct. 14-17. This is an entry in a multi-part series by Environmental Defense Fund about the energy-water nexus. It originally appeared on EDF's Energy Exchange blogPower plant image by Martin Nikolaj Bech via Flickr


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|Thuja standishii foliage and cones|
Thuja (// THEW-jə) is a genus of coniferous trees in the Cupressaceae (cypress family). There are five species in the genus, two native to North America and three native to eastern Asia. The genus is monophyletic and sister to Thujopsis.
They are commonly known as arborvitaes (from Latin for tree of life) or thujas; several species are widely known as cedar but because they are not true cedars (Cedrus) it has been recommended to call them redcedars or whitecedars.
- Thuja koraiensis Nakai - Korean Thuja
- Thuja occidentalis L. - Eastern Arborvitae, Northern Whitecedar
- Thuja plicata Donn ex D.Don - Western Redcedar
- Thuja standishii (Gordon) Carrière - Japanese Thuja
- Thuja sutchuenensis (Gordon) Carrière - Sichuan Thuja
Formerly placed here
- Austrocedrus chilensis (D.Don) Pic.Serm. & Bizzarri (as T. chilensis D.Don)
- Callitris rhomboidea R.Br. ex Rich. (as T. australis Poir.)
- Cupressus nootkatensis D.Don (as T. excelsa Bong.)
- Glyptostrobus pensilis (Staunton ex D.Don) K.Koch (as T. pensilis Staunton ex D.Don)
- Libocedrus plumosa (D.Don) Sarg. (as T. doniana Hook.)
- Platycladus orientalis (L.) Franco (as T. orientalis L.)
- Podocarpus javanicus (Burm.f.) Merr. (as T. javanica Burm.f.)
- Tamarix aphylla (L.) H.Karst. (as T. aphylla L.)
- Tetraclinis articulata (Vahl) Mast. (as T. articulata Vahl)
- Thujopsis dolabrata (Thunb. ex L.f.) Siebold & Zucc. (as T. dolabrata Thunb. ex L.f.)
- Widdringtonia nodiflora (L.) Powrie (as T. cupressoides L.)
Thujas are evergreen trees growing from 10 to 200 feet (3.0 to 61 metres) tall, with stringy-textured reddish-brown bark. The shoots are flat, with side shoots only in a single plane. The leaves are scale-like 1–10 mm long, except young seedlings in their first year, which have needle-like leaves. The scale leaves are arranged in alternating decussate pairs in four rows along the twigs. The male cones are small, inconspicuous, and are located at the tips of the twigs. The female cones start out similarly inconspicuous, but grow to about 1–2 cm long at maturity when 6–8 months old; they have 6-12 overlapping, thin, leathery scales, each scale bearing 1–2 small seeds with a pair of narrow lateral wings.
The five species in the genus Thuja are small to large evergreen trees with flattened branchlets. The leaves are arranged in flattened fan shaped groupings with resin-glands, and oppositely grouped in 4 ranks. The mature leaves are different from younger leaves, with those on larger branchlets having sharp, erect, free apices. The leaves on flattened lateral branchlets are crowded into appressed groups and scale-like and the lateral pairs are keeled. With the exception of T. plicata, the lateral leaves are shorter than the facial leaves (Li et al. 2005). The solitary flowers are produced terminally. Pollen cones with 2-6 pairs of 2-4 pollen sacked sporophylls. Seed cones ellipsoid, typically 9-14mm long, they mature and open the first year. The thin woody cone scales number from 4-6 pairs and are persistent and overlapping, with an oblong shape, they are also basifixed. The central 2-3 pairs of cone scales are fertile. The seed cones produce 1 to 3 seeds per scale, the seeds are lenticular in shape and equally 2 winged. Seedlings produce 2 cotyledons.
Another very distinct and only distantly related species, formerly treated as Thuja orientalis, is now treated in a genus of its own, as Platycladus orientalis. The closest relatives of Thuja are Thujopsis dolabrata, distinct in its thicker foliage and stouter cones, and Tetraclinis articulata (Greek θύια, θύα, formerly classed in the genus and after which Thuja is named), distinct in its quadrangular foliage (not flattened) and cones with four thick, woody scales.
Thuja species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Autumnal Moth, The Engrailed and Juniper Pug. The foliage is also readily eaten by deer, and where deer population density is high, can adversely affect the growth of young trees and the establishment of seedlings.
They are widely grown as ornamental trees, and extensively used for hedges. A number of cultivars are grown and used in landscapes. Homeowners will sometimes plant them as privacy trees. The cultivar 'Green Giant' is popular as a very vigorous hedging plant, growing up to 80 cm/year when young.
The wood is light, soft and aromatic. It can be easily split and resists decay. The wood has been used for many applications from making chests that repel moths to shingles. Thuja poles are also often used to make fence posts and rails. The wood of Thuja plicata is commonly used for guitar sounding boards. The combination of light weight and resistance to decay has led to Thuja plicata (Western Redcedar) being widely used for the construction of bee hives.
The natives of Canada used the needles of Thuja occidentalis (Eastern White Cedar) to make a tea that has been shown to contain 50 mg of vitamin C per 100 grams; this helped prevent and treat scurvy.
In the 19th century Thuja was commonly used as an externally applied tincture or ointment for the treatment of warts, ringworm and thrush, and a local injection of the tincture was used for treating venereal warts.
- Gadek, P. A., Alpers, D. L., Heslewood, M. M., & Quinn, C. J. (2000). Relationships within Cupressaceae sensu lato: a combined morphological and molecular approach. American Journal of Botany 87: 1044–1057. Available online.
- Sunset Western Garden Book, 1995:606–607
"Thuja". Oxford English Dictionary (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. September 2005.
- Farjon, A. (2005). Monograph of Cupressaceae and Sciadopitys. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. ISBN 1-84246-068-4
- Gymnosperm Database: Thuja
- Kelsey, H. P., & Dayton, W. A. (1942). Standardized Plant Names, second edition. American Joint Committee on Horticultural Nomenclature. Horace McFarland Company, Harrisburg, Pa.
- "GRIN Species Records of Thuja". Germplasm Resources Information Network. United States Department of Agriculture. Retrieved 2013-01-22.
- Flora of North America Editorial Committee. 1993. Pteridophytes and gymnosperms. Flora of North America north of Mexico, v. 2. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-508242-7 Page 410.
- Henry A Gleason. New Britton and Brown Illustrated flora of Eastern North America and adjacent Canada Vol 1, The Pteridophya, Gymnospermae and Monocotyledoneae. Hafner Press, pp 58-67.
- Stein, W.I. 1997. Ten-year survival and growth of planted Douglas-fir and western redcedar after seven site-preparation treatments. Western-Journal-of-Applied-Forestry 12(3): 74-80.
- Thuja plicata
- Thuja occidentalis
- U.S. National Arboretum: Gardens: FAQs: 'Green Giant' Arborvitae
- Bucur, Voichita. 1995. Acoustics of wood. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
- Höld KM, Sirisoma NS, Ikeda T, Narahashi T, Casida JE (2000). "Alpha-thujone (the active component of absinthe): gamma-aminobutyric acid type A receptor modulation and metabolic detoxification". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 97 (8): 3826–31. doi:10.1073/pnas.070042397. PMC 18101. PMID _PHONE_.
- David Hoffmann, Medical Herbalism: Principles and Practices, Healing Arts Press, 2003, p.588
- M Grieve, A Modern Herbal, London: Jonathan Cape,


text:
Образ судьи как риторическая категория и его отражение в решениях европейского суда по правам человека
The ancient rhetorical canon and the Russian rhetorical tradition, including pre-Soviet tradition of judicial rhetoric, considered 'orator/rhetor's character' as a central part of the ethical appeal, according to which the rhetor achieves the consent and adherence of the audience to his decisions when he possesses outstanding intellectual and moral characters. This is especially true when rhetors are persons who are vested with powers and authority, and thus can influence people due to their high position in the society. Judges inherently are influential rhetors, and they must be the epitome of the rhetorical ideal. The rhetorical character of a judge as a person of sound sense, high morals and benevolence found its reflection in the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. More frequently the ECtHR refers to 'judge's discretion'. As far as it poses restrictions on public presentations made by a judge and prevents him from commenting the on-going trial proceedings, the equality of the participants in the act of communication is secured by the imposing restrictions also on other participants of communicative exchange – journalists, lawyers and parties to a case, who should restrain from insulting words and unsubstantiated personal attacks on judges, as well as avoid putting pressure on judges through formation of public opinion about how a certain case must be resolved by the court. The analysis of the judge's image from the point of view of the rhetorical ideal, where the judge is included in the communicative act of decision-making, stresses the importance of the positive image of judges and judiciary for the legitimization of the judicial decisions and support of public confidence in judicial power. However, the judge's image of vir bonus – a respected, honest and discreet person - should be supported not by silencing the cases of judge's wrongful behavior, but by judge's support of his image of vir bonus by his high morals and good behavior both inside and outside the courtroom. A judge must be a man of high ethical standards, not just seem to be the epitome of the rhetorical ideal.


18 June 2021 05:42 AM
Mohammad Hussein Heikal
Dr. Muhammad Hussien Heikal was a novelist, journalist, lawyer, member of the Senate, minister, islamic writer and critic.
Ibrahim Abdel Qader Al-Mazni
Ibrahim Abdel Qader Al Mazni was an outstanding pioneer of the flourishing literary movement of the early 20th century.
Mahmoud Taymour
With Muhammad Taymour's first short story "In the train", the modern Arab short story was born and with his brother Mahmoud Taymour, the short story was further elaborated and refined.
Tharwat Abaza
All through half a century, the writer Tharwat Abaza wrote tens of novels and short stories about life in the city and the countryside.
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text:
It was whilst flicking through Professor Alan S. C. Ross's book 'Don't Say It' that I stumbled merrily upon these two terms, which were both new to me. A pre-lactarian is someone who pours their milk into their tea or coffee before the hot water; a post-lactarian is someone who adds milk last.
But which method is correct? Well, there is no strict answer to this. It has its roots in class distinction.
In previous eras, adding the milk in before the hot water was always done by the 'downstairs' of the big houses, who would have pottery mugs. These mugs did not react too well to the boiling water, and thus the cold milk was poured in first so that it instantly cooled the water and thus the mugs survived in one piece.
Meanwhile, in the 'upstairs' of the house, where they could afford cups and saucers made from china or porcelain, the milk could be added after the hot water, as the cups were able to cope with the boiling water as they were made from a more resilient material.
As to who actually invented the terms pre and post-lactarian, I do not know and I am still researching, but they are much grander than some of the terms one could use instead!
Tutor, The English Manner


text: zoomzoom writes: "Through a company called One Stop Satellite Solutions you can launch your own picosatellite for less than $50,000. Measuring 10 centimeters on a side, and weighing less than one kilogram, the OSSS CubeSat Kit is a special kind of small satellite called a picosat. Each CubeSat is a perfect cube, holding its experiments inside like shelves in a cupboard. A CubeSat can hold anything, from microgravity experiments to the ashes of a loved one, and can be deployed into low-Earth orbit. The CubeSats are launched in orbit from a larger satellite called a Multi-Payload Adapter (kind of like a big Borg cube launching little Borg cubes). I read about this in a Spaceflightnow article linked up at bottomquark." I dunno - it does seem some kind of a stretch - anyone have confirmation?


Labor needs to get Sydney on side
By Louise Dodson
September 21, 2004
The election campaign has raised the question which has exercised the minds of many in Australia - is Sydney another country? With fat incomes, upwardly mobile attitudes and sky high mortgages in some of the most valuable real estate in the world Sydney, Labor and Liberal strategists say, is very different from the rest of Australia.
Many in the Labor Party believe that these days Sydney is just too rich to vote for Mark Latham. A study by the Parliamentary Library has ranked electorates around Australia on the basis of socio-economic advantage and economic resources.
It makes interesting reading. It demonstrates very starkly the information which has been surfacing in confidential polling by both the Labor and Liberal parties - that winning seats in Sydney is difficult for Latham.
The study of relative socio-economic advantage ranks electorates on the basis of such factors as income, occupation, employment levels, education qualifications, internet usage and size of dwelling.
Sydney wins hands down with five of the top 10 electorates, compared with Victoria, which has three, Queensland and Western Australia with one each. That leaves South Australia, Tasmania, the ACT and Northern Territory with none.
In the top 20 electorates, Sydney has almost half, while there are still none from South Australia or Tasmania.
Another ranking the library uses - the index of economic resources - measures income and expenditure taking account of what people earn, their mortgages, rental payments and size of dwelling.
Of the top 20 electorates ranked in terms of economic resources, 12 are in Sydney, including the top seven.
At the other end of the economic resources scale, neither Adelaide nor Hobart have any electorates in the top 20.
The index also shows wealth is spreading from the eastern suburbs and North Shore to the sprawling western suburbs dotted with MacMansions and four-wheel drives.
Outer-suburban seats such as Hughes (based on Stanwell Park to the south) and the western suburbs seats of Lowe (based on Burwood), Parramatta, Lindsay (which includes Penrith) and Greenway (based on Blacktown), all rate in the top third of all Australian seats when ranked on economic resources.
This is the new electoral battleground between John Howard and Mark Latham.
Newly affluent seats such as Hughes, Lindsay, Macarthur and Parramatta were Labor strongholds a decade ago but rebelled against Paul Keating, helping Howard win office in 1996. They have stayed with him ever since.
At the beginning of the campaign, Labor was hopeful it could win Lindsay, held by Jackie Kelly by a margin of 5.5 per cent, and Parramatta from Ross Cameron, held by just 1.2 per cent.
Since then Labor insiders have revised their estimates, conceding Sydney is tough for Labor and becoming tougher. Now they admit Lindsay will stay in Liberal hands, although they are still hoping to win Parramatta.
But Liberal Party polling is showing Parramatta could be held - even though the sitting member, morals crusader Cameron, has admitted to being unfaithful to his wife.
Liberal polling is also showing the party is within striking distance of winning a marginal seat from Labor - Greenway in Sydney's outer north-west - held by Frank Mossfield, 69, who is retiring after eight years.
The Liberal Party is targeting another Labor-held seat, Banks in south-west Sydney, which has been held by Daryl Melham for 14 years. With a margin of just under 3 per cent, Banks has been put on a list of Liberal key marginal seats, enabling candidate Roger Gray to win extra resources and help from Howard.
Even though it is being pursued, Liberal insiders now say Banks is unlikely to switch.
What is so remarkable is that after almost nine years in office, the Coalition could be in the running to win seats from Labor in the state which used to be the ALP jewel in the crown.
The Liberal polling found Howard's appeal to voters in Sydney's west could even be strong enough to counter antipathy to Cameron, the fallen local hero in Parramatta.
Ironically it is John Howard who is seen as a firm friend of the western suburbs - even though Mark Latham has made much of the fact he was born and bred there and understands the west's aspirational values.
Latham personally insisted Labor's tax policy include relief for those on the top rate - earning more than $80,000 a year.
This suggests Latham could be more popular in Sydney if his policies were better known. The question is: does he still have time to sell himself and his policies to Sydney?
Louise Dodson is the Herald's chief political correspondent.


text:
The Århus Convention
This article is recommended by the editorial team.
This article considers the Aarhus convention. This convention has been ratified by 40 countries, mainly from the Europe and Central Asia. The Aarhus convention has also been ratified by the European Union and is an important basis for the Water Framework Directive.
Origin of the Aarhus Convention
The Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters was agreed by the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in 1998. It provides certain rights for the public and imposes obligations to authorities regarding access to information and justice as well as to decision-making structures through public participation.
It is the first international treaty which sets down "the right of every person of present and future generations to live in an environment adequate to his or her health and well-being" - however only in reference to the procedural rights the convention covers. It acknowledges that the obligation to present and future generations can be achieved only through the involvement of all stakeholders. It is advocating a new understanding for public involvement in the negotiation processes of international agreements.
The three main pillars of the Aarhus Convention
The Aarhus convention is based upon three main pillars. These three pillars support the central idea that the general public has rights to participate in the governance of their country, other than tradional democratic rights. These three pillars are:
Access to Information
The Access to Information pillar has a passive and an active aspect. The passive or reactive aspect deals with "the obligation on public authorities to respond to public requests for information" so this is basically the right of the public to information they want on environmental issues. The active aspect is mainly about the right to accurate information and therefore the obligation of providing accurate environmental information by for example "collection, updating, public dissemination" etc. One important definition relating to this pillar is the one on "environmental information" which is defined by the UNECE (UNECE) to include the following: "a non-exhaustive list of elements of the environment (air, water, soil etc.); factors, activities or measures affecting those elements; and human health and safety, conditions of life, cultural sites and built structures, to the extent that these are or may be affected by the aforementioned elements, factors, activities or measures". There are some exemptions relating to access to environmental information and they usually involve matters like national defence, public security, justice and personal privacy. Before they are imposed, these exemptions are reviewed very well and often face many restrictions.
The convention lays down detailed rules for public participation procedures, including when and which information should be made available to the public. Its list where public participation in decision-making is obligatory includes activities in the fields of energy, metals, minerals and chemical industries, waste management, major wastewater treatment plants etc.
The public participation pillar gives people the right to public participation by setting some minimum participation standards in environmental decision-making. These requirements are similar to the ones for an Environmental Impact Assessment. The public participation requirements are:
- The "public concerned" should be notified timely and effectively
- Time should allow for public participation
- Acquiring information should not cost the public any money
- The decision-makers should take into account the public's opinion
- The decision should be made public timely, with full text and reasons to back it up
Access to justice
The convention foresees increased public access to the courts in relation to environmental decisions, including the right to appeal to higher authorities and independent courts. Access to Justice is the pillar that guarantees the right to justice in the following contexts: "review procedures with respect to information requests, review procedures with respect to specific (project-type) decisions which are subject to public participation requirements and challenges to breaches of environmental law in general". This pillar supports the other two pillars and "also points the way to empowering citizens and NGOs to assist in the enforcement of the law". Besides guaranteeing the right to justice in those three contexts, the pillar also requires that all of the procedures in the three contexts are carried out "fair, equitable, timely and not prohibitively expensive".
Enforcement of the Aarhus convention
The convention lacks international enforcement bodies or compliance mechanisms but provides only that the parties "shall establish, on a consensus basis, optional arrangements of a non-confrontational, non-judicial and consultative nature for reviewing compliance". Critics interpret the convention as having the weakest compliance section of all international agreements to date.
Significance of the Aarhus convention
Although regional in scope, the significance of the Aarhus Convention is global. It is by far the most impressive elaboration of principle 10 of the Rio Declaration, which stresses the need for citizen's participation in environmental issues and for access to information on the environment held by public authorities. As such it is the most ambitious venture in the area of environmental democracy so far undertaken under the auspices of the United Nations.
It is the first piece of European legislation that combines environmental rights and human rights and it is also the first document completely about public participation in environmental matters. The Convention is based on the premise that greater public awareness of and involvement in environmental matters will improve environmental protection. It is designed to help protect the right of every person of present and future generations to live in an environment adequate to his or her health and well-being. The idea of the Århus Convention is that greater public awareness and public participation in environmental matters will help to ensure the successful application of environmental law. All EU member states are party to the Convention. EU Council Decision 2005/370/EC approves the Convention as a whole. It was adopted on the 25th of June 1998 in the Danish city of Århus at the fourth Ministerial Conference in the "Environment for Europe" process and entered into force in October, 2001 and the process of ratification still continues.
- UNECE Aarhus Convention website
- EU website on the Aarhus Convention
- Wikipedia article on the Aarhus Convention
- Aarhus Treaty text
Please note that others may also have edited the contents of this article.


text:
"You think no one understands / Listen to my hands"
In the early 1920s, Surrealism emerged as a new cultural rhetoric and aesthetic rooted in using the element of surprise to open up new frontiers of the imagination, blending the playful with the philosophical. A Book of Surrealist Games (public library), originally published in 1991, is part activity book for grown-ups, part essential art history, featuring word and image games that the surrealists — including Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Pablo Picasso (to a degree), Max Ernst, and André Breton — developed to create their written and graphical art. Among them is this (very not safe for work, but then again so was the entire decade) erotic hand signaling chart, a naughty adaptation of the standard American Sign Language manual alphabet:
First person to adapt this into an animated GIF gets a piece of candy.
UPDATE: Reader Jamal Qutub did the honors:


text: The Philippine crocodile is the most critically endangered species of crocodile with less than 100 adults left in the wild. They are threatened by a combination of hunting and habitat loss due to extensive logging and farming in the Philippines. To aid in the recovery of the only population of this crocodile that can be protected in the wild, a small organization, the Mabuwaya foundation, started surveying the crocodile population and protecting their known habitat. They also started a nest protection program, a head-start program for hatchlings, and a habitat restoration program. Under the head-start program, hatchling crocodiles are collected and reared under protected circumstances to increase survival rates. This program has been very successful and increased the survival of hatchling crocodiles from less than 5 % to over 80 % survival. Your vote for this project will specifically help the Mabuwaya foundation continue their habitat recovery work as they plant more native trees along the river banks, create additional safe-release ponds for the young crocodiles, and track released young via radio-tagging so that researchers can better understand these wonderful creatures. Additionally, water pumps will be installed in this poverty-stricken region to provide an alternative source of water to residents of the three villages along the river that has been declared a crocodile sanctuary. The pumps will reduce human/crocodile conflict by limiting the use of the river for washing and bathing. For more information, visit _URL_.


text:
This article is intended to explain in a nutshell how booting works in general, what the Haiku counterparts of standard boot process elements are and how to get everything together for a working boot in case this is not done automatically. These are things you will encounter installing/booting most operating systems, so it's not entirely Haiku specific.
1. The Basic Boot Process
1.1 The BIOS
When you turn on a BIOS based (as opposed to firmware based) system, which is still the most common today, the first thing loaded will be the BIOS (Basic Input Output System). It is like a small operating system of its own and has the purpose of configuring the system hardware and provide an environment that a more high level operating system can work with. For example it configures PCI devices, harddrive controllers, USB, the processor itself and sets up ACPI tables in main memory. Current BIOSes are quite a bit more advanced than they were in the past, commonly having support for USB keyboards and USB mass storage to allow operating in so called legacy free configurations (i.e. without the old PS/2 input and maybe without some of the more traditional PC architecture components). OK, not going into more detail as that's not essential here.
So when the BIOS has done its job, it will try to find a Master Boot Record (MBR) on any of the harddisk-like medias or other boot method specific block on other media (El-Torito on CDs/DVDs for example). Something like a USB memory stick is regarded as being harddisk-like, because it really is emulating a SCSI harddisk to the system. When it finds a boot record, it then loads that into memory and instructs the CPU to start execution of the instructions present.
1.2 The Master Boot Record
Generally this is just the first block of any harddisk-like medium, usually 512 bytes in length. It contains boot code in the first part and the partition table at the end of the block. What you have there as boot code depends on what boot manager you have installed. You have either installed a boot manager explicitly, for example GRUB or the BeOS boot manager, or it was implicitly installed for you when partitioning the device (during Windows setup for example). Boot managers range from totally simple ones that are just enough to find the partition marked active and jump to the partition boot code of said partition, to almost complete operating systems with editing capabilities and other fancy features.
1.3 The Partition Boot Record
Additionally to the Master Boot Record, there can also be a partition boot record. It's located at the start of a partition and contains further boot code. Depending on the boot manager you are using and how you configured it, this boot code will be executed or not. In the case of Haiku the partition boot code does locate the "/boot/beos/system/zbeos" file which then starts the operating system boot process. Additionally it contains the partition offset needed to access this partition during boot. A wrong value for that offset is probably one of the most common reason why a Haiku installation doesn't start to boot.
As mentioned, whether or not the partition boot code is used depends on the boot manager and boot manager configuration. If you take GRUB installed as boot manager in the MBR and booting Linux. GRUB knows how to handle most Linux filesystems and it does know how to load and start a Linux kernel off of it. Therefore it can directly load Linux without the need for any additional boot code. However GRUB does neither know how to handle BFS and find the zbeos boot loader, nor would it really know how to execute it. Therefore you cannot use GRUB to directly boot Haiku. Instead you need to chainload the partition boot code of the BFS partition, as it knows how to handle both the BFS and zbeos.
1.4 The Boot Loader
After the boot loader (zbeos in case of BeOS/Haiku) has been found and loaded into memory, it is executed. The boot loader is the one providing you with the Haiku boot menu when pressing the space bar in early boot and is the one detecting basic system configuration. It also contains the logic to find and load the kernel (kernel_intel on BeOS and kernel_x86 on Haiku) as well as some boot modules required. Boot modules include the bus managers, bus and device drivers required by the kernel to successfully access the boot volume to load the rest of the modules and execute anything it needs to fully boot the system. If you boot to an ATA harddisk it would require for example the IDE or ATA bus manager, the harddisk controller driver and the helper modules used by them. Booting from USB would require the USB bus manager, the host controller drivers and the usb_disk driver for example. The boot loader also provides the kernel with configuration information and info about initial memory layout for example. This data passing between the boot loader and the kernel is specific to Haiku and the Haiku revision, it is possible that the information passed changes from one revision to another. This also makes it obvious that a zbeos from a BeOS installation cannot work with a Haiku kernel. Likewise using a BeOS bootfloppy that provides such a zbeos is not going to boot Haiku.
1.5 The Kernel
Once the kernel is loaded and starts executing it sets up a working environment. Memory management, bootstrapping and configuring non-boot CPUs, timers, interrupts, filesystems, module infrastructure, drivers... Everything that is needed for a fully working system and has not yet been loaded. Once this environment is set up, the kernel will start the bootscript, that then launches the different servers to provide a usable userland.
2. Installing Haiku
If you intend to put Haiku onto a dedicated partition on your normal harddisk, you have several options to do so depending on your host operating system and wehther or not you intend to use a pre-built image or build from source.
2.1 Building from Source
Building from source generally has the advantage that you can do modifications, include optional packages and that making everything bootable is mostly taken care of automatically. On the other hand it is of course quite a bit more time consuming and resource intensive.
See the Building Haiku on Ubuntu Linux article for more details if you're building from Linux. Building from Windows is described in this tutorial, note though that under Windows you can currently only build images and not install directly to a partition. If you're building on BeOS see the tools section of of the getting started page and see this article on getting the source and building it.
2.2 Copying a Pre-Built Image
If you can't or don't want to go through building from source, you can also take an already built image. You can download those from Haiku-Files. Download a raw image, not a VMWare one. Note that these are test images, they are not complete distributions that include a lot of software, both to keep the size and complexity of building them down. Future releases will include a more complete set of software obviously.
When you've downloaded the raw image, you need to get this image to the partition or medium you intend to install it to. Under BeOS, Linux or basically everything except Windows you can use dd to just copy it over, using the partition or drive as a target.
# under BeOS to partition X on the master on the first channel
dd if=/path/to/image of=/dev/disk/ide/ata/0/master/X
# under BeOS to the raw slave on the first channel (overwriting the MBR)
dd if=/path/to/image of=/dev/disk/ide/ata/0/master/raw
# under Linux to partition X on the first harddisk
dd if=/path/to/image of=/dev/hdaX
# under Linux to the raw second SCSI disk (could be a USB drive)
dd if=/path/to/image of=/dev/sdb
Make extra sure that you have the right partition picked there, as these commands are destructive. Recheck with a partitioning tool to verify for example. Note that you'll probably need administrative rights under Linux, so use sudo or su to execute these commands.
If you want to put the image at the absolute start of the drive (so that you don't need an additional boot manager), make sure that you write to the whole raw drive and not to a partition. You do that by specifying a raw device instead of a partition. Under Linux you would for example omit the partition number resulting in "sdb" instead of "sdb1". Under BeOS you would pick the ".../raw" path instead of one with a number. If you use such a command, you overwrite the MBR containing the partition table. This means, that all the partitions on that drive will become inaccessible (not only the first part of the drive). So be sure that you want to do such a destructive operation!
Under Windows things are sadly a bit more complicated. You can try dd for Windows or use a tool like flashnul to get the image to a partition or USB drive. You should find the tools on the Internet, see this forum post about how to use flashnul to copy a Haiku image to a USB flash drive.
Note that when you just copy over an image to a partition or drive, you won't be able to use the full size of the target partition/drive. The image was built with a certain size (256MB currently) which is the size of the filesystem inside the image. So there's no real point in making a 10GB partition available for it, it won't be usable.
2.3 Copying the Contents of a Pre-Built Image
Instead of copying the image


What are the Risks of Yield Farming?
an image of a person holding a phone with crypto graphs and a laptop with the same - the Risks of Yield Farming
In several of our recent articles, we have discussed yield farming. I published the yield farming guide and then created a tutorial on how to do yield farming on Ubeswap. As explained in those articles, it is quite profitable. However, there are several risks of yield farming.
Any investment that offers medium to high rewards has risks, and yield farming is no different. That is why in this article, I will show you the risks of yield farming and liquidity mining so you are clear on what you're going into before you proceed.
If you don't know what yield farming is, click on any of the two links above to find out. I recommend you click on the first one and read through it before proceeding to the second.
What are the Risks of DeFi Yield Farming?
Here are the risks associated with yield farming:
 1. Risk of Impermanent Loss
 2. DeFi Smart Contract Risk
 3. Unfairness
 4. Risk of Scam
 5. Gas Fees
 6. Bugs in the Code
 7. Price Risks
 8. Strategy Risk
Risk of Impermanent Loss
Impermanent loss is one of the biggest risks of yield farming.
When farming yields on your assets, you add liquidity in pairs of equivalent value; if you add one ETH in an ETH/USDC pair and 1ETH is 2000 USDC, you must add 1ETH and 2000 USDC.
Suppose the value of ETH falls to 1000 USDC, the coins in the entire liquidity pool shifts to make up for that. When you have a huge loss in any of the coins in the pool in such situations, you can end up with an impermanent loss where you get a lower value than what you put in when you withdraw your liquidity.
The profit from farming yields on your cryptocurrency assets sometimes make up for the loss, but it doesn't always. Given the volatility of cryptocurrencies, you can be faced with this risk any time the value of a cryptocurrency drops. However, it only happens when the difference in value drops a lot.
DeFi Smart Contract Risk
Smart contracts control yield farming and DeFi. One bug in the smart contracts can cause the price of a token to drop to zero. A malicious hacker can exploit that bug to manipulate the project for any possibility, including losing all your cryptocurrency assets in the pools affected. To mitigate this risk, confirm that the smart contract has been audited.
Yield farming pools are controlled to a large extent by the founders and wealthier investors. That puts yield farmers with small funds at risk because if a wealthier investor takes out a large chunk of their investments, it can affect the platform.
One good example of this is what happened with Sushiswap. It fell quickly because the founder, Chef Nomi, removed his liquidity which ran in millions from the SUSHI/ETH pool. That caused a 73% crash in the price of SUSHI tokens which, of course, affected anyone holding the coin, including yield farmers.
Risk of Scam
When considering yield farming pools and applications to use, you need to be careful. Anyone can create an app for yield farming if they have the necessary skills. You must ensure that you are not using an app that isn't properly vetted or the owners aren't known.
Even then, you might still fall to this risk. The reason is that you get higher rewards from new protocols and applications; anyone that jumps on such in the first few weeks of launch can make a lot. When such things are new, you can't get reviews or comments from actual users.
You can still check online for comments because, in most cases, there would be some publicity about the app before they launch any liquidity pool. So, check GitHub, Twitter, and Reddit to see if there are negative comments.
Gas Fees
Gas fees on Ethereum are high – this is one fact that no one can debate. This is a problem for DeFi yield farming, especially for investors with smaller funds; wealthier participants might not mind.
When a lot of people take advantage of a yield farming opportunity and lock a lot of cryptocurrency in DeFi, gas fees skyrocket. In 2020, this was a big issue where gas fees reached over 100x more than usual due to yield farming activities on Uniswap.
When such happens, those with fewer funds would realize it's costly to withdraw their earnings and might end up losing money if they try. If they choose to leave the cryptocurrency in the pool, any other risks, such as impermanent loss and liquidation risks, can lead to a loss. Ethereum 2.0 with layer two scaling aims to solve this problem.
Bugs in the Code
Every app has bugs. Even when the developers do their best to ensure they don't, they can miss some of these things. For most top applications, such bugs don't cause much impact most of the time, but sometimes they can be serious. A malicious actor can exploit such issues to their advantage, making all investors in the yield farming pool lose their money.
Price Risks
This risk is not particular to farming yields on your cryptocurrency assets; it can happen to any crypto investor. As long as you hold crypto, you are liable to the risk of losing your money. Price changes happen a lot in the market. If the value of the coins in the pair you provide liquidity for lose value, you would lose some of your money,
There is also the aspect of the token. Some yield farming platforms offer their token as part of the rewards to yield farmers. If the value of the token falls, what you expect as returns for your investment reduces.
To give a clear picture of the above, here's this example. When farming yields on your assets in Ubeswap, you get UBE. If UBE was $5 when you invested but a few weeks later, it is $1, what you get in fiat is way different from what you expected at the time of your investment.
Strategy Risk
When doing yield farming, your strategy matters. You have to decide on what kind of pair to invest in. A hot pool today wouldn't be hot in a few weeks from now.
Here's the thing: if a pool provides 2000% returns which usually happens at launch, in a few weeks, that can drop to 300% because more money would have been pooled in by then. People would find out about that pool and invest, and as more people invest, the returns would reduce.
Although yield farming can be passive, you need to monitor your investment periodically, follow crypto news and us (subscribe for email updates), so you can pool out of a pool and invest in a better one when you need to.
You also look at the market's volatility as that can affect your capital and returns. If you weren't sure about a coin but invested only because of the high returns and the value is falling fast, you might decide to pool your investments in another pool.
Yield farming can be long term, so you shouldn't have to jump from pool to pool. Strategize wisely, and you will enjoy the returns from your crypto assets.
That is it for the risks associated with pulling your cryptocurrency in a yield farm. You can grow your cryptocurrency assets, whether Bitcoin, ethereum, Celo, and other cryptocurrencies in the blockchain. It's a great way to grow your cryptocurrency rather than leaving it to sit in an exchange or wallet.
I hope you take the suggestions in this article to mitigate your risks, so you earn more than you lose most of the time. Bear in mind that every good investment has risks; you just need to know how to mitigate them to reduce their impact.
If you have any questions or need help, click on this link for consulting with me. You can also subscribe using the form below to get updates whenever valuable posts like this are published.
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Crosstown Traffic
Integrated Media Systems Center and USC Annenberg School of Journalism have teamed up to analyze IMSC's massive and ever-growing traffic database. Traffic data, particularly in a city such as this one, is unique in its ability to send us signals about the economy, quality of life, safety, and social and economic status in Los Angeles. Each team br unique skills to this endeavor. The expertise of IMSC researchers in computer science, data management and statistics was essential in the curating and codifying of millions of bits of information. The Annenberg side was charged with figuring out what questions the data might be able to answer and what stories it might be able to tell us about the city we live in.


ARM Technical Support Knowledge Articles
How is the ARM7TDMI core tested?
Applies to: ARM7TDMI
For the ARM7TDMI, there are essentially 3 different approaches to testing:
 1. Conventional parallel test:
 ARM supplies 10 sets of parallel test vectors, 27k vectors for ARM7TDMI, to test the functionality of the entire core. This test method requires access to all of the I/O signals of the cores, which sometimes might not be possible or feasible for an ARM core embedded in an ASIC.
 2. Using serialised test vectors:
 ARM provides'serialised' test vectors for the ARM7TDMI core to test it through the JTAG port. For ARM7TDMI, this increases the number of vectors to over 900k. The advantage here is that only the 5 JTAG signals need to be accessible to the tester.
 The TAP controller in the ARM processor core is a standard IEEE1149.1 compliant implementation. However, the scan cells used in the ARM7 core are not fully compliant, because they do not have an 'update' stage.
 3. Using AMBA:
 This technique uses ARM's standard on chip bus specifications, AMBA (Advanced Microcontroller Bus Architecture). If the users ASIC design implements AMBA, a 32 bit bus architecture, then it is possible to apply the AMBA test methodology to the core. The parallel test vectors have been partitioned into 32 bit words which can be applied to the core through the 32 bit test interface of the ASIC if the AMBA test methodology has been adopted.
 The production test patterns for the ARM7TDMI have been converted into AMBA "TIC" (Test Interface Control) patterns which present about 100k test vectors, with generally only 3 extra pins required.
 For ASIC designs using AMBA, this is the recommend approach.
Comparison of production vectors
Here is a vector count comparison between AMBA (TIC), Parallel, and Serialised (access through JTAG) production test vectors:
TestTICParallelSerialised (JTAG)
Tdebug *18025352765716
Tice *651501300355183
* The Debug and ICE test have a high proportion of pre-serialised sections.
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text:
Part of Speech: Verb
Meaning: 1. To deeply and persistently irritate. 2. To remain inflamed and worsen, to fester.
Notes: A word similar to today's, wrangle "to argue persistently", begins with an irrelevant W. In fact, confusion can arise with a number of English words with irrelevant Ws, like write, wriggle, and wring. Remember that rankle is not among them. Also remember that the E comes off before suffixes that begin with a vowel, as in rankling.
In Play: Rankle is a verb that may perform intransitive or transitive duty. You may rankle over an affront: "It still rankles in Abel Mann's heart that Myrna left him so abruptly without even taking off his Harley-Davidson leather jacket." It is also possible for an affront or a person to rankle you: "The new Mercedes in his neighbor's driveway rankles Foster more than he is willing to admit."
Word History: Today's Good Word has a twisted history that snakes its way from snakes through festering sores to the festering resentment it means today. It all began with Latin draco(n) "serpent", which English also grabbed directly for its word, dragon. However, the word had a diminutive, dracunculus "little snake", which was inherited by Old French, where it was melted down to draoncle "festering sore". This noun was converted into a verb, draoncler "to fester". The noun and the verb somehow lost the initial D before Old English borrowed it as ranclen "to fester", whence today's Good Word.
Come visit our website at for more Good Words and other language resources!


text:
Updated: November 16, 2022
sexwork sexworker decrim decriminalization sexworkiswork
This is a heavily loaded topic, so I'm just going to touch the surface in this blog post.
Why use the term 'sex worker' rather than 'prostitute'? The term 'sex worker' recognizes that sex work is work. Prostitution, on the other hand, has connotations of criminality and immorality.
Sex workers sell sex in order to earn a livelihood. There are many kinds of sex workers, ranging from fssw to online sex work. The reason why people get into sex work are limitless. Some find that sex work pays better than civilian jobs and provides better working conditions due to disability and mental health issues, while others pursue sex work to explore and express their sexuality.
'Sex Worker' vs 'Prostitute'
Those who sell sexual services prefer the term 'sex worker' and find the term 'prostitute' demeaning and stigmatizing, as it contributes to their exclusion from health, legal, and social services. I can attest to this.
Human trafficking is a horrific human rights violation involving the threat or use of force, abduction, deception, or other forms of coercion for the purpose of exploitation. This may include forced labor, sexual exploitation, slavery, and more. Sex work, on the other hand, is a consensual transaction between consenting adults, where the act of selling or buying sexual services is not a violation of human rights. Conflating trafficking with sex work can be harmful and counterproductive. However, the two terms are often used interchangeably which creates great confusion. In addition, the terms 'sex work' and 'prostitution' have been used interchangeably, which also leads to great confusion, as well as consequences to sex workers. By conflating terms, sex workers argue that Canada's existing adult prostitution laws are unconstitutional and violate the rights of sex workers.
Decriminalizing and destigmatizing sex work are important goals of the sex workers' rights movement. Advocates suggest that decriminalization has the potential to make the activity of prostitution safer.
There is a clear distinction between so-called forced prostitution (trafficking) and free prostitution (sex work). Advocates suggest that people have a right to choose sex work as an occupation, and that if they choose that occupation, they have the right to engage in it without violations of their human rights. That is why decriminalization is important.
Criminalization of sex work comprises sex workers health and safety by driving sex work underground. Criminalization includes everything from criminalizing the sale and purchase of sexual services, to blanket prohibitions on management of sex work. It makes it harder for sex workers to negotiate terms with clients, work together with other sex workers for safety, and carry condoms without fear that they will be used as evidence of prostitution. For example, I had a friend of mine, who was advised not to carry condoms across the border when she was going to meet a client of hers for a FMTY, and instead advised to purchase them upon arrival. Of course she did, but the fact that she couldn't carry them with her raises several issues.
Sex workers in many settings report extreme levels of violence and harassment in connection with their work, including from clients, managers, and police. Criminalization makes it difficult for sex workers to report violations (such as stolen time/ money, rape and abuse) especially by the police, because they are vulnerable to incarceration, further abuse, and retribution. This perpetuates stigma, violence, and impunity, which further endanger sex workers' health and safety.
Many opponents of sex work acknowledge the harms that result from criminalizing sex workers and support a system that criminalizes buyers and third parties—such as managers or brothel owners—but not sex workers themselves. This kind of criminalization, which is often referred to as the 'Swedish' or 'Nordic Model', which seeks to end demand for sex work while treating sex workers as victims rather than criminals.This model further perpetuates stigma against sex workers, leading to discrimination in social services, housing, and health care. It does not address the fundamental problem of criminalization, driving sex work further underground and pushing sex workers away from safety and services.
Criminalization and stigma do make sex work circumstantially harmful.
The only true answer is decriminalization, which means removal of criminal and administrative penalties that apply specifically to sex work, creating an enabling environment for sex workers health and safety. For decriminalization to work, it must be accompanied by a recognition of sex work as work, allowing sex work to be governed by labour law and protections similar to other jobs. While decriminalization does not resolve all challenges that sex workers face, it is a necessary condition to realize sex workers' human rights.


text:
The laser cutting machine itself uses a flying optical path system. During long-term work, the optical path will have a slight deviation, which will have a great impact on the cutting effect. Therefore, it is very necessary to check the light path and adjust it regularly. How to adjust the optical path of the laser cutting machine? Have you got these tips?
- 1. Check whether the laser can hit the first reflecting lens, if not, adjust the position of the first lens.
- 2. Check whether the laser can hit the second and third mirrors. If not, adjust the M1, M2, and M3 screws behind the upper mirror.
- 3. Move the laser head to the upper left corner and hit a laser spot to see if it is in the same position as the spot hit on the upper right corner. If not, adjust the M1, M2, and M3 screws of the second reflector to make the hit spot match The point in the upper right corner is in the same position.
- 4. Paste at least two layers of double-sided adhesive on the light entrance of the laser lens barrel, move the laser head to the upper right corner of the table and press the TEST button on the control panel to hit a laser spot.
- 5. Move the laser head to the lower left corner, observe whether the dot is at the same position as the upper right corner, and adjust the second reflector.
- 6. Repeat the adjustments described in 4 and 5 above, so that the three final laser dots hit the same position.
- 7. Check whether the focus is in the center: Put a mirror below the focusing lens, and place a transparent plastic machining sheet close to the lens barrel under the lens barrel (ie, hold it in hand) and press the TEST button to hit the laser to see if the laser spot hits the focusing lens. center of. Be careful of laser burns when holding the plastic sheet, and do not put your hands in the vertical plane of the lens.
Get the above seven tips to ensure that we adjust the optical path of the laser cutting machine. For us, the adjustment of the optical path of the laser cutting machine is very important, but his adjustment process is also very complicated, so we are setting It should be careful enough, only careful settings can ensure the accuracy of the fiber laser cutting equipment is the best.


What Are the Florida Labor Laws for a Commission Sales Person?
Related Articles
The Fair Labor Standards Act governs overtime pay standards for commissioned sales employees in Florida, which has its own minimum wage laws. Florida also has statutes relating to commissioned sales workers who are not employees.
Exempt From Overtime
Commissioned outside sales employees in Florida, as defined by the FLSA, are exempt from the act's minimum wage and overtime pay requirements. This includes employees who use physical contact to sell products or services off the employer's property, such as a traditional door-to-door salesperson. Exempt outside salespeople do not have to be paid at the federal minimum wage, or overtime if they work more than 40 hours in a week. This rule stands regardless of whether they are paid fully, or in part, by commissions.
Commissioned inside salespersons employed by retail or service establishments, as defined by the FLSA, are exempt from overtime requirements but not the minimum wage. To qualify for the overtime exemption:
 - The employee's regular pay rate, including commissions, must be more than one and one-half times the minimum wage
 - Commissions must make up more than half of her total pay.
Nonexempt Employees
A commissioned sales employee who does not meet FLSA minimum wage or overtime exempt requirements is nonexempt. Inside sales employees generally are nonexempt, for example, except for those who work at retail or service establishments. Commissioned nonexempt salespeople in Florida must receive:
 - No less than the federal or state minimum wage, whichever is higher. As of publication, Florida's minimum wage is $8.05 per hour, and the federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour.
 - Overtime wages if they work more than 40 hours in a week.
Unpaid Commissions
The FLSA does not oversee the collection of unpaid commissions, only wages that are within the scope of its requirements, such as unpaid minimum wage or overtime. To recover unpaid minimum wage or overtime, the employee may file a wage claim with the United States Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. She also can file a private lawsuit for unpaid commissions. According to the website of Arcadier and Associates, a law firm in Florida, commissions are regarded as wages in the state and may be recovered by claiming breach of contract.
Independent Contractors
Florida statutes provide some protection for salespersons who are not employees and who are paid fully or in part by commissions. When someone hires a sales representative in the state to sell goods or services, the contract should be put in writing and must state how the commission will be calculated and paid. The hiring party must give the salesperson a copy of the contract.
 - Commissions should be paid according to the terms of the contract. If a contract ends and was not put in writing, the hiring party has 30 days after the contract termination date to pay commissions due.


text:
Here's an unlikely effect of recession: It may actually be helping some Americans improve their health.
The majority of middle-class Americans say they are healthier because of frugal behaviors during the last year, including cooking at home or spending less on junk food, according to the results of a survey that the financial planning firm First Command Financial Services plans to release this week.
Nearly half of those responding to the survey said their frugal behaviors were making them healthier, while another 45 percent said at least a portion of their frugal behaviors were making them healthier.
"These survey results reveal an important connection between personal finance and health," Scott Spiker, chief executive of First Command Financial Services, said in a statement.
So what are some examples of the frugal behaviors respondents are engaging in?
According to the results, 45 percent of respondents said they have cut back in the last year by cooking at home more often; 30 percent said they were spending less on junk food; 13 percent said they have reduced driving costs by walking or riding a bicycle to work; 10 percent said they have reduced spending on alcohol; and 7 percent said they were growing their own food.
In contrast, just 2 percent said they had canceled or postponed the purchase of home exercise equipment, 3 percent said they had quit smoking and 6 percent said they had reduced spending on medicine, prescriptions, vitamins and dietary supplements.
The survey data was collected in April as part of First Command's monthly online survey of about 1,000 consumers in the United States age 25 to 70 with annual household incomes of at least $50,000. The monthly results are compiled by the market research firm Sentient Decision Science, and April was the first month the survey, called the Financial Behaviors Index, asked about the health effects of frugal behaviors.
Still, some respondents — 6 percent — said their frugal behaviors were making them less healthy.
Do you agree with the survey results? Why or why not? What effect are your frugal behaviors having on your health?