text:
Antique, Vintage, and Classic Car History 101
Some people use the terms "antique," "vintage," and "classic" interchangeably, but these terms all have distinct meanings when it comes to cars. Vintage cars were produced between 1919 and 1930. Antique cars were produced before 1975. And classic cars were produced in 2000 or earlier. Because there's overlap between these categories, other factors also come into play when discussing old and collectible cars, like their historical significance. Each state has rules about which cars are eligible for different types of special license plates for these vehicles. And some insurance companies also offer different insurance packages for antique, vintage, and classic cars. Most collectors, however, identify their car by the most restrictive category. For example, a 1928 Packard may be called vintage, antique, or classic, but since only cars produced in an 11-year span can be called vintage, it's most likely that collectors would use this label.
Karl Benz and the First Automobile: 1885-86
Karl Benz, a German engineer, designed and built a gas-fueled engine mounted on a three-wheeled body that was the first working, practical automobile. Benz received a patent for his invention in January 1886. It wasn't until 1891 that Benz built a car with four wheels. The engineer founded Benz & Company in 1900, which would go on to become one of the most recognizable car brands in the world.
Henry Ford: The Automobile Industry and Mass Production
Henry Ford had a simple idea: He wanted to make a car that the masses could afford. The result would be that he would make less money on each vehicle, but he would sell more cars, so he would make more money overall. Designing an affordable car also meant designing an affordable way to manufacture these vehicles. Ford first designed the Highland Park Plant in Michigan with a moving assembly line. Each worker had one job, which was a less expensive and more efficient way to build a car. The first Model T rolled off the assembly line in 1908.
The Studebaker company was founded in 1852 as a coach-, wagon-, buggy-, and carriage-building company. They released an electric car in 1902 and a gasoline-powered car in 1904 through a partnership with other companies. In 1912, Studebaker released the first car fully manufactured by the Indiana-based company. They experienced moderate success in the ensuing decades but experienced financial problems following World War II. The last Studebaker was assembled in 1966.
Packard Motor Car Company first sold a car in 1899. The company became known for building luxury autos. Packard pioneered options like air conditioning, 12-cylinder engines, and modern steering wheels. During World War II, the company produced engines for the Army and Navy. But in the post-war era, the company struggled. Eventually, they merged with Studebaker in the 1950s, but it wasn't enough to save the company; 1958 would be the last year that a Packard was produced.
MG was founded during the 1920s as a sports car company. The two-seater open sports car is the best-known MG, but the company also made coupes and sedans. The company changed hands many times, and in 1968, it became a part of the British Leyland Motor Corporation. Currently, the brand is owned by the Nanjing Automobile Group, and the company started producing cars in China in 2007.
Chevrolet debuted the Corvette at the 1953 Motorama show. Chevrolet's sales were slumping, and the Corvette was the company's gambit to reach new customers by offering a sports car in the style of British cars like the MG. It was a good bet. More than 1.5 million Corvettes have been sold over the decades, and currently, Chevrolet is producing and selling the car's eighth generation, the C8.
Chevy Corvair
The Chevrolet Corvair was available from 1960-69. Chevrolet produced this car to compete with the Volkswagen Beetle, and it was the only American-made passenger car with a rear-mounted engine. The Corvair was available as a sedan, coupe, convertible, station wagon, and passenger van. About 1.8 million cars were produced during the nine-year run of this collectible vehicle.
Ford has produced and discontinued the Thunderbird twice. The T-Bird was first introduced in 1955 and was in continuous production until 1997. Ford then reintroduced a retro-styled T-Bird in 2002 and discontinued it once more in 2005. The Thunderbird went through 11 different design generations. During those years, the car was available in a variety of body types, including a five-seat convertible and a six-passenger coupe. The 2002-05 Thunderbird was available as a two-seater convertible.


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AARP AARP States New York
Livable Communities
AARPNY hosts 3rd annual: Leading on Livability Summit in Buffalo, NY
By Andre Hidalgo, SEP 24, 2019
100+ Elected Officials, Policymakers, Planners Gather in Buffalo for AARP NY Livability SummitBrainstorm Ways to Make Communities More Livable for Residents of All Ages BUFFALO, N.Y. —Over 100 government officials, policymakers and community planners from across New York State and beyond gathered in Buffalo today for AARP New York's 3rd annual statewide Livability Summit, brainstorming ways to make communities in Western New York and across the state more livable for residents of all ages.
AARP NY Opens New Outdoor Fitness Park for All Ages!
By Andre Hidalgo, JUL 30, 2019
To mark the 60th anniversary of AARP and support our wellness and healthy living initiatives, AARP has committed to opening 53 AARP-sponsored fitness parks over the next three years—one in every state, plus D.C., Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. AARP is working with national nonprofit, FitLot, who will construct over a dozen outdoor fitness parks in 2019.
Disrupting Racial and Ethnic Disparities
New York State has long been home to some of the most ethnically diverse neighborhoods in the nation. New York's ethnic communities—primarily comprised of African American/Black, Asian American/Pacific Islander and Hispanic/Latino populations are not only growing, but also aging at a rapid pace.
Summit to Meet on 'Disrupting Disparities'
AARP New York is conducting a high-level summit on Friday, Nov. 16, in Buffalo on the disparities in economic security, livability and health care that affect communities of color in the western part of the state.
Fewer Bank Branches and Mortgages, Higher Housing Costs, Debt and Foreclosure Risk Plague Long Island's 50+ Communities of Color
By Erik Kriss, SEP 6, 2018
Experts and Leaders from Island's Communities of Color Brainstorm Solutions to #DisruptDisparities in Health, Economic Security and Livability at AARP Forum
AARP Applauds Temporary Reactivation of School Zone Speed Cameras
Stands with Mayor for signing of bill to turn on cameras before classes begin
Blog: Leading on Livability: Why Now, Why Here in New York State?
By Stacey Kratz, AUG 10, 2018
Did you know that New Yorkers 50 and over make up 35% of our population but the households they head generate 50% of our GDP? That's an over $700 billion annual contribution to the state's economy.
Innovators, Planners, Top NYS Policymakers Plot 'Livability' Improvements at Summit
By Erik Kriss, AUG 2, 2018
Under Gov. Cuomo, NY First State to Join AARP-WHO 'Age-Friendly Network;' Summit to Focus on Enhancing Communities for Residents of All Ages
Leading on Livability Summit - Aug. 2-3, 2018
By Stacey Kratz, JUL 9, 2018
Join AARP New York on August 2-3, 2018, for our second annual Leading on Livability: Innovation for an Age-Friendly New York at the Crowne Plaza Syracuse.
AARP Backs Expanding Effective Right To Counsel Law to Protect Tenants From Unfair Evictions
By Erik Kriss, JUN 8, 2018
NEW YORK, N.Y. - AARP New York State Director Beth Finkel issued the following statement in response to a proposal by New York City Council Members Mark Levine and Vanessa Gibson and the Right To Counsel Coalition to expand the landmark Right to Counsel (RTC) law signed last year. The law is already reducing wrongful evictions and ensuring New Yorkers can stay in their homes:
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Emails from AARP New York

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


It's been a long time coming but we are so pleased to offer the groundbreaking MZ-32 32 CHANNEL system.
Others may disagree with us but we think this is the best radio currently available that money can buy. So grab a coffee, sit back and read what all the fuss is about!
The mz-32 is centered around you!
With the mz-32 you are in control!
The mz-32 brings you the power to design your own screens, program your own control logic, filter your own voice notifications and even design the look of your radio.
Flexibility and configurability are the hallmarks of the Graupner mz-32!
With the mz-32 you fly smoother and beyond!
It can store and load up to 999 different user models, has 12 flight-phases and 16 curve mixers which can be set global or flight-phase dependent! The hall sensor 4096 resolution quad bearing gimbals provide the smoothest control feel a pilot can experience. The gimbals can weather almost any field conditions and offer easy back-access for adjustment to fine-tune the stick tension the way you like.
The mz-32 adapts to you!
The outdoor friendly 4.3-inch state of the art TFT color touchscreen ensures convenient access to all the mz-32 functions for setting up and managing your models.
The highly optimized and fast performing graphical user interface is driven by a high-performance processor making access to menus and functions fast and crisp just like on your Smartphone.
The intuitive touch and tap control makes navigation around the menus fast, easy and fun.
Designing your own screen layouts to display information or create menu shortcuts can be done on the fly by simply tapping on the screen.
The mz-32 provides over hundred widgets which make up the screens that you like and fit your style for controlling your models.
One radio for all, German, English, French and Italian language is supported with more languages to come all in one radio!
You determine how you like to name each of them.
Voices that you want to hear!
With over 600 installed voices, you can make almost any combination of voice announcements or add as many as you want using our text to speech editor.
With integrated Bluetooth and Wi-Fi the mz-32 is ready to connect you with the rest of the world! Use your Bluetooth headset to hear voice alerts or music from the built-in music player. It's your choice!
You can use the USB or DSC port also as a joystick controller for games and flightsimulators. Now you can practice flying your model on your favorit flightsimulator with the same radio that you use at the field!
Enjoy the HoTT integration of third-party flight controllers and sensors like Ikon, Spirit, 3Digi, MSH-Brain, and many more for easy access using only your mz-32 radio. Each of Graupner's HoTT receivers provides this functionality, and there is no need to purchase anything else to use these convenient features.
When it comes to telemetry, Graupner is king, and the mz-32 has all that is needed to keep you informed! Each Graupner receiver provides real-time voice alerts about signal quality, receiver voltage, and temperatures. Additional modules keep you informed about your battery voltage, battery left, altitude, speed, and much more!
The mz-32 allows you to set up almost any type of telemetry conditions alerting you when needed during all phases of the flight and eliminate costly and dangerous surprises. The active flight data logging is stored on the SD card for later review or can be viewed in real-time on a connected computer.
All the telemetry data output can be displayed on one of the six decks, enabling you to design your telemetry layout just the way you like it using the widget editor.
Training your family members or friends is as easy as bind and teach! The mz-32 provides a wireless and wired trainer option that can be used with any of our HoTT radios using the DSC port in the back.
You can assign control to any of the active channels depending on your student's level and model capabilities. Passing control is easily done with a flick of a switch.
Ergonomics is key for a comfortable feel, and the mz-32 is designed with you, the pilot, in mind. The ultra-smooth and height adjustable gimbals enable precise control during all flight phases.
Switch length and spacing have been engineered for easy and comfortable operation during flight. For those who need extra control, we provide optional sticks with switches or buttons.
The mz-32 provides comfortable rubber holding grips that further enhance your feeling of control. The mz-32 can be further enhanced with different colored faceplates that better reflect your taste and style.
The mz-32 has in total 8 switches, 4 knobs, 2 lever controls, and 8 user-assignable digital buttons. .
Please click the picture left or here to download the setup manual.
Please click the picture left or here to download the reference manual.
To purchase please add to the basket on the right. PLEASE NOTE: This is a special order item. Please allow up to a week for dispatch but in most cases it will be sooner. Thank you. If you have any quieries about ordering please contact us.


text:
Q: Unable to insert null value into nullable string field Current project:

*

*ASP.NET 4.5.2

*MVC 5

*EF 6

*Fluent API, tweaked for stored procedures

I am able to insert null values into everything except for a set of three nvarchar(MAX) columns in one table, and it's driving me batty.
The model:
public string SpecialtyEquipment { get; set; }
public string EQAttachments { get; set; }
public string SpecialtySafetyTickets { get; set; }

The Fluent API:
Jobs.Property(x => x.SpecialtyEquipment).IsOptional();
Jobs.Property(x => x.EQAttachments).IsOptional();
Jobs.Property(x => x.SpecialtySafetyTickets).IsOptional();

The table in SQL Server 2012 and it's clearly showing all three columns as nvarchar(MAX) and nullable. As this is code-first, I have never touched the database directly.
My (cut down) controller:
[HttpPost]
[ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
public async Task<ActionResult> JobAdditional(JobAdditionalViewModel model) {
  Jobs job = await db.Jobs.FindAsync(model.Job.JobId);
  JobMap jobMap = new JobMap(model.Job, job);
  db.Entry(job).State = EntityState.Modified;
  await db.SaveChangesAsync();
  return RedirectToAction("JobDetail", new { id = model.Job.RecruiterJobId });
}

My ViewModel:
public class JobAdditionalViewModel {
  public Jobs Jobs { get; set; } // to display most of the current job
  public JobModel Job { get; set; } // to edit a specific portion of the current job
}

My form model:
public class JobModel {
  public Guid? JobId { get; set; }
  [DisplayName("Specialty Equipment (not on prior page)")]
  public string SpecialtyEquipment { get; set; }
  [DisplayName("Specialty Attachments (not on prior page)")]
  public string EQAttachments { get; set; }
  [DisplayName("Specialty Safety Tickets (not on prior page)")]
  public string SpecialtySafetyTickets { get; set; }
}

My mapping model:
public JobMap(JobModel model, Jobs job) {
  job.SpecialtyEquipment = model.SpecialtyEquipment.Trim();
  job.EQAttachments = model.EQAttachments.Trim();
  job.SpecialtySafetyTickets = model.SpecialtySafetyTickets.Trim();
}

All errors flag my mapping model, and they flag any one of the three when there is no content in the textarea -- that is, if it a value that is nothing, or whitespace that gets trimmed to nothing.
I have tried all variations of "handling" strings of no content, and nothing seems to work. Every single time, no matter how I try to handle zero content (an empty textarea), I get a System.NullReferenceException.
For the record, these all fail:
= (string.IsNullOrEmpty(model.SpecialtyEquipment.Trim()) ? null : model.SpecialtyEquipment.Trim());
= (model.SpecialtyEquipment.Trim().Length == 0 ? null : model.SpecialtyEquipment.Trim());

I have even tried to substitute the null with string.Empty, to no avail.
In fact, the only method which seems to work is replacing everything after the equals in my mapping model with null;. Yup, that's right -- force-feeding it null values:
= null;

Instead of trying a ternary operator for which null is one option is the only thing that will actually work.
In fact, I have a number of different nullable columns scattered throughout the project that I can insert null values into without any problems whatsoever. All I have to do is cast the null to a nullable version of the column type:
(Guid?)null;
(int?)null;
(decimal?)null;

and it works perfectly.
But since you cannot cast a null as a nullable string, how do you handle it?

A: You can try with string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace and avoid calling Trim() when the string is null:
job.SpecialtyEquipment = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(model.SpecialtyEquipment) ? null : model.SpecialtyEquipment.Trim();

A: This line would throw NullReferenceException on model.SpecialtyEquipment.Trim() if model.SpecialtyEquipment were null
= (string.IsNullOrEmpty(model.SpecialtyEquipment.Trim()) ? null : model.SpecialtyEquipment.Trim());

This line would throw NullReferenceException on model.SpecialtyEquipment.Trim() if model.SpecialtyEquipment where null.
= (model.SpecialtyEquipment.Trim().Length == 0 ? null : model.SpecialtyEquipment.Trim());

To break it down again you are getting the NullReferenceException (NRE) because the value of model.SpecialtyEquipment is null and now you are calling a method on that null value. You can duplicate it by doing this
((string)null).Trim(); // will throw a NRE

This would be the best solution
model.SpecialtyEquipment = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(model.SpecialtyEquipment) // an actual null/empty check without the possibility of a NRE
    ? null
    : model.SpecialtyEquipment.Trim();

string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace
If you are using an older version of the framework that does not support this method than do both checks like so:
model.SpecialtyEquipment = model.SpecialtyEquipment == null || model.Trim().Length == 0
    ? null
    : model.SpecialtyEquipment.Trim();

Both of these would guard against a NRE being thrown by checking for null and not performing an operation on the string if it is null.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Building & Trade Permits
ICC & City Ordinances
Building permit application
Carlisle building permit application (pdf)Download
Colfax building permit application (pdf)Download
Gilbert building permit application (pdf)Download
Hartford building permit application (pdf)Download
Huxley building permit application (pdf)Download
Kelly building permit application (pdf)Download
Madrid building permit application (pdf)Download
Maxwell building permit application (pdf)Download
Montezuma building permit application (pdf)Download
Pleasantville building permit application (pdf)Download
Polk City building permit application (pdf)Download
Runnells building permit application (pdf)Download
Slater building permit application (pdf)Download
Story City building permit application (pdf)Download
University Park building permit application (pdf)Download
Van Meter building permit application (pdf)Download
Windsor Heights building permit application (pdf)Download
Trade Permit Application
Carlisle trade permit application (pdf)Download
Colfax trade permit application (pdf)Download
Gilbert trade permit application (pdf)Download
Hartford trade permit application (pdf)Download
Huxley trade permit with approved building permit (pdf)Download
Huxley trade permit without building permit (pdf)Download
Kelly trade permit application (pdf)Download
Madrid trade permit application (pdf)Download
Maxwell trade permit application (pdf)Download
Pella electric permit (pdf)Download
Pleasantville trade permit application (pdf)Download
Polk City trade permit existing construction (pdf)Download
Polk City trade permit new construction (pdf)Download
Runnells trade permit application (pdf)Download
Slater trade permit application (pdf)Download
Story City trade permit application (pdf)Download
University Park trade permit application (pdf)Download
Van Meter trade permit application (pdf)Download
Windsor Heights trade permit application (pdf)Download
Building Permit Application and Inspection Procedure
All new construction, remodels, additions, enlargements, repair, moving, removal, conversion,
demolition, and alterations require a building permit, as well as decks, fences, signs, and sheds. A trade permit is required for all plumbing, electrical, and mechanical work.
Submission of a building permit includes
The application for a building permit must be filled out completely including complete contact
• A scalable set of building plans. Electronic plan files are acceptable and encouraged.
• Site plans that include property lines, existing structures, location of existing structures with
measurements to property lines and other structures and location of proposed building or structure.
• Description of work to be performed.
• 2012 IECC Energy Compliance information: Prescriptive, Trade Off (ResCheck), Performance (HERS)
• Trade permits for any electrical, mechanical or plumbing work completed.
All work must conform to the applicable building code and/or City Ordinances.
Work must not commence until all associated fees are paid and an approved building permit issued.
When all requirements have been met, a permit will be issued. A permit is valid for 1 year and
work must commence within 180 days from date of issuance.
Required Inspections
INSPECTION NOTES
Footing .............................................. Prior to pouring concrete
Foundation ....................................... Prior to pouring concrete
Sewer /Water /Storm ................... According to City specifications
Groundwork Plumbing ................. Wet test required, weather permitting - Prior to pouring concrete
Plumbing ........................................... Prior to interior wall finish. Wet test required, weather permitting
Electrical ............................................ Temp pole prior to meter release
Electrical .............................................Rough in prior to insulation and meter release
Mechanical ....................................... Prior to insulation
Framing .............................................. Prior to insulation
Sidewalk/Approach ....................... According to City specifications
Final ..................................................... No structure may be occupied until a Certificate of Occupancy is issued.
Work must not be completed beyond the point indicated in each inspection without first obtaining the
approval of the building inspector.
One business day notice is requested on all inspections. Inspections will be completed by the end
of the next business day if one day's notice is provided. All attempts will be made to accommodate
same-day inspections, but a same-day inspection cannot be guaranteed.
Copyright © 2021 Safe Building - All Rights Reserved.


This is a list of the best free internet service providers according to our analysis, testing and visitor feedback. Use these free internet service providers to save money each month with free internet access.
Unfortunately, many of the best free internet service providers were losing a lot of money, and have gone bankrupt. The ones that remain have severely limited their services, to as little as 12 hours of free access per month. They also have annoying banner ads and poor reliability. Plus you don't know whether they will close down too or further restrict usage. None of the free internet service providers can really be recommended anymore, and the best alternative is to choose a Discount Internet Access Provider. These providers don't have the limitations of free internet service providers. In fact, they basically offer the same services as other paid ISPs such as AOL or Earthlink, but at a low discount price.
NetZero - This free internet service provider is limited to 10 hours of free access per month, which isn't much but there aren't many other options available. They also have a large ad bar, but they are one of the only free internet service providers with dialup access in both the USA and Canada. For more than 10 hours per month, try NetZero Platinum.
This list used to be a lot longer than just 1, but over the years all the decent free internet service providers went belly up. Hopefully, they will rebound again in the future, and we can enjoy a wide selection once again.
For more helpful information in choosing a free ISP and a complete comparison of many free internet service providers, please check out our free internet access guide, or our free isp comparison table. Also check out more info on our choice for best free internet providers.
65W Evaporative Air Cooler Was: $69.99 Now: $64.99 and Free Shipping.


A couple of weeks ago I talked about never giving up on getting something to grow. Well, I've persisted, with some stumbles at times, I admit, and my flower has survived and grown to maturity. Looking forward to a long bloom.
Apropos persistence. I got this shot about five years ago in my old house. I was sitting in my usual spot under the air conditioner and felt something brush my arm. Looking around, I saw this.
This gecko must have crawled up the wall outside and through the air hole into the air conditioner. When I turned it on, the gecko got blown out the front and had to hang on like this. When I frightened it, it dropped its tail and that's what I felt. But it hung on! I gently took it outside and released it in the garden.
This is crazy. On 13 March I wrote of the coincidence of two separate news events (woman drowning her child; Aussie Eurovision contestant chosen) occurring in one week in the town of Moama in NSW, then soon after finding a video game character called Joseph Momoa. Then soon after that, seeing the announcement of a Disney movie called Moana.
Now, today, it seems that the woman caught with drugs in Colombia is from a South Australian town called Moana.
Someone is making this up.
How much longer is this beautiful weather going to hang on? Can't we have some bad weather for a change? And where's the wind gone? Perth used to be the Windy City. It's not good enough.
My internet billing date is the 22nd of each month. This morning I found I'd used up all my 20GB allowance, on the 6th! I get shaped to 125Kb/s when that happens.
I never used to go anywhere near to using 20GB, rather down near the 5GB end. But month after month I'm approaching or exceeding 20GB and I can't see why. I don't download movies or songs. I do download software, and often it will be in the 400-600MB range, but that only happens a few times each month.
I've been wondering for some time if I have a bandwidth thief piggybacking on my wi-fi. This extra loading started quite suddenly, I think, more than a year ago. In particular, I can't make my PC stay off. If I tell it to Sleep, it goes to sleep, then wakes up again straight away. If I Turn Off, it goes off and seems to stay off, but many times I find it's on again when I wake in the morning. And much of my bandwidth is being used in off-peak hours, i.e. between 2am and 8am. Sometimes I do use the PC if I can't sleep, but rarely.
I do know that Microsoft downloads and installs patches in the early hours and can wake the PC remotely to do it.
Something's just occurred to me. I've got another desktop PC in the spare bedroom, two laptops that are usually just asleep most of the time and a tablet that is often just asleep. I wonder if … I think the way to prove this is to switch the modem-router off when I go to bed (it's next to my bed, because that's where the phone socket is). Then look at my usage graphs after a few days or a week or two.
Meanwhile, I pay $59.95 for internet service and 20GB a month, but it's only another $10 to add another 20GB when I run out. Not too bad. I don't think I'm getting a very good deal from iiNet, judging by ads from other companies offering huge data allowances or uncapped plans for no more cost, or less. Might be time to stamp my foot.
Toyota MR2 from 20 years ago.
Something has gone wrong with car design. Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!


What Is the Point of Navalny's Pointless Election?
In early July, Russian media reported Vladimir Putin's decision to run as an independent candidate in the 2018 presidential election. To do this, it seems, he plans to propose his own candidacy on general grounds, rather than as an official representative of United Russia—the party that since its creation in 2001 has identified itself exclusively as the party of Putin.
To be sure, Navalny—Russia's eternal would-be independent candidate—has been in the spotlight over the last two years. His anticorruption investigations have become runaway hits, particularly since he started putting them up on YouTube in the form of eye-catching, humorous videos. The videos get millions of views, while Navalny's personal social media accounts hover at the top of the ratings of most followed bloggers on Russian-language Facebook and Twitter.
Navalny's supporters conduct their street protests under the same anticorruption slogans he uses in his investigations, and the protests, which come across as colorful and creative, draw a lot of attention. Very young people, sometimes teenagers, who are immune to the blunt state propaganda on the staid state television, have turned out to be the most appreciative audience for Navalny's blogs and videos.
Still, many question Navalny's ability to bring large crowds out into the streets. In 2011 he organized the Anti-Corruption Foundation, the nonprofit, privately funded organization, which has become the main headquarters for his wide-scale anti-corruption investigations directed against many high-rank Russian officials.
It has also become the headquarters for organizing mass anti-corruption protests. According to ACF's own numbers, just 25 to 30 thousand Moscovites responded to Navalny's call for a day of anticorruption protest on March. And even by the most generous estimates, no more than 100,000 people respondedto Navalny's call to come out into the streets on June 12—hardly an overwhelming figure for a country with more than 140 million citizens.
Even the most optimistic polls give Navalny no more than 2 percent support in the upcoming elections and Putin no less than 63 percent. And anyway, one could say that this electoral competition as a whole looks like wishful thinking and, in the cold light of day, a largely theoretical exercise.
Navalny has two convictions for grave economic crimes, and even though the courts suspended both sentences, he is prohibited from running in elections. The election ban directly violates several articles of the Russian constitution, and Navalny's lawyers have promised to challenge it at the Constitutional Court and then to file a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights, but no one in the Kremlin is disturbed by that prospect.
It looks as though there is no real possibility for Alexei Navalny to get his name on the ballot, much less gain solid electoral support.
Nevertheless, for the last several months he has been running an informal electoral campaign and doing it energetically and creatively, with the result that he has acquired political gravity as well.
Navalny's success can't be described in the dry numbers of his supporters. What's far more important is the dynamic of the geographic coverage of his support and his growing influence on Russia's political situation as a whole. Each step moves him forward, perhaps just a little bit, but the overall distance he has covered over the last five years looks enormous—counting precisely from the moment when the anti-Putin street protests of the winter and spring of 2011–2012, which were bringing together over 100,000 people at a time, started to taper off, and the popularity of their leaders began to diminish.
A few months before Moscow exploded in protest in 2011-2012, The New Yorker published a detailed profile of Navalny, painting him as a talented muckraker digging up dirt on corrupt Russian officials and as an author of a few courageous and well-informed posts. At the time it seemed that his career path would one of a popular blogger, Putin's eternal public nemesis.
But a lot of important things have happened in his life since then.
The first time he tried to interrupt the trend in the decline of street protests was in 2013, when he unexpectedly announced his candidacy for the position of Moscow mayor. His chances of avoiding a total loss were viewed as virtually nonexistent. He was running against an incumbent mayor who had the backing of the Kremlin and unlimited administrative and financial resources. The incumbent could draw on the entire propaganda machine, the entire army of government bureaucrats and municipal civil servants in that gigantic megalopolis.
At the beginning of the mayoral campaign, by contrast, Navalny had a handful of volunteer supporters and negligible financing compared to his rival. Nonetheless, he managed to collect nearly a third of the votes, which put him in second place. The Kremlin candidate barely escaped a second round of voting, whose outcome would have been far less predictable.
This electoral result, which caused a sensation, could not, however, be considered Navalny's biggest political success. Much more important was the realization that the campaign itself could help a human ecosystem coalesce around a leader, an ecosystem that was capable of maintaining and enhancing his popularity. It also became clear that a campaign creates an organizational structure that doesn't disappear after the votes have been counted.
Moreover, Navalny managed to create a situation in which the Moscow mayoral election would have lost legitimacy without his participation. It would also have demonstrated the cowardice and weakness of his seemingly unassailable rival, rendering the incumbent's victory meaningless.
Navalny's "virtual" campaign today for the unattainable presidency is precisely an attempt to apply the approach he discovered in the course of running for mayor to the country at large. Like the campaign of four years ago, today's campaign is not a battle to succeed in a specific election but an attempt to build an efficient political structure that can survive in the long run. Once again, the very process of an opposition leader interacting with a community of politically active citizens becomes increasingly valuable in and of itself.
Under these circumstances, the answer to the question of what Navalny will do if he is not allowed to run—a question that is raised over and over again—is very simple: nothing will change, the campaign will go on, because in this case, to engage in the process is far more important than to reach a given vote count.
Clearly, the biggest success for Navalny in this situation would be to set the same trap in which the mayor of Moscow got caught. This time it is important for him to have Vladimir Putin face the fact that an election without a real opponent and fierce critic is nothing but a shameful farce.
The very fact that no one has ever succeeded at putting him behind bars for long also stems from his adroit balancing act. Apparently, he manages to make those at the Kremlin who make final decisions believe he is easier to manipulate as a free man, that his suspicious-looking "immunity" to long jail sentences is a discredit to him. In the meantime, he himself calmly goes about his work, as if he has learned to ignore the fact that any day could be his last day of freedom.
Technically speaking, over the last six months, Navalny's electoral campaign has turned into a massive effort to construct a network of campaign offices across dozens of Russian cities. The stated goal of this activity is to prepare a nucleus of supporters who can mobilize on "D-Day" the collection of the 300,000 signatures required to formally nominate a candidate. But in fact the rationale is still the same: the process of creating an opposition structure has inherent value.
By early June, the number of campaign offices had reached sixty. And each visit of Alexei Navalny with his team to a city becomes the main event of that city's life. Noisy meetings with local activists, mostly young and bursting with enthusiasm, hold the attention of local media for several days.
The only thing that the Kremlin and its infinitely loyal regional elites can offer against Navalny's methodical march across the country is violence and power abuses.
Thus a fierce scandal accompanies the opening of a Navalny campaign office in almost every city. Police and various officials such as tax and fire safety inspectors exert pressure on landlords willing to rent space to the campaign office. They are harassed by thugs and in some cases beaten up, while the police appear unable to protect them, for some unfathomable reason. Campaign headquarters lose electricity or water service; there are arson attempts and demands to evacuate the premises because of a supposed bomb threat. Doors are welded or glued shut, windows broken with stones and bottles, and walls covered with offensive graffiti.
Aggressive groups of pro-government vigilantes never fail to show up at Navalny's meetings with activists, looking for any excuse to start a fight. Visitors are pelted with eggs, paint, and offensive substances. Navalny was personally attacked at least three times this spring and sustained a serious injury to his eye after an attacker splashed acidic liquid disinfectant in his face.
However, even if all those offices are destroyed, even if the signatures are never collected and the nomination never happens, the infrastructure of Navalny's movement will never go away. One can lock the offices, destroy the computers, and burn campaign posters, but the people who volunteered to participate in the joint opposition effort will remain, and it will be much harder to disperse them.
Russian law-enforcement agencies have sent out orders to local railway, airport, and post office administrators all across Russia, directing them to seize under any pretext campaign materials – newspapers and flyers – that Navalny's local headquarters receive from Moscow. The head of Navalny's election campaign Leonid Volkov posted a photo of one such directive on his Facebook account.
Navalny is essentially forcibly constructing a nationwide political party. Twice he tried to register it officially in early 2014 and was denied. Now he is creating a functional structure without a formal license but with advantages that matter far more—namely, large-scale participation, broad geographic scale, and the real enthusiasm of the participants. If he succeeds, this structure will be the only oppositional organization of such a scale and compass in Russia. And Navalny will end up with a unique political resource in his hands, one whose value will endure regardless of the 2018 election results.
This enormous work demands remarkable cool-headedness, courage, and an extremely well-finessed and methodical organizational effort on the part of Navalny and his supporters. There likely isn't a single person left at the Anti-Corruption Fund who hasn't been interrogated in connection with some absurd, often unstipulated charge, who has not experienced a search or detention; staff have had their offices trashed, their private e-mail hacked, and their laptops and phones confiscated. The official head of the election headquarters, Leonid Volkov, and the fund's executive director, Roman Rubanov, have been subjected to administrative arrests. Navalny himself has been behind bars twice this spring alone, for fifteen and then for twenty-five days, his most recent detention having ended Friday, July 7.
As a politician, Navalny has no choice but to be tough, determined, and highly focused. As the only opposition leader able to achieve real success, he builds relationships with his colleagues in the opposition camp in a reserved and pragmatic way. He insists on being the leader. And when he needs to make decisions on his own, even though it means presenting his natural allies with a fait accompli, he does so again and again, earning rebukes for a perceived unwillingness or inability to collaborate.
Accusing the opposition leader of being ready to become "just another Putin, only an angry and a hungry one" is an exciting opportunity for an attention-seeking columnist and polemicist. But hastily applied labels are absurd and unfair. Behind such labels is the ridiculous notion that Navalny is a fully formed political subject who will develop no more.
However, just the opposite is true: the logic of constructing a powerful opposition resource forces Navalny to develop more than just the organizational structure. Indignation over corruption alone won't help draw universal attention and support. Day after day, Navalny has to hold increasingly more complex conversations with his supporters and undecided voters. He has to search for new stories and topics and reconsider and clarify his own positions. This is all becoming a prerequisite for the further development of his cause.
Navalny is above all a growing politician, one who keeps searching for his true cause and his natural style. He is developing quickly and evolving with ease, learning new things and abandoning ideas that have outlived their usefulness. A couple of years ago it was fashionable to search for and find in him a tendency to flirt with Russian nationalists. Where are those chastisers now?
What distinguishes Alexei Navalny today is that he is alive and awake. He has a keen intuition and is passionately involved in what is happening around him. He has already sacrificed a lot and is ready to sacrifice even more for the right to play what could be a decisive role in this adventure.
In today's Russian political reality he is like Viktor Shklovsky's "live silver fox in a fur store," on the edge of losing his freedom as a person while working tirelessly to construct an oppositional organization that can thrive without him.


As moderators we are starting to get more and more complaints from advertisers about unfair critisms to their adverts.
In future if you have an issue with the ad can you please send the seller a pm rather than complain about the sellers advert on the open forum as this unfair on the seller as they may not realise they have overpriced the spares or indeed mis-described something about it.
The main complaint from sellers is the fact that the biggest problem is that those that are critisising the ad's have no interest in buying the parts and could actually put of someone who has been on the lookout for just such an item like the one being advertised.
So if you feel you have a valid reason that something is incorrect let the seller know via PM as they may not be aware of the fact, as many owner drivers are not experts on their spare parts.
If you disagree with my posting please let me know on what grounds by a PM.
THE SELLER SHOULD BE ABLE TO DELETE ANY MESSAGE THAT THEY DO NOT FEEL IS APPROPRIATE TO THERE ITEMS THEY ARE SELLING !!!
The official forum rules cover all sections.
Therefore if a reply breaches the T&Cs you can contact a moderator about it or mark the post to highlight it to moderators.
We have no rules that ban a bit of conversation on a for sale thread and it is hard to avoid a bit of chatter in a popular and well frequented forum. Whilst this is not banned the most we can do is discourage it (hence this guidance topic) and ensure anything that doesn't meet the rules is moderated - usually fairly quickly.
where to break down next?


text:
Making CD's
Started by wpr , May 28 2010 08:42 PM
If anyone has any advise I could use some help.
At our church we just started to make CDs. We bought a CD recorder but it only makes the masters in the WAV format. I don't mind but some of the services run longer than 80 minutes so it would take more than one CD. It is very inconvenient to try and swap them in mid service.
I would then convert the tracks into MP3 using ITunes. Before using ITunes several people told me that they could not play the CDs. I am not sure if they could not play tracks that were in the MP3 format or if they could not play them when I used Windows to burn the new CDs.
We went out and bought another recorder that makes the masters in the MP3 format but unfortunately I can not move the tracks over to ITunes. Do to the prior problem of people not being able to play the CDs I am a bit concerned if I use another program to make copies. Another problem for me is that we have three services a week. When they are in the MP3 format I can put all three services on to one CD.
I need some way to put the tracks from 3 CDs on to my computer and then create a new CD for the congregation members.
If anyone has any suggestions I would really appreciate it.
dsenette
Je suis Napoléon!
at least you're not using audio cassettes.
people may have been having issues playing the MP3 CDs if they were attempting to play these CDs in older cd players (like car cd players etc..). most newer cd players are capable of reading MP3 CDs, virtually all OLD (pre-2000 at least) cd players are NOT capable of playing MP3 CDs (some will even refuse to eject them).
did the cd mastering contraption (the new one with the mp3s) come with any software? The device MAY put some kind of DRM on the disk that iTunes doesn't like. have you tried using windows media player to rip the music from the cd to your pc?
dsenette,
Thank you for the reply.
I am fairly certain that the majority of people who can not play the cds do not have mp3 players.
The cd recorder did not come with any software.
When I was first making the cds I used Windows Media to rip the new cds but moved to ITunes for a couple of reasons.
1. I found it easier to put the date, title, author on to all the tracks thru ITunes.
2. I stopped having issues with others not being able to play the cds when I did. Some of this is due to explaining the difference of a regular cd player and one that plays mp3. But there were a few people that had mp3 players who told me that they could not play the cds when I ripped them in Windows but could when I moved to ITunes.


I was excited to see that President Florizone's report on his '100 Days of Listening' had been released, and eagerly read all 196 pages. I do enjoy a nice report, even one as overly long as this, complete with lots of graphs and charts.
Overall, I enjoyed the read. I learned a lot about my university and what other people think of it. When I finished reading the report, I had a few complaints, but only one has stuck with me for days.
President Florizone's report has a constant air of self-congratulation and excuse making. This can be seen in nearly every section.
In the report, people are quoted complaining about the class sizes, but our faculty-to-student ratio is so much better than any other school! On paper, that looks nice, but it doesn't make a difference when I can't get in touch with the prof of my 200-plus class, and they are my only contact person.
Another example is the statistic that Dalhousie has 88 Rhodes scholars on the same page that discusses student debt. That's a nice fact to whip out on the high school tours, but it doesn't help me pay this semester's tuition. There's a time for that, and this isn't it.
Reading through, there are many other examples of this. Name a negative fact, back it up with something positive and at least tangentially related. We need to stop patting ourselves on the back and explaining away our shortcomings and come up with a real plan for improvement. Enticing students in with nice graphs and charts and then leaving them to fend for themselves obviously isn't working.


text:
Stams
The municipality Stams is above all known for its Stams monastery.
Image gallery: Stams
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The municipality of Stams is located at 672 m a.s.l. in the Upper Inn Valley.
Foto: Tom Bause, © Innsbruck Tourismus
The holiday resort is above all famous for its Cistercian Monastery which can be visited.
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The centre of the entire complex is the abbey church, which was raised to a "Basilica Minor".
Foto: Anibal Trejo, © Innsbruck Tourismus
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The beautiful Stams Abbey runs also a distillery: Its products can be tasted.
Foto: Baumann, © Innsbruck Tourismus
Detail in the village - Stams is popular with those who love active holidays.
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A well-known hiking destination is the Maria Locherboden Pilgrimage Church.
Fishermen and people seeking quiet meet at the angling centre at the pond of the abbey.
Foto: Eichholzer, © Innsbruck Tourismus
Altitude: 672 m asl
Stams is located in the upper Inntal valley, about 35 km in the west of Innsbruck. In 1065 AD "Stammes" was mentioned for the first time in written documents. Beside the famous monastery, today there are also several schools and educational facilities. In the left half the emblem of the municipality shows a red-silver bar in chequer pattern on black back ground. This bar derives from the emblem of the monastery of Stams. In the area on the right there is an oak leaf with an oak, referring to the protected oak wood in the municipal territory.
The holiday resort of Stams is above all famous for its Cistercian Monastery. It was founded by Meinhard II of Tyrol-Gorizia and his wife, Elisabeth of Bavaria, in 1273, which made Stams become the spiritual centre of the entire area. The monastery as well as further possessions were handed over to the monks of the Kaisheim abbey, who previously have been living in a little wooden building. This was meant to safeguard their future. You can have a look at the hall of the princes (Fürstensaal) and the basilica in a guided tour, and you can of course taste their home-made schnaps in the monastery shop. Still today the relationship between the parish and the monastery is very close. Every Sunday e.g. there is a service in the abbey church, and the priest of Stams is a monk of the Cistercian Monastery. The parish church, however, is dedicated to John the Baptist and has been constructed after the foundation of the monastery. At its place there was a little wooden church from the 7th century, and a little stone church from the 8th century.
Stams is also very popular with those who love active holidays! Its beautiful location in the Inntal valley is ideal for extending promenades and hikes. The ancient protected oak wood for example offers a natural trail, providing interesting information on this impressive piece of land. Moreover the Way of St. James, the popular pilgrims' path, goes past the municipality and is ideal for a day stage. Popular is also the hike from Silz to the Maria Locherboden pilgrimage site, in which you have to overcome a 109 m long pending bridge over the Inn river. And if you would like to experience the mountains, we recommend you a tour on the Stamser Alm pasture, which can be reached in a hike of 3.5 hours from the village.
Our recommendation: both summer and winter ski jumping is practised at the Brunnentalschanze ski jump in Stams, as there is also the ski gymnasium with alpine and Nordic orientation. Most of the Austrian ski jumpers are trained right here!
Tips Tips
Suggested accommodation: Stams
Hirschentenne
hirschen-tirol.at
Long-distance walking trails
Inn Cycle Route - Tiroler Oberland
Stams Abbey
Home Places & Regions Innsbruck and surroundings Stams
Mötz
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Mieming
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Rietz with its three churches is a popular…
Silz
Kühtai, the highest located ski resort throughout…
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Obsteig, the most western municipality of the…
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Kühtai is highly recommendable for persons…
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Oberhofen im Inntal
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Flaurling
The holiday resort Flaurling is located in…
St. Sigmund im Sellrain
St. Sigmund im Sellrain, the…
Polling in Tirol
Polling in Tirol is located about 20 km…
Mösern-Buchen
Buchen and Mösern, which is famous for…
Pettnau
At Pettnau there is one of the most ancient…
Hatting
The calm holiday resort of Hatting is located…
Leutasch
This village of about 2,000 souls is located…
The Rangger Köpfl and the Zirler Berg mountains…
The holiday resort of Gries is located…
The name Seefeld in Tirol stands for an…
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The holiday resort of Reith is located…
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The holiday resort of Ranggen is located at…
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The municipality Sellrain is the chief city…
Zirl
The market town of Zirl, located only 10 km from…
Oberperfuss
Oberperfuss is located about 15 km in the…
Unterperfuss
Unterperfuss, one of the smallest…
The idyllic holiday resort Grinzens is…
Kematen in Tirol
Kematen in Tirol, located about 10 km…
The village of Axams with its 5,500 inhabitants…
Birgitz
Birgitz is located at the foot of the…
Scharnitz
Scharnitz in the Olympic Region Seefeld is…
The municipality of Götzens is located about 7…
Völs
The market town of Völs with its famous…
Natters
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Mutters
Beside Natters, also Mutters is located at the…
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Igls
The holiday village Igls is located on a sunny…
Patsch
The municipality of Patsch is located in the…
Lans
The village of Lans with its 1,000 inhabitants is…
Aldrans
The holiday resort of Aldrans is located on a…
Sistrans
Sistrans is located in idyllic position at a…
Ellbögen
Ellbögen is located 12 km in the south of…
Ampass
Ampass is located close to the alpine city of…
The market town Rum with its almost 9,000…
Thaur
The rural village of Thaur in the Inntal valley…
Absam
Absam is a pilgrimage site along the famous Way…
The holiday resort of Rinn and the former…
The historic district of Hall in Tirol is…
Tulfes
Tulfes is located at the foot of the 2,677 m…
The holiday resort of Mils, located in idyllic…
Baumkirchen
The municipality Baumkirchen is located at…
Volders
The municipality Volders with its church of…
Gnadenwald is located only a stone's…
Wattens
The head office of the crystal company…
Fritzens
Fritzens is name-giving for the…
Wattenberg
The well-known Lizumer Hütte mountain hut…


Tanner Johnson was born and raised in Southern CA where surfing and shooting consume most of his free time. A few years ago he decided to pursue a career in the firearms industry as his passion for firearms and training grew. His background includes years of training focusing on the efficient employment of the rifle, shotgun and pistol. He has been fortunate enough to attend classes with a few of the industry's most respected instructors with backgrounds ranging from special operations to grand master competitor. He is an NRA Pistol Instructor and RSO. These experiences have helped him gain adequate knowledge of products available on today's market and their application for each end user. Feel free to call or stop by and he will do his best to answer any questions you may have. He looks forward to helping you with your next purchase!


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The sequel to "The Lion King" went straight to video
Straight-to-video: It's not an insult anymore
Web posted on: Friday, October 16, 1998 3:27:54 PM
From Correspondent Dennis Michael
HOLLYWOOD (CNN) -- It wasn't long ago that movies sent directly to the video market were considered flops, so bad they weren't worth time on the big screen.
But the times are changing. Video is now the most profitable industry, and more studios are opting for the direct-to-video release, particularly when that release is a sequel to a proven hit.
"It works because the consumer is hungry for the continuation of the story," says Michael Johnson, president of Buena Vista Home Entertainment. "And that hunger is satisfied with the acquisition of the video and the repeatability in the home, and the concept of a great film with great stories, a lot of the original cast intact along with the voice talent -- it all comes together and creates an event that works for the consumer."
The sixth installment of "The Land Before Time" is in video stores
Looking for quality product
"The Lion King II -- Simba's Pride," "Pocahontas II," and the follow-up to "Aladdin" were all considered video hits for Disney.
Universal Studios have a sixth "Land Before Time" installment headed for home video in the near future, and the current big-screen hit "Antz" will get a video sequel. The idea of going straight to video no longer has a second class connotation, industry officials say.
"They're really attracted to the property, to the subject matter and the talent associated with the property," says Louis Feola, president of Universal Family and Home Entertainment Production. "And the trade also doesn't have any prejudice, pro or con. All they're looking for is a quality product."
And the made-for-video market is not just limited to animation.
Made-for-video sequels are on the way for "K-9" and "Dragonheart." Recently released video sequels included "Addams Family Reunion," "Tremors Two: Aftershocks," and "Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves."
It's not only for cartoons: "The Addams Family Reunion" went straight to video
Cost matters
"From the studio perspective, the cost to make and market a direct-to-video title is probably only a third that for a theatrical title, and they can bring them out faster as well," says Jeffrey Eves, president of Video Software Dealers Association. "For the video store and the consumer, they're dealing with a known commodity, the characters are already developed and the story line is already down, so they're going to know they're going to like it."
Not only do production companies save money by going the video route, but they also have more potential to make money, judging by recent numbers from the industry.
"In the U.S. it's well over a $15 billion business," says Feola. "Compared to the motion picture industry, it's about $10 billion more, and it's about $3 billion more than the music industry at retail."
That's plenty of reason to forget there ever was a big screen.
'Antz' keeps marching atop box office
Review: 'Practical Magic' cute, but not bewitching
Review: 'Slam' says it loud, and repeatedly
Don't mention the 'O-word' around Oprah
Review: 'One Tough Cop' full of bad attitude
Come on in: John Waters is just fine
Controversial 'gay Christ' play opens in New York
Interview: Gary Ross breathes his life into 'Pleasantville'
Review: You don't want to spend 'A Night At the Roxbury'
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There once was a time when MLF only happened spontaneously in winemaking. These days, however, winemakers have more choices when it comes to performing MLF.
Learn how to stop fermentation before reaching dryness, plus when and why a winemaker may wish to do so.


How to go from Liverpool to Lanzarote ?
Lanzarote is your next holiday destination but you're wondering how to go there and how it is possible to get the cheapest Liverpool to Lanzarote transport offers? Usually, this is not an easy task and you'll have to browse multiple sites to compare all deals.
Thanks to your multimodal search engine Vivanoda, you'll find on the same site all fares for buses, carpooling, trains and flights to get to Lanzarote. Simply enter your travel date to Lanzarote and Vivanoda does the rest. Sorting options and filters are at your disposal to refine your search.
You'll mainly use the trains, flights, carpooling and buses of National Express, Ryanair, Monarch Airlines, Blablacar, British Airways, Thomas Cook Airlines UK, Thomson Airways or Transavia.com France to reach Lanzarote.
Unfortunately, there is no direct bus route Liverpool Lanzarote and there is no way to get you to Lanzarote from Liverpool only by bus. You will have to take other means of transport: ridesharing, train and plane.
It is recommended that you arrive at the Liverpool bus station between 15 and 30 minutes before the departure time, depending on the coach company. Finally, present your ticket to the staff of MegaBus or National Express who will allow you to put your suitcases in the trunk and then board.
Is Liverpool connected to Lanzarote with a direct train?
No, unfortunately no train line allows to go from Liverpool to Lanzarote without making any changes.
The railways Virgin Trains, Northern Rail, First TransPennine Express, East Midlands Trains and London Midland are the companies that you may travel with for your trip to Lanzarote.
Book your Liverpool Lanzarote flight well in advance to get the best prices. Most of the time, this is the number one yield management rule: cheapest price are available long time before departure (this targets leisure customers who are used to booking early).
Prefer flying to Lanzarote on a weekday (Monday to Thursday) and be flexible. Prices vary along the time depending many factors including the date and time of travel. So you'd better be able to have a 2- or 3-day flexibility to book your trip.
Prefer connected flights to Lanzarote rather than direct.
Which airlines operate the Liverpool to Lanzarote flights ?
Easyjet and Ryanair carry out a direct flight from Liverpool to the airport of Lanzarote, Spain.
Carpooling is a recent way to travel by sharing your journey Liverpool-Lanzarote with other travellers looking for the same route. Instead of driving alone the car from Liverpool to Lanzarote, it allows drivers to share the travel costs with other passengers.
Carpooling differs from the other means of transport because of an undefined timetable. This means that when looking for Liverpool-Lanzarote rides, you'll be more likely to find ones if you search only three days in advance (and not two months). This is more a lastminute solution to go to Lanzarote.
When you book a ride between Liverpool Lanzarote, you'll set directly with the driver how he can pick you up. You can pay online, so you don't need to give any money to your driver.


text:
Finisar appoints returnee Michael C. Child to board
Fiber-optic communications component and subsystem maker Finisar Corp of Sunnyvale, CA, USA has appointed Michael C. Child to its board of directors. Child will also serve on the board's Compensation Committee.
Since 1982, Child has been employed by TA Associates Inc, a Boston-based private equity firm managing over $16bn of capital, where he is currently managing director. He has previously served as a board member of more than 20 companies, of which 16 were public, including Finisar from 1998 to 2005. Child also holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California at Davis and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
"I look forward to having Mike back on the board," comments Finisar's executive chairman Jerry Rawls. "The fact that he joins us with a working knowledge of the company will enable him to make an immediate contribution in terms of guiding our company going forward."
Finisar's quarterly revenue rises 12.9% to record $188.5m
Search: Finisar
Visit: www.finisar.com


These oak cooking pieces are sized to our specifications: 8-11" long and 2-4" thick with the bark left on when possible. It has all been kiln dried, eliminating any pests and bringing it to to 15% moisture, approximately what you'd find in naturally seasoned wood. Oak burns very hot, so use it sparingly when you can.
Four 50 lb boxes, enough to last an avid home griller at least 3 months. About 2-3 pieces per lb.


text:
Q: How to change value in data row with type mismatch? I have a DataTable that I'm exporting to pdf and there are numeric value like status id that I want to change to strings for example:
dataRow["statusId"] = 1; //dataRow["statusId"] type is int

and I want it to be:
dataRow["statusId"] = "Open file";

How can I do it without coping the entire data table ?

A: You actually can't do it. The best way is to actually clone the dataTable and then copy each row:
DataTable dtCloned = dt.Clone();
dtCloned.Columns[0].DataType = typeof(Int32); //in the column you actually need.
foreach (DataRow row in dt.Rows)
{
    dtCloned.ImportRow(row);
}

Source: How To Change DataType of a DataColumn in a DataTable?


Although slightly bulkier than 'on the ear' (or 'in the ear') headphones, 'around the ear' headphones generally are the most comfortable, and offer good passive as well as active noise cancellation.
Well known audio supplier, Altec Lansing, offers a moderately good performing product you might wish to consider.
Altec Lansing's active noise cancelling headphones are reasonably attractive, and have their electronics in a separate box rather than built into an earpiece.
Altec Lansing offer a moderately well performing set of around the ear noise reducing headphones, but at $150, the price/performance ratio is not as favorable as one might hope for, compared to the performance you get from headphones costing less than half that price.
On the other hand, while listing for $150 (and occasionally being opportunistically sold for $175 or more) they can be found for very much less on Amazon.com (at present for as little as $60 or less), and at these sorts of price points they become an excellent value when compared to other budget priced headphones.
The separate electronics and battery box is perhaps a dated feature, too, with most higher end units having everything built into the headphones themselves.
In summary - their noise cancelling is tangibly inferior to the Bose Quiet Comfort 2 ($300) and Plane Quiet Solitude ($200) headphones, but when compared against other $50-75 units, they perform as well or better.
(Quite a mouthful of a formal product name, isn't it!) Altec Lansing's AHP712i noise cancelling headphones come in a hard to open plastic display box.
After several minutes attacking the box with scissors, and narrowly missing cutting the cables or scratching the headphones, I finally managed to extract the treasures inside. Most notable is, of course, the headphones themselves.
In addition to the headphones, there are two cables to connect between the control box and an audio source - one is a short 18", the other a very long 6½'. This is a nice touch - most of the time the short lead will be plenty long enough, but there may be a time when you need the longer cable - for example, to plug in to the audio output of a computer that is on the floor close to your desk.
There are also two plug adapters - one to convert from the headphones' standard mini stereo jack to the double pronged plug needed by many airlines, and the other to convert to the larger diameter ¼" plug required by higher end stereo systems. This is a very complete range of accessories.
The two cables are both gold plated. The two adapters are not.
In addition to these items, there is also a soft carry bag for the headphones. This has a velveteen type lining, and a drawstring top. It also has a small carry pouch inside its lining, with a velcro closure - this is a great place to keep your cables, adapters, and spare batteries.
The pouch is light (3 oz) and takes up little space, but provides only minimal protection for the headphones inside.
However, although there's a complete range of cables and adapters, there were two disappointing omissions.
The first disappointment was no battery. The headphones require a single AAA battery, and this was not provided. You don't get much for your $150, do you.
The second disappointment was the apparent lack of any instructions, warranty card, or any other helpful material. This was so surprising that I checked with Altec Lansing in case somehow my unit was missing these things. Their reply was slightly embarrassing. In a manner analogous to finding a recipe printed on the inside of a label around a can of food, you should take out the liner card from the plastic display box, unpeel it, and inside you'll discover the printed instructions, in seven different languages.
1. Plug the headphone connector into the 3.5mm stereo headphone jack on your audio playback device.
2. Turn on the Active Noise Reduction feature using the multi-function controller.
3. Adjust volume level using the multi-function controller.
I guess we don't really need instructions at all! But, brief as they are, I don't agree with point 3. To get maximum battery life out of the audio device you're playing music from, it is best to set the volume control to maximum on the headphones and vary the volume on the audio device. If you reduce the volume level on the headphones, you're simply burning up battery life unnecessarily on the audio playback device, with the unneeded extra power for too high a volume level being shunted off into a resistor and wasted.
The volume control can have a use though - if you are sharing a music source with a friend - perhaps via a Boostaroo unit - you can then use the volume control to fine tune the volume to reflect your personal preferences, and/or the varying sensitivity of the different headphones you each might be using. But for normal playing, leave the headphone volume control at max.
Note also the volume control only affects the sound level, it makes no impact on the amount of noise cancelling, which is always at max.
The warranty is for one year, and if you fill out a customer questionnaire card and return it, they increase the warranty to two years.
The Altec Lansing AHP712i noise cancelling headphones are around the ear rather than on the ear type headphones. The cups that fit around your ears are appreciably smaller than on the Solitude or QC2 headphones.
Oval in shape, the two maximum dimensions of the ear cups are approximately 2.25" x 1.4" - this is quite small. In contrast, the Solitudes measure approximately 2.65" x 1.6". What does this actually mean? It means they are snug around one's ears rather than roomy - if you have unusually large ears, they might be too small.
The headband is well padded and comfortable, but there's a size issue there, too. I found that for a comfortable fit, I needed the headband extended nearly all the way; by comparison, with the Solitude or Quiet Comfort headphones, I typically have the headband extended only half the way. People with different head geometries may find the headband is too small for them, and from my observation of how far people extend their headphones, such people do exist.
On the positive side, the tension that clamps the cups to the sides of your head is considerably less than with the Solitude headset and maybe even slightly softer than the Bose Quiet Comforts.
On the other hand, the Solitudes were deliberately designed to fit firmly, so as to provide a physical seal to passively block out as much sound as possible. The Altec Lansing headphones don't do this quite so effectively.
The cups can rotate 90° one way to lie flat for packing, and about 45° the other way to ensure a comfortable fit. The headband doesn't fold in the middle, and so the headphones don't fold quite as compactly as the Solitude headphones.
A 30" long, thin wire runs from the left headphone down to a small control box. The control box has an on-off switch and a volume control, and holds the single AAA battery. A metal spring clip enables you to clip the control unit to your belt if you wish.
There is a socket into which you can plug one of the two provided patch cables to connect the control box to an audio source. The patch cables use standard mini-stereo plugs at both ends, so if you should lose or break a cable, a replacement can readily be obtained from any stereo store at low price.
A red LED lights up when the unit is switched on, primarily to confirm they are on and the battery is not yet flat.
Altec Lansing say the single AAA battery lasts for more than 72 hours. I've managed to get an unknown battery life, but more than 40 hours, from a single battery, which is excellent.
The headphones have an 'on the head' weight of 6.8 ounces and a total weight of 12.8 ounces (including battery).
It was easy to unfold the headphones, to adjust the headband, and to put them on my head. The headphones were soft and sat firmly in place, and felt like they'd be as comfortable as other headphones for extended periods of wearing.
They were probably slightly more comfortable than the Solitude headphones (due to the firm grip of the Solitudes) but not as comfortable as the Bose Quiet Comfort 2 headphones, which had appreciably larger ear pieces that were also deeper, suiting a broader range of head and ear dimensions.
Music can be heard through the headphones whether the noise cancelling switch is on or off. So if the battery dies on you mid-flight, you still have a high quality set of headphones to enjoy your music with.
When listened to in a moderately quiet environment, the sound has quite a different characteristic with the noise reduction switched on to when it is switched off. Perhaps this was due to - when the headphones were turned on - a combination of the electronic hiss and the subtraction of the background noise.
And talking about hiss, the headphones generate an appreciable amount of electronic 'random noise', aka hiss, when turned on. The good news is that this hiss is not at all apparent in a noisy environment such as in an airplane, but if you're trying to use the headphones to make a quiet environment quieter, you may find the hiss distracting and bothersome.
The hiss level is comparable to that in the Solitude or Plane Quiet NC6 headphones, and louder than in the Bose Quiet Comfort 2 headphones.
A minor irritant with these headphones was some 'microphony' from the control box. If you tapped the control box, you could hear a tapping noise in the headphones, similar to if someone was tapping on a microphone. This usually indicates a poorly soldered joint or bad electrical connection somewhere, and can be a precursor to subsequent equipment failure. Hopefully this was a one-off with my sample set of headphones rather than something common to all units.
In testing, the AHP-712i headphones tested to be appreciably inferior to both the Solitude and Quiet Comfort headphones, and comparable to the NC-6. This was more or less in line with my expectations.
But, Altec Lansing claim an extraordinary amount of noise reduction for their headphones that verges on the unbelievable. They claim greater than 19 dB of noise cancellation, all the way across the audio spectrum from 40 Hz up to 12 kHz. This is much more than any other manufacturer has ever claimed for their headphones.
Q. The headphones claim greater than 19dB of noise reduction from 40Hz to 12 kHz. That is at odds with my qualitative testing, and is enormously above anything any other manufacturer claims. How was this measured?
A. This is a combination of active and passive noise reduction measured in our labs and repeatable.
While this is a positive answer and re-affirms their claim, it also provides absolutely no detail as to how the claimed noise reduction was measured.
As I've mentioned in earlier articles in this series, measuring the degree of noise reduction in a set of headphones is part art and part science, and professional audio technicians understand this and generally, when asked, provide details of their testing methodology rather than just a 'trust us, we're telling the truth' type reply.
While their reply provided no detail to help understand their claim, it still caused me to worry - have I forgotten what a 19dB difference in sound levels actually sounds like? So I did some pink noise (the hiss on a stereo tuner when between stations on the FM band and with muting off) testing with a sound level meter to 're-calibrate' my ear.
19dB is an enormous difference in sound energy - it represents nearly a 100 fold reduction in noise levels, but because we hear logarithmically rather than linearly, the 100 fold reduction in sound energy represents as a large but not huge difference in perceived sound level.
Using a sound level meter, I marked settings on my stereo volume control for two sound levels - 50dB (quiet) and 69dB (moderately loud). I switched between the two levels repeatedly to get a feeling for the different perceived loudness, then with the noise source set at 69 dB, put the headphones on and off repeatedly to see if a similar sound reduction occurred with the headphones.
The result? The headphones provided a laughably small amount of noise cancellation. 19dB? No way. Not even close. Although my testing methodology is imprecise, I'll guess the sound reduction to be probably less than 10dB in the part of the audio spectrum represented by the noise source.
So, how then to reconcile Altec Lansing's claim - greater than 19dB of noise cancelling from 40Hz to 12kHz - with my testing results that showed, on a 737 plane, inferior performance to the Solitudes (claiming a maximum of 18dB of cancelling across a narrow unspecified frequency band) and when comparing perceived sound levels against random pink noise, a guessed at less than 10dB of noise cancelling?
I'm unable to come up with a way to reconcile their claim with the starkly conflicting results. Draw your own conclusions as you feel appropriate.
The headphones can be purchased direct from the manufacturer, Plane Quiet, at their Pro Travel Gear website, , or if you prefer, they can be purchased from Travel Essentials.
Both companies sell them for the same price - $199.95 - and in both cases, if you use the 'travelinsider' discount code (ie the word travelinsider) you'll get a 5% discount off the price, again at either site.
Travel Essentials also offers free shipping, whereas ProTravelGear forces you to choose between either free shipping or a 5% discount.
On balance, we're inclined to slightly recommend buying from Travel Essentials rather than direct from ProTravelGear, for two reasons - the first being that TE offers both free shipping and a 5% discount, whereas PTG only offers one or the other.
The second reason is more subtle, but may be at least as important : TE has a fairer return policy. They have a no questions asked return policy, and don't charge a restocking fee. PTG limit your return privileges to 15 days and charge you a 15% restocking fee. While there's every chance you'll love the Solitudes, just in case you don't, it is more comforting to know that Travel Essentials will see you right if you wish to return them.
After a couple of years of giving Bose an increasingly intense amount of competition, it seems that with this quantum leap ahead, Plane Quiet have, at the least, drawn level with Bose in the performance stakes, and may even have edged very slightly ahead.
When you factor in the $100 premium that Bose charges, and the slightly better ergonomic features of the Solitude, it becomes a no-brainer to choose the Solitude over the Bose every time.
If your comparison is not with the $300 Bose but instead with the $55 Plane Quiet NC6, your strategy becomes less clear. On the one hand, the improved noise cancelling should be obvious to everyone. But on the other hand, there is a huge jump in price between the two products. If spending an extra almost $150 is something you can conveniently do, then you'll probably choose to do exactly this, and you'll be pleased with your decision.
But if you reason that you could buy NC6 headsets for the entire family at the same cost as a single pair of the Solitudes, and if you choose to do this instead, you'll be pleased with the NC6 headsets, too.


[When thoughts3V(2 are made rigid by scruples, then deeds2(1V)) freeze the heart in a fixation on what must not be done.
Failure seems to be unavoidable. My own deeds violate my conscience. They can never be perfect. They can never fulfill the command.


text:
What Should Happen to Deputy AG Who Discussed Bugging Trump?
Byron York · Oct. 10, 2018
Not long after a 2017 meeting in which Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein reportedly discussed wearing a wire to secretly record conversations with President Trump, two top officials in the meeting, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and bureau lawyer Lisa Page, went to the office of a third FBI official, general counsel James Baker.
They told Baker what Rosenstein said, according to Baker's recent testimony to House investigators. And Baker took the news very seriously.
After Rosenstein's comments were reported in The New York Times last month, Rosenstein sent out word through intermediaries that he hadn't really meant it, that he was speaking sarcastically. But that is not how top FBI officials took it at the time.
"The thing that struck me the most was the serious look on Baker's face when he was describing it," one source close to the investigation said of Baker's House interview. "He was conveying that they (McCabe and Page) took it seriously, and because they took it seriously, he took it seriously."
"McCabe, Page and Baker were talking about (secretly recording the president) as a real thing, and discussing it as a serious issue," said another source close to the investigation.
The Times reported that in a meeting held in the spring of 2017, amid the uproar over Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey, Rosenstein "raised the idea of wearing a recording device, or 'wire,' as he put it, to secretly tape the president when he visited the White House."
According to the Times, "One participant asked whether Mr. Rosenstein was serious, and he replied animatedly that he was."
The Times said Rosenstein also suggested that in addition to him recording the president, other officials could, too. The paper said Rosenstein noted that White House officials did not make him give up his cellphone when visiting, "implying it would be easy to secretly record Mr. Trump."
There has been some speculation among Hill Republicans that McCabe was behind the story, that he was trying to set Rosenstein up for a fall. Investigators wondered whether McCabe and Page were telling Baker the truth. But at the very least, Baker's interview shows that Rosenstein's suggestion was taken seriously.
The Times also reported that Rosenstein "discussed recruiting Cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Mr. Trump from office for being unfit." One of the sources familiar with the investigation said that Baker, in his House interview, "did indicate that there was strong belief that Rosenstein was coordinating with two people within the administration who were contemplating invoking the 25th."
The Rosenstein revelations intensified a long-running debate over the possibility that Trump might fire the deputy attorney general. The debate focused not so much on what should or should not happen to Rosenstein but on what effect a firing would have on the work of Trump-Russia special counsel Robert Mueller. With Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused from the Russia investigation, Rosenstein oversees Mueller's office.
Democrats, and some Republicans, warned Trump against firing Rosenstein. "This story must not be used as a pretext for the corrupt purpose of firing Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein in order to install an official who will allow the president to interfere with the special counsel's investigation," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer shortly after the Times story appeared.
No firing seems imminent. Rosenstein flew with President Trump on Air Force One to Florida Monday. The two men held a 45-minute discussion. After the trip, Trump was asked whether he plans to fire Rosenstein. "No, I don't," the president answered.
Trump's handling of Rosenstein has baffled some Republicans. Here is a top administration official who was at the very least musing about the possibility of bugging the president and attempting a never-used strategy to remove him from office. Some might assume that Trump would fire such an official, effective immediately, and have him escorted from the building.
But there are reasons Trump has not acted, starting with next month's elections. "One, it's strategic timing of the midterms," said a third source close to the investigation. "And two, there are people in the administration who are telling the president that Rosenstein is a good guy and part of the team. These are people that Trump talks to regularly."
As for Baker, he left the FBI amid controversy in May. And, of course, McCabe and Page left the bureau amid controversy, too. They are just now beginning to tell their stories to Congress. And in the case of Rosenstein and the wearing-a-wire discussion, much more remains to be learned.
COPYRIGHT 2018 BYRON YORK
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CNN's Contempt Serves Up a Lemon
"A house divided against itself cannot stand." Those were the words Abraham Lincoln used in 1858 when opening a speech about slavery in the states — the most divisive issue of that time. Those words were not Lincoln's own, of course. They were borrowed from Jesus, whom all three synoptic gospels record saying the phrase. It's a truth that's older than the nations, and it's no less true in 2020 than it was in 1858 or two thousand years ago. Division was there then, and division is here now, and nothing drives division more than contempt.
The Deal of the Century
I just returned from a historic event in the East Room of the White House where President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a new peace plan.
Discrediting Bolton Won't Be Easy for Team Trump
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Joe Biden Must Explain His Ukraine Dealings
Democrats impeached President Donald Trump for putting his own political fortunes ahead of the national interest in dealing with Ukraine. But it's Joe Biden who should be in the hot seat for that.
Betsy McCaughey


text:
Photinula virginalis is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk, in the family Calliostomatidae within the superfamily Trochoidea, the top snails, turban snails and their allies.

Description
The length of the shell attains 17.3 mm.

Distribution
This marine species occurs off Patagonia.

References

External links
 Rochebrune A.T. de & Mabille J. (1889). Mollusques. in: Mission Scientifique du Cap Horn 1882-1883. Tome 6 (Zoologie 2, part 8). Paris, Gauthiers-Villars. H.1-H.129, pls. 1-8.

Calliostomatidae

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
News this past March out of Harvard University's Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) Group detailing discovery of the possible evidence for inflation in the early universe is taking a universal beating as of late for failing to properly account for dust, perhaps in the group's haste to leave its competition in it.
Their findings using the South Pole-based BICEP2 telescope hinge on the detection of gravitational waves, which cosmologists have long predicted would produce a specific type of polarization. They were correct in more ways than one.
BICEP2 telescope at South Pole. (Credit: Harvard CMB Group)
I remember seeing the media advisory on the American Astronomical Society (AAS) listserv announcing the Monday morning press conference at Harvard's Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics — an unusual occurrence in my admittedly relatively young experience in science media circles, outside of announcing a Nobel Prize. Given that Harvard is a fellow partner in the Giant Magellan Telescope, I emailed Texas A&M astronomer Nick Suntzeff in hopes that he would know what could justify such a media frenzy.
He did. And per his usual, he had a strong, succinct opinion on both the breakthrough and the group's manner of conveying it to the world: "All this drama — science did not used to be like this."
Months before the latest round of back-pedaling in the media, Houston Chronicle science writer Eric Berger had been among those sounding the alarm regarding the damage done to science's credibility and public image. I emailed Nick then for his counsel, just as I did when I saw Dennis Overbye's New York Times feature and then another in Nature on back-to-back days earlier this month. Nick didn't mince words. Nor should he, in my opinion. Then again, we're both fans of implied duty and inherent responsibility.
More importantly, he offered some great comparative insight on how he and the High-Z Supernova Search Team handled their own early stage Nobel Prize-winning research that ended up proving the universe's expansion is actually accelerating, thanks to a mysterious substance they co-discovered: dark energy.
"When we discovered dark energy, all we did was to find that the distant supernovae were too faint in comparison to what was expected," Nick wrote. "We immediately worried that there was some sort of dust in the universe we did not know about that could cause this. We gave a simple argument as to why we felt this dust could not be causing the effect. Dust makes stuff look red — look at something through a forest fire, and it appears red. Same in the universe. We did not see this reddening.
"Also, if there was dust in the universe that we did not know about, more distant stuff should appear fainter because the light has to travel through more dust. This latter effect was difficult to measure, but we did show it was unlikely. All this was in our papers. What we did not do was to say that we have considered dust as causing the faintness of distant supernovae and then not tell the reader why we concluded this. That is what the BICEP2 paper did, and it confused us all as to why they did this."
Planck satellite map of the cosmic microwave background — the radiation ripples left over from the Big Bang. (Credit: NASA/European Space Agency)
If astrophysicists the likes of Nick Suntzeff are confused, one can imagine where this leaves the public, both in terms of understanding this "discovery" and in their general impression of science.
First, do no harm.
The BICEP2 kerfuffle (have always wanted to use that word!) reminds me of a previous occasion when Nick flexed his writing muscles in the name of responsible science. The result: a memorable 2011 guest post for the Last Word On Nothing blog in which he simultaneously describes and decries how science is done these days.
This entry was posted in Astronomy, Physics, Research, Uncategorized and tagged accountability, distinctive competencies, Nick Suntzeff, public education, public relations, science and journalism, scientific responsibility by Shana Hutchins. Bookmark the permalink.
About Shana Hutchins
25+ years in higher education marketing and communications, including ~15 with Texas A&M Science. Every day/project is a learning adventure. No rules; just write!
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text:
Q: return modified value from a function template error My code is something like this:
   // ... code

   template <int i>
   int modifyparameter()
   {
     i = i++;
     return i;
   }

   // ... some more code

   int main()
   {
        int answer = modifyparameter<5>();
        cout << answer; //expecting 6
   }

But I am getting errors. What have I done wrong?

A: i is not an lvalue, so i++ is illegal.
14.1/5 says.

A non-type non-reference template-parameter  is  not  an  lvalue.   It
    shall  not  be assigned to or in any other way have its value changed.

Post-increment operator (++) requires an lvalue as an operand.

A: i is the name of an int value, and you cannot modify values. You probably want one of these:
template <typename Number>
Number functional(Number x)
{
    return x + 1;
}

template <typename Number>
Number& side_effect(Number& x)
{
    return ++x;
}

A: Try:
template <int i>
int modifyparameter()
{
  int copy_of_i = i;
  copy_of_i++;
  return copy_of_i;
}

There's nothing you can do to modify i itself, template parameters are compile-time constants.  However, you could make it act as if I was being modified by using a variable with static lifetime:
template <int i>
int modifyparameter()
{
  static int copy_of_i = i;
  copy_of_i++;
  return copy_of_i;
}

A: While it's not asked for, this seems to cry out for a compile-time solution:
template< int I >
struct increment { static const int result = I+1; };

std::cout << increment<41>::result << '\n';

That struct is what's called a meta-function. Yes, it's a struct, but it's used (at compile-time) like a function: you call it, passing a parameter, and you get back a result. The syntax is hilarious, but that's because nobody actually planned to do this; the possibility was discovered (more or less) by accident.
Doing this at compile-time has the advantage that the result is a compile-time constant and can be used as such:
int my_array[increment<7>::result]; // array of 7+1 ints

Of course, defining an array like this is nonsense. Just as in run-time algorithms, incrementing is usually just one operation of an algorithm that computes something more complex.


text:
Q: Polymorphism or dictionary of properties? I need to parse an XML and create objects in C++ that correspond to the XML elements, and also pack the attributes of the XML elements into those objects as properties. The XML elements/attributes and the corresponding C++ classes/properties inherit from a base object that has properties common with the derived objects.
I was thinking to use a base class for the common properties and derived classes would only need to define the object-specific properties. However, someone told me that using the standard polymorphism is not a good idea here because the solution is not generic enough – adding/changing attributes in the XML would require adding/changing the corresponding properties to the C++ classes, which requires changing too much code. A much better and more abstract solution would be to put a dictionary of attributes in the base class and access individual properties by searching the dictionary. I wanted to ask the community whether this suggestion is better for production code.
Below is an example, where vehicle is the base object, and different vehicle types inheriting from it. Vehicle object has the name and weight properties that are common for all vehicles. Here is a sample XML fragment:
<car name="Toyota" weight="3500" passengers="4" />
<boat name="Yamaha" weight="3700" draft="16" />

Base class:
class vehicle {
    public:
    string name;
    string weight;
};

Derived classes:
class car : public vehicle {
    public:
    string passengers;
};

class boat : public vehicle {
    public:
    string draft;
};

Now, when my parser finds the car and boat elements I instantiate:
boat *b = new boat ();
car *c = new car ();

For the boat I can access all members simply as b->name, b->weight, and b->draft. After the C++ objects are instantiated from the XML, we do the whole bunch of object-specific work on each property, so the goal is not to just simply load XML into the program.
The alternative approach:
#define TAG_XML_ATTRIBUTE_NAME              "name"
#define TAG_XML_ATTRIBUTE_WEIGHT            "weight"
#define TAG_XML_ATTRIBUTE_PASSENGERS        "passengers"
#define TAG_XML_ATTRIBUTE_DRAFT             "draft"
. . .

class vehicle {
    public:
    map<string, string> arguments;

    // Get argument by name searching the arguments dictionary.
    string GetArgumentOrEmpty(const string& argumentName);
};

class car : public vehicle {
    public: // All propeties are in the base class dictionary.
};

class boat : public vehicle {
    public: // All propeties are in the base class dictionary.
};

All derived classes have the arguments map; in order to get a property value we scan the dictionary to find the property by name and then read its value, e.g. GetArgumentOrEmpty(TAG_XML_ATTRIBUTE_WEIGHT). CPUs are fast these days, so search the dictionary will not noticeable affect performance. The namespace of elements/attributes goes from structured (as class members) to flat (as #define list), but they will all be in one place. The code is more abstract; although the object processing code gets more complex due to additional indirection, it does not need to change if the attribute name changes; e.g. if passengers in the XML changes to people, the #define will look a little awkward, but the code that uses it won't have to change:
#define TAG_XML_ATTRIBUTE_PASSENGERS        "people"

Does the dictionary-based property access method present enough benefit to use it for production code instead of using regular class properties? If so, is it only for this specific XML-parsing case or replacing polymorphism with dictionary search and substituting class properties with string names is a better idea in general?

A: The dictionary based approach has indeed a couple of advantages:

*

*It's easy to add new new properties to a class/object.

*The object loading/saving/creation code would be quite generic.

*It's possible to make the properties that belong to classes fully configurable

*In fact some game coding experts such as Mike McShaffry ("Game Coding Complete") advocate the use of such kind of "Component" architecture for representing game actors, rather than deep inheritance hierarchies that are more difficult to maintain and enrich.

There are a couple of inconveniences as well:

*

*The class specific processing code would be cluttered with getters

*This code would depend heavily on the property naming, which makes configurability less easy.

*It would be easy to get bugs into the system due to unnoticed typos:  the compiler would not spot these inconsistencies, as it's just litteral data.

So you have to make a difficult choice.  My advice would be:

*

*if you have complex class dependent processing code, then it would be les error prone to stick to your original approach.  The benefit of the compiler knowing the member variables you're using would be a guarant for reliability.

*if you have only a couple of class dependent routines, and if the properties are mostly descriptive and handled in similar manner, then it could make sense to take the map approach

*if you need an easily extensible and configurable object structure, the second approach would also be the more flexible approach.

If you go for the map, a couple of thoughts:

*

*you could think of a dictionary between an external property name and an internal integer equivalent to represent it.  This would accelerate the map by avoiding lots of string processing overhead.

*of you could envisage using unordered_map to avoid too much string comparisons.


text:
FAKE LOVE / Airplane pt.2 2018-11-7
Xiumin - 이유 You
Fake Love (Japanese Version)
"Fake Love/Airplane Pt.2" is the ninth Japanese single by BTS. It was released on November 7, 2018. The single was initially titled "Bird/Fake Love/Airplane Pt.2", but the song "Bird" was removed from the track list after its producer Akimoto Yasushi faced "right-winger" accusations. The Japanese version of "Fake Love" was pre-released on October 16.
FAKE LOVE / Airplane pt.2 - Fake Love (Japanese Version)
gogoanna 1 year ago
FAKE LOVE / Airplane pt.2
Airplane Pt. 2 (Japanese Version)
Fake Love (Japanese Version) (Remix)