There are a bunch of things that are not obvious from the documentation. These are just notes on things I figured out while developing an app using their API.
Short epoch – 30 seconds worth of sleep data. The base hypnogram contains sleep stages that each represent a short epoch.
Long epoch – 5 minutes worth of sleep data which Zeo summarizes as one sleep stage regardless of the stages of the corresponding short epochs. The display hypnogram contains sleep stages that each represent a long epoch.
Personally I've never seen SmartWake work, but I wouldn't be surprised if the headband knew to transmit an update any time you move in and out of REM. I haven't actually seen this, but it just sounds like a reasonable possibility.
The display hypnogram seems to always contain an even number of epochs. So when there is only one long epoch of real data the display hypnogram will contain two elements, the second being a 0 for "undefined". When the next long epoch finishes, the second element will be updated with real data and the display hypnogram will still have two elements.
This means if you want to know the most recent long epoch stage you cannot just take the last element.
When a smaller increment of short epochs is transmitted as described in #1, it does not write a corresponding incomplete long epoch at that point. The long epoch will be added to the display hypnogram when it is finished.
Finally able to get my Drobo FS! FedEx didn't leave the little delivery notice to sign, so I had to drive 30 miles away to go pick it up or wait until they try again next week. I've wanted a standalone NAS for a long time and I've been interested in the Drobo since a friend at work told me about the original (direct attached, not NAS) model.
Ok, I should note that I work in Tech Support for a software company. A few of my criticisms or commiserations may be based on this.
New computer will be only SSD... let Drobo handle the storage.
My current storage situation is that I have a 4 x 500Gb RAID5 array on the motherboard (DFI LanParty NForce 590) of a computer I built at the end of 2006. One of those drives died and was RMA'd a few months ago. Then the replacement died while I was waiting for my Drobo to arrive (RMA in progress). So the array is hanging in there in a degraded state with three drives. There is also a 1TB drive on that system and a 1Tb drive on my current system (built Jan 2010). I'll need to shift files around to be able to move empty drives to the Drobo. My plan is to clear the 1Tb drive of my current system and start the Drobo with that. Then I can move some files over to make enough space to clear another drive, etc. I'll need to be able to move 1.1Tb elsewhere before I can take apart the array and move those three drives into the Drobo.
Anticipation was already high as it was a new tech toy I had wanted for a long time. The packaging sustained this feeling as I opened the outer shipping box to be greeted with the words "Welcome to the world of…". Lifting the flap of the inner box revealed the white on black distinctive drobo lettering. Packaging may not be a huge deal, but it is a nice first impression.
The simple instructions underneath suggest that I 1.Install Dashboard, 2. Insert Drives, 3. Connect Cables. One minor concern is that it says to start with at least two drives. I"m pretty sure this is just because you need more than one to to protect against a drive failure. The Drobo Calculator (http://www.drobo.com/calculator/drobo-s/index.php) and a KB article (http://support.datarobotics.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/276) suggest that it will function with one.
This inner box I've described contains the CD and the User Guide on the left and the power cord on the right. There is a 6′ Cat 6 cable underneath the User Guide. Removing this inner box reveals the actual device, well protected by foam.
I took a detour and registered my Drobo from the CD's link. I was surprised to see that they didn't have Windows 7 listed on their question of which OS it would be used with. I chose Other and typed Windows 7. Not all that important, but those are the kind of oversights that would bother me in my job.
Then I figured I would check their support downloads to install the latest version from there. I was surprised that it said Drobo FS users should install from the included disk and to contact support if you didn't have it. This is, of course, the perspective of someone who works in Support, but the latest installations should always be available on the website, even if there are no updates to what shipped.
Proceding with the install from the CD was uneventful. Finishing the install opens the Dashboard with the flashing Drobo logo: "Ready for Connection". Time to get the physical device going.
It occurs to me at this point that I'll need to shut down this computer to get my starting drive out. With greater worry it occurs to me that the music is playing off of this drive. Panic subsiding, I realize I could get out my netbook and stream music from the copy I've made on my existing RAID array on another computer. It's good to have computers lying around everywhere.
Ok, got my 1Tb drive out. It clicked into the Drobo very easily. I wedged it in between my Wii and my roommate's Xbox. Clicking the Cat6 cable into the last open port in the switch in this room makes me think I should have gone with the 8 port instead of the 4. Plugging in the power I expect it to spring to life… Ah, power button. Ok, now I get the full light show. Green, blue, orange/yellow. It does a crazy dance for a bit then settles on one green one red. My first thought is "Hard drive Christmas!" But less jolly is the suggestion that lights seem to be insisting I insert a second drive. As I mentioned above, I had the impression that I could start with one, which would make my data shifting much easier.
Looking at the Drobo Dashboard, it is still blinking "Ready for Connection." Looking back at the picture I took of the bottom of the Drobo (hey, I'm in my chair the Drobo is allll the way over there), I match the MAC address and see that my router has assigned it an IP.
Since Drobo Dashboard disappointingly isn't seeing anything (Yes, I've exited from the system tray and restarted it), I try navigating via IP and find that 192.168.0.145Public contains the zero byte file ".com.apple.timemachine.supported". Supporting backups via TimeMachine is cool, but I'm not an Apple guy, so my joy is limited. For kicks I try creating a new text file. Yes, it appears that I can write to the share. I'm just a little concerned that copying data may be risky if I've only got one drive and the Dashboard doesn't recognize it yet. Ok, I think even if I assume it is fine, the calculator suggests it reserves half of it. So that's like 465Gb free space there. The other Tb drive now has about 900Gb that would need to be cleared before use… I think this means I'll need to delete some stuff and start some big file moves then let that go overnight. I'll move about half on to an external 500Gb drive and the other half on to the RAID array which will shortly after have to be moved back off.
…Upon waking up I see Windows wants to know if I know that moving the files means they won't be shared any more. Damnit. So now some more waiting as files transfer.
Turned off windows firewall and now the Dashboard sees the Drobo. Not sure why it didn't show a warning that it blocked it. It prompts you to set the admin password and you can enable DroboApps in the same place.
Putting in the second drive started the green yellow blinky dance and the data protection status on the Dashboard suggested it would take about 15 minutes. I was able to read and write to the drives at this point, and a quick file copy showed 34Mb/s write, 40Mb/s read.
When it finished I started mass transferring files. Over time the speed fell to 26Mb/s. After enabling jumbo frames (9K), which required a restart, sustained transfer stayed at 31Mb/s.
Before restarting to enable Jumbo frames, I also installed some of the DroboApps: http://www.drobo.com/droboapps/apps-for-drobofs.php. You just drop the tgz in the DroboApps share. The fact that you need to restart doesn't seem necessary. Maybe all it does on restart is unzip them.
I installed DroboAdmin (nicer management of apps), Apache (which I'm pleased has PHP built in), CTorrent (Command line torrent client), Dropbear SSH, and Wake on LAN.
I used Putty to SSH into the Drobo and look around. I'm not great with nix comands, but still it's cool to have access. CTorrent didn't seem to work. I don't know how much I'd want to use that over command line anyway, but it seemed worth trying. Wake on LAN looks like it might be fun to add to a cronjob… I don't think my current computer's bios has a setting to turn on at a certain time, so I might have the Drobo do it via WOL.
DroboCopy is a part of the Dashboard software worth mentioning. It lets you schedule simple mirroring/copying between directories. Some people might want a more elaborate kind of backup, but for me, this is exactly what I want and this saves me the extra bit of effort of using separate software.
I was wondering if there was anything else I should add here, then I had an idea. It was the same kind of "I wonder if it's hot?" idea as the many times I've burned my hands. The whole point of this thing is to handle drive failures, so how about I pull one out with my file transfer still going.
I pushed the release and the lights started yelling at me in orange and red. I looked at my file transfer: it didn't even slow down. The Dashboard software popped up a notification letting me know that it can't protect against failure with only one drive.
The speed dropped some when I put the drive back in, but that makes sense. It needs to do the the green/yellow dance for a few minutes to get caught up. Although I'm wondering if I should cancel the file transfer until if finishes… the time estimate has gone from 2 to 3 to 4 minutes. Ok, it went to 5 minutes now, so I'm going to cancel the file transfer and let it finish. I would have hoped it could have handled that, but it looks like you can transfer data faster than it can catch up on replication. Still it's not a bad idea to just let it finish before continuing to transfer data. And this would only be a issue during sustained mass transfer while a drive is put in.
I created a share specific to myself for some stuff, then left the public one for everything else. DroboApps are also mounted as a share. I had an issue where it tried to map a share over and over until all letters were taken. I unmapped them manually then restarted the Dashboard and then it was fine.
I still have a lot of waiting to do as things copy over. And I still have to play more data tetris before I can break my RAID5. Ah, I should mention that it is pretty quiet. It isn't inaudible, but it is quieter than other electronics in the same room, so I'll never hear it.
I'm sure I'll play with apps more later, but for the most part I'm going to just enjoy having a unified file share independant from any of my computers with zero configuration redundancy.
…I meant to edit and post this a month ago. Oh well.
It seems the proper name for a chef's hat is a toque.
The cycle has progressed: I am too lazy to make food again. Fortuanately this shift cooincided nicely with Nick moving in with me. Nick is actually willing to spend the effort to make tasty food.
As a colaborative effort shortly after he moved in we made Chicken Tenders with Honey Mustard Sauce which turned out very yummy.
Another time when we had friends over he had marinated some meat and I tried this Lime Soy Swordfish marinade. I'd say the lime soy was good but nothing special. Swordfish is already so good.
But for now, I think I can pass the toque along.
So I bought myself this netbook… whee, new toy. I'm partly typing this to get used to the smaller keyboard. It's a little tough but good enough for its purpose. It is the Acer Aspire One, 2.2lbs, 8.9″ screen, 512Mb RAM, 8Gb SSD, Linux. I would like to get more familiar with Linux, so this will give me a reason.
The Banjo-Kazooie one is made up of game footage narrated by Jon Lovitz. The other two are crazy skit types. The Star Fox one also has very short previews for a bunch of other games including Goldeneye and Zelda. There was also one from Midway of which I didn't find a clip. But I had no nostalgia for that one anyway.
I remember watching these enough to quote them back then. ("That's right, hovercraft! This is racing like we've never seen before Trent.") N64 was the time when I was most excited about gaming, despite all the cool things that are available now, and that I can currently play them on a 130″ projector… ahh, good old days vs. modern advantages.
I go through phases of only eating out and phases of only making my own food. Lately I've shifted back to making my own food. Here are a few of the things I've been eating.
I ate this a lot until I realized that tomato-less salsa hurt my stomach. Apparently it takes me a long time to make correlations like that.
But anyway it's really tasty. It consists of the items in the picture there: Caesar chicken, corn & chile salsa, habanero tortilla, and any kind of tomatoes.
This is a damn delicious sandwich my aunt made when I visited. I demanded to know how to make it, so there it is. Oh and after the first time I made it I skipped the arugula.
Pretty much the same kind of tortilla and tomatoes I always use. Chicken cooked with bell pepers, sliced almonds and a kind of orange cranberry sauce. It turned out very yummy. And the almonds made more of a difference than I would have thought.
This was delicious! I had only had swordfish twice before in restaurants but it seemed like it'd be a cool thing to try myself. I cooked it in butter and basil and, I think, lemon pepper. I like throwing tomatoes in with anything, of course. My short experience has been that swordfish is just good no matter what. I didn't really do any preparation to the artichoke hearts so they were decent but probably could have used at least some addition.
I admit part of the reason I added kiwi was that the plate was going to look too empty in the picture. But man, kiwi is amazing.
The chicken is just a frozen breast from Trader Joe's: no special prep. And even though I was already having spinach, the pasta is spinach & basil. I forget at the moment what the sauce is called, but it's the cheating part of this meal. It's some kind of meat sauce and it is so good that other elements fade into the background. Oh well, every meal can't be a dance of culinary subtlety.
Scallops in butter and lemon peper. I probably need to buy a bigger variety of ingredients. The pasta was also specifically lemon pepper pasta. This meal probably needed some kind of sauce to make it work, but I had nothing to fill that void. They were ok as is, but only occasionally like scallops anyway. Also the smell of scallops lingered after cooking… So overall, probably not going to make them again. More swordfish!
I love tortilla soup and this Trader Joe's recipe has an extremely high awesomeness:difficulty ratio.


A human rights group has claimed that Daesh executed at least 128 Syrian civilians in the town of Al-Qaryatayn, which has been traded between the militant group and the Syrian Arab Army multiple times. The civilians were massacred in reprisal for collaborating with the government of Bashar al-Assad.
Syria's central Homs province has been a battlefield in the recent weeks with Islamic radicals repeatedly trying to recapture the areas they had lost to the government forces.
The Syrian army supported by allied militia units regained control over the key transport juncture northeast of the town of al Qaryatayn in the Homs province.
A RIA Novosti correspondent was present at the scene during the liberation of Al-Qaryatayn. The Syrian Army destroyed the largest Daesh stronghold and liberated the city on Sunday.
Russian Ka-52 Alligator scout-attack helicopters were captured on video in Syria while striking terrorist targets with rockets.
The Syrian Army drove out Daesh terrorists from the Christian town of Al-Qaryatayn situated on the road linking Damascus and Palmyra.
Syrian government forces have gained control over a Christian town in the province of Homs, Al-Qaryatayn. Meanwhile, the fighting is ongoing in the western suburbs of the town, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported Sunday.
The Syrian Army, supported by popular defense groups, on Sunday morning started offensive on the main stronghold of Daesh in the city of Al Qaryatayn in Syria's Homs province, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported Sunday.
The Syrian Army backed by popular forces has taken control over the Suniyat-Homs mountain range, two kilometers away from the town of Al-Qaryatayn, in central Syria.
The Syrian army, supported by militia groups, has started the offensive to liberate the city of Al Quaryatayn in Syria's Homs province from Daesh extremists, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported Saturday.
At least 3,900 families have fled the Syrian town of Al-Qaryatayn after it was seized by Islamic State militants, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Tuesday.


text:
Q: If the record exists in target but doesn't exist in source, i need to delete it So, i have two tables, the target table and the source one. I need to delete the rows that exists in the target table, but doesn't exists in the source table.
And the code:
MERGE INTO (SELECT id_car_bk, car_brand_bk, car_type_bk, new_car
              FROM car_catalog_backup) CB
USING (SELECT id_car, car_brand, car_type FROM car_catalog) C
ON (CB.id_car_bk = b.id_car)
WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN
  INSERT
    (CB.id_car_bk, CB.car_brand_bk, CB.car_type_bk)
  VALUES
    (C.id_car, C.car_brand, C.car_type)
WHEN MATCHED THEN
  UPDATE SET CB.car_brand_bk = C.car_brand;

A: You can use
DELETE car_catalog_backup b
 WHERE not exists
        ( SELECT 0
            FROM car_catalog c
           WHERE b.id_car_bk = c.id_car );

or
DELETE car_catalog_backup b
 WHERE b.id_car_bk not in
        ( SELECT c.id_car
            FROM car_catalog c );

assuming car_catalog is the source, and car_catalog_backup is the target. The First one is preferable, since it's more performant.
If your aim is to find out with a MERGE statement similar to your case, then use the following
MERGE INTO car_catalog_backup a
USING (SELECT id_car, car_brand, car_type, car_brand_bk
         FROM car_catalog
         JOIN car_catalog_backup
           ON id_car_bk = id_car
         ) b
   ON (a.id_car_bk = b.id_car)
 WHEN MATCHED THEN
   UPDATE SET a.new_car = 1
   DELETE
   WHERE a.car_brand_bk != b.car_brand
 WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN
   INSERT
    (id_car_bk, car_brand_bk, car_type_bk)
   VALUES
    (b.id_car, b.car_brand, b.car_type)

to delete the records matched for id columns ( a.id_car_bk = b.id_car ) but not matched for brand code columns ( a.car_brand_bk != car_brand ) as an example.
Demo

A: Delete from target
Where not exists
(
    Select 1
    From source
    Where join of source and target
)

A: With a left join:
DELETE target
FROM target LEFT JOIN source
ON target.someid = source.otherid
WHERE source.otherid IS NULL;

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Q: What is the difference between Service and Helper in sails.js? On sails.js official documentation on services it says "Although Services are still fully supported in Sails 1.0, it is recommended that you use helpers instead.".
When should I use service vs helper? What is the core difference between them?

A: A service is a singleton instance which is present all the time. There is just one single instance for all calls. You could use this if you want to let mutiple requests or sockets communicate with each other.
A helper is like a function. Every call of it is independent from others.
(As long as you don't use global variables)
If you are using services, you should be very careful because the same instance is called by different users.


New additions to DigitalMe collection are contestants for this year's BU Research Photography competition. This year Charlie Simmons and Elizabeth Falkowska are taking part in the research photography competition.
Charlie's work is digital tethering and in particular understanding Digital Immersion. Charlie is studying digital immersion within the Streaming and E-Sports context.
Elizabeth's work is about challenges the advertising industry is facing due to emergence and adoption of RAISA (Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Service Automation).
More about these studies you will be able to hear at the Digital Me Exhibition: Chapter II, on 16th June at Bournemouth University.
Digital Immersion: Is it what you thought it is?


The easiest way to get to Katowice is to fly directly to Katowice International Airport. The airport – the fourth largest in terms of traffic, is located 30km from the city centre in Pyrzowice.
It is also possible to travel to Katowice by coach or bus from most European cities. A popular coach company providing such a service is Eurolines.


text:
KMZA is a radio station airing a country music format licensed to Seneca, Kansas, broadcasting on 92.1 MHz FM.  The station is owned by KNZA, INC.

References

External links

Country radio stations in the United States
MZA

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Home / Press Office / Press Releases / Jasco announces the release of DataVoice Coach v5.1
Jasco announces the release of DataVoice Coach v5.1
Jasco has announced the latest update to its DataVoice Coach solution, a quality management and training programme aimed at the contact centre market. DataVoice Coach v5.1 features several usability and workflow enhancements, introduced to the solution as a result of customer feedback and changing market requirements, as well as updated reporting functionality to enhance reporting capabilities.
"Quality management is essential in improving performance and efficiency in the contact centre environment. DataVoice Coach integrates seamlessly with DataVoice voice and screen recording solutions, delivering the tools supervisors and managers need to be able to analyse performance in a practical way and effectively identify training needs. With the latest version of DataVoice Coach, users can take advantage of an improved Agent Dashboard, enhanced reporting, streamlined usability and a number of further improvements to both the user experience and the back end software," says Bruce Winter, Channel Manager – DataVoice at Jasco Enterprise.
The new Agent Dashboard not only offers an improved agent experience, keeping agents informed on their individual quality performance, it also enhances the effectiveness of key features. Event alerts immediately notify agents of evaluations and training programs that have been created since they last logged in. Agents are able to instantly interact with the content created by their managers through direct links. In addition, key performance data is now presented in an attractive, intuitive chart format, making it easy for individual agents to view their performance over the short and long term.
Updates to reporting capabilities accommodate the full spectrum of evaluation scoring models into built-in reports. End users can now leverage detailed, informative metrics on all aspects of their quality monitoring and evaluating activities. In addition, comparative data sets provide an over-arching view of the performance of the contact centre organisation as a while. The introduction of colour coding and grouping for headline scores improves the visual display, further enhancing usability, and a new evaluation form layout improves ease of use.
"Users are now also able to change their password from within Coach, and can take advantage of streamlined single-click bookmarking that enables an evaluator to easily add feedback and coaching direction to an evaluation question. Improvements to the layout also maximise the use of screen real estate and have made bookmarks more intuitive to use. Behind the scenes, extensive changes have been made to the installation process, and extensive activity logging has been implemented throughout the application," says Winter.
Further to these enhancements, the screen recording evaluation workflow has been improved to dynamically adjust layout optimally for audio or video media files, and the layout of the Performance Centre has been upgraded to HTML5 to enhance both appearance and usability. Evaluations can now be filtered by category and grouped by type, and a new tool has been added to allow templates to be exported, including full details on points and auto-fail criteria. These forms can be used for agent self-evaluation and manager training. A media search information tab gives helpful contextual information to managers when they evaluate media files and informs contact centre management as to how individual managers are selecting media files to evaluate for advanced performance management.
"DataVoice Coach v5.1 marks significant improvement over previous versions and highlight's Jasco's commitment to on-going improvement and delivering solutions that address customer feedback. All end-users will benefit from the enhanced features made available in Coach v5.1. Agents will find the dashboard improves their understanding of their performance and increases their engagement with material created for them. Managers will have more information at their disposal when evaluating files and when categorising or reporting on results, and application administrators will have an increased array of tools to manage and influence the quality program," Winter concludes.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


This is a pretty harsh criticism, of course, and you see the line thrown around all the time. When it's leveled, the implication is that the individual (in this case: me), doesn't really care about the condition or situation (in my case: the horse), but, instead, is only interested in making money. For someone that's spent his life learning about and taking care of horses at all hours of the day and night (weekends, too) that's pretty harsh.
Now, while harsh, on the face of it, the charge is also pretty silly. If I was really in this "just" for the money, I'm pretty well set up to play the system. I mean, I do have a veterinary license, and I could easily use my position to sell an almost limitless number of goods and services. I could acupunct, chiropract, magnetize, inject joints willy-nilly, sell supplements for this, that, and everything – heck, I could even charge a fee for subscribing to a newsletter, rather than writing about equine medicine (and other stuff) for free. Frankly, if I'm doing all of this "just for the money," I'm doing a pretty terrible job at it. I'm missing out on tons of opportunities to increase my bottom line. Oh dopey me.
But even though it's ridiculous, it's still a serious charge. It's also a very curious one, because, from where I sit, it seems that everyone who is trying to sell you some product or service from your horse is trying to make money (in fact, some of the most vocal and angry responses that I get come from people making money doing the things that I suggest might not be necessary – go figure). But when it comes to making money for veterinary services, I mean, I did go to school to practice veterinary medicine, did take out loans to do it, do support my kids by doing it, do pay the utilities because of doing it, etc., etc. And, honestly, I don't think that anyone begrudges me that, or at least I hope not. And I'm also not aware of any group that is running around providing anxious horse owners with free goods and services on demand, no matter what those goods and services may be.
I also can't imagine that many other people who are gainfully employed have to defend themselves for going to work every day.
In fact, when I'm rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, looking at a cut on a horse's head at 2:00 a.m., the last thing that I'm thinking about is what a great opportunity this is for me to make extra money. Mostly, I'm trying to focus my eyes in the dark – working by headlight is not nearly as much fun as you might think, no matter how little fun you think it sounds like. And, I really do cherish my sleep.
Regardless, criticizing someone because he or she makes money at an endeavor is, fundamentally, saying that a person is a bad person. It's a line of criticism that goes back at least back to Biblical times, although it's a misquotation of sorts. While, of course, there are many different translations, the book First Timothy, Chapter 6, verse 10 says, "the love of money is the root of all evil." So if you can portray someone with whom you disagree as being motivated only by money, you're calling that person evil, you don't even have to respond to the issue at hand, and you win (or at least you think you win) the argument by default. It's a seductive strategy, and sometimes even disappointingly effective.
There's also a logical fallacy involved in saying that someone is "only in it for the money." It's called the nirvana fallacy. The nirvana fallacy – which was apparently given its name by University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) professor Harold Demsetz, in 1969 – compares actual things with unrealistic, idealized alternatives. So, for example, while it's certainly not a good thing to care about money to the exclusion of anything else, the fact of the matter is that for anyone to be able to go out and treat horses, eat, support a family, etc., he or she has to make money. What's the alternative? Buying a truck, equipment, and gas so that the person can come out and see horses for free? Buy medications and supplies so that he or she can stock up someone else's tack room? I'm sure that I'm not the only person who isn't inclined to do that.
Anyway, I don't mind at all when people disagree with me, in fact, as I said, I love open and honest discussion. That's the way that medicine and science progress. In any scientific endeavor (which medicine aspires to be) people are going to have all sorts of different ideas, and not all of them are going to be right. If somebody is wrong, that's OK, too, because in order for things to move forward, if people have different or opposing view, somebody has to be wrong.
Look, I think that it's great that horse owners are sometimes starting to act more and more like rational consumers of the services veterinarians provide. I'm trying to encourage that. That's why I'm not trying to sell you anything. If consumers of horse products and services were more rational, it would mean that veterinarians, supplement sellers, massagers, farriers, etc., etc., would regularly be challenged to explain what it is that they are charging for, and why. I mean, it's your money, right, so why just give it away?
Challenging the popular – or at least heavily advertised – is something that I regularly do, and I hope you do, too. Of course challenging an idea often gets mistaken for challenging a person, and when a person's ideas get challenged, it can result in all sorts of finger pointing and accusations. Still, I think it's worth the effort. I mean, really, don't we all care about what's best for the horse, and shouldn't we all be trying to figure out what "best" really means? Don't see much evil in that!
Next Next post: What's Up With People Using Supplements (and for Themselves, Too)?


text:
"Republican Race Is Being Led By A Buffoon": The GOP Primary Is A Mess. Can Anyone Unite This Party?
Jeb Bush is starting to remind me of someone. Tall guy, former governor, worshipped his politician dad? That's right, I'm talking about Mitt Romney.
It isn't just the part about their fathers, or the fact that like Romney, Bush is the representative of the "establishment" and doesn't get a lot of love from the Tea Party base, or even that he seems to share Romney's propensity for reinforcing his most glaring electoral weaknesses. (Jeb spent much of the last week explaining how the Iraq War was actually a tremendous success and we just need to bring back the Bush Doctrine, which is a great way to win over the many voters pining for a rerun of George W.'s term in office.)
It's also that Bush's only path to his party's nomination may be to duplicate what Romney did successfully in 2012: use his money (and dogged persistence) to hang around while one ridiculous clown of a candidate after another has their momentary flight then crashes ignominiously to the ground, at the end of which primary voters run out of other options and say, "Oh all right, I guess we'll go with you."
All things considered, it isn't such a bad strategy. And given the sourness of the Republican electorate, there may be no other way to win.
If we look beyond the bizarre candidacy of Donald Trump, the 2016 primary race is looking a lot like the 2012 race. While there were some serious people in that one, just as there are in the GOP campaign today, the overall picture voters got was of a chaotic mess in which a bunch of people you couldn't imagine being president got an undue amount of attention. Just like now, you had candidates who had been elected to Congress but who had no business running for president. You had amateurs whom voters found attractive because they were different than all those blow-dried politicians. And for a long time, no one was able to move into a clear lead.
At this time four years ago, the only candidates in double digits were Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Michele Bachmann. Many of that race's most amusing developments—Bachmann's demise, the steep rise then fall of Herman Cain, the same for Newt Gingrich—had yet to occur. Today, there are so many GOP candidates, and other than Trump most of them have the support of so few voters, that it looks even fuzzier. Look at the latest Fox News poll, which shows Trump at 25 percent, Ben Carson at 12 percent, Ted Cruz at 10 percent, and Jeb limping in at 9 percent. Three of those four people are never, ever going to be president. A Reuters/Ipsos poll has Trump at 21 percent, Bush at 12 percent, and nobody else over 8 percent.
The GOP race is being led by a buffoon who, despite his appeal to a certain kind of voter, is widely loathed by the public as a whole, barely pretends to understand the first thing about public policy, and still believes that Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States. Meanwhile, the guys who are supposed to represent the future of the party, like Scott Walker and Marco Rubio, are struggling to hold on to the support of one out of every 15 Republicans or so. To call the race a mess would be too generous.
If the party knew what it wanted, it might be able to settle on a candidate who could give it to them. The problem is that it's made up of people who want different things. There are sober people who just want to find the candidate who can win them back the White House. But there are many more who know a lot more about what they don't like than whom they might support. For years now, the Republican Party's leaders (both politicians and media figures) and its voters have been dancing a manic pas de deux of extremism, where the leaders tell the voters to constantly increase their demands and punish anyone who strays from ideological purity, and the voters respond.
No Republican politician could possibly satisfy everyone in the roiling cauldron of anger, suspicion, and disappointment that is today's GOP. How do you unite a party when the prevalent theme of their internal debate in recent years has been how disgusted they all are with their own side?
You can't. But someone is going to be this party's nominee, and it's likely to be the one who can keep a steady pace while the others flame out. Jeb Bush recently said, "I'm the tortoise in the race—but I'm a joyful tortoise." It isn't much of a plan, but it may be the best anyone has. And there sure isn't a lot of joy going around among Republicans these days.
By: Paul Waldman, Senior Writer, The American Prospect, August 16, 2015
August 19, 2015 Posted by raemd95 | Donald Trump, GOP Presidential Candidates, Jeb Bush	| Bush Doctrine, Election 2012, Establishment Republicans, GOP Voters, Iraq War, Mitt Romney, Tea-party | 6 Comments
"Who Made Benghazi 'Political'?": Funny, Everyone Seems To Have Forgotten What Really Happened In 2012
If you're outside that furious little circle of humans who believe Benghazi Is Worse Than Watergate, you may not fully understand why that circle is so furious. I didn't for a long time, but I think I've cracked it. See, it's not just that allegedly awful decisions were made on the ground. And it's not even just that the administration supposedly lied in the aftermath to cover up its incompetence. No, the anger has a political end point, which is that this supposed cover-up sealed Barack Obama's reelection over Mitt Romney and kept the rightful occupant from moving into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Summaries of the events on the right almost never fail to include language like this from a recent Wall Street Journal editorial: "The reasons Benghazi is important do not have to be rehearsed here. An American outpost, virtually undefended, was attacked by armed and organized al Qaeda-associated militants on the anniversary of 9/11 and four were left dead, including the U.S. ambassador. It happened eight weeks before the 2012 presidential election. From day one White House management and leadership focused on spin and an apparent fiction. Did they deliberately mislead and misdirect? Why was there no military response? Who is responsible?"
These questions are worth exploring. (Even I agree with that—and they have been, eight times by eight separate bodies.) But they have no real political punch without that one sentence in the middle there. Conservatives seem absolutely convinced that if not for the Obama "cover-up" on Benghazi, Romney would have won the election.
There's one problem with that view: It's ridiculous. Totally ahistorical. In fact, if you look back closely at how things unfolded in September and October 2012—and everyone seems to have forgotten—it was Romney, not Obama, who bungled Benghazi. It was clear at the time to a broad range of observers, not just liberals, that Romney really screwed the pooch on Benghazi, both when it first happened and then later in a debate.
Any memory of Romney's initial reaction? He was in such a hurry to blame Ambassador Chris Stevens's death on Obama that he rushed out a statement blaming the Obama administration for sympathizing "with those who waged the attacks" rather than the "American consulate worker" who died in Benghazi. You read that right—worker, singular. Romney was in such a hurry to get out a statement feeding right-wing paranoia about Obama's anti-Americanism that it went out even before it was known that four Americans had died.
Romney was referring to a statement released by the American Embassy in Cairo, where the region's rioting started that night, that criticized the now-famous video for fanning the flames. The statement wasn't vetted in Washington, and so didn't represent administration policy, but Romney jumped into the deep end and used it.
The next day, he was torn to pieces. In the old United States—yes, even during a presidential election—a tragedy like Benghazi would have halted campaigning for a day, and certainly, certainly everyone would have agreed that it would have been terribly unseemly for the challenger to politicize the event. But here came Romney: He didn't even know how many bodies there were before he started trying to score political points off the deaths.
And most every news outlet took him to task. Read here for yourself a roundup of how his statement was playing in real time on September 13, 2012. Here's the opening of a Bloomberg piece headlined "Romney Criticized for Handling of Libya Protests, Death": "The attacks that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya became a flashpoint in the American presidential race, as Republican nominee Mitt Romney drew criticism from Democrats and Republicans for chastising President Barack Obama and his administration on their response." Democrats and Republicans.
Romney policy director Lahnee Chen didn't make things any better for his boss by saying the campaign went with the criticism because it fit the "narrative": "We've had this consistent critique and narrative on Obama's foreign policy, and we felt this was a situation that met our critique, that Obama really has been pretty weak in a number of ways on foreign policy." A situation that met our critique. Before they really knew much of anything. Priceless.
At that point, Romney started backtracking a bit. But on the right the issue kept a-boiling, through Susan Rice's appearance on the chat shows, until the second presidential debate, the foreign-policy debate. Romney was presented with a chance to re-handle Benghazi, and he screwed it up even worse. That was when Obama said, accurately, that he called the attack "an act of terror" the day after in the Rose Garden, and Romney countered, "I want to make sure we get that for the record because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror." The transcript showed that Obama was right and Romney was wrong.
So Romney had a second shot at winning the Benghazi argument in real time, but all he managed to do was make it worse. It was crystal clear at the time that of all the issues of the campaign, he mishandled Benghazi the worst. (I'm not counting the 47 percent business here because that was a different kind of thing. It wasn't a public policy "issue" that arose during the race.)
So let's review. A tragic attack occurs. Before it's even known how many people died or what on the earth are the reasons for the attack, the Republican standard-bearer breaks with all standards of decency and precedent and turns it into a political attack on the president—a presumptive and false one, just based on the paranoid right-wing idea that Obama is weak and somehow wants to cripple America. Then as now, most Americans weren't buying it, and so Benghazi's effect on the election, if any, was merely to show voters in the middle that the right was rabid about trying to "prove" that Obama refused to defend America, and it turned them off.
And now here we are, two years and eight investigations later, with Republicans acting shocked, shocked that there might have been anything political in the way the administration dealt with the attack and still carrying on in the same rabid vein. I obviously don't know to a certainty that the new hearing won't turn up something genuinely damaging, but unless it does, most Americans will react as they did then: Oh, Republicans doing more crazy shit.
By: Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast, May 14, 2014
May 15, 2014 Posted by raemd95 | Benghazi, Conspiracy Theories, Mitt Romney	| Conservatives, Election 2012, GOP, Republicans, Susan Rice, Terrorism | Leave a comment
"Paul Ryan Is A Whiny Sore Loser": Why He's Still Mad At Candy Crowley For 2012 Loss
Wow. Rep. Paul Ryan is still complaining about CNN's Candy Crowley's 2012 debate moderation. Specifically, about the fact that she corrected Mitt Romney for saying President Obama took 14 days to call the 9/11 attack on the Benghazi compound "an act of terror," when Obama said those words in the Rose Garden the very day after the killings of four Americans.
Talking to Hugh Hewitt Wednesday night, Ryan rehashed the Crowley moment, agreeing with Hewitt that it was "perhaps the most significant intervention by a member of the media in a presidential campaign ever." While Ryan wouldn't speculate about whether Crowley would do anything different if she knew what we know now (more on what we know now, later) he alleged that Crowley "violated the rules of the debate."
There's so much to unpack in Ryan's complaint, but it underscores why Benghazi fever is so rampant in the GOP. There's a strain of the fever for every type of Republican. Ryan's not a crazy birther (though he's got some racial issues) or a bomb-thrower; he likes to play the statesman. He's not a fact-averse "prosecutor" like newly minted Benghazi investigator Trey Gowdy, getting the details of the story wrong every time he opens his mouth.
No, Ryan's particular strain of Benghazi fever lets him use the faux-scandal to rewrite the results of the 2012 election: If the White House had told the truth, as soon as it was known, Obama wouldn't have been able to boast about his national security record, and Romney-Ryan would have won the election. It's an updated version of the "unskewed" polls movement that blinded Republicans, including Ryan and his running mate, to the ticket's impending loss 18 months ago.
There's so much wrong with even this relatively moderate strain of Benghazi fever, it's hard to know where to start. First of all, despite all the ongoing noise about the composition of Susan Rice's infamous Sunday show "talking points," there is no evidence the White House hid the unfolding truth about what had happened at the compound (the CIA's role is more murky). And like it or not, there is also no evidence that Americans cared very much about the issue when they cast their votes that November.
It also helps to remember that Romney himself set the stage for the way the Benghazi story unfolded, with reporters and with voters, with his witless and craven attempt to jump in front of the facts and accuse Obama of "sympathizing" with the attackers. Here's the statement his campaign released the same night as the killings of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans:
I'm outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi. It's disgraceful that the Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.
Romney's charge was based on a statement from the U.S. embassy in Cairo attacking the anti-Islam video that was inspiring protests across the Middle East (and that was first believed to have sparked the Benghazi attack). The statement came from embassy officials, not from the White House, and it was issued before the Benghazi killings. Reporters challenged Romney on his charge the day after he made it. But Ryan's running mate doubled down: "When our grounds are being attacked and being breached, the first response should be outrage," he told reporters. "Apology for America's values will never be the right course. We express immediately when we feel that the President and his administration have done something which is inconsistent with the principles of America."
So let's be clear: Given a chance to focus Americans on the valid questions about what had happened in Benghazi, the Romney-Ryan ticket went for dishonesty and cheap shots. That pattern set the context in which Crowley gently corrected Romney for insisting the president hadn't called the attacks an "act of terror." Ironically, Romney himself was accusing Obama of lying when the president said he'd used those very words to describe the attack the day after it happened in his Rose Garden statement. "Get the transcript," Obama shot back, and that's when Crowley gently interjected: "He did, in fact, sir."
That's what Hewitt calls "perhaps the most significant intervention by a member of the media in a presidential campaign ever." Ryan and other Republicans would have you believe that's when they lost the election. By the way, Ryan's wrong that Crowley "violated" the debate rules. She was honest about never signing off on them in the first place.
This is why Republicans can't get over Benghazi fever. It's a symptom of a more deadly disease: the party's determination to deny Obama legitimacy. If he lied to get reelected, he didn't really win at all. They don't have to reckon with the truth that voters rejected the soulless Romney, who would say anything to get elected, and his running mate, the allegedly principled and wonky Ryan. In the end, he had to hide his unpopular budget ideas to face the voters, turning out to be as craven as Romney. It's not really a surprise that he's blaming Crowley for his troubles, but it's disturbing nonetheless.
By: Joan Walsh, Editor at Large, Salon, May 8, 2014
May 9, 2014 Posted by raemd95 | Benghazi, Paul Ryan	| Candy Crowley, Election 2012, media, Mitt Romney, National Security, Republicans, Susan Rice, Trey Gowdy | Leave a comment
"The Fire In Mitt's Belly": New Book Reports That Romney Didn't Want To Run For President In 2012
On an episode of The Office from a few years ago, the desperately insecure character of Andy Bernard (played by Ed Helms) hits upon a strategy to ingratiate himself with people, called "personality mirroring." He begins not only repeating what people say to him, but adopting the precise manner and mood of whoever he's talking to. This is pretty much how Mitt Romney went about running for president. A man deeply unsuited to the gladhanding required of a politician made himself into one, through a titanic act of will. And just like when Andy Bernard did it, it was incredibly awkward and off-putting. As the old saying has it, sincerity is the most important thing—if you can fake that, you've got it made. Trouble was, Mitt just couldn't, hard though he might have tried.
And it turns out, Mitt didn't even want to run for president a second time. Veteran reporter Dan Balz is coming out with a book about the 2012 campaign, and he learned of the internal Romney family deliberations. They took a vote, and ten out of twelve Romneys, including Mitt himself, said he shouldn't run. Here's an excerpt:
Mitt Romney had other reasons to think that not running might be the wiser choice. Winning as a moderate from Massachusetts who happened to be Mormon was always going to be difficult. "A lot of the thinking on the part of my brothers and dad was, 'I'm not sure I can win a primary given those dynamics.'" Tagg Romney said. The prospective candidate also knew the sheer physical and family toll another campaign would take. "He's a private person and, push comes to shove, he wants to spend time with his family and enjoy his time with them," his son said. "Even up until the day before he made the announcement, he was looking for excuses to get out of it. If there had been someone who he thought would have made a better president than he, he would gladly have stepped aside."
I guess the gentle voice of America, whispering to him on the wind that it needed his square jaw and concern for the ruling class, was enough to change Mitt's mind. But I wonder what he thinks now? We all tend to absolve ourselves of guilt in situations like this, and I'm guessing Mitt now believes there's nothing he could have done to win. What with Obama showering government goodies on a population of greedy takers, some strategic tinkering wouldn't have made a difference. But if thinks that now, that would mean that he was wrong when he decided that he couldn't leave the Republican nomination to the collection of clowns he ended up beating. It's something of a conundrum. Perhaps late at night, when everyone else is asleep, he rides his car elevator up and down, up and down, replaying the whole campaign in his head.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, July 2, 2013
July 5, 2013 Posted by raemd95 | Politics	| Election 2012, Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, Mormons, Romney Family, Tagg Romney | 1 Comment
"The Hostage Takers": Blame Eric Cantor And Paul Ryan For The Sequester
John Boehner's laughably weak leadership as House Majority Leader surely must be seen as being partly to blame for the sequester — the Tea Party caucus in Congress clearly has a tight leash on the Speaker.
But at least Boehner tried for a "Grand Bargain" with President Obama in 2011, only to be reined in by Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan, according to a recent interview Cantor conducted with The New Yorker's Washington correspondent, Ryan Lizza. Cantor admitted that there was a final meeting with Boehner, Ryan and himself where Boehner wanted to accept the president's $1.2 trillion offer, but was talked out of it by Cantor and Ryan.
"The reason why we said no in that meeting, 'don't do this deal,' was because what that deal was, was basically going along with this sense that you had to increase taxes, you had to give on the question of middle-class tax cuts prior to the election," said Cantor. "And you knew that they had said they weren't giving in on health care."
So basically, this was about the 2012 election. Cantor and Ryan wanted to let the voters decide on taxes and health care instead of preempting it with the Obama-Boehner Grand Bargain. Then in November, the American public overwhelmingly voted for President Obama and his balanced approach to deficit reduction and growing the economy through a mix of spending cuts, tax revenues and closing corporate loopholes — a result that has been confirmed in repeated polls. The American people also doubled down on Obamacare by re-electing the president.
Cantor concluded the interview with Lizza with this telling remark: "That's why we said, 'Let's just get what we can now, abide by our commitment of dollar-for-dollar, and we'll have it out, as the president said, on these two issues in the election".
The failure of the Grand Bargain resulted in the Budget Control Act of 2011, which included the automatic budget sequestration.
So it is now clear that Cantor and Ryan killed the Grand Bargain, leading to the sequester and the onset of European-style austerity and possibly another recession, and their basis for that was their supreme confidence that they would win the election. What is unclear is why, after their ideas were thoroughly rejected, they are defying the will of the American people and a popular president by refusing to compromise.
Could it be that they wanted this all along? Here is what Ryan said after the law putting the sequester in place was passed in August, 2011:
"What conservatives like me have been fighting for, for years, are statutory caps on spending, legal caps in law that says government agencies cannot spend over a set amount of money. And if they breach that amount across the board, sequester comes in to cut that spending, and you can't turn that off without a supermajority vote. We got that in law. That is here."
By: Josh Marks, March 1, 2013, The National Memo
March 2, 2013 Posted by raemd95 | Sequester	| Budget Control Act of 2011, Congress, Conservatives, Election 2012, Eric Cantor, John Boehner, Paul Ryan, Republicans, Teaparty | Leave a comment


Download My Little Pony: The Movie in Digital HD from the iTunes store.
My Little Pony: The Movie images are © Lionsgate. All Rights Reserved.
In 1986 Hasbro toys decided to make a television series based on one of their popular toys – My Little Pony. The show lasted two seasons but merchandising continued to sell for some years after. Then in 1992, we got another version called My Little Pony Tales that had 26 episodes. Almost 20 years later My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic premiered on the Hub Network and has continued to run for seven years. In 2017 we got My Little Pony: The Movie, which is now set to be released on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital Download this week.
As the film opens we see Princess Twilight Sparkle (Tara Strong; The Powerpuff Girls) preparing for Equestria's first Friendship festival. She and the other ponies are nervous and excited but as they decorate the town a dark cloud movies in. It turns out to be The Storm King's (Live Schrieber; Spotlight) henchmen who have come to trap the four Princesses and harness their power to use for the Storm King's evil ways. When Twilight Sparkle escapes, Tempest (Emily Blunt; The Devil Wears Prada) tracks her down to bring her back to Equestia. Twilight has gone on a journey with other ponies to find the "Hippo queen" and ask for her help.
Along the journey, Twilight and her friends meet all sorts of characters including Capper (Taye Diggs; Rent), Captain Celaeno (Zoe Saldana; Star Trek Beyond) and Princess Skystar (Kristin Chenoweth; RV) and her mother, Queen Novo (Uzo Aduba; Orange is the New Black), who is the Queen of the Hippolytus – a pony colony that Twilight seeks out for help. Eventually Twilight angers her friends, get captured and is returned to Equestria to complete The Storm King's evil plan. Luckily, Twilights friends forgive her and save her and the town.
The voice talent in this film is incredibly strong with veteran voice actors and the aforementioned cast. Strong is well cast as is Blunt and Chenoweth brings her bubbly personality to Princess Skystar. Schrieber, however, doesn't really fit for me as the menacing Storm King. Ashleigh Ball (Littlest Pet Shop), Michael Pena; (CHiPs) and Andrea Libman (Strawberry Shortcake's Berry Bitty Adventures) are just some of the supporting cast members that help bring the story to life with the latter playing a terrifically bubbly Pinkie Pie. The level of talented actors who signed on for this film pleasantly surprised me.
The 1080p high definition video quality is strong and the colors pop off the screen beautifully. The animation is somewhat better than the television series but doesn't really match the level of many of the Disney/Pixar/Illumination Studios movies out there. However, that may have been done on purpose as to give the feel of the 1986 show that we loved. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1however is superb and the sound effects fill all the channels offering the viewer a fully immersive experience. The Blu-ray, DVD, Digital combo pack has a surprising number of extras for an animated feature. These include: Deleted Scene, Equestria Girls Short, Baking with Pinkie Pie, Making Magic with the Mane 6 and Their New Friends, The Journey Beyond Equestria, I'm the Friend You Need - Music Video and Hanazuki: Full of Treasures.
For the right audience, namely 3-7 year-old girls - this is a cute film that will delight them. However looking at the movie from adult eyes, I felt I was witnessing an elongated Saturday morning cartoon. Perhaps that was the idea and, if so, the producers succeeded.
It's not a bad film but there are other animated movies that far surpass this one. However, I'm sure the ultimate goal of this movie is to sell more toys and I have no doubt it obtains its goal.


As the production of Datong - The Chinese Utopia enters its final stages, the HKAF is hosting the exhibition, "Datong and The World of Kang Youwei" at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre to give audiences an overview about the historical backdrop and the fascinating characters of Datong.
A trail-blazing political reformer and visionary thinker at the turn of the 20th century, Kang Youwei (1858-1927) envisioned a global utopia of human equality and solidarity. However, his advocacy of a constitutional monarchy, instead of a revolution, has caused him to become the bête noire of modern Chinese history. This exhibition commemorates the 80th anniversary of the first publication of his book, Datong Shu (大同書), in 1935. The exhibition also includes historical photographs, handwritten drafts and other related materials of Kang Youwei and his daughter Kang Tongbi, who was very much China's first female activist.


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October 31, 2019 / 12:13 PM / 3 months ago
Spain's Sanchez says there will be no "online" independence for Catalonia
MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez, stepping up efforts to control separatist groups and parties' activity on the internet, said on Thursday his government would not allow Catalonia to set up a virtual independent republic online.
People hold placards depicting Spain's acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez during a protest against his presence in Viladecans, near Barcelona, Spain, October 30, 2019. REUTERS/Albert Gea
Sanchez faces a parliamentary election on Nov. 10, with much depending on how voters react to days of sometimes violent protests that followed the jailing of nine Catalan separatist leaders this month.
Opinion polls show his Socialist party leading but with fewer seats than in a previous election in April, in part because right-wing parties received a boost from voters upset with the unrest in the wealthy northeastern region.
"I'm telling Catalan separatists. There won't be independence either offline or online. The state of law will be as forcefully online than in the real world," Sanchez told Onda Cero radio.
The government on Thursday adopted a decree to oblige all public administrations in Spain to host their websites in the European Union, a move aimed at putting an end to what he called the separatists' aim of a "digital republic".
Jordi Puignero, Catalan Digital Policy councillor, described the law as a "digital coup d'etat" at a news conference in Barcelona.
"We have witnessed websites closures, application closures, internet-traffic filtering and now they want to ban a republic that they said does not exist. Well, it exists and it is unstoppable," he said.
The move is part of a broader crackdown by Spanish authorities on the online activity of separatists.
A Spanish judge ordered the closure of secretive Catalan protest group Democratic Tsunami, which was immediately followed by the group migrating its website to another address.
Then Spanish police requested coding hosting company GitHub, owned by Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O), to block an app uploaded in its system by Democratic Tsunami.
A GitHub spokesperson told El Pais newspaper that Democratic Tsunami's content had been removed. But the group said its app - designed to announce the group's actions - could still be downloaded through a link posted on the Telegram messaging platform.
Separatist politicians, including Catalonia's former regional president Carles Puigdemont, have set up an online "Council for the Catalan Republic" which says it has 80,000 followers.
Puigdemont's Junts per Catalunya (JxCat) party has included in its electoral programme a plan to create a digital Catalan republic before there can be a real one.
Separately, Democratic Tsunami on Thursday called on people to take to the streets on Nov. 9, on the eve of the parliamentary election, to force the Spanish state to reflect on the jailing of the Catalans.
Reporting by Emma Pinedo and Joan Faus; Additional reporting by Neha Malara; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Giles Elgood


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'Terminator: Dark Fate' VOD Review
by Chris Thomas
Stars: Mackenzie Davis, Linda Hamilton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gabriel Luna, Natalia Reyes, Tom Hopper, Brett Azar, Diego Boneta, Tábata Cerez, Steven Cree, Pete Ploszek | Written by David S. Goyer, Justin Rhodes, Billy Ray | Directed by Tim Miller You're terminated… The stakes seem higher than ever these days, whether a AAA action film is a […]
Tags : Arnold Schwarzenegger, Brett Azar, Diego Boneta, gabriel luna, James Cameron, Linda Hamilton, Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, Pete Ploszek, Review, Steven Cree, Tábata Cerez, Terminator: Dark Fate, Tim Miller, Tom Hopper, VOD
03rd Mar2020
'Terminator: Dark Fate' Blu-ray Review
by Alex Ginnelly
Stars: Mackenzie Davis, Linda Hamilton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gabriel Luna, Natalia Reyes, Tom Hopper, Brett Azar, Diego Boneta, Tábata Cerez, Steven Cree, Pete Ploszek | Written by David S. Goyer, Justin Rhodes, Billy Ray | Directed by Tim Miller Although the best in the franchise since Terminator 2: Judgment Day, this is clearly a dying franchise […]
Tags : Arnold Schwarzenegger, Blu-ray, Brett Azar, Diego Boneta, gabriel luna, James Cameron, Linda Hamilton, Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, Pete Ploszek, Review, Steven Cree, Tábata Cerez, Terminator: Dark Fate, Tim Miller, Tom Hopper
'Terminator: Dark Fate' Review
Tags : Arnold Schwarzenegger, Brett Azar, Diego Boneta, gabriel luna, James Cameron, Linda Hamilton, Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, Pete Ploszek, Review, Steven Cree, Tábata Cerez, Terminator: Dark Fate, Tim Miller, Tom Hopper
'Tully' DVD Review
Stars: Charlize Theron, Mackenzie Davis, Ron Livingston, Asher Miles Fallica, Lia Frankland, Mark Duplass, Elaine Tan, Elaine Tan, Gameela Wright, Tattiawna Jones, Maddie Dixon-Poirier, Joshua Pak | Written by Diablo Cody | Directed by Jason Reitman Director Jason Reitman, writer Diablo Cody and star Charlize Theron reteam after their semi-successful 2009 drama Young Adult, with another dramatic tale […]
Tags : Asher Miles Fallica, Charlize Theron, Diablo Cody, DVD, Elaine Tan, Gameela Wright, Jason Reitman, Joshua Pak, Lia Frankland, Mackenzie Davis, Maddie Dixon-Poirier, Mark Duplass, Review, Ron Livingston, Tattiawna Jones, Tully
New clip from Ridley Scott's 'Blade Runner 2049'
Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K (Ryan Gosling), unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what's left of society into chaos. K's discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former LAPD blade runner who has been […]
Tags : Ana de Armas, barkhad abdi, Blade Runner, Blade Runner 2049, Harrison Ford, Jared Leto, Lennie James, Mackenzie Davis, Ridley Scott, Robin Wright, Ryan Gosling, Sylvia Hoeks
New TV spot for 'Blade Runner 2049'
Two new posters for 'Blade Runner 2049'
Anyone else out there not excited at the prospect of a new Blade Runner film? Despite the feverish anticipation online for the 32 years later sequel, Blade Runner 2049, I'm still not sold on the concept. And this is coming from someone whose very first VHS purchase was the old "blue-spine" Warner Bros. releases of […]
New images from 'Blade Runner 2049'
Anyone else out there not excited at the prospect of a new Blade Runner film? I can't say the idea of old man Deckard fills me with any anticipation for the 32 years later sequel, Blade Runner 2049… And this is coming from someone whose very first VHS purchase was the old "blue-spine" Warner Bros. […]
'What If' Review
by Chris Cummings
Stars: Daniel Radcliffe, Adam Driver, Zoe Kazan, Rafe Spall, Megan Park, Mackenzie Davis, Lucius Hoyos, Jemima Rooper | Written by Elan Mastai | Directed by Michael Dowse I was lucky enough to see an advance screening of What If this week, a romantic comedy with a quirky edge to it that makes if feel somewhat fresh, like […]
Tags : Adam Driver, Daniel Radcliffe, Elan Mastai, Jemima Rooper, Lucius Hoyos, Mackenzie Davis, Megan Park, Michael Dowse, Rafe Spall, Review, What If, Zoe Kazan
'That Awkward Moment' Review
Stars: Zac Efron, Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Imogen Poots, Mackenzie Davis, Jessica Lucas | Written and Directed by Tom Gormican Jason (Efron) and Daniel (Teller) are living a carefree single life in New York City when their best friend Mikey (Jordan) learns his wife wants a divorce. In a show of support, the three […]
Tags : Imogen Poots, Jessica Lucas, Mackenzie Davis, Michael B. Jordan, Miles Teller, Review, That Awkward Moment, Tom Gormican, Zac Efron


After its dazzling success in 2013, the Bristol Women's Literature Festival is delighted to announce it is returning to Watershed on the 14th and 15th March 2015.
Some of the literary scene's brightest stars will be arriving in Bristol to join a unique festival that celebrates women's writing.
The Bristol Women's Literature Festival aims to celebrate the work of women writers working today and throughout history. It brings together the diverse and exciting talent of women writers, academics and activists to showcase our fantastic literary heritage.
The fascinating and varied programme features award-winning novelist and short story writer, Michele Roberts, winner of Faber Young Poet of the Year Helen Mort, writer and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo, poet and filmmaker Annemarie Jacir, activists and writers Beatrix Campbell and Caroline Criado-Perez, and leading academic Professor Helen Hackett. These women are, without doubt, some of the most influential and vibrant writers working today.
The festival takes place across the weekend of 16th and 17th March at famous Bristol arts venue, Watershed. Organised by feminist writer Siân Norris, the event aims to celebrate the work of women writers in a literary scene that is all too often dominated by male voices.
The festival opens on Saturday 14th March with a screening of the award-winning documentary film Paris was a Woman. Greta Schiller's 1996 film explores the lives of the extraordinary women who made their home on Paris' Left Bank in the 1920s, including Gertrude Stein, Djuna Barnes, Colette and Sylvia Beach. The film will be followed by a brief audience discussion, chaired by Siân Norris.
In the afternoon, writers and activists, Beatrix Campbell and Caroline Criado-Perez, activist Nimko Ali, and Helen Lewis, the deputy editor of the New Statesman, will be talking about their work and the relationship between feminism and journalism.
On Saturday evening award-winning film director and poet Annemarie Jacir and novelist Selma Dabbagh will read and discuss their own work, and the poems of other well-known Palestinian writers. This event is organised in collaboration with the Bristol Palestinian Film Festival, as part of Conversations about Cinema: Impact of Conflict.
Sunday opens with a talk from Professor Helen Hackett on the women of Shakespeare's time. Professor Hackett will introduce us to the women writers of the Renaissance who have been written out of history, and the process of bringing them back into the canon where they belong.
The final event of the festival brings together some of the most exciting and innovative women working in the UK today. Novelist and short story writer Michele Roberts, first time novelist Amy C Mason, poet Helen Mort, playwright and memoirist Samantha Ellis, and writer and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo will join Sarah LeFanu to discuss their work.
Why do we need a women's literature festival?
Although women have always written and always read, the UK literature scene continues to be very male dominated. A 2012 survey by For Books' Sake revealed that at Manchester Literature festival, only 20 out of 74 speakers were women, whilst at the Latitude Literary Area, women made up 15 of 53 performers. Meanwhile, the VIDA Count shows the gross gender disparity in major literary publications and book reviews.
The festival is supported by Watershed, Foyles, The Bristol Palestinian Film Festival and The Bristol Festival of Ideas.
How much? Individual events are priced at £8 (£6 concession) with a weekend ticket available for £30 (£25 concession. Please note there are a limited number of weekend tickets). Tickets are on sale at the Watershed Box Office and website.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized on 05/03/2015 by pgcwwn.


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[image-caption title="FEMA%20funding%20formulas%20shut%20North%20Plains%20Electric%20out%20of%20federal%20disaster%20assistance%20after%20a%20devastating%20ice%20storm.%20" description="(Photo%20courtesy%20North%20Plains%20Electric)" image="/remagazine/articles/PublishingImages/ice-4.jpg" /]
As a co-op job title, "manager of member services" can cover a lot of ground, especially at smaller co-ops. That's certainly the case for Bill Carson, who holds that position at North Plains Electric Cooperative in Perryton, Texas.
Communications, government relations, and business development "are kind of my day-to-day duties," Carson says. "I'm also manager of information technology. We're a very small co-op."
Last spring, Carson put on a decidedly different hat: lobbying federal officials in Washington, D.C., for more sensible policies on disaster assistance in rural areas.
The snow and ice storm that swept across the country last January hit North Plains Electric especially hard, breaking or toppling nearly 8,000 poles. About 40 percent of the distribution system was affected, and at one point, the co-op had 330 contract and mutual-aid workers helping its 40-person staff repair the widespread damage. Recovery costs, Carson says, approached $14 million.
But the rules and funding formulas used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) denied the co-op access to any of its disaster assistance. That meant North Plains Electric would have to eat the whole tab, and it was a big bite to swallow for a 7,000-meter co-op.
"We have way less members than that because we're so rural," Carson says. "We've got so many oil and gas and agribusiness accounts, and a lot of those have multiple meters."
Run the numbers, and the tab settled at a whopping $7,800 per member to cover the costs of recovery. The co-op tapped its reserves and reallocated some of a previously approved Rural Utilities Service loan to meet the unexpected bills, Carson says, "but our equity's going to go down, and it'll have an impact on our margins."
Meanwhile, the state of Oklahoma met FEMA's funding threshold, and even a neighboring co-op qualified for emergency help.
Carson doesn't begrudge his neighbors the assistance they received. But he does believe FEMA and Congress should take a hard look at disaster funding formulas based on state population.
That was the case he made when he and other co-op leaders met with Alex Amparo, FEMA's assistant administrator for recovery, during NRECA's annual Legislative Conference last spring.
"I directly asked the question: Do I need to tell Texas co-ops you're not going to be there for us?" Carson recounted after the meeting. It was a pointed question, and it brought a careful response from the agency official.
"FEMA always appreciates the opportunity to meet with the nation's electric cooperatives," Amparo, an alumnus of NRECA's Youth Tour, had responded. "As someone who grew up on co-op lines, I value the service they provide and commend them on their focus of getting the lights back on quickly after a disaster."
[image-caption title="A%20recent%20ice%20storm%20damaged%20nearly%208,000%20North%20Plains%20Electric%20Cooperative%20poles.%20" description="(Photo%20courtesy%20North%20Plains%20Electric)%20" image="/remagazine/articles/PublishingImages/ice-6-1024x683.jpg" /]
The episode reveals something important about NRECA's Legislative Conference and the value of enlisting a member services manager like Carson for the event, says Martha Duggan, the association's senior director for regulatory affairs, who arranged the FEMA meeting.
"From my perspective, anyone from a co-op adds incredibly to meetings with policymakers," Duggan says. "They bring the reality, the voice of boots on the ground."
Carson, who now sits on the NRECA FEMA Policy Task Force that Duggan coordinates, agrees: "Member service … we're the contact for so many fronts for the co-op, and a lot of times we have the communication skills and the government relations skills to help."
He says those skills came in handy at the FEMA meeting with Amparo.
"Basically, I think it illustrated a situation that he already knew about," Carson says. "The amount of money they're spending is really under a microscope, and I get that. But it's kind of a Catch-22. We're trying to supply infrastructure and do it at an affordable price. It's both for quality of life and economic development. And then, when we get hit with a catastrophe that we don't have any control over, basically our members are at risk. Our whole co-op is at risk. Then it comes down to what's economically viable, what can you count on from the government. And those are the kinds of discussions we need to continue. We need to educate FEMA about what we can and can't do."
More bad news lies ahead for small co-ops in big states, he warns.
"The next census, the state population of Texas is going to go up, so that's going to raise the assistance threshold. And there's a rulemaking at FEMA right now to raise that threshold anyway."
NRECA's FEMA Policy Task Force will be busy. Its nearly 50 members from 40 co-ops and statewides meet mostly by conference call. And Carson plans to be on the line.
He'll fit those calls in between the press releases he writes, the service club presentations he makes, and the economic development meetings he attends.
"And I'll certainly be involved in government relations locally, or when we have our congressman or state legislators come for a town meeting," Carson says. "I go to all those. I make sure they know who I am, so I can call when we need something."
He says his FEMA work has broadened his career in unexpected ways, and he expects he'll probably be back for the 2018 Legislative Conference.
"If you'd have asked me a year ago if I was going to be in a big discussion about FEMA and disaster recovery, I would have said I'd never be involved in that," Carson says. "That's one of the things about member service and about co-ops in general. It's never boring."
Know someone RE Magazine could profile for our "Front Lines" column? We're looking for co-op operations and member services staffers, from meter readers to lineworkers to engineers, who make things work at electric co-ops nationwide. Contact us at remag@nreca.coop, or you can reach writer John Vanvig directly at johnlvanvig@yahoo.com or 360-624-4595.
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The Sixth String of Vilayat Khan, a no-holds-barred biography written by Namita Devidayal, throws light on the fascinating life of one of India's most distinguished classical musicians.
Serial digital entrepreneur Alok Kejriwal has a knack for engaging people and making a business out of it. Having surfed the dotcom wave and emerged a winner when it went bust, he experienced the highs and lows of building profitable start-ups from scratch. MARWAR picks the brains of the observant and forward-thinking entrepreneur, whose recently penned book Why I Stopped Wearing My Socks traces his roller-coaster journey as an entrepreneur.
Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar, scion of Udaipur's House of Mewar, has more than his fair share of duties as a prince. Besides overseeing the family-run group of heritage hotels and dedicating himself to philanthropic causes, he is the torchbearer of a legacy that dates back to the eighth century. MARWAR talks to the royal hotelier and humanist about his childhood, his passions and the responsibilities he shoulders.
Wooden Street, India's first online store for custom furniture, revolutionised the online furniture market within a few months of its launch in 2015. MARWAR talks to Lokendra Singh Ranawat, the co-founder and CEO of Wooden Street, to get an insight into his successful entrepreneurial journey, new forays and future plans.
The book respects the intelligence of children, encouraging them to dive right into the complex nature of the story with its twists and turns.


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Membership and governance
Memorial to Andrew Hunter
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Spain's First Sex Worker Lobby Group Forms in Barcelona
Submitted by NSWP on 9th April 2015
Europe Regional Correspondent
Source (institute/publication):
In Spain, Catalonia is preparing for municipal elections in late May and regional elections in September. With that in mind, a new group has been established to lobby candidates on behalf of sex workers.
The Assembly of Sex Work Pro-rights Activists of Catalonia, is made up of sex workers and allies and is backed by the leftwing party CUP, and Barcelona en Comú, a coalition of parties and civic associations putting forward its own candidate for mayor in Barcelona's municipal elections.
"We are the most stigmatised and criminalised group of women in society," said Montse Neira, one of the group's founders, in a statement quoted at El País. "From now on, nobody else is going to speak for us."
The group cites an incident, which occurred in early March as a catalyst for their formation. A building in Barcelona's El Raval neighbourhood where 30 sex workers had lived and worked for the past 13 years was boarded up after the city bought the building in December.
This closure of their workplace was part of a trend said Paula Vip from sex worker group, Asociación de Profesionales del Sexo (Aprosex). "The violence we face doesn't come from our clients, but from the institutions that govern based on the interest of a moral minority. From now on, we prostitutes will be organised, convinced, ready to fight and ready for war. All women who charge for sex must do so freely, because otherwise, it's not prostitution, it's slavery."
The group was formed shortly after a significant court ruling in Barcelona in which a judge said that three women working in a Barcelona brothel had a right to healthcare and benefits contributions from their employer.
Prostitution in Spain is neither legal nor regulated but, in 2012, Barcelona has introduced fines for soliciting prostitutes in the street. Paul Ezkerra from the new group told The Guardian that the law has forced workers into more precarious situations, and in some cases led them to abandon their only means of earning an income. The new group is making it a priority to push the city to drop the 2012 laws.
In a 2007 parliamentary report on prostitution it was estimated there were 400,000 sex workers in Spain. However since then, following Spain's economic crisis, it is often reported that they has been a large increase in people moving into selling sex in order to make ends meet.
In 2006, a parliamentary commission began exploring the possibility of regulating the sector. The idea was later dropped, partly because of worries about the high number of women trafficked into the sector.
Vip says that, by conflating sex workers and trafficking victims, refusing authorities are failing to adequately address the needs of either group, and relegating sex workers to the margins of society. "Prostitutes do not live in the sewers. We have our lives, we are free, we have our rights and we're prepared to fight for them."
community-based organising
The Obituary of Margo St. James, Pioneer of the Sex Workers' Rights Movement
DRC sex workers demand greater protection during COVID-19 pandemic
Global Consultant: Smart Sex Worker's Guide to Digital Security
Policy Officer (part-time)
Sex workers mark 17th December 2020: International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers


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Q: Nested If AND statement - google sheets The nested if statement I've tried writing keeps returning an error but I can't see where. I've seen similar threads but none with a workable syntax. I've tried with and without the and statement. Very simply looking at the value in a cell (C5) and returning a corresponding value-based what the number in C5 is.
=if(C5>84.5,1,if(and(C5<=84.5,C5>79.5,1.3,if(and(C5<=79.5,C5>74.5,1.7,if(and(C5<=74.5,C5>69.5,2,if(and(C5<=69.5,C5>64.5,2.3,if(and(C5<=64.5,C5>59.5,2.7,if(and(C5<=59.5,C5>54.5,3,if(and(C5<=54.5,C5>49.5,3.3,if(and(C5<=49.5,C5>44.5,3.7,if(and(C5<=44.5,C5>=40,4,if(C5<40,5))))))))))))))))))))

I expect the output to range from 1 to 5 depending on what the value in cell C5 is but I keep getting the following error

Wrong number of arguments to IF. Expected between 2 and 3 arguments,
  but got 1 argument

A: You systematically forgot to close the parentheses of your and() functions. Try this:
=if(C5>84.5,1,if(and(C5<=84.5,C5>79.5),1.3,if(and(C5<=79.5,C5>74.5),1.7,if(and(C5<=74.5,C5>69.5),2,if(and(C5<=69.5,C5>64.5),2.3,if(and(C5<=64.5,C5>59.5),2.7,if(and(C5<=59.5,C5>54.5),3,if(and(C5<=54.5,C5>49.5),3.3,if(and(C5<=49.5,C5>44.5),3.7,if(and(C5<=44.5,C5>=40),4,if(C5<40,5)))))))))))

A: if you need ArrayFormula use:
=ARRAYFORMULA(
 IF( C5:C >  84.5, 1,
 IF((C5:C <= 84.5) * (C5:C >  79.5), 1.3,
 IF((C5:C <= 79.5) * (C5:C >  74.5), 1.7,
 IF((C5:C <= 74.5) * (C5:C >  69.5), 2,
 IF((C5:C <= 69.5) * (C5:C >  64.5), 2.3,
 IF((C5:C <= 64.5) * (C5:C >  59.5), 2.7,
 IF((C5:C <= 59.5) * (C5:C >  54.5), 3,
 IF((C5:C <= 54.5) * (C5:C >  49.5), 3.3,
 IF((C5:C <= 49.5) * (C5:C >  44.5), 3.7,
 IF((C5:C <= 44.5) * (C5:C >= 40),   4,
 IF( C5:C <  40, 5))))))))))))


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Wings over Kabul: The First Airlift, is a book by Anne Baker and Air Chief Marshall Sir Ronald Ivelaw-Chapman, detailing the Kabul airlift of 1928–1929. It was published in 1975 by William Kimber & Co. Limited with a foreword provided by William Dickson. Baker's father Sir Geoffrey Salmond was head of the Royal Air force in India at the time of the airlift, and directed the rescue.

Told mainly through official documents, letters and memoirs, including some from Sir Francis Humphrys, British minister in Kabul based at the British legation in 1928, the book pieces together the stories of the 84 air missions that successfully airlifted 586 civilians and officials from Kabul between 23 December 1928 and 25 February 1929, in what has been described by David Jordan, reader in defence studies at King's College, as the first significant use of airpower in an insurgency campaign.

Sir William Hildred noted it to be a well documented record of one of the Royal Air Force's historical landmarks, and James Stourton described it as a book to be celebrated. Airfix Magazine agreed that the book documented the rescue, but claimed it significantly underestimated the risks and dangers of the evacuation.

Publication and background
Wings over Kabul: The First Airlift was written by Anne Baker and Air Chief Marshall Sir Ronald Ivelaw-Chapman, who in 1928 was a flight lieutenant. It was published by William Kimber & Co. Limited in 1975. Baker's father, Sir Geoffrey Salmond, was head of the Royal Air Force in India at the time of the evacuation. Sir Francis Humphrys was the British minister in Kabul based at the British legation, situated just outside Kabul.

Baker subsequently wrote a biography of her father titled From Biplane To Spitfire: The Life of Air Chief Marshal Sir Geoffrey Salmond (2004).

Layout
The book begins with acknowledgements of sources including letters from Humphrys' and his wife's diaries, letters to and from Salmond and Lord Trenchard, memoirs of Flight Lieutenant G. Donaldson, documents from the HM Stationery Office, British Aircraft Corporation, Royal Air Force Museum London, Hendon, India Office and the Public Records Office, and information about later airlifts by No. 46 Group RAF. A foreword acknowledging Salmond's role in developing air routes to India is provided by William Dickson, who in 1929-30 was Salmond's staff officer and pilot.

The preface is written by Ivelaw-Chapman who points out that although a smaller scale evacuation had been carried out seven years earlier in Sulaymaniyah, the Kabul airlift of 1928-29 was the first major air evacuation of civilians and officials from one country to another at a time of political tension. In the preface and postscript, he contrasts the Afghanistan airlift with the Berlin airlift of 1948, and makes close parallels with the Dacca airlift of 1971 and the Cyprus airlift of 1974. One common lesson he draws from all three airlifts is that; "it [UK] must keep in being not only adequate air transport capacity for its own needs but, and here lies the rub, see to it that there is sufficient flexibility in their [aircraft] use for them to be diverted from the normal task to wherever in the world these 'mercy missions' call for their presence".

The book is in 20 chapters interspersed with photographs, and after the postscript the book ends with an appendix depicting a record of the number of British and foreign personnel evacuated; 268 men, 153 women and 165 children. There are a few footnotes, but no bibliography or index.

Synopsis
The book records the 84 air missions that contributed to the successful evacuation of 586 civilians and officers from Kabul beginning in 1928, directed by Salmond who had been Air Officer Commanding RAF in India since 1927. The first chapter gives the background to the near decade development of the Air Force in India up to 1928, including the first civilian flight from England to India in early 1927. The next few chapters outline the make-up of the North West Frontier, and the infuriations for the Mullahs caused by the King of Afghanistan, Amanullah's series of political changes intended to bring about a more European way of life in 1928. By early-December, political tension in Afghanistan caused Humphrys to have concern, and fearing a massacre, he sent Salmond a message requesting the evacuation of all civilians from the Legation. According to the authors, it was possibly the memory of the 1842 retreat from Kabul during winter with temperatures reaching as low as -17 °C that prompted Humphrys to request that the evacuation take place by air.

Baker states that, Salmond in 1928, had in his command only one transport plane, the Hinaidi, but it was in Baghdad, and his 24 Airco DH.9As and two Westland Wapitis were not confirmed for use. In addition, she explains that Kabul is 6,000 feet above sea level, and that aircraft would be required to fly over and in-between hazardous mountains that peaked 10,000 feet. Recounted are the experiences of the many reconnaissance flights, including the first reconnaissance flight, of No. 27 Squadron. Humphrys left on the final flight from Kabul and arrived in Peshawar on 25 February 1929.

Reviews and responses
In History.net, the book is suggested for further reading on the Kabul airlift. It was noted by reader in defence studies at King's College, David Jordan, to describe the first significant use of airpower in an insurgency campaign. This view was reiterated by James Stourton who describes it as a "celebrated book" of the first evacuation of its kind. Sir William Hildred in The Aeronautical Journal called it a "fascinating" account of one of the Airforce's historical landmarks  with its "suicidal flights" now well documented in Baker's book. Hildred notes the useful inclusion of the first flight to India and describes the book as a good record of the flights, with plenty of photographs. He notes that the book shows Salmond's command of the rescue and Humphrys' protection of the Legation as equal feats of leadership.

Airfix Magazine appreciated the factual information in the book which "sets the record straight", but felt that the risks of using  only one large passenger aircraft and flying in an open cockpit in freezing temperatures through some of the world's most dangerous mountain range were not reflected in the book, which "grossly understates the heroism and dangers of the whole affair".

Wings over Kabul provides a reference for Ivelaw-Chapman's flights to and from Kabul. Following the return of No. 70 Squadron RAF to Kabul after the Taliban insurgency, extracts from the book appeared in The Telegraph in 2009. It is cited frequently throughout British army officer, Andrew Roe's historical paper on the evacuation published in Air Power Review in 2012. The book is listed in K. S. McLachlan's A Bibliography of Afghanistan.

Gallery

References

Further reading
 London: HMSO.

External links

1975 non-fiction books
British non-fiction literature
Aviation books
Books about Afghanistan


Join artist Joe Coveney for a practical art workshop taking place in the IMMA Studios over the mid-term. In this two day workshop we will focus on the exhibition Sunset, Sunrise by Iranian artist Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian.
Farmanfarmaian's art works include painting, sculpture, jewellery, tapestry, collages and works on paper, and they often incorporate a kaleidoscope-like range of rich colours set within geometric and architectural forms.
In exploring the practice of Farmanfarmaian our art making in the studio will involve thinking more about shapes and geometry and collaborating on a group sculptural drawing. We'll use this as a springboard to develop our own individual drawings and some further 3D work.
This is a great opportunity to meet and work with a contemporary artist, gain knowledge and practical experience of contemporary art in the galleries, discuss ideas and create art.


text:
Q: differentiate a string from a list in Erlang In Erlang when you have a list of printable characters, its a string, but a string is also a list of items and all functions of a list can be applied onto a string. Really, the data structure string doesn't exist in Erlang.
Part of my code needs to be sure that something is not only a list, but it's a string. (A real string). It needs to separate lists e.g.  [1,2,3,a,b,"josh"] , from string e.g.  "Muzaaya".
The guard expression is_list/1 will say true for both strings and lists. There is no such guard as is_string/1 and so this means I need a code snippet will make sure that my data is a string.
A string in this case is a list of only printable (alphabetical, both cases, upper and lower), and may contain numbers e.g "Muzaaya2536 618 Joshua". I need a code snippet please (Erlang) that will check this for me and ensure that the variable is a string, not just a list. thanks

A: using the isprint(3) definition of printable characters --
isprint(X) when X >= 32, X < 127 -> true;
isprint(_) -> false.

is_string(List) when is_list(List) -> lists:all(fun isprint/1, List);
is_string(_) -> false.

you won't be able to use it as a guard, though.

A: You have two functions in the module io_lib which can be helpful: io_lib:printable_list/1 and io_lib:printable_unicode_list/1 which test if the argument is a list of printable latin1 or unicode characters respectively.


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: February 10 2010 10:05:09.
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