text:
import cv2
import functools
import message_filters
import numpy as np
import pdb
from PIL import Image
import sys
from timeit import default_timer as timer
import torch
from torch.autograd import Variable
from torchvision import transforms

import os
sys.path.append(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)) + "/../")
from train_eval.models.model import UNet

# ROS imports.
import rospy
import tf as ros_tf

from cv_bridge import CvBridge, CvBridgeError
from image_geometry import PinholeCameraModel
from sensor_msgs.msg import CameraInfo
from sensor_msgs.msg import CompressedImage
from sensor_msgs.msg import Image as ImMsg
from sensor_msgs.msg import PointCloud2
from sensor_msgs.msg import PointField

transform = transforms.Compose([
                 transforms.ToTensor(),
            ])

class SegmentationModel(object):
    """
    Segmentation and Pinhole projection for line detection
    """
    def __init__(self, camera_names, publisher_topic,
            resize_width, resize_height, use_preexisting_segmentation, **kwargs):

        self.use_preexisting_segmentation = use_preexisting_segmentation
        self.resize_width = resize_width
        self.resize_height = resize_height

        self.bridge = CvBridge()

        if self.use_preexisting_segmentation:
            segmented_image_topics = kwargs["segmented_image_topics"]
        else:
            # load the model
            self.graph = UNet([3,resize_width,resize_height], 3)
            self.graph.load_state_dict(torch.load(
                    kwargs["model_filename"]
            ))

            self.force_cpu = kwargs["force_cpu"]
            self.line_thresh = kwargs["line_thresh"]

            if not self.force_cpu:
                self.graph.cuda()
            self.graph.eval()

        # Setup camera model and subsciber for each camera.
        self.camera_models = {}
        self.cam_transform_rotation_matrices = {}
        self.cam_transform_translations = {}
        self.world_point_arrays = {}
        self.subscribers = []
        self.im_publishers = {}
        self.cloud_publishers = {}

        for camera_name in camera_names:
            rospy.loginfo('Setting up %s.' % camera_name)

            try:
                camera_info = rospy.wait_for_message('/%s/camera_info' % camera_name, CameraInfo, timeout=5)
            except(rospy.ROSException), e:
                rospy.logerr('Camera info for %s not available.' % camera_name)
                exit()

            # width and height adjust factors.
            waf = float(resize_width) / camera_info.width
            haf = float(resize_height) / camera_info.height
            camera_info.height = resize_height
            camera_info.width = resize_width

            # adjust the camera matrix.
            K = camera_info.K
            camera_info.K = (K[0]*waf,         0.,  K[2]*waf,
                                    0.,  K[4]*haf,  K[5]*haf,
                                    0.,        0.,         1.)

            # adjust the projection matrix.
            P = camera_info.P
            camera_info.P = (P[0]*waf,        0.,  P[2]*waf,  0.,
                                   0.,  P[5]*haf,  P[6]*haf,  0.,
                                   0.,        0.,        1.,  0.)

            self.camera_models[camera_name] = PinholeCameraModel()
            self.camera_models[camera_name].fromCameraInfo(camera_info)
            rospy.loginfo(camera_info)

            # Get transform between camera and base_footprint.
            transform_listener = ros_tf.TransformListener()
            print(camera_name)

            cam_frame_name = camera_name.replace("usb_cam_", "") + "_cam_optical"
            transform_listener.waitForTransform('/base_footprint', cam_frame_name, rospy.Time(0), rospy.Duration(5.0))
            cam_transform_translation, cam_transform_rotation = transform_listener.lookupTransform('/base_footprint', cam_frame_name, rospy.Time(0))
            self.cam_transform_rotation_matrices[camera_name] = ros_tf.transformations.quaternion_matrix(cam_transform_rotation)[:-1,:-1]
            self.cam_transform_translations[camera_name] = np.asarray(cam_transform_translation)
            print self.cam_transform_translations[camera_name]
            print self.cam_transform_rotation_matrices[camera_name]

            # Create a mapping between image pixels and world coordinates (flat plane assumption).
            self.init_point_cloud_array(camera_name)

            # Create image and pointcloud publishers.
            self.im_publishers[camera_name] = rospy.Publisher('%s/%s' % (publisher_topic, camera_name), ImMsg, queue_size=1)
            self.cloud_publishers[camera_name] = rospy.Publisher('%s/%s' % ("/semantic_segmentation_cloud", camera_name), PointCloud2, queue_size=1)

            print('Finished setting up %s.' % camera_name)

        if self.use_preexisting_segmentation:
            for camera_name, segmented_image_topic in zip(camera_names, segmented_image_topics):
                # Use the same callback for every camera.
                self.subscribers.append(rospy.Subscriber(segmented_image_topic, ImMsg, \
                        functools.partial(self.segmented_image_cb, camera_name), queue_size=1, buff_size=10**8))
        else:
            for camera_name in camera_names:
                # Use the same callback for every camera.
                self.subscribers.append(rospy.Subscriber('/%s/image_raw/compressed' % camera_name, CompressedImage, \
                        functools.partial(self.image_cb, camera_name), queue_size=1, buff_size=10**8))

        rospy.loginfo('Line detector is running.')

    def image_cb(self, camera_name, data):
        # Track inference time.
        start = timer()

        # Resize image and convert to tensor.
        np_arr = np.fromstring(data.data, np.uint8)
        image_np = cv2.imdecode(np_arr, cv2.IMREAD_COLOR)
        image_np = cv2.resize(image_np, dsize=(self.resize_width,self.resize_height))
        img_to_tensor = Image.fromarray(image_np)
        img_tensor = transform(img_to_tensor)

        if not self.force_cpu:
            img_tensor = Variable(img_tensor.unsqueeze(0)).cuda()
        else:
            img_tensor = Variable(img_tensor.unsqueeze(0))

        # Inference.
        output = self.graph(img_tensor)
        output_data = output.cpu().data.numpy()[0][0]

        # Network output values above threshold are lines.
        im_threshold = output_data > self.line_thresh

        # Get world coordinates of detected lines.
        world_points = self.world_point_arrays[camera_name][im_threshold]
        # Publish segmentation map.
        im_threshold = np.uint8(255*im_threshold)
        cv_output = cv2.cvtColor(im_threshold, cv2.COLOR_GRAY2BGR)
        msg_out = self.bridge.cv2_to_imgmsg(cv_output, 'bgr8')
        msg_out.header.stamp = data.header.stamp
        self.im_publishers[camera_name].publish(msg_out)

        # Publish pointcloud.
        cloud_msg = PointCloud2()
        cloud_msg.header.stamp = data.header.stamp
        cloud_msg.header.frame_id = 'base_footprint'
        cloud_msg.height = 1
        cloud_msg.width = len(world_points)
        cloud_msg.fields = [
            PointField('x', 0, PointField.FLOAT32, 1),
            PointField('y', 4, PointField.FLOAT32, 1),
            PointField('z', 8, PointField.FLOAT32, 1)]
        cloud_msg.is_bigendian = False
        cloud_msg.point_step = 12
        cloud_msg.row_step = 3 * len(world_points)
        cloud_msg.data = world_points.tostring()

        self.cloud_publishers[camera_name].publish(cloud_msg)

        end = timer()
        #print end - start

    def segmented_image_cb(self, camera_name, data):
        # Track inference time.
        start = timer()

        # Resize image and convert to tensor.
        np_arr = self.bridge.imgmsg_to_cv2(data, "mono8")
        image_np = cv2.resize(np_arr, dsize=(self.resize_width,self.resize_height))

        # Get world coordinates of detected lines.
        im_threshold = np.array(np.rint(image_np / 255.0), dtype=np.bool_)
        world_points = self.world_point_arrays[camera_name][im_threshold]

        # Publish segmentation map.
        im_threshold = np.uint8(255 * im_threshold)
        cv_output = cv2.cvtColor(im_threshold, cv2.COLOR_GRAY2BGR)
        msg_out = self.bridge.cv2_to_imgmsg(cv_output, 'bgr8')
        msg_out.header.stamp = data.header.stamp
        self.im_publishers[camera_name].publish(msg_out)

        # Publish pointcloud.
        cloud_msg = PointCloud2()
        cloud_msg.header.stamp = data.header.stamp
        cloud_msg.header.frame_id = 'base_footprint'
        cloud_msg.height = 1
        cloud_msg.width = len(world_points)
        cloud_msg.fields = [
            PointField('x', 0, PointField.FLOAT32, 1),
            PointField('y', 4, PointField.FLOAT32, 1),
            PointField('z', 8, PointField.FLOAT32, 1)]
        cloud_msg.is_bigendian = False
        cloud_msg.point_step = 12
        cloud_msg.row_step = 3 * len(world_points)
        cloud_msg.data = world_points.tostring()

        self.cloud_publishers[camera_name].publish(cloud_msg)

        end = timer()
        #print end - start

    # This function projects image pixels into world coordinates using a flat plane assumption.
    def init_point_cloud_array(self, camera_name):
        camera_model = self.camera_models[camera_name]
        cam_transform_translation = self.cam_transform_translations[camera_name]
        cam_transform_rotation_matrix = self.cam_transform_rotation_matrices[camera_name]

        world_points_array = np.empty( (self.resize_height,self.resize_width,3), dtype=np.float32)
        for r,c in np.ndindex(self.resize_height,self.resize_width):
            ray = np.asarray(camera_model.projectPixelTo3dRay((c,r)))
            ray_in_world = np.matmul(cam_transform_rotation_matrix, ray)
            scale = -cam_transform_translation[2] / ray_in_world[2]
            world_point = scale * ray_in_world + cam_transform_translation
            world_points_array[r,c] = [world_point[0], world_point[1], world_point[2]]
        self.world_point_arrays[camera_name] = world_points_array

if __name__ == '__main__':
    rospy.init_node('cnn')

    # Read ros params.
    use_preexisting_segmentation = rospy.get_param('use_preexisting_segmentation', False)

    camera_names = rospy.get_param('camera_names')
    image_resize_width = rospy.get_param('image_resize_width')
    image_resize_height = rospy.get_param('image_resize_height')
    output_segmentation_topic = rospy.get_param('output_segmentation_topic')

    if use_preexisting_segmentation:
        segmented_image_topics = rospy.get_param('segmented_image_topics')
        SegmentationModel(camera_names,
                          output_segmentation_topic,
                          image_resize_width, image_resize_height,
                          use_preexisting_segmentation,
                          segmented_image_topics = segmented_image_topics)

    else:
        model_path = rospy.get_param('model_path')
        force_cpu = rospy.get_param('force_cpu')
        line_thresh = rospy.get_param('line_thresh')
        SegmentationModel(camera_names,
                          output_segmentation_topic,
                          image_resize_width, image_resize_height,
                          use_preexisting_segmentation,
                          model_filename = model_path,
                          force_cpu = force_cpu,
                          line_thresh = line_thresh)

    try:
        rospy.spin()
    except KeyboardInterrupt:
        rospy.logerr("Shutting down")


摘要: Online learning is increasingly prevalent as an option for self-learning and as a resource for instructional design. Prerecorded video is currently the main medium of online education content delivery and instruction; this affords asynchronicity and flexibility, and enables the dissemination of lecture content in a distributed and scalable manner. However, the same properties may impede learners' engagement due to the lack of social interaction and peer support. In this paper, we propose a time-anchored commenting interface to allow online learners who watch the same video clips to exchange comments on them. Comments left by previous learners at specific time points of a video are displayed to new learners when they watch the same video and reach those time points. We investigated how the display of time-anchored comments (dynamic or static) and type of comments (content-related or social-oriented) influenced users' perceived engagement, perceived social interactivity, and learning outcomes. Our results show that dynamically displaying time-anchored comments can indeed enhance learners' perceived social interactivity. Moreover, the content of comments would further affect learners' intention of commenting. Based on our findings, we make various recommendations for the improvement of social interaction and learning experience in online education.
Assessing the effects of interactive blogging on student attitudes towards peer interaction, learning motivation, and academic achievements / Yang, C.;Chang, Y. -S.
淡江大學 - Peer-to-peer based social interaction tools in ubiquitous learning environment / Zhang, Guozhen; Jin, Qun; Shih, Timothy K.
國立臺灣科技大學 - Applying social bookmarking to collective information searching (CIS): An analysis of behavioral pattern and peer interaction for co-exploring quality online resources / Lin, C.C.;Tsai, C.C.


Your call will be answered!
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Research priorities are defined by clinical need.
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Using our collaborative research network, create multidisciplinary teams to solve the complex problems in the Med Tech domain.
Foster emerging research in areas that will provide the next generation of medical technologies.
Build critical mass in the areas where we can deliver greatest research leadership and impact.
Accelerate the availability of new technologies via first-in-human clinical trials and community engagement.


Demand from international applicants coming to study at the UK's higher education institutions is a key factor for investors in purpose-built student accommodation, who want to secure the best possible chances of strong rental yields on their properties.
It's good news, then, that the government has launched a plan to increase the number of international students studying in the UK by more than 30 per cent.
Announced by education secretary Damian Hinds and international trade secretary Liam Fox, the new International Education Strategy is designed to "cement Britain's leading role in the global market as it prepares to leave the EU" and unlock maximum benefits "to both the UK and students from around the world".
It is expected to boost the income generated by education exports and transnational activity from the current £20 billion per year to £35 billion by 2030.
At the moment, the UK hosts approximately 460,000 international higher education students, a figure that is hoped to increase to 600,000 under the new initiative.
The government is planning to not only maintain the UK's appeal to existing international student markets such as Europe, but raise the profile of Britain's higher education institutions in regions like Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Mr Hinds said: "The UK's education system is world-leading and its reputation is the envy of many countries around the globe.
The prospect of more international students coming to the UK will certainly be an appealing one for property investors who own assets in the burgeoning purpose-built student accommodation sector.
If you are looking to enter the UK's profitable student accommodation market, Experience Invest is currently offering a number of exciting opportunities which offer assured rental returns for a pre-determined period.
As each development is fully managed by a leading management company, buyers can secure a reliable rental income from a property that has been designed with the end-user in mind. Located in the centre of some of the UK's leading university cities, Experience Invest's offering presents buyers with some of the highest rental yields available in this profitable market segment.
Student property has emerged as a popular choice for UK and overseas investors who wish to diversify their property portfolio.


text:
O'Grady on top Down Under
A bitter two-year spell of misfortune that once threatened Stuart O'Grady's life, let alone his career as a cyclist, may be near its end. The proof for O'Grady's (Credit Agricole) came yesterday when he took race leadership of the Jacob's Creek Tour Down Under. The South Australian realizes the 757km race is still a long way from him adding a second victory to the one he claimed in 1999. But the image of O'Grady on the podium and in the yellow jersey after the 165km second stage from McLaren Vale to Victor Harbor, which was won by Italian Alessio Galletti (Saeco), heralded an emphatic
Sacchi claims overall lead in Tour Down Under
Italian rider Fabio Sacchi held off Stuart O'Grady in a thrilling sprint finish to claim the overall lead in the Tour Down Under cycling race here Wednesday. But an investigation involving Australian Olympian Graeme Brown was garnering all the attention. Brown is one of several Australian riders named in an alleged incident with a car at last year's Noumea six-day track race. After losing the race lead in stage two of the Jacob's Creek Tour Down Under, Brown (United Water) denied knowledge of the incident. But Cycling Australia confirmed it has received notice from the New Caledonian
Ullrich's 2001 plans swiped
Reigning Olympic champion and 1997 Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich's pre-season campaign has hit a bump after a briefcase containing his training plans for this year was stolen. The case was swiped from the German cyclist's trainer, Peter Becker, in Majorca, Spain. Papers detailing Ullrich's training plans for 2001, as well as a gold watch were in the briefcase. "I only hope that the program doesn't fall into the hands of the opposition. I don't care about anything else in the case," Ullrich said.
NSW's Brown takes first stage at Tour Down Under
There's been a lot of celebratory back slapping by organizers of the Jacob's Creek Tour Down Under for signing up the world's number one team to race. So much so, some joked that they had beaten each other black and blue in the lead up to tonight's start to the 757km event, the stage one criterium in the Adelaide suburb of Glenelg. The 47km stage ended in a popular home win for the estimated 54,000-strong crowd that lined the tight 1.88km circuit. In balmy conditions that saw temperatures in the mid seventies, it was won by NSW's Graeme Brown (United Water). South Australia's Stuart O'Grady
Wesemann a threat in Tour Down Under
Australian cyclist Stuart O'Grady rates German rider Steffen Wesemann as the big threat in the Tour Down Under starting in Adelaide Tuesday. Wesemann, who rides for the German Telekom team, has been training in Australia since December 3 to give himself plenty of time to become accustomed to the Australian heat and conditions. And 1999 race winner O'Grady said the 29-year-old German, who won a stage of last year's Tour Down Under and finished third overall, was giving nothing away in the lead-up to the six-stage, 757km race. "As soon as I found out Steffen was coming over this early
Armstrong to skip French races
According to a tentative schedule posted on his Web site, two-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong will not compete in any French races prior to the start of the Tour on July 7. The 29-year-old, whose U.S. Postal team is at the center of a French judicial investigation into drug allegations, will steer clear of races in France, racing primarily in Spain and then capping his preparations with the Tour of Switzerland, June 19-28. Last season Armstrong participated in the prestigious Paris-Nice and Dauphiné Libéré in France as part of his build-up to his second straight Tour victory. But
San Francisco, New York highlight National Racing Calendar
On Thursday the USCF announced the National Racing Calendar schedule for 2001. Among the highlights of the 52-race schedule are eight new events, including the Manhattan Invitational in New York City on August 2 and the previously announced San Francisco Grand Prix, September 9. The other new events are the Housatonic Valley Classic in Danbury, Connecticut, June 24; the San Rafael Cycling Classic in California, September 8; the Irvine Cycling Grand Prix in California, September 24; the U.S. Open Cycling Champioinships in Columbus, Ohio, September 29; the Deland Cycling Grand Prix in Florida,
Postal signs … Robbie Ventura
When the U.S. Postal Service submitted its paperwork to the UCI at the end of last month, an unexpected name appeared on the team's official roster, former Saturn sprinter Robbie Ventura. The move was part of an effort by the team to solidify its presence on the home front. Director of operations Dan Osipow said, "We were looking for some speed in criterium racing, which we've lacked in the last couple of years, in American-style events." Osipow said that the team's U.S. schedule will resemble that of recent years -- including Redlands, Sea Otter, the BMC series, Clarendon Cup
2001 Tour de France shorter, but just as tough
The juxtaposition of the Festina drugs trial going on in Lille and the announcement Thursday in Paris of next year's Tour de France route was not lost on race director Jean-Marie Leblanc. In a 5000-word speech, Leblanc made one reference to the trial that is dredging up the Festina team's exclusion from the 1998 Tour because of its systematic drug use. Leblanc said, "After being brought down by dubious hands — as the Lille trial is showing right now — cycling … has suffered so much and worked so hard to correct things over the past two years, that it will end up with its head held high.
Photo Files
Photo Files - Vuelta 1
Giro Images 3
Giroimagefiles3
Giro Images II

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


I wanted a gelato on my last day in Florence. I came in and requested what I wanted, and only had a 50 Euro note to pay for it. The lady taking care of me said, take it, I know you'll be back with the money! It took me a while to find a place to change my $$, and I got lost, and returned about 2 hours later to pay the store. The lady recognized me and smiled. I love this country and the people!
Fun little place that offers one of the real Italian favorites... frankly it's a bit hard to find bad gelato in Tuscany... the quality standards are so high. And this one meets the demands of the locals and tourists alike. Don't be surprised if there's a little wait because it is that good. We had the basics, limonata and cioccalato, and the flavors were superb. Easy to recommend.
After dinner in Employing went here for ice cream and yo sit in the fllodlight square outside which was full of locals. There was a small queue (normally s good sign). The ice creams were wonderful, good choice and great depth of flavours.
Been to Gelateria La Medicea? Share your experiences!


text:
Wally Dressel (Magdeburgo, Alemania, 3 de junio de 1893-ídem, 10 de junio de 1940) fue una nadadora alemana especializada en pruebas de estilo libre, donde consiguió ser subcampeona olímpica en 1912 en los 4 x 100 metros.

Carrera deportiva

En los Juegos Olímpicos de Estocolmo 1912 ganó la medalla de plata en los relevos de 4 x 100 metros estilo libre con un tiempo de 6:04.6 segundos), tras Reino Unido (oro con 5:52.6 segundos) y por delante de Austria (bronce).

Referencias

Enlaces externos

Nadadores de Alemania
Medallistas olímpicos de natación
Nacidos en Magdeburgo

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Apple acquires tech firm to keep AI data private on the iPhone
by Alan Friedman / Jan 15, 2020, 5:51 PM
GeekWire is reporting that Apple has acquired AI firm Xnor.ai for an estimated $200 million. The website likens the deal to Apple's 2016 purchase of AI firm Turi which reportedly also cost Apple $200 million. Xnor.ai's claim to fame is its ability to offer on-device AI technology. This means that machine learning and image recognition can be offered on a low-power device without having to go through the cloud. The company's co-founder, Ali Farhadi, said back in 2018 that "We've been able to scale AI out of the cloud to every device out there."
The three-year-old startup also has developed a method that allows software developers to embed AI code into apps even if they are not knowledgeable in AI coding. It is now up to Apple to keep the company's "AI Everywhere, for Everyone" motto alive. Last year, co-founder Farhadi explained how Xnor.ai lives up to that motto. "We make 'AI everywhere' a reality by enabling leading global brands to run state-of-the-art deep learning models on anything from a $2 battery-less piece of hardware to the cloud. We empower any developer to deploy countless AI models optimized for the edge with just a single line of code, a future where 'AI for everyone' is real."
The purchase would allow Apple to continue promoting data security for the iPhone
Some achievements made by the company last year include the development of an AI-chip that can run for years using solar power or a coin-sized button battery, and an AI enabled product that monitors grocery shelves. It also agreed to a deal with smart home camera company Wyze to have its AI-based "Person Detection feature" included on Wyze's cameras. But GeekWire says that it knew something was up with Xnor.ai when Wyze announced that the AI firm had backed out of the deal and that a firmware update coming this month will remove the feature from its cameras. Wyze did add that it will introduce its own version of the "Person Detection feature" later this year.
Apple is believed to have purchased AI firm Xnor.ai for an amount estimated to be $200 million
This type of acquisition perfectly fits Apple's MO. Very rarely does it make a huge splash in M&A preferring instead to purchase smaller niche startups. The largest acquisition ever made by Apple was the $3 billion purchase of Beats Audio announced in May 2014. Last year, Apple spent $1 billion to purchase the smartphone modem business belonging to Intel. Most deals are similar to the July 2012 purchase of biometric firm AuthenTec; that purchase cost Apple $356 million and led to the introduction of Touch ID on the iPhone 5s a year later. Apple actually does a number of these smaller-scale transactions over the course of a year.
Xnor.ai's technology will help Apple continue to promote data privacy on the iPhone. With the newly purchased tech, Apple will be able to keep the data generated by the use of AI applications on the phone and off of the cloud. According to CBInsights, from 2010 through 2019, Apple had acquired 20 AI-related companies. That puts it well ahead of the 14 such outfits purchased by runner-up Google and the 10 bought by Microsoft.
Often, Apple is able to work an acquisition's technology into the first iPhone released a year after the transaction is made. A good example of that is the aforementioned purchase of AuthenTec. Another example goes back even earlier, to April 2010 when the company bought Siri for an estimated $100 million-$200 million. At the time, Siri was an iOS app The very next year, Siri debuted as a virtual digital assistant on the iPhone 4s. Thus, we might see Xnor.ai's on-device AI available on the 2021 iPhone 13 series.
As usual, Apple has not made any announcements about the transaction.
1. cmdacos
Posts: 4379; Member since: Nov 01, 2016
It sucked on wyze cam for the short time it was on the hardware. Artificial, yes, intelligence, none. Apple wasted their money.
posted on 4 days ago, 9:32 PM	0
2. Dr.Phil
Posts: 2512; Member since: Feb 14, 2011
I would caution judging technology based on a $20 camera. It could very much be the fact that there wasn't a robust hardware to back up their technology. I would imagine the technology would be far more useful on a phone that has many more cameras and sub-processing units than a $20 security camera. Not to mention that companies like Amazon, Apple, and Google can spend millions more in R&D to improve the tech than these smaller companies were able to do on their own.
posted on 4 days ago, 11:33 PM	1


Bishop John Cole was ordained as a priest in the EGCA on his 40th birthday, when attending the 100th Anniversary Parliament of World Religions in Chicago, he was ordained as a priest by Bishop Robert Cokinis, Primate Bishop of the French Gnostic Church in North America. In October 1998 Bishop Cokinis consecrated and Bishop Stephan Hoeller (Ecclesia Gnostica) co-consecrated Reverend Cole as Tau Iohannes Harmonius, Bishop of Evansville, Indiana and Auxiliary Bishop of the Midwest, fusing the English and French lines of the Gnostic Church for the first time.
As an active leader of the Church, Bishop Cole brought to the Church an attitude of open communication and solidarity, forging a relationship with the Church of the Glorious Christ in Barbados. This was the center of Martinist activity in the West Indies, where the tradition was deposited after escape from Nazi persecution in Europe in WWII. The Church in Barbados was also the center for ICES, the 'International College of Esoteric Studies' and its fraternal body, the Order of the Grail. For a time John Cole accepted the responsibility as Grand Commander of the Rosicrucian Order of the Grail.
Bishop Cole was instrumental in the founding of the Ancient Martinist Order (A.M.O) in April 2000. The goal was to unify Martinism by exchanging lineages of the existing Martinist Orders to preserve the Martinist movement and its future. Represented at the meeting were the Ordre Martiniste (Paris), Ordre Martiniste et Synarchique (Canada, Barbados and England), Ordre Martiniste des Chevaliers du Christ, and Ordre Martiniste Initiatique Reforme (U.S.A.), as well as the International Grand Master of the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Misraim from France (Vieilledant); the National Sovereign Grand Master of the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Misraim of the National Sovereign Sanctuary (Ronald V. Cappello); and leaders of the Gnostic Church in America (Mgr. Cokinis and Mgr. Cole). The result of the gathering was the foundation of the Sovereign Grand Lodge of the Ancient Martinist Order, and John Cole was elected as Grand Master of the Order. Bishop John Cole was also Past Grand Master of the Blue Lodge Mixed Rite of the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis and Misraim.


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"Hey, You! Get offa my Taiga!": comparing the sense of property rights among the Tofa and Tozhu-Tyva
Brian Donahoe
Jahr der Veröffentlichung
The Tozhu-Tyva and Tofa peoples of southern Siberia are closely related ethnically, linguistically, historically, geographically, and in their "traditional" economic activities (reindeer herding and hunting and gathering). However, they have long been divided by administrative boundaries and by a superimposed system of ethnic categorization, which have led to drastic differences in their senses of property rights.
The Tofa have a much longer history of interaction with Russians than the Tozhu-Tyva, beginning in 1648. Centuries of encroachment pushed the Tofa higher and deeper into the Eastern Sayan mountains, forcing them to redraw the boundaries of their ever-shrinking rodovye taigi (clan hunting grounds). Then in 1927, when the Tofa first received special attention as one of the USSR's "Small Numbered Minorities of the North," the federal government set aside a territory of 27,000 km² for the Tofa. As part of the collectivization and sedentarization campaigns, all clan hunting grounds were declared state property and divided up into small hunting tracts. Many of the newly settled Tofa abandoned reindeer herding. Reindeer lost their cultural significance, and reindeer herding as a way of life lost its prestige. With the collapse of the USSR and the dissolution of the collective institutions, these hunting tracts have been reassigned, in many cases to non-Tofa families who came in with the establishment of the collective farms. Many Tofa now find themselves without taigas on which to make a living. This is leading to a tense situation characterized by undercurrents of ethnic resentment, as ever more people try to get a piece of a limited taiga.
This situation is striking in contrast to the sense of property just across the border in the Tozhu province of the Republic of Tyva. Prior to being incorporated into the USSR in 1944, the Tozhu-Tyva people had minimal contact with and influence from Russians. Nonexclusivity is still the salient feature of Tozhu-Tyvas' sense of property today.
In this paper I will discuss the institution of rodovye taigi (clan hunting grounds) among the Tofa. I will draw comparisons between the Tofa people and the Tozhu-Tyva people regarding senses of property rights, suggesting that one of the principal reasons for the differences is degree of contact with and influence from Russia and Russians. I also suggest that these differences have in part been responsible for the Tozhu-Tyva people's retaining their native language and traditional way of life, while the Tofa have lost theirs.
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Max-Planck-Institut für ethnologische Forschung
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text:
Glenn Youngkin's transgender policy is just common sense
He wants to wrest power from schools and give it back to parents
September 20, 2022 | 9:02 am
Glenn Youngkin (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
By Amber Athey
https://thespectator.com/topic/youngkin-transgender-student-policy-public-schools/
Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin has delivered a major win for the school board parents who helped propel him to victory in 2021. Starting in October, the state's public schools will be required to adhere to a new policy regarding transgender students.
The updated guidance, first reported by the Daily Wire, is rooted in truth, parental rights, and plain ol' common sense.
Transgender students are now only allowed to change their names on official documents with permission from their parents. Students must also demonstrate a "persistent and sincere belief" that they identify as a different gender.
"Overnight travel accommodations,...
Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin has delivered a major win for the school board parents who helped propel him to victory in 2021. Starting in October, the state's public schools will be required to adhere to a new policy regarding transgender students.
The updated guidance, first reported by the Daily Wire, is rooted in truth, parental rights, and plain ol' common sense.
Transgender students are now only allowed to change their names on official documents with permission from their parents. Students must also demonstrate a "persistent and sincere belief" that they identify as a different gender.
The bravery of trans-skeptical parents
Can I now free the nipple on Instagram and Facebook?
Who is NBC News's Ben Collins?
Don't believe everything you hear about the 'teacher shortage'
Rachel Levine must explain 'misinformation' over 'gender-affirming care'
"Overnight travel accommodations, locker rooms and other intimate spaces used for school-related activities and events shall be based on sex," the policy also says. "For any athletic program or activity that is separated by sex, the appropriate participation of students shall be determined by sex."
Previously, the McAuliffe administration, aided by left-wing activists, pushed Virginia's public schools to "eliminate gender-based practices" for fear of excluding transgender students. This would include nixing long-standing traditions such as father-daughter dances and homecoming kings and queens and allowing transgender students to play on sports teams consistent with their gender identity rather than their biological sex.
These so-called "inclusive" policies, which catered to the tiny fraction of students suffering from gender dysphoria, were actually quite exclusive. When gender lines are blurred, it is usually women who end up suffering. Take a Tennessee high school, which created a "gender-neutral" homecoming court only to award the "royalty" crown to a young man in a dress who declared himself "queen" anyway. Girls competing in track and field in Connecticut found themselves getting smoked in races after the sport was opened up to biological men who identified as women. And who could forget the infamous case of Lia Thomas, the UPenn swimmer who took home a women's national title despite racing as a man for the first three years of his college career?
These are merely the cases where the results of gender-mixing were unfair. Other times, young women were actually put in danger by these misguided policies. Virginia's old policy, for example, allowed transgender students to use whichever bathroom they preferred and to share bunks with members of the opposite biological sex during overnight trips. Young women deserve privacy when using the restroom, changing in a locker room, showering in the gym or sleeping. It is vital to their mental health and development to be able to set and enforce boundaries regarding their bodies.
Young women in schools should not have to worry about a biological man invading their privacy. It doesn't matter if the man truly believes he is a woman, or if he is abusing the system to take advantage of women. Virginia's old policies were certainly ripe for abuse. They did not require any evidence that a student who identified as transgender was sincere in their belief. They even encouraged students to hide gender transitions from their parents.
"School divisions should accept a student's assertion of their gender identity without requiring any particular substantiating evidence," the McAuliffe administration's policy said.
In 2021, there was a case in Loudoun County that demonstrated the dangers of ignoring bathroom boundaries. A young man who dressed in women's clothing and identified as "gender-queer" sexually assaulted a young girl in a school bathroom. Terrified that this incident would threaten their "inclusive" trans policies, the Loudoun school board covered up the case and transferred the boy to another school, where he went on to sexually assault another girl. The first victim's father was arrested when he publicly called out the school board for their behavior. He was later cited in a letter from the National School Boards Association to the Biden administration asking the Department of Justice to treat parents protesting school boards as domestic terrorists.
Youngkin's new policy regarding transgender students makes clear that he understands the importance of protecting both students and parents. It allows parents to be in the driver's seat when it comes to their children's mental and physical health. It recognizes that transgenderism has become a social contagion among youth, and that gender dysphoria usually dissipates with age. It allows girls to have safe spaces. It recognizes that biology matters, in both sports and in life.
Critics are accusing Youngkin of stripping "rights" from transgender students and of falsely campaigning as a moderate. The truth is that Youngkin was completely transparent about wanting to wrest power from schools and give it back to parents. It's why he won in blue Virginia.
by Amber Athey Amber Athey is The Spectator's Washington editor and the host of Unfit to Print on WCBM. She is the author of the upcoming book The Snowflakes' Revolt: How Woke Millennials Hijacked American Media. Amber was previously White House correspondent for the Daily Caller and a co-host of O'Connor & Company on WMAL.
Why Biden's document scandal is worse than Trump's
How parents are learning to fight for their children's education
Amber Athey is The Spectator's Washington editor and the host of Unfit to Print on WCBM. She is the author of the upcoming book The Snowflakes' Revolt: How Woke Millennials Hijacked American Media. Amber was previously White House correspondent for the Daily Caller and a co-host of O'Connor & Company on WMAL.
By Mary Wakefield


The beloved holiday tradition will be in a new location this year.
Cuts are suggested for YFS, fire department, police department and parks department.
The levy lid lift would continue funding police, fire, parks, safety net services at current levels.
Island galleries will showcase paintings, mixed media art and more in November.
Volunteers planted more than 1,200 trees and natives at the city's event.
Kate Kayaian will give a solo concert on Oct. 27 at the SJCC.
The Microsoft co-founder and Seahawks owner died from cancer on Monday.
Council will review top finalists on Nov. 15.


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There Are Two New Russell Brand Documentaries, But Only One of Them is Worth Seeing
Eric Kohn
@erickohn
READ MORE: SXSW Review: Russell Brand Needs to Make Peace With Ondi Timoner's 'BRAND: A Second Coming'
British standup comedian and actor Russell Brand's radical transformation into a rambunctious ideologue assailing the persecution of the lower classes has baffled his fellow citizens while going largely ignored in America, but that's hardly slowed down his passionate crusade.
Brand's enviable cause received fascinating context in Ondi Timoner's recent "Brand: A Second Coming," which tracked its subject from his humble beginnings through various struggles with drugs, women and fame before the most recent and complicated phase of his public life. While the star turned his back on Timoner's project, citing the sensitivities associated with confronting his troubled past, it turns out he had an authorized encapsulation of his current state in the pipeline.
"The Emperor's New Clothes," which is credited as being "made by" Brand and prolific British director Michael Winterbottom, focuses on the same target as Winterbottom's 2010 documentary "The Shock Doctrine" — namely, free market capitalism and the elite few who profit from it. But Brand's conviction about the corrosive effects of self-interested rich people who don't pay their taxes brings nothing new to the table, and his meandering, intermittently funny overview of the topic hardly amounts to more than a prankish civics lesson.
Though Brand makes admirable attempts to showcase the suffering of impoverished households across the U.K., striking an often powerful contrast between struggling families and wealthy bankers, his pedagogical rantings ring hollow; even as he routinely appears onscreen to make his points, he avoids personalizing his relationship to them. That challenge is addressed in "A Second Coming" when he talks about his unnerving experience following a visit to a developing country when he joined then-wife Katy Perry at a luxurious event and felt troubled by the disconnect.
In "The Emperor's New Clothes," Brand offers no such context. Instead, he and Winterbottom fashion a narrative around shots of the comedian facing the camera against a white backdrop (and sometimes bathed in distracting neon filters) as he delivers basic points about avaricious executives funneling their money to offshore accounts while impoverished citizens struggle to survive.
His rants are complimented by more inspired footage of Brand venturing out to workplaces of his targets, echoing the gimmick at the center of Michael Moore's "Roger & Me," in ill-fated attempts to confront them. While hardly substantial enough to carry the movie, these confrontational antics actually serve as the movie's bright spots. As much as he resists his earlier classification, Brand works best when he's in entertainment mode.
Cruising past hulking skyscrapers with a billboard labeled "Stop a Banker" — a sly reference to British authorities' "Stop a Looter" campaign in the wake of 2011 protests — in search of billionaire CEO's, Brand makes for a likable troublemaker no matter the fiery nature of his message. Like an uninvited court jester begging for entrance at the gates of despotic rulers, he's irresistibly committed to his act. (At one point, he even jumps the fence at the home of Daily Mail owner Lord Rothmere, brandishing signs assailing his tax-dodging tendencies.)
The punk rock intensity of Brand's mission comes through in his behavior rather than the aimless (and rather basic) agitprop framing it. Elsewhere, in another highlight, he illustrates wealth disparity with roomful of children wearing different amounts of gold around their necks. There's a better, more devious and pointed movie lurking in these scenes.
Unfortunately, "The Emperor's New Clothes" routinely goes back to Brand's diatribes on the basic evils of free market capitalism, with large font emphasizing each point. By simply regurgitating the rage of the Occupy Wall Street movement, his routine quickly grows tiresome — which is hardly the case in the vibrant "Brand: A Second Coming" (still inexplicably sans distribution weeks after its high profile SXSW Film Festival premiere).
By showcasing the process through which he turned his back on traditional show business success in favor of more altruistic goals, Timoner's documentary is ultimately a better conduit for Brand's intentions. Working on his own terms, however, Brand can only push the same buttons time and again.
"The Emperor's New Clothes" premiered this week at the Tribeca Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
READ MORE: The 2015 Indiewire Tribeca Bible
This Article is related to: Reviews and tagged Reviews, Russell Brand, The Emperor's New Clothes


looks like it's going to get worse, please stay home. We all need work nowadays but if you have an accident, hurt yourself or someone else or get snuck, it's going to be more expensive than missing a day of work.
please bring blankets, pillows, warm clothes, bottled water and enough "ready to eat" food for you and your party. Some board games, a small portable radio and something to read would be good also.
The public works crew will put sand on the road if necessary. If you must drive somewhere, use Hemlock and Spruce to come and go.
If this becomes necessary, please contact me and I'll meet you at the courtroom. If we ever have an event where people lose power and you can't stay warm or dry, this facility is always available.


text:
Q: Pigeon Hole principle problem about baseball and training Evan is training for baseball season. His coach wants him to pitch or hit 90 times over the course of the 53 days before the
season starts. He plans to do at least one pitching or hitting session a day. Prove that there exists a span of consecutive days
that Evan will complete exactly 15 sessions.
The way how I tried solving it was by identifying what the pigeons are and what are the pigeon holes. I came up with the conclusion that the pigeons are the remaining sessions that he hasn't done, so "90 sessions required", minus the "53 days before the season starts" which is 37 sessions that need to be done before the season. And the holes are the days before the season, so 53 days because the question said, "He plans to do at least one pitching or hitting session a day." Implying that he can do two or more in a day so don't I just have to distribute the remaining sessions within those 53 days such that they are consecutively added to a total of 15 days to prove that there does exist a span of consecutive days like that? But I got this wrong I think, my friends used inequalities and some arithmetic to prove this question.

A: Let $x_i$ be the number of times Evan has practiced through day $i$, where $1 \leq i \leq 53$.  Since Evan practices at least once each day, $(x_1, x_2, \ldots, x_{53})$ is a strictly increasing sequence, where $1 \leq x_1 < x_2 < \cdots < x_{53} = 90$.
Let $y_i = x_i + 15$ for $1 \leq i \leq 53$.  Then $(y_1, y_2, \ldots, y_{53})$ is a strictly increasing sequence, where $16 \leq y_1 < y_2 < \cdots < y_{53} = 105$.
If we take the union of the two sequences, we obtain a sequence with $2 \cdot 53 = 106$ positive integers, the largest of which is $105$.  Hence, two elements of the union must be the same.  Since $(x_1, x_2, \ldots, x_{53})$ and $(y_1, y_2, \ldots, y_{53})$ are strictly increasing sequences, this can only occur if there exists some $i, j$ such that $x_i = y_j$, where $j < i$.  Then during the days $j + 1, j + 2, \ldots, i$, Evan must practice exactly $15$ times.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The new special straight-line drawing machines that KOCH recently completed are able to manufacture high-strength wires for watch wristband pins. The drawn wires are later incorporated in luxury Swiss timepieces that represent the ultimate in quality.
All wires produced with the KOCH drawing machines comply with exacting standards of strength and surface quality. "These wires are integrated in the metal bracelets of exclusive watches, so they have to be manufactured with extreme precision," explained Harald Udelhoven, Technical Director at KOCH. To ensure that the wire is drawn very gently from block to block KOCH has fitted out the machine with specially designed capstans with all-ceramic drawing rings. This prevents any surface damage to the wire.
KOCH is one of the world's leading manufacturers of wire-drawing machines for diverse sectors of industry in the global markets – from construction and automotive to industries with special quality requirements such as medical technology and consumer goods manufacturing.


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Pinoy Penman 3.0
The continuing chronicles of Jose Dalisay Jr., aka Butch Dalisay, a Filipino collector of old fountain pens, disused PowerBooks, '50s Hamiltons, creaky cameras and typewriters, VW spare parts, poker bad beats, and desktop lint.
Tag Archives: PhD
Penman No. 366: A Little Learning
Posted on August 12, 2019 by penmanila
Penman for Monday, August 12, 2019
I KNOW and can appreciate the effort (and maybe even the talent) that it takes to add two or three little letters to your name, which are supposed to suddenly make you look ten times more learned than you were before. For the record, I picked up my PhD in English back in 1991 when I was 37, a few years after I got my MFA (or Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing).
Why am I parading these academic credentials? Because it's something I hardly ever do, or need to do—except when… but I'll get to that in a minute. Let me just say, before anyone gets the wrong idea, that among the real, practicing writers I know (even those with PhDs), a PhD is worth about as much as a flyleaf or an empty page in a book. You can get a PhD in English or Literature or Creative Writing after a lot of patient study and writing a ton of intelligent-sounding papers, but the degree won't guarantee that you can or will write an outstanding novel or book of poems.
Some of us spend an extra five to six years after the master's anyway to go after the PhD, basically because nearly every university today requires it if you plan on teaching in college as a career besides writing, and because, well, some of us just want to study and write some more under pressure. You could call it the love of learning, which has become strangely irrelevant to many people in this age of tunnel-vision efficiency. At least that's how I remember my own time in graduate school in Michigan and Wisconsin, when I would madly read two books in one day, exhilarated more by the obscure and bloody excesses of Elizabethan revenge tragedy than by any kind of practical expectation.
I recalled those heady moments when, a few weeks ago, I stumbled on a post in a forum I belong to, one devoted to collecting vintage typewriters, from a fellow we'll call Dickie. Dickie shared an interesting note about his icon—the famously abrasive science fiction writer Harlan Ellison (1934-2018; that's him in the pic, c/o Variety)—who used typewriters well into the age of laptops, and who supposedly asserted, as some typewriter folk are wont to do, that using computers to write was BS, because computers produced bad, lazy writing. Dickie presented himself as a writer—a claim I'm happy to accept and respect, until proven otherwise—and took Ellison's word as proof positive that, well, people like him who used typewriters were therefore better writers than the rest of mankind (I'm using a bit of hyperbole here, but you get the point).
Maybe I should've known better, but I submitted a gentle rejoinder to say that, with all due respect to Mr. Ellison, that was BS, too—good writers adjust to the tools at hand, and I was willing to bet the house that 99% of all the best novels of the past 20 years, going by anyone's list, were written on computers. I myself had gone through the whole gamut from handwritten manuscripts to typescripts to computer printouts, and while each technique had its advantages, nothing allowed revision—so essential to good writing—as easily as the computer. Tut, tut, Dickie messaged back: I had better rethink what I just said, because "I'm better educated about literature than you."
That was kinder than what he told another forum member who queried him about the precarious quality of his own prose, which he promptly withdrew from public viewing, remarking instead on his critic's mammaries. Still, it set off a little explosion in my head—not because it couldn't possibly be true (I'd be the first to say that I know zilch about literary theory, for example, which went in one ear and out the other, and that I'll take Maugham over Murakami anytime), but because he could make statements like that with absolutely no idea whom he was talking to. I was on the forum using a pseudonym (to avoid having to deal with "friends"), and even if I had used my real name, I doubt that it would have rung a bell in his insular brain. I could've been TS Eliot, Chinua Achebe, or Susan Sontag, and he would've said the same thing.
Again, I have an extremely modest estimate of my own erudition, and I'm not given to flame wars, but in this case I just had to let fly a salvo of demurrers to put a presumptuous, uhm, Dickie in his place: "If," I said, "you took your PhD in Literature before 1991, published more than 35 books, and taught literature and creative writing for more than 35 years, then indeed, sir, you are very likely better educated about literature than I am. Back to typewriters, shall we?" After a pregnant pause, he huffed: "English is NOT my second language." I imagined a worm retreating into its burrow, but before it could vanish completely, I posted: "Ah, yes, it's only my second language—but there's a third, and a fourth."
I was tempted to ask, "Pray tell, and please correct this second-language learner if he's wrong, but would 'puerile asininity' best describe your attitude?" But I let it go at that—the moderators kicked him off the forum shortly afterward, for more egregious misbehavior.
Once, as an exchange professor in an American liberal-arts college, I attended a welcome party where a kind-looking lady walked up to the obvious foreigner to make him feel at home. "So what are you teaching?" she asked sweetly. "The American Short Story," I said. Her eyes widened in utter disbelief. I smiled and excused myself.
It really doesn't mean much, but maybe I should trot out that PhD more often.
Posted in America, Art & Culture, Asia, Education, Politics, Writing	| Tagged education, Ellison, language, learning, PhD, typewriter	| Leave a reply
Penman No. 184: Degrees and Diplomas
Posted on January 26, 2016 by penmanila
Penman for Monday, January 25, 2015
IT WAS with much interest that my eye strayed last week to a story on the BBC website with the headline 'Penguin scraps degree requirement." The article went on to report that publishing giant Penguin Random House—presumably one of the world's most literate employers—was no longer requiring applicants for any job in the company to show college diplomas.
"The firm wants to have a more varied intake of staff and suggests there is no clear link between holding a degree and performance in a job. This announcement follows a series of financial companies dropping academic requirements for applicants. Neil Morrison, human resources director, says they want talented staff 'regardless of background'," the article noted. The report went on to say that leading accounting firms such as Deloitte and Ernst & Young had also relaxed their educational requirements, with Deloitte changing its selection process so recruiters would not know what schools its applicants had attended.
It's a novel idea that sounds fair and makes sense, but I'm sure it will take some time before Philippine businesses catch on, as obsessed as we Pinoys are with college diplomas, especially those that come from certain schools. Just scan the Sunday classifieds in any local newspaper—for jobs of any real economic and social worth, your typical non-equal-opportunity employer will demand a piece of parchment from a "Class A" university, which will count more than any previous experience you may have acquired.
Arguably, that wasn't always the case. We baby boomers belong to a generation—probably the last one—for whom gutsiness and scrappiness was still the best way forward, rather than degrees and diplomas. Just ask any taipan how many of them have Wharton MBAs. One of them whom I happen to know, because I've written his family's history—Filinvest founder Andrew Gotianun Sr.—didn't go beyond two years of college at San Beda, and had to drop out because of his father's unexpected demise. His wife Mercedes, Filinvest's other dynamo (Andrew was the visionary, Mercedes the executor), graduated from UP with a BS in Pharmacy, magna cum laude—but what led to her success as a banker wasn't college but streetsmarts. "I made friends with the owners of banks abroad and convinced them to lend me their operations manuals," Mercedes told me, "which we then adapted to local conditions. That's how Family Savings Bank began."
Indeed it used to be that you could get places without a college degree, as long as you had talent and guts (you needed both—just one wouldn't have done it). Among writers, in particular, a degree was a bonus, maybe even a demerit, in those pre-MFA (Master of Fine Arts, the writing degree of choice) days. The old conviction was that, to know how to write, you had to know how to read, and the serious would-be writer read a lot outside of school without having to be told. The real test of the writer was, well, in the writing—in the quality and the consistency of one's craft, rather than in the number of English units one could present.
There was no finer example of this than the late National Artist NVM Gonzalez, who never finished college (he did go to National University), but who went on to a distinguished writing and academic career here and in the US. The late journalist I. P. Soliongco was another such titan in his field. My friends Pete Lacaba and Krip Yuson, both dropouts by choice, deserve honorary PhDs for all their work as far as I'm concerned—not that they would care—but more valuable is the fact that they've been asked to teach and to share their expertise with younger Filipinos.
My own dad Jose Sr. also dropped out of college—he was the smartest kid of his time in our province of Romblon and could have gone on to become a de campanilla lawyer, but was too poor and also perhaps too confident in his abilidad to go the full distance, and soon fathered me and my four siblings. Seeing him write as well as he did—he was a keen reader of novels and magazines—I grew up believing that I didn't need a college degree, either, to get where I wanted, so I dropped out of UP in my freshman year to get a job as a newspaper reporter. My younger brother Jess, also a talented writer, obviously had the same impression and did exactly the same thing, dropping out of UP before landing jobs with San Miguel's PR department and later becoming editor-in-chief of the Mindanao Cross. I went on to work with the National Economic and Development Authority for ten years, even earning a graduate UP diploma in Development Economics as a special student and working on special detail with the United Nations Development Programme, doing project studies. I began writing plays, stories, and screenplays and winning Palancas, and felt that I could have gone on for life with little more than my 21 undergraduate units in English and 30 grad units in Economics.
But one day in 1981—after attending the Silliman Writers Workshop and falling under the spell of Robert Graves—I decided to go back to school as a returning sophomore, at the age of 27. I found school exhilarating, and later quit my job to study full-time, with my wife Beng taking up the slack. To be honest, it wasn't the fiction that roped me in, but the poetry of Sidney, Wyatt, Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas, Philip Larkin, and James Dickey, among others. Having tasted such ambrosia, I craved more, and so I went on to Michigan for an MFA and to Wisconsin for a PhD, both on fellowships, making up for lost time (BA at age 30, MFA at 34, PhD at 37). I told myself that there was nothing more that I wanted to do for the rest of my life but write, teach, and spend time with family. There was, I must say, a great material and emotional cost to these degrees, which had I known it then I might not have been willing to pay. But with the deed done, I can't regret the fact that these degrees have allowed me to move up the job ladder and gain the respect of people who haven't the faintest idea what I do.
I finished college not so I could get a good job, which I already had, or so I could append little letters to my name, which I hardly use outside of work. (No self-respecting writer, as far as I know, has ever flaunted his or her PhD; you'd simply be laughed out of the place.) I did it for love—for the love of knowledge, especially the kind of knowledge for which there exists no practical utility and which is therefore the purest and sweetest, and for the love of my parents, who deserved some payback for all their hard work and sacrifice.
Make no mistake: I do agree with Penguin in broadening their search for good people to those without diplomas from Harvard or Oxbridge to show. You could miss out on a Steve Jobs, a Bill Gates, or a Mark Zuckerberg that way. But you could also always drop out of college, do your thing, and go back when you have the time to finish up—like Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, and Shaquille O'Neal did. Make that "Dr. O'Neal"—Shaq even went on to pick up a doctorate in Education in 2012.
And what about my brother Jess? He went back to school, too, earning a BA in Journalism at age 49, and a Bachelor of Laws at age 55. A published author, he now practices and teaches law, completing our father's dream. Sometimes, those degrees and diplomas do count—for all the right reasons.
Posted in Art & Culture, Education, Family & Me, Writing	| Tagged college, degree, diploma, education, MFA, PhD	| 1 Reply
Penman No. 378: My Retirement Library
Penman No. 377: A Harvest of Singaporean Fiction
Penman No. 376: The Other Pepe
Penman No. 375: Delightful Turkey
Penman No. 374: A Pen-Filled Weekend
Family & Me
Pinoys
Fountain Pen Network-Philippines
Panitikan.com.ph
Pen Collectors of America
Philippine Watch Club
PhilMUG
The Fountain Pen Board
Vacumania


Six LTC students were recently named officers in the Beta Lambda Sigma Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society. First Row, L to R, Wendi Schmid, Jen Chynoweth. Second Row: Josephine Van Ess, Faye Gabrielse, Becky Dvorachek, Brighton Hollis.
CLEVELAND- Recently, officers for Beta Lambda Sigma chapter of Lakeshore Technical College's Phi Kappa Theta Honor Society were given their oath of office. The students will serve as officers during the 2013-2014 school year.
New officers include: Brighton Hollis, President; Becky Dvorachek, Vice President; Jen Chynoweth, Secretary; Faye Gabrielse, Promotions/Advertising Officer; Wendi Schmid, Fundraising Officer and Josephine Van Ess, Recruitment Officer.


text:
Former Comptroller Lindenstrauss to lead NGO fighting corruption
Judge Micah Lindenstrauss, former state comptroller, was elected as chair of the non-profit organization Transparency International-TI Israel, which "promotes ethical norms and transparency in order to reduce corruption in Israeli society," said a statement.
The statement said that Lindenstrauss would "focus on increasing integrity and transparency in local governments as an effective instrument of preventing corruption, including full disclosure of budgets and winners of tenders and contracts, and of conflicts of interest."
While state comptroller, Lindenstrauss published several high-profile reports on the Carmel fire, the May 2010 Mavi Marmara flotilla, home-front readiness in the Second Lebanon War, and the Harpaz Affair.


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London Overground restoring night services in time for Christmas
Published 3 November 2021 by By Ian Mansfield Transport News	— 6 Comments ↓
The Night Overground is to resume services next month, just in time for the Christmas party season.
TfL has announced that from Friday 17th December, there will be Night Overground services between Highbury & Islington and New Cross Gate running every 15 minutes throughout the night on Fridays and Saturdays.
These services will complement the returning Night Tube, providing an interchange with the Victoria line at Highbury & Islington. This, along with easy access to Night Tube on the Central line, via a walk between Shoreditch High Street and Liverpool Street stations, will open up large parts of London and the city centre for all-night rail travel.
The London Underground will be resuming the night tube service on the Victoria and Central lines later this month, from Friday 26th November. The other Night Tube lines – the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines – will return to service as soon as practicable.
As London has begun to emerge from the pandemic, off-peak leisure travel has been recovering more quickly than other types of journeys, indicating that there is strong demand for services that run later into the night at the weekend. Ridership on London Overground is around 71 per cent, with weekends reaching even higher.
The Tube network on weekdays now regularly sees more than 60 per cent of journeys compared to before the pandemic, but this has reached as high as 80 per cent at weekends, while ridership on buses is regularly at 75 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.
Rory O'Neill, TfL's General Manager of London Overground, said: "I'm pleased that the Night Overground will closely follow the return of the Night Tube and deliver a huge boost to the night-time economy and help our customers get around during the busy pre-Christmas period."
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Tagged with: london overground
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diamond geezer says:
The Night Overground opens for one weekend, is closed the next weekend because it's December 25th, and the following weekend is New Year's Day.
So it's good news, but it's not going to do much for the "busy pre-Christmas period".
Hopefully they'll hurry up with restarting the Jubilee line in the new year – especially now as Canada Water overground stations will connect with the Jubilee line, increasing the demand
rastnic says:
Why they dont start up the Northern Line night tube first is beyond me. It is the busiest night tube line and most frequent so why arent they starting it up!?!?!?!
ianVisits says:
If the reason is beyond you, I presume you've investigated the issue so can you elaborate for the rest of us why London Underground isn't reopening the line.
Do you have a map for night Tube and Overgound Night ?
Gerry says:
http://content.tfl.gov.uk/standard-night-tube-map.pdf
Let's hope that it soon gets corrected to show that Kennington is also in Zone 1, and that Shoreditch High Street station is north of Liverpool Street.
Home >> News >> Transport News
London's cycle hire scheme had busiest year ever


The cosmic power of the intention mandala to reveal the life you wantSoul Slinky waves of intention and gratitudeAwaken your inner shamanDiscover the power of naming your past and your futureHow to experience the generative power of your own voice.
For those seeking the riches that lie beyond the popular explanation of the Law of Attraction, The Lotus and the Lily cracks the abundance code by linking the wisdom of the inner voice with the surprising parallel teachings of Buddha and Jesus. In a profound yet simple program, Conner sheds radical new light on the "Great Paradox of Prosperity" and redirects readers from asking for things to creating the receptive conditions that nourish a bountiful life.


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Classical (metric) multidimensional scaling (MDS) tries to find points that have a given set of pairwise distances. When no set of points satisfies distance constraints, MDS finds the best solution in the least squares sense—sum of squared errors (SSE) is minimized. Sliders specify desired distances between the points, that is, a slider labelled gives the desired distance between points 3 and 4. The darkness of the line between each pair of points reflects how closely the actual distance meets the specified goal (lighter means better correspondence).


If Not Empire, What? A Survey of the Bible: Fixing America?
Toward the midpoint of the '80s, I began to read Stanley Hauerwas, the Methodist scholar from Texas who wrote about Christian ethics via an Anabaptist perspective. I've never been quite the same since.
Though I was a member of an Anabaptist congregation, I was startled by what Hauerwas had to say. The Christian life, he said over and over again, is not about fixing America. Nor is it about getting to heaven or maximizing one's potential as an individual to be a wonderful and creative person. Instead, it's about embracing a communal experience—the church—incarnating an alternative way of living in the world.
"Christians must again understand that their first task is not to make the world better or more just, but to recognize what the world is and why it understands the political task as it does . . . Theologically, the challenge of Christian social ethics in our secular polity is no different than in any time and place—it is always the Christian social task to form a society that is built on truth rather than fear" (A Community of Character, University of Notre Dame Press, 1981 at 74).
"I am in fact challenging the very idea that Christian social ethics is primarily an attempt to make the world more peaceable or just. Put starkly, the first social ethical task of the church is to be the church—the servant community . . . By being that kind of community, the church helps the world understand what it means to be the world. For the world has no way of knowing it is world without the church pointing to the reality of God's kingdom" (The Peaceable Kingdom, University of Notre Dame Press, 1983 at 99-100).
"To recover a sense of how Christian convictions may be true (or false) requires a recovery of the independence of the church from its subservience to liberal culture and its corresponding agencies of the state. For without the distinctive community we call the church, there is no place for the imagination of Christians to flourish" (Against the Nations, Winston Press, 1985 at 6-7).
By the end of the '80s, I was sufficiently persuaded by Hauerwas that I left my legal practice and went to work for the church. I never returned to the practice of law.
Hauerwas became well known during the '90s. In 2001, Time magazine anointed him "America's best theologian." Now, living in Scotland and near the end of his illustrious career, Hauerwas is still writing. His work can be counted as one of the sources of inspiration for the Benedict Option, the strategy of Christian renewal promoted by Rod Dreher.
Yet Hauerwas also is often sharply criticized (see here and here) and his message is out-of-step with current churchly emphases on affirmation, inclusion and the blurring of the line between the church and the world.
Obviously, if we believe in a god, this is a place where we would look to him/her for help. Purging ourselves of the imperial assumptions we swim in each day isn't the sort of thing we can do by ourselves; we need a power greater than ourselves—yes, greater than the empire.
Compared to American religion, this sounds narrow and restrictive, doesn't it? It's easy to see why Hauerwas' account of the Christian life can be perceived to be unattractive.
Yet the task of fixing America--and giving up all those war-producing claims to supremacy--remains. In the end, we have to choose: are we content to remain on the path we're on, or do we want a god who will save us from ourselves?
* Here are three of the reported cases in which I was involved: Cha v. Noot, Morrison v. Heckler, Dow v. Public Housing Authority.
There's no fixing America. America aspired to be the summation of the world, and it's succeeded in that as close as it's possible to achieve such a ghastly task. Thus, worldliness, exceptionally.
We can't fix anyone, not even ourselves. Each of us descended from Adam and Eve can re-enter a loving relationship with God, made possible through Christ, and be transformed in a direction away from worldliness. We can share His transforming possibilities with others, but we ourselves cannot change them, let alone America.
I am sure that the intimations of anabaptist theology that today's Mennonites pretended to exude are true, yet the actual experience of their community that was to live together more in God's Kingdom, has been the most abject failure we have ever experienced. As Trump was the longshot last, worst hope for American course correction, so did it turn out were the Mennonites for a course correction in spirituality. Our American experience seems to be thoroughly leavened with routine malign deceptions, from your house, to the White House.
Perhaps, in an allusion to James Garner's soliloquy in The Americanization of Emily, this is the inevitable consequence from the Americanization of Mennonites, well described in the essay above, as they bought into their own variant delusion of this conceit.


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Webb v. State, 258 Ark. 95, 522 S.W.2d 406 (1975)
May 12, 1975 · Arkansas Supreme Court · CR 75-25
258 Ark. 95, 522 S.W.2d 406
PageRank: 41%
OCR confidence: 0.873
Character count: 4,866
Every document on this site is part of the official caselaw of a court within the United States, scanned from the collection of the Harvard Law School Library. Learn more.
Velma Jean WEBB v. STATE of Arkansas
522 S.W. 2d 406
Opinion delivered May 12, 1975
*96Ilarkness, Friedman & Kusan, for appellant.
Jim Guy Tucker, Atty. Gen., by: Gary Isbell, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
George Rose Smith, Justice.
The appellant, after the fatal shooting of Carvin Cooper, was charged with voluntary manslaughter, was found guilty by a jury, and was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. For reversal the appellant contends that the trial court erred in allowing the State to prove by Officer Furlow the substance of an oral confession made by Mrs. Webb a short while after the homicide. We have concluded that the contention must be sustained.
As will be seen, the facts are somewhat similar to those in Davis v. State, 243 Ark. 157, 419 S.W. 2d 125 (1967). There the accused, after having been warned of his right to remain silent, at first said that he did not want to tell what had happened. The officers nevertheless continued the interrogation and soon elicited an oral confession. In finding reversible error we said:
Under the ruling in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), the alleged confession was plainly inadmissible. There the court, after detailing the officers' duty to warn a suspected person of his constitutional rights, went on to say: "Once warnings have been given, the subsequent procedure is clear. If the individual indicates in any manner, at any time prior to or during questioning, that he wishes to remain silent, the interrogation must cease. At this point he has shown that he intends to exercise his Fifth Amendment privilege; any statement taken after the person invokes his privilege cannot be other than the product of compulsion, subtle or otherwise." Here the State's own proof shows that the rule just quoted was violated by the of*97fleers who interrogated Davis. His asserted confession was therefore inadmissible.
In the case at bar Mrs. Webb was arrested at her home, where the homicide took place, and was taken to police headquarters in Magnolia. At the Denno hearing Officer Furlow testified that he warned Mrs. Webb of her rights though he did not ask her tp sign a waiver. Officer Furlow noted in his written report that Mrs. Webb said she would rather see a lawyer before answering any questions, but the officer did not offer to allow her to call an attorney. Mrs. Webb testified that the officer, without informing her of her right to an attorney, first asked her what had happened. Although she indicated her desire to have her attorney present while she made a statement, the officer did not offer to call a lawyer, did not tell her that she could use the telephone for that purpose, and started asking questions. According to Mrs. Webb she was not informed of her rights until after she had told Officer Furlow what had happened.
At the Denno hearing Officer Furlow yvent on to testify that after Mrs. Webb told him that she didn't wish to answer any questions until she had talked to an attorney, she said that she would go ahead and tell him about it. She then "talked at length on what happened," but the officer's summary of her statements takes only a few sentences. The officer did not tape her statement or have it stenographically recorded, as he sometimes did.
Officer Furlow stated that he did not ask Mrs. Webb any questions about the occurrence, but his own testimony hardly supports that assertion. For instance, a disputed point of fact at the trial was whether Mrs. Webb had fired two shots or three. Yet this was the officer's testimony at Denno:
Q. Did she say anything about firing of a third shot?
A. She did not. She didn't deny the third shot, but she said two was all she knew about.
Obviously Mrs. Webb was questioned about the third shot, *98else why would the officer say that she did not deny it? Again, the officer testified that he did not think the interrogation took over thirty minutes. We are not persuaded that Mrs. Webb talked voluntarily about the occurrence for half an hour without being questioned.
In Miranda and Davis, supra, it was pointed out that if the accused indicates in any manner that he wishes to remain silent, the interrogation must cease. There is no reason why the same principle should not apply to the situation here. The State's own proof shows that Mrs. Webb announced her desire not to be questioned in the absence of her attorney. The issue is whether the interrogation was pressed in spite of that announcement. In reviewing such an issue we make our own determination upon the totality of the circumstances and set aside the trial court's finding if it appears to be clearly against the preponderance of the evidence. Degler v. State, 257 Ark. 388, 517 S.W. 2d 515 (1974). Upon the record as a whole we are unable to sustain the trial judge's conclusion that the in-custody confession was voluntary.
Reversed and remanded.
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I know that I've mentioned this before but if someone asked me the question – what's your favorite tea? – I would have to be honest and admit it. Darjeelings have a special place in my heart. What is it about them, you might ask, that puts them at the top of my list? Well, there are so many wonderful characteristics but I would have to say that it's their fragrance that transports me to another place. A quiet, calm place. To me, tea is more than just its flavor. It is an experience and a Darjeeling definitely fulfills that for me.
So, without further ado, this morning's tea is a Darjeeling from the Arya estate and is called Ruby. A gem of a cuppa, for sure.
As you can see, the leaves are much larger than an average Darjeeling. They are plucked from specially grown clonal tea bushes and carefully processed by hand to ensure their leaf remains intact and the flavor is developed.
I used twice the amount of tea I usually spoon into my glass teapot and steeped the leaves for 3 1/2 minutes in boiling point water.
Just think – this leaf started its life in another part of this world. A land of towering, majestic mountains and a climate that nurtures its careful growth into something unique that produces a delicious brew.
It is said that the Arya estate was started by a group of Buddhist monks who carefully developed their tea plants from some seeds brought over from China. I reviewed another Arya Ruby several years ago on a snowy day in early spring. You can read that review here.
A customer told me this past week that he loves Darjeelings for their beautiful amber color. I agree!
A pronounced fruity, grape aroma wafts up as I pour my first cup.
Today I'm attending a holiday concert where a good friend is performing with her harp. I can't think of anything better to get into the spirit of the season than to close my eyes and settle into the lovely angelic strains of harp music.
What are you doing to get into the spirit of this holiday season?
This entry was posted in Black Tea, Darjeeling Tea, Life Musings, Photography, Tea and tagged Arya estate, Arya estate Darjeeling, Arya Ruby tea.
love this Karen… I'm trying to figure out your background of your tea leaves.. it's beautiful. The Harp concert was amazing!
Thanks Judy. I like to use all sorts of different backgrounds, it's fun. I know, I loved it, too!


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Q: How to collect VS Code logs in Azure Pipelines? I'm authoring a VS Code extension and the integration tests only fail in the Azure Pipelines run. I need to start collecting logs from VS Code to analyze them. Locally, they appear under %appdata%\Code\logs (on Windows) and under ~/.config/Code/logs on linux. But under Azure Pipelines they don't appear to be created at these locations.
Ultimately, I need to write an Azure Pipelines step that will publish these logs. Something like this:
  - publish: ${{ parameters.logsLocation }}
    artifact: VS Code logs ($(Agent.JobName))
    displayName: Publishing VS Code logs
    condition: succeededOrFailed()

Does anyone know which path I should publish from?
Values for logsLocation that I've tried:

*

*$(AppData)/Roaming/Code/logs

*/home/vsts/.config/Code/logs

*~/AppData/Roaming/Code/logs

*~/.config/Code/logs

A: This is how I eventually did it:
First, define a predictable place where the logs should be dropped via a variable in the pipeline:
variables:
  VSCODE_DATA_DIR: $(Agent.TempDirectory)/vscode_data

The pipeline should then publish the logs from that location:
- publish: $(VSCODE_DATA_DIR)/logs
  artifact: VS Code logs ($(Agent.JobName))
  displayName: Publishing VS Code logs
  condition: succeededOrFailed()

I use $(Agent.JobName) in the artifact name because I run my VS Code extension tests on all 3 OSs, so I may need to look at logs from each.
Finally, I update my integration test runner to pass an additional argument to the VS Code process:
const launchArgs: string[] = []

if (process.env.VSCODE_DATA_DIR) {
  launchArgs.push('--user-data-dir', process.env.VSCODE_DATA_DIR)
}

await runTests({ vscodeExecutablePath, extensionDevelopmentPath, extensionTestsPath, launchArgs })

So now any logs VS Code produces will be captured.
These logs already include some information about my extension. My extension can contribute more by writing to an output channel, which is automatically captured in a log file.
The other thing I can do is direct log files into the context.logUri directory (as suggested here), but that's more work, and the APIs for writing files by URI that VS Code offers are weak (you can't append a line to a log file, for example).


Designers meet with various sorts of challenges each day in their workplaces and all they need is creative ideas to make something inspiring. What would a designer want other than having innovative notions in his head?
A designer sometimes gets so engrossed and exhausted in his tasks that it becomes difficult to breathe because he has to give his best all the time, expectation are already high from him and he ever wants to do something below average. He meets with a diverse range of pursuits with different mindsets of clients, all it takes is a great courage and patience to deal with all the fussy aspects because clients are sometimes very dominating and bossy, all they want is perfection.
They will sometimes ask for redo, remake or entire new look of the design. In this scenario, designers have to be optimistic, determined and easy-going instead of retaliating or arguing with the client because clients' hearts are to be won so they may come back to you over and over again presumably. Shopping is everybody's priory hobby, not only women but even men are found doing grocery for their house. In order to carry luggage, stuff and eatables etc.
One needs a hand carry for sure. Obviously you can't hold all the stuff in your two hands. Hand carry can be of plastic and polythene, the handles should be firm enough so the stuff does not slip away or fall onto the floor in the midway. Reliable polythene bags should be used so to provide the buyers with reliability and confidence of carry it all along the way.
Today I am unfolding before you free plastic poly bag mock-up PSD. This polythene bag mockup is available here in two different sizes that you can use for your personal and commercial prospects. Just insert in your design element and there it is done. This polybag will be of light weight with a decent capacity to hold the stuff inside it safely. Stick around for more such posts, we aim to please you.
Hey, it's in RAR Format, not PSD?
Samara you have to first unzip it and then get the PSD.


Xiao Baiyou, a father of four, claims to spend 90 percent of his time and energy on parenting. He rules with absolute authority at home, controlling nearly every aspect of his children's lives — from cartoons, snacks, and pocket money to extracurricular activities and their friends.
"As kids, they have no judgment about what's right and wrong, so I teach them," according to his book that has become a bestseller since being published on June 1.
Even when the wolf father is away from the lair on business, his children must call him for permission to drink sodas. Those caught violating the wolf father's rules can expect physical punishments, he writes.
Xiao has his own rules and lengthy self-justifications. He summarized several principles of his punishments: He only beat hands and legs, a lengthy lesson always preceded the physical punishment to justify his beating, and whenever one child is punished, the other three were required to stand besides to witness their siblings' pain. Any yelling out or tentative move away from the falling cane would only result in more punishment.
He stopped beating his children when they turned 12, as he believes that above that age, the kids' personality and habits are pretty much formed, and further beating would only bring more harm than good.
Xiao had a price tag for each error a child made. A mistake in an exam meant five blows, and a stop-over at a classmate's house after school 10 blows, as did talking back to your parents or telling a lie.
"I never felt soft-hearted when I was beating them. Just like the national law, the family rules can't be easily broken by any kinds of excuse. But on top of that, I will make sure that they know I do this only for their own good," said Xiao.