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'From the Top' comes to O.C.
From left, violinist Yu-Ming Ma, pianist Vuthithorn Chinthammit and cellist Wei-An Hung perform during a live recording of "From the Top" at Segerstrom Concert Hall.
Christopher O'Riley interviews fifteen-year-old organist Michael Bennett during a live recording of "From the Top" at Segerstrom Concert Hall Saturday night.
La Cañada High School Chamber Singers perform during a live recording of "From the Top" at Segerstrom Concert Hall.
Flautist Ramakrishnan Kumaran performs with Christopher O'Riley during a live recording of "From the Top" at Segerstrom Concert Hall.
(From left) Flautists Benjamin Smolen and Ramakrishnan Kumaran perform with pianist Christopher O'Riley during a live recording of "From the Top" at Segerstrom Concert Hall Saturday night.
Fourteen-year-old pianist Anna Boonyanit performs during a live recording of "From the Top" hosted by Christopher O'Riley at Segerstrom Concert Hall Saturday night.
Fourteen-year-old pianist Anna Boonyanit performs during a live recording of "From the Top" at Segerstrom Concert Hall Saturday night.
Flautist Ramakrishnan Kumaran performs during a live recording of "From the Top" hosted by Christopher O'Riley at Segerstrom Concert Hall.
Fifteen-year-old organist Michael Bennett performs during a live recording of "From the Top" at Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa.
Fifteen-year-old organist Michael Bennett performs during a live recording of "From the Top" at Segerstrom Concert Hall Saturday night.
Sixteen-year-old cellist Ila Shon performs with Christopher O'Riley during a live recording of "From the Top" at Segerstrom Concert Hall Saturday night.
The young musicians featured during a live recording of "From the Top" at Segerstrom Concert Hall take a bow Saturday night.
By Timothy Mangan | Orange County Register
"From the Top," National Public Radio's popular weekly show devoted to classical music, dropped by Segerstrom Concert Hall on Saturday night to tape an episode before a live audience. The stage was set up with microphones here and there, a few props, and a grand piano in the center. The audience looked different: lots of kids mixed in.
Part "Prairie Home Companion" and part "American Idol" (minus the annoying judges), "From the Top" makes the popularization of classical music look easy, without selling out. The formula is simplicity itself: Bring on the youngsters. These aren't just any youngsters (ages 8 to 18), mind you; this isn't anything like the spring recital at your local music store or school. These are whiz kids from all over the country who come to impress, and invariably do.
They speak briefly to host and pianist Christopher O'Riley before they play and a little more afterward. As host, O'Riley seems to have taken a page from Garrison Keillor. He's friendly, unintimidating, homey and even rather sleepy at times. He's quick with the quips, which appear to be off-script. The young musicians relax in his presence and he gets some interesting anecdotes from them about their lives. These generally serve to illustrate how normal these kids are, not how extraordinary. Classical music is for everyone is the message, even you.
Another important aspect of the show that's so obvious it's easy to overlook is that the pieces performed are short. This turns "From the Top" into a bit of a variety show, and the daunting length of many classical pieces is removed from the appreciation equation. If you don't like what you're hearing now, wait a minute.
Saturday's show featured young musicians mostly from California. It opened, however, with 15-year-old organist Michael Jon Bennett, who studies in Juilliard's pre-college program, playing a piece by Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707). Bennett, it turns out, is rather wild for Buxtehude (kids, these days). As he left the stage to make his way to the organ above it, O'Riley joked that this would be the "first solo ascent" of the Gillespie organ ever attempted. Bennett then laid into the Praeludium in G minor, BuxWV 163, an extravagant whirlwind of a piece, with theatrical flair.
The La Cañada High School Chamber Singers, chosen in an online contest at KUSC, sang Barber's "Under the Willow Tree" and Eric Whitacre's "With a Lily in Your Hand" with extraordinary precision and taste. O'Riley turned the pages for the piano accompanist.
Fourteen-year-old pianist Anna Boonyanit of Redwood City played the second of Stravinsky's "Three Movements From Petrushka" with dazzling color and storytelling patience. Sixteen-year-old cellist Ila Shon, of San Francisco and a huge fan of brie, performed the third movement of Rachmaninoff's Cello Sonata with burnished sound and eloquence, O'Riley at the keyboard (and reading his music from an iPad).
As it happens, the Pacific Symphony's principal flutist, Benjamin Smolen, is a "From the Top" alum; he joined the Pacific Symphony Youth Orchestra's 16-year-old principal flutist Ramakrishnan Kumaran, and O'Riley, for a florid romp through Doppler's "Andante et Rondo," Op. 25. Kumaran put on a comedic Indian accent for his interview with O'Riley and also demonstrated the Indian bamboo flute.
To conclude, the Idyllwild Arts Academy Piano Trio – violinist Yu-Ming Ma, cellist Wei-An Hung and pianist Vuthithorn Chinthammit – stormed through the peppy and peppery finale of Paul Schoenfield's "Café Music." At "halftime" (it may not be included on the broadcast), O'Riley, a virtuoso concert pianist who also strays into the realms of art rock, offered an urgent account of his own thundering arrangement of Lou Reed's "All Tomorrow's Parties."
At the end, all of the musicians, adorned with medals, lined up onstage, basking in the booming applause with beaming smiles. "From the Top" is inspiring, fun, breezy and needed – probably as much for the young musicians who participate as for those who listen. It was presented Saturday as part of the Pacific Symphony's "OC Front and Center" series. This episode will be broadcast at 6 p.m. Feb. 9 by KUSC, 91.5 FM.
Contact the writer: 714-796-6811 or tmangan@ocregister.com
Timothy Mangan
NAMM 2020: 5 opening day highlights from the show in Anaheim


When it comes to choosing the best dress among many prom dresses, there are many silly mistakes that we all make while choosing the best dress online. You are going to put so much effort into looking the best at your prom night. Even you are able to choose the right dress; there are some of the mistakes that you are going to make. And if everything other is right, then we might choose the wrong dress. The last thing that you do not end up feeling is that you are not looking after working so hard on yourself and not meeting to the results that you might have expected. There are probably a million things that can go wrong, but you have to be sure that your dress is a perfect way. You can do this by following the best tips for getting ready for the prom and choosing the right prom dresses online.
There can be little differences there are when it comes to the sizing of the different brands. You should be very much aware of the size when you are trying to shop online, especially when you are looking for your prom dress. There are some people who are very confident in their measurements and buying from their regular brands, and they end up buying something that they are not satisfied with buying at all. So the main tip is to visit a local tailor before you actually start looking for the prom dresses online and find a dress that you really want.
One of the best benefits of buying the prom dresses online is that you can get a second opinion from the people reviews. They might have bought the same dress as you. You are going to get all the information like the material quality, the sizing, and if the dress is really comfortable or not. When you are reading the comments, it is going to give you a clear picture of what you can really expect from the dress and if there is something that you must be cautious about in advance.
When you are buying a prom dress, then you really can't leave it to chance. You just cannot buy a dress based on the pictures only. If you have any doubts on the dress, then you can get in touch with the customer care services and ask them any questions that you have. You can ask them anything about the fabric or the fitting. You must also make sure that how fast you can contact them and how much faster they are replying. From this, you can judge whether they are a reliable company or not. Never hesitate to ask them any question, and they will be more happy to answer you and clear all your doubts.
Make sure that you start looking for your prom dresses early and it is not too late because you have to get ready to deal with quite many things after buying it. If it is not your exact fit, then you have to leave a room for the alterations that have to be made. Sometimes the color does not match with your skin tone, and you have to return it. So make sure that you plan way ahead of your prom so that you can easily send the dress back whenever it is required or if you want to make some modification in it. It is so because if you buy the dress in the week of your prom night, then you won't have the time to return it if you want to.


The Rhode Island School of Design has received $2.5 million from David Rockefeller to endow a curatorial position at the school's museum and to support a new gallery.
RISD announced Monday that Rockefeller's pledge would fund and expand the museum's collection of decorative arts and design.
RISD says the majority of the money will go toward a position to lead the department of decorative arts and design. The remaining funds will underwrite the David and Peggy Rockefeller Gallery to be located on the museum's European art floor. The school says it will also renovate a 400-square-foot corner gallery in the museum.
RISD says Rockefeller has promised the museum a gift of about 43 works of decorative art from his estate, including rare furniture, silverware and European porcelain.


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Tag: Shadows of the Dying Sun
May 23, 2014	2014, Finland, Insomnium, Melo-Death 2 Comments
I'll Pretend Its Autumn: Insomnium's Shadows of the Dying Sun
Finland's melodic death metal brush artists Insomnium are perhaps my most beloved metal "discovery" within the past few years. I stumbled across them some time after the release of their 2011 album One For Sorrow, an elegiac, melancholy touched masterpiece. I think its easy for writers to throw that term around often, it happens quite a bit within metal reviewer circles —- but I really mean it in relation to that album. I was transfixed by every note within, and when I worked my way backwards through their discography, eagerly devouring the similarly styled Across the Dark (2009) and the noticeably more aggressive Above the Weeping World (2006), my appreciation for the band grew stronger and deeper. By October of 2012 I had my first opportunity to see the band live, who had an opening slot for Alestorm (the very idea) and Epica. I'll never forget that show, I wrote earnestly about my experience that night in an admittedly unnoticed article published later in December of that year that discussed the musical links I traced between Insomnium and Sentenced. Reading it over now, I wonder why I didn't discuss how deeply I felt connected to the band's music that night, even on the drive to and from the venue, racing along the highways while staring out at a rapidly darkening, grey-clouded autumn sky. I'm not a religious person for the most part, but something spiritual was going on that day, it was as if Insomnium's music was painting in the world around me as I perceived it.
After Insomnium had played, I thought I might stick around for Epica since I'd coughed up over twenty bucks for the ticket, but Alestorm made me throw in the towel, and I headed outside into the cold night chill. I was walking towards my car and had to move around one of the nightliner tour buses parked outside, and as I rounded the corner I walked past a couple guys that looked familiar. I stopped after a few steps while craning back to look at them, only realizing after my eyes had adjusted to the dark that I'd walked past Insomnium. There they were, all four of them, just casually hanging outside like they hadn't just put on one of the all time great live performances that I'd ever witnessed. I sauntered over to them and we all said hellos and shook hands, and we began to converse about the typical things —- how they liked the audience, how was the tour going, etc. They were quite friendly, seemingly rather surprised that some fan had apparently only come to see them play, and they talked at great length. At some point during this conversation, I remember just actively realizing what a vivid impression their music had upon me in various ways that day and its a memory haze blur as to how exactly I told them of this, but I did. I think I behaved like a normal human being (fairly sure), but I briefly let them know, and they replied with genuine appreciation. They shook my hand again after hearing of it, and I told them good night. When I got in my car and pulled out onto the road I felt invincible, and that somehow for a few hours that night, the world made sense to me.
I tell you all that not only to rectify the lack of detail in that older Insomnium/Sentenced article, but to express to you just how deep my personal roots have grown with this band. I'm writing an album review on the surface, but I'm almost pained to write one for fear of deconstructing the album past the point of —- well, the way I want to enjoy it. In keeping with the way I handled my previous review, for Sabaton's Heroes, I'll just come right out and declare this: This is a great Insomnium record, filled with the kind of emotionally charged songwriting and artistry that we now expect from the band. But then haven't I already expressed that I felt their past three albums were great? Yes I have, and if that nullifies any sense of relative objectivity for you then I'm sorry. And really, what else can I say? This is a band on a roll, with an unshakeable sense of identity and a musical nucleus of guitarist/vocalist Ville Friman and vocalist/bassist Niilo Sevanen that is perhaps the strongest in melodic death metal since the Stromblad-Gelotte pairing during the classic In Flames era.
Speaking of identity in particular, Insomnium weren't preternaturally gifted —- their first three albums were made of good, solid melodic death metal with some certain flashes of brilliance; you can see retrospectively that some unpopped kernel was there, trying to figure its way out. It happened with their fourth album, Above the Weeping World, their first truly great record where they began to trickle in this flood of musical melancholy —- a robust sense of definable emotion that was inherently very Finnish. Their next two albums, Across the Dark and One For Sorrow fully revealed the extent of this transformation —- all traces of Gothenberg removed from their take on melodic death metal as the band's songwriting had transitioned away from being built around riffs. Instead they created songs by first painting with melodies, even allowing vocal melodies to carry the weight of choruses through clean vocals; there was a sense of space, of delicacy, and of musical texture. Tempos were slowed, there was an noticeable eagerness in their wanting to craft songs with unorthodox rhythms and percussive patterns —- they were in short redefining what melodic death metal could sound like.
Those albums also seemed to be the apotheosis of that particular avenue for the band in that I regard them as musical siblings, they share musical and structural commonalities and seem to fit together —- so much so that I suspected it was unlikely that they'd attempt a third repeat performance. In confirming my hypothesis, Shadows of the Dying Sun is as much a departure as it is a continuation of its immediate predecessors. It is simultaneously a further exploration of the softened melodic brush strokes of Across the Dark and One For Sorrow as it is a throwback to the sheer brutal intensity of Across the Weeping World —- and its a near faultless marriage. I'm not sure whether or not it was a conscious decision, but the band have definitely increased the tempos and aggression on an almost album wide basis. There's a songwriting move back towards sharp, tight melodic riffs while still keeping the new-era layers of expressive clean guitar melodies. The semi-introductory track "The Primeval Dark" is a big hint towards this trajectory, with its soft atmospherics serving as a tension heightening backdrop to the marching, grinding, half growled/half instrumental passages that act as a build up to the kickoff of the album proper.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBZ5SLJmfdw&w=560&h=315]
That kickoff being the multifaceted "While We Sleep", which starts off with some melodic vocals courtesy of Friman before transitioning into Sevanen's monstrously deep death vocals, all while Friman and fellow guitarist Markus Vanhala create beautifully swirling guitar patterns juxtaposed over sharp, cutting riffs. I love that the mid-song guitar solo here isn't kicked off in a wild Scorpions-esque electric overdrive, but builds slowly, with gently fluttering acoustic guitar chords that usher in a vivid electric guitar solo sans distortion. Its just one of the ways in which Friman is a thoughtful composer, he could've really gone for the big Slash-styled moment there, but tempered it back in accordance with the credo of only giving the song what it needs at any given moment, and in keeping with the tone set by his pensive lyrics. As we segue into the final outro where Sevanen growls the despairing lyric "We need to slow down, so I can catch you / We need to slow down, so you can catch me", the lost wild rock n' roll guitar solo finally shows up and its a stunningly expressive emotional release —- one of my favorite moments on the album. Looking at these two songs as a pair its worth noting that they're keeping in the tradition of the past three Insomnium albums having similarly styled one-two punch opening combos.
The next two tracks, "Revelation" and "Black Heart Rebellion" are as starkly contrasting as day and night; the former is a dreamy blend of acoustic guitars and slower, patient tempos with crescendoing clean electric melodic runs, Sevanen's vocal performance at times softening to a near spoken word whisper. Its a startlingly spiritual lyric at work here too, a Sevanen penned hymn that seems to touch on the Cosmos-themed concepts of being aware of one's own place in the universe, that "This is the gift of man / The key to see it all / The hidden wonders / Hope in despair". Alternately in both music and lyrics, "Black Heart Rebellion" is perhaps the most punishing and brutal track on the album, with its black metal like flurry of near tremolo riffs, blastbeat percussive tempos, and Sevanen's vicious growling about the parallels between "Morning star, angel of the dawn" and "Desolate is the path of self-believers". Yet Friman still writes in moments of space for quiet melodic reflections, such as Vanhala's hushed solo at 4:53 —- the kind of thing that is such a distinctive Insomnium signature, their musical calling card if you will. The lengthiest track on the album is the similarly black metal-touched "The River", where I love the way the guitars anticipate the vocals by a fraction of a second at the 1:27 mark and the resulting effect crackles with excitement. Those stately verse sections unleash into a tremolo riff fueled chorus section with some surprising melodic change-ups.
The untarnished gem on this album is "Lose to Night", a song with an achingly beautiful chorus and note-perfect encapsulating verses. This is my most listened to song on an album that I must have spun at least a few dozen times by now, its the track that practically bleeds out the core musical identity of this band. Everything about it is perfect to me, from its tribal-esque intro drum patterns, to the circular guitar melodies within the verses where Sevanen growl-speaks about a litany of regrets, to Friman's shining clean vocal performance in the chorus with that delicately hook laden vocal melody. I love that during said chorus, subtly buried in the mix is an electric guitar gently echoing Friman's vocal melody beat for beat, along with Sevanen's distant growls adding just the right touch of stormy intensity. I love that its a song about the decay of a relationship, but Friman's prose is sparse and interpretative enough for it to apply to any circumstance —- the narrator could be speaking to his parents, or his sibling, or his past. I love that instead of associating a barren heart with romance, Friman dishes a curve ball by singing "No more fear in me / This heart's stone inside", while adding that "Every day must lose to night / Fade and die". Perhaps I'm reading too much into this here but these strike me as very Finnish in their inherent nature —- slightly gloomy yes, but beautiful sentiments despite their despairing tone. I think back to my article linking Insomnium and Sentenced, and how these lyrics could have found their way onto The Cold White Light.
I have other favorites as well, "The Promethean Song" being chief among them, its chiming acoustics and slow tempo-ed bed of bass heavy guitars preceding a Sevanen/Friman vocal trade off where the latter opens up his pipes to higher ranges than we've seen from him before. He sounds good, really good actually, and he knows how to write vocal melodies that suit his tone (a rare skill in guitarist first songwriters). I adore the bridge section that occurs at the 4:00 minute mark with accented drumming, Sevanen's harshly barked out vocals and perhaps the album's best guitar solo. Then there's the title track serving as the album closer, its a bass driven, rumbling beast of a song where heavy guitars suddenly swing up and crunch down to usher in a rather inspired Sevanen / Friman vocal duet on the refrain, "And I feel it in my heart / And I know it in my mind / That's all there is, ever will be". Its another song where Friman ruminates upon the stardust-y nature of our existence, a sentiment I entertain myself with on occasion and feel rather connected to. Incidentally, Friman makes his rent by working a day job as a scientific researcher, so if you've been wondering at the inclusion of science meets spirituality themes within the lyrics, that goes a long way towards explaining it. And of course there's "Ephemeral", which we heard late last year as a standalone single, and its dressed up here in a few more layers of guitars and production work, but still sounds just as vibrant, fresh, and ear wormingly catchy as it did originally. It features my favorite lyric on the album, "Dying doesn't make this world dead to us / Breathing doesn't keep the flame alive in us", and its a rarity among Insomnium's catalog —- a truly anthemic song.
I'll curb this now to prevent it from being a track by track dissection, its already more review than I ever wanted it to be. On a personal level I'm still just allowing myself to experience the album as a continuum where the band's musical sound palette affects me on a raw emotional level. That's the kind of thing that I'll never really be able to express within the context of a review, and its where the large majority of my enjoyment of Insomnium comes from. I was asked by a friend who was eager to hear the album how I thought it stacked up when compared to One For Sorrow, and apart from mentioning the obvious uptick in aggression and overall heaviness, it was a question that I really couldn't answer. I loved One For Sorrow not only because I thought it was a masterpiece, but because it was the album that reintroduced me to this band and made me a devout fan, and because the music on that album came to me at the perfect moment in my life when I was receptive enough to appreciate it. That's a lot for a follow-up album to live up to, and that's why I've chosen not to compare Shadows of the Dying Sun directly to it —- its a beautiful, inspired album on its own, and that's enough. I'm sure that others won't have a problem giving a more objectified opinion, but there's a fine line I'm walking here in regards to discussing personal connections to a band's work. Music can often serve as a mask, a way for you to have your feelings expressed without opening your own dumb mouth. There's that Oscar Wilde quote, "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Merrick just announced the recruitment of Scott Raphael as new CEO. Scott comes from Schlumberger Information Solutions where he was the Production and Economics Portfolio Manager. He spent 15 years in Schlumberger predominantly in areas of business development, operations, and sales, marketing and services.


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World's First Passenger Drone Readies for Takeoff in Dubai
This summer, commuters may have another option for moving around Dubai as a pilotless drone is prepared to shuttle passengers around the city.
February 15, 2017, 7am PST | jwilliams | @jwillia22
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Alex Butterfield
The Ehang 184 passenger drone will be the world's first passenger drone in operation this July if all goes as planned. Dezeen reports that Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority executive director Mattar al-Tayer announced plans at the World Government Summit to have the passenger-carrying drone begin flying across the city this summer. However, there are some limitations to the pilotless flights.
It can carry one passenger weighing up to 100 kilograms (220 pounds) and can stay airborne for 30 minutes on one charge....
There is no passenger override function, which means that anyone can travel in the drone without a pilot's license. However, this also means the user can't take control in an emergency.
The drone, developed by Chinese manufacturer Ehang, was first introduced last year at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The Arab News reports that the government of the United Arab Emirates is currently testing the drones. The flying passenger drone technology is part of a larger plan to make 25 percent of all trips in Dubai into driverless journeys by 2030, including the use of driverless minibuses and boats.
Dubai to begin flying world's first passenger drone
Published on Tuesday, February 14, 2017 in Dezeen
driverless vehicles
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Report Ranks the Best-Selling Master-Planned Communities
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Solo Voices & Orchestra
Voice with Instrumental Ensemble or Piano
Soundadminsnb2021-07-08T17:03:05+00:00
Gloup Fishermen's Memorial photographed by
Robert Alan Jamieson librettist of Beyond the Far Haaf
Beyond The Far Haaf
Part 3 – 'The Returning' (23 mins)
http://composers-uk.com/davidward/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/03-The-Returning.mp3
Graham Titus, Margaret Cable, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conductor Jerzy Maksymiuk
The Gloup disaster of July 1881 claimed the lives of fifty-eight men when a sudden storm rose out of a peaceful sky. This was a blow from which the community of Gloup, Yell, Shetland never recovered. In 1881 the shores of the sea inlet Gloup Voe were well inhabited on both sides. In 1989 when Beyond the Far Haaf was written there were only four households, all on the east side of the voe. While he was writing the piece, DW lived eight miles from Gloup and his nearest neighbours were descended from families involved in the disaster.
Lino cut by Clare Melinsky Radio Times 6 August 1984
for the first broadcast of The Snow Queen
The Snow Queen (libretto by Kevin Ireland)
Robber Girl scene (8 mins)
http://composers-uk.com/davidward/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/09-Greta-Robber-Girl.mp3
Teresa Cahill, Elizabeth Bainbridge with The London Sinfonietta, conducted by Howard Williams
Sonata Fantasia
complete (19 mins)
http://composers-uk.com/davidward/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/06-Sonata-Fantasia-Slow-Fast-Slow-Fugue-Fast-Slow.mp3
Rohan de Saram (cello)
Druvi de Saram (piano)
Click here for a PDF of the score
It may seem a little whimsical to have written such a backward looking 'almost in C minor' piece in 2001 for the cellist for whom Berio was writing his last sequenza and who a few years before had been the cellist in the premiere of Stockhausen's 'helicopter quartet'. Nevertheless Rohan & Druvi took it seriously and were wonderfully effective in displaying the internal relationships of the piece, while Rohan's cello really sang.
A Full Moon in March
(a setting of the play of the same name by W B Yeats)
1) Part 2 complete
2) Part 2 in separate sections:
a) Recit & 1st Attendant's song
b) Dance to the head
c) Song of the head
d) The Queen laughs & then dances with the head
e) Final song
Stephen Varcoe, Linda Hirst, Twentieth Century Ensemble, conductor Edwin Roxburgh
Prelude to Act 3 of Jack's Engagement
(13 mins)
http://composers-uk.com/davidward/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/08-Jacks-Engagment-Act3Prelude.mp3
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra / Jerzy Maksymiuk
String Quartet No 4 (1 minute excerpt)
String Quartet No 5 (final minute)
String Quartet No.6
(complete)
http://composers-uk.com/davidward/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/02-Ward-Qt-6-1.mp3
Bingham String Quartet
Score PDF
Piano Sonata (21/2 minute excerpt)
Graeme McNaught
Cello Concerto no. 1
Last movement (18 min Adagio and Cadenza)
Ross Pople / BBC Symphony Orchestra / Norman Del Mar
e-mails from Palestine
Recording of the live 1st performance in 2010
http://composers-uk.com/davidward/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Emails_live_ending_1.mp3
Emily White (vocals, trombone, alto sackbut, violin & percussion)
Steve Bingham (5 string electric violin, electric bass violin, violin, percussion & live loops from bass violin)
Recorded speaking voice of Jane Frere
Click on the cover picture to open a PDF of a programme note with the full sung and spoken words in a new tab
Clarinet Quintet (first two movements)
1) Slow-Fast
2) Scherzo
Shinobu Miki / Saltire Quartet
String Quartet No 7
Recording of the 1st performance
with a spoken introduction from Emily White who speaks first about Huntly-based composer Ronald Center (1913–1973) in a concert celebrating the centenary of Center's birth
Isla Quartet
Philippa Mo and Emily White (violins), Rachel Stott (viola), Rebecca Rees (cello)
Cello Concerto no. 2 (middle movements)
1) Slow movement
2) Scherzo and Trio
Rohan de Saram / Southbank Sinfonia / Simon Over
Variations for Cello and Orchestra (complete)
http://composers-uk.com/davidward/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/04-Variations.mp3
Ross Pople, London Festival Orchestra, conductor Edwin Roxburgh
Dreaming of a Distant Love
http://composers-uk.com/davidward/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Dreaming-of-a-Distant-Love.mp3
(A two minute miniature instrumental paraphrase of my opera Cupid & Psyche)
FourSight
Victoria Soames Samek (Alto Sax) Steve Bingham (Violin) Chris Brannick (Percussion) Adrian Sutcliffe (Electric Piano)
Arias and Cadenzas
Video Stream of premiere on 5 November 2017 including Q & A with the audience
Rohan de Saram (Cello) Suren de Saram (Percussion) Kausikan Rajeshkumar (Piano)
Monedie Cottage, Aberchirder, Huntly, Aberdeenshire, AB54 7PL
Email: david@monedie.co.uk or monediecottage@gmail.com


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U.S. Market News
Colombia to pay $1.29 bln of global bonds early
BOGOTA, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Colombia will pay $1.29 billion of global bonds in March, earlier than planned, by using funds it raised in international capital markets last month, the finance ministry said on Tuesday.
The bonds were due to mature in July this year but an early redemption clause gives Colombia the option of paying them beforehand, at a price determined during the bonds' issue which must be announced at least 30 days in advance, the ministry said.
Colombia issued global bonds worth $1.3 billion with a 40-year placement on Jan. 13, while also reopening earlier-issued bonds worth $1.54 billion.
Of the reopened bonds, $1.23 billion formed part of a debt-management operation to partially replace global bonds maturing in 2021, 2024, and 2027.
According to the finance ministry, this is the first time Colombia has used an early redemption clause, cutting the risk of refinancing, as well as market risks.
Latin America's fourth-largest economy was forced to drastically increase its debt level to address needs caused by the coronavirus pandemic, which led its gross domestic product to shrink by an unprecedented 6.8% last year. (Reporting by Nelson Bocanegra Writing by Oliver Griffin Editing by Alistair Bell)


text:
function json2csv(headers, items, fileTitle) {
  if (headers) {
    items.unshift(headers);
  }

  function convertToCSV(objArray) {
    var array = typeof objArray != 'object' ? JSON.parse(objArray) : objArray;
    var str = '';

    for (var i = 0; i < array.length; i++) {
      var line = '';
      for (var index in array[i]) {
        if (line != '') line += ',';

        line += array[i][index];
      }

      str += line + '\r\n';
    }

    return str;
  }

  // Convert Object to JSON
  var jsonObject = JSON.stringify(items);

  var csv = convertToCSV(jsonObject);

  var exportedFilenmae = fileTitle + '.csv' || 'export.csv';

  var blob = new Blob([csv], { type: 'text/csv;charset=utf-8;' });
  if (navigator.msSaveBlob) {
    // IE 10+
    navigator.msSaveBlob(blob, exportedFilenmae);
  } else {
    var link = document.createElement('a');
    if (link.download !== undefined) {
      // feature detection
      // Browsers that support HTML5 download attribute
      var url = URL.createObjectURL(blob);
      link.setAttribute('href', url);
      link.setAttribute('download', exportedFilenmae);
      link.style.visibility = 'hidden';
      document.body.appendChild(link);
      link.click();
      document.body.removeChild(link);
    }
  }
}

export default json2csv;

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
afrik21-KENYA: Livelihoods Carbon Fund investments increase to €8 million
The Livelihoods Fund, supported by groups such as Veolia, Danone, Hermes, Schneider, etc., is committed to doubling its participation in the project to distribute improved cooking stoves in Kenya, to a total of €8 million. This energy efficiency project aims to improve the living conditions of 600,000 villagers while preserving 2,400 ha of forest.
The Livelihoods Carbon Fund doubles the size of the "Livelihoods-Hifadhi" project implemented in Kenya. By 2019, this programme to distribute improved stoves, made of locally produced ceramics, is expected to impact 600,000 people living at the foot of Mount Kenya. For this new objective, a sum of 8 million euros will be mobilised from the 12 investors in the fund. In particular Veolia, Crédit Agricole SA, Danone, Firmenich, Hermès, Caisse des Dépôts Group, La Poste, Mars Inc., Michelin, SAP, Schneider Electric and Voyageurs du Monde.
In addition to improved cooking stoves, the project now includes a nutrition component to raise families' awareness of simple ways to acquire a healthy diet. "In total, the Livelihoods-Hifadhi project will preserve 2,400 ha of forest and avoid the emission of about 3.5 million tonnes of CO2 by 2029. In addition, one million trees will be planted to help reforestation," according to Livelihoods Fund.
High impact projects
Due to exponential population growth, coupled with increased dependence on wood as an energy source, Kenya's forests are under pressure. This situation leads to serious degradation of the forest, land and water resources. Hence the interest of the Livelihoods-Hifadhi programme launched in 2011.
Other projects are also supported by the Livelihoods Fund. The Kenyan dairy sector is one such example. This agroforestry project initiated in 2016 for 30,000 Kenyan livestock farmers and costing €3.5 million, focuses on training provided by the Swedish NGO Vi Agroforestry. The programme "has enabled these farmers to boost the yield of their dairy cows, from an average of three litres per day to more than 10 litres," states the Fund.


The Nether Dragon . Hi, Keiren here. It was horrifying, something from my nightmares. It all started with a trip to the nether, my portal came out on the edge of a cliff.
In Minecraft, an ender dragon will dive towards you and try to hit you. It also has a special breath attack where the dragon breathes a purple cloud of acid breath. If you run through this breath, it will cause you damage.


text:
News, Sports, World News
Olympic Surprises
Posted by Dynasty Network on September 7, 2016 September 7, 2016
by Evan Oscherwitz
The Olympics are a truly magical event, from the amazing Parade of Nations, where the entire planet comes together for the wonder of sport, all the way to the closing ceremony, where we reflect on the many wonders that took place over the prior two weeks.
After four long years of waiting, the Rio games finally arrived on August 5, and despite the concerns and questionable political environment in which they took place, they were captivating as ever.
These Olympics exposed us to the breathtaking skill of Michael Phelps, Katie Ledecky, Usain Bolt, and Simone Biles, who dominated their respective domains in spectacular fashion. However, you would be hard-pressed to find somebody who doubted any of those four. This list will remember the most unlikely successes from the Rio games, in all their glory.
The Men's 400 Meters
The men's 400 meters has always been one of the most coveted events at the Olympics, and has seen superstars like Michael Johnson and LaShawn Merritt claim gold medals. Four years ago in London, a new legend was born; but unlike Johnson and Merritt, he was not a highly coveted American prodigy.
Instead, he was a 19 year old from the Caribbean island of Grenada named Kirani James. James shocked the world when he blew by the competition and won gold, the first Olympic medal in Grenada's history.
In Rio, James was expected to be a lock in the 400, having performed very strongly in international competition, and at the NCAA championships with the University of Alabama. James blazed through the heats and semifinals to reach the medal race, but it was clear early on that this would not be the blowout everyone had anticipated, as two possible challengers emerged in the preliminaries.
The first was a man whose name everyone knew, a man who had claimed gold for the United States 8 years before, a man who was at his final Olympics, a man named LaShawn Merritt. Merritt, appearing to have bested Father Time, ran very well through the preliminaries, placing second heading into the final, ready to redeem himself after a disappointing London games.
The second challenger was by no means a household name, and despite being the defending world champion, he was not expected to contend for a medal. Representing a country with a history of oppression, his own mother had been denied the opportunity to compete in the Olympics because of her skin color, and he was not ready to let his chance slip away.
This man was Wayde van Niekerk, a tall, skinny South African who had upset James in at the world championships in Beijing a year before. Van Niekerk had not posted excellent times in the Olympic qualifiers, and was hence considered a dark horse candidate for a medal. Van Niekerk ran very well in his heat, but finished second in his semifinal, still automatically qualifying for the medal race.
The final was a battle of epic proportions, heavily anticipated, and extensively hyped by the media. James and Merritt had the top two semifinal times, and thus drew the best lanes, 5 and 4 respectively. Van Niekerk had finished 6th, and thus ended up in lane 8, from which nobody had ever won a world or Olympic final.
After a long day of waiting, the race finally kicked off at around midnight in local time. James and Merritt were strong from the sound of the gun, looking poised and in peak form; however, neither of them was any match for van Niekerk, who took off with the speed of a cheetah running across the Savannah, and never looked back.
Van Niekerk absolutely obliterated the previous world record, finishing with a time of 43.03 seconds, finishing almost a full second ahead of James, who won silver, doubling Grenada's all time count in one night. Merritt won bronze, just barely edging out Trinidad and Tobago's young star, Machel Cedenio. All in all, this final was one for the ages, and will be looked back on for ages to come.
Pernille Blume, Denmark
The 50-meter freestyle is the shortest swimming event at the Olympic games, but it is no small deal, as it is about as exciting as 24 seconds can get. In London, the Netherlands' Ranomi Kromowidjojo emerged victorious, and she returned in Rio with a good chance at a second consecutive gold medal.
However, Kromowidjojo was left in the wake of the huge buzz surrounding American swimmer Simone Manuel, (we'll get to her later) who posed a real threat to Kromowidjojo's crown. Compared to Kromowidjojo and Manuel, Denmark's Pernille Blume was a relative unknown, quietly making her way into the final; when the starting gun sounded, though, Blume was all business.
She and Manuel were neck and neck at the front of the pack from the beginning, and neither let up. When their heads broke the surface, nobody was sure who had won, but the replay showed Blume edging out Manuel by just a fraction of a second, her gold medal being Denmark's first in swimming since 1948.
Kyle Chalmers, Australia
Coming into the Rio games, Australia's swim team was favored to take home a bucketload of medals in both men's and women's competition. Unfortunately, those expectations never materialized, as standouts like the Campbell sisters, Emily Seebohm, and Mitch Larkin came up short in race after race.
While Mack Horton took gold in the men's 400 free, the Aussies simply felt that they had not done enough. Then came the men's 100 free, an event in which they were not expected to medal. In lane 5 for the Australians was 18-year-old Kyle Chalmers, who had the best qualifying time.
In spite of this, the presence of defending champion Nathan Adrian and world junior champion Caeleb Dressel led many to believe that Chalmers would only have an outside shot at a medal.
For most of the race, Chalmers tagged behind Adrian and Belgium's Pieter Timmers, but in the final 25 meters, Chalmers pulled ahead, touching the wall about 2 tenths of a second before Timmers. The upset win invigorated the Australians, who went on to win another gold and a bronze in the relays.
Sanne Wevers, Netherlands
This story begins in 1928, with the Dutch women's gymnastics team, who won gold in the team all-around thanks to the tutelage of head coach Gerrit Kleerekoper, and the prowess of gymnasts Ans Polak, Jud Simons, Estella Agsteribbe, and Lea Nordheim.
Aside from being gold medalists, these five share another, more ominous distinction: they were all killed in the Holocaust. That 1928 team all-around gold would be the last time a Dutch woman won a medal in gymnastics until 2016. That's where Sanne Wevers comes in.
The 24-year-old balance beamer from Leeuwarden shocked the globe by upsetting American phenomenon Simone Biles, as well as Biles' teammate Laurie Hernández. Wevers completed a spectacular routine that brought the crowd at Arena Carioca 2 to their feet, and won first place by a margin of .133 points.
Due to her impressive performance, Wevers was named the Netherlands' flagbearer for the closing ceremony.
Penny Oleksiak, Canada
Sixteen is a large milestone. It's the time one obtains their driver's license, starts getting serious about their future, and much, much more. Very rarely, though, does sixteen mark the first time one wins an Olympic medal. Canada's Penny Oleksiak is clearly an overachiever by our standards, then, as she won not one, not two, not three, but four medals at the Rio games, including a gold in the women's 100 free that the shared with the United States' Simone Manuel (again, we'll talk about her later).
Penny, the sister of Dallas Stars defenseman Jamie Oleksiak, became the first Canadian athlete to win four medals in the same summer games, set a shared Olympic record in the 100 free, and became the first person born in the 21st century to win an Olympic medal.
Overachiever suddenly doesn't seem strong enough.
Abdoul Issoufou Alfaga, Niger
Most of you probably just read the above line and thought, "Who is Abdoul Issoufou Alfaga, and where is Niger?"
Well, dear reader, allow me to explain. Niger is a country in Northwestern Africa known for gazelles, sand, salt, the Niger River, for which it is named, and as of August 2016, Abdoul Issoufou Alfaga. Abdoul Issoufou Alfaga, for those who are wondering, is a 6'9 giant of a man who won a silver medal in the 80+ kg taekwondo competition at the Rio games.
To the surprise of quite literally everyone, Issoufou Alfaga beat the number one practitioner in the world, Uzbekistan's Dmitriy Shokin, to reach the gold medal match. Although he lost to Azerbaijan's Radik Isayev, Issoufou Alfaga's silver medal is only Niger's second Olympic medal, and by far the best result that Niger has ever had at the games.
Making this feat even more improbable is the fact that Issoufou Alfaga's father banned him from the sport at age 7, after his cousin died from injuries sustained in a fight. Issoufou Alfaga only picked the sport back up after moving in with his uncle in Togo, and even then, he was only able to compete using a friend's uniform. Talk about unlikely successes.
Anthony Ervin, United States
You know what's even more rare than winning a gold medal at 16-years-old? Winning two gold medals 16 years apart.
Would you believe that both of these things happened at the Rio Olympics? The first feat, you already know has been accomplished by Penny Oleksiak of Canada in the women's 100-meter freestyle. The second was miraculously accomplished by the United States' Anthony Ervin, at 35 years of age, in the men's 50-meter freestyle.
At the age of 35, Ervin beat out teammate Nathan Adrian, and defending gold medalist Florent Manaudou of France to reclai, the title he earned 16 years prior in Sydney.
Simone Manuel, United States
Representing a country on the world's biggest stage is a lot of pressure, to put it lightly. Representing an oppressed minority group and a country on the world's biggest stage is a lot more pressure.
Representing a country, and an oppressed minority group in a sport that said minority group is often billed as being unable to excel in is about the highest pressure situation a person can put themselves in. Imagine doing all three and still breaking an Olympic record.
American swimmer Simone Manuel lived this scenario during the Rio Olympics, as the lone Black swimmer representing the United States, and despite the massive amount of pressure placed upon her shoulders, she still excelled, winning a gold medal and setting an Olympic record in the 100-meter freestyle in a tie with the aforementioned Penny Oleksiak, and adding another gold and two silvers in the 4×100 meter medley relay, 4×100 meter freestyle relay and the 50-meter freestyle, respectively.
Manuel became the first Black American woman to win an Olympic medal in swimming. Despite the massive importance of her outstanding success, Manuel was not expected to win an individual medal at the games, a fact which now seems almost unbelievable given how dominant Manuel looked in the pool while swimming alongside legends like Cate Campbell and Sarah Sjöström.
What's more, Manuel is only 20-years-old, and will have a good chance to repeat her success in Tokyo four years from now.
Missy Franklin, United States
Most of us remember Missy Franklin from the London games, where the then 17-year-old won a handful of medals for the American swim team, including four golds. Most of us would like to forget the Missy Franklin we saw at the Rio games, where she did not win an individual medal, and even failed to even qualify for the semifinals in the 200-meter backstroke, her best event in 2012.
Nobody knows why Franklin performed so poorly in Rio, but talent and strength of competition had nothing to do with it. The addition of teammate Maya DiRado and Katinka Hosszú to the field in her two strongest events would be an excuse for a bronze or even a fourth or fifth place finish, but failing to advance past the heats in every individual event is absolutely inexcusable, especially with the pedigree, coaching, and pure talent that Franklin has.
Unfortunately, not all surprises are good, and there is no way around having to talk about this one. Since the conclusion of the Olympics, many have tried to find a reason for Franklin's pitiful showing, but to no avail, because no reason exists.
At the end of the day, Franklin has nobody to blame but herself, and it's her responsibility to make sure that Tokyo is nothing like Rio was.
Ivorian Taekwondo Team (Ruth Gbagbi and Cheick Sallah Cissé)
Coming into the Rio games, the West African nation of Côte d'Ivoire (formerly Ivory Coast) had only one Olympic medal to its name, a silver in the men's 400 meters from the 1984 Los Angeles games. On August 19th, that total was tripled.
Thanks to the heroic showings of Cheick Sallah Cissé in the men's 80kg and Ruth Gbagbi in the women's 67kg, a gold and a bronze were respectively added to Côte d'Ivoire's Olympic trophy case.
Cissé, who won his discipline at the 2015 African Games in Brazzaville, Congo, powered his way to the gold medal match, upsetting multiple highly touted practitioners in the process, including Germany's Tahir Güleç and Tunisia's Oussama Oueslati, who won the bronze medal.
In the final, it appeared that Cissé had finally met his match, but miraculously, down 6-5 with just seconds remaining, he delivered a powerful head kick that broke the stalemate and won him the gold medal. On the same day, Gbagbi, competing in the women's 67kg, had a much tougher path to the podium. The ninth seeded practitioner, Gbagbi was pitted against top seed Haby Niaré of France in the semifinal.
Gbagbi was defeated in a tightly contested bout, but earned a spot in the bronze medal match after defeating Haiti's Aniya Louissaint in the repechage. In the battle for bronze, Gbagbi emerged victorious against the heavily favored Azeri Farida Azizova. Nothing even close to the show put on by the Ivorians on that Friday night has ever been done in the history of the Olympics, and it is unlikely that it will ever be replicated, which only makes it more special.
Dilshod Nazarov, Tajikistan
Francine Niyonsaba, Burundi
Fijian Rugby Sevens Team
Shaunae Miller, Bahamas
EvanEvan OscherwitzOlympicsSportssurprise
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text:
Built by (and for) Adams!
Adam, site manager with Bouygues UK ©Thierry Borredon
For our employees, the completion of a project is not always the end of the story. After having worked on the site for several years and supervising the works, they are happy to go back to the places they helped to build. Find out more about these employees who have become users of the facilities they helped to build.
This week, find out about Adam, site manager on the Newport High School in Wales, related more than ever to the school daily life, even six years later.
In September Adam Reilly's two daughters started their new school year at Newport High School, near Cardiff, in Wales. Nothing out of the ordinary there, except that the school conjures up memories for the 48-year-old project manager, who supervised its construction five years ago. He knows from what his daughters tell him that students like the school's bright colours and light, airy feel. More and more of them have lunch there and use the premises for out-of-school activities.
The fact that he helped to build the school gave its governing board the idea of asking him to be a parents' representative. "I am still very much involved in the life of the school", says Adam. Its sporting facilities are open to local residents after school in the evenings and at weekends, making Newport High School a popular meeting-place. "I use the swimming pool and my wife takes gym classes", says Adam, adding that "it's the first time a project has followed me around for such a long time!"
Find out more about Bouygues UK
Bouygues UK : Sharing strong values
Built by (and for) Frédérik!


text:
PaddlePaddle version 0.10.0 uses the "trainer-parameter server" architecture. We run multiple instances of trainers (where each trainer runs the same model) and parameter servers for distributed training. This architecture serves well, but has few limitations:

1. There is a need to write special code that handles tasks which should only be run on a single trainer. E.g., initializing the model, saving the model etc.

2. Model parallelism is hard: It would need all the if-else branches conditioned on the trainer ID to partition the model onto the trainers, and eventually manually writing out the inter-model-shard communication code to communicate between different trainers.

3. The user can not directly specify the parameter update rule: This would need to modify the parameter server code and compile a new binary. This makes things more complicated for researchers: A lot of extra effort is required to make this work. Besides, the training job submission program may not allow running arbitrary binaries.

This design doc discusses PaddlePaddle's new distributed training architecture that addresses the above mentioned limitations.

## Analysis

The assumption is that the user writes the trainer program in either Python or C++.

### Limitation 1

There are two basic functionalities in the trainer program:

1. The training logic such as loading / saving the model and printing out the logs.
2. The neural network definition such as the definition of the data layer, the fully connected layer, the cost function and the
  optimizer.

When we train using PaddlePaddle v0.10.0 in a distributed fashion, multiple instances of the same Python code are run on different nodes, hence both: the
training logic as well as the neural network computation logic, is replicated.

The tasks that only need to be run once belong to the training logic. Hence if we only replicate the neural network computation part, and do **not**
replicate the training logic, the limitation mentioned above can be avoided.

### Limitation 2

Model parallelism means that a single model is partitioned into different components and each node runs one of the component separately. This comes at the extra cost of managing the
inter-model-shard communication between nodes.

PaddlePaddle should ideally be able to modify the neural network computation and figure out the support for model parallelism automatically. However, the
computation is only specified in Python code which sits outside of PaddlePaddle, hence PaddlePaddle can not support the feature in this setup.

Similar to how a compiler uses an intermediate representation (IR) so that the programmer does not need to manually optimize their code for most of the cases, we can have an intermediate representation in PaddlePaddle as well. The compiler optimizes the IR as follows:

PaddlePaddle can support model parallelism by converting the IR so that the user no longer needs to manually perform the computation and operations in the Python component:

The IR for PaddlePaddle after refactoring is called a `Block`, it specifies the computation dependency graph and the variables used in the computation.

### Limitation 3

The user can not directly specify the parameter update rule for the parameter server in the Python module, since the parameter server does not use the same computation definition as the trainer. Instead, the update rule is baked inside the parameter server. The user can not specify the update rule explicitly.

This could be fixed by making the parameter server also run an IR, which can be different to the trainer side
For a detailed explanation, refer to this document -
[Design Doc: Parameter Server](./parameter_server.md)

## Distributed Training Architecture

The revamped distributed training architecture can address the above discussed limitations. Below is the illustration of how it does so:

The major components are: *Python API*, *Distribute Transpiler* and *Remote Executor*.

### Python API

Python API is the Python library that user's Python code invokes, to read the data, build the neural network topology, and start training, etc.

```Python
images = fluid.layers.data(name='pixel', shape=[1, 28, 28], dtype='float32')
label = fluid.layers.data(name='label', shape=[1], dtype='int64')
...
predict = fluid.layers.fc(input=conv_pool_2, size=10, act="softmax")
cost = fluid.layers.cross_entropy(input=predict, label=label)
avg_cost = fluid.layers.mean(x=cost)
optimizer = fluid.optimizer.Adam(learning_rate=0.01)
optimizer.minimize(avg_cost)

train_reader = paddle.batch(
    paddle.reader.shuffle(
        paddle.dataset.mnist.train(), buf_size=500),
    batch_size=BATCH_SIZE)

place = fluid.CPUPlace()
exe = fluid.Executor(place)

for pass_id in range(10):
    for data in train_reader():
        loss, acc = exe.run(trainer_prog,
                            feed=feeder.feed(data),
                            fetch_list=[avg_cost])
```

The code above is a typical local training program, the "Training Program" is built using helper functions such as
`fluid.layer.fc`. The training is done by calling `Executor.run`
iteratively.

For more details, the implementation of IR is [Program](../program.md), and `ProgramDesc` is the protobuf type.

[Executor](../executor.md) simply runs the `ProgramDesc`. For local training you generally use
`Executor` to run the program locally. For any kind of distributed training, you can use
`RemoteExecutor` to specify desired distributed training method with some optional arguments.

### Distributed Transpiler

The Distributed Transpiler automatically converts the IR (in protobuf format) to partitioned IRs. Then
the Remote Executor dispatches the new IRs to Remote Executors across the cluster.
Below are the steps that are followed :

1. User only need to change `Executor` to `RemoteExecutor` to change local program to distributed program.
1. `RemoteExecutor` calls `Distributed Transpiler` to "transpile" user's program to several IRs representing a
   distributed training program:
   1. Parse configurations from `RemoteExecutor`.
   1. Determine the type of distributed program, can be DataParallelism, ModelParallelism or Streaming.
   1. Partition the `ProgramDesc` according to type and add `send` / `recv` OP pair on the boundaries. Take
      DataParallelism type for example, it removes the optimization operators and add a `send` OP to the
      "trainer" role, then add the optimization operators to the parameter server role within the `recv` OP.
1. Dispatch the partitioned graph to different `RemoteExecutor` in the cluster.
1. `RemoteExecutor` on each node run the received `ProgramDesc` utill the end.

### RemoteExecutor

As shown in the graph, `RemoteExecutor.run` sends the IR to the cluster for Execution.
You can also use parameter `fetch_list` to interactively fetch variable back to local for
log printing.

The Python `RemoteExecutor` is derived from `Executor` class.

```python
exe = RemoteExecutor(
    feed=feeder.feed(data),
    fetch_list=[avg_cost],
    job_desc=JobDesc(
      jobname,
      num_trainer,
      num_pserver,
      cpu_per_trainer,
      gpu_per_trainer,
      mem_per_trainer,
      cpu_per_pserver,
      mem_per_pserver
    ))
for data in train_reader():
    loss, acc = exe.run(trainer_prog,
                        feed=feeder.feed(data),
                        fetch_list=[avg_cost])
```

`JobDesc` object describe the distributed job resource specification to run on
Cluster environment.

`RemoteExecutor.run` sends the `ProgramDesc` and
[TrainingJob](https://github.com/PaddlePaddle/cloud/blob/unreleased-tpr/doc/autoscale/README.md#training-job-resource)
to a server in the cluster which executes `RemoteExecutor.listen`. This server is responsible
to start the final Kubernetes Jobs to run the different role of `ProgramDesc` from `ConfigMap`.

### Placement Algorithm

Our first implementation will only support "trainer-parameter server" placement: the parameters, initializers, and optimizers are all placed on the PaddlePaddle runtimes with the parameter server role. Everything else will be placed on the PaddlePaddle runtimes with the trainer role. This has the same functionality as the "trainer-parameter server" architecture of PaddlePaddle v0.10.0, but is more generic and flexible.

In the future, a more general placement algorithm should be implemented, which makes placements according to the input IR, and a model of device computation time and device communication time. Model parallelism requires the generic placement algorithm.

### Local Training Architecture

The local training architecture will be the same as the distributed training architecture, the difference is that everything runs locally, and there is just one PaddlePaddle runtime:

### Training Data

In PaddlePaddle v0.10.0, training data is typically read
with [data reader](./README.md) from Python. This approach is
no longer efficient when training distributedly since the Python
process no longer runs on the same node with the trainer processes,
the Python reader will need to read from the distributed filesystem
(assuming it has the access) and send to the trainers, doubling the
network traffic.

When doing distributed training, the user can still use Python data
reader: the training data are sent with `Executor.run`. However, should
be used for debugging purpose only. The users are encouraged to use
the read data OPs.

## References:

[1] [TensorFlow: Large-Scale Machine Learning on Heterogeneous Distributed Systems](https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//pubs/archive/45166.pdf)

[2] [TensorFlow: A System for Large-Scale Machine Learning](https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/osdi16/osdi16-abadi.pdf)


WEST MONROE – An arrest has been made in reference to the previously reported death that occurred at 347 Brecheimer Road in the town of West Monroe on Monday.
Investigators have charged 33-year-old Mathew R. LeBoeuf of County Route 84, Central Square, with one count of murder in the second degree and one count of Assault in the first degree.
The charges were in reference to an assault that occurred at the above stated location.
Robert W. Diffin was pronounced dead at University Hospital in Syracuse.
A second victim, whose name has not been released, is in critical condition.
The investigation into this incident in ongoing and anyone with information is requested to contact the Oswego County Sheriff's Office at (315) 349-3411.


The technology of Star Trek, albeit usually governed by the drama and sometimes misused as a mere plot device with arbitrary characteristics, may be more scientifically correct and consequential than it seems at the first glance. The following article is an attempt to further elucidate warp travel, one of the most popular concepts. It is trivial but important to note that suspending disbelief is the key to accept and understand fictional technology. Anyone who applies criteria like "warp drive is impossible because subspace doesn't exist" will probably never enjoy science fiction.
Starship Design Guidelines - Is there such a thing as "good starship design"?
This will be a comprehensive treatise on all the aspects of warp propulsion seen in the show, the underlying Trek-specific principles as well as the related real science. The introduction, chapters 1, 6 and the appendix are finished thus far, chapter 3 is available as an incomplete draft.


PARIS (AA) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan received a warm welcome by a group of Turks in French capital on Saturday.
Erdogan arrived in Paris at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron to attend the Armistice Day commemorations.
Turkish leader chatted with the Turkish expats in front of the hotel where he is going to stay during the official visit on Nov. 10-11.
They carried French and Turkish flags and placards welcoming the Turkish president.
"We have come to show entire Europe how much we love him [Erdogan]," said one of the citizens in the crowd.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin along with other government officials also accompanied Erdogan.
During his visit, Erdogan is expected to hold bilateral meetings with world leaders, particularly with his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump.


"Where your most beautiful day comes together." Contemporary and modern in style, the Tailrace Centre offers an expansive array of food and beverage packages making it perfect for many different styles of receptions. In addition, we offer ceremony packages making the Tailrace Centre the place where your most beautiful day does come together. Our staff pride themselves on working to ensure that your dream wedding comes into being.


We'd like to continue our 3 PART Blog Series on Eugene's Best Selection of Kenwood eXcelon XR Products by talking about their XR Series Subwoofers.
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Single tracks; Playlist Songs; Downloading Single Tracks songs from SoundCloud. Like the other downloaders downloading a single track is easy because all you need is to get/copy the URL of the song that is available in the browser and paste it in the textbox that is in the home of the singlemango site. how to change page numbers in word 2011 mac Listen to Mumford & Sons SoundCloud is an audio platform that lets you listen to what you love and share the sounds you create.. London. 125 Tracks. 4978 Followers. Stream Tracks and Playlists from Mumford & Sons on your desktop or mobile device.
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Listen to Mumford & Sons SoundCloud is an audio platform that lets you listen to what you love and share the sounds you create.. London. 125 Tracks. 4978 Followers. Stream Tracks and Playlists from Mumford & Sons on your desktop or mobile device.


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Home » Gdynia » A World Record at Enea IRONMAN 70.3 in Gdynia!
A World Record at Enea IRONMAN 70.3 in Gdynia!
In Gdynia, Sport
Photo Source: Enea Ironman 70.3 Gdynia Press Release
Jakub Wozniak August 8, 2018
More than 2000 sportsmen took part in Enea IRONMAN 70.3 triathlon competition in Gdynia last weekend. The track in Tricity was very difficult, the weather wasn't perfect, so no one expected a world record result. There was, however, one person capable of beating many triathlon records. Daniela Ryf – a multiple IRONMAN and IRONMAN 70.3 champion showed her skills in Gdynia.
Enea IRONMAN 70.3
Last weekend the inhabitants of Tricity could experience the sixth edition of Enea IRONMAN 70.3. This challenging race consists of 3 parts – 1,9 km of swimming, 90 km of cycling and 21,1 km of running. The participants begin the race at the main beach in Gdynia. After entering the Kosciuszko Square they get bicycles to follow a big circle along streets of Tricity Landscape Park. The final part takes place on the streets of the city center of Gdynia and the Seaside Boulevard.
Favorites met the expectations
At 8 am PRO competitors entered the water. One of the favorites, Timothy O'Donnell (USA) set up the pace finishing the swimming competition in little more than 23 minutes. Right after the American, another favorite arrived at the change zone. It was Nils Frommhold from Germany, who have already won the competition in Gdynia in the past.
Timothy O'Donnell passed the finish line with 3:47:40 on the stopwatch. With this result, the American set up a new record of Enea IRONMAN 70.3 in Gdynia. Second on the finish line was Frommhold with 3:52:57, just 30 seconds another German, Markus Liebelt (3:53:27).
World Record in Gdynia
Daniela Ryf performed very well from the beginning of the race. It looked as if she had a special mission in Gdynia. Ryf finished swimming 2 minutes before other ladies. Everyone expected extraordinary performance in cycling though. Rys met the expectations well reaching an average cycling speed of some 41 km/h and finishing the part with 18 minutes advantage in her category.
Without any danger, Daniela Ryf reached the finish line in 3:57:54. This result is a new world record of women's IRONMAN 70.3. What is more, Ryf finished the race at the 7th place of the general classification. This means only 6 men were faster than her.
Second among women was Mirinda Carfae, who finished the race in 4:20:46. The third woman at the finish line was Ewa Komander, who also became Polish Champion with the result 4:25:40.
Historical edition
The sixth edition of Enea IRONMAN 70.3 in Gdynia became historical. During three days, almost 4.000 sportsmen from more than 50 countries took part in the competition. The next edition of the race will take place in Gdynia next year.
Topics: Competition Cycling Enea IRONMAN 70.3 Gdynia powered by Herbalife Gdynia Ironman Ironman 70.3 Poland running Sports Swimming Triathlon Tricity World Record
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Jakub Wozniak
Photojournalist with 7 years of experience in professional journalism in Poland and abroad. Owner and Editor in Chief of Tricity News. More than 2 years of experience in relocation services helped me to understand that we need something like Tricity News in the area. This resulted in establishing www.tricitynews.pl.
Jul 2, 2019 0 0 CommentsBy: Julita Pietroń
We had a pleasure to join Kofeina cafe on 41 Abrahama street in Gdynia at their anniversary event on
Jun 27, 2019 0 0 CommentsBy: Ewa Julia Kowalska


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7 Clever Winter Car Care Tricks That Will Save You a Great Deal of Time and Trouble
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White Dog Gives Birth, Then Teen Owner's Jaw Drops When She Sees First Puppy
Dogs can truly be members of the family, and that is definitely true for people who breed pups.
Owning a dog can be a wonderful but trying experience. Dogs take a lot of time and energy to care for: they need love and affection, as well as exercise, food, and a safe environment.
It's not always easy, but most families who own dogs know it's absolutely worth it. People who breed pooches put even more time and effort into caring for them: they not only deal with having a pregnant dog, they also open their home to lots of other dogs when the puppies are born.
And puppies, as adorable and sweet as they are, can be extremely difficult to manage. They need a lot of attention, something Jacqueline Arguello knows very well.
Jacqueline Arguello is a 19-year-old from Pharr, Texas, who absolutely loves dogs.
When her dog Mocca got pregnant, Arguello couldn't be more excited.
Mocca and her baby daddy, a poodle, are both white, so Jacqueline expected their puppies to come out looking exactly like them: fluffy and white.
So when the first puppy was born, Arguello was shocked to see that it was black. Then the rest of the babies were born, and they were all black too!
Arguello and her parents started wondering if it was possible that Mocca had snuck out and somehow bred with another dog, but they're almost positive the poodle is the father — he's the only one Mocca spent any time around.
Apparently it's possible for two white-furred dogs to produce dark-furred puppies if they carry the dark-fur gene, and that's what Arguello assumes happened.
And really, Arguello and her family don't care — they're just happy the puppies are healthy and sweet, and they can't wait to spend more time with them.
If you're surprised by this story, SHARE it with other dog lovers you know on Facebook!
[H/T: BuzzFeed]
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Home › Business › AirBnB Property Manager Files Constitutional Challenge To Pennsylvania's Real Estate Licensing Regime
AirBnB Property Manager Files Constitutional Challenge To Pennsylvania's Real Estate Licensing Regime
By Karl Dickey on July 18, 2017
Sally Ladd has always had a knack for technology. So as she started to near retirement a few years ago, she saw an opportunity to make some extra money by starting her own business helping fellow Pocono Mountain property owners list and manage their vacation rentals on websites like AirBnB and others. After three years of building her business, it all came to an abrupt end when the Pennsylvania Department of State informed her she was under investigation for allegedly operating an unlicensed real estate brokerage.
Sally Ladd (Photo Credit: Institute for Justice)
Rather than risk fines or jail time, Ladd shut down—but she's not giving up. Today, July 18, 2017, Ladd has teamed up with the Institute for Justice—a national public interest law firm—to file a lawsuit against the Pennsylvania Real Estate Commission arguing the law requiring that she obtain a real estate broker's license in order to manage vacation rental property—two entirely distinct occupations—violates her constitutional right to earn an honest living.
Under Pennsylvania's protectionist law, merely clicking an AirBnB submit button on behalf of someone else is illegal. Anyone who wants to help a property owner list a rental online or manage the rental process has to be a state-licensed real estate broker. To obtain that license, Ladd would first have to become a licensed real estate salesperson, which would require taking 60 hours of approved instruction and passing an exam. She would then have to spend three years working as an apprentice under an established broker, take another 240 hours of approved instruction, and pass a second exam before her broker's license would finally be issued. To top it all off, Ladd would have to open her own brick-and-mortar office in Pennsylvania before—at long last—she could help her first client.
But Ladd wasn't operating a real estate brokerage. Ladd, who lives in New Jersey and owns two rental properties of her own in the Poconos, helps her clients market their homes, post them online and rent them out to short-term vacationers. Fueled by the rise of the sharing economy in recent years, she built up a small portfolio of happy clients working mostly on her laptop from the comfort of her own home.
"Pennsylvania's real estate laws do little to help vacation renters, and serve only to preserve brokers' lucrative monopoly," says Josh Windham, an attorney at the Institute for Justice, which represents Ladd. "Sally does nothing that resembles operating a full-scale real estate brokerage, but treating her like a broker has forced her out of business. That's unconstitutional. Pennsylvania courts have decades of precedent protecting the constitutional right to earn an honest living, and Sally's case gives them the opportunity to carry that tradition forward into the age of the sharing economy. We're confident that they'll do just that."
"I didn't understand why they would want me to get a broker's license," says Ladd. "I don't have any interest in selling houses, and don't see why I should have to spend three years working for somebody who does, just to keep managing vacation rentals."
Ladd's instinct is completely right. Requiring her to obtain a Pennsylvania real estate broker license does nothing to protect the public from harm. What it does do, however, is protect established brokers from honest competition by giving them a stranglehold on the entire industry—including the emerging short-term vacation rental market.
But economic protectionism has real-world consequences. Ladd loved property management, and at 61 years old, she was hoping to rely on it as a source of stable, home-based income into her golden years. Instead, made to choose between obtaining an onerous license she didn't need and breaking the law by continuing to manage vacation properties, Ladd felt forced to shut down her business. That's a choice that no one should have to make.
Fortunately, the Pennsylvania Constitution protects Sally's basic right to earn an honest living free from the arbitrary and protectionist legislation: laws restricting that right must bear a "real and substantial" relationship to a legitimate government end, and may not impose an "undue burden" on the freedom to pursue a chosen occupation. Because Pennsylvania's real estate license fails on both fronts when applied to Ladd's work as a vacation property manager, this case asks Pennsylvania courts to protect her from having to comply with that burdensome and unconstitutional regime.
"What's happening to Sally is part of a nationwide explosion of occupational licensing laws," said IJ Senior Attorney Paul Sherman. "Fifty years ago, only five percent of American workers needed a license from the government to work in their chosen occupation, but today that number is nearly 25 percent, and it's growing.
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Categories: Business, Government, Leisure, Politics, Real Estate, Travel
Tags: AirBnB, Institute for Justice, Pennsylvania, Real Estate, Sally Ladd
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Think adolescence is hell? You have no idea... Welcome to Dante's Inferno, by way of The Breakfast Club, from the mind of American fiction's most brilliant troublemaker.
"Death, like life, is what you make out of it." So says Madison, the whip-tongued 11-year-old narrator of Damned, Chuck Palahniuk's subversive homage to the young adult genre. Madison is abandoned at her Swiss boarding school over Christmas while her parents are off touting their new film projects and adopting more orphans. Over the holidays she dies of a marijuana overdose--and the next thing she knows, she's in Hell.
CHUCK PALAHNIUK's eleven novels are the bestselling Tell-All, Pygmy, Snuff, Rant, Haunted, Lullaby, and Fight Club, which was made into a movie by David Fincher, Diary, Survivor, Invisible Monsters, and Choke (also made into a film). He is also the author of the nonfiction profile of Portland, Fugitives and Refugees, published as part of the Crown Journey Series, and the nonfiction collection Stranger Than Fiction. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.


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"Аурубис България" е медодобивен завод на германската компания "Аурубис" в Пирдоп, България, произвеждащ мед (черна и рафинирана) и сярна киселина. Заводът е разположен между градовете Пирдоп и Златица, на около 80 km източно от София.

През 2005 година заводът произвежда 240 000 t анодна мед и 60 000 t катодна мед, като приблизително половината от анодната мед е доставяна за преработване в завода на компанията в Олен, Белгия.

С обем на продажбите около 5,4 млрд. лв. през 2020 година "Аурубис България" е 1-ва по този показател българска компания.

История
Медодобивният завод е създаден в периода 1955 – 1958 година. По онова време се състои от няколко производствени единици: Металургично производство, Рафинерия, Производство на сярна киселина и Цех 100 – производство на благородни и редки метали. На 21 ноември 1958 година е отлято първото количество анодна мед, а на 6 декември същата година е официалното откриване на завода.

Първата реконструкция (с пускане в действие на пържилни пещи) е през 1962 година. Втората реконструкция с подаване на кислород на пържилните пещи, изграждане на анодна пещ и нова Система за производство на сярна киселина е през 1967 – 1968 година. През 1979 година е завършено строителството и е пуснат в експлоатация 5-ият производствен цех – Обогатителна фабрика за преработка на отпадни медни шлаки. Между 1982 и 1987 година са построени и пуснати в експлоатация нова металургия по технология на финландската фирма "Оутокумпу" ("Outokumpu OY") – (топенето на медните концентрати се извършва в т.нар. "летящо състояние" като високата температура се генерира от изгарянето на сярата съдържаща се в медно-пиритните минерали, без използване на външни енергоносители – на електричество или други), ново шихтово стопанство, нов цех за разделяне на въздуха и нова система за производство на сярна киселина. Извършена е реконструкция на Обогатителната фабрика за преработка на медни шлаки, като към отпадните шлаки са присъединени и т.н. "конверторни шлаки".

През септември 1997 година е подписан договор за приватизация на дружеството между Правителството на Република България и белгийската индустриална група "Юнион Миниер" (сега "Юмикор"). От април 2005 година медното производство на групата "Юмикор" се обособява в самостоятелната компания "Кумерио". А през април 2008 г. групата Кумерио е придобита от Норддойче Афинери (NA) след одобрение на Европейската комисия в началото на годината. Новата компания се превръща в най-големия производител на мед в Европа, както и най-големият световен лидер в преработката на мед, която малко по-късно приема името "Аурубис".

Предишни наименования:
 Медодобивен комбинат "Георги Дамянов"
 Медодобивен комбинат, Пирдоп
 Юнион Миниер Пирдоп Мед
 Юмикор Мед
 Кумерио Мед

Екология
През 2004 година компанията получава от правителството на Белгия първа награда за екология в категорията "Международно сътрудничество за устойчиво развитие" за екологичните проекти, реализирани от завода в Пирдоп. "Кумерио Мед" притежава разрешително по комплексно предотвратяване и контрол на замърсяването от българското Министерство на околната среда и водите.

Източници

Външни препратки
 Официален сайт

Металургични компании в България
Пирдоп
Златица
Основани в България през 1958 година

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