For the world of real estate crowdfunding, 2013 was perhaps the infancy period. 2014 might be characterized as childhood, with platforms making great progress but still failing to be taken seriously by the "adults." Looking back on 2015, this year could perhaps be the teen years: fantastic growth and maturation, but also an overabundance of invincibility by both platforms and investors that created some learning opportunities.
Huge Funding Numbers: As someone that remembers how hard it was to fund even a $50,000 property in the industry's early days, I'm so proud and impressed with how many platforms are hitting huge numbers in 2015. To give some perspective, Lending Club funded just over $75 million TOTAL between the start of 2007 and the end of 2009. This year, at least four platforms have already exceeded that number. The ability to fund more capital means better sponsors, who were perhaps hesitant in the past because of uncertainty of closing, are now considering crowdfunding as a strong funding option. That means better deals for investors, and has me excited.
Big Venture Capital Rounds: A number of platforms in the industry executed huge funding rounds for their businesses in 2015, perhaps highlighted by Realty Mogul's $35 million Series B in July. It's unclear how much of these rounds are equity vs credit lines the businesses can use to pre-fund deals. In either case, it's capital that will help the businesses and hopefully lead to better experiences for investors. Given the numerous conversations I've had with venture capitalists over the last 3 months, asking for feedback and opinions on specific platforms and founders, I think we'll see many more of these big rounds in Q1 2016.
Specialization: A few platforms like RealtyShares and Realty Mogul will still list a large variety of asset classes (e.g. single family home, office, multifamily, retail). More platforms though – particularly new platforms being launched – are narrowing their focus and working to offer their investors specialization. Patch of Land, for example, almost exclusively lists single family residential debt deals. People often debate how this fragmented industry will play out. My opinion is that I don't see consolidation coming anytime soon (more on this next week), but in the long run I see the industry breaking down by asset class more than geography. I certainly don't think this is a winner-take-all industry, as real estate is simply too big and crowdfunding is still only a tiny part of the funding ecosystem.
Wait, some deals fail? 2015 brought maturities for a number of deals crowdfunded during the Infancy period, and that meant defaults too. Many investors expressed not only frustration, but absolute outrage when some of their investments failed. I've heard it first-hand, as our users forwarded me emails from various platforms trying their best to apologize. No one wants a deal to go bad, so I empathize with these people, but experienced investors will tell you that it's part of a normal portfolio. Even Lending Club has about a 5% default rate. To address this, platforms MUST improve their transparency. Secondly, investors are thinking more and more about diversification, which may help take the bite out of defaults (see #8).
Going Offline: Real estate crowdfunding was built on words like "democratization" and "access." The mission was ostensibly to bring deals previously reserved for institutions to the masses. However, some large platforms are now doing as much as 50% of their deals offline. Great companies like Orchard are helping to connect the ecosystem (Note: We've been asked a number of times if we're competing with Orchard. We're not, and believe we have a very different vision, and may actually become a customer in the next year). That naturally raises questions of preferences for whomever is funding the offline deals. From a finance standpoint, I understand why they're seeking larger pools of capital to make their jobs easier. That said, I know venture capitalists are questioning the innovation of this space when so much business is now being done in what's basically the traditional way (see #2). Much more to come on this in January, but our solution is building a platform that gives you the same power as these hedge funds.
Welcome to the party, Institutions! Many of today's real estate crowdfunding platforms were launched by great entrepreneurs like Jilliene Hellman and Jason Fritton. Like myself, neither of these two came from an institutional real estate background prior to helping to launch the industry in 2013. This year, with the business model more proven and a strong potential for venture backing, a number of platforms were launched either by institutions themselves or professionals with years or decades of industry experience. I think you'll see much more of this in 2016.
Hints of Diversification: Some platforms are starting to put out more diversified offerings. From Fundrise's "eREIT" to others offering small pools of properties, platforms are starting to embrace the value of diversification in smoothing out bad deals (see #4). We're going to do our part to help as well. Our members have continually asked us to help them easily invest across multiple platforms with one investment. We'll share details on this after the new year, but we think we've put together something incredibly unique and powerful.
Crowdfunding Overseas: Crowdfunding is already making an impact abroad, particularly in Europe, but in 2015 we found new real estate crowdfunding platforms being launched in entirely new markets. For example, PropertyShares was launched in Australia and is scaling much quicker than U.S. platforms did in their Infancy period. U.S. platforms have always talked about tapping international investors, but U.S. investors may soon find great investments around the world.
The Best is Still Ahead: Within the crowdfunding world, we're all very excited about the progress to date. To outsiders, it often seems like the platforms must be very competitive with one another. The real competition though is lack of awareness that the space exists at all. I spoke to a director of a top platform recently, and he was just back from a real estate conference in which he said he spent 90% of his time explaining what crowdfunding even means in real estate. That's great news, as it speaks to the immense potential ahead of us.
If you've got thoughts on 2015, I'd love to hear them – Ray@alphaflow.com. Next week I'll share my thoughts on 2016. Happy holidays from all of us at AlphaFlow!
"You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out." This classic Warren Buffet quote quickly comes to mind as many investors tout the strong returns they've earned by investing in real estate crowdfunding.
Allow me to say from the start that I'm a huge believer in peer-to-peer investing. As a founder of one of the first real estate crowdfunding platforms, I've been in the industry a long time. It's incredible to look back and remember that in our earliest days we'd need 3-4 week commitments to fund a simple $100,000 single family home loan. About a year later, our customers funded a $550,000 investment in an astonishing 34 minutes!
While we were proud and excited, it also opened our eyes to the fact that many customers had stopped doing their own diligence and were simply trusting us. I have finance and investing at my core, so while it was encouraging as a founder, it just didn't feel right. Today, this leaves me still excited about P2P investing, but a bit worried that the real estate crowdfunding industry may be focused on growth at the expense of proper controls.
Investors have since taken some lumps, which has brought them to ask advice on how I look at new deals around the industry. Lets start with what is likely the most straightforward deal: first lien debt on a single family home. These investments are really disrupting what's more commonly knows as hard money, which according to LendingHome, represents an opportunity of about $30 billion annually.
For those unfamiliar, allow me to quickly level-set. Hard money loans, also sometimes called bridge loans, are most often used by those flipping houses. They usually have terms no longer than 1 year, pay interest only, command 10-15% interest, and have a first lien on the real estate. A common misconception is that the borrowers always have terrible credit. In reality, developers are often willing to pay this higher cost because the speed to funding (sometimes days, if they have a pre-existing relationship with the lender) allows them to command discounts from sellers for quick cash.
Property: Many hard money lenders actually focus almost solely on this item, starting with the assumption that the deal will go bad and they'll foreclose and still be able to recover their capital and interest. This works with more traditional hard money lending, which often limits loans to 60% LTV. With most crowdfunding sites going to 75-80% LTV, the next two factors still carry significant weight.
Note: You'll see LTV (Loan to Value), LTC (Loan to Cost), and ARV (After Repaired Value) all used on the sites. These are NOT the same thing and reflect very different levels of risk. I've seen deals touting a 75% ARV, but if your whole loan goes to the borrower on Day 1, the LTV is often in excess of 100%. That means they could walk that day with all of your money, and the property would be worth less than the cash. ARV matters, but make sure you are protected on Day 1 too.
Track Record: Perhaps the most obvious way of evaluating whether a borrower can execute on a fix and flip plan is knowing if he has previously completed similar projects successfully. Simply having done projects before isn't enough. Look at similar projects: neighborhoods, price range, quality, budget, level of rehab. These all matter, particularly as LTVs creep up.
Credit Score: While credit scores seem straightforward enough, this is actually a highly debated aspect of lending today. A number of successful real estate developers experienced hardships during the 2008 financial crisis. Do you consider those, or not? That's up to you. I'd like the sites to lay out their thinking a bit more clearly on this though.
One additional note on the third point above. Many loans have personal guarantees attached to them. Unless the guarantor has an exorbitant net worth, I don't give much value to these myself. I worry that these can be handed out to everyone and/or applied to multiple investments on the same site (for those lawyers out there, I'm reminded of law school and how these are both unsecured and unperfected).
Investment Structure: We'll be digging into this more deeply with our legal team in the coming months, but in short, not all "secured" loans are created equal. I put that word in quotes because, with the entrance of Borrower Dependent Notes into the crowdfunding ecosystem, that word can mean very different things on various platforms. I won't name names yet, but it appears I'm not the only one who thinks there are deficiencies out there in how investors are being protected.
Controls: Real estate projects are susceptible to many risks, including costs that exceed projections, a drop in local comps, and even national economic risks like unemployment and interest rate fluctuations. A similar loan made from Wells Fargo likely includes myriad controls, like periodic reporting and loan covenants. These often function as the canary in the coal mine, alerting the platforms (and investors) if something is wrong before things get too out of hand. Good platforms are working on integrating these into their processes.
Liquidation Plan (if any): As Warren Buffet's quote suggests, with this rising market it's been tough to see who has a good plan for when things go wrong. I think we'll learn more about this soon, but some sites have been proactive in putting together workout groups / plans.
Ultimately, these loans will always be risky, which is why you'll earn double digit interest rates when they go well. I still strongly believe that crowdfunding will play a large role in the future of real estate investing, and I believe we'll need great controls and transparency in order to make that happen successfully. Have any thoughts or questions about how you evaluate these deals? Please reach out at Ray@alphaflow.com!
"Now that you've left RealtyShares, what do you really think of the real estate crowdfunding industry and the various platforms?" That is the most common question I've received from our accredited investors, venture capitalists, and deal sponsors. In response, I've created a series of posts to share my insider's perspective on the industry and the players. Not only will I answer this most frequently asked question, but I'll share how I'd look at deals, and how I might build my own portfolio.
Many of these platforms have done extremely well in building robust sourcing pipelines and groups of active investors, like you. The result of this success for many platforms has been additional rounds of venture capital, in some cases taken at valuations you'd rarely see in other industries for companies with the same performance metrics.
That means more resources for these companies, but it also creates two potential areas to watch: (1) Big rounds come with huge expectations, and (2) Large raises can create desperation from competitors who worry about being left behind. While fundraising for RealtyShares, I met with a number of VC firms and they usually drilled down on 3 KPIs (Key Performance Indicators): dollars raised, number of deals closed, and registered investors. Marketing can help to solve the last one, but some platforms may be tempted to lower the underwriting bar in order to help boost the first two metrics. Will they? This leads to the next item I'm watching.
Unlike some other P2P investment categories, like consumer debt investors have been able to access on Lending Club and Prosper, real estate often has a longer feedback loop (i.e. do these investments perform as advertised?). Some sites focused more on short-term fix-and-flips, for which results came in a matter of months. Others have done multi-year deals – many as long as 10 years – so we'll need more time to see how those perform. As deals mature, though, we're going to get a clearer picture of which platforms and even sponsors have the best results compared to what they projected. As an investor, if you were looking to add multifamily to your portfolio, wouldn't you want to know which platform has done the best job of underwriting these? Me too. I'll be watching this closely.
As early players like Fundrise and Realty Mogul continue to prove out real estate crowdfunding, we're seeing the entrance of many new platforms looking to tap into this market. Some are being launched by those with phenomenal industry experience and see an opportunity to create niche products that aren't being addressed adequately yet (e.g. 1031 exchanges and SD IRA investing). It's getting tougher to identify who is real vs who has just slapped a website together, but I think a year from now platforms that don't even exist today will be major players offering strong investment opportunities. I'll be watching, and I'll share those I think are particularly interesting.
Want an insider's perspective? Email me your question and I'll try to address it here.
Ray@alphaflow.com. I'd love to hear from you!


The fact that we value a powerful memory is probably one reason why dogs are popular pets. But why exactly is good memory an ideal to Western societies, so clearly and unambiguously? Besides common sense, there is some science involved, and religion as well. But is it a bad thing across the board if, for example, things start to slip our minds with advancing age? There are other traditions both in science and in religion that may question whether a powerful memory is absolutely good.
In comparison to dogs, humans seem to stand out for a capacity called semantic memory. This is the ability to remember facts and statements about things we have not experienced directly. To grasp theory and not merely experience, we draw on language to bring abstract concepts to mind. For example, animals master practical challenges, but they don't do science. The psychologist Merlin Donald suggests that this capacity allowed humans to live in larger groups, for the more complex society is, the more abstract roles and institutions are. Grasping different kinds of things as well as grasping more of them seems to give humans an advantage in evolution.
CC0 Public Domain – Pexels.
Indeed, we humans value both memory and knowledge highly. A better memory gives you more dots to connect, so you can acquire more knowledge. Today's parents tend to start the academic learning process of children at earlier ages than previous generations did, and the natural boundaries of our memory are readily extended online with a smartphone. Logical consequences would be to seek more artificial ways to improve memory and to loathe old age for the weakness of memory.
Our cultural appreciation of knowledge also seems to reflect a long-standing religious belief. Traditional Christian theism has held that God is omniscient: any proposition that is true is also known by God. But how could God's memory even retain the infinite amount of information that might be known? One classic approach draws on this analogy: a viewer on a mountain-top sees everything at once, while the traveller in the plain discovers things successively. Our temporal gain in knowledge is aided by good memory, but God would not even need memory, grasping everything as an eternal presence. According to this scenario, temporal creatures like us would require a constantly improving memory to correspond better to the divine point of view.
Certain Biblical passages do not seem to fit well into this scenario, however. In the book of Isaiah, for example, we read the curious summons, "Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing" (Isa 43:18–19). If the ideal is to retain ever more information, why are we told to forget something? Are we merely supposed to prioritise the most important pieces of information, given that our cognitive resources are limited? But even God is said to "remember your sins no more", as God "blots out your transgressions" (43:25). "For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind" (65:17).
In thinking of memory, these verses do not follow the rule of the more powerful, the better. They do not envision God as omniscient, as some things are not worth being remembered. Today, this might help inspire a new cultural understanding of memory that can be fleshed out with four points: humans forget inadvertently, they work towards forgetting, they receive divine help in forgetting, and finally God also forgets.
To begin with, both remembering and forgetting play a crucial role in everyday life. "Selection is the very keel on which our mental ship is built," the psychologist William James argued. "And in the case of memory its utility is obvious. If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing." Whenever we generalise and make abstractions, we do so by forgetting things. That's why smaller children are better at learning grammar, for they are uniquely able to forget grammatical exceptions, instead of extrapolating wrong grammatical rules from them. Psychologists and neuroscientists wonder not only how humans remember, but also how we prioritise some memories in forgetting others. Further, when we remember a terrible event but no longer feel the acute sting, forgetting has already been helpful.
While forgetting is an unconscious process, we may sometimes be able to help things along. A scientist may need to reinvigorate her thinking by "unlearning" a theory that does not seem fruitful any more, forgetting to treat certain pieces of data as negligible. Further, after a conflict we may wish to "forgive and forget".
Of course, repressing "hot" memories only creates more trouble. After a conflict, we may need to do a better job uncovering what happened in order to pursue reconciliation. But sometimes our best efforts fail. At that point, we may hope that God will do "a new thing", and those haunted by terrible memories may be able to forget. Meanwhile, as long as there is unresolved conflict, God does not forget any moment of true profundity, sacrilegious or sacred. Although I am calling into question the notion of divine omniscience, the grain of truth to the concept is that God does not carelessly forget "hot" memories.
On the other hand, why would God remember something trivial, for example? The philosopher Hegel put it more polemically: God is not the great gutter in which all contradictions run together. For the book of Isaiah, remembering is not simply about a maximum accumulation of information about the past. The saving acts of God may transform the past, rather than growing out of it quite so organically.
It is my hope that the sciences, the humanities, and theology engage in a lively dialogue to help us revise the cultural underpinnings that implicitly guide our understanding of remembering. As anthropologist Clifford Geertz said with a memorable phrase, "man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun". It requires a communal constructive effort to understand the weaving pattern, to discern its beauty or to suggest alternatives that are conducive to a more humane future.
 Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition. Cambridge, MAS, London: Harvard U. P., 1991, 10.
 Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, 5th century.
 Isaiah's promise of redemption and forgetting has been highlighted by Gregor Etzelmüller, … zu richten die Lebenden und die Toten. Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 2001.
 The Principles of Psychology, New York: Dover, 1950, 680.
 Terrence Deacon, The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain. New York/London: Norton, 1998.
Previous Article How Does Science Enhance Faith?


The feature-film finale of cinema's most-beloved comedy duo, Atoll K marked Laurel and Hardy's long-delayed big-screen return.
The two great clowns, lured back to film amid the extensive stage tours of Europe that were the poignant coda to their career, embark here on a ramshackle voyage to save Stan's Pacific-island inheritance. This ambitious attempt to invest their time-honed slapstick with a satirical edge is a testament to the duo's indefatigable comic antics.
The BFI is proud to release the longest-ever English-language cut of this historically important film, presented for the first time in High Definition and showcasing a new 2K restoration by the BFI using original 35mm nitrate film elements. Packed with special features, this release includes rare early solo shorts and amateur footage of Stan and Ollie, alongside new audio commentaries and contextual writing by internationally acclaimed experts on the life and work of 'The Boys'.


text:
Q: Docker Angular run-scripts issue My Dockerfile for Angular App
FROM node:10.15.3-alpine as builder

RUN mkdir -p /usr/src/app
WORKDIR /usr/src/app

RUN apk add git
COPY package*.json /usr/src/app/
RUN npm i

COPY . /usr/src/app

RUN npm run-script build

It exits on last step with the following error:
npm ERR! missing script: build

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /root/.npm/_logs/2019-05-24T09_05_54_385Z-debug.log

Is run-script missing or build option in this case? and how to fix or what's the alternative??
script-section of package.json
"scripts": {
    "ng": "ng",
    "edu-start": "ng serve --project edu-app",
    "edu-start-with-api": "ng serve --project edu-app --configuration local_api",
    "edu-start-with-nodejs": "ng serve --project edu-app --configuration local_nodejs",
    "edu-build-dev": "node --max_old_space_size=2048 ./node_modules/@angular/cli/bin/ng build --project edu-app --configuration hmr",
    "edu-build-prod": "node --max_old_space_size=2048 ./node_modules/@angular/cli/bin/ng build --project edu-app --configuration production --prod",
    "air-pilot-start": "ng serve --project air-pilot-app",
    "air-pilot-build-dev": "node --max_old_space_size=2048 ./node_modules/@angular/cli/bin/ng build --project air-pilot-app --configuration hmr",
    "air-pilot-build-prod": "node --max_old_space_size=2048 ./node_modules/@angular/cli/bin/ng build --project air-pilot-app --configuration production --prod",
    "test": "ng test",
    "lint": "ng lint",
    "e2e": "ng e2e",
    "bundle-report": "webpack-bundle-analyzer dist/stats.json"
  },

I tried this too instead, but neither worked, complains that ng Not Found
RUN ng build --prod --project edu-app

A: There is no build command at scripts section, that's the reason you are getting missing script: build.
So add this to package.json:
    "scripts": {
       "build": "ng build --prod --project edu-app"
      }

As for this and ng not found issue you are reporting, it is normal to happen as @angular/cli has not been installed globally in the container. You have two options here,

*

*either install it globally npm -i -g @angular/cli

*or access it directly through its path inside node_modules
I recommend the first solution as it is clearer.
So after making the change in the scripts section I told you above, your Dockerfile should be:
FROM node:10.15.3-alpine as builder

RUN mkdir -p /usr/src/app
WORKDIR /usr/src/app

RUN apk add git
COPY package*.json /usr/src/app/
RUN npm i

COPY . /usr/src/app

RUN npm -i -g @angular/cli && npm run-script build

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
94-Year-Old Fashion Icon Iris Apfel to Design Smart Bracelets for Seniors
By Anna Green
Getty Images / Getty Images
Iris Apfel, the 94-year-old fashion icon who is best known for her oversized glasses, wild styles, and quick wit, is now designing sophisticated smart jewelry. CNBC reports that Apfel has teamed up with the smart wearable company WiseWear to promote The Socialite Collection, their latest line of upscale activity-tracking bracelets targeted towards senior citizens.
Apfel, who was the subject of documentarian Albert Maysles' final film, Iris (2014), and calls herself a "geriatric starlet," believes the WiseWear bracelets (shown in the video below) can help unite fashion and healthy aging. Though the bracelets can be worn by people of any age, they were designed with older women in mind. Stylish and sophisticated, they not only track fitness and send vibrating mobile notifications, but also allow wearers to automatically send out distress text messages to a pre-set list of emergency contacts, just by tapping several times. The idea is to provide fashion-conscious older women with an emergency device they'll actually want to wear in case of falls, injuries, and other emergencies.
"These wearables are sorely needed by seniors," Apfel told CNBC. "Many people have falls, and some of them are fatal."
But Iris also believes the WiseWear bracelets can benefit people of all ages. "This is not just technology that's useful for elderly people," she explained. "There are a lot of young people that can benefit as well. The Socialite bracelet can measure your activity, how active you are, and all kinds of good stuff. We don't want any couch potatoes in the crowd."
[h/t CNBC]

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Budheli is a Village in Aravalli district of Gujarat, India. It falls under Bhiloda Taluka. Budheli population in 2019 is between 957 and 1184 and total households residing are 239.
The Budheli Village located in Bhiloda Taluka, 986 People are living in this Village, 506 are males and 480 are females as per 2011 census. Expected Budheli population 2019 is between 957 and 1184. Literate people are 695 out of 410 are male and 285 are female. People living in Budheli depend on multiple skills, total workers are 363 out of which men are 290 and women are 73. Total 116 Cultivators are depended on agriculture farming out of 103 are cultivated by men and 13 are women. 136 people works in agricultural land as a labour in Budheli, men are 102 and 34 are women.


The Central Queensland Sapphire Gemfields are located on the Tropic of Capricorn approximately 350 kms (217 miles) west of Rockhampton, Queensland Australia ( 50 kms west of Emerald). Access is by sealed roads to the townships of Anakie, Sapphire, Rubyvale and The Willows. The area has a permanent population of around 3000 people.
During the peak tourism period from May to September, this number will at least double and up to 60,000 visitors come here over the course of a year. Winter is the peak season for Australian travelers and in Summer we often can see an influx of international tourists escaping the northern hemisphere winter.
The Gemfields has a unique easily going lifestyle, many of the residents have a strong independent streak and an unconventional outlook on life. This has resulted in the Gemfields evolving its own special style of building and living.
As I look out the window at the wind blowing the trees around and the thick grey clouds rolling in, I can't help but think back to the turquoise waters and blindingly white sands of the Whitsunday Islands.
Three months have gone by, but it feels like longer. It feels like years since I was laying on the netting of the Avatar, our trimaran, letting the sun brown my skin; competing with fellow travelers on cannonball splashes and floating atop the Great Barrier Reef, my feet tickled by rainbow fish.
It was three days of snorkeling, sand between my toes, laying on the beach while waves crashed against my legs. These short trips always seem to yield some of the best-traveling friendships. You're in an enclosed space sharing gripes about sea-sickness and sunburn with people you've never met, but conversation flows so easily.
You would be surprised at how much luck you will obtain from using crystals and gemstones. The first thing that you should do is look up the stones that apply to your birthdate.
Once you have gathered this information you can begin purchasing necklaces, rings, earrings, bracelets, pendants. cufflinks, or simply your favorite type of jewelry. Make sure that these items have a good vibration and that they feel good to you.
If you are just starting out with crystals and gemstones you can use loose stones that can be purchased inexpensively for about .50-$1.00 at mineral and rock stores. You can graduate later to jewelry if you haven't already done so.
Australia is one of those places you never have to leave. It is full of everything you could possibly need: beaches, ski mountains, big international cities, rainforests, and deserts. It's also a well-traveled country, which means there is a lot of information available. When I was researching our travels I was overwhelmed by the number of forums, blogs and tourism websites that told me all that I could see and do and how to get there to do it.
I generally try not to over-plan or research too much when I set off on a trip because I don't want to have a set itinerary in mind. I want to have room for last-minute changes or impromptu excursions and I want to be surprised by what I see. The problem with this method, I found, is that I missed out on some key information that would have been helpful on our journey.
If you're going to travel through the outback, you need a 4WD. We only rented a 2WD campervan, and due to the high insurance excess, we were not willing to take the chance of taking it "off-road". Because of this, there were loads of little waterfalls, swimming areas and aboriginal art sites that we missed out on. When we come back, we're coming back with a Toyota Landcruiser.
For thousands of years, Emeralds have been considered some of the most beautiful and valuable gems in existence. In many instances, their value can exceed the value of a diamond of comparable carat weight.
Emerald and other Green Gemstones are rare and precious gems of the beryl family, distinguished by their rich green color. The largest quantities of Emeralds are found in Brazil, Colombia, and East Africa.
Some more precious and semi-precious gemstones include Amethyst, Ametrine, Aquamarine, Citrine, Iolite, Peridot, Topaz, Tourmaline and more.
Emerald is a member of the beryl family of minerals. Other gemstones in this family include Aquamarine, Bixbite, Golden Beryl, Goshenite, and Morganite. The most prized color for Emerald is a deep, vibrant, rich green. Inclusions are extremely common among Emeralds. These are an important way to mark the distinction between natural and synthetic stones.
Almost all Emeralds have some inclusions. The visibility of fractures can be reduced by filling them with oils and resins. Both of these methods are accepted practice and do not in any way diminish the value of the stone.
There is quite a variety of rough gemstones such as Tourmaline, Aquamarine, Emerald, Sapphire, Topaz, and Quartz, just to name a few. Let's take a closer look at a few of them that are mined across Latin America and Africa.
Aquamarine is a fascinatingly beautiful gemstone. The name "aquamarine" comes from Latin. Aqua is water, and Mare is sea. Rumor has it that the aquamarine's strengths are optimally developed when the stone is placed in sunlight-bathed water. There are hardly any other gemstones in the contemporary world of jewelry design that are so refined and available in so many varieties of ways to work with as aquamarine.
Regardless whether the aquamarines are shown as clear, transparent gems in the traditional, classic step cut, or cut in a creative way or in a more contemporary artistic design, they are always beautiful in a fascinating way. Uncut the aquamarine is impressive as well, and if you come across one that has many inclusions brought about by a designer's idea of how the stone should be cut, an aquamarine can be very beautifully refined to become a stunning and fascinating creation.
For years we learned as students that the Great Barrier Reef was the most beautiful reef in the world, and many of us (myself included) took a gap year after working hard toward our high school diploma. I took and passed the GED Test while using Best GED Classes online prep to get all set in a timely manner. So I too visited this famous place. It was worth it! Now we hear new but alarming things about the Great Barrier Reef.
All rhetoric and policies around the Great Barrier Reef issues have in no way matched reality while one of the world's greatest natural wonders keeps on suffering from ongoing pollution. But as in late November 2015, corals in the northern portions of the Great Barrier Reef began to get a bleached white color, things finally turned around.
For many years, the Australian population had been told that one of the world's most precious ocean jewels was getting better, and it had been only months ago that Australia's government had been successful to not include the Great Barrier Reef in a United Nations list of endangered world heritage sites.
All gem shops in Central Queensland's Sapphire area have the mission to enhance the beauty given to each natural stone placed in their hands for cutting and setting. They strive to amplify the natural qualities in the most beneficial way – there is nothing natural about faceting a stone, but the study and best use of that stone, continues a natural theme. Let's look better at Blue Gemstones Cutting Practice.
With that in mind, these professionals pursue the process by designing settings and choosing "forms" to follow the "function". Whether you choose to allow them to cut, design, or set, or buy one of their stones for your own ideas and designs, it's entirely up to you. They all offer at least one concept that few other places in the world can – the ability to design your jewelry from the gemstone rough, through the cutting, and finally to the finished setting. Looking around their ateliers, you'll find plenty of beautiful examples of such finished products.
That is a simple question without a simple answer. Historically, colored gemstone cutting and carving go back at least 5000 years, but the techniques used to cut diamonds have only been used for several hundred. Diamonds are the hardest material known to man and only diamond can be used to cut another diamond. So here we look a little further at the difference between cutting Yellow Gemstones and cutting Diamonds.
Diamond has different degrees of hardness depending on its 'grain', which makes knowing how to cut diamonds a tedious business. And diamonds, by comparison, take a great deal more time to cut and polish then corresponding colored gemstones. Other than that the tools and techniques used have a lot of similarities.
A colored gemstone cutter has a specialized knowledge of the stones that are cut, as diamond cutters have with diamonds. Colored gemstones may require a specialized polishing technique, whereas diamond always uses the same.
THE SAPPHIRE GEMFIELDS – Now here, It's all about the bling-bling, baby!
The region of the Central Queensland Sapphire Gemfields is found just a short 45-minute drive to the west of Emerald on the Capricorn Highway, some 3 three hours due west of Rockhampton. The area is representing more than 900 square kilometers of the best gem fossicking opportunities in the world.
The Sapphire Gemfields can be explored in many ways. Gemfields. You can take one of the guided tours to explore an underground mine or you can sign up for a tag-along gem digging tour.
Another option is to set out on a self-drive fossicking tour, bring all the necessary equipment and maps by yourself and explore the region's backtracks. You can visit one of the fossicking parks, buy a sapphire "wash" bucket, be taught how to sieve the material, and learn how to recognize a sapphire in the rough.
Great Keppel Island is located just north of the Tropic of Capricorn. The stunningly beautiful island boasts 28 kilometers of the most beautiful bays and beaches. The island offers you 17 astonishing white sandy beaches where you can enjoy the best sub-tropical climate on earth.
The island has very mild winters and is located far enough south to not be influenced by the tropical monsoon, and enough north to enjoy the sun. So read on to learn more about Great Keppel Island, Queensland and Great Barrier Reef Resorts.
Great Keppel Island measures nearly 1500 hectares and it truly is a sanctuary to an extensive world of native fauna that includes over one hundred species of birds such as rainbow lorikeets and kookaburras, and a wide variety of seabirds.
In 1770, Captain Cook was actually the first European to visit the island, and he named the 14 islands after Royal Navy Admiral Keppel. Great Keppel Island is the largest of the islands followed by North Keppel Island.


Moderator Patty Wise chats with panelist Molly Glover while panelists Andrea Perry and Jennifer Keller talk before the Law Firm Partners Panel.
TLAW President Elect Karen Crutchfield introduces the Law Firm Partners Panel.
Court of Appeals Judge Brandon Gibson shares her path to leadership.
Members of the East Tennessee Lawyers' Association for Women (ETLAW) at the Conference.
Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Holly Kirby delivers closing remarks and a challenge to Conference attendees.
Panelist Andrea Perry shares her approach to leading at a law firm.
TLAW members socializing during a break.
Jane Young and Connie Chadwick chatting with Justice Holly Kirby.
TLAW Conference Co-Chair Kyonzté Hughes-Toombs leading the General Counsel Panel.
Lunch keynote speaker Col. Linda Strite Murnane coaching the audience to "eat fear for breakfast."
TLAW President Ramona P. DeSalvo introduces Col. Murnane.
Nearly 125 attendees packed the house at Waller for TLAW's Empowerment Conference 2017: Women Who Win!


CONTENT MANAGER/PODCAST HOST : Perpetual consumer of all things board, card and game. Lover of dice, card sleeves, and fancy meeples. Jack-of-all-games, Master of none.
Nonsensical Secret Santa is Coming for You.
We're back from PAX! Let's talk about our last convention of 2017.
Back at it again. This blast from the past (pre-PAX Unplugged) is full of what we do best - chat about why games are terrible.
Hi, all. We're still here. I promise.
It's here! As we await the deluge of Essen games to cross the pond, we cover all of the things we're excited to try out.
Welcome back! Episode 75 is here and it's about what you'd expect by now - a mash-up of gaming talk, awkward humor, and utter disagreement.
Dan and Tiff went, saw, and conquered Gen Con 50. Let's jump in and hear what happened!
Episode 71? Never heard of it. Enjoy this Gen Con preview instead!


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OneBeacon Sells Runoff, Collector Car and Boat Businesses
Insurer OneBeacon says it expects an after-tax charge of $101 million in the third quarter related to a deal to sell its runoff business to an affiliate of Bermuda-based Armour Group Holdings.
By Chad Hemenway | October 29, 2012 at 08:00 PM | The original version of this story was published on National Underwriter Property & Casualty
Predicting claims trends into 2025
Bill Brower | January 19, 2021
The rapid adoption of technology has poised the insurance industry for many claims to be fully automated in the future.
The complexities of cyber insurance are far-reaching but growth awaits the brokers who are able to tap into the rapidly evolving market.


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Cosby Juror Says Accuser's 'Bare Midriff' Implied Consent
He added that she shouldn't have visited the celebrity unless she was "dressed properly and left the incense in the store."
by Drew Schwartz
Photo by DAVID MAIALETTI/AFP/Getty Images
On Thursday, another juror from Bill Cosby's recent sexual assault trial came forward to offer a peek into what went down during the tense, 52-hour deliberations, suggesting he doubted accuser Andrea Constand's story based on the way she dressed.
The anonymous juror—who wouldn't say whether he wanted to convict or acquit Cosby—told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he was skeptical of Constand's account because she had willingly visited Cosby at his home and brought him gifts.
"Let's face it: She went up to his house with a bare midriff and incense and bath salts," the juror told the Inquirer. "What the heck?"
He added that Constand shouldn't have gone to Cosby's house unless she was "dressed properly and left the incense in the store." The juror also said that Constand seemed "well-coached" during her two days on the witness stand and that it was really her mother who wanted to go ahead with the trial.
On Thursday, a separate juror told ABC News that the jury had deadlocked when ten wanted to convict Cosby and two refused. But the man who spoke with the Inquirer painted a slightly different picture: Though the jurors had reached that ten to two impasse at one point, he said, opinions later shifted, leaving the room split "up the middle" by the time the judge declared a mistrial last Saturday.
Although the juror said he felt Cosby had already "paid dearly" for his alleged crime and shouldn't be retried, District Attorney Kevin Steele has vowed to do just that. In the meantime, Cosby's spokespeople claim the celebrity is planning to tour the country teaching young people how to avoid accusations of sexual assault, because somebody figured that was a good idea.
Follow Drew Schwartz on Twitter.
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cosby trial


Kulturkompasset | Reviews and presentations of culture events – ballet, opera, theatre, classical music – symphonic -, chamber-, baroque-, arts, architecture, design, couture, books, travel.
Der fikk vi en meget stor opplevelse med denne operaen. Ikke bare er det kun mannlige medvirkende, vi har også en meget stor mannlig korgruppe i alt 75 mannlige sangere, som fungerte meget bra.
The version presented here was a new choreography on the music by Sergei Prokofiev created by Giuliano Peparini for the Ballet of Rome, directed by Eleonora Abbagnato since 2015. Eleonora Abbagnato is doing an amazing job and shows a great talent to give this company a new life while pursuing her career as "Etoile" at the Opera de Paris.
No needs to introduce Händel's Rinaldo, one of the greatest operas of all times. When it was written, the city of Naples in Italy was one of the most important musical centres in Europe, with its own school and tradition, a notion whose importance is constantly growing in the last decades, and the notion of Scuola napoletana is not new anymore.
With intelligence director Cecilia Ligorio has worked "into" the opera focusing the dramatic core of every scene with bysides or counterscenes, once in a while enriching the spirit of the drama instead of being annoying. There were many subtle indications in this performance, like the first duet between the two lovers disquietingly ending on a grave situated on one side of the stage.
and a Masterclass by the Opera of Rome, starring Eleonora Abbagnato and Benjamin Pech.
de Paris and now actress, Lisa Martino seems to be well-skilled to elaborate ambitious programs.
In this case we have a brilliant opera, form one of the leading names Jacques Fromenthal Halevy in an arrangement by Alexander Krampe, libretto von Eugene Scribe. First time shown at Opera, Paris 23.February 1835. Yana Klein and Kristian Benedikt In Konstance 14. Juni 2018. Last performance 9. Juli 2018.
Erik Koritzinsky (født 1933) legger nå fram nye og rystende detaljer om jødiske skjebner under krigen. Disse ble omtalt for et stort publikum på Jødisk Museum i Oslo da hans nye selvbiografi ble presentert.
Richard Wagners great ouverture played by the Estonian Opera and ballet orchestra conducted by Vello Pähn gave a perfect glims of the higlight melodys to be yet enjoyed.
it is also going to be the first time that the Theatre de Paris, usually dedicated to plays, will host a dance company. For this occasion, the company will present Rami Be'er's choreography Mother's Milk.
MADRID/SPANIA: Perioden rundt forfatteren Cervantes tid, med blant annet hans fremragende Don Quixote, denne perioden var også musikkens gullalder. Hoffmusikeren Juan del Enzina arbeidet for de katolske kongene og vekslet mellom sitt arbeid som musiker, dramaturg og poet (som Juan Hidalgo i det 17. århundret). Av Henning Høholt.
Lagunas de Ruidera – Naturpark midt i La Mancha.
Våren ligger foran oss, og det er tid for å begynne å planlegge de store ferieopplevelser i 2018, – og kanskje oss for kommende årene. I den forbindelse presenterer vi en av de praktfulle storslagne naturparkene midt i La Mancha – Lagunas de Ruidera. Som Kulturkompasst besøkte i mai mnd. 2017. Besøkt av Henning Høholt.
Donizetti og Rossini regnes han som grunnleggeren av den moderne, romantiske opera i Italia, også kalt ble canto = vakker sang.
Nothing is farther than Verism, the libretto even with all its flaws is approaching a Twentieth-century theater. There aren't characters in their psychological evolution but almost Pirandellian hard "masks" and an absolutely mysterious antirealistic and empty of any action third Act, in which appear the personifications of the three "Egoisms" that conditioned the life of the dying Iris, the young's who got infatuated with her, the pimp's and the greedy father's one. As it is very curious to open and close the opera with the Inno del sole (Sun hymn), and Iris also addresses the Sun during the opera, in an almost philosophical more oriental than western nature pantheism.
La Wally is the last work of the composer Alfredo Catalani born in Lucca in 1854, it was premiered in Milan in 1892 conducted by Edoardo Mascheroni and having as main charachter the famous Romanian soprano Hariclea Darclée. On the following year the unfortunate young musician died of tuberculosis.
The problematic figure of romanticist Hoffmann does not convince in this production, but the cast around him does.
The National Dance Theatre of Chaillot opened the Nordic Festival on January Tuesday 16th, a very good way to discover Scandinavian culture through rare and very singular choreographers.
To launch this Festival, Chaillot offers an evening combining dance and cinema.
OSLO/NORGE: Rockemusikalen Hair settes for første gang opp på Oslo Nye Teater, og de gleder oss over å ha Lisa Kent, en av mesterne innen musikalhåndverk, i registolen. Oslo Nye Teater gleder seg over at man allerede to uker før premiere 25. Januar allerede å ha solgt 22.000 billetter, så det ser ut til at publikum også gleder seg.


These days it's all about speed, reliability and flexibility. More and more people work with large files such as DTP/graphical files and uncompressed video and audio. The need for an external hard drive with top speed and top reliability is more present then ever. The Freecom Hard Drive Quattro provides it all. The USB 3.0 interface provides you with the fastest data transfer speed to date for a single external hard drive. Connected to eSATA, the Hard Drive Quattro performs up to 6x times faster than a standard USB 2.0 hard drive.
Since USB 3.0 is fully downwards compatible with USB 2.0 you have the ultimate flexibility - you can connect the drive to any modern computer that does not have an eSATA or FireWire interface.
The Hard Drive Quattro comes in a stylish aluminum enclosure which will compliment the design of your PC or Mac, with the possibility to position it horizontally or vertically on your desk. The Freecom Hard Drive Quattro is pre-formatted so you're ready to use your drive seconds after connecting it to your PC or Mac.
The Hard Drive Quattro is Freecom's most versatile hard drive. With four interfaces this hard drive connects to any computer or Mac. The FireWire interface makes it the ideal hard drive for Mac users who require a fast and reliable drive for storing and editing large audio, video and or graphical files.
The Hard Drive Quattro has been designed in such a way that a noisy cooling fan is obsolete. The heat-absorbing aluminum enclosure always ensures a silent operation. Quattro interfaces and Quattro reasons to buy this hard drive: it's silent, cool, robust and recyclable.
One of the most striking aspects of the Hard Drive Quattro is its minimalistic, state of the art design. Made from cool aluminum with a glossy black front finished with the chrome Freecom logo, this drive stands out from the crowd and looks stunning on your desk.


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Search the Auckland Plan 2050
Browse The Auckland Plan
About the Auckland Plan
About Auckland
Auckland Plan values
Outcome: Belonging and Participation
Outcome: Māori Identity and Wellbeing
Outcome: Homes and Places
Outcome: Transport and Access
Outcome: Environment and Cultural Heritage
Outcome: Opportunity and Prosperity
Our Development Strategy
The Auckland Plan 2050
Educational achievement of Auckland's children and young people
Auckland's child and youth population will continue to increase
Children and young people (aged 0 to 24 years old) represent over a third of Auckland's population (36 per cent in 2013).
Statistics New Zealand population projections (medium series) suggest that over the next 20 years, the number of children and young people in Auckland will continue to increase, possibly by another 26 per cent.
Population ageing will mean however that the proportion of Aucklanders who are children and young people will decrease.
Auckland will require more formal and informal learning environments, as well as services and infrastructure required for children and young people.
early childhood centres
playgrounds and recreational opportunities
health services.
Relatively high rates of participation in early childhood education
There is consistent evidence linking good quality education, especially early childhood education (ECE), with improved skills development and employment prospects (Centre on the Developing Child, 2007).
Participation in high quality ECE builds the foundation for children's lifelong learning.
The Ministry of Education reports that there have been steady rises in ECE participation rates in Auckland and across New Zealand since 2000.
In addition, the time that children spend in ECE per week has been increasing (Ministry of Education, 2017).
In 2015, 95 per cent of children in Auckland took part in ECE. Although the rates for Pacific (90 per cent) and Māori (92 per cent) children are lower than for other groups, this is a significant improvement from 2012 participation rates.
In part, this may reflect the impact of programmes introduced to target specific local areas where ECE participation is low (Reid & Rootham, 2016).
The national ECE Participation Programme was set up in 2010. It is made up of various initiatives that aim to support Māori, Pasifika, and low-income families to enrol their children in ECE.
Gradual increase in levels of formal educational achievement
A formal school qualification gives young adults the basic prerequisite to go on to higher education, training and many entry-level jobs.
The main qualification available to secondary school students is the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA), which encompasses a wide range of learning. Future educational and job prospects will be limited for those who leave school without Level 2 NCEA.
In 2014, of the total young people who left school in Auckland, 81.6 per cent had achieved NCEA Level 2 (or equivalent) or above – up 2.1 per cent from the previous year. Almost half (46.2 per cent) had attained University Entrance standard.
There has also been a gradual increase overall in the numbers and proportions of young people leaving school in Auckland with Level 3 or higher qualifications, including University Entrance.
Select to enlarge image
×Close enlarged image button
Source: Ministry of Education, School leaver data
Note: Students could belong to more than one ethnic group so percentages may total more than 100.
Education has an intergenerational impact
In New Zealand, educational achievement persists between generations.
In 2012, the OECD noted that the chance that a young person whose parents have not attained an upper secondary education will attend higher education is limited, and they reported that tertiary students in New Zealand were more likely to have highly educated parents than in any other OECD country (OECD, 2012).
Evidence shows very strong links between education and the transfer of income and other inequality across generations. For children in New Zealand, education is the main way to break the transmission of low incomes across generations (New Zealand Treasury, 2013).
Socio-economic deprivation has a negative effect on educational achievement
Educational achievement is associated with socio-economic background.
The link between a parent's socio-economic status and a child's educational outcome is very high in New Zealand when compared internationally (New Zealand Treasury, 2013).
Children whose parents do not have school qualifications and who live in a socio-economically deprived area have a higher probability of poor educational outcomes than other children in Auckland.
Auckland has a larger number of low decile schools
Auckland has a disproportionate number of low decile schools, for example those rated 1, 2 or 3.
A third (32 per cent) of all decile 1 schools in New Zealand are found in Auckland, while only 21 per cent of New Zealand's schools are in Auckland.
The southern part of Auckland has a substantial concentration of decile 1, 2 or 3 secondary schools.
Māori and Pacific children are more likely than others to attend low-decile schools. As at 1 July 2015, approximately 71 per cent of Auckland's Pacific students and 50 per cent of Māori students attended decile 1, 2 or 3 primary and secondary schools, compared to only six per cent of European/Pākehā students (Auckland Council, 2017).
Read more about school deciles on the EDUCATION.govt.nz website.
Some improvement in educational outcomes in The Southern Initiative area
Significant proportions of Auckland's Māori and Pacific school leavers are from schools in The Southern Initiative.
In 2014, over a third (38 per cent) of all Māori school leavers and almost half (47 per cent) of all Pacific school leavers (overall, 21 per cent of school leavers) were from schools in this area.
Relatively large proportions of Māori and Pacific young people in the Southern Initiative area are leaving school with low, or no, qualifications, when compared with other ethnic groups, and compared to school leavers from other areas. For example, in 2014, a third (33 per cent) of Māori school leavers left school without NCEA Level 1, as did 19 per cent of Pacific students.
These figures are however an improvement on previous years, particularly among Māori school leavers.
School leaver attainment among school leavers from schools in the Southern Initiative area, by ethnicity (2014)
Below NCEA Level 1 (%)
Level 1 and working towards Level 2 (%)
NCEA Level 2 or above (%)
Māori 33 17 50
Pacific 19 12 69
Other ethnicities 11 10 79
Total 19 12 69
School leaver attainment among school leavers from schools in in the rest of Auckland, by ethnicity (2014)
Pacific 13 9 77
Other ethnicities 6 6 88
Total 8 7 85
Source: Wilson, Reid & Bishop (2016) using Ministry of Education data.
Note: Students could belong to more than one ethnic group.
Māori and Pacific young people have poorer educational outcomes
Māori and Pacific young people make up more than a third of Auckland's young people and continue to experience higher levels of disparity in education outcomes than others.
The 2013 OECD economic survey of New Zealand reports that:
"Among the population lacking school qualifications, Māori have nearly double the incidence of people lacking school qualifications as Pākehā/Europeans and quadruple those of Asians, and conversely Māori show much lower rates of tertiary attainment"(OECD, 2013).
Although trends are improving across Auckland, there are significant educational disparities for Māori and Pacific children and young people.
Māori and Pacific young people's tertiary attainment rates, NCEA attainment and early childhood education participation rates have been rising, but they are not catching up to those of other ethnicities (Reid & Rootham, 2016).
There needs to be increased focus in these areas on creating positive outcomes for Māori and Pacific young people.
Focusing on equitable education outcomes
Auckland can create equitable outcomes for all its children and young people. To bring all Auckland's children and young people along on the journey of educational achievement, these indicators of inequitable education outcomes need to improve swiftly.
There needs to be focus in geographic areas with low levels of educational achievement, lower socio-economic areas and higher levels of Māori and Pacific young people.
A strong education system that focuses on creating positive outcomes for all, not just some of its learners, will benefit everyone.
Auckland Council. (2017). I Am Auckland: Status report 2017. Available at https://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/plans-projects-policies-reports-bylaws/our-plans-strategies/topic-based-plans-strategies/community-social-development-plans/Pages/children-young-peoples-strategic-action-plan.aspx
Centre on the Developing Child. (2007) The science of early childhood development: Closing the gap between what we know and what we do. National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University. Available at http://46y5eh11fhgw3ve3ytpwxt9r.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Science_Early_Childhood_Development.pdf [accessed 31/10/2017]
Ministry of Education. (2017). ECE Participation Programme Evaluation. Education Counts. https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/ECE/ece-participation-programme-evaluation [accessed 14/12/2017].
Ministry of Education (2017). Prior participation in early childhood education. Education Counts. https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/statistics/archived/ece2/ece-indicators/1923 [accessed 14/12/2017]
New Zealand Treasury. (2013). Living standards background note: 'Increasing equity' Available at https://treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2017-12/hls-bg-equity-dec15.pdf [accessed 31/10/2017 -]
OECD. (2012) Education at a Glance 2012, OECD indicators. OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/eag-2012-en
OECD. (2013). OECD Economic surveys: New Zealand 2013. http://www.keepeek.com/Digital-Asset-Management/oecd/economics/oecd-economic-surveys-new-zealand-2013_eco_surveys-nzl-2013-en#page6
Reid, A and Rootham, E. (2016). A profile of children and young people in Auckland. Auckland Council technical report, TR2016/022. Available at http://www.knowledgeauckland.org.nz/publication/?mid=1220&DocumentType=1&
Wilson, R., Reid, A and Bishop, C. (2016). Auckland Plan targets: monitoring report 2015 with data for the Southern Initiative area. Auckland Council technical report, TR2016/007. Available at http://www.knowledgeauckland.org.nz/publication/?mid=1813&DocumentType=1&
A plan for Auckland, developed and delivered with Aucklanders
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Tag Archives: Milo McCabe
Edinburgh Fringe, Day 10: Why I don't like character comedy + Donald Trump
Simon Jay in character after today's show
"It has come a long way since you saw it in that basement room in London," Simon Jay told me this afternoon.
I first met Simon when he staged Mr Twonkey's play Jennifer's Robot Arm at the Bread & Roses venue in Clapham in April 2015. But he was talking about his Donald Trump comedy show in 2016, which has now transformed into Trumpageddon and is playing to full houses at the Gilded Balloon in Edinburgh.
It cannot be easy to perform as Donald Trump – part real person, part Timothy Burton living fantasy character – in a scripted show with so much back story Simon has to know and the nightmare of up-dating as the real-life Trump bandwagon careers off in wild new directions every day. The show is, of course, scripted and some of the audience interaction can be prepared, but not all. And yesterday, the previous day's North Korean lunacy had been incorporated into the narrative.
I tend not to like character comedy but with a caveat.
Simon Jay being made into the leader of the free world
The closer the act is to what might be a real person, the less I like it.
I spent much of my TV life finding bizarre acts and eccentric people. If I see a character act pretending to be an eccentric who could be real, I think: Why am I watching this theatre school performance of someone who is not being themselves pretending to be an interesting person when I could actually be watching the real interesting person?
The less 'real' and the more 'cartoony' the character is, the more likely I am to appreciate the act.
Charlie Chuck, for example, was/is believable to the point that people would/do ask me: Is he really like that? (No, of course he is not.) But 'Charlie Chuck' was/is an OTT cartoon-style character.
The interesting thing about Donald Trump and Trumpageddon is that it is an impression of a totally real person but the real Trump is pretty-much a cartoon character.
Perhaps all this is why stand-up comedy attracts me.
I am interested in people. Real people. Ideally eccentric people.
Sally Beaton – fluently funny, fascinating and real
Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt Award contender Cally Beaton is a not eccentric, but she is assuredly real. Her show Cally Beaton's Super Cally Fragile Lipstick is about her autistic son (who agreed to be mentioned on stage after negotiations over a meal at Nando's), bisexuality and things menopausal. Sounds like a tough comedy show to sell, but Cally is fluently funny, fascinating and manages to pitch herself to Edinburgh Fringe AND Radio 4 audiences. She comes across as a real person chatting to the audience. Which is what the best modern stand-up is.
On stage, modern stand-up comics tend to perform as (slightly heightened versions of) themselves.
Actors pretend to be characters totally different from themselves.
I prefer comics.
A character comedian with caveats and cravat
Which makes Milo McCabe's show interesting, because he is performing as a character: the slightly anachronistic Terry-Thomas-ish, dressing gown and cravat-wearing Talented Mr Hawke. It sort-of could-be a real, very well-observed person from a slightly early era, but it is also (successfully) a cartoon character.
In reality, the character would be rather sleazy and unlikable. In Milo's audience-pleasing, fleshed-out character act, he is rather loveable. The audience totally believes in the character. But Milo also cleverly – by reading letters to Mr Hawke from other people – briefly slips in two or three totally different voices which remind the audience (and demonstrate to any agents/promoters present) that they are watching a skilled comic actor who would be equally interesting in other situations.
Frank Carson: If I Didn't Laugh, I'd Cry
As mentioned in previous blogs, Milo McCabe's father Mike McCabe is performing at the Fringe as the late comic Frank Carson. That is another genre entirely and my brain is too sleep-deprived and befuddled to go into it.
One reason I tend to see no point in watching comic actors who are performing as fictional characters who are too close to 'real' people who could actually exist is that the lives of real people are always wildly more OTT than anything anyone could possibly think up.
Hello Scott Agnew.
Scott Agnew puts the aargh! into 'explicit'
His show is titled Spunk on My Lady's Face which is an extreme under-selling of the outrageousness of some of his stories. Scott always puts the aargh! into 'explicit'.
Tonight he was playing to an audience of what seemed to me to be mostly straight couples and I initially thought: Oh dear, this could go ether way! But they were guffawing-away pretty much all the way through Scott's wild, true gay stories.
It was a bit like running through the highlights of the Emperor Nero's excesses during the most decadent days of the Roman Empire. If you think you have heard outrageously excessive stories, you ain't heard nothing till you have sat through 55 minutes of Scott Agnew.
Tagged as Cally Beaton, Charlie Chuck, comedy, Donald Trump, edinburgh fringe, Milo McCabe, Mr Hawke, Mr Twonkey, Scott Agnew, Simon Jay, Trumpageddon
Dec 22, 2015 · 11:55 pm
The Grouchy Club Live – What is killing comedy. Why men wash. £1,000 a week.
Ada Campe – magical at the Grouchy Club Live
Tonight, I went to the Grouchy Club monthly live meet-up for people in the comedy business and anybody else who is interested. Well, I would do, I chair it with comedy critic Kate Copstick.
Often, comics come along and perform ten minutes of material – tonight it was the extraordinarily charismatic Ada Campe – but mostly it is just a case of the audience chatting about the business.
It can last two or three hours – as long as feels natural – with people arriving and leaving when they want, although arrive late and you'll probably miss something outrageous.
Matt Price reacted to a comment by Kate Copstick tonight
On this occasion, we kept mostly to the subject of comedy and this brief conversation ensued between Copstick, storytelling comic Matt Price and Comedy Cafe Theatre owner Noel Faulkner.
Noel had arrived late, so Copstick explained to him what had just happened.
COPSTICK
Matt evinced the opinion – which was met with a distinct murmur on the floor here – that 'new material' nights are killing comedy.
No, they're not.
What I meant was that I believe incorrectly billed ones are.
I would agree with you 100%. Shit venues are ruining comedy. Bad set-ups. Look, you're a young guy, you've got a date, you think: Oh! I'll take her to comedy. She'll be happy. she'll laugh. That's why, when you have a lot of couples in the audience, the room is stoic – because the guys are thinking: Well, I can't laugh at that, because she'll think that I'm this kind of person if I laugh at that joke, because that joke sounds homophobic, racist or whatever other PC shite.
Bad venues are killing comedy. There are venues that are horribly, badly run with dirty, smelly promoters who wash once a year.
Comedy now is getting a television audience. It's not really getting a comedy audience. The comedy audience that used to be there is still there, but it's not big enough for the massive tsunami of quite shit comics that just keeps coming and coming and coming and coming. So the audiences they're getting on all these nights are television audiences – I want to see him or her off the telly – They're not really interested enough or have any feeling enough for comedy to sit and watch real newbies or new material.
Most people want to go to work on Monday morning and say: Oh we were at the O2 Arena and saw 'im off the telly! Oh, it was great! We was this close to the screen, we saw everything!… And they've paid £80. I mean, for fuck's sake. Seriously. What? £60? £80? Jesus Christ! you could do things with that kind of money, besides sit and watch (the equivalent of) a DVD. What's that I see way down there? Oh, great!
Also, things change. The whole comedy scene is changing. Young people, they wanna go and watch movies outdoors – that's a great fucking idea. An uncomfortable chair, some shit movie from 20 years ago. I mean, OK if you're gonna cop a feel off the girl beside you OK but, otherwise, who would have ever thought outdoor movies on rooftops is a great idea?
Guys will go anywhere where the girls are. If it wasn't for women, we wouldn't wash. Guaranteed. What would the point be?
The whole thing has changed and we can't get used to the idea. We came through the era when comedy was like The Beatles – the new rock 'n' roll. It was taking off; it was great; you opened a club above a room and people were getting paid £300 for a gig.
From Eugene Cheese. He always did a door split. Comics were making more money 15 years ago than they are now. A mate of mine who was in the mainstream in 1973 was taking home £300 a night. Working men's clubs. Milo McCabe's father. He was a mainstream comic. He would stand in the middle of the floor at a working men's club – a stag do or whatever – and he would do the jokes, take the piss out of the guys – bang, bang, bang, bang, bang – I'd say Let's have a beer and he'd say No, let's get out of here. There's a stripper coming on in a minute and the place is probably going to get busted and I can't have that happen to me. Because he was doing a little telly at the time.
They would have a stag show, the comic would get up, then a stripper would come – big, big money. The average comic was making £1,000 a week, no problem, in the early 1990s.
We are now going to hand out tissues to all the working comics in the room. I didn't do stand-up, but I did comedy cabaret and you're right: there were go-go dancers on before, then comedy, funny songs and a bit of chat and then a stripper – and that was in Edinburgh!
So… (TO MATT) what you were saying about new comedy nights today…
This is no offence to anybody, because we're all part of the same circuit, but I think you sometimes now get nights that are billed, for example, as "eight professional comics trying out new material" – It's free entry and you go in and you think: Hold on! None of you are pro comics. What are you talking about? You're all moaning about your day job. First thing they say (off stage) is: Who's your agent? How do you get an agent? Who do I speak to?
And I think: Why are you doing that? Don't put that on the poster! Because it's killing everything long-term.
15 years ago, I went to the Comedy Cafe and saw Geoff Boyz. He is, to me, the consumate pro. He said to me: It takes you ten years to be a professional. That's before you start to get good at it; and then probably another ten to master it.
Yes, you can make it in three years if your dad works for the BBC. But you've still got to deliver the middle-aged men's material they're writing for you. This is an art form and people are fucking it up by lying about what they can do. I know people who can't do 10 minutes who are doing a one-hour show at the Edinburgh Festival – the most prestigious arts festival in the world – and they can't even stand on stage at a proper comedy club and deliver 10 minutes of jokes to an audience who are there to be entertained.
It's become a social life for some very sad people. They go up to Edinburgh and they do their hour and their hour is not ready. I had somebody ask me: Come and see my show. And I said: There's no way I'm spending an hour of my fucking life in Edinburgh when I can be watching Chinese acrobats swinging from the ceiling with large breasts. Forget it! You're not ready for an hour! I was very rude and very blunt and it was just water off a duck's back. I had to be that blunt with this person, because they really were thick-skinned.
That's ruining the business. TV has saturated the business. And we need to find a new road for live comedy.
Some after-show chat at the live Grouchy Club earlier tonight
In 2016, there will be live Grouchy Club comedy industry meet-ups held in the performance space at the back of Kate Copstick's Mama Biashara charity shop in Shepherd's Bush, London, at 6.30pm on the following dates. Anyone can come. Entry is free. Exit is free.
Tuesday 12th January
Tuesday 9th February
Tuesday 8th March
Tuesday 12th April
Details on http://www.grouchyclub.co.uk
After tonight's show, for some incomprehensible reason, I mentioned to London-based Glasgow comic Martha McBrier that, as I am originally Scots, I tend to pronounce the grocery store chain as the Co-per-aytive rather than the Co-opp-rative. This triggered a 20-second duet between Martha McBrier and Kate Copstick…
Tagged as Ada Campe, comedy business, Comedy Cafe, edinburgh fringe, Eugene Cheese, Geoff Boyz, Grouchy Club, Kate Copstick, Mama Biashara, Martha McBrier, Matt Price, Milo McCabe, Noel Faulkner


text:
UK PM Johnson makes progress in COVID-19 fight, but still in intensive care
FILE PHOTO: Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during a news conference on the novel coronavirus, in London, Britain March 3, 2020. Frank Augstein/Pool via REUTERS
By Andy Bruce and Alistair Smout
LONDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister Boris Johnson continues to make progress, four days after being admitted to hospital with COVID-19, but he remains in intensive care as officials signalled there was no end in sight to an unprecedented national lockdown.
Johnson, 55, was admitted to St Thomas' Hospital on Sunday evening with a persistent high temperature and cough, and was rushed to intensive care on Monday where he has since spent three nights receiving treatment.
Ministers have said he has been sitting up in bed and talking to medical staff.
"He's still in intensive care but he continues to make positive steps forward and he's in good spirits," Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said at a news conference in Downing Street.
Raab, who is deputising for Johnson during the most stringent shutdown in Britain's peacetime history, said he had not spoken to the prime minister since he was admitted to intensive care.
"I think it's important, particularly while he's in intensive care, to let him focus on the recovery. We in the government have got this covered," Raab told a news conference.
Earlier on Thursday, a Downing Street spokesman said Johnson had received oxygen support, but was not put on a ventilator.
The UK death toll in hospitals from coronavirus now stands at 7,978, a rise of 881 on the day but a smaller increase than the 938 seen in Wednesday's data.
With Johnson absent and the death toll still mounting, the British government is wrestling with two major issues – how to finance a vast increase in state spending to support the shuttered economy, and when to start easing lockdown measures.
With the economy facing potentially the worst hit since World War Two, the government said it had expanded its overdraft facility with the Bank of England.
The central bank has agreed temporarily to finance government borrowing in response to COVID-19 if funds cannot immediately be raised from debt markets, reviving a measure last widely used during the 2008 financial crisis.
The BoE said it was a short-term measure and both it and government said any borrowing from the Ways and Means facility – effectively the government's overdraft with the Bank – would be repaid by the end of the year.
The government has made pledges costing tens of billions of pounds to support businesses and workers hit by the virus. On Thursday, the government said an additional 1.2 million claims for welfare payments had been filed since March 16.
NO END TO LOCKDOWN
Raab said the peak of the virus outbreak had yet to be reached and that the government would not be able to say more about the duration of the lockdown until late next week, once experts have had chance to analyse data on how well it is working. It was introduced last month.
"The measures will have to stay in place until we've got the evidence that clearly shows we've moved beyond the peak," he said.
While Johnson's condition was said to be improving, it was unclear how long he might be incapacitated, with some political commentators saying there was a power vacuum in his absence.
Raab said on Thursday he had the power to make "necessary decisions" in the prime minister's absence and that government will continue to follow the strategy set out by Johnson. He said cabinet could take decisions collectively.
The United Kingdom is entering what scientists say is the deadliest phase of the outbreak, with deaths expected to continue to rise over the Easter weekend.
But in a sign the shutdown measures were working, health officials have said the number of coronavirus infections and hospital admissions had begun to show signs of flattening.
"We've always been clear that it would take a period of time to see the impact of those measures in the statistics that we publish every day," Johnson's spokesman said.
"We've always said that if the scientific advice suggests further steps are needed we'd be prepared to take them, but for now our focus is on ensuring the steps we already have in place are properly enforced."
Police said they would be taking tougher action to do just that before the four-day Easter holiday weekend because many people were continuing to ignore the ban on social gatherings.
(Additional reporting by Kate Holton; Writing by Michael Holden and Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Stephen Addison)
Posted on April 9, 2020 By Reuters News Agency
This entry was tagged Coronavirus, COVID-19, Great Britian, Intensive care, national lockdown, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, UK. Bookmark the permalink.
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This comfortable and spacious house has a living room with a spectacular ocean view, kitchen with all appliances, dishes, utensils etc.. for your stay. There is a laundry room, four bathrooms, three furnished bedrooms - two ocean view, and one more unfurnished bedroom, social area with pool and shower in the pool area. The ocean view bedrooms have a huge patio on the 3rd level. An additional patio on the second level is perfect to have your breakfast, lunch, dinner and drinks while watching the waves roll in. Enclosed parking space for four cars, a lanai with ocean views and a balcony on the third floor of the house where you can admire the marvelous sunrise in the morning and a spectacular view of Volcán Barú.
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Jim DeHorn knew about trees: how to plant them, how to prune them, how to water them, how to mend a broken branch, how to identify them by their Latin names.
When Charlotte Newfeld wanted to nurture a migratory bird sanctuary near the totem pole at Addison and Lake Shore Drive, it was Jim who told her to protect the oaks — an MVP among trees.
He said oaks have sturdy branches to cradle nests, and that they provide acorns, which draw hungry outdoor creatures.
He knew trees can create little woodland glades in a big city.
Mr. DeHorn, known as "TreeKeeper Jim," died on March 16 in hospice care on the Northwest Side, according to his wife Jean. He was 84 and had been having pulmonary trouble, she said.
A labor organizer by profession, he was graduate No. 159 out of approximately 2,000 people in the 27-year-old "TreeKeepers"" program, said Jerry Adelmann, CEO of Openlands, a conservation group that coordinates the TreeKeepers. They're citizen foresters who take classes to learn about trees and then volunteer to preserve them on streets and in parks.
And though Mr. DeHorn stood out for riotous mutton chops that made him resemble Santa Claus, he acted more like a no-nonsense lumberjack, according to friends and relatives.
At tree plantings, "Even though he was an older man, he would jump right into the hole and pull that 300-pound ball of burlap into place," said TreeKeeper Betsy Elsaesser.
After graduating from TreeKeepers in 1993, he volunteered until 1999, when he became a paid coordinator. He organized classes and did planting, pruning and watering in the field. "He always put in much more time, however, than his paid job covered," Adelmann said. After 2013, he returned to volunteer status, Adelmann said.
"He kept TreeKeepers going when there wasn't a lot of funding," said Suzanne Malec-McKenna, Chicago's former commissioner of the environment.
"He moved around to the North Park Village Nature Center, the [Morton] Arboretum, to all the Chicago Park District nature areas and the forest preserves, restoring trees, rebuilding areas that were full of invasive species," Newfeld said.
Young Jim enjoyed nature activities and scouting while growing up near Belmont and Oak Park Avenue, the son of an electrical engineer dad and a mom who worked as a teacher. He attended Locke grade school and Steinmetz High School, where he met his future wife Jean in Latin class.
When they were helping to plan senior prom, "I said, 'Jim's going take me, aren't you, Jim?'" she recalled. "We did go to the prom together, and we were together ever after." They married in 1955.
Mr. DeHorn, who studied at the University of Illinois, became an organizer for the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers.
The DeHorns bought a Northwest Side home with lots of shade from an oak, a fir, a birch and a couple of Washington Hawthorns. They took their daughters Lisa and Kathy hiking, camping and blueberry-picking, and on many trips to national parks.
"What I remember is walking around the block with him. We would walk slowly and he would teach me all the names of trees," said Kathy Teuber. His influence contributed to her pursuit of birding, backpacking and snowshoeing in Colorado, where she now lives.
"I, to this day, credit going through that process for teaching me how to observe things," said Lisa DeHorn, a birder who enjoys the outdoors at a log-home retreat in Wisconsin.
A celebration of Mr. DeHorn's life is scheduled at 3:30 p.m. on April 13 at North Park Village Nature Center, where there are plans to plant a ginkgo in his honor, his wife said. He used to wear a ginkgo leaf pin on his TreeKeepers cap because the ancient species, from the time of the dinosaurs, was his favorite tree.


text:
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// NewInformerFunc takes apis.Interface and time.Duration to return a SharedIndexInformer.
type NewInformerFunc func(apis.Interface, time.Duration) cache.SharedIndexInformer

// SharedInformerFactory a small interface to allow for adding an informer without an import cycle
type SharedInformerFactory interface {
	Start(stopCh <-chan struct{})
	InformerFor(obj runtime.Object, newFunc NewInformerFunc) cache.SharedIndexInformer
}

// TweakListOptionsFunc is a function that transforms a v1.ListOptions.
type TweakListOptionsFunc func(*v1.ListOptions)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Flu, cold shooting nearly ended SDSU's perfect start
By Mike MillerDec 14, 2010, 12:55 PM EST
San Diego State's perfect start narrowly avoided an ignominious end Monday night.
The Aztecs were without leading scorer and rebounder Kawhi Leonard, sophomore guard Chase Tapley for a home game against Cal Poly, which shouldn't have been a problem. They're talented enough to beat a team like Cal Poly, but weren't helped by an atrocious shooting night.
SDSU made just 34.8 percent of its shots and missed all 18 3-point attempts in its 51-45 win.
(That tied the mark for most 3s attempted this season without a make. Of course, that was by a losing team – Ohio. The last time someone shot that poorly from beyond the arc and won was Dayton – 0 for 24 – vs. Auburn in 2008.)
"It was a bit like running in mud at the offensive end," coach Steve Fisher said afterward. "The harder we tried, the more we missed – 0 for 18 from 3-point range, that's not us. But we played hard. Obviously we could not throw it in the ocean. And I think that sometimes starts to happen when one guy misses one that's wide open, then he starts to question himself. It shouldn't happen but it did for us tonight."
Tapley was sent home. Leonard was one bench and available if absolutely necessary, but Fisher decided against it with about 10 minutes left in the game.
SDSU gets nearly a week to rest until UC Santa Barbara comes to town on Saturday. If Fisher's team wants to get to 12-0, it may want to start downing some Vitamin C and getting some sleep.
Want more? I'm also on Twitter @BeyndArcMMiller.