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Home » Wholesale Games Industry and Market News » PlayStation VR reaches 3 million units sold
PlayStation VR reaches 3 million units sold
Sony have reported that since PlayStation VR headset debuted in October 2016, it's sold more than 3 million units worldwide. This shows quite an uptake in sales for this year, which is promising with the prospect of the holiday season approaching.
Within the initial few month on sale PlayStation VR managed to hit 915,000 units sold, a solid start for not only the cheapest, but the first console-specific VR unit in the market. However, at the end of the first year on sale numbers had barely picked up, ending on just over 1 million sales made.
Since then VR products have been discounted across the board, and when Sony implemented their new lower price of $299, making it the cheapest high-end VR headset, sales saw a definite boost.
With a catalog of around 340 games and experiences available to purchase Sony have also announced that 21.9 million PlayStation VR software sales have been made since launch. Over time the hardware has seen the release of many big releases, including Skyrim VR, Doom VFR, and Fallout VR.
As more games are released for PlayStation VR there is a tangible improvement in their quality, both in visuals and gameplay. Launch titles for PlayStation VR didn't necessarily have the best control schemes, and because there wasn't much else out many thought the hardware was a waste. Resident Evil 7 Biohazard was an outstanding exception to the launch titles for PlayStation VR, providing the best VR experience on home consoles available at the time, and it's still well-loved today.
Now however games such as The Persistence have proven the high level of quality that can be delivered on the device. The Persistence uses randomly generated levels and enemies to give users a brand new experience each time they play, making maximum use of the headset's capabilities.
The 10 most-played games on PlayStation VR have been revealed by Sony as the following.
1. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR
2. PlayStation VR Worlds
3. Rec Room
4. Resident Evil 7 Biohazard
5. The Playroom VR
6. Job Simulator
7. Until Dawn: Rush of Blood
8. Batman: Arkham VR
9. Farpoint
10. Superhot VR
Related Topics: Playstation VR, Sony, Virtual Reality (VR)
By Admin in: Wholesale Games Industry and Market News on August 17, 2018 at 4:50 pm

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Location: Middle East
Introduction of Value Added Tax (VAT) in Oman
A guide on the general outlook of the implementation
2018 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends
The rise of the social enterprise
Introduction of Value Added Tax (VAT) in the UAE
VAT in the GCC and the impact areas in the implementation cycle
Family Enterprise Consulting
The Deloitte Millennial Survey 2017
Apprehensive millennials: seeking stability and opportunities in an uncertain world.
After applying for a job in this country, you can access/update your candidate profile at any time.
Deloitte Global predicts that the European football market may generate $30 billion (€27 billion) in revenues in 2016/2017, an $8 billion (€7 billion) increase relative to 2011/2012, and a compound annual growth rate of seven percent. Most of this growth will likely be driven by the five largest leagues: England's Premier League, France's Ligue 1, the German Bundesliga, Italy's Serie A and La Liga in Spain.
Football's revenues have been increasing consistently and impressively over the past few decades; but it is only recently that revenue growth has stayed ahead of costs, with improved cost discipline being implemented across the game. This improved cost management, combined with continuing broadcast and commercial growth, looks likely to make football clubs increasingly profitable. They are therefore attractive to investors looking for a consistent financial return, as well as those interested in building profile or business opportunities through acquiring a trophy asset football club.
Football and pay television have had an increasingly symbiotic relationship over the past two decades, and forecast 2016/2017 revenues attest to this. Football's revenues are predominantly made up of matchday (admissions and hospitality), commercial income and broadcast revenues, and it is this latter source which is forecast to generate both the majority of total revenues and the increase in revenues in 2016/17.
The 2016/2017 season will see new broadcast deals for both the English Premier League (EPL) and Spain's La Liga come into effect. Domestic live broadcast rights is expected to generate an average of $2.6 billion for the EPL for the three seasons from 2016/2017, a 71 percent increase on the prior agreement. Spain's La Liga, which has recently moved to a collective broadcast rights selling model, is expected to earn approximately $1.1 billion per season from domestic live rights. These are the two biggest drivers of revenue growth in the European football market.
It is not just from domestic markets that Europe's top leagues are achieving substantial growth in broadcast rights fees. The EPL and La Liga's international rights fees have been climbing fast too. In the 2016/2017 season the EPL is expected to generate over $1.5 billion from overseas broadcast rights, a gain of at least 40 percent compared to the previous rights cycle. La Liga generates less than half this amount, but has achieved substantial recent growth, and generates the second-highest broadcast revenues from non-domestic markets of any sports league.
In the long run, there is a virtuous circle within football. The more revenues a club can generate, the more money it has to invest in talent, increasing the chances of on-pitch success, with the associated financial rewards allowing it to reinvest. This creates an imperative for clubs, and the leagues of which they are a part, to maximize their revenues. More revenue should enable clubs to recruit not just the best talent and coaches on the field, but also the best commercial staff, access to the best technology, and also the ability to invest for the long term, for example by investing in youth academies. The more popular football becomes, the more brands will likely want to be associated with it.
Deloitte Global predicts that the European football market may generate $30 billion (€27 billion) in revenues in 2016/2017, an $8 billion (€7 billion) increase relative to 2011/2012, and a compound annual growth rate of seven percent.
Most of this growth will likely be driven by the five largest leagues (England's Premier League, France's Ligue 1, the German Bundesliga, Italy's Serie A and La Liga in Spain) whose share of revenues continues to rise. These leagues are expected to generate approximately $17 billion (58 percent) of total revenues in 2016/17.
Figure 1: Predicted European football league revenues in $ billions for 2016/2017
Source: Deloitte Sports Business Group, 2015
Both the UK and Spain are now relatively mature pay-TV markets for football, with 17.4 million pay-TV homes in the UK (65 percent of all households) and 5.4 million (29 percent) in Spain. Live rights to premium content such as top-tier domestic league football provides regular content through most months of the year, and hence is highly attractive to pay-TV operators in driving subscriptions.
There is global interest in football's top leagues and clubs at many levels, from broadcast interest to shirt sponsorship and ownership. In the EPL, over half of the 20 clubs have non-UK owners and the principal sponsor of three-quarters' of the teams is headquartered abroad, with many based in Asia Pacific and the Middle East.
Combined revenues of the 20 EPL clubs are predicted to surpass $6.5 billion in 2016/17, more than double that of the next-highest European league. The EPL has for many years delivered strong matchday, commercial and broadcast revenues and the core reasons for the EPL's continued revenue leadership are: its substantial broadcast revenue advantage, aided by highly successful centralized sales and marketing; global talent; competitive matches throughout the league; full stadia; and strong history and heritage. The EPL has for many years delivered strong matchday, commercial and broadcast revenues.
EPL clubs are reaping the returns from heavy investment in venues and facilities over the last 20 years. League attendance averages over 95 percent of stadium capacity. Commercial revenues are now the highest of any European league, driven particularly by lucrative deals secured by the league's largest clubs, which have global appeal and resonance. For example, Manchester United's ten-year kit deal with Adidas is worth a minimum of $114 million (£75 million) per season.
While the EPL's financial prowess may not have been matched by its on-pitch success in European club competitions, in recent seasons their widening revenue advantage has given clubs the clout to bid for the top global playing talent, possibly squeezing out other European clubs.
Football has long been about supporters at every level, and owning a football club has to some extent been the ultimate collectable. The game's rising revenues, and its universal appeal, make it highly attractive to investors.
The game changer is the recent trend for top clubs, in the EPL in particular, to be able to generate a profit. Historically, revenue growth has been outstripped by cost increases, with football's greatest challenge being its ability to balance the books. Recent years have seen the development, implementation and subsequent benefits of cost control regulations within the game, indicating that this could be the most significant football business development since the Bosman ruling on player transfers. The early signs are that this is the case, with Premier League clubs returning collective pre-tax profits in 2013/14 for the first time since 1998/99. This has made the sport and its clubs an increasingly attractive investment, both for individuals seeking prestige and for financial buyers looking for a return on their investment.
Further purchases of leading European football teams, in part or whole, are likely in 2016 and beyond. In late 2015, Chinese investors paid $400m for a 13 percent shareholding in City Football Group, which owns EPL club Manchester City and football clubs in Melbourne and New York, as well as a shareholding in a club in Yokohama. As of end-2015, only one Premier League club, Leicester City, was majority-owned by Asia Pacific-based investors: we expect this to increase.
Chinese investors have been building their football investments within their home country and abroad. One investor in Manchester City, China Media Capital (CMC) also spent $1.3 billion to secure global broadcasting rights for the Chinese Super League for five years from 2016. Earlier in 2015 Dalian Wanda, a Chinese conglomerate, bought a $50million (€45million) stake in Atlético de Madrid, as well as acquiring global sports marketing company Infront Sports & Media, which holds commercial rights to the Chinese Super League. Full ownership of a Premier League club by a Chinese investor may only be a matter of time.
A quarter of EPL club owners are from North America and the EPL has secured a six-year $1 billion broadcast deal with NBC from 2016/17, highlighting its growing prominence in the US. Further evidence of football's growing value in the US market are the sell-out crowds for pre-season matches involving European clubs, and also the carefully-managed development of the MLS. The US generates the highest individual broadcast rights fee for the World Cup of any territory, and US fans were the largest contingent of travelling fans for the last World Cup.
In the long run, there is a virtuous circle within football. The more revenues a club can generate, the more it has to invest in talent, increasing the chances of on-pitch success, with the associated financial rewards allowing it to reinvest. This creates an imperative for clubs, and the leagues of which they are a part, to maximize their revenues. More revenue should enable clubs to recruit not just the best talent and coaches on the field, but also the best commercial staff, access to the best technology, and the ability to invest for the long term, for example by investing in youth academies. The more popular football becomes, the more brands will likely want to be associated with it.
Europe is currently football's financial powerbase, with leagues and clubs continuing to explore how to capitalize on their global appeal through a variety of strategies – broadcasting and distribution of content, sponsorship, other commercial partnerships, shareholdings, talent development and matches abroad. It is established practice for top European clubs to play pre-season matches in non-European markets. This trend is likely to increase, and it seems only a matter of time before a European League stages regular season matches outside of the continent, in a similar manner to how the NFL has staged matches in London and the NBA in Europe.
As long as imported European content retains popularity, leagues and clubs outside of Europe face the challenge of developing their own competition structures. This challenge should be embraced, with these leagues and clubs building strong governance and administration structures, facilities, youth development and community engagement in their local markets, while leveraging best practice from Europe.
Commentators may question whether football's revenues can continue to grow. We would not expect the 2016/2017 revenue growth rate to continue in 2017/2018: there are no major new broadcast or sponsorship deals likely to start in that period which would generate the same uplift as the new EPL and La Liga deals will do in 2016/2017.
But in the long term, prospects look favorable as long as football maintains its ability to remain a spectacle that can attract a large proportion of the population, almost every week of the year, and which plays out not just on our television screens, but also through online news sites on the web, on social networks, on video games, in the back pages of newspapers, over breakfast, in school break times, and indeed in almost every other medium.
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Automatically equipt armor or armors to the body parts for which it is meant, if no armour of the same type is already worn there to protect you in combat. -a to include all armors.
01:52, Shadowday, Roki 1, 175 AD.


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General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc.
GA-ASI Awarded Contract to Upgrade RPA and GCS for ANG
SAN DIEGO – 18 June 2020 – General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) has been awarded a $12.1 million contract to upgrade MQ-9 Block 1 and Block 5 Remotely Piloted Aircraft and Block 25 Dual Control Module Ground Control Station (DCMGCS) and Block 30 Ground Control Station (GCS) for the Air National Guard (ANG). The procurement includes kits for High-Definition (HD) displays and special router/multiplexer, as well as Multi-Intelligence Smart Processing (MISP).
"We're pleased to see the ANG move forward with these upgrades and further enhance the capabilities of their RPA systems," said GA-ASI President David R. Alexander. "The HD kits will enable increased throughput and higher quality of sensor data between the MQ-9 and GCS, while MISP will enable seamless data flow between GCS and external networks. These upgrades will improve mission-effectiveness tremendously."
MISP is a bi-directional data architecture developed in conjunction with the Air Force Research Laboratory and BAE Systems. MISP enables the GCS and Squadron Operations Center to share internal and external data in a secure manner. The MISP network establishes a baseline for quickly adding new Internet Protocol-enabled sensors to the system. These sensors can be operated locally or remotely as desired by the aircrew. Additionally MISP provides unit level intelligence capabilities to refine MQ-9 sensor data disseminated to the enterprise. Using MISP, MQ-9 data is disseminated to the right personnel, at the right time, to inform the best possible decision.
About GA-ASI
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI), an affiliate of General Atomics, is a leading designer and manufacturer of proven, reliable Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) systems, radars, and electro-optic and related mission systems, including the Predator® RPA series and the Lynx® Multi-mode Radar. With more than six million flight hours, GA-ASI provides long-endurance, mission-capable aircraft with integrated sensor and data link systems required to deliver persistent flight that enables situational awareness and rapid strike. The company also produces a variety of ground control stations and sensor control/image analysis software, offers pilot training and support services, and develops meta-material antennas. For more information, visit www.ga-asi.com.
SkyGuardian, Predator and Lynx are registered trademarks of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc.
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High Lulani phonology has 18 consonant sounds and 3 vowels. Plosives are the only class that have a voicing distinction; fricatives are prototypically voiceless, and resonants are prototypically voiced. Vowels are defined in terms of openness and frontness; there are no oral, length or tone distinctions. All High Lulani words are formed from alternating consonant-vowel pairs. Any word-internal consonant can be geminated, which can palatalise or change the voicing of the original sound.
This page will show each of the International Phonetic Alphabet characters used in High Lulani pronunciations.
1The phone /j/ only appears as the second segment of an allophonic variant of /ʔ/, when that sound is geminated.
The suprasegmental symbols are all exemplified in /,ː;pʰamɨˈlamɨ/.
©2017-2019 Ryan Eakins. Last updated: Tuesday, February 5th, 2019.


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'Ip Man 3': Film Review
Mike Tyson drops in as a baddie in Donnie Yen's third portrait of the legendary martial-arts grandmaster who counted Bruce Lee among his disciples.
More than five years after their last collaboration, Hong Kong action star Donnie Yen and director Wilson Yip reunite with Ip Man 3, the third and possibly last entry of their film series revolving around the revered founder of the Wing Chun martial-arts school. Bolstered by Yuen Woo-ping's exhilarating action choreography and some stunt casting in the shape of Mike Tyson and Zhang Jin (the breakout star in Wong Kar-wai's rival Ip Man biopic The Grandmaster), Yen and Yip have managed to wring a serviceable film out of a pedestrian plot riddled with erroneous period details. Bound for commercial success at home and enthusiasm from kung-fu buffs abroad — the film's rollout outside Asia, in the U.S. and Australia, begins late next month — Ip Man 3 could possibly score a couple of noms at the annual film awards in Hong Kong.
The pic is set in 1959, when the titular grandmaster is seen settling into his low-profile life in Hong Kong after his decades of struggle against feuding rivals and then Japanese oppressors during World War II — all of which was shown in the previous two installments. The film picks up the narrative from Ip Man 2 with a face-off between Ip (Yen) and a grown-up Bruce Lee (Danny Chan). Defying the gritty, hard-knuckle action sequences which have defined the franchise, the showdown unfolds in the kind of Matrix-like slow motion that has propelled Yuen to international mainstream prominence.
Eye-popping as this opening scene might be, the fight is a red herring: Neither VFX nor Lee (who, in real life, had already left for the U.S. by 1959) has a prominent presence in Ip Man 3. Even more than in Sammo Hung's action choreography in the previous two films, the physical combats here — Ip taking on dozens of opponents in an incredibly high-octane sequence in a shipyard, or just a single adversary in a single room — take place mostly with feet on the ground and fists cracking bones. This earthly approach echoes Ip's quotidian life: Again, Yen delivers a suitably understated turn as the mild-mannered master, mingling with the masses and seeking nothing more than an ordinary life with his martial-arts school and his family.
Ip maintains this unassuming demeanor even when trouble brews, when he is forced to confront local thugs trying to coerce the local elementary's headmaster to sell the land on which his school was built. Amid a cast of cartoonish allies (Leung Ka-yan's over-the-top old-school master) and caricatured villains (Patrick Tam's glowering goon), Ip is a near-saintly presence. He walks away from taunts and is more than willing to kneel and kowtow to his sneering foes so as to keep his family and friends safe from harm. While this humility is sometimes stretched to unconvincing limits, Yen pulls it off with yet another performance anchored by grace, poise and well-placed humor.
Having helped Yen re-establish his acting credentials over the years, Yip's nifty direction and canny merging of talking and fighting scenes lift the film above its mediocre and under-researched screenplay, written by a team of three led by co-producer Edmond Wong. While Yen's off-screen bonding with Yip provides some dramatic tension, his chemistry with Lynn Hung, who plays Ip's wife, Cheung Wing-shing, remains as strong as ever. The model-turned-actress's controlled performance matches Yen's step by subtle step, consolidating their status as one of the most discreetly persuasive screen pairings in recent years.
Then again, all eyes are probably on the face-off between Yen and Mike Tyson, who plays a pugilistic American businessman who somehow colludes with the British colonial police in a land-grabbing scheme. While offering an intriguing clash of wildly different fighting styles, this is nothing more than a thinly-veiled nod to the officially endorsed discourse about foreign collusion in undermining the stability of Hong Kong.
Something more substantial eventually arrives in a final confrontation between Ip and someone who could be seen as Ip's shadow. With the grandmaster remaining a goody-two-shoes throughout — the Chinese equivalent, perhaps, of an old-school superhero who would never, ever slip over to the dark side — it's up to another character to embody the darker instincts a fighter could harbor. In a role somehow similar in tone to the prestige-hungry fighter Ma San he played in The Grandmaster, Zhang Jin plays Cheung Tin-chi, an exiled martial-arts expert on a dogged quest to replace Ip as the sole torch-bearer of the traditional Wing Chun martial-arts faction.
Radiating haughtiness, Zhang (who plays an equally aloof antagonist in SPL 2: A Time of Consequences) provides a remarkable contrast to Yen's Ip, as well as a great opponent forcing the veteran action star to raise his game. Then, of course, this final thread about power-grabbers conniving to lay claims to the authentic Wing Chun mantle could be seen as screenwriter Wong's sniping at other Ip Man films (The Grandmaster, The Legend is Born — Ip Man, Ip Man — The Final Fight) that emerged while his own franchise took a hiatus.


Fractures are enemies of Oxford women and men. They bring about pain and long recoveries. Oxford postmenopausal women have a tendency to be at higher risk of fractures, particularly those who have vitamin deficiencies. Oxford vitamin deficiencies are pretty easily tested for and addressed with Satterwhite Chiropractic's help should testing divulge such deficiencies. Satterwhite Chiropractic directs Oxford chiropractic patients who are ready to have their vitamin status evaluated and help them any deficiencies in order to lower fracture risk.
The more the merrier? Not necessarily when it comes to multiple vitamin deficiencies! A recent study described that the cumulative effect of vitamin deficiencies increased the risk of incident fractures in postmenopausal women. Vitamin D, vitamin K and vitamin B levels were recorded in women over 50 years of age and followed for 6.3 years (plus or minus 5.1 years). 29.7% of these women experienced fractures during this time. The number of deficiencies (0/no deficiencies to 3/deficient in D, K and B) was significantly related to fracture risk. (1) With respect to this report, Satterwhite Chiropractic notes that it's important to check for vitamin deficiencies and tackle them.
Satterwhite Chiropractic points out that the risk of fragility fractures is more than the risk of breast cancer for postmenopausal women. 33% are at risk. Fortunately, Oxford fracture risk can be controlled by healthy lifestyle modifications like vitamin supplementation, weight-bearing exercise, limited alcohol consumption and not smoking. Vitamin supplementation including at least 1000 mg/day of calcium, 800 IU/day of vitamin D, and 1 gram/kilogram of body weight of protein in women over 50 is recommended. (2) Vitamin D plus calcium supplementation reduces the risk of total fractures by 15% and hip fractures by 30%, specifically. (3) Oral vitamin K supplementation (phytonadione and menaquinone-4) reduced bone loss. Menaquinone-4 demonstrated the strongest impact on vertebral fracture reduction. (4) And while vitamin B supplementation alone didn't demonstrate a significant effect on osteoporotic fracture occurrence in patients with cerebrovascular disease, it did reveal a modest impact. (5) Patients with very high plasma homocysteine levels and vascular disease appeared to benefit more from vitamin B supplementation (folate, B6, and B12) to prevent osteoporotic fractures. Vitamin B appropriately modifies HCy levels considered to have a role in osteoporotic fracture and bone turnover. (6) Satterwhite Chiropractic considers all types of factors when directing patients in nutritional supplementation.
Schedule a Oxford chiropractic visit with Satterwhite Chiropractic to address any vitamin deficiencies and decrease your Oxford fracture risk!


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Home\Pro Staff\Ana Leschishin
Ana Leschishin
Home State:Minnesota
Favorite Species:Lake Trout, Crappies, and Walleye
Web:https://www.anaonice.com/
A native of Duluth, Minnesota, Ana grew up fishing the waters of Northern Minnesota and Wisconsin as a young girl. Early on, she grew particularly fond of ice angling for big walleye and finesse panfish which earned her the nickname "Ana On Ice". Now residing in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Ana fishes all across the Midwest and Canada and works to promote the sports rapid growing popularity among women. She's become well known for her versatile approach and love for targeting all species, but holds a particular fondness for Lake Trout, Crappies, and Walleye. It's become her personal mission to encourage more women to actively pursue the sport of fishing through opportunity, education, and empowerment. She's also a contributing member of the organizations Women Anglers of Minnesota and Wisconsin Women Fish.
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It's pretty hard to describe the feeling of casually opening an email from Pearl Jam (yeah, I'm on their list), and being greeted by a big 'ol photo of Eddie Vedder that I captured at PJ's recent show in Missoula. I definitely had a pretty reflective moment as soon as I saw this photo and realized it was mine.
Of course a photo credit would have been nice though ….


These were just some of the words that were used to describe Facebook's purchase of WhatsApp today.
The deal, which was announced shortly after the close of trading on Wednesday, is for a reported $19 billion. That includes $12 billion in shares of Facebook, $4 billion in cash and an additional $3 billion in restricted stock units for the purpose of employee retention.
Shares of Facebook, which have been flying high as of late, dipped as much as 5% after the deal was announced. It will be interesting to see what analysts say about the deal before trading opens on Thursday.
WhatsApp is a very popular instant messaging service for smartphones that works on a multitude of different operating systems.
The service is phenomenally popular. As of early 2014, WhatsApp users were sending over 18 billion messages per day. According to Facebook, WhatsApp has 450 million monthly active users, with 70% of those being active on a daily basis.
In short, WhatsApp has a quickly growing user base that is constantly engaged - much like Facebook.
According to WhatsApp, the company will "remain autonomous and operate independently." There are no plans to introduce advertisements or make any other major changes at this time.
Many people view this purchase as a defensive move on Facebook's part. WhatsApp is legitimate competition for Facebook, and they are on a similar growth trajectory as Mark Zuckerberg's company.
With Facebook's impressive performance over the past 12 months, the company now has plenty of ammunition to complete purchases such as the WhatsApp buy.
Are more purchases coming down the road? How will this deal impact Facebook's bottom line going forward? How will the markets react to the deal on Thursday? What will analysts say?


As the experimental and test platform of our center, laboratory focuses on the study and characterization of superconducting materials, superconductivity physics, maglev train and technology, solar cell materials and devices. The laboratory now has equipment with total value over 25 000 000 yuan, 1500 square meters of experiment real and dozens of experimental operation table, with advanced instruments to test and characterize materials structure, morphology, electrical properties, magnetic properties, including ultra-low temperature X ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscope, energy spectrometer, superconducting quantum interference device, physical properties measurement system, electrical transport and AC magnetic susceptibility test system, Hall effect tester. In addition, the laboratory possesses a complete film, block, strip preparation and processing equipment, composing of high vacuum magnetron sputtering apparatus, electrochemical workstation, high-energy ball mill, superconducting coated continuous sintering furnace. Laboratory provides excellent testing and supporting condition for innovative research of our center, holds the mission of obtaining research results with independent intellectual property rights, and makes great efforts to build academic research of platform with international influence.


Looking for ideal Custom Pageant Star Crowns Manufacturer & supplier ? We have a wide selection at great prices to help you get creative. All the Pageant Star Crowns are quality guaranteed. We are China Origin Factory of Custom Pageant Music Crowns. If you have any question, please feel free to contact us.


Make it your goal to have options outside of serving at the pleasure of some single employer. And focus on a programmer skill to the point of fetishizing it.
I am currently considering something of a content pivot for DaedTech. I haven't really decided anything for sure yet, but I'm leaning toward putting cross-posts into digest format once per week and then doing fewer posts, but ones that are more focused on developer empowerment and the efficiency dream. Your feedback on this is entirely welcome in the comments or on on Twitter or Facebook or anywhere, really. I'd honestly like to know what you think.
I mention that because I think I need to refocus a little on some hypotheses that underpin all of this. In the time between writing Developer Hegemony and now, I've found myself distracted by changing my lifestyle, selling a house, starting a couple of businesses, and, well, life. But throughout that time, I've given some thought to what I ought to offer people with this site. Should I continue (against the advice that I offer everyone else blogging with purpose) to keep the blog as a chronicle of my many thoughts? Or should I orient it around a theme in which I help people solve some kind of problem?
And I'm leaning toward trying to solve a problem.
So back to the hypotheses. The first one that I'll mention is that programmers should specialize and seek options outside of full-time employment. (Not as in immediately making it your goal to escape the rat race. Rather, make it your goal to have options outside of serving at the pleasure of some single employer.) The second one, following from that first, is that we focus on a programmer skill to the point of fetishizing it. And, we do this to our detriment.
Let me lay out a few points that surround the issue. None of these will probably be especially new to you, but taken together, they're interesting.
You often hear some variant of "part of being a great developer is knowing when not to write code." In other words, being really good at writing code helps no one if you code up a useless product.
Successful "entreprogrammer" John Sonmez, in promoting his "Soft Skills" book, often talked about how he wasn't successful because he was the best programmer, but because he learned the material that he was communicating in the book - strategies for business and dealing with other people.
In most organizations, it's not necessarily the "best" programmers that wind up with higher pay and vanity titles like "senior," "tech lead" and "architect." It's generally the longest-tenured ones. Longtime readers will remember my writing on this subject.
Businesses and non-technical people often don't listen to the "best" developers, often because those developers take pride in spewing jargon and being indecipherable.
We can't even define "best" programmers. Do a Google search on it. Page one alone promises more than 100 answers. These include technical knowledge, but also things like "positive attitude" and "good communication skills."
Put all this together, and you have an interesting picture. The business world and the greater non-programming world in general values one thing. Programmers, when we get together, value something different. We're fully aware of how outsiders value us, but we just can't resist the impulse to compare ourselves to others with code competitions, programming challenges, data structure interviews, and claims that we're "10x" better than others.
This brings me to what I think will be the fun part about writing this post. I want to use a metaphorical story to help bring context to why we do this, and how shotgun-blast-to-our-own-feet it is. It's easy enough to sit there in the waiting room of GiganTech, waiting to see if they deem you better at O-notation than the other 430 applicants, and get caught up in all of this. It becomes normal. So I'm going to draw a parallel to a different line of work.
I did this to an extent in Developer Hegemony, but as part of a larger point about journeyman idealists. Here, I'll get more direct.
When I was a kid, my grandfather moved to a place called Green Valley, Arizona. At that time, Green Valley was (and still is, for all I know) a collection of retirement communities, meaning that you had to be 55 or older to live there. A young Erik was convinced that this had to be against the law. An older Erik doesn't care at all and sees a business opportunity.
So let's say that you do just that. You incorporate, get a bank loan and a bunch of equipment, advertise, and start booking business. Now, you just need some young, able-bodied folks to do the labor. Why not head to the gym in a nearby town?
Teenagers that haul furniture in and out of moving trucks probably don't make a lot of money. At least, not normally. But you have a bit of an issue with your fledgling business in that labor supplies are low and in high demand. So you scour the local gyms, hoping against hope that $10 per hour will suffice. Mercifully, it does, and you have your employees!
As they show up and start to work, a culture of sorts develops. These guys came from the gym, so they have this kind of competitive fixation on how much weight they can bench press and leg press and, just generally press in various fashions. They come to work in tank tops, drink protein shakes, and say "bro" a lot. And they're really into inventing competitions around lifting stuff.
Who can carry the most coffee tables in a ten-minute window? Who can lift a couch all by himself? And which pathetic excuse for a mover can't even carry an office chair one-handed?
You worried about not paying these guys enough, but they don't actually seem to care terribly about making money at all. As it turns out, you're paying them to do something they do on weekends anyway: go places, lift things, and boast about their prowess.
When you delegate, you notice something interesting. You'd historically hired on the basis of things like punctuality, references, and recommendations. But when you turned it over to your movers, they started doing something a lot different. They started having candidates do curls and military presses, recording how much they could lift. Some candidates they disqualify altogether, some they hire, and some they come to you about. "Excuse me, Owner, but you should probably only pay this guy $8 per hour. Dude can't even curl 200 pounds."
Okie dokie, you think. The candidate seems to accept this line of reasoning, given his inferior curling abilities, so far be it for you to argue. $8 per hour it is!
As your moving company gets even bigger, you recognize the need to delegate, so you appoint your most organized employee to manage the team and give him a $2 per hour raise. But you're a little blown away by everyone's reaction. The manager himself seems sheepish, and you start to hear rumbling that nobody who needs two hands to carry a three-seater sofa should make $12 per hour, let alone be in charge. Clueless management and all that. They probably don't even own any creatine powder.
Business keeps booming, and life is good. The rank and file grumbling over management not following the obvious mover meritocracy is, at worst, a minor problem. Nobody quits over it or even shirks their duty. And the culture remains the same - the large group of movers overwhelmingly believes in the meritocracy of physical might.
This works perfectly for you. It's important for your movers to be able-bodied and spry, but after a certain minimum threshold, it actually matters very little to you or to the business. But they create a culture entirely focused on and obsessed with the margins. To you, a mover that can bench 300 and one that can bench 400 are the same thing, for all intents and purposes. But to them, there's a world of difference. And this matters because they view it as perfectly reasonable for bench press alpha dog to earn the prevailing wage while everyone sitting below him in the meritocracy earns less.
"If you want to earn the big money, you need to push yourself, dude!"
Eventually, and probably without really thinking about it, you solidify this culture and codify it into your practices. Interviews now formally involve feats of strength. When outsiders point out that this doesn't have much bearing on how effective a mover someone is, particularly given the existence of tools of the trade, you now have an official policy pooh-poohing such objections. Look, the interview is the interview, and if you can't bulk up for a few months ahead of the feats of strength, you must not even care about this job, brah.
As the owner of this now burgeoning business, you have certain worries. Chief among these involves competition from departing staff or others that figure out the game. One of your employees could branch out and compete with you, say by specializing. He could offer to handle moves with a large number of antiques or with medical equipment. More generally, this would involve the realization that, while physical strength mattered for the performance of the job, it doesn't translate meaningfully to any outcome that buyers care about.
But this doesn't turn out to be a serious concern or one that's hard to address. You intuitively understand the minds of competitive teens hanging out at the gym, and you reinforce those tendencies. You hold public tournaments with cash prizes for the person that can move a dining room table the furthest in 60 seconds. And you even generously pay for your employees to have gym memberships and to take courses in lifting and flexing techniques.
You do all of this because of a subconscious understanding of your own interests. A town in which all able-bodied young people compete for a generic, muddy, and not particularly marketable designation of "strongest" is good for you. A town where they think this strength is valuable on the market is even better for you. But a town where they compete instead for providing the most value to those in need of moving help is really, really not good for you.
I've always loved Hanlon's Razor.
For tying the gym bro as mover analogy back to programming, I'll offer a slight variant on that. I'll say that we shouldn't attribute to conscious conspiracy that which is adequately explained by inertia. Big tech companies aren't twisting their mustaches evilly while devising hackathons and stupid interview processes to deprive you of higher wages. In the programming world, we've been steeped in misdirected, bro-style competition for so long that nobody really consciously thinks of it anymore. We just participate as if it couldn't be any other way.
We all recognize that programming skill is a murky-at-best concept without a ton of direct correlation with market value (after basic competence). Yet we fetishize it anyway. We love competitions and the illusion of meritocracy. We celebrate the generalist and a labor market that forces pointless competition instead of specialty and expertise. Get really good at moving medical equipment? Scrimshaw! A true mover should be good at moving everything. So let's have a 10,000 person weightlifting competition!
My message here is a pretty simple one, at least in terms of a call to action. I mostly wrote this post to leave it here and link to it later as I evolve the thesis of DaedTech to help developers own their labor. So here it will stay, and I'll leave you with a simple message for now.
Stop metaphorically bench pressing in the hopes that you'll become the strongest person in the town. You won't be. In the game of "good at Java" or "good at algorithms" in which you compete against roughly 18 million people, you're going to lose badly and then you're going to sheepishly infer that anyone who tells you that you don't deserve more money is right. But that isn't right. It's self-defeating and arbitrary.
So find your thing, and don't let it be the generalist thing. There are 18 million people pushing gently but firmly downward on your earning when you do that. Tell them to save their feats of strength and go find your own corner of the world to excel in.


text:
<?php

namespace Application\Model;

use Geo\Model\AbstractEntity;
use Application\Model\DbTable\ClassificacaoTable;

/**
 * Função da Classificacao
 *
 * @author João Paulo P Villela <joao.villela@geoinova.com.br>
 */
class Classificacao extends AbstractEntity {

    /**
     * @var serial
     */
    protected $id;

    /**
     * @var character varying(50) NOT NULL
     */
    protected $descricao;

    /**
     * Status [A] Ativo [I] Inativo
     * @var character(1) NOT NULL DEFAULT 'A'
     */
    protected $status;

    /**
     * @var ClassificacaoTable
     */
    protected $_tblClassificacao;

    public function getId() {
        return $this->id;
    }

    public function getDescricao() {
        return $this->descricao;
    }

    public function getStatus() {
        return $this->status;
    }

    public function setId($id) {
        $this->id = $id;
        return $this;
    }

    public function setDescricao($descricao) {
        $this->descricao = $descricao;
        return $this;
    }

    public function setStatus($status) {
        $this->status = $status;
        return $this;
    }

    public function __construct() {
        $this->status = 'A';
    }

    /**
     * @return UnidadeGeradoraTable
     */
    protected function _getTabela() {

        if( null == $this->_tblClassificacao ) {
            $this->_tblClassificacao = new ClassificacaoTable();
        }

        return $this->_tblClassificacao;
    }

    /**
     *
     * @param integer $id Codigo do tipo de Unidade que deseja
     * @return Classificacao
     */
    public function getClassificacao($id) {
        return $this->_getTabela()->getClassificacao($id);
    }

    /**
     * Lista todas os tipo de Unidade Geradoras ativas na base
     * @return <Classificacao>
     */
    public function getListaClassificacao() {
        return $this->_getTabela()->getListaClassificacao();
    }

    /**
     * Retorna uma lista com todos os tipo de Unidade Geradora ativas, no
     * formato de array para colocar no Campos de Formularios do Tipo Selec
     * @return array
     */
    public function getListaClassificacaoSelect() {
        $lista = array( '' => 'Selecione um Tipo de Unidade' );
        $lstTipo = $this->getListaClassificacao();
        $tipo = new Classificacao();

        foreach( $lstTipo as $tipo ) {
            $lista[ $tipo->id ] = $tipo->descricao;
        }

        return $lista;
    }

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Yale University, whose motto is Lux et Veritas (Light and Truth) has inflicted upon itself a disturbing piece of censorship of a publication by Yale Press. Any private publisher can pick and choose what it wants to publish, but to publish a scholarly work about art without including the art is shoddy scholarship.
The book is by Jytte Klausen, a Danish professor of political science at Brandeis University; The Cartoons that Shook the World is about the political cartoons depicting Mohammed in a Danish newspaper that led to riots and death threats and widespread self-censorship in many news rags around the world, including in the U.S. The censorship is Yale's, not Klausen's. You may see the cartoons online at Wiki.
Opinion is divided as to whether Yale is more afraid of threats or more persuaded by Saudi money, of which there seems to be quite a bit in the university. People are asking whether we can expect attacks, for instance, on the sculpture of Mohammed in the Supreme Court. If Lux et Veritas has given up on free speech, can we expect to see a domino effect in other venerable United States institutions?


text:
Mithrim is een fictieve regio in Beleriand uit het legendarium van J.R.R. Tolkien.

Mithrim lag in het zuidwestelijk deel van Hithlum, de regio waartoe het behoorde. Het grensde in het oosten aan Dor-lómin, maar werd er door de Ered Mithrim van gescheiden. Het klimaat was hetzelfde als dat van Hithlum, de lucht was fris en de winters waren koud. In het noorden van Mithrim lag een groot meer met dezelfde naam.

De Noldor woonden hier een tijdje totdat ze naar andere landen trokken. Later in de Eerste Era werd het gebied gecontroleerd door Fingolfin.

Locatie in Beleriand

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Les Schwab owners' group pursuing sale of company
tb-logo
COMMERCIAL TIRE
FACTORY FIXES
RETAIL TIRES
SEMA/AAPEX
TIRE MAKERS
Canadian Tire to install EV charging stations at 90 retail stores
IHS: Repair shops should watch changing VIO trends
Ex-Icahn exec Ninivaggi trying to pressure Tenneco into changes
Goodyear, Michelin invest in dynamic driving simulators
Pyrolyx U.S.A. secures funding for second recovered carbon black plant
U.S., China take first step toward broader trade deal
Year in Review: Tire dealers round out decade in good spirits
Fisher: What will 2020 bring for industry?
Hankook adds pair of wide-base TBR tires to N. American portfolio
TIA adds fifth CTS instructor training course in Louisville
Tariffs, M&A, investments top list of major stories of 2019
Pa. House drops vehicle inspection exemption from Senate bill
Hankook promotes Sanghoon Lee to president of European operations
CMA adding Tianli-brand ag, OTR line to N. American portfolio
ARCA extends sponsorship, race tire supply deals with General Tire
Conti promotes Joerg Burfien to president of Hoosier Tire
Goodyear secures tire contract for FIA World Touring Car Cup
FIA picks Pirelli as World Rally tire supplier, starting in 2021
Michelin introduces BFGoodrich farm implement tire
Hercules upgrades Terra Trac CUV/SUV series
Sara Ross, Stacey Hanke to headline Women in Auto Care conference
Tire Pros adds 32 locations, including 9 in California
Early bird registration open for YANG 2020 Leadership Conference
Sales competition, specialization in independent dealer shops' future
Colorado repair shop owner invents tire installation tool
Tireco keeps growing; eyes Milestar dealer program in 2020
Jovita Carranza confirmed as SBA administrator
NFIB holding webinar Dec. 4 on new federal overtime rule
Tennessee couple named Milex franchisees of the year
Goodyear's Gadsden plant 'hit hard' with buyouts
Tire makers shuffle executive positions in 2019
SEMA LIVESTREAMS
'Johnny G' back in industry with retail data program
(Tire Business photos by Sigmund J. Mikolajczyk)
John Gamauf (left), a consultant with New York-based marketing research firm GfK Group, explains the company's new dealer program during an interview with Tire Business. Neil Portnoy, GfK's managing director, Retail and Technology, Consumer Choices, is at right.
By William Schertz, Tire Business staff
AKRON (April 20, 2015) — John "Johnny G" Gamauf, former president of consumer replacement tire sales for Bridgestone/Firestone North American Tire, has come out of retirement to partner with German market research firm GfK Group in the firm's effort to launch a point-of-sale retail panel in the U.S.
GfK launched its first retail tire panel in Germany 15 years ago, according to Dick Williams, vice president, consulting, GfK Automotive division. Since then the firm has expanded to panels in various other markets, including parts of Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa.
Like those panels, the new U.S. version will collect point-of-sales data from retailers and deliver back aggregated reports to give participating dealers an edge in understanding brand and features success, regional pricing, discounts and other key trends.
Mr. Gamauf will serve in a consulting role on the project, which promises to provide tire retailers with "long-needed marketplace intelligence to help them grow profits," according to GfK.
"Coming to the United States was a really good idea from our point of view, because it was our clients in Europe and around the world — the global tire companies — who said, 'We need this information in the United States market,'" Mr. Williams told Tire Business in a recent exclusive interview. "So they basically had already sort of given us the green light to go ahead. Our task was just to figure out how to do it.
Dick Williams, vice president, consulting, GfK Automotive division
"Since the United States is just a little bit bigger in terms of consumers and points of sale than they've got in Germany — or any other market, frankly, in the world — it's a little bit more difficult task, which is why we brought Johnny G in. Because we needed somebody who not only knew who the retailers were but actually really knew those people well enough to pick up the phone and say, 'We want to come out and tell you about something.'"
Under Mr. Gamauf's leadership, Bridgestone/Firestone created its Affiliated Dealer Program, developing a network of thousands of consumer tire dealers. In addition, the company set sales records for replacement tires during his tenure.
Retired since 2008 after 39 years in the tire industry, Mr. Gamauf said he had trouble passing up the offer to work with GfK after he learned more about how the program works.
"Really, the bulk of information that is available today comes from the RMA, the Rubber Manufacturers Association, as far as how many units are sold or whatever," he told Tire Business. "But nobody has sell-out information. Nobody has point-of-sale sell-out information.
"What does the average retailer sell a Goodyear Wrangler at in such-and-such size? How many run-flats are sold at an average retailer per month? etc., etc.," he continued. "All of a sudden, it opened up my eyes and I said, 'Wow, this is not only good for tire retailers, this is good for the tire industry, because we're kind of lagging behind."
According to Neil Portnoy, managing director, retail and technology, GfK's Consumer Choices division, the firm hopes to establish the data acquired as a "common currency" between retailers and manufacturers.
"Basically what we're doing here is asking the retailers to provide us the raw material from which to extrapolate the entire market," he said. "So we want that scanned data from each one of these retailers for each of their locations. We provide insights back to each individual retailer about what's happening in their shops, and we compare it to the total market when we have it up and running."
Mr. Portnoy added that the practice is commonplace in the food and drug industries, as well as "a lot of other specialty channels like pet care and contact lenses.
"Those retail manufacturers have had these data sets for many, many years to make fact-based decisions from," he said. "I think we are well-positioned now to provide the (tire) retailers, the manufacturers and the industry with these types of numbers so that everybody can have a common view of what's happening in the marketplace."
New York City-based GfK said there is no fee to join the program or receive the data it will provide. The company expects to have its panel completed by year-end with full reports being available to members in the first quarter of 2016.
GfK is one of the world's leading research companies, with approximately 13,000 experts "working to discover new insights into the way people live, think and shop" in more than 100 markets. In 2012, the firm reported sales of $1.62 billion (U.S.).
The company was founded in 1934 in Nuremberg, Germany, by Wilhelm Vershofen. The letters GfK come from the original German name, Gesellschaft fur Konsumforschung.
To find out more about the program and Gfk, visit its website or follow the company on Twitter. Dealers interested in the program can sign up here.
To reach this reporter: [email protected]; 330-865-6148; Twitter: @Will_Schertz
Do you have an opinion about this story? Do you have some thoughts you'd like to share with our readers? Tire Business would love to hear from you. Email your letter to Editor Don Detore at [email protected].
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In the fall of 2014, Joe and I started a conversation about the possibility of a small scale walnut harvest. We had some great walnut trees that had hit maturity and some up-and-coming trees that could use the extra sunlight. Time for action! Our first step was to walk the woodlot with our forester, John. We walked the woodlot deciding the fate of the walnut trees. Three measurements were conducted at each perspective tree; diameter at breast height (dbh), the number of saw logs in each tree, and finally board feet per tree. John sent off this inventory to interested loggers who than had a chance to win the job via a sealed bid process. Both the tree farm and the winning bidder were hoping for a spring harvest, but the weather didn't cooperate. So on November 9th the logging began!
The logging operation was a three man crew. Two cutters, who were responsible for dropping and limbing the trees. A third person drove the logs to the landing with a log skidder.
Once all the logs were skidded to the landing, the loggers were able to closely inspect each and cut it to an appropriate length. They then contacted a buyer who came and inspected the cut-to-length logs. The buyers in turn, arranged for the logs to be hauled away from the landing. After that the work is all mine!
We are doing timber stand improvement (TSI) along with cleaning up the walnut tree tops. The tree tops will be cut into firewood for the shop boiler, and smaller diameter saw logs that we can use for our own lumber needs. The TSI work includes using the tree shear on the bobcat to remove elm, box elder, and buckthorn.
Rachel and I will be chipping the trees removed during TSI and the slash (left over debris) from the timber harvest. We hope to add trails and hand plant both black walnut and oak in the newly created openings of canopy. Stay tuned for updates.
Thank you for this wonderful post to share. There are some great walnut trees that had hit maturity and some up-and-coming trees that could use the extra sunlight. If you want essay related topic you can go for write my paper will get better result.


text:
La línea Barcelona-Vilanova-Valls es una línea de ferrocarril de 91,8 kilómetros de longitud que transcurre por la costa catalana uniendo las ciudades de Barcelona, Villanueva y Geltrú, Valls, y Picamoixons, enlazando con la Línea Tarragona-Reus-Picamoixons-Lérida, y las respectivas comarcas.

Historia

Esta línea fue construida por la Compañía de los Ferrocarriles de Valls a Vilanova y Barcelona (VVB) y fue inaugurada en 1881, esta misma compañía fue la que construyó la Línea Reus - Falset - Mora - Ribarroja - Fayón. Finalmente la compañía fue absorbida por Compañía de los Ferrocarriles de Tarragona a Barcelona y Francia

Recorrido
Esta línea parte de la bifurcación que hay entre la estación de Sants y la Estación de Hospitalet de la Línea Barcelona-Martorell-Villafranca-Tarragona, después marcha dirección al Prat de Llobregat, donde después se separa de la Línea El Prat-Aeropuerto. En la estación de San Vicente de Calders enlaza de nuevo con la Línea Barcelona-Martorell-Villafranca-Tarragona pero enseguida parte hacia Valls. En Roda de Barà hay una conexión y un cambiador de ancho con la LAV Madrid - Zaragoza - Barcelona - Frontera Francesa y finalmente la línea termina en la Plana de Picamoixons enlazando con la Línea Tarragona-Reus-Picamoixons-Lérida.

Servicios

Antiguamente la estación terminal de la línea estaba situada en las Hortes de Sant Beltran, junto a las Atarazanas, pero desapareció cuando se unificó la línea con la Línea Barcelona-Martorell-Villafranca-Tarragona, haciendo que después del Prat subiese hacia Bellvitge para unirse a esta línea y entrar a la estación de Sants.

Por esta línea circulaba la línea de trenes de la R10 de Cercanías Barcelona que unían el Aeropuerto con la Estación de Francia, pero desde 2009 este servicio ha quedado asumido por la R2 Norte. Desde San Vicente de Calders hacia Barcelona circula la R2 de Cercanías Barcelona para después ir hacia Massanet-Massanas. También circulan trenes de media distancia y larga distancia.

Véase también
Líneas de Media Distancia en Cataluña
Catalunya Exprés
Renfe operadora

Enlaces externos

Líneas de ferrocarril en Cataluña


Mouse over any square to see detailed statistics on domestic violence in the United States.
This feature requires Macromedia's Flash Player. If you don't see the grid above, download the player here or download the statistics as a text file.
Note: After the July/August 2005 print issue of Mother Jones went to press the Department of Justice released a new report on domestic violence. The above statistics differ in three instances from those published in the issue to reflect the findings of that report. See sources for details.


The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits jumped to its highest level in more than two years last week amid a surge in applications in hurricane-ravaged Texas, but the underlying trend remained consistent with a firming jobs market.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits soared by 62,000 to a seasonally adjusted 298,000 for the week ended Sept. 2, the highest level since April 2015, the Labor Department said on Thursday.
The weekly increase was the largest since November 2012. Data for the prior week was unrevised. A Labor Department official said last week's data had been impacted by Hurricane Harvey, which devastated parts of Texas, including unprecedented flooding in Houston.
Unadjusted claims for Texas surged 51,637 last week as some people found themselves temporarily unemployed. Claims for Louisiana were also affected by the storm and increased 258.
In addition, claims for California, Hawaii, Kansas, Puerto Rico, Virginia and Wyoming were estimated because of the Labor Day holiday on Monday.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims rising to 241,000 in the latest week.
The four-week moving average of claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, increased by 13,500 to 250,250 last week suggesting the labor market continued to strength.
The government reported last week that the economy created 156,000 jobs in August, with the private services sector hiring the smallest number of workers in five months.
Economists largely dismissed the slowdown in job growth, blaming it on a seasonal quirk. Over the past several years, the initial August job count has tended to exhibit a weak bias, with revisions subsequently showing strength.
The claims report also showed the number of people still receiving benefits after an initial week of aid fell 5,000 to 1.94 million in the week ended Aug. 26. The so-called continuing claims have now been below the 2 million mark for 21 straight weeks, pointing to shrinking labor market slack.


text:
Q: Running a python script for multiple text files whose names are stored in a csv file I have text files(100.txt,101.txt,102.txt) etc in a folder /Users/Don/Desktop/TextAuto. Now i wrote a script to extract certain info from each text file. Now i need to run this script for all the files ( 100.txt,101.txt,102.txt etc..).
I tried this : input.csv has text file names 100.txt,101.txt...
import re
import csv

with open ('input.csv') as csvfile :
     readCSV = csv.reader(csvfile, delimiter=',')
     for row in readCSV :
         text1 = row[0]
         text2 = row[1]
         textopen = open('/Users/Don/Desktop/TextAuto/'+proto)
         print(textopen)

Output : Instead of printing the content of textopen, it gave me ""
Another way i tried to do this is :
import re
import csv

with open ('input.csv') as csvfile :
     readCSV = csv.reader(csvfile, delimiter=',')
     for row in readCSV :
         text1 = row[0]
         print(text1)

Output : 100.txt

A: You should read the open file textopen before you can print it. For example:
     textopen = open('/Users/Don/Desktop/TextAuto/'+proto)
     print(testopen.readlines())

resource: Methods of File Objects

A: A user posted the answer and deleted it, but thanks to him i got this done.
import re
import csv

files = ['100.txt','101.txt','102.txt']

output1 = csv.writer(open('output1.csv','wb'))

for textfile in files:
with open(textfile) as text:
    readtext = text.read()
    try:

        Stuff you want to do
    output1.writerow([column1,column2,column3])#The indentation is important here to store results for all files.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
The LA Shorts International Film Festival (LA Shorts) founded by Robert Arentz in 1997 is one of the largest international short film festivals in the world with more than 300 films screening annually.

In order to qualify for a short film award at the annual Academy Awards (the Oscars) you must meet the Rules and Eligibility criteria, which includes qualification through awards at qualifying festivals. LA Shorts is the only film festival with 7 award categories recognized by the Academy Awards.

Now in its 26th year, LA Shorts is the longest-running short film festival in Los Angeles. The festival screens over 300 films and attracts over 10,000 attendees each year including Hollywood industry professionals and emerging independent filmmakers.

The festival is accredited by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and award winners are eligible for Academy nomination. LA Shorts is also an official qualifying event for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) short film awards. and the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television (ACCT) presenters of the Canadian Screen Awards – eligible international film festivals. An official qualifying film festival by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of Spain Goya Awards.

LA Shorts alumni directors include Tim Burton, Bryan Singer, Paul Haggis, Shane Black, Jason Reitman, John Woo, Tony Scott, David Lynch, Joe Carnahan, Louis D'Esposito, Terry Gilliam, Jon Favreau, Scarlett Johansson, Vin Diesel, Hilary Swank, Demi Moore, Courteney Cox, Jessica Biel, Kirsten Dunst, Luke Wilson, Ralph Macchio, Ricky Gervais and many more.

The Los Angeles Shorts International Film Festival is held annually at L.A. Live in downtown Los Angeles. The official screening venue is Regal Cinemas L.A. LIVE Stadium 14.

Prestige
In 2010, MovieMaker magazine reported that a total of 33 LA Shorts Fest winners had earned Academy Award nominations, with 11 filmmakers taking home the Oscar

According to Film Festival Life, LA Shorts Fest is the only film festival with seven award categories recognized by the Academy Awards. It reported this year that a total of 44 LA Shorts Fest winners have progressed through to become Academy Award nominees, with 14 filmmakers taking home an Oscar.

Honorees
The festival has honored Charles Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Robert Wise.

References

External links

Film festivals in Los Angeles
Short film festivals in the United States


FEARLESS AWARD – Collection 29 | Karol R.
Un Fearless Award pour la collection 29 ! Voila la super nouvelle de ce matin !
Un grand merci à Sandrine et Clément ainsi qu'à Fearless Photographers.
Don't find ballroom dancing sufficiently challenging? Try it on piggyback! Shooting a wide view from a low angle allowed the photographer to capture all the tiers of activity—from the funny expressions on the men carrying the couple, to the reactions of the crowd in the background, to the smiling faces of the interlocked couple. We even get a sense of the venue and decor, making it a wonderful all-in-one reception image.


text:
Why everyone deserves a right to recreation
MATTHEW ROZSA, Salon
What is it about Americans that makes us so afraid of admitting that people ought to have free time — both for their own sake as individuals, and for the betterment of society?
There is a stigma associated with the idea that people have a right to recreation. It's difficult enough convincing many right-wing Americans that everyone has a right to a job — but arguing that every person is entitled to leisure time is practically verboten even on the left. After all, a right to leisure, by implication, means a right to do as one pleases with one's time — even if that doesn't involve holding down a job and receiving compensation for said work.
It means, in other words, that you have a right to money without having to work for it, so that you can figure out the best way to realize your own individual potential through recreation.
The stigma surrounding this concept became pretty clear when there was a backlash to overview notes from a version of a Green New Deal proposal which said that there should be "economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work." While the immediate imperative there would be to guarantee that financial hardships wouldn't befall even the willfully lazy — a group that Americans from both parties seem to feel deserve whatever misfortunes come to them — there is also the subtext that those who aren't willing or able to work at traditional jobs may genuinely feel that their time would be better spent doing other things. The outrage, of course, was rooted in the fact that the rest of society would have to foot the bill.
The fact that we spend far more every year — quite literally trillions — on tax cuts for the super-rich, building up our military-industrial complex and incarcerating millions of our own citizens eludes these people. Some will protest against those egregious expenses on both moral and fiscal grounds, but virtually everyone seems to agree that the comparative pittance which would have to be spent guaranteeing a right to recreation to all Americans would be absolutely unacceptable.
Yet proponents of the Green New Deal aren't the first ones to advocate for a right to recreation, although this has usually been linked to some form of work. When President Franklin Roosevelt outlined an Economic Bill of Rights in his 1944 State of the Union address, he mentioned "the right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation." Andrew Yang, an entrepreneur running for president in the 2020 election cycle, has advocated a "freedom dividend" of $1,000 each month that he argues would not only provide financial security for all Americans and empower workers against their employers, but also ensure recreation time that allows people to realize their full potential.
"[Universal Basic Income] increases entrepreneurship because it provides for basic needs in the early lean days of a company and acts as a safety net if the business fails," Yang explains on his website. "It also gives you more consumers to sell to because everyone has more disposable income. The Roosevelt Institute found that a UBI would create 4.6 million jobs and grow the economy by 12 percent continuously. UBI would be the greatest catalyst for new jobs, entrepreneurship, and creativity we have ever seen."
After pointing out that his freedom dividend would also improve the physical and mental health of recipients, he adds that universal basic income "increases art production, nonprofit work and caring for loved ones because it provides a supplementary income for those interested in labor that isn't supported by the market."
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a similar point in 2017, back when he was supposedly flirting with a presidential run, arguing that a universal basic income would "make sure that everyone has a cushion to try new ideas."
This brings me to a quote from Mark Twain, uttered during an interview with The New York Times in 1905, that best sums up the deeper philosophical and sociological point which needs to be made. The quote began when he explained that, despite being a prolific author, he had never done a day's work in his life.
No, Sir, not a day's work in all my life. What I have done I have done, because it has been play. If it had been work I shouldn't have done it.
Who was it who said, "Blessed is the man who has found his work"? Whoever it was he had the right idea in his mind. Mark you, he says his work – not somebody else's work. The work that is really a man's own work is play and not work at all. Cursed is the man who has found some other man's work and cannot lose it. When we talk about the great workers of the world we really mean the great players of the world. The fellows who groan and sweat under the weary load of toil that they bear never can hope to do anything great. How can they when their souls are in a ferment of revolt against the employment of their hands and brains? The product of slavery, intellectual or physical, can never be great.
To be clear: I am not arguing that society doesn't need workers, or that laziness shouldn't be stigmatized. What I am arguing is that people often achieve their best selves when they aren't on the job, and that society is often best positioned to benefit from each individual's unique talents and abilities when they are figuring out how to excel with their gifts regardless of whether the marketplace will accommodate them.
Therein lies the wisdom of Twain's observation, as well as this one from LiveScience's Simon Gottschalk:
Much research – and many spiritual and philosophical systems Buddhism, for example, suggest that detaching from daily concerns and spending time in simple reflection and contemplation are essential to health, sanity and personal growth.
Similarly, to equate "doing nothing" with nonproductivity betrays a short-sighted understanding of productivity. In fact, psychological research suggests that doing nothing is essential for creativity and innovation, and a person's seeming inactivity might actually cultivate new insights, inventions or melodies.
It is notable that few people begrudge those who are born into extreme wealth and can afford to wile away their hours indulging in pleasurable activities. It is only when the rest of society says that they too should have the ability to recreate as they choose — and not just for pleasure, but so they can find the best versions of themselves — that the intelligentsia reacts with horror.
I think it is high time to bust that stigma, to touch that third rail, to move the right to recreation within the confines of the Overton Window. If people have a right to health, then they have a right to recreation regardless of whether they have a job. Similarly if society is to benefit as much as possible from everyone's unique individual skill sets, then we need to provide every person with the ability to explore those skill sets regardless of whether they can find employment doing them.
Society is harmed, and individual rights are abridged, when a person does not have time to play because society does not allow them to do that as "work."
TAGS: Economic Bill of Rights, freedom dividend, Green New Deal, Leasure Time, Mark Twain, Roosevelt, The Roosevelt Institute, Vacation


Pretty patterns of gas and dust.
The Lambda Centauri Nebula (guess which star is near it) has an amazing amount of star formation. It is peppered with the so-called Bok globules, concentrated dark patches where low-mass stars are suspected to develop. IC 2944 lies in that part of Centaur which does not make it above Baton Rouge's horizon.


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text:
Q: Subtract 1 from number (recursion in Prolog) I'm trying to understand how to write recursive functions in Prolog. I've come with a the following code:
reduceBy1(Input,Output) :-
    (Input > 0 -> Output is Input - 1).

calling reduceBy1(10,Output). results in 9. So far, so good. But how do I pass Output back into reducyBy1\2 ?

A: Here is a way:
reduceBy1(0,[]).
reduceBy1(H,[H|T]) :-
         (H>0->
         H1 is H-1,
         reduceBy1(H1,T)).

Suppose you give a number as input, now you want it to print all the numbers in descending order. The Output list should end at 1.
The first predicate is the base case: It says that when Input which is H in our case is 0 and whatever is in the list, the program should stop. Base predicate is the predicate with the ending condition. For the next predicate we take H as input and [H|T] as Output meaning start the output with the input number, that is why [H|T]. It then checks if Input is greater than 0 it should then subtract 1 and save it to H1. Now we give reduceBy1 new values H1 which becomes the new input , T is the output that starts storing the numbers as a list. The program goes through each predicate to see which one is a success. If the input is =0 [This will happen when the numbers keep getting decremented till we reach that situation], so when it checks the base predicate it is a success. The program ends by giving whatever is stored in the List at that point.
?-reduceBy1(6,L).
L = [6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1]

?-reduceBy1(10,L).
L = [10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1]

?-reduceBy1(-5,L).
False


text:
Tiger Woods' ex-mistress Rachel Uchitel says she apologises to just 'one person' for sex scandal
Tiger Woods' ex-mistress Rachel Uchitel doesn't think she owes many people an apology.
Uchitel, 45, became known as one of the pro golfer's "other women" in 2009 when his sex scandal made headlines.
Now, she's spoken with Derek Zagami of New England Cable News ahead of her upcoming appearance in the HBO two-part docuseries "Tiger," which chronicles the athlete's career, including his affair.
"I spent 10 years having a lot of the media be very snarky in the way that they write about me, the public be very angry in the way they speak about me and the way that they perceive me, and I have felt like they have wanted an apology from me," Uchitel said.
TIGER WOODS' FORMER MISTRESS RACHEL UCHITEL BREAKS SILENCE ON INTIMATE DETAILS OF THEIR SORDID LOVE AFFAIR
The star said she was sorry if people felt she had "triggered something in people that causes anger or hurt."
Rachel Uchitel is speaking out about her affair with Tiger Woods in an upcoming TV special airing Sunday on HBO. (AP)
"I clearly haven't wanted to cause any anger in those people because that is not who I am and that is not a position that I want to put anybody in," she explained.
Uchitel said that she feels she doesn't "owe" anyone such an apology "because I didn't personally hurt anyone and people don't personally know me."
"They are putting a lot of their personal anger on me for their own personal issues," she explained. "It's on my shoulders and that's been really hard for me to take when my personal story has been with two other people, and those are the only people that you know my apology goes to. Or one person, really."
Uchitel seems to be referencing either Woods, 45, or his ex-wife, Elin Nordegren.
TIGER WOODS' EX-MISTRESS RACHEL UCHITEL SAYS LIFE HAS BEEN 'LIVING HELL' FOR YEARS
Their affair took place over a decade ago, so Uchitel is hoping that someday soon, she'll see some reprieve in the public eye.
"He's moved on. He got to win a bunch of things, he got to have a comeback," she stated. "Let me have a comeback. Let me be my own person, let me have another story."
Woods' comeback came over the course of several years and culminated in his 2019 victory at the Masters Tournament. Before that, many women had claimed to have had sexual relationships with the famed golfer, leading to his divorce.
Rachel Uchitel. (AP)
Uchitel expands on the affair in "Tiger" as well.
On camera, Uchitel reveals that the golf star referred to their past secret [rendezvous] as "plugging in," and goes on to say the athlete felt "recharged" after their trysts, according to the Daily Mail.
Uchitel, a former nightclub hostess, recalls speaking to Woods for hours on end about the personal details and relationships in his life, mainly the impact his late father Earl Woods had on him.
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The documentary's second part reportedly will show Uchitel recalling first locking eyes with Woods at a nightclub in New York. That's where Woods allegedly asked for her number and texted her minutes later.
The second part of "Tiger" will debut on HBO on Jan. 17.
Fox News' Melissa Roberto contributed to this report
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/tiger-woods-mistress-rachel-uchitel-apologises-one-person-sex-scandal
ex-mistress
uchitel
recharged
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski Says She Opposes SCOTUS Nominee Vote Before Election
The Woodstock 'miracle' almost didn't happen
CNN January 14, 2021
Reports: Donald Trump Intends to Pick Amy Coney Barrett to Replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg


Every time I open the program my music library is empty. I have Windows Vista. - Acoustica inc.
The music library problem is due to one of Windows Vista's new security measures. Windows Vista is not allowing DJ Twist and Burn to make changes to its own music library. To avoid that problem, run the program in administrator mode. Right-click on DJ Twist and Burn"s desktop icon and select "Run as Administrator."
You can also change DJ Twist and Burn"s short cut so that it always runs in administrator mode. Right-click on the shortcut, select Properties and on the Shortcut tab, click on Advanced. Put a check mark next to the Run as Administrator option and click OK to save your change.