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Local communities in Australia relive history and organise online
Home / News / Local communities in Australia relive history and organise online
By c2o MELBOURNE, Australia,
Page last updated on 31 May 2016
APC member c2o and Toy Satellite are very proud to announce the entire rebuild of the Rowville-Lysterfield History Project (RLHP).
RLHP is an archive of photos and stories told by the eldest members of the Rowville-Lysterfield community (Victoria, Australia) of their memories of the oldest people they remember when they were children. It is a rich telling of anecdotal histories that would otherwise be lost; of Aboriginal mounted police, the Bunerong and the Wawoorung clans of the Kulin nation, the little known prisoner of war camp, the stories of both women and men, many who would live their lives over again.
Originally produced in 2000 and utilising one of c2o's first custom built content management systems (CMS), the site is now in line with current CMS and web design technologies.
The RLHP rebuild was produced with the support of c2o/Toy Satellite. RLHP was originally funded by the Commonwealth Federation Fund and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.
Community action group monitors local development
c2o and Toy Satellite have also collaborated with another Melbourne-based community action group on the design and production of a new website for a diverse neighbourhood undergoing development. The Smith Street, site functions as an archive of historical records and research and a campaign tool for the Collingwood Action Group, a media watch on matters related to Smith Street and an emergent cultural content area.
Rowville-Lysterfield History Project
SmithStreet.org
Author: —- (c2o )
Source: c2o
Category: Building Information Communities
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With the advancement of technology, negotiations in the digital world have increased, so much so that there are many people who are engaged in independent work and development (freelance) in web environments or applications for existing systems and receive their payment in a digital way. However, at the time of presenting a problem between parties, both for contractors and for these independent entrepreneurs, it becomes difficult to resolve disputes and generally one party ends up incapacitated and losing their investment or their work. Most of the time, litigating these problems is expensive, or simply the laws do not cover legislations over other localities.
In both cases, there are many types of contests or disputes that can be avoided with the use of the Kleros ecosystem, a decentralized system to resolve disputes of any kind. In the following report, it will be explained in detail how it works and what applications the Kleros system can have.
Kleros is an ecosystem based on blockchain technology, built on Ethereum, to resolve any type of dispute between two entities in a fast, safe, automatic and economic way. It takes advantage of crowdsourcing technologies to implement game theories and economic incentives to develop a fairer and less expensive justice system.
Kleros encourages this system of justice by using a mechanism very similar to Schelling Coin (created by the founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin), in which a question is asked to a series of agents who have no communication between them. However, they all assume that they must respond with the truth and their economic incentive will depend on the final result of the answers, that is, all those whose votes coincide with the majority response will get a commission and those who voted otherwise will have a similar amount deducted.
To put the Kleros arbitration system into operation, a smart contract must be created indicating the Kleros court or sub-court system (for instance, for a freelancing contract, the freelancing sub-court must be selected) and the number of juries must also be indicated. Likewise, each party involved in the dispute must pay an arbitration fee.
The contract must also specify the options among which the juries must decide, together with the description of the actions to be executed for each of the options defined by the contract.
All the information transmitted between the juries and the parties in dispute, will be encrypted, to ensure the privacy of the information.
These contracts, the options and actions to be decided will be handled through the contract development software of the Kleros application.
Return the money. Action: transfer the money to Jim's wallet.
Give an extra week to Anne. Action: block new disputes for a week and remove this option for future disputes.
Pay Anne. Action: Transfer the money to Anne's wallet.
In case there is a problem between Jim and Anne, the majority decision of the vote among the judges will decide the action that the smart contract will take.
The selection of juries is determined at random, however, it will also depend on the number of pinakion tokens (PNK, native token of Kleros) that a jury deposits. The more PNK tokens they deposit, the more likely they are to be selected. Users will be incentivized to serve as jurors, due to the arbitration fee obtained in each dispute.
Protect the system from Sybil attack (The Sybil attack occurs when a distributed system is corrupted by one entity that controls different identities of the network so the system does not know the difference between genuine nodes and the fake ones). In this way, a single entity would have control of the jury system.
Provide the jurors with the incentive to vote honestly. In this way, they will receive the deposit portion of those who voted incoherently (this will be explained further in the incentive system section).
It is necessary to indicate that the selection of the juries is done through a process that generates random numbers based on a computational scheme of proof of work (which also works with proof of stake) and verification of interactions. However, this process takes time, which could present a problem to resolve disputes of certain sub-courts in particular, but it is considered for the future to use a faster and less secure method for this type of cases.
The jurors will cast their vote after examining the evidence. The vote will be sent encrypted together with the Ethereum address of the jury for reasons of fee allocation or fee penalty; once the vote has been cast, this can not be changed. The vote remains in secret, this prevents it from influencing other juries. Finally, when all the juries have voted, the option with the highest number of votes is the winner and immediately the action of the smart contract is executed. The juries in favor of the winning option will be rewarded and the others will be penalized (see incentive system).
Each party to the contest must pay a fee for the arbitration in order to compensate the juries who are in favor with the ruling by the court. In addition, the winning party will be reimbursed the amount invested at the end of the dispute. In case a party is the only one that pays the arbitration fee, the smart contract will be in favor of the party that paid, without the need to create a dispute in the court.
Appeals will require a fee payment for arbitration by both parties as well. However, the appellant must deposit an extra fee per appeal; with the purpose of covering the time waste by the opposing party in case of losing the dispute. In case of winning the dispute, the appellant will be refunded their extra fee.
In the event that a party is not satisfied with the court's decision, it may appeal and issue a new dispute. Each appeal will have twice as many juries and the appeal fee will be increased by the number of juries. Therefore, each arbitration fee will grow exponentially with each new appeal. This is to avoid bribery attacks on the judges.
After the Kleros system has reached a decision in the dispute, the tokens are distributed among the juries that voted in favor of the final decision. The juries who voted against will be subtracted from their balance; This mechanism is inspired by the Schelling Coin mechanism mentioned above, where the juries will win or lose tokens depending on their vote.
The tokens will be shared equally among the winning jurors, as shown in the following image (Bob has lost the dispute and must pay the arbitration fee).
Where the value of alpha determines the number of tokens to be distributed after the ruling; min_activate is the minimum number of tokens to activate the sub-court (arbitration fee), and weight is the weight of the jurors.
Buying half of the tokens: This attack consists of the attacker acquiring half of all the tokens of the system, in such a way that attacker could decide the results of the disputes. However, this is not possible because the tokens are distributed fairly and it is not guaranteed that half of the tokens are available for sale. In addition, they will have a price dynamically in the exchanges, so it is increasingly expensive to acquire the tokens.
It is probably easy to bribe a small number of jurors, on the part of the attacker. However, the victim can always appeal. So the amount of juries to be bribed will increase exponentially with each new appeal.
Therefore, for an attacker to succeed, it must bribe an amount of pinakions over 50% of the Kleros' tokens, which in most cases will exceed the value represented by the dispute itself.But it is important to clarify that this attack does not work in a model of majority honesty like Kleros'.
The following figure shows the General Court and the sub-courts that are part of the legal system of Kleros. Each sub-court determines its policies, arbitration fees, session time, minimum number of tokens to be activated and number of juries. Each jury can register in any sub-court, but initially it must be in the General Court.
The governance mechanism is used to improve the functioning of the Kleros ecosystem. These are decided through the voting of the tokens holders or in their absence, by the delegation of their votes.
Establish policies to arbitrate disputes of a particular sub-court. These will determine the conditions for a dispute to be won.
Modify subcourts: add, remove or modify the hierarchy of some subcourts.
Modify subcourts' parameters: arbitration fees, session time and minimum amount to activate a particular subcourt.
Change or improve Kleros smart contracts.
In an environment of e-commerce, Kleros not only offers a great help to minimize expenses of both parties, but also gives more security in the negotiation for both parties. Before paying for a service or property, the funds will be placed in a smart contract. If the goods are in good condition or the service complies with the agreement, the buyer can unlock the funds. Otherwise, a dispute will start and Kleros will decide to reimburse the buyer or pay the seller.
As in the previous case, Kleros allows establishing trust between both parties when defining a contract. A smart contract is created in Kleros to establish a job between two parties living in different continents. If the work or service does not meet the quality required by the contractor, a dispute is issued and Kleros activates the jury to analyze the evidence and issue a verdict. In this way, a fast and safe arbitration is established between the two parties. So action can be taken in case of trouble.
Kleros can also be applied in insurance cases, as long as the smart contract is established before creating an insurance policy. A smart contract is established between the insurance company and the insuree. In case of an accident and insuree does not agree with the quota received by the insurance company, insuree can initiate a dispute and have Kleros determine the final verdict. In the case of several insurees in dispute, the dispute shall decide the distribution of the funds among the insurees.
An Oracle is a decentralized entity that establishes a bridge between the real world and the blockchain, therefore allowing smart contracts to use data from the outside world in their programming. This is done through the mechanism of Schelling Coin, however if all parties involved do not issue a single response to Oracle, the dispute can be arbitrated through Kleros to decide the correct answer and Oracle reward the parties who voted according to the final result and penalize the rest.
Kleros can be used to determine whether an elements belongs to a curated lists or not. The Kleros ecosystem can determine if an element can be admitted to a whitelist or a blacklist; using arbitration of disputes and allowing juries to decide through their votes the fate of the element, in cases where the parties do not agree with the fate of an element within a cured list.
Kleros can be used to arbitrate a dispute for violation of the policies of a social network, whether by spam, scam or other abuse. Kleros can decide whether to remove the content published on the social network, or expel the perpetrator or lower its reputation.
Crowdfundings are networks of collective financing, generally established on the internet that through altruistic or other donations, manage to finance a specific project. Kleros can act as an entity to retain the funds directed to a specific project and return the funds to the crowdfunding participants in case the project does not comply with the stipulated in its milestone.
Jannett visits Charlie's online store. Jannett likes a pair of sneakers that she saw on Charlie's website and decides to buy them. Finally the package arrives at Jannett's house, when she opens the package, Jannett realizes that the shoes are defective. Jannett claims Charlie. However, Charlie never responded and Jannett lost her money.
This would not have happened, if the purchase was created through a Kleros smart contract. Jannett could have started a dispute and the jurors of Kleros would verify the evidence and vote for Jannett; therefore Jannett would receive her money back.
Jack is a composer and decides to enter a decentralized platform to share his music and have an income. Fortunately, this musical platform is backed by the Kleros system; revenues for the songs are blocked by Kleros smart contracts. That gives Jack the confidence to record his music and offer it to the public. Suddenly, another user tells Jack that his music is similar to Claire's. He enters Claire's blog and realizes that Claire's song is his song; so Jack decides to flag Claire for plagiarism. The jury team of Kleros gets into action and determines that the song is obviously Jack's. They vote in favor of Jack and revenue for the song are redirected to Jack's wallet.
Jane is a very popular girl in a decentralized social network, due to the photos and videos she posts. However, Anne decides to comment dirty words in the last photo that Jane posted. Fortunately, the platform has the support of the Kleros ecosystem, therefore, the jury examines the evidence and decides that Anne has violated the terms and conditions by attacking Jane. So Anne loses reputation and her comment is removed from Jane's blog.
Kleros is an ecosystem that allows resolving disputes in a fast, safe and less expensive way. Especially in negotiations and digital contracts or contracts created online or P2P. Kleros can not only arbitrate in a dispute and offer a series of specialist juries that decide the best alternative in a fast way, but also represents a safe way to establish a smart contract that supports a negotiation between two parties. Especially for small and medium-sized enterprises that would spend their income in long, tedious and complicated litigation (usually expensive) when they face disputes.
However, it also would represent a saving for large companies such as Amazon, Ebay and others, by defining the sale of items such as Kleros smart contracts between them and their customers, in order to avoid losses in disputes with customers, especially those buyers who do not live in the same continent.
Kleros can be applied in many cases, as we already have seen.
Research for this post was originally provided by: jadams2k18 on Steemit.


I've been aboard the ship one hour when a fellow passenger spots orcas off to the left, three hours when the captain points to a pod of humpbacks 100 yards to the right.
Alaska has more bald eagles than any other state.
The next morning a bald eagle soars overhead while I'm eating breakfast. For someone who grew up in places where a neighborhood park was considered a wilderness area, Alaska is indeed an alternate universe.
My husband and I are on the Island Spirit, a 32-passenger ship that's one of the smallest commercial vessels to ply the Inside Passage. During a nine-day outing we weave into small inlets that are off-limits to larger vessels, visit a limestone grotto that's hidden in a fairytale forest, and hike among the towering Sitka spruce and western hemlock of Tongass National Forest. At 17 million acres, Tongass is the nation's largest national park.
Small ships can get to places that are off- limits to larger vessels.
What we don't do is check email (no wi-fi), use our cell phone (no cell service) or give two hoots about the state of the world. We are wonderfully, blissfully disconnected.
Before we left home, we made a Bucket List of Alaskan Must-Sees. Number One: Bears.
Along with six other passengers we take a sturdy skiff to a narrow stream that's bridged by a small waterfall. The driver turns off the motor.
Sturdy skiffs leave the larger vessel to explore hidden inlets.
After about five minutes a bear ambles out of the forest, walks to a rock, stares into the stream. He's a picky one, evidently not too hungry, because although the stream is filled with vividly pink salmon, he merely contemplates them and eventually wanders away.
Meanwhile an older bear walks down the same path, scoops up a salmon, looks straight at us as if posing for a photo and disappears into the forest. This bear should be a tourism ambassador.
Bears feast on salmon, especially from mid-July to mid-September.
We cross Number One off our Bucket List. Now we can concentrate on Number Two: Whales.
With the flexibility offered by a small ship, the captain can alter course based on whim, weather or, as we soon learn, whales. He steers the boat up to a large group of the giant mammals — not just any whales but huge humpbacks engaged in bubble net feeding, a ritual that involves surrounding small fish (usually herring) with a "net" of bubbles, pushing the trapped bait to the surface and in a genetically choreographed dance leaping out of the water to devour their catch. It is, for me, the highlight of the trip. I give it a Bucket List star.
A deft navigator can often steer his ship close to giant whales.
Of course, we also see other marine creatures — sun starfish, a sea lion trying to climb a buoy, a variety of iridescent jellyfish, and sea anemones that shimmer like glass sculptures.
Bucket List Number Two — check. We move on to Number Three: Small Towns.
The state of Alaska has about the same number of people as the city of Charlotte, yet it is more than twelve times as big as the entire state of North Carolina. It has fewer people per square mile than any state in the United States. In short, it's easier to find a village than a city.
Float planes are a necessary mode of transportation for small towns like Tenakee Springs.
We stop at Tenakee Springs, a tiny community that was once the home of the Tlingit Indians. Now, since the canneries have closed and the young people have been forced to move to the cities to find work, there are only about sixty full-time residents. Another forty or so come during the summer, drawn by the slow pace, abundant hiking trails, hot springs and Darius Mannino's locally famous cinnamon buns.
Tenakee Springs is home to a rapidly declining group of hardy souls.
A few days later we go to Petersburg, a village of 2,000 people that was founded by Norwegian settlers. Fishing is good in this part of the Alaska — people talk of catching 400-pound halibut and 30-pound salmon— and one in three residents is directly involved in the fishing industry.
Petersburg is out-of-reach for big-ship travelers, but small ships provide enough visitors to support a three-block long Main Street that includes a top-notch bookstore, a hardware store that has morphed into a full general store with everything from bear-themed socks to seven-legged crab magnets.
Petersburg is a thriving coastal community.
There are a couple of bars, one of which offers beer, pool, music and painting classes — all at the same time.
Our final Bucket List item: Wilderness.
Alaska is home to dense forests and magnificent waterfalls, but it's the glaciers and fjords that give it its mystique. There are an estimated 100,000 glaciers in Alaska, but only about 600 of them have been named.
Our first glacier-sighting is Baird Glacier. We depart the skiff and walk carefully along a path of polished rocks, trying not to step on the moss or sprain an ankle.
Baird Glacier is fronted by a field of moss and wildflowers.
Suddenly, ahead of us the mountains open to reveal a wall of chunky ice — not at all the slippery iridescence of Dawes Glacier, which we'll see the following day, but instead a rather gray collection of large rocks, the result of melting ice that reveals underlying sediment. We are seeing geology in motion.
The next day we see motion of another type. It's early morning when we board the skiff for the ride to Dawes. The sky is gloriously blue, the temperature chillingly cold. I pull my scarf up to cover my face and then I hear it — the sounds of crashing ice. Large chunks of ice are breaking off the end of the glacier and splashing in the water. In other words the glacier is calving, or birthing, icebergs.
Chunks of ice break off Dawes Glacier in a process known as calving.
The navigator steers the ship to one of the outlying chunks. It's a small chunk, as icebergs go, but no one complains. It's real, Alaskan glacier ice, and that's more than enough for us.
But it isn't until that afternoon when we reach Ford's Terror that we experience Alaskan-style Wilderness. The secluded fjord is guarded by a narrow channel that can only be traversed at specific times and by very small ships. The Island Spirit is one of the few — if not only — commercial ship to overnight in Ford's Terror. I can't decide whether to be thrilled by its beauty or terrified by our isolation, as was Ford, the naval surveyor whose adventure gave the inlet its name.
Passengers reach out to touch fragments of the glacier.
The next morning we awaken to a universe of complete solitude. The water is calm, the trees high, the clouds low and the air misty due to an overnight rain.
We spend the day exploring the area by kayak and skiff. The mist adds to the magic, and we're reluctant to return to the ship. But the captain has reminded us that we have only fifteen minutes when the waters will be high enough for us to safely exit the fjord.
Kayaking through empty (and cold) waters is a favorite activity for many passengers.
Otherwise, we'll be trapped by the tides for another six hours. Tempting to be sure, but we all have planes to catch.
Our bucket list is complete. Our Alaskan fantasy has become a reality.
Alaska's has waterfalls that thunder down mountains as well as those that trickle down hills.


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Home > Resources > News > Climate change: 7 young climate activists from around the world
Climate change: 7 young climate activists from around the world
Greta Thunberg is often the first name that comes up when people talk about the youth environment movement, but there are young activists all over the world.
From India to Kenya to USA young people have been demanding greater action on things like climate change, plastic pollution and deforestation.
On 20 September kids all over the world will be taking part in the Global Climate Strike, and you can keep up with everything that's going on in our live page here.
Then on 21 September young leaders and activists from around the world including Greta Thunberg gather at the UN's Youth Climate Summit in New York.
Here are some of the people who are taking part in the movement to inspire change around the world.
Lesein Mutunkei (Kenya)
Lesein combined his love for the outdoors and football after hearing about deforestation, climate change and plastic pollution.
The 15 year old plants a tree for every goal he scores.
He encouraged his school and his football club to adopt an environmentally conscious attitude so that as they improve their football they also improve the environment.
Alexandria Villasenor (USA)
14-year-old Alexandria Villaseñor strikes outside the UN headquarters in New York every Friday.
The teenager, who is a Fridays For Future organiser, said: "I'm too young to vote. When I strike, I feel like I am taking back some agency in my future."
Aditya Mukarji (India)
Aditya, who is 15, started campaigning to get people to stop using plastic straws at the beginning of 2018.
At the age of 13 he went round cafes and restaurants persuading them to swop plastic straws for eco-friendly alternatives.
The teenager now promotes alternatives to plastic, campaigns against trees being cut down and supports the climate strikes.
Ella and Caitlin McEwan (UK)
Ella and Caitlin McEwan from Southampton are two sisters who made a petition asking fast food restaurants to stop putting plastic toys in kids' meals.
Ella and Caitlin gathered more than 400,000 signatures. Since then McDonalds said its customers would be able to choose between a toy and a fruit and Burger King said it will remove the plastic toys altogether.
Leah Namugerwa (Uganda)
Leah Namugerwa is a 14-year-old climate activist and student striker with Fridays for Future in Uganda.
She has been striking every Friday for greater action on climate change and plastic pollution since February 2019.
Her country, like many others in Africa, is at risk of desertification - that means fertile farming land turning dry and barren.
Experts say it's caused by droughts and raised temperatures - two factors linked to climate change.
"I wanted to make a positive change in my country and pressure my government into taking action," she told the BBC.
Lilly Platt (Netherlands)
Lilly Platt was born in Britain but lives in the Netherlands where at just 11 years old she has been striking every Friday for climate change.
Accompanied by her mum, she strikes on Fridays for an hour with permission from her school.
She is a child ambassador for the Plastic Pollution Coalition and HOW Global, a water charity.
And she has her own litter-picking campaign, Lilly's Plastic Pick Up. Started in 2015, when Platt was seven.
Holly Gillibrand (UK)
Holly Gillibrand leaves school for an hour every Friday to demand action on climate change.
Holly lives in Fort William which has a population of just 10,000 people. Around 40 people join her to protest every Friday,
"I want to get Scottish leaders to take climate change seriously and [know] that they're destroying my future," she told the BBC.
Source: BBC Newsround
Ashington, Northumberland - £325 to £425 Per Week
Basildon, Essex - £20,900 to £38,810
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Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire - £22,500 to £25,500
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Leeds, Yorkshire - £100 to £160 Per Day

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Sunday April 7, 2019
Ethiopia Setting Solid Foundation for Structural Transformation
SA News – South Africa
President to witness testing of new PRASA train sets
TAP – Tunisia
Karate-Mediterranean Championship: Two gold medals for Tunisia
African Daily Voice
Algeria's prepares to elect new interim president this week
Morocco Wins 2 Gold Medals in Pan African Mathematics Olympiads
The Citizen - Tanzania
$3million medical tech investment benefits 200 health facilities in Tanzania
Ahramonline – Egypt
Egypt's Sisi starts tour to West Africa and the United States
The New Times - Rwanda
Can Africa's energy crises be resolved?
By: Bitange Ndemo
Visiting any African country, there are stories you cannot miss in the headlines - energy, graft, and humanitarian crisis. If you dig deeper into these stories, there are conferences being held, all of them seeking solutions to crises facing Africa.
The problem though is that there is never an end to any of these crises. It is palaver at its best as economies continue to hurt.
In today's column, I will focus on the energy crises. In South Africa, an electricity crisis remains a major threat to the country's economic outlook over the coming years. It is estimated that energy disruptions cut the country's economic growth by as much as one percent every year.
Unlike other African countries, when power goes off in South Africa, telecommunications companies cease to function since they built their infrastructure on the assumption that power would be available 24/7.
When the African National Congress (ANC) met for its bi-annual lekgotla early this month, the energy crises were top on the agenda but sceptical media characterised the ensuing melodrama with headlines like: "Power to the people", "ANC seeks enlightenment" and "ANC seeks power."
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, while addressing the function, did not even recognise that politicians had the responsibility to ensure adequate energy to grow the economy. Instead he told the gathering that "directors in government would have to address the growing energy crises." He promised to check if ministers and departments understood their priorities and whether they had been funded.
In Nigeria, Africa's largest oil and gas producer, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) noted in its March 25 coverage BBC Africa Eye: On the front line of Nigeria's energy crisis, that half of the country's "population has no access to electricity, and those that do face daily power cuts that can last for hours on end."
Yet, President Buhari and APC's nine-point pledge in 2014 promised to "vigorously pursue the expansion of electricity generation and distribution of up to 40,000 megawatt (MW) in four to eight years.
Total installed capacity of the power plants in 2015 was 7,445 MW. Effective average generation was less than 3,900 MW.
In 2017 the country's generation capacity rose to 8,300MW but its peak production stands at 5,222MW which happened on the 18th of December, 2017. Still Nigeria has a long way to go to reach the 40,000 MW target.
In Kenya the story is similar as the Kenyatta Government promised 5,000 MW before the dream was abandoned in favour of expensive subsistence production of energy by independent power producers.
As a result, Kenya's generation capacity is 2,651 MW with a peak demand of 1,802 MW, as at June 2018. Pundits who support subsistence generation of energy argue that there isn't sufficient demand to warrant increased production but this is all a calculated move.
What they don't mention is latent demand and the fact that more than 40 percent of the population is in the dark.
The energy companies in Kenya, although quoted in the Nairobi Securities Exchange, are technically insolvent, going by pieces of information that get leaked to media. The extent of damage is colossal as manufacturers complain about accessibility and affordability of energy that is key to economic growth.
In spite of the inefficiencies surrounding the energy industry in Africa, investor interest remains high. It does not require any genius to raise funds and for once resolve the continent's greatest hindrance to economic growth.
Our failure to manage local resources to become lucrative investment is what is luring Kenyan investors into the hands of conmen in the cryptocurrency space. By now, it should be very clear that minimalist approach to infrastructure development is not working.
There isn't a good economic model to predict consumption of any product. The approach to building enabling infrastructural projects should never be left to private sector whose motive is profit. Virtually all such projects that that the country gambled on have paid off. From Thika Highway to undersea cables, we have had good lessons that could be invoked to deal with energy more effectively and move away from analysis by paralysis.


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Home > Insights > Hold Your Houses: The Housing Recovery May Take Longer Than You Think To Reach Consumers
Hold Your Houses: The Housing Recovery May Take Longer Than You Think To Reach Consumers
The transmission mechanism between home prices and spending depends on lending growth.
By Joshua Anderson, Emmanuel S. Sharef, Grover Burthey May 2013
New residential construction needs to double from 2012 levels to meet long-run stable demand, and the pace of that increase is critical.
Consumer credit growth is hindered by strict lending standards, continued deleveraging and limits to mortgage equity withdrawal.
As a result, the balance of mortgage debt is unlikely to meaningfully increase in the next 12-18 months, delaying a return of the virtuous consumer cycle.
In the wake of the financial crisis, the U.S. consumer has embarked on a necessary path of deleveraging. Now, more than five years into the deleveraging cycle, a recovery has begun, but will housing sector improvements lead to a broad, consumer-based economic recovery?
We believe that housing fundamentals remain strong, but that the impact on growth depends on the ability and willingness of consumers to gradually re-expand their balance sheets. The full benefits of the recovery will take years to realize, with only moderate upside over the coming 12-18 months.
Construction: positive fundamentals in the new home segment
New construction is the primary direct contribution from the housing market to economic growth. Even though residential fixed investment was only 2.4% of GDP in 2012 (down from its peak of 6.1% in 2005), it remains an important growth driver, both directly and indirectly: Homebuilders estimate that each additional new home they build creates three jobs, and new homebuyers also drive purchases of appliances, consumer goods and services.
While home prices are leading the recovery, residential construction is still lagging. The 28% year-over-year increase in housing starts in 2012 may sound impressive, but the number of units started only increased from the record low of 609,000 to 780,000 (see Figure 1). To keep up with population and household growth, and the need to replace aging and damaged properties, 1.5 million residential units must be built annually, in our view, nearly twice the level in 2012 (see Figure 2). In other words, construction still needs to double from here.
When and how starts will reach this equilibrium is a crucial question. We believe they could increase to 1.1 million in 2013 and 1.5 million by 2015, in which case residential investment could contribute 0.5%-0.7% to GDP growth each year and create 1.5 million new jobs, helping to move the U.S. into a broad-based economic recovery.
Survey data from homebuilders and the Conference Board indicate that demand for new homes is growing in line with the fundamentals, but even so, the construction industry faces capacity constraints: The crisis disrupted the process of entitlement and permitting of vacant land, while the construction labor pool shrank as unemployed workers left the labor force, re-trained into other industries or emigrated (see Figure 3). The construction labor force is now smaller than it has been at any time since 2000, and it is unclear whether large pools of skilled labor can be easily tapped to build 1.5 million units.
The pace of new construction depends on a balance between the growth of consumer demand for new homes and the industry's ability to ramp up construction rapidly.
Credit availability and wealth effects: headwinds for the mortgage market
With the household debt service ratio at a 30-year low (see Figure 4a) and consumer debt down to 71% of GDP (see Figure 4b), the consumer's balance sheet has markedly improved. Combined with rising house prices, the pieces are in place for a slowdown in deleveraging and perhaps even a return of the virtuous consumer cycle. However, we see challenges in the transmission mechanism.
Housing-related growth and wealth effects essentially derive from three key factors: (a) improvements in bank balance sheets resulting in an increased willingness to lend, (b) increased consumer confidence leading to a lower savings rate and (c) increased consumer spending due to mortgage equity withdrawals and gains from actual sales. These factors face headwinds that will hinder improving house prices from flowing through the broader economy.
Amid the prevailing low interest rates, bank earnings reflect compressing net interest margins (NIMs), and mortgage debt is a leading candidate for balance sheet growth. However, new regulation will keep lending limited to high-quality borrowers until there is more clarity and consistency regarding the interpretation of new lending standards and associated legal protections. Once the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) and similar programs run their course, or rates begin to rise, banks may look to expand credit standards to remain profitable in a less benign mortgage banking environment. Paradoxically, higher rates could lead to more lending.
For consumers, the simplest method to spend more is to save less. But the starting point is already low: Savings rates for January and February 2013 were 2.2% and 2.6%, respectively, the lowest since 2007 (see Figure 5). Patchwork government austerity will hurt spending, especially for the already stretched lower- and middle-income consumers. Thus, any tangible impact from reduced savings will likely come from earners in the top 40%, who are also more likely to be homeowners and hold over 70% of consumer credit. To what extent can home price gains influence them to save less and spend more?
While net worth has suffered for most households, the top 10% have continued to enjoy real increases to net worth, in part because top-tier properties saw smaller price declines. The wealthy need to decide between increasing leverage at compelling low rates versus paying down existing liabilities with cash (see Figure 6a). With current leverage below 30%, there is little reason to expect a behavioral change as housing appreciates: As an investment, housing will compete against other, more liquid asset classes.
Meanwhile, consumers in the 60th-89th percentile reduced their mortgage debt the most (see Figure 6b), but largely through default. We believe that home price increases mainly spur spending by borrowers who already have substantial positive equity. Home price gains in 2012 increased the proportion of such borrowers only slightly (see Figure 7). The most substantial gains occurred in bubble areas like Phoenix and Las Vegas and merely reduced negative equity, rather than creating positive equity. Borrowers whose homes appreciate, but remain "underwater," do not feel wealthier, and cannot monetize the appreciation. That said, borrowers in the 60th-89th income percentile with positive equity are more likely than their high-income counterparts to use available mortgage credit.
We believe that significant wealth effects from housing are likely to materialize further into the recovery cycle, once more of the negative equity has been erased and credit expansion becomes mainstream.
Our expectations for equity extractions are also muted. The large amount of mortgage credit extraction during the bubble was a sharp divergence historically (see Figure 8). We expect headwinds against further equity withdrawals from both the demand and supply sides. Home price growth in bubble areas creates relatively few new consumers eligible for equity withdrawals (see Figure 7), and many of those who are eligible may initially choose to be more prudent. Meanwhile, cash-out refinance loans will continue to be more heavily scrutinized than purchase mortgages. If mortgage debt increases faster than we expect, it will likely be because borrowers with existing equity were more willing and able to monetize it.
We believe spending growth from mortgage equity withdrawals will remain muted, and is unlikely to return to the levels of 2005-2007 anytime soon. In fact, the natural paydown of mortgages alone substantially exceeds equity extraction. In 2012, mortgage amortization was $175 billion and write-downs due to defaults and foreclosures were $34 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with approximately $65 billion for mortgage equity withdrawals.
All these factors feed into PIMCO's mortgage balance forecast, which is based on the key components of amortization, write-downs, new and existing home sales, and mortgage equity withdrawal.
We project that mortgage debt outstanding will decline from its current $9.92 trillion level, bottoming $30 billion lower in mid-2014, then gradually increase again throughout 2015 (see Figure 9). This moderate increase may sound lackluster, but it's an important milestone after a four-year downward trend.
Investment implications: build now, lend later
While we remain optimistic about the housing recovery and its effects on the construction industry and GDP, market participants may have to wait longer than they're expecting for the recovery's effects to reach consumers. The transmission mechanism between home prices and spending depends on lending growth, which is likely to stay low for some time. As a result, in the new period of reduced government spending, the consumer's ability to take the baton is delayed. We expect that wealthier consumer segments will lead into the next releveraging cycle.
The best opportunities are likely those that help push the housing recovery along each of its upcoming stages, and a construction recovery will likely precede a lending recovery. Careful asset selection and willingness to patiently participate in less-liquid or operationally intensive businesses will be rewarded.
Head of Global ABS Portfolio Management
Emmanuel S. Sharef
Portfolio Manager, Asset Allocation and Residential Real Estate
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Investments in foreign currency denominated assets will be affected by foreign exchange rates. There is no guarantee that the principal amount of the investment will be preserved, or that a certain return will be realized; the investment could suffer a loss. All profits and losses incur to the investor. The amounts, maximum amounts and calculation methodologies of each type of fee and expense and their total amounts will vary depending on the investment strategy, the status of investment performance, period of management and outstanding balance of assets and thus such fees and expenses cannot be set forth herein. | PIMCO Taiwan Limited is managed and operated independently. The reference number of business license of the company approved by the competent authority is (107) FSC SICE Reg. No.001. 40F., No.68, Sec. 5, Zhongxiao E. Rd., Xinyi Dist., Taipei City 110, Taiwan (R.O.C.), Tel: +886 (02) 8729-5500. | PIMCO Canada Corp. (199 Bay Street, Suite 2050, Commerce Court Station, P.O. 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Statements concerning housing market trends are based on current market conditions, which will fluctuate. Outlook is subject to change without notice. Forecasts, estimates, and certain information contained herein are based upon proprietary research and should not be interpreted as investment advice, as an offer or solicitation, nor as the purchase or sale of any financial instrument.
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Press Release: PIMCO Names Nobel Laureate Dr. Richard Thaler as Senior Advisor on Retirement and Behavioral Economics


The Clair de Lune overbust is a dramatic, waist-cinching corset created with real steel boning, shaped to nip in your waist and emphasize an hourglass shape. Its exterior features 100% silk faille in black and blush pink, delicate French leavers lace overlays, and dramatic steel boning and shaping to show off those curves! It's heavily inspired by Edwardian corsetry, although this piece is cut to fit the modern woman's body.
Who would believe a corset could change your shape so much and still feel so comfortable? Garters and matching underwear not included. Dry clean only. Made in England.
See "More Information" below for size recommendations and to learn about our construction methods. Please note that this corset is now made with nickel (silver) hardware, not black as pictured.


Rising Sun Pottery has been actively involved with the Humane Society of Lincoln County for many years, so it is only right we show you our Studio Mousers. All our mousers are strays, taken in and treated like family. In addition, there were several strays who lived on the Rail Trail walking path behind the studio, that we fed and took care of. Potter and Kitten, who we brought into the studio many years ago, were two of these Rail Trail cats. Unfortunately, at the age of 17 years, Potter Cat, our first Studio Mouser passed on November 27, 2017. We surely miss this little girl every day! Over the years we have added several Mousers to the herd: Tiger, Clay, Glaze, Little Girl and Shino have joined Squeaky, Kitten and Mary in delighting everyone who comes into the studio with their antics.


text:
Fashion & Style|I Was There. Just Ask Photoshop.
I Was There. Just Ask Photoshop.
By ALEX WILLIAMS AUG. 15, 2008
BACK IN THE U.S.S.R. Grandpa always wanted to visit the Soviet Union (circa May Day, 1937), and with some digital help, it's almost as if he's there. Credit Illustration by The New York Times; photographs by Bettmann/Corbis (historical image) and John Henley/Corbis (man waving)
REMOVING her ex-husband from more than a decade of memories may take a lifetime for Laura Horn, a police emergency dispatcher in Rochester. But removing him from a dozen years of vacation photographs took only hours, with some deft mouse work from a willing friend who was proficient in Photoshop, the popular digital-image editing program.
Like a Stalin-era technician in the Kremlin removing all traces of an out-of-favor official from state photos, the friend erased the husband from numerous cherished pictures taken on cruises and at Caribbean cottages, where he had been standing alongside Ms. Horn, now 50, and other traveling companions.
"In my own reality, I know that these things did happen," Ms. Horn said. But "without him in them, I can display them. I can look at those pictures and think of the laughter we were sharing, the places we went to."
"This new reality," she added, "is a lot more pleasant."
As image-editing software grows in sophistication and ubiquity, alterations go far beyond removing red-eye and whitening teeth. They include substituting head shots to achieve the best combination of smiles, deleting problematic personalities or adding family members who were unable to attend important events, performing virtual liposuction or hair restoration, even reanimating the dead. Revisionist history, it seems, can be practiced by just about anyone.
As people fiddle with the photos in their scrapbooks, the tug of emotion and vanity can win out over the objective truth. And in some cases, it can even alter memories — Cousin Andy was at the wedding, right?
In an age of digital manipulation, many people believe that snapshots and family photos need no longer stand as a definitive record of what was, but instead, of what they wish it was.
"It used to be that photographs provided documentary evidence, and there was something sacrosanct about that," said Chris Johnson, a photography professor at California College of the Arts in the Bay Area.
If you wanted to remove an ex from an old snapshot, you had to use a Bic pen or pinking shears. But in the digital age, people treat photos like mash-ups in music, combining various elements to form a more pleasing whole.
"What we're doing," Mr. Johnson said, "is fulfilling the wish that all of us have to make reality to our liking."
And he is no exception. When he photographed a wedding for his girlfriend's family in upstate New York a few years ago, he left a space at the end of a big group shot for one member who was unable to attend. They caught up with him months later, snapped a head shot, and Mr. Johnson used Photoshop to paste him into the wedding photo.
Now, he said, everyone knows it is phony, but "this faked photograph actually created the assumption — people kind of remember him as there."
THE impulse to record family history that is more wishful than accurate is as old as photography itself. In the 19th century, people routinely posed with personal items, like purses or scarves, that belonged to absent or dead relatives to include them, emotionally, in the frame, said Mary Warner Marien, an art history professor at Syracuse University and the author of "Photography: A Cultural History."
In India, she said, it is a tradition to cut-and-paste head shots of absent family members into wedding photographs as a gesture of respect and inclusion. "Everyone understands that it's not a trick," she said. "That's the nature of the photograph. It's a Western sense of reality that what is in front of the lens has to be true."
As recently as early in this decade, most people still recorded their family history primarily in film, photography experts said, meaning modifications were limited. Even among digital devotees, only professionals or ambitious amateurs typically would buy computer programs like Adobe Photoshop.
But now, with the professional-grade Photoshop CS3's consumer-priced sibling, Photoshop Elements, often selling for under $100, its popularity is on the rise. Sales for the program have grown about 20 percent over the last year, said Kevin Connor, an Adobe vice president.
Similar software like GIMP (the GNU Image Manipulation Program ) is free on the Internet. Photo kiosks in supermarkets, as well as popular photo programs like iPhoto and Picasa, can also manipulate photographs. In addition, professional retouching services, which can dramatically alter photographs, are burgeoning, often advertising on the Internet. And professional photographers will also alter reality to suit a client's tastes.
FOUR'S A CROWD After her divorce, Laura Horn, second from right, decided to have her ex-husband (guess who?) removed from the picture with Photoshop. Credit Laura Horn
After her father died several years ago, Theresa Newman Rolley, an accountant in Williamsport, Pa., hired Wayne Palmer, a photographic retoucher, to create a composite portrait of the two of them because she had no actual one of them together.
That photograph — of a moment that never happened — now hangs in her living room. It still brings tears to her eyes, she said.
"It's the only picture of my dad and me together," Ms. Rolley said, adding, "If the only reason I can get one is cropping it in, it still means the same to me."
Such manipulations represent "a new coping mechanism for us," said Heather Downs, a visiting assistant professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who has studied the role photographs play in families. Idealized images , she said, can give people "a new script for dealing with problems families have always had: family members who don't get along, divorce."
"If you can't have the perfect family," she added, "at least you can Photoshop it."
Ellen Robinson, a volunteer college trustee in Denver, commissioned Sara Frances, a local photographer, to shoot a formal family portrait to hang prominently in their new house. Working for $150 an hour, Ms. Frances changed expressions of family members and swapped the dog's head between images. She slenderized bodies, adjusted skin tones and changed the color of several outfits to make for a more unified palette. She even straightened the collar on one son's shirt.
"You're spending a lot of money on these portraits," Ms. Robinson said. "They're supposed to last a lifetime — generations, really. So why not get a helping hand to do it right?"
Photography has always represented, to some degree, a distortion of reality, said Per Gylfe, the manager of the digital media lab at the International Center of Photography in New York. A photographer can create different impressions of the same scene by including some elements in the frame and omitting others, by changing lenses, or by tweaking the color and tone of the image in the darkroom.
"We've always taken photographs as proofs of events, and we probably never should have," Mr. Gylfe said.
The motivation to craft an idealized image of oneself or one's family is even greater in an era when the family photo album is migrating from the closet to the Internet. In addition, people are growing more accepting of fakery in photography, in part because doctored photographs — and commentary about them — are so pervasive online.
An incident last month in which the Iranian government apparently manipulated an image of a missile test to show off the size of its arsenal became blog fodder around the world.
Exposing photo fakery has become an entertainment genre of its own on the blog Photoshop Disasters, which catalogs the more obvious examples taken from magazines, newspapers, advertisements and other media.
"The entire media climate is filled with manipulation," said Fred Ritchin, a professor of photography and imaging at New York University. Therefore, he added, "on the level of family and friends, there's much less resistance to altering images."
INDEED, in a world where so many images of the beautiful and famous are enhanced, ordinary people sometimes believe they need to prettify pictures of themselves just to keep pace. Keze Stroebel-Haft, 23, a retoucher for an advertising agency in San Francisco, said she uses Photoshop to remove blemishes or double chins from photos of herself she posts on MySpace and Facebook.
"It's everywhere," she said. "On the covers of magazines, all the beautiful women are Photoshopped, their skin is cleaned up. Everybody does it."
But even as evolving technology gives people more power to reconstruct their personal histories, those old, unretouched photographs in their family album retain a powerful psychological value.
Alan D. Entin, a clinical psychologist in Richmond, Va., uses patients' family photographs as raw material to inspire discussion and analysis of their roles and relationships within their family.
"They're a record," he said. "They have existed over time and space. They are important documents."
To alter them is to invite self-deception, he said. "The value to accepting a photograph of yourself as you are is that you're accepting the reality of who you are, and how you look, and accepting yourself that way, warts and all. I think the pictures you hate say as much about you as pictures you love."
A version of this article appears in print on , on Page ST1 of the New York edition with the headline: I Was There. Just Ask Photoshop. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe


Blake returned home to Oklahoma last night to take on the Thunder and needless to say he had Thunder fans salivating over the idea of him returning to play for his home state team in 2014.
Then Blake had this amazing reverse lay-up in the 3rd quarter. Mike Smith thinks it's Blake top 5 worthy. I'm not sure about top 5 but it may find itself in the top 10. Just shows how incredibly athletic he is.


text:
Q: Returning back to main activity from gameover screen Hi so even though I have seen a couple of topics about linking activities or returning I can not get my return back to activity to work. I abit of back ground the the app when the user gets an answer wrong or runs out of time it goes to game over taking the score across with it and displaying it on the game over, here's the working code for that if it helps solve my issue:
Main Class:
 public void fail(){
        {
            Intent myIntent = new Intent(MainActivity.this,gameover.class);
            myIntent.putExtra("number", score);

            MainActivity.this.startActivity(myIntent);
            finish();

        }

gameover class:
  public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
         super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.gameover);
re_run = (Button) findViewById(R.id.retry);
        EndScore = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.show);
        int getVal;
        getVal = getIntent().getExtras().getInt("number");
        String s = String.valueOf( getVal );
        EndScore.setText(s);
  }

Now the reason I shared the above working code because I have the feeling the intent that takes the user and score to the gameover screen, is messing with the retry/return code as shown below:
private void setButtonOnClickListeners(){
          re_run.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener(){
            @Override
            public void onClick(View v) {
                Intent retry = new Intent(getApplicationContext(),
                        MainActivity.class);
                startActivity(retry);

            }
        });
}

From what I can find from those topics these seems to be the correct method. but when the code is run the re_run button does nothing. Any help?

A: You use "setButtonOnClickListeners()" to implement setOnClickListener and so override the onClick. But when did you call setButtonOnClickListeners?
 public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.gameover);    re_run = (Button)
    findViewById(R.id.retry);
    EndScore = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.show);
    int getVal;
    getVal = getIntent().getExtras().getInt("number");
    String s = String.valueOf( getVal );
    EndScore.setText(s);
    setButtonOnClickListeners();
    }

You can maybe check that your OnClick is working correctly adding a log line in LogCat. Log.d("GameOver", "Retry onclick ok");

A: You are finding a view before it was inflated (R.id.retry).
Change the sequence of commands to:
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.gameover);
re_run = (Button) findViewById(R.id.retry);

Also try changing the intent to:
Intent retry = new Intent(GameOver.this, MainActivity.class);
retry.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_REORDER_TO_FRONT);

A: I personally used startActivityForResult(Intent) to start the game over screen, and once the player inputted his name or pressed something or quit the activity with Back, then it returned a value to onActivityResult(..) in which I called finish().
EDIT:
Game ends, so I started activity using
            Intent i = new Intent();
            i.putExtra("Score", scoreCount);
            i.setClass(context, HighScoreInputActivity.class);
            context.startActivityForResult(i, 0);

Then when you insert the scores and stuff, you close the game screen in GameActivity with
@Override
protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data)
{
    this.finish();
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


A bill introduced by Joseph Lieberman, Independent Senator from Connecticut and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman, would give the US president wide-ranging powers, including the ability to order Internet providers to restrict access to the global network.
The bill, entitled the "Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act" (PCNAA), was presented in the Senate June 10 by Lieberman, with the support of Republican Susan Collins of Maine and Democrat Tom Carper of Delaware.
Known by the short name "Protecting Cyberspace," the bill has been dubbed an Internet Kill Switch as it presents the Internet itself as a US national asset, over which the president would be given extraordinary powers in a declared "cyber emergency." Under PCNAA, already extensive powers to force private companies to comply with emergency decrees would be greatly expanded. Any company on a list created by the Department of Homeland Security that also "relies on" the Internet, telephone system, or any other component of the US "information infrastructure" could be taken under the control of a proposed new National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications (NCCC), which would be a section of Homeland Security.
A June 10 press release from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs claims, "The bill authorizes no new surveillance authorities and does not authorize the government to 'take over' private networks." But in defending the bill, Lieberman said the president should be able to "say to an electric company or to say to Verizon, in the national interests, 'There's an attack about to come and I hereby order you to put a patch on this, or put your network down on this part, or stop accepting any incoming [traffic] from country A,'" CNET news reported.
The Obama administration has so far stopped short of endorsing Lieberman's bill, but Philip Reitinger, Deputy Undersecretary for the Department of Homeland Security, said that he agreed the executive branch "may need to take extraordinary measures." He preferred to have a single organization—that is, an arm of the DHS, rather than a new office—handle physical and Internet infrastructure. Reitinger pointed out that the 1934 Communications Act already gives the president broad emergency power. "Congress and the administration should work together to identify any needed adjustments to the act, as opposed to developing overlapping legislation," he said.
Under the 1934 act, the president may, under "threat of war," seize control of any "facilities or stations for wire communications." Though dated, that definition would clearly apply to broadband providers or Web sites. Anyone disobeying a presidential order can be imprisoned for one year. In addition to making explicit the inclusion of Internet providers, a central component of the Lieberman bill is a promise of immunity from financial claims for any private company which carries through an order from the federal government.
The Lieberman bill is by no means the first attempt to impose restrictions on Internet access in circumstances when it is deemed to be in conflict with the interests of US imperialism. The 2009 CyberSecurity Act introduced by Senators Jay Rockefeller (Democrat from West Virginia) and Olympia Snowe (Republican from Maine) proposed giving the president similar all-encompassing powers over the Internet. In the end, the most controversial proposals were pulled from the 2009 bill and instead the act required US government agencies to prepare emergency contingency plans.
China routinely shuts down or censors the Internet, not in response to war or "national emergency" but to social unrest and the threat posed by the emerging movement of the working class. That Lieberman chooses this as his example is an acknowledgement of the real purpose of the measures he proposes. As with all the attacks on democratic rights which have been carried through since 9/11, first by the Bush administration then continued under Obama, the proposed bill has nothing to do with fighting terrorism. Under conditions of increasing economic and social crisis, Lieberman longs for the type of repressive powers available to the regime in Beijing.


And that raps up the first leg of this series. While working on this I was thinking about the imagination, and how the images are a manifestation of the unmanifested. It's a reaching into the bag of imagination, grasping onto something, and pulling it out to share. This sort of art would suffice as evidence for alien civilizations that, indeed, human being possess imagination.
The title is ambivalent. Is a human hallucinating dolphins, or are dolphins hallucinating? Either way, the image is presented as a hallucination.
The main thing I was trying to achieve here is just the quality of another or outside perceptual dimension. It occupies a psychological or conscious space of its own.
The style is a mix of a few of the styles I've used or come up with during this series. I'd already invented the digital impasto technique, and just applied it here, integrating it with some new techniques.
I think some people will see something like this and recognize right away that it's not quite like anything else, and if I hadn't make it, this particular vibe wouldn't exist. Most will look at it and say it reminds them of this or that, but is not quite this or that, and hence falls short of being this or that. I would want people to notice that it's three dimensional, and impasto, and that that's been done digitally. The illusion of painting is one level of the illusions. It also is a little abstract and the conspicuous composition (the visual music of arrangement of line, color, form, shape) emphasizes the flat picture plane. You know it's flat, but it really pops out. There's more. That demon's head is lit, and I thought the treatment of concentric circles for his mouth was a little abstract, but works, and is strange. So, yeah, this image is "strange", and some people will see it, and some people it will fall flat for.
I think the value of the imagination, skill at rendering, and painting in general have been sidelined in art as passe or irrelevant. Well, no, that's wrong, because if you like imaginative paintings that a rendered beautifully, what are you supposed to do, go look at Duchamp's urinal on a pedestal?
Enough for now. I feel like 15 images is a good statement, and now I'm going to pause and do a post about the series, and a video as well. Because I make virtually nothing off of art, have no gallery, and only a small but select audience, yeah, I have to try to do some promo.
I'm planning to take a few days to make the video and post. Same time I use to make one of these images.
Come back in a few days to see it.
Here's all 15 pieces in the series so far in a slideshow.
Posted in art, New Series: Imagine ThatTagged art, contemporary art, digital painting, dolphin, Expressionism, painting, SurrealismBookmark the permalink.
A strong finish to the series. Really like this one, too. From when I first saw you working on this one I thought it looked like a Native American totem pole image and it still has that quality. As always, I love the colors you chose and how you challenge the viewer to see something that may or may not be there. Cheers.
Part one of the series. It's hard to hold back and do a post and video, when I really feel like just moving on to the next image.
Great break point – looking forward to the next ones.
Thanks, man. I've been taking a few days off and watching a bunch of movies. Will switch back into gear very soon.


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Avaya IP Office represents a mature, feature-rich solution capable of meeting the needs of a number of different customers – from the very small (2+ users), to larger mid-market organisations with up to 2,500 users.
Whether for 2 or 250 employees, IP Office delivers sophisticated communications, simplified.
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IP Office can significantly help lower costs with features such as SIP trunk support, sophisticated conferencing options, advanced mobility solutions and customer service tools.
Caller ID, Call Forwarding, Conference Calling, Voice Messaging and more.
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Sen. Pia Cayetano has found a creative way to campaign for her brother, vice presidential candidate Alan Peter Cayetano, and his running mate, Rodrigo "Digong" Duterte—by using her passion for cycling to reach a lot of voters.
"Ronda Bisikleta para sa Pagbabago" kicked off early this month in Zamboanaga del Norte province on a journey to convince voters that the PDP-Laban tandem of Dutere and Cayetano is the country's best choice in the coming presidential elections in May.
Actually, it is not the first time that Pia Cayetano, one of the country's best known triathletes, used this unique way of campaigning. In the 2004 and 2010 national elections, she pedaled her way to the Senate, cycling through populated communities to woo voters.
After the March 4 kickoff, the senator biked from Dipolog airport to Punto del Desembarco de Rizal in Dapitan City. She sought the support of students from Jose Rizal Memorial State University, telling them that only Duterte and Cayetano have the political will to push for a better Mindanao and a better Philippines.
On March 5, the biking senator was joined by locals in Dipolog City as they biked to Taboan market and to the town of Piñan. In the afternoon, she met with barangay health workers in Dipolog to discuss the tandem's bold solutions to improve the country's poor public healthcare system.
"We want the Filipino people to know about Mayor Rody and Senator Alan's comprehensive platform, which aims to create real change and restore order in their lives. They're the only ones with bold and quick solutions to end the misery of the people," Cayetano said.
"This is why I have the utmost respect and admiration for the tandem. I believe they can do great things for this country. So I am passionately campaigning for them for President and Vice President," she added.
Cayetano also extended the reach of her "Ronda Bisikleta" tour to other cities and provinces. She was joined by Duterte-Cayetano supporters, student leaders and student athletes in biking around Intramuros, Manila, on March 9, where she also conducted dialogues with students from Lyceum of the Philippines University, Duterte's alma mater. She was also in Southern Cebu on March 11 to meet with different sectors in the province.
Cayetano is expected to conduct more bicycle tours throughout the country to help spread the tandem's campaign message, which is anchored on their shared vision to create real change.
Cayetano's second term as senator is expiring this year and she is not eligible for reelection. She is seeking the congressional seat of her brother Lino in Taguig. Pia, Alan and Lino are all children of the late Sen. Rene Cayetano. They are based politically in Taguig, where Alan's wife, Lani, is mayor.


text:
MainAll NewsInside IsraelPoll: Likud narrowing the gap
Poll: Likud narrowing the gap
Gantz heads the largest party, but Netanyahu still has the greatest chance of forming a government.
Elad Benari, 10/03/19 05:29
Tomer Neuberg/Flash 90
A new Yediot Aharonot poll, conducted on Thursday and Friday by the Midgam Institute headed by Mina Tzemach and Mano Geva, finds that Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid's Blue and White party continues to lead with 33 seats. The Likud wins 29 seats.
The Labor Party comes in third with 10 Knesset seats. Among the other parties there is almost no significant change in the number of Knesset seats compared to the last poll: United Torah Judaism 7, Hadash-Ta'al 7, Shas 6, the Union of Right-Wing Parties 6, Meretz 5, New Right 5, Yisrael Beytenu 4 and Kulanu 4.
The Ra'am-Balad party, which was disqualified last week by the Central Elections Committee – a decision that has not yet been approved by the Supreme Court and is likely to be overturned in the coming days – wins four Knesset seats.
Several parties are continuing to struggle to overcome the 3.2% electoral threshold. According to the poll, Moshe Feiglin's Zehut party is approaching it with 3.1%, while Gesher (2%) and Kulanu (1%) do not pass it.
The battle at the bottom is closer than ever: Moshe Feiglin received 3.1%, compared with the Kulanu, Meretz and Yisrael Beytenu parties, which have around 3.5% of the vote and barely passed the threshold.
Among the blocs there is an essentially a tie: The right-wing bloc has 61 seats in total, compared to the center-left bloc and the Arabs, which have 59 Knesset seats together.
On the question: "Among the following individuals, who do you prefer as prime minister?" Binyamin Netanyahu receives 38% of the support, compared with 31% for Gantz (the remaining 31% said that they prefer neither or that they do not know). In the previous poll Netanyahu and Gantz were more popular: 40% for Netanyahu and 34% for Gantz.
Tags:poll, 2019 Elections


text:
package org.jboss.arquillian.persistence.dbunit.dataset.json;

import java.io.InputStream;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collection;
import java.util.HashSet;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.Set;
import org.dbunit.dataset.Column;
import org.dbunit.dataset.DataSetException;
import org.dbunit.dataset.DefaultTableMetaData;
import org.dbunit.dataset.ITableMetaData;
import org.dbunit.dataset.datatype.DataType;
import org.dbunit.dataset.stream.DefaultConsumer;
import org.dbunit.dataset.stream.IDataSetConsumer;
import org.dbunit.dataset.stream.IDataSetProducer;
import org.jboss.arquillian.persistence.dbunit.dataset.Row;
import org.jboss.arquillian.persistence.dbunit.dataset.Table;

/**
 * Abstract DataSetProducer class with template method for producing data
 * set in the given format.
 *
 * @author Bartosz Majsak
 */
public abstract class DataSetProducer implements IDataSetProducer {

    protected final InputStream input;
    private boolean caseSensitiveTableNames;
    private IDataSetConsumer consumer = new DefaultConsumer();

    public DataSetProducer(InputStream input) {
        this.input = input;
    }

    abstract Map<String, List<Map<String, String>>> loadDataSet() throws DataSetException;

    @Override
    public void setConsumer(IDataSetConsumer consumer) {
        this.consumer = consumer;
    }

    @Override
    public void produce() throws DataSetException {
        consumer.startDataSet();

        Map<String, List<Map<String, String>>> dataset = loadDataSet();

        final List
 tables = createTables(dataset);

        for (Table table : tables) {
            ITableMetaData tableMetaData = createTableMetaData(table);
            consumer.startTable(tableMetaData);
            for (Row row : table.getRows()) {
                List<String> values = new ArrayList<String>();
                for (Column column : tableMetaData.getColumns()) {
                    values.add(row.valueOf(column.getColumnName()));
                }
                consumer.row(values.toArray());
            }

            consumer.endTable();
        }

        consumer.endDataSet();
    }

    private ITableMetaData createTableMetaData(Table table) {
        return new DefaultTableMetaData(table.getTableName(), createColumns(table.getColumns()));
    }

    private Column[] createColumns(Collection<String> columnNames) {
        final List<Column> columns = new ArrayList<Column>();
        for (String columnName : columnNames) {
            Column column = new Column(columnName, DataType.UNKNOWN);
            columns.add(column);
        }
        return columns.toArray(new Column[columns.size()]);
    }

    private List
 createTables(Map<String, List<Map<String, String>>> jsonStructure) {
        List
 tables = new ArrayList
();
        for (Map.Entry<String, List<Map<String, String>>> entry : jsonStructure.entrySet()) {
            Table table = new Table(entry.getKey());
            table.addColumns(extractColumns(entry.getValue()));
            table.addRows(extractRows(entry.getValue()));
            tables.add(table);
        }
        return tables;
    }

    private Collection<Row> extractRows(List<Map<String, String>> rows) {
        final List<Row> extractedRows = new ArrayList<Row>();
        for (Map<String, String> row : rows) {
            extractedRows.add(new Row(row));
        }
        return extractedRows;
    }

    private Collection<String> extractColumns(List<Map<String, String>> rows) {
        final Set<String> columns = new HashSet<String>();
        for (Map<String, String> row : rows) {
            columns.addAll(row.keySet());
        }
        return columns;
    }

    public boolean isCaseSensitiveTableNames() {
        return caseSensitiveTableNames;
    }

    public void setCaseSensitiveTableNames(boolean caseSensitiveTableNames) {
        this.caseSensitiveTableNames = caseSensitiveTableNames;
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: Sending an array from PHP to javascript In the PHP file can anyone help me directly making a for loop where I don't know the number of rows that are going to be selected.
<?php
    $servername = "localhost";
    $username = "root";
    $password = "";
    $dbname = "mydb";//database details
    $conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);

    if ($conn->connect_error)
    {
        die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
    }

    $sql = "SELECT * FROM mytable";
    $result = $conn->query($sql);
    $myarray = array();
    $index = 0;

    if ($result->num_rows > 0)
    {
        // output data of each row
        while($row = $result->fetch_assoc())
        {
            $myarray[$index] = $row["firstname"];
            $index++;
            $myarray[$index] = $row["lastname"];
            $index++;
            $myarray[$index] = $row["email"];
            $index++;
        }
    }
    else
    {
        echo "0 results";
    }
    $conn->close();
?>

The Javascript code contains javascript of a search bar suggestion code and here i didn't mention the typeahead javascript file
var substringMatcher = function(strs) {
    return function findMatches(q, cb) {
        var matches, substringRegex;

        // an array that will be populated with substring matches
        matches = [];

        // regex used to determine if a string contains the substring `q`
        substrRegex = new RegExp(q, 'i');

        // iterate through the pool of strings and for any string that
        // contains the substring `q`, add it to the `matches` array
        $.each(strs, function(i, str) {
            if (substrRegex.test(str)) {
                matches.push(str);
            }
        });

        cb(matches);
    };
};

$('#the-basics .typeahead').typeahead({
    hint: true, //here i used typeahead js code though i didnt mentioned here
    highlight: true,
    minLength: 1
}, {
    name: 'states',
    source: substringMatcher(states)
});

A: You can simplify the PHP a little bit here when you read in the values as you dont need to increase the index:
<?php
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "root";
$password = "";
$dbname = "mydb";//database details

// Create connection
$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);//making a connection
// Check connection
if ($conn->connect_error) {
    die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
}

$sql = "SELECT * FROM mytable";
$result = $conn->query($sql);
$myarray = array();
if ($result->num_rows > 0) {
    // output data of each row
    while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
        $myarray[] =$row["firstname"];
        $myarray[] =$row["lastname"];//storing in the array
        $myarray[] =$row["email"];
    }
} else {
    echo "0 results";
}
$conn->close();
?>

You could echo in the results to the Javascript where you require them,    echo($myarray[0]) for example.
Your Javascript may look something like this:
var matches = <?php echo($myarray[0]); ?>

A: There are 4 ways you can do to insert dynamic content to your javascript code.

*

*Make the javascript inline to your PHP page. That is, putting your js code inside <script> tags

*Make the dynamic js variables global and populate them in your php page. Your separate JS files will be able to read these global js variables.

*If you want to have a separate file for JS, you have to generate it everytime (because you cant have PHP code in javascript. The browser cannot interpret it, and the server cannot interpret it)

*If you want to force the server to interpret PHP code in JS files, add a handler so that .js is handler by the php interpreter (whether php module or php-cgi) see Clean links to PHP-generated JavaScript and CSS


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The USDF logo is available for download. The USDF logo is copyrighted and may only be used with the express permission of USDF. Usage of the USDF logo must be reviewed by USDF before publication. For details regarding the use of the USDF logo, please see the USDF Logo Usage Guide.
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text:
SportCowboys schedule 2019: Dallas faces daunting road back to playoffs
21:35 15 april 2019 Source: sportingnews.com
Patriots schedule 2019: New England gets favorable road to Super Bowl repeat
The Patriots' schedule for 2019 features a few tests, but not many. SN breaks down the toughest tests and biggest breaks on the schedule, plus a record prediction for New England in 2019.
© Provided by Perform Media Channels Limited
The Cowboys have traded their 8-8 ways under coach Jason Garrett for on-again, off-again playoff trips. Dallas returned to the top of the NFC East in 2018, making it two division titles in three seasons.
The team posted a 10-6 record, only one game better than its output the year prior. So will the Cowboys yo-yo back to out of the postseason in 2019 or build on that success with Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott? The Cowboys' schedule in 2019, which in addition to the typical NFC East rivalry matchups features games against teams from the AFC East and NFC North, makes that an interesting question.
Packers schedule 2019: Green Bay's toughest tests come on the road
The Packers' schedule in 2019 features a handful of road games that might define their season. SN pins the toughest tests and biggest breaks on the schedule, plus a record prediction for Green Bay in 2019.
MORE: When to expect NFL schedule release
The Cowboys' projected win total in Las Vegas (8.5) says it could literally go either way. Here we break down the schedule the Cowboys will need to navigate in 2019.
Cowboys schedule 2018
Cowboys regular-season schedule:
Home: New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, Washington Redskins, Buffalo Bills, Green Bay Packers, Los Angeles Rams, Miami Dolphins, Minnesota Vikings
Away: New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, Washington Redskins, Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints, New York Jets
(The NFL schedule release is expected the week before the draft.)
Week Date Opponent Kickoff time TV
Week 1 - - - -
Week 10 - - - -
Biggest breaks: There's not much here. The Giants and Redskins twice might not work out as nicely as they sound, so the Cowboys need to take advantage of their games against the Jets, Dolphins and Bills from the AFC East.
NFL schedule leaks: Tracking the 2019 rumors ahead of official announcement
If you're not patient enough to wait for the official NFL schedule announcement Wednesday night, here are the leaks that have been made public so far.
Cowboys preseason schedule:
Week 1 at 49ers Aug. 8-12 (TBD)
Week 2 at Rams Aug. 15-19 (TBD)
Week 3 vs. Texans Aug. 22-25 (TBD)
Week 4 vs. Buccaneers Aug. 29-30 (TBD)
MORE: Full 2019 NFL preseason schedule
Toughest tests: The Cowboys are in the middle of the pack with their strength of schedule (tied for 14th) because their opponents combined for a .504 winning percentage last season. The NFC East competition always provides a tough floor of challenges, and the NFC North only adds to that.
Including two games against the Eagles, who finished second in the division last year, the Cowboys have six games against 2019 playoff teams. Among those, the Patriots, Saints and Bears headline a brutal road schedule.
Bottom line: Counting it all up, one can't feel confident about the Cowboys hitting 10 victories again in 2019. But if they somewhat take care of business in should-win games at home, finishing above .500 is on the table.
That might be enough to scratch out a wild card in a top-heavy NFC playoff field. Record prediction: 9-7
Cowboys' Amari Cooper describes relationship with Dak Prescott.
"I feel like the only way to go is up with me and Dak," Cooper said, via the Dallas Morning News. "We just have a natural chemistry."
Cowboys vs Rams Live Reaction!!
DISCORD LINK DOWN BELOW!! In todays stream we are going to be live reacting to one of the NFC Divisional Round Games when the Dallas Cowboys head ...
NFL Predictions Week 15: Patriots versus Steelers featured match up
With just three weeks remaining in the NFL season, a great percentage of the league is still in playoff contention. The game of the week is the Patriots on the ...
Patriots schedule 2019: New England gets favorable road to Super Bowl...
Packers schedule 2019: Green Bay's toughest tests come on the...
NFL schedule leaks: Tracking the 2019 rumors ahead of official...
NFL Week 1 odds, betting lines after 2019 schedule...
Jets schedule 2019: New York's season could come down to key home...
Bears schedule 2019: Chicago lucky to get toughest tests at...
Who has the hardest NFL schedule in 2019? Strength of schedule for all 32...
Cowboys' Amari Cooper describes relationship with Dak...
Why Manchester United have shot themselves in the foot this summer


text:
All Voices Matter: don't support breeders
In her weekly column, All Voices Matter, staff reporter Aviance Pritchett gives her take on social and cultural issues.
Prachurjya Shreya
Aviance Pritchett, Staff Reporter
Filed under Columns, Opinion, Story Carousel
According to the 2017-2018 APPA National Pet Owners Survey, 68 percent of U.S. households own a pet, which equates to 84.6 millions homes. There's no doubt that pets hold a lot of value in our hearts, and we pretty much consider them to be family. Everyone has different reasons for having a pet, one of them being that they're just so cute, and you just have to have them. And while that is a valid reason, it can also be a dangerous way of thinking.
Pugs, bulldogs, and Scottish fold cats are all popular examples of breeds that can suffer from people prioritizing their cuteness over their safety and health. Pugs and bulldogs are brachycephalic dogs, which refers to the flat face and short nose of dogs, and it can occur in cats as well, like the aforementioned Scottish fold and British shorthairs. 50 percent of French bulldogs suffer from BAOS, which is a set of upper airway abnormalities that affect brachycephalic dogs and cause them a lot of pain and suffering.
Along with this, the signature ears of a Scottish fold is actually a genetic mutation that causes these felines to live short, painful lives, and have hereditary conditions such as Osteochondrodysplasia, a developmental abnormality that affects cartilage and bone development, polycystic kidney disease, and cardiomyopathy, a form of heart disease.
Sure, they're a different species, with slightly different priorities and needs, but they still have lives. Their heart is beating just as ours do, so why do we push their health aside in favor of pleasing our aesthetics? Not only should we do better, but the people who continue to breed these animals should do better as well. It's cruel and selfish, and shows that we lack the responsibility needed to care for these creatures.
Besides the fact that it is painful for them to live in general, it would also cause a lot of financial issues, as it would require more than average trips to the veterinarian for extra treatment, as well as buying medicine for them to lessen their pain. The cons significantly outweigh the pros.
You can't say you love animals if you continue to support an industry that clearly breeds these animals just for financial gain and not out of consideration for their wellbeing. If you truly care about and love animals, you have to face the hard truth: these animals really shouldn't exist. They're miserable, living day by day in excruciating pain, and their life is already shorter than other pets. Stop being complicit in their pain by contributing to their reproduction by giving money to breeders.
Students have the power to fight plastic waste
Say It Louder: the last column
All Voices Matter: choices, choices, choices
Gender differences in the classroom
Relying on the counselors for more
Say it Louder: politics in friendships
All Voices Matter: celebrities should suffer consequences
Avoid the influence of influencers
The uncategorized feminist
Say It Louder: graduating high school


Recent new X.Org technologies have introduced the possibilities of implementing so-called compositing features, as currently known e.g. from the Compiz compositing/window manager, that include various graphical effects on the desktop, such as transparency, window shadows, window previews, pseudo-3D effects, zoom and others. This talk will present basic underlying concepts of compositing, changes in KDE for compositing support, presentation of currently available features and possibilities for the future.
Lubos Lunak is a KDE developer employed by SUSE/Novell. He maintains several components of KDE such as the window manager KWin and session manager KSMServer, some X11-related library classes and works on performance improvements in KDE.