text:
February 10, 2016 cypheroftyr Diversity, Submissions, tabletop
Hex: TCG: An Example of Purposeful Exclusivity
by: Zoe W.
I started playing Hex TCG in October of 2015. Hex had a lot of features, with more in development, that made me hopeful that this would be a game that I would be playing for a long time to come. Unfortunately, this was not the case. It is especially disappointing because Hex had so much potential but seemed as though the creators worked to make things less inclusive. First, I want to talk about why Hex had such potential in the first place.
Hex TCG is a relatively new game. It was successfully funded kickstarter in May 2013 and it just came out of Beta this January. New games are exciting to me because it means that there is a community being formed. The chance to be a part of a new community means that I get to be active in trying to foster the inclusive and helpful environment that I enjoy in the communities that I am a part of, gaming and non. The reason why I was so excited to be a part of the Hex community is because Hex, from the start, seemed like a game that would appeal to all sorts of players. Hex marketed itself as a mix between a digital trading card game (TCG) and a Massive Multiplayer Online game (MMO). As with an MMO there are two forms of play: Player vs Player (PvP) and Player vs Environment (PvE). HEX has the potential to form a community that has multiple types of gamers, which to me meant that there would not be such a homogenous community that many more singularly focused games have.
Hex was also exciting to me because it was creative. It had traditional fantasy races, orcs, elves, dwarves, trolls etc. but it also added several cool new races and elements, like stormlings, shroomkin, vennin (spider people) and robots (which worked unexpectedly well in the fantasy setting.) It is great when a new piece of media comes up with creative material in a unique way. These types of things add so much to the game that it is great to have.
And of course, the game itself. I really love the game, how it plays, the complexity and strategy, and the ways that the digital format has been incorporated. The game is in some ways, very similar to Magic the Gathering (to the point where a lawsuit was filed by WoTC against Hex, which was settled in 2015). But it has much more to it as well. The basic game is using your deck of cards to defeat another player or the AI and their deck of cards. Each player has a champion that has a special ability. Cards can be upgraded through gems, which give the cards powers. Cards can transform into other cards or even make more cards that go into play or into yours or the opponent's deck. These are just a few of the multiple mechanics that make this an interesting and fun game.
Hex started from such a positive place, it was a game that was designed to appeal to a wide range of players, it was a good game and it had some unique and creative lore. Hex had so many good aspects to it but it has turned out so poorly in terms of inclusivity. How does a game go from this to something decidedly exclusive and offensive?
It was lazy
Instead of coming up with unique twists on fantasy tropes and creating original content for all its lore, Hex used marginalized cultures to flesh out its universe. Not only did it use these cultures but it stereotyped them and conflated them with other cultures. There are eight main races that players can play as in the PvE campaign and that the champions can be. Human, Orc, Elf, Dwarf, Vennin, Necrotic all seemed fine. However two races, Shin'hare and Coyotle are not. The creative content behind these races is lazy and appropriative. Shin'hare are anthropomorphic rabbits based off of stereotypes of Japanese culture and Coyotle are similarly anthropomorphic coyotes and foxes which are based off of stereotypes of Native American culture.
It was uncomfortable for me to play and I can only imagine that it could drive people away from the game. I dealt with it by not playing with those cards if I could but to be honest, I was selfishly ignoring the issue because I liked the gameplay. This is something I should not have done, especially when you look at how these cultures are represented. The creators of this game clearly do not care about accurately depicting the cultures that they shamelessly used for their own profit.
The Shin'hare are shown as samurai, ninjas, mystics or, of course, concubines. The mysticism is either traditional fantasy based-warlocks, or based off of Asian mysticism. I say Asian, instead of Japanese, because while there are cards that use Japanese mysticism there are also cards that poach off of Indian culture. It seemingly doesn't matter which Asian culture is taken from.
The concubine cards, or "concubunnies" as the game calls them, work by having the "concubunny" card have the ability to make more Shin'hare. They are just rabbit baby makers. If it was just bunnies that might be ok but by tying in a culture representing real people makes it a clear problem as people already fetishize Asian women as it is. I can't see what this really adds to the game. It honestly makes me wonder if the reason that the Japanese race is rabbits was just so they could make the "concubunny" pun.
Just as accurate representation was thrown out the window with the Shin'hare, the Coyotle are stereotypes of Native Americans with whatever elements of their culture the creators wanted thrown in. The creators clearly don't care about the peoples whose culture they are using for their game. Just as Indian culture was incorporated into the Japanese based Shin'hare, differences between Native American culture was ignored as the Coyotle are described and mostly shown as a nomadic people living on the plains of the this fantasy world but they also have Totem Poles, a part of the Native American cultures of the groups who lived in the Pacific Northwest of North America.
It ignored or didn't care about how art may be received.
Overall, the art in the game is pretty decent regarding depictions of feminine bodies. However, there is still some clear objectification going on in the art, a problem that is rampant in fantasy art in general. In a game about fighting there is no need for excessively sexualized bodies. There is no reason to go out of the way and commission extra art that is overtly sexual. Hex has alternate art versions of some of the cards, which are for special in game events, promotions and a random prizes. While most of the artwork is fine, it is telling that several of the alternate art versions of cards with a feminine subject are sexualized. They took cards that had fine artwork and commissioned special pieces that made the artwork sexier.
I have to wonder what the art prompt was and what the art director was looking for that they thought this was ok.
Along with this, is the lack of representation of people of color. Of the 119 "human" cards fewer than 5 show someone who isn't white or white-passing. Even if this was not a conscious decision it is still shows how little regard for non-white people the game creators have.
Personally, I don't believe that depictions of men in dresses is inherently transphobic or misogynist, but when the whole point is to be a joke then it almost always is. One of the AI bosses is named Princess Cory after Hex's creator. It was based off of something that Cory did to end the initial kickstarter video. Cory dressed in drag, pretended to be a sex worker and said "Clearly, there's nothing I wouldn't do to get this game made." This then turned into the joke boss Princess Cory. There are so many things wrong with this–transphobia, misogyny, whorephobia–that I won't bother deconstructing it and just let it speak for itself.
It was purposefully exclusionary
Anytime a change is being made to the game the question that should be asked is, "Does this change make things more welcoming for players or less?" If the answer is less, why is it there? This January, the main part of the PvE campaign was released. I had been lukewarm on hex for a while but decided to check it out. The idea is, like in an RPG, you choose a race from the eight races and a class, either warrior, mage or cleric. The character creator also had a gender option. It is disappointing to see any game or content being released these days that still has a binary male/female gender selection but it got worse than that. Something like a gender selection should only be there for aesthetics in the character creation process. It should not exist as a way to limit player options.
But, surprise, two of the races, Dwarves and Vennin, can only be played as male. I asked why and the response was that it had to be that way because it's the lore. Falling back on sexism because it's lore is an intellectually bankrupt argument as it ignores that it was consciously made by people who had to sit down and write it. People who thought having two all male races was a good idea. The creators of the game consciously and purposefully made their game less inclusive towards women.
The lore from hextcg.com states that dwarves: "Formed from the very stone of the planet's crust …All dwarves are male. When a dwarf dies, it shatters into a pile of rough stone and pebbles. This rubble, combined with freshly dug rock and gems, is then used to make new dwarves." There is no reason for them to be male (or female for that matter). Beings formed from rock don't need a gender, yet, inexplicably, the creators decided to give them gender just not one that let them be women.
About the Venin: All vennen are male. They generally call each other "brother", as they are all the children of Xentoth." Who is Xentoth? She is a goddess who made the Vennen. "Vennen are a hybrid of orcs and spiders that were created by Xentoth, who is known as the Spider Mother, the Queen of Eyes, and the Primal of Blood Magic. …Xentoth is not only the mother of all vennen, she also serves as the object of their fanatical religious worship." So the Vennin can be created by a Goddess but there can be no female Vennin, which is especially confusing since there are female Orcs.
Now that my initial reaction has subsided, I find myself filled with disappointment. Disappointment that there are so few good, inclusive games that I suppressed my feelings about Hex's representation just so that I would keep playing, along with being disappointed in myself for doing so. I'm disappointed that I can't play Hex anymore. Games have every right to aim thing towards certain audiences; towards the types of gamers who like those games. But the things that determine if a gamer is right for a game have nothing to do with gender, race, ethnicity or anything else other than what the gamer likes to play. The new content looks great but it's pretty clear that it wasn't made for me. I have no reason to play and support something that actively excludes me or numerous other groups of people. Games should represent the people who want to play them, not add things that keep them away.
Zoe W is a trans woman who has been gaming since she can remember. She is a coder and a couch potato.
Tagged contributed content, Zoe W
Published by cypheroftyr
Tanya DePass is the founder and Director of I Need Diverse Games, a non-profit organization based in Chicago, which is dedicated to better diversification of all aspects of gaming. I Need Diverse Games serves the community by supporting marginalized developers attend the Game Developer Conference by participating in the GDC Scholarship program, helps assist attendance at other industry events, and is seeking partnership with organizations and initiatives. Tanya is a lifelong Chicagoan who loves everything about gaming, #INeedDiverseGames spawn point, and wants to make it better and more inclusive for everyone. She founded and was the EIC of Fresh Out of Tokens podcast where games culture was discussed and viewed through a lense of feminism, intersectionality and diversity. Now she's a co-host on Spawn on Me Podcast. Along with all of that, she's the Programming Coordinator for OrcaCon, she often speaks on issues of diversity, feminism, race, intersectionality & other topics at multiple conventions throughout the year. Her writing about games and games critique appears in Uncanny Magazine, Polygon, Wiscon Chronicles, Vice Gaming, Paste Games, Mic, and other publications.	View all posts by cypheroftyr
#GX3: Q&A With Cosplayers Who Will Inspire You
Signal Boost – Dujanah KS


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Latest ICC ODI Rankings: Pant Takes Huge Leap, Kohli Out Of Top Three After Seven Years
India's Virat Kohli has slipped out of the top three in the latest ICC Men's ODI Batting Rankings for the first time since 2015, with South Africa's Rassie van der Dussen overtaking the former India captain to take the third spot after a fine 134 off 117 balls against England on Tuesday.
Van der Dussen, who now has the highest-ever ODI average in the history of the game (74.95), leapfrogged Kohli to the third spot after notching his third hundred in 30 innings against England. He is currently behind Babar Azam and Imam-ul-Haq in the ODI Batting Rankings, the two Pakistan players holding onto their spot when the list was updated on Wednesday.
Kohli slipped down to No.4: the 33-year-old has not fallen below No.5 since 2011 and last fell out of the top three in October 2015. Recently, the batter had also moved out of the top 10 in the Test rankings.
The other massive gainers in the batting rankings were Rishabh Pant, whose match-winning 125* in the third ODI against England, saw him jump 25 places to 52nd. Hardik Pandya, who made a 55-ball 71 in the same game, also progressed eight spots to 42nd.
Pandya also moved up 25 places to 70th among bowlers after picking up a four-for in the third ODI. In the bowlers' rankings, Jasprit Bumrah reached the top spot after scalping six wickets in the first ODI against England but slipped down to No.2 after missing the third match. Trent Boult now occupies the top spot.
ICC Men's ODI Player Rankings (Batting)
1 (0) Babar Azam – 892
2 (0) Imam-ul-Haq – 815
3 (+3) Rassie van der Dussen – 796
4 (-1) Virat Kohli – 790
5 (0) Rohit Sharma – 786
6 (-2) Quinton de Kock – 780
7 (0) Ross Taylor – 752
8 (0) David Warner – 880
9 (0) Jonny Bairstow – 736
10 (0) Aaron Finch – 715
ICC Men's ODI Player Rankings (Bowling)
1 Trent Boult – 704
2 Jasprit Bumrah – 703
3 Shaheen Afridi – 681
4 Josh Hazlewood – 679
5 Mujeeb Ur Rahman – 676
6 Mehedi Hasan – 672
7 Matt Henry – 670
8 (+1) Mohammad Nabi – 657
9 (-1) Chris Woakes – 653
10 Rashid Khan – 651
ICC Men's Player ODI Ranking (All-rounders)
1 Shakib Al Hasan – 394
2 Mohammad Nabi – 325
3 Rashid Khan – 290
4 Mitchell Santner – 253
5 (+1) Colin de Grandhomme – 246
8 Hardik Pandya – 242
9 Zeeshan Maqsood – 238
10 Imad Wasim – 234
Will KL Rahul Make A Comeback With West Indies Tour For 5 T20Is?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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The NEW Romantic Swag is no wallflower. She is designed to make all those who come in contact with her fell in love, instantly. With countless beaded swags, held together by a beaded band, this stand out piece can be suspended flush to the ceiling or with chain.


Men's Club meets every Monday morning, usually in the Church Hall on Kingsley Road, but with occasional trips and outings to places of interest and lunches out.
A typical meeting includes lots of banter and time for a chat over a cup of tea as well as a visit by an invited speaker or entertainment from one of the members.
A typical couple of months might see seen trip to Norton Priory and Castle Park, Frodsham, as well as speakers talking on subjects such as trains & tramways and the composer Edward Elgar. We also have the occasional 'open meeting' where we discuss current issues and concerns. It might be said that we put the world to rights!
For more information contact Ken Blasbery by e-mail on mensclub@frodshammethodist.org.


In early August, Dr. Megan Davies- North Carolina's state epidemiologist- resigned her position stating she wouldn't work for a department and administration that "deliberately misleads the public." Her resignation came after an editorial by top health and environment officials said she had, 'undermined the work of public health professionals".
And all this "he said/she said" business started because of some tests of private wells near Duke Energy's coal ash ponds.
"State Democrats called Thursday for an investigation of whether Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, a former Duke employee, tampered with rules that were applied to tests that found hundreds of contaminated wells.
An editorial attacked state toxicologist Kenneth Rudo (who worked Dr. Davies and advised many well owners near Duke's power plants not to drink their water) criticizing his "unprofessional approach," the "inconsistencies in his scientific conclusions" and the "unnecessary fear and confusion" they feel he encouraged.
Gov. McCrory's office accuses Rudo of lying under oath in a lawsuit deposition.
Nearly 400 well owners were advised, last year, not to drink their water (due to contaminants vanadium and hexavalent chromium) but the state health director rescinded the advisories.
North Carolina's Democratic Party says Davies' resignation raises questions about whether or not McCrory's administration influenced the well tests to benefit Duke.
McCrory campaign charges that Cooper and former Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue's administration agreed to legislation that exempted coal ash from tougher landfill rules and shielded Duke from fines for groundwater contamination and fought cleanup efforts. Says Cooper didn't support coal ash regulation when he previously served as a state legislator.
Whew. I honestly didn't think we would get through that. Its no wonder then that Dr Davies resigned. How could you work with people that behaved like that?
I'm so sick and tired of corrupt officials who care more about themselves and getting kick backs than those who elected them.
PreviousAcetaminophen as a cause of the autism pandemic? It makes absolutely no sense … at first.
NextNew Alzheimer's Vaccine As Common As Flu Shot?


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MALDEF Statement on Expedited Appeal in Census Lawsuit
May 31, 2019 | Access to Justice, Census, Media, News Releases
LOS ANGELES – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has agreed to expedite an appeal filed by MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund) in a challenge to the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 Census.
In April, a federal court in Maryland ruled that the addition of the citizenship question violates the Administrative Procedures Act and the Enumeration Clause of the U.S. Constitution, but fell short of ruling that the White House purposefully sought to exclude non-citizens, particularly immigrants of color, from the decennial Census in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
The Trump administration appealed the court's order prohibiting the addition of the citizenship question to the Census. And attorneys with MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund) and Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC (Advancing Justice | AAJC) filed a cross-appeal in April on the sole question of whether the Administration's motive for the question was racially discriminatory.
Please attribute the following statement on the court of appeal's decision to expedite briefing to MALDEF President and General Counsel Thomas A. Saenz:
"Wednesday, the Fourth Circuit agreed to expedite briefing in our appeal of the district court's rejection, after trial, of a Fifth Amendment claim that the late addition of a citizenship question to Census 2020 was unconstitutionally motivated by an intent to discriminate against immigrants and the Latino community. The United States Supreme Court will not, despite invitation, consider this particular legal claim in its current, ongoing review of other successful legal challenges to the addition of the citizenship question.
"Nonetheless, if the addition of the question was motivated by intentional discrimination, the question cannot constitutionally remain on Census 2020 regardless of the Supreme Court's ruling on other legal claims. In addition, of course, the American public deserves to know if the Trump administration acted out of an intent to discriminate unlawfully in adding an unwarranted citizenship question to the Census.
Given the plethora of evidence of discriminatory intent at trial, the Circuit Court should appropriately consider and decide whether the district court reached an incorrect conclusion on the issue, and it should do so in time to prevent the question from moving forward in Census 2020. MALDEF is therefore pleased that the court's order recognizes the importance of resolving the issue of discriminatory intent in an expedited fashion regardless of the Supreme Court's consideration of separate and distinct legal claims against the late addition of the citizenship question."


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WBAL National News
Tuesday, January 31 2023 | AP
The United States will pay more than $10 million in damages over the death of Esther Nakajjigo, a prominent Ugandan human rights activist killed in Arches National Park in 2020
At a time when democracy has withered in Haiti and gang violence has spiraled out of control, armed men like Jimmy Cherizier – known by the nickname Barbecue - have filled the power vacuum left by a crumbling government
Blinken in Mideast renews appeal for Israel-Palestinian calm
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has wrapped up a two-day visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank with no visible signs of progress toward halting one of the deadliest outbreaks of Israeli-Palestinian violence in years
Pakistani authorities are scrambling to determine how a suicide bomber was able to carry out one of the country's deadliest militant attacks in years
Boeing bids farewell to an icon on Tuesday: It's delivering its final 747 jumbo jet
The head of the Food and Drug Administration has announced an overhaul of the agency's food safety and nutrition division
Ukraine has won support from Baltic nations and Poland for its weekslong quest to obtain Western fighter jets
Winter weather is bringing ice to a wide swath of the United States, causing the cancellation of more than 1,600 flights nationwide and knocking out power to thousands of Texans
Wall Street is closing a strong January with more gains
Biden to highlight grant for NYC rail tunnel under Hudson
President Joe Biden is showcasing a $292 million mega grant that'll be used to help build a rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River
Santos tells colleagues he won't serve on 2 committees
Republican Rep. George Santos of New York has told GOP colleagues he is temporarily stepping down from his two congressional committees
The Justice Department has dropped its probe of retired four-star Gen. John Allen for his role in an alleged illegal foreign lobbying campaign on behalf of the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar
Pope Francis is demanding that foreign powers stop plundering Africa's natural resources
Suspects are being sought after police say 11 people were shot and wounded during a drive-by shooting in a central Florida neighborhood
ABC National News
Man who allegedly intentionally drove Tesla off cliff with family inside faces attempted murder charges
ABC World News
On This Day - January 31, 1981: Blondie lands their third number one with "The Tide Is High"
Saudi death penalty use has almost doubled under rule of Mohammed bin Salman: Report
Search for tiger on the loose in South Africa
Suicide bomber detonates inside mosque in Pakistan, killing and wounding dozens
Who rightfully owns a country's artifacts? Greece's fight over Parthenon marbles sparks debate
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package us.walkenhorst.crypto;

import java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException;
import java.security.SecureRandom;

import javax.xml.bind.DatatypeConverter;

/**
 * Abstract base class to store common information necessary for all PasswordDigests
 */
public abstract class PasswordDigest{

	/**
	 * The password to be salted and digested
	 */
	protected char[] password;

	/**
	 * The salt to be added to the password.
	 */
	protected byte[] salt;

	/**
	 * The result of salting and digesting the password.
	 */
	protected byte[] saltedDigest;

	/**
	 * Generates the salted digest
	 */
	protected abstract void digest() throws NoSuchAlgorithmException;

	/**
	 * Creates a new digest with the specified salt.
	 *
	 * @param password
	 *            The password to salt and digest.
	 * @param salt
	 *            The salt to use. Pass in "" if no salt is desired.
	 */
	public PasswordDigest(char[] password, String salt){
		this.password = password;
		setSalt(salt);
	}

	/**
	 * Creates a new digest with a random salt.
	 *
	 * @param password
	 *            The password to salt and digest
	 * @param saltSize
	 *            The number of bytes in the randomly generated salt. Pass in zero if no salt is desired.
	 */
	public PasswordDigest(char[] password, int saltSize){
		this.password = password;
		generateSalt(saltSize);
	}

	/**
	 * @return a base64 encoded string of the salt bytes, or null if no salt was set. The encoded string conforms to
	 *         lexical value space defined in XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes for xsd:base64Binary
	 */
	public String getSalt(){
		if (salt == null) return null;
		return DatatypeConverter.printBase64Binary(salt);
	}

	/**
	 * @param salt
	 *            A base64 endoding of the salt bytes.
	 * @throws IllegalArgumentException
	 *             if salt does not conform to lexical value space defined in XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes
	 *             for xsd:base64Binary
	 */
	protected void setSalt(String salt){
		this.salt = DatatypeConverter.parseBase64Binary(salt);
	}

	/**
	 * Sets this PasswordDigest's salt to a random salt with the specified size.
	 *
	 * @param saltSize
	 *            the size in bytes of the generated salt.
	 * @throws IllegalArgumentException
	 *             if the saltSize is negative
	 */
	protected void generateSalt(int saltSize){
		if (saltSize < 0) throw new IllegalArgumentException();
		SecureRandom rand = new SecureRandom();
		salt = new byte[saltSize];
		rand.nextBytes(salt);
	}

	/**
	 * Gets the saltedDigest of this PasswordDigest. If the digest() method has not been called on this PasswordDigest,
	 * it will be called prior to returning the saltedDigest. The salt must be set prior to calling this method.
	 *
	 * @returna base64 encoded string of the saltedDigest. The encoded string conforms to lexical value space defined in
	 *          XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes for xsd:base64Binary
	 */
	public String getSaltedDigest() throws NoSuchAlgorithmException{
		if (saltedDigest == null){
			this.digest();
		}
		return DatatypeConverter.printBase64Binary(this.saltedDigest);
	}
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Saltwater in His Veins
Jim Quinn introduces Hon. Lisa Raitt, Minister of Transport (Canada) at the Spring Conference in 2014.
Port Saint John President and CEO Jim Quinn has deep roots in the port, the community and AAPA
By Sarah Sain
Jim Quinn jokes that he has saltwater in his veins.
A native of Saint John in New Brunswick, Canada, Quinn grew up just a block from the port where he now serves as president and CEO.
Quinn served in leadership positions for more than 30 years in the marine and public sectors in Canada, including 23 years with the Canadian Coast Guard. But his family history is tied to the port, and it was family that brought him back to Saint John right before he was appointed head of the port in September 2010.
Since Day 1, Quinn has strived to make the port a part of the fabric of the community that he loves.
"When I joined the port, I spent the first two to three months talking with the stakeholder community and asking them, 'What is your advice?' and 'What would you do as the new CEO?'"
Quinn said it was important to capitalize not just on the expertise of port staff but on the broader knowledge within the community and industry. Each year, the port holds a series of meetings that includes outside stakeholders and staff to discuss the strategic direction of the port. This input is subsequently provided to the Port's Board of Directors (commissioners) for their consideration as they update the port's strategic plan.
From this initial stakeholder meeting, the port developed an inclusion model that has foundations in collaborative approaches to marketing, community outreach, operations and life-cycle asset management.
Business-wise, the port is focused on growth.
"Five years ago we began a concentrated effort to reintroduce Port Saint John to the shipping world," Quinn said. "We started to tell our story to shipping and receiving interests as well as individuals, companies and stakeholders, international, nationally and locally. People listened and now we are seeing results."
Numbers are going up: Container traffic doubled, while dry and break bulk cargoes have increased by 55 percent since 2012. After a couple of challenging years from 2012 to 2014, cruise passenger traffic is on the upswing as well with increases projected for 2015 and 2016.
In order to maintain the business growth being experienced in these sectors and to be ready for future growth, Quinn says the priority is now to modernize the port's cargo terminals by investing in infrastructure and technology. A few years ago the port invested more than $40 million into cruise facilitates, now the focus is on cargo growth.
"We are on the eve of a significant modernization of the port," he said. "Our proposed $205 million modernization project will strengthen and lengthen existing terminals, as well as develop a new intermodal yard and improved truck access to increase safety and efficiency. The project also includes a channel and berth deepening component.."
The project has the potential of providing a $152 million boost to Provincial GDP over eight calendar years, including creation of direct, indirect and induced effects. This will translate into 2,245 person years' worth of employment and boost labour income by $109.6 million. Along with these benefits the project will generate $35.4 million in tax revenue to all levels of government and support $84 million worth of consumer spending. As Quinn noted, enabling the creation of jobs is a fundamental role of all ports.
"Ports are a foundation for the economy on the community level and in the broader, more far-reaching sense," he said. "Ports are the transition point that keeps goods and services flowing. We have to tell this story, because the more the public understands the economic value of ports, the more importance governments and administrations will place on ports."
This past April at the AAPA Spring Conference, Quinn was elected Chairman of the Board for the association's 2015-2016 year.
Quinn has learned from and been a proponent of AAPA for years. As he tells it, the day before his first official day on the job at Port Saint John, Quinn drove down to Halifax to attend the association's 2010 Annual Conference. He was taken right away with the breadth of knowledge gathered in one place and the cooperative atmosphere.
While Quinn has a number of goals in the role of chairman, one specifically is that he'd like to look at how each of the delegations can be more participatory within AAPA. Quinn says he thinks the U.S., Canadian and Caribbean delegations can learn a lot from their Latin American counterparts and how that delegation has embraced the association over the past few years as common challenges facing all ports are considered.
Overall, Quinn said he is excited for the year to come – and even a little nervous: "It's a big association with a big footprint. I just want to do the best job I can."
Sarah Sain
AAPA Seaports Magazine, Q4 2021
Rebasando la Activación Energética
Standout Ports


text:
from setuptools import setup

setup(name='dropboxfs',
      version='0.0.0',
      description='A simple FUSE-based file system for Dropbox',
      author='Miguel Branco',
      author_email='miguel.branco@epfl.ch',
      license='MIT License',
      packages=['dropboxfs'],
      scripts=['dropboxfs/dropboxfs'],
      )


text:
A Life Denied
Hen History
Life of A Hen
Cruelty Revealed
Eggs and Our Health
Egg Alternatives
Egg Blog
Egg Industry
Nigel Osborne
The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness
We have decided to publish, in it's entirety, The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness ("CDC'").
What is this declaration and what does it mean? This was a document signed in 2012 by "an international group of prominent scientists, led by computational neuroscientist and neurophysiologist Dr. Philip Low, . . . . . in which they are outlining convergent evidence indicating that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors, and consequently discarding the notion that humans are unique in possessing the neurological substrates of consciousness. Stephen Hawking was the guest of honor at the signing ceremony".1
The CDC, in essence, rejects the view of French philosopher René Descartes (1596 - 1650) in which he, "maintained that animals cannot reason and do not feel pain; animals are living organic creatures, but they are automata, like mechanical robots. Descartes held that only humans are conscious, have minds and souls, can learn and have language and therefore only humans are deserving of compassion."2
Reading Descarte's views on animals may come as a surprise to many. Anyone who has ever interacted with nonhuman animals knows they are conscious, they do feel pain and have emotions - this observational evidence is easily and quickly discernible. Nonetheless, Descartes' views heavily influenced humanities perspective of non-human animals including within the scientific and legal communities for centuries. It is fair to say that this view of non-human animals pre-existed Descartes, it was those ancient philosophers who provided Descartes with the foundation he needed.
As such, Steven Wise, an Amercian legal scholar and head of the NonHuman Rights Project, once said, "For four thousand years, a thick and impenetrable legal wall has separated all human from all nonhuman animals. On one side, even the most trivial interests of a single species — ours — are jealously guarded. We have assigned ourselves, alone among the million animal species, the status of "legal persons." On the other side of that wall lies the legal refuse of an entire kingdom, not just chimpanzees and bonobos but also gorillas, orangutans, and monkeys, dogs, elephants, and dolphins. They are "legal things." Their most basic and fundamental interests — their pains, their lives, their freedoms — are intentionally ignored, often maliciously trampled, and routinely abused."
This is why the CDC is such an important moment in science and for nonhuman animals. It is a formal rebuke of centuries of collective cognitive dissonance among the sciences and moral philosophy. Disciplines, ironically, in which one might consider cognitive dissonance antithetical to the intellectual rigours and disciplines of reason and logic required by these otherwise noble human pursuits.
But what also caught our eye upon reading the CDC, is the following sentence: "Birds appear to offer, in their behavior, neurophysiology, and neuroanatomy a striking case of parallel evolution of consciousness."
Please read the declaration. We also provide a link to download the declaration as a PDF.
The Cambridge Declaration of Consciousness
On this day of July 7, 2012, a prominent international group of cognitive neuroscientists, neuropharmacologists, neurophysiologists, neuroanatomists and computational neuroscientists gathered at The University of Cambridge to reassess the neurobiological substrates of conscious experience and related behaviors in human and non-human animals. While comparative research on this topic is naturally hampered by the inability of non-human animals, and often humans, to clearly and readily communicate about their internal states, the following observations can be stated unequivocally:
The field of Consciousness research is rapidly evolving. Abundant new techniques and strategies for human and non-human animal research have been developed. Consequently, more data is becoming readily available, and this calls for a periodic reevaluation of previously held preconceptions in this field. Studies of non-human animals have shown that homologous brain circuits correlated with conscious experience and perception can be selectively facilitated and disrupted to assess whether they are in fact necessary for those experiences. Moreover, in humans, new non-invasive techniques are readily available to survey the correlates of consciousness.
The neural substrates of emotions do not appear to be confined to cortical structures. In fact, subcortical neural networks aroused during affective states in humans are also critically important for generating emotional behaviors in animals. Artificial arousal of the same brain regions generates corresponding behavior and feeling states in both humans and non-human animals. Wherever in the brain one evokes instinctual emotional behaviors in non-human animals, many of the ensuing behaviors are consistent with experienced feeling states, including those internal states that are rewarding and punishing. Deep brain stimulation of these system in humans can also generate similar affective states. Systems associated with affect are concentrated in subcortical regions where neural homologies abound. Young human and nonhuman animals without neocortices retain these brain-mind functions. Furthermore, neural circuits supporting behavioral/electrophysiological states of attentiveness, sleep and decision making appear to have arisen in evolution as early as the invertebrate radiation, being evident in insects and cephalopod mollusks (e.g., octopus).
Birds appear to offer, in their behavior, neurophysiology, and neuroanatomy a striking case of parallel evolution of consciousness. Evidence of near human-like levels of consciousness has been most dramatically observed in African grey parrots. Mammalian and avian emotional networks and cognitive microcircuitries appear to be far more homologous than previously thought. Moreover, certain species of birds have been found to exhibit neural sleep patterns similar to those of mammals, including REM sleep and, as was demonstrated in zebra finches, neurophysiological patterns, previously thought to require a mammalian neocortex. Magpies in particular have been shown to exhibit striking similarities to humans, great apes, dolphins, and elephants in studies of mirror self-recognition.
In humans, the effect of certain hallucinogens appears to be associated with a disruption in cortical feedforward and feedback processing. Pharmacological interventions in nonhuman animals with compounds known to affect conscious behavior in humans can lead to similar perturbations in behavior in non-human animals. In humans, there is evidence to suggest that awareness is correlated with cortical activity, which does not exclude possible contributions by subcortical or early cortical processing, as in visual awareness. Evidence that human and nonhuman animal emotional feelings arise from homologous subcortical brain networks provide compelling evidence for evolutionarily shared primal affective qualia.
We declare the following: "The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Nonhuman animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates."
* The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness was written by Philip Low and edited by Jaak Panksepp, Diana Reiss, David Edelman, Bruno Van Swinderen, Philip Low and Christof Koch. The Declaration was publicly proclaimed in Cambridge, UK, on July 7, 2012, at the Francis Crick Memorial Conference on Consciousness in Human and non-Human Animals, at Churchill College, University of Cambridge, by Low, Edelman and Koch. The Declaration was signed by the conference participants that very evening, in the presence of Stephen Hawking, in the Balfour Room at the Hotel du Vin in Cambridge, UK. The signing ceremony was memorialized by CBS 60 Minutes.
Download: The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness.pdf
http://www.rawscience.tv/the-cambridge-declaration-on-consciousness/
http://www.animalethics.org.uk/descartes.html
Nigel Osborne is the Executive Dir. of Egg-Truth. Nigel has years of experience related to animal rights and on-line advocacy. Nigel's extensive background in the publishing, outdoor advertising, printing and web design industries over the last 25 years provides him with a strong, creative acumen and business management experience. Through Egg-Truth.com and it's social media channels, Nigel seeks to increase awareness among the public about global egg production and expose the conditions for the billions of hens condemned to laying every year.
Tagged: sentience, consciousness, chickens, cognition, emotions, complexity, hens, life, ethics, morality
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Bristol Finish Traditional Amber Urethane is a versatile, two-component Clear wood coating suitable for all timbers. It combines the durability of a two-component coating, with the easy use of a single-component product. With no sanding required between coats & a 1 hour minimum recoat time, it builds extremely quickly, meaning less time, labour & product is required. It may be applied as a new system, or over existing single & two-component coatings as either a build-up & / or finish coating. Tested at a "maintenance-free" life of 24 months in the Florida sun (elements similar to tropical Australia), it has high UV resistance & may be used for interior or exterior applications.


Warner Animation Group, the animated film production arm of Warner Bros. Pictures, has announced the appointment of two senior-level creative executives: Allison Abbate has been named Executive Vice President, and Chris Leahy has been named Senior Vice President. Toby Emmerich, President and Chief Content Officer, Warner Bros. Pictures shares oversight of Warner Animation Group with Courtenay Valenti, President, Production and Development, Warner Bros. Pictures.
In her new role, Abbate will be responsible for the overall strategy and creative direction of the WAG group. Leahy will oversee all aspects of production and operations. Both executives will work closely with Valenti, as well as with writers, producers and directors to ensure WAG's vision and creative strategy are met.


This report discusses fertilizer demand in Russia for the years 2005 and 2010, with forecasts for 2015. Topics covered include overview of products; overview of markets; economic trends and supply and demand in Russia; and Russia in context (Eastern Europe). Product segments include multi-nutrient, nitrogen, potash, phosphate and other fertilizers; market segments cover wheat, other agriculture, and consumer and commercial. This 26 page report also includes an executive summary and a resources section.


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USDA Opens Competitive Foods Comment Period
USDA has announced the opening of the public comment period for proposed new standards about so-called "competitive foods" in schools.
USDA has announced the opening of the public comment period for proposed new standards about so-called "competitive foods" in schools.
The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 requires USDA to establish nutrition standards for all foods sold in schools beyond the federally-supported school meals programs. The "Smart Snacks in School" proposed rule, to be published soon in the Federal Register, is the first step in the process to create national standards. The new proposed standards draw on recommendations from the Institute of Medicine, existing voluntary standards already implemented by schools around the country and healthy food and beverage offerings already available in the marketplace.
Highlights of USDA's proposal include...
• Promoting availability of healthy snack foods with whole grains, low fat dairy, fruits, vegetables or protein foods as their main ingredients.
• Ensuring that snack food items are lower in fat, sugar, and sodium and provide more of the nutrients kids need.
• Allowing variation by age group for factors such as beverage portion size and caffeine content.
• Preserving the ability for parents to send in bagged lunches of their choosing or treats for activities such as birthday parties, holidays, and other celebrations, and allowing schools to continue traditions like occasional fundraisers and bake sales.
• Ensuring that standards only affect foods that are sold on school campus during the school day. Foods sold at an afterschool sporting event or other activity will not be subject to these requirements.
• Allowing significant local and regional autonomy by only establishing minimum requirements for schools. States and schools that have stronger standards than what is being proposed will be able to maintain their own policies.
• The standards will not go into effect until at least one full school year after public comment is considered and an implementing rule is published to ensure that schools and vendors have adequate time to adapt.
The text of the proposed rule is available at http://www.fns.usda.gov/cga/020113-snacks.pdf. Once the rule is published in the Federal Register, which is expected next week, the public will be able to provide feedback through www.regulations.gov. USDA will seek public comment on the proposal for 60 days.
"School Nutrition Association (SNA) supports the goal of ensuring that all foods and beverages sold in schools are healthy options for students," comments SNA President Sandra Ford, SNS. "School nutrition professionals have been working hard to increase nutritious choices available in the cafeteria by serving more whole grains, fruits and vegetables and limiting the sodium and fat in meals—all part of ongoing efforts to implement new nutrition standards for school meals. SNA looks forward to reviewing the details of these newly proposed competitive food regulations and providing feedback through the public comment process."
TAGS: News & Trends


There's a kid on the platform furiously colouring his shoes in with a texta, bent into a zig-zag against the base of a concrete bollard, a batwing of dark hair flapping out from where he's had it tucked behind his ear. The shoes are canvas and rubber, industrial, and he's so focused that you can't help but watch. You watch. He's so focused and you'd love to be the same. It's cold out of the sun still; you stare out at the blank back walls of houses, the rails tugging away behind them. You don't know the shapes of the rooms curled inside. There are blisters tugging at the skin of your heels and you remember the teeth on your collarbones, your ear. You hold your ticket, furiously. You'd love to be the same.


text:
Monetary Hell: City Council wants £2.5k fine on Homeless blocking doors
Tue 8:11 pm +00:00, 25 Jul 2017
© Luke MacGregor / Reuters
Homeless people in England's illustrious university town of Oxford have been threatened with thousands of pounds in fines by the city council if they leave their bags in doorways.
The council has reportedly attached notices to bags left in doorways warning that fines could be incurred.
Oxford City Council says the bags could cause a fire hazard by blocking fire escapes.
Local Green Party councillor David Thomas told the BBC the move was an "outrageous" attempt to "intimidate" the city's homeless people.
A homeless man, named as Nero, told the BBC he had had possessions confiscated by the council.
"Most of the stuff which was taken was stuff that the public donated… it's a shame," he said.
Another man was asked about the storage lockers available to those receiving aid services through official channels.
"What Oxford needs is a just a space for stuff to be stored," he said, arguing the lockers are not big enough.
While homelessness in cities receives much more attention, a recent report suggested it is a far bigger problem in rural areas than previously thought.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) warned in mid-July that the "hidden crisis" of homelessness in England's countryside is being "underestimated" as people bed down away from the public eye in places like parked cars, barns, outhouses and tents.
"Homelessness, traditionally depicted as an urban street phenomenon, is notably absent in people's understanding of rural life," the report said.
"The stigma of being visibly homeless in rural areas can be much stronger than in urban areas and difficulties accessing local authority services can mean households remain uncounted in official records."
The report found that between 2010 and 2016, cases of homelessness increased by a staggering 32 percent in "mainly rural" areas, while they jumped by 52 percent in "largely rural" ones.
Source: https://www.rt.com/uk/397472-homeless-oxford-fined-bags/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS


text:
WSQ By Mail
Current Issue / Feature / Summer 2020
Rethinking How We Serve Students
by SJSU Editor · July 23, 2020
By SJSU President Mary A. Papazian
Illustration by Shuk Lam Sze To, '20 BFA Graphic Design.
As we continue to look ahead and plan on what it will take to rebound from the inequities the global pandemic has laid bare, I have been thinking about the future as much as the present.
I do not see us going back to where we were. The changes have been too dramatic, too sudden and too sweeping. Working in this new environment—primarily a digital one—has forced us to rethink the way we serve our diverse student population and equip students to be leaders and global citizens.
I see a number of changes on the horizon as we imagine the future of San José State:
The health, safety and well-being of our students, faculty and staff will continue to drive our decisions even more than in the past.
While the COVID-19 crisis has been devastating, the one and only silver lining is that we are now more laser-focused on the health and well-being of our campus community. We are also better prepared to address the fundamental inequities in our society, as evidenced by our commitment to address systemic racism and injustice across our institution.
In the immediate context, SJSU will develop and maintain programs that meet the health and safety guidelines put forth by our county and state officials. For students, this may mean congregating from a safe distance as a matter of routine. For employees, this may mean developing solutions to support our staff members, some of whom may still need to work remotely for some time, as we ease our way back to a repopulation of campus. Over the near and longer term, we are launching a year-long examination of systemic racism on campus, with the goal of bringing about true transformative change and improving our campus climate for all.
We must address the digital divide impacting many of our students, staff and faculty members, and the communities in which they live.
The pandemic has revealed the disparate availability of reliable broadband, WiFi and computer access, especially in underserved urban and rural communities. We will work with local city, county, state and federal officials to address this digital divide and support the creation of a county-wide broadband access initiative so that all stakeholders can benefit from an SJSU education and function in a 21st century digital environment. SJSU leaders and faculty members are working with leadership at the state and county levels to define the policy issues to create maps of broadband coverage and develop solutions.
We will create learning communities among our faculty members that help share best practices in online education.
We are investing in the training of faculty members so they can deliver high-quality programs, not only in the short term but over the long haul.
For instance, the SJSU Teach Online Summer Certificate Program, supported by a partnership featuring the SJSU Center for Faculty Development, eCampus, the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (ODEI) and the outside organization Online Learning Consortium (OLC), is an innovative way our campus is supporting faculty members in inclusive, accessible and well-designed online and hybrid instruction. Over a thousand faculty members signed up for this summer workshop, which entailed much more than the Zoom transition our students and faculty members experienced in the spring; it is a very thoughtful, well-planned approach for our future.
The future of SJSU will include a great deal of thinking around life outside of the classroom and even beyond the physical boundaries of campus. There are so many ways that our students can and do connect to their communities, such as CommUniverCity, the Center for Community Learning and Leadership, Beyond Football and many other programs and initiatives. Our staff members in Student Affairs and across the university will continue to develop innovative ways for them to engage, experience the richness of college life and thrive in downtown San José and other communities.
Our students, faculty and staff will continue to find new, inventive ways to come together, though physical distancing will continue.
Over the course of sheltering in place, I have observed different ways of making social connections, despite the physical distancing we all continue to practice. We all have become aware, for example, of "Zoom parties" that are more social in nature, where people gather virtually to enjoy one another's company, relax and socialize. Facilitating these sorts of trends and social connections has been a positive for SJSU and something that I see continuing into the future.
Faculty members and students, in collaboration with staff members, will develop creative approaches to difficult classroom and learning problems.
It has been gratifying for me to learn that the creativity made necessary by this crisis is pushing through new conversations about teaching and learning more generally. In our robotics lab, for instance, our budding engineers learned to connect with their lab equipment and thus manipulate those machines virtually—a skill and approach they may not have needed to learn just weeks before the shelter-in-place order was enacted. I expect that SJSU's resourceful faculty, staff and students will continue to astound and teach us in these ways, as they challenge the more historical notion that teaching and learning is an individual act of a singular faculty-student relationship.
Hybrid and online courses will become more common as technology continues to play a meaningful role in higher education.
It is highly unlikely that we will be able to hold classes that fill to capacity this fall, and perhaps for some time beyond that. This is leading to a re-imagination of the traditional "large lecture," effective and diverse approaches to student learning and an evaluation of our physical teaching spaces. We also are examining our "hands-on" courses—research labs, art studios, performance courses—in order to create ways to meet student learning outcomes safely.
The agility of SJSU's IT team already has allowed us to be responsive to shelter-in-place requirements spurred by the current pandemic and to move to a completely online environment quickly and efficiently. In the process, they identified technological integrations and efficiencies that can help us deliver our core mission better. The current crisis has shone light on the importance of continuing to invest in such tools and catalyzed some improvements that may not have surfaced for another several years.
Virtual student support services can allow for more convenient access and connection to live and recorded programs and services.
Our annual Admitted Spartan Day—an event that traditionally brings upwards of 10,000 people onto campus—was moved to a virtual experience. This was also true of our orientation programs, our campus tours and other "open house" events. The staff quickly pivoted to this new approach and did an absolutely remarkable job. One of the highlights was a "Spartan spirit" community video that held center stage in our virtual spring commencement. This video featured congratulatory remarks from a number of regional leaders, celebrities, elected officials, proud alumni and others.
The result was a great Admitted Spartan Day virtual experience for our new students and their families that included a full day of videos on academic and student life on campus; an insider's look at Diaz Compean Student Union, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Library, the Spartan Recreation and Aquatic Center; and even downtown San José features such as the Hammer Theatre Center. We also now have a suite of webinars on student finances and campus work opportunities, as well as informative e-presentations on student housing and other important aspects of the student experience.
Staff and faculty members are using what they learned with these open house events to create even more engaging and innovative virtual orientation experiences for our 7,700 new first-year and transfer students.
These positive developments beg two important longer-term questions. First, do we really want to go back to exactly how things were in the past? Second, and perhaps more fundamentally, do we really have a choice but to embrace change?
Commencement ceremonies and other signature events and activities, such as our arts performances, will come back stronger than ever at some point. But are there some practices we might decide to adopt in the future, practices that have emerged during this crisis that are having beneficial impacts on our overall health and climate? And are there other innovative methods we may still develop in the weeks ahead, techniques that will continue to stretch the imaginations and creativity of our students, faculty and staff even more?
All of this suggests that San José State will have to be more flexible in the delivery of its academic and support service programs in the future. It will be up to us, as educators, to remain open to those changes that might offer positive consequences and enable us to address underlying, systemic inequities, while at the same time protecting those practices and strategies that define our essence, purpose and values. We have to more thoughtfully engage students "where they are" and not ask all of them to "meet us where we want to be."
As we continue to move through this crisis, I would encourage all of us to think about how it has changed us. Change has been a constant at SJSU, and I remain grateful to those members of the campus community who have shown such a willingness to embrace change. Though it has been uncomfortable at times, our adaptability and resilience clearly have prepared us for the current crisis in ways that would have been more difficult years ago.
Though we do not know exactly what the future holds or what it will look like, we must continue to place the needs of our students, faculty and staff members at the forefront. We must embrace change when it serves us well to do so, with resilience and forward-thinking approaches.
Tags: Academic AffairsCOVID19online teachingpresidentPresident Papazian
Next story Elisha Miranda: Flipping the Script
Previous story Message from President Papazian
In Good Hands: Faculty Ingenuity and Remote Learning
Research: New Questions about Ancient Galaxy Formation
Faculty Spotlight: The Accidental Geographer
Colleen Lukoff says:
Thank you for this thoughtful and detailed response. May all go well in this academic year.
J. Don Le Couteur says:
This is very uplifting, and personally rewarding for me. When I retired in 1998, I sought out ways to avoid thumb-twiddling and started visiting web sites on subjects of interest to me. The result was being invited to adapt the classes in Astrology I'd been teaching in community colleges around the time I received my "Special Major – New College" BA at SJSU to an on-line format. For ten years I taught students all over the world from the comfort of my living room, and it is most encouraging to see this kind of thing re-shaping my alma mater.
Don LeCouteur, BA, MA
Fall-Winter 2020 / Feature / Photos and Videos
Fall-Winter 2020 / Photos and Videos
Michael Cheers' Portrait Academy
Fall-Winter 2020 / Photos and Videos / Profile
Mary Poffenroth, on Equity, Fear and Remote Learning
lil kiccdoe says:
san jo por vida
John McDonald says:
Terrific article!! Congratulations and well done Julia Halprin Jackson! John McDonald...
I lived in Bella Napoli from 1979 to 1984 as a...
Judith J Jadron says:
Pasquale Esposito's precious natural gift has become a gift to the...
SJSU News Stories
lil kiccdoe on Stars on the Field: Spartan Football Team Unites During a Unique Season
John McDonald on Stars on the Field: Spartan Football Team Unites During a Unique Season
Boris on Summer 2020 Alumni Updates
Karen M on Pasquale Esposito's Gift of Music
Judith J Jadron on Pasquale Esposito's Gift of Music
Email: wsqeditor@sjsu.edu
USPS: WSQ Editor
Washington Square Magazine
Washington Square: The Stories of San Jose State University © 2022. All Rights Reserved.


text:
Q: Python is skipping if condition even though true I'm learning from LPTHW and basically it's a text based game on rooms.
class Riddle_Room(Room):
    def activate(self):
        global current_room
        print "Riddle room query"
        current_room = "riddle_room"
        self.ip = raw_input("> ")
        self.count = 3
        print self.ip
        if "back" in self.ip:
            rm.back()
        elif "yes" in self.ip:
            while self.count > 0:
                print "Riddle"
                self.answer = raw_input("> ")
                if self.answer == "answer":
                    print "You got that right!"
                    rm.enter()
                else:
                    print "Try again!"
                    self.count -= 1
            print "No choices left."
            quit()
        else:
            print "Invalid command."

When I first enter this room, it asks me a query where if I say "yes" it asks me the riddle. The answer is "answer" and entering that takes me to the next room. When I come back to this room it asks me riddle room query again, but this time if I enter "back" it says Invalid Command which is the else case. It skips over the first if. I added print self.ip to check if self.ip is changing to "back" and it is!

A: That is caused because you have not defined the back command in your loop. This is how you should change your code:
class Riddle_Room(Room):
    def activate(self):
        global current_room
        print "Riddle room query"
        current_room = "riddle_room"
        self.ip = raw_input("> ")
        self.count = 3
        print self.ip
        while self.count > 0:
            if "back" in self.ip:
                rm.back()
            elif "yes" in self.ip:
                print "Riddle"
                self.answer = raw_input("> ")
                if self.answer == "answer":
                    print "You got that right!"
                    rm.enter()
                else:
                    print "Try again!"
                    self.count -= 1
            print "No choices left."
            quit()
            else:
                print "Invalid command."

A: Do an exercise of working through your code in your mind.
When you enter "yes" the first time, you will enter the section of code under elif "yes" in self.ip.  In this section of code, you will be asked three times for the answer.  But this section of code contains no check for the word "back".  Therefore, you will be asked three times for the answer and the only acceptable response is "answer".
In other words, "back" is only recognized as a response to the prompt "Riddle room query" but not to the prompt "Riddle".

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


2003 Vermont Street, Houston, TX 77019 | Martha Turner Sotheby's International Realty, Inc.
The foyer features porcelain tile flooring, access to two car garage, elevator capable closet, coat closet, alarm system, recessed lighting and storage closet under the stairs.
The living room has hardwood flooring, Harbor Breeze remote controlled ceiling fan, Hunter Douglas blinds, recessed lighting and surround sound.
The living room features Hunter Douglas blinds and access to the powder bath.
Notice the oversized Dixon casement and picture windows.
A view of the living room looking into the island kitchen and formal dining room.
Island kitchen has hardwood flooring, site built custom cabinetry, 8 x 14 ft island with breakfast bar. Jenn Air stainless steel appliances including 5 burner gas stove top and built in refrigerator.
The island kitchen also features mosaic tile backsplash, undercabinet lighting, chrome hardware, dual basin undermount sink with chrome faucet, 3 pendant light fixture over island and recessed lighting.
Dining room features hardwood flooring, accent wall, recessed lighting, storage closet and Hunter Douglas blinds.
The powder bath features porcelain tile flooring, site built cabinetry with granite countertops, Kohler and Moen plumbing fixtures, Broan exhaust fan, aluminum casement window, custom built-in cabinet and recessed lighting.
The owner's suite features hardwood flooring, recessed lighting, Hunter Douglas blackout blinds, Harbor Breeze remote controlled ceiling fan and 3 walk-in closets.
The secondary bedroom features hardwood flooring, Hunter Douglas blackout blinds. Harbor Breeze remote controlled ceiling fan, recessed lighting and access to en-suite bathroom.
The En-suite bathroom has quartz countertops with undermount Kohler sink and Moen faucet, porcelain tile flooring, Kohler toilet with Broan exhasut fan and Kohler jet tub with slate surround.
The first floor bedroom has porcelain tile flooring, Harbor Breeze remote controlled ceiling fan, recessed lighting, Hunter Douglas blinds, walk-in closet and access to back walkway and en-suite bathroom.
The back walkway. Has access to the first floor bedroom.
From the rooftop terrace you have fantastic views of downtown, Medical Center & the galleria.
Who wouldn't want to grill with these amazing views.
The outdoor kitchen has a stainless steel gas grill, kashmir granite countertops, stainless steel sink and built-in cabinetry and drawers.
This rooftop is perfect for entertaining guests.
Another view of the spacious rooftop terrace.
$600,000 3 Bedrooms3 Full / 1 Partial Baths2,742 sq. ft.
Sophisticated modern living blocks from shopping and dining with rooftop terrace that offers extravagant views of Downtown and Galleria skyline. Soaring ceilings and expansive windows provide natural light through entire home. Contemporary design offers open and clean-lined floor plan and includes Smart Home with iPad system. This gorgeous elevator capable home has island kitchen with custom cabinetry and Jenn-Air stainless steel appliances, hardwood flooring, minimalist lines and precise details. Relax in your luxurious owner's suite with three walk-in closets and spa-bath. Rooftop terrace has outdoor kitchen with stainless steel gas grill, outdoor speakers, Kashmir granite countertops and built-in outdoor cabinetry and drawers.


Interface implemented by OpenJPA queries.
Deprecated. use the FlushModeType enum instead.
Hint key for specifying the number of rows to optimize for.
Deprecated. use the QueryOperationType instead.
Deprecated. cast to QueryImpl instead. This method pierces the published-API boundary, as does the SPI cast.
Close all open query results.
Return the candidate collection, or null if an extent was specified instead of a collection.
Returns a description of the commands that will be sent to the datastore in order to execute this query.
Fetch plan for controlling the loading of results.
Return the 0-based start index for the returned results.
Return the current flush mode.
Whether to ignore changes in the current transaction.
Return the maximum number of results to retrieve.
The named parameters for the query; empty map if none or if query uses positional parameters.
The positional parameters for the query; empty array if none or if query uses named parameters.
Whether this query has positional parameters.
Whether subclasses are included in the query results.
Set a collection of candidates.
Return the maximum number of results to retrieve. or Integer.MAX_VALUE for no limit.
Returns a description of the commands that will be sent to the datastore in order to execute this query. This will typically be in the native query language of the database (e.g., SQL).


text:
EPL Manager Index Week 7 | Pochettino top, Wenger 2nd and Mourinho 3rd
EPL Index > Arsenal > EPL Manager Index Week 7 | Pochettino goes top, Wenger 2nd & Mourinho 3rd
EPL Manager Index Week 7 | Pochettino goes top, Wenger 2nd & Mourinho 3rd
[sws_blue_box box_size="575″] Editors Note: You may want to read the first ever EPL Manager Index article to be able to understand how the author is scoring each manager on a weekly basis: EPL Manager Index Introduction [/sws_blue_box]
I think the Premier League managers are getting into this now…..
Week 7 of the EPL Manager Impact Index delivered 265 points worth of manager impacts, the second highest so far (and that's with a manager short, although the next MII will include Gus Poyet's introduction to the Premier League).
There were 7 substitute impacts this week, the highest number of sub impacts in a week so far this. The most successful substitutes so far in the EPL are:
There are still 5 managers yet to receive any points from a substitute impact: Wenger, Hughton, Hughes, Allardyce and Rodgers.
So far there is only 1 manager who has used 100% of his available substitutions, Jose Mourinho (with 21 obviously), although he has gained exactly the same amount of points for sub impacts as Michael Laudrup who has only used 15 subs so far.
Manager of the Week and The 30 Club:
Two new members of The 30 Club this week with Star Manager, Mauricio Pochettino being joined by Jose Mourinho. Pochettino had as near a perfect week as is possible, gaining points in 8 different sections. His decision to hook Lambert and bring on Rodriguez resulted in an extra 15 points being earned.
Sam Allardyce and David Moyes will be able to liven things up in the Negative Collective with a new manager joining the party.
Michael Laudrup scored -2 points this week, having zero impact on the game and shedding points for losing against a team in a lower group.
First half / Second half wins
This is a chart showing the Wins by half of all the managers, top right is good, bottom left bad.
Click to Interact and use sliders
Whilst Brendan Rodgers appears to be masterful at winning first halves, he hasn't yet had a half time impact that has resulted in a second half win.
Conversely, Pochettino has won 5 of 7 second halves, however has only won 1 first half so far. Maybe his translator is the king of half time team talks?
It's obvious that no manager ever sends a team out to not score until the opposition have, therefore we can safely assume that every manager sends their teams out to score the first goal. So let's see who's being most successful at it.
Click for interactive detail
Brendan Rodgers and Arsene Wenger lead the way in scoring the first goal in the first half with 5 apiece, however, whereas Wenger has also scored the first goal in 4 second halves, Rodgers hasn't scored any. Is this a worry for Liverpool fans or does the above suggest that scoring the first goal in the first half and then aiming to just hold their position in the second half is a viable tactic?
Finally, a look at the Week 7 table.
Click for interactive view
The movers and shakers this week are Jose Mourinho and Mauricio Pochettino climbing 8 and 6 places respectively, with Pochettino claiming the top of the table at the expense of Arsene Wenger who drops down to 2nd.
Villas Boas and Laudrup are the weeks highest fallers, dropping 5 and 6 places each.
The gap between the top and the bottom has increased further with 59 points between Ian Holloway in 19th and Pochettino in 1st.
It will be interesting to see how Gus Poyet does when he joins the Index and i'll be looking at comparisons between him and Di Canio in the future.
Keep your comments coming to @trigsmith or via the comments box below.
by Andy Smith
Fascinated with the role of the football manager and whether they actually have any impact on games. Also write hypothetical football musings at squadnumber12.co.uk Basic data analysis is my game.
http://viewfromrowz.wordpress.com
Follow @http://www.twitter.com/trigsmith
Categories: Arsenal, Arsenal (NN), Aston Villa, Aston Villa (NN), Cardiff, Cardiff (NN), Chelsea (NN), Cheslea, Crystal Palace, Crystal Palace (NN), EPL Index Featured Article, EPL Index Statistical Comparisons, Everton, Everton (NN), Fulham, Fulham (NN), Hull City, Hull City (NN), Liverpool, Liverpool (NN), Manchester City, Manchester City (NN), Manchester United, Manchester Utd (NN), Newcastle United, Newcastle Utd (NN), Norwich City, Southampton, Southampton (NN), Stoke City, Stoke City (NN), Sunderland, Sunderland (NN), Swansea City, Swansea City (NN), Tottenham Hotspur, Tottenham Hotspur (NN), West Bromwich Albion, West Bromwich Albion (NN), West Ham United, and West Ham United (NN).' 'Tags: AFC, Arsenal, AVFC, Bony, CFC, City, english Premier league, English Premier League Opta Stats, English Premier League Stats, EPL, EPL Index Manager Index, epl opta stats, EPL Stats, EPLIndex Manager Stats, Everton Stats, Hull, impact, Laudrup, LFC, LFC Stats, Manager, Manager Index, MCFC, Mourinho, MOYES, MUFC, Negredo, NUFC, opta, Opta Stats, Pochettino, premier league, premier league opta stats, rodgers, Rooney, Swansea, THFC, Tottenham, and Wenger.
Permalink: https://eplindex.com/42047/epl-manager-index-week-7.html
Chelsea agree Van Ginkel deal | Van Ginkel vs Lampard vs Ramires Stats
Chelsea have today confirmed that a deal has been reached to sign the Dutch youngster Marco Van Ginkel, subject to personal terms and a medical. The central midfielder played a huge role in guiding Vitesse to 5th in their domestic league, their highest finish for 15 years, which also saw him named the Eredivisie young player of the year. He is now set to become Mourinho's second signing since Andre Schurrle, and a statement on Chelsea's website reads: [quote]Chelsea Football …
Arsenal v Reading | Match Preview
As the international break comes to an end we finally get back to the Premier League as we head into the business end of the season. With just nine games remaining it's crunch time for these two teams. With Reading fighting against relegation and Arsenal looking up at a 'Top Four' finish, both teams will be fighting for the precious three points. Reading sit 19th in the league, seven points from 17th placed Aston Villa, whereas Arsenal who are placed …
Manchester City v Chelsea Preview | Key Men, Stats & Team News
Theo Walcott - Rising to Prominence! | Stats Comparison
Well-known for his blistering pace, good balance, movement and technique, Theo Walcott is one of the most exciting players to watch and is a very difficult player to defend against. For these reasons, he has been likened to club-hero and all-time leading goal-scorer Thierry Henry by many, including long-serving manager Arséne Wenger. Pep Guardiola said that "you would need a pistol to stop Walcott" after a Champions league match, a testament to the player's blistering speed. Lionel Messi described him …
Manchester City vs Chelsea FA Cup Preview | Team News, Key Men & Stats
Man City and Chelsea meet at the Etihad Stadium for the second time in two weeks, in a mouth-watering fifth round FA Cup clash. The two favourites for the title put their Premier League aspirations to one side in a competition which both teams have been successful in recent years. Either City or Chelsea have contested each of the last five FA Cup Final's, with Chelsea winning on three occasions and Man City winning one, having lost in the final …


Coverage of the U.S.-North Korean summit in Vietnam marks a return for CBS News. The most important events of the Vietnam War — events that changed our country forever — were captured in real time by CBS News crews.
On March 8, 1965, cameras were rolling as U.S. marines landed in Da Nang. Just four months later, Walter Cronkite's crew prepared to fly.
For the first time in American history, news from the frontlines was sent straight into living rooms across the country: The realities of war, minus the fog.
In August, as the war was escalating, Morley Safer documented marines destroying homes in Camne. One hundred and fifty homes were leveled in retaliation for a burst of gunfire. Safer's report painted a new kind of picture, an ugly, uncensored one.
The reels kept coming. From the jungles of Hoai Chau to the streets of Saigon, America's first TV war dragged on.
More than 58,000 Americans were killed over two decades of the Vietnam War, including those who covered it. Nine CBS News employees died and 33 other staffers were wounded, including the late Ed Bradley, who was hit by gun shrapnel.
In 1968, Cronkite addressed a war-weary audience.
"To say that were are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory conclusion," he said.
Stalemate or not, it would take seven more years until Americans saw Bruce Dunning's 1975 report on the last plane out of Da Nang, as the city fell to north Vietnamese troops.
"As men clambered over one another, members of the air crew dragged them onto the plane trying to fill it as fast as possible," he said.
As deserters shoved and shot their way onto a plane meant for women and children, a Boeing turned into a battlefield. Viewers back home came to terms, on TV with the end.


Last edited by TennX; 04-01-2019 at 04:40 PM.
Send email to Admins to get reset the password and use the old if they let you.
Some have been successful. You have been gone for almost 3 years.
Welcome from SoCal.......Sun Diego......where we ride 365 days / yr.
yes only the Kool dudes are born on the 16 th of OCT.
Try to get it back!


text:
Де́йтонські уго́ди — мирний договір між Сербією, Хорватією та Боснією і Герцеґовиною про завершення Боснійської війни, підписаний у листопаді 1995 року в Дейтоні, штат Огайо. Ініціаторами угоди були Великої Британії та США. Крім них підписання засвідчили Франція, Німеччина, Росія та Європейський Союз.

Переговори тривали в серпні — листопаді 1995 на американській військовій базі поблизу містечка Дейтон (штат Огайо) за участю президента Союзної Республіки Югославія Слободана Мілошевича, президента боснійських мусульман Алії Ізетбеговича та президента Хорватії Франьо Тунджмана. Значна роль у підписанні угод належала президенту США Біллу Клінтону.

Згідно з Дейтонськими угодами, Боснія і Герцеговина залишалася єдиною державою, що складалась із двох суб'єктів: Мусульмано-Хорватської Федерації та Республіки Сербської з єдиними федеральними інститутами влади. Сараєво відходило до Мусульмано-Хорватської Федерації, а місто Горажде передбачалось зв'язати з Федерацією спеціальним коридором. Згідно з мирною угодою, через 9 місяців мали бути проведені вільні й справедливі вибори єдиного президента та законодавчих органів обох учасників конфедерації, а також місцевих органів влади.

Дейтонські угоди зобов'язували сторони завершити виведення усіх своїх військ за лінію припинення вогню протягом 30 днів і встановлювали демілітаризовані зони для роз'єднання ворожих сторін завширшки 2 км по обидва боки від лінії припинення вогню. Згідно з угодами, забезпечення їхньої реалізації та зміцнення миру покладалось на 60-тисячний контингент Сил IFOR, котрі мали діяти під командуванням НАТО.

Угода передбачала відмову Сербії від підтримки боснійських сербів з метою створення «Великої Сербії», а Хорватії — від приєднання земель боснійських хорватів. Сербія та Хорватія визнавали суверенітет та територіальну цілісність Боснії та Герцеговини. На цій території створювалася конфедерація у складі Хорватсько-мусульманської федерації та Республіки Сербської. На заміну миротворцям ООН з 1 січня 1996 на території Боснії та Герцеговини діяли миротворці НАТО.

Однак за домовленістю з НАТО тут залишалися миротворчі підрозділи країн, в тому числі України, які не були членами цієї організації, але були готові продовжувати миротворчу місію, спираючись на положення її програми «Партнерство заради миру». Унаслідок цього миротворча операція в Боснії та Герцеговині стала важливим етапом у налагодженні оперативної співпраці у миротворчій діяльності між Україною та НАТО.

Український контингент, який діяв тут від 1992 за мандатом Ради Безпеки ООН, гарантував безпеку сербів, мусульман та хорватів у містах Сараєво, Травнік, Горажде, Баня Лука, Тузла, залишався на території Боснії та Герцеговини впродовж 1996–1999. У травні 1999 за рішенням Верховної Ради України українські миротворці передислоковані з території Боснії та Герцеговини на територію Косово.

Д.м.у. покінчили з «гарячою» фазою громадянської та релігійної (цивілізаційної) війни у Боснії та Герцеговині. 2006 НАТО передало відповідальність за безпеку в Боснії та Герцеговині Європейському Союзу. Однак створені впродовж 1996–2010 органи влади цієї республіки залишаються поділеними за етнічною та конфесійною ознаками. Триває переговорний процес про надання Боснії та Герцеговині статусу асоційованого члена Європейського Союзу.

Підписання угод відбулося 14 грудня 1995 в Парижі.

Див. також
 Боснійська війна
 Республіка Боснія і Герцеговина
 Хорватська республіка Герцег-Босна
 Федерація Боснія і Герцеговина
 Вашингтонська угода

Джерела
 О. В. Гісем, О. О. Мартинюк. Наочний довідник. Всесвітня історія. 10-11 класи. — Київ — Харків. — «ВЕСТА», 2006.
 https://web.archive.org/web/20081201024700/http://www.niss.gov.ua/book/perep_conf/Monog-R3/index38.htm

Література
 М. С. Каменецький. Дейтонські угоди 1995 // Українська дипломатична енциклопедія: У 2-х т. /Редкол.:Л. В. Губерський (голова) та ін. — К: Знання України, 2004 — Т.1 — 760с. ISBN 966-316-039-X

Посилання
 Дейтонська угода  //

Історія Дейтона
Зовнішня політика США
Мирні договори XX століття
Листопад 1995
Боснійська війна
Міжнародні договори Хорватії
Міжнародні договори Сербії
Міжнародні договори Боснії і Герцеговини
Мирні процеси

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Wandering Thoughts 2
Random movement of ideas.
Baby sitting for the weekend
This weekend Lisa and I are baby sitting Dana and Jesse. We saw a movie: Fly Away Home. We had to fast forward the beginning because there is a car accident and the mother dies. I didn't think it was appropriate for a 4 year old. But the rest of the movie was quality. It is about a young girl who lives with her estranged father after her mother dies in a car accident. While living there the daughter finds some goose eggs. She raises the geese and then teaches them the migration route so that they can be set free.
I couldn't sleep so I started reading on Pele.
I heard about his legendary status,
but I did not know how this guy transformed the world with his playing.
"J.B.Pinheiro, the Brazilian ambassador to the UN was quoted as saying, "Pele played football for 22 years, and in that time he did more to promote world friendship and fraternity than any other ambassador anywhere". And who could contradict him? In warring Nigeria a ceasefire was declared when Pele came to play in Lagos in 1970. The President of Brazil declared him a "national treasure" to thwart any potential transfer to a European club."
Pele scored 1281 goals in 1363 games.
The next World Cup is in Germany in 2006.
Lisa and I just bought Los Lonely Boys album. We were captivated by their song
Save me from this prison
Lord help me get away
Cause only you can save me now
From this misery
Cause I've been lost in my own place
And I'm getting' weary
How far is heaven
And I know I need to change
My ways of livin'
How far is heaven, Lord can you tell me
Cause I've been locked up way too long
In this crazy world, how far is heaven
I just keep on prayin' Lord
Just keep on livin', how far is heaven
Lord can you tell me, how far is heaven
I just got to know how far, how far is heaven
Lord can you tell me
[translated from Spanish]
(You that's in a higher place
Send me down a blessing)
Cause I know there's a better place
Than this place I'm livin', how far is heaven
And I just got to have some faith
And just keep on giving, how far is heaven
I just wanna know how far
In their official web site they describe themselves as the following:
" It's kinda crazy, we're like the Mexican Beatles," Henry concludes. "People always ask us what kind of style we play. I tell 'em it's a cross between Stevie Ray meets Santana, Jimi Hendrix meets Richie Valens, or the Beatles meet Ronnie Milsap. I call it my music burrito theory. What we've done is made like our own tortilla, right, with all the knowledge of all the greats that are out there, I can't even think of 'em all right now, but we put 'em inside the tortilla, fold it up in there, we make our own burrito and we're sellin' it to the world, y'know?"
Detriot anchorman returns to faith after a battle with drugs and phone sex. He was rehired in 2000 after being raised from the dead like Lazarus as Turner describes.
In the Detriot Free Press:
"During an interview at his Channel 7 office, Turner talks candidly about his faith and his career. "I cannot segment my life," he says. 'I cannot leave my brown skin at the door when I come in here. I can't leave my married heart and my marriage commitment at the door. I can't leave my maleness at the door. When I sit down in that chair, I am a married, brown-skinned male who is also saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.'"
Visit to a church in Iraq
Pastor Jule has a dream of planting churches in Iraq and opening a Bible college to train pastors! This guy is pretty cool.
Another Good Book
Arabs in the Shadow of Israel
A friend recommended this book. My wife and I started reading it last night. It had a great summary of the history of Arabs. More to come.
I haven't had time to explore this web site. It is very interesting. Let me know what you think.
Alexsander Menn
Last night I read in the book "Martyrs", ed. By Susan Bergman, about Alexsander Menn. He was a Russian Orthodox priest murdered on September 8, 1993. His story is so captivating that I could not put the book down until I finished the chapter on his life. He was Solzhenitsyn spiritual advisor. He tried to enter seminary at the age of 13 but was rejected. At the age of 14 he wrote the first draft for a book on the Life of Christ. As a teenager he was fluent in Hebrew, Greek, Latin as well as many other European languages. He was passionate about Christ and stood up against the many injustices in Russian society. A couple of months before he was assassinated he was interviewed on the radio.
He said, "I believe that everything that is of value in Christianity is valuable only because it belongs to Christ. If it doesn't belong to Christ, it belongs to the same degree to Islam or Buddhism. So every religion is an attempt to reach God. But Jesus Christ is the only answer."
This guy was brilliant and joyful. He lived his life in full confidence in Jesus Christ. What a guy!
We had a great Father's Day weekend. Last night my mother, grandmother (on my dad's side), brother, wife and I took my father out to dinner and a movie. It was a blast. We ate at Chadwicks 203 The Strand, Alexandria, VA 22314, (703) 836-4442. On thing made us want to return. Every month they do a fundraiser for a community in Guatemala. They raise enough money to pay for health insurance for a local restaurant employees and their families. There is a nonprofit that was founded by two Americans that served under peace corps that organaized the program. I will write more once I find more info. It was great. I was really impressed.
Then we went to see "The Terminal". It was the best acting Tom Hanks has done. They had a lot of funny moments and it was based on a true story of an Iranian guy that has been stuck in France for 10 years (so my brother tells me). The funny thing is that my wife's father had the same thing happen to him. He had lost his passport in Malysia and was stuck in the airport for four days b/c it was MLK weekend and the embassy was closed.
Today we did breakfast with my pops, lunch with my father-in-law, back to my father for a evening visit. It was a fun day, but I am worn out. The whole day the food was incredible. I can't complain about all the traveling b/c the food was worth the effort.
Don't you love those songs that you listen to until the tape disintegrates and the song is burned into your memory. The song comes in and out of your life. This morning I woke up and this song was in my head:
Africa's inside me
taking back her child
she's giving me my pride
and setting me free.
DJ Kre8
Eastern in the City
Eliacin
Lend List
Regent Alum Blogs
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The Simple Way
Urban OnRamps
Win Rice for the World
Wordful


text:
Q: ATAN DEGREES IN COBOL? I have a little problem
I don't know tow to turn in deegrees my ATAN/ASIN/ACOS function in cobol
This is the code:
                     ACCEPT A
                       COMPUTE C= FUNCTION ATAN(A)
                           END-COMPUTE
                          DISPLAY "Computing."
               DISPLAY "Computing.."
               DISPLAY "Computing..."
               DISPLAY "Computing...."
               DISPLAY "Computing....."
               DISPLAY "Computing......"
               DISPLAY "LA TANGENTE^-1 DI " A " RISULTA..."
                           DISPLAY C " GRADI"

Have you ideas? The (A * 180 /3.14) idea that I had doesen't work, for example, my scientific calc says that tan^-1 of 15 is 86.1, and the COBOL program says, with only A, 0000001.5042281, and with (A * 180 /3.14) says 0000001.5696333
Have you ideas?

A: The 1.5042281 is the result in radian. So to get them in degree just divide the result with Pi and multiply with 180, giving you 86.1


We're now two rounds into the lineup for Summer Camp 2017, and there's one more to go (I keep forgetting that!). With such a high-profile offering so far, bursting with talent and fresh faces, the buzz is turning into a rumble in the Midwest (especially with the just-announced VIP upgrades and late-night shows). It's the best way to kick off your summer music season, and if you've never been, here are some reasons why this year should be your first.
As one of the most prolific and unique artists in an already far-reaching and ever-changing music scene, Claypool is a household name thanks to his main trio, Primus, and his myriad solo and ensemble projects. Ranging from the Flying Frog Brigade to the Duo de Twang and Oysterhead (a collaboration with Phish's Trey Anastasio and Stewart Copeland of The Police), Claypool can play with just about anyone. Which is fortunate, considering he's playing Summer Camp with both Primus and his project with Sean Lennon, The Claypool Lennon Delirium. Expect a dark, murky carnival of eerie, skronky psychedelia anchored by Claypool's furious bass shredding. Speaking from seeing Primus twice at Summer Camp, do not miss these shows.
Roaring out of Texas in 2006, White Denim quickly established themselves as a killer live act. Their mixture of soul, '70s crunch, progressive rock, blues, and jazz lends itself to sunny days, long drives, and screaming crowds. Song structure takes on a different meaning as they weave stuttering, looping, soaring guitar leads over and around each other, with the bass and drums barely holding everything in place. The music is often frenetic in pace and demanding in its complexity. White Denim is one of the most entertaining acts around, and hopefully they get a nice daytime set at Summer Camp.
One of the coolest acts around (with one of the best names to boot), Organ Freeman sets the standard for bombastic instrumental jazz-funk fusion. Hard-hitting and innovative, their spiraling melodies eventually careen into full-on modern-day psychedelic space disco. As you listen, you wonder who all is in the band….and then you learn they're just a trio. With one of the most incendiary debut albums out right now, Organ Freeman is one of the most highly anticipated performances at the festival this year. An absolute must-see.
Look, summer nights are the best. There's a reason no one is talking about that awesome late January outdoor show with all the snow everywhere. Weather permitting, Friday night when the sun starts to set is when the electricity really starts flying, as main headliners start to take the stage and unleash the fury. You start to hear music from all directions at once, and even more importantly, more people have shown up and it starts becoming a humming, colorful circus full of smiles, friends old and new, and fantastic tunes drifting up into the night sky.
From local vendors here in the CU to nationally known artisans, Summer Camp has something for everyone. Whether you're looking for a sweet new hat, a fine piece of glass décor, or handmade instruments from around the world, you can find it on vendor row. It's not uncommon to leave the festival with a few more pieces of clothing than you arrived with, or one of the excellent posters/paintings/wall art pieces you find hidden in the racks. Just make sure you have your finances in order beforehand!
This year is not one to miss for Summer Camp. Aside from the artists I already mentioned and perennial weekend headliners moe. and Umphrey's McGee, other big names include Trey Anastasio and Mike Gordon (guitarist and bassist, respectively, of Phish) with their solo bands, hip hop duo Run the Jewels, cosmic folk outfit Railroad Earth, Pretty Lights (with a live band no less), The Disco Biscuits, Andy Frasco, New York funk shredders Turkuaz, and a slew of local artists from all over the state, like Chicago Farmer, Old Shoe, Henhouse Prowlers, Bones Jugs, Trouble Chasin', and Brainchild. Throw in some top notch food, arts and crafts, workshops and yoga at the Soulshine Tent, and plenty of beer, and you have one of the best ways to kick off summer.
As mentioned at the beginning, there is still another round of artists to come, and Summer Camp is pulling out all the stops this year. If you've never been, this is a fantastic year to start. Come and see why people keep coming back year and year after year.


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Q: C# Can I make a property that gets and sets another property? I have run into several times which I want to make one property that gets and sets another property. Of course, I know I can do this:
class Foo {

  public int Bar {
    get; set;
  }

  public int Baz {
    get {
      return Bar;
    }
    set {
      Bar = value;
    }
  }

}

But I'm wondering if there's a quicker way to do this.

A: No, there is no shortcut syntax for this - explicitly implementing get/set for at least one of the properties is fine.
Ability to change same value via multiple properties feels confusing. Make sure you really need to do that - i.e. if you are implementing interfaces as you've commented you may be able to make one of the interfaces read only. Alternatively consider explicit implementation of at least one of the interfaces to minimize visibility of two setters for same property.
If making property read-only works you can use C# 6 syntax for get-only properties that is a bit shorter:
  public int Bar => Baz;