1. Children shall be admitted in accordance with their character, zeal, and willingness to learn. All new students are allocated a trial period of up to 3 months in which they are assessed. If the Madrasah feels they cannot cater for the needs of the student then their studies may be suspended.
2. Students who do not abide by the rules of the Madrasah or are a cause of any harm to the Madrasah, its staff or any student may be expelled.
3. If the occasion arises that a student requires discipline, then staff may, if needed make the student 1. Give verbal warning 2.Detention for 5/10min without prior notice 3. Work in isolation 4. After Madrasah detention for up to 45 minutes. 5. Contact the parent to discuss the issue 6. Suspension or permanently expelled.
4. If the need arises parents/guardians may be called to the Madrasah to discuss the student's progress, behavior or any other problems. Parents then must attend.
5. Students shall be admitted from the ages 5-16. We reserve the right to admit children younger or older in special circumstances.
6. Dress code must be adhered to whilst attending; kurta/jubba of any colour and topee (cap) for boys. Hijaab and jubbah for girls. Both boys and girls must wear a Shalwaar. Shorts and open dresses are not allowed. Students not adhering to the uniform will be sent home.
7. No extreme hairstyles, all students must have their hair cut in equal length all over, students having partially shaved heads will not be tolerated, tram lines and other patterns are also not allowed.
8. The Madrasah will charge a fee of ₤420.00 per student per year. Fees shall be paid in 3 terms of £140 or 11 monthly installments of £40 as detailed in the student fees slip. Fees not being paid on time or continuous delays without REASON may result in the discontinuation of their child's studies.
9. All absences must be explained with a formal note. A verbal explanation will not be sufficient. Students who may be absent for a long period of time must inform the Madrasah in advance to prevent the student from being removed.
10. The Madrasah reserves the right to suspend the studies of students who are absent for an excess of 10 days a year without reason.
11. All students must arrive on time enabling the lessons to start promptly. Students arriving late without reasonable excuses are eligible to discipline and if this continues, parents may be called in.
12. The Madrasah doors shall open 5 minutes prior to the beginning of the lessons. Parents/guardians MUST remain with their child if they arrive prior to this time, regardless of doors being closed or open. Students who arrive before the doors open must at all times remain in the building compound and NOT on the pavements.
13. In the case of bad weather conditions (heavy snow etc) or other emergencies, parents are directed to contact the Madrasah on 0121 565 5767 for information regarding closure.
14. Parents and guardians must not interfere with the day to day running of the Madrasah.
15. Parents/guardians must not approach or intimidate any member of staff.
16. Complaints must be made in written or by appointment DIRECTLY to the head teacher who will try to resolve the issue.
17. All new students have to pay an admission fee of £35.
· I fully agree not to park my car in front of the Madrasah on the double yellow lines and not to block the bus stop. I will park my car legally and safely and not disrupt the traffic. Parking spaces are available opposite the Madrasah on the road and in the car park opposite Samra Supermarket. Madrasah will not be able to facilitate for children whose parents park their car illegally at pick up and drop off times.
· I fully agree to the disciplinary measures implemented by the Madrasah for my child's tarbiyah.
· I indemnify Madrasah against any damages, injuries etc during my child's attendance.
· If I break any part of the above agreement, I will take full responsibility for the consequences that may lead to the discontinuation of my child's studies.


text:
Art Eyewitness Book Review: Artrage: the Story of the BritArt Revolution by Elizabeth Fullerton
Artrage: the Story of the BritArt Revolution
By Elizabeth Fullerton
Thames & Hudson/285 pages/$45.00
Reviewed by Ed Voves
The moment that all artists should fear has arrived for The Young British Artists. The YBAs have become an institution.
These "BritArt" iconoclasts of the 1990s are the subject of a superb chronicle of their lives and art. The aptly-named book, Artrage, recently published by Thames and Hudson, comes just as the work of one of their founding members, Damien Hirst, has entered the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.
Can the dreaded word, retrospective, be far off?
Artrage: the Story of the Britart Revolution was written by Elizabeth Fullerton. An accomplished journalist, Fullerton worked as a foreign correspondent for Reuters. She has an MA in art history and has covered the cultural scene for a number of top tier publications. Fullerton writes about contemporary art in an engaging, exciting and insightful way. The Young British Artists could not have asked for a better biographer.
For her part, Fullerton could not have dreamed-up a more colorful group of protagonists. Collectively and individually, the YBAs personified ambition and anxiety, brash outward behavior and repressed fault lines of insecurity.
The YBAs - Damien Hirst, Rachel Whiteread, Mat Collishaw, Tracy Emin, Sarah Lucas, Angus Fairhurst, Angela Bullock, Gillian Wearing and others - first made headlines in 1988. The Thatcher Revolution was in its terminal phase. Having destroyed the labor movement in Britain and undermined the Welfare State, "Thatcherism" created a polarized environment ripe for revolution.
A number of the YBAs came from working class families who had suffered under the Iron Lady's rule. But their "revenge" came by embracing many of the principles of the Thatcherite creed. With van Gogh paintings being auctioned at Christies for mind-boggling sums, the YBAs decided to manipulate the system in their favor rather than overturn it.
Several of the YBAs, notably the sculptor Rachel Whiteread, have created social statements of enduring merit. But making "relevant art" generally took a back seat to just making the kind of art that Sarah Lucas described as "what's sort of poking me in the eye."
Marcus Taylor, Rachel Whiteread, Fiona Rae and Richard Patterson in Venice to celebrate Gary Hume at the British Pavilion, 1999
Five years before the YBAs scored their 1988 breakthrough, Cyndi Lauper released the song that would become the anthem of the 1980's and 1990's, Girls Just Want to Have Fun. One of the lines from the song directly pertains to the YBAs. They refused to follow in van Gogh's suicidal footsteps or meekly accept what the elitist art establishment cared to offer:
I want to be the one to walk in the sun
The YBAs were mostly graduates of Goldsmiths College of Art in South London. The faculty at Goldsmiths encouraged personal initiative, equipping "students with a set of valuable practical tools with which to face a hostile art world."
Fullerton provides just enough background detail to set the tone for her narrative. But she quickly - and sensibly - launches into the story of the 1988 "Freeze" exhibit, organized by Damien Hirst. Although still a student at Goldsmiths, Hirst demonstrated the finesse and daring of seasoned impresario. He gained access to a vacant London Docklands building as a site for a group exhibition and secured enough funding to mount the show.
Hirst gave everyone their marching orders in a typed memo with the bold-face declaration "IT IS GONNA BE GOOD."
Angela Bulloch sitting on Damien Hirst's lap during the preparations for "Freeze"
Despite an intolerable work load, cruel dismissals of the work of a couple of the participants (for not "fitting in") and a drinking binge at the exhibit opening, "Freeze" was a success. The exhibit generated a momentum and elan that would last for over a decade.
Sales and media reviews were a different matter. A deal for Mat Collishaw's brilliant, disturbing Bullet Hole fell through. The solitary major review of the exhibit - in The Guardian - castigated the group for their lack of "self-doubt."
Mat Collishaw, Bullet Hole, 1988
Self-doubt? The YBAs might have sampled a bit too much from the drinks table at the "Freeze" premier but they ignored such absurd media commentary.
"Freeze" introduced the work of the YBA's to art dealers and collectors. Artrage focuses on these gallery owners and patrons almost as much as upon the artists. Visionaries like the German-born dealer, Karsten Schubert, worked to raise the public profile of the YBA's while struggling to keep from drowning in red ink. Others, notably the aristocratic Jay Jopling, joined in for the fun and profit of it all.
Jay Jopling and Damien Hirst, 1992
When it comes to collectors of YBA art, Charles Saatchi is a special case. Saatchi virtually created several YBA "brands." Saatchi purchased Damien Hirst's notorious "Shark Tank" piece and Adam Chodzko's compelling, unsettling Secretors.
Saatchi also used his British establishment connections to win approval for an exhibit of YBA art at the sanctum sanctorum of the Royal Academy in 1997. It is a key episode in Fullerton's narrative which she recounts with a judicious balance of drama and analysis.
The planning committee for "Sensation" at the Royal Academy included Damien Hirst and Norman Rosenthal, the exhibition administrator of the Royal Academy. This insured that noteworthy art by the YBA "core group" like Fiona Rae's Untitled (Parliament) would be included.
But it was a work by an artist on the periphery of the YBAs that detonated the major explosion at "Sensation." Marcus Harvey's billboard-size portrait of the child-murderer, Myra Hindley, triggered howls of protest.
"Sensation" was mounted only a few weeks after Princess Diana's death. Presenting a "heroic" portrait (at least in its physical dimensions) of a child-murderer so soon after the passing of a noted humanitarian like Princess Diana was bound to give offense and to detract from mature assessment of works like Rae's Untitled (Parliament).
Fiona Rae, Untitled (Parliament), 1996
Was the inclusion of Myra a misstep or a case of "there's no such thing as bad publicity?" Saatchi after all manages a very successful advertising agency. Dark thoughts about his manipulation of the art scene are not easy to dismiss.
Only a short time after the closing of "Sensation," Saatchi castigated the YBAs for having embraced the cult of celebrity. Yet it was Saatchi who had insisted that the "Sensation" artists be featured with full page portraits in the exhibit catalog against Rosenthal's dissent.
Whether or not Saatchi was a malign Svengali-figure or just a very astute player in the lucrative art market, he did provide needed financial support early-on and pointed the YBAs in the direction of career success.
Yet, in terms of validation, the mere fact that many of the YBAs never succumbed to "starving artist syndrome" has worked against them. Jealousy and resentment of their success began to surface around the time of the "Sensations" exhibit.
Gillian Wearing unwittingly served as a lightning-rod for such criticism. Wearing had questioned contemporary society with a series of portrait photographs. She took pictures of people on the streets of London holding placards with a word or phrase that described their emotions. In a wise choice, a London "Bobbie" chose the word, "Help."
Like much of YBA art, Wearing's photo expressed a theme, however brilliant, that allowed for little variation. With devilish (and terribly unfair) sarcasm, critics sharpened the barbs on their tongues. Her photo series was lambasted as "Gillian Wearing-Thin."
By extension, such criticism was aimed at the whole YBA group. In 2004, a devastating fire at a London warehouse used by many of the YBAs destroyed a huge trove of art. An editorial in The Daily Mirror exulted at the incineration of the "over-priced, over-discussed trash that we have had rammed down our throats in recent years by these ageing enfants terribles..."
Fullerton emphasizes dramatic incident over extended commentary. But when she pauses to provide insight, her words command respect. Collectively, the YBAs are a generational group rather than a stylistic one. Fullerton notes:
The vexed issue of what connected the BritArtists has never been resolved for want of a simple answer. While common threads exist in their art, such as black humor, focus on the self or emphasis on death and decay, there was no overriding style. The artists certainly didn't consider themselves as a movement and had no manifesto or shared philosophy; yet they were undeniably a phenomenon.
Fullerton manages the difficult task of presenting these disparate artists as individuals while coming to terms with the "phenomenon" of BritArt during the 1990's. If the YBAs were "self-absorbed" or included elements of gratuitous violence, these can be interpreted as comments on the era as well-as pandering after quick sales or headline-grabbing.
Too much media attention has been given to the "bad-boy" or "bad-girl" images of the YBAs. Fullerton's book certainly opened my eyes - and my mind - to the work of artists I scarcely understood because of all the hype surrounding them.
The work by Angela Bullock is a case in point. From her early "drawing machines" using infrared detectors to Firamental Night Sky: Oculus.12, 2008, Bullock has brilliantly utilized cutting-edge technology. Firmamental Night Sky used LED (light-emitting diodes) technology to create a "starry" sky in the oculus of the Guggenheim Museum's rotunda during a 2008 exhibition. This was a profound statement on humanity's place in the cosmos and a comparison with van Gogh is entirely deserved.
I missed this 2008 exhibit at the Guggenheim. At that point, I simply could not appreciate innovative contemporary artists like Angela Bullock. The kind of media chatter that has - until now - defined the YBAs has been an obstacle for me. It has made it difficult to appreciate them as creative individuals.
Thanks to Elizabeth Fullerton's outstanding saga of The Young British Artists, I won't make that mistake again.
Introductory Image: Artrage: the Story of the BritArt Revolution. 2016 (book cover) Courtesy Thames & Hudson
Marcus Taylor, Rachel Whiteread, Fiona Rae and Richard Patterson in Venice to celebrate Gary Hume at the British Pavilion, 1999. Photograph Fiona Rae © Fiona Rae. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2016
Angela Bulloch sitting on Damien Hirst's lap during the preparations for "Freeze" in Port of London Authority (PLA) building, 1988. Photograph Simon Patterson Courtesy Angela Bulloch
Mat Collishaw, Bullet Hole, 1988. Cibachrome mounted on fifteen light boxes. 243.8 x 265.8 cm (96 x 44 in.) Copyright the artist
Jay Jopling and Damien Hirst, 1992. Photograph Jillian Edelstein © Jillian Edelstein
Fiona Rae, Untitled (Parliament), 1996. Oil and acrylic on canvas , 274.3 x 243.8 cm (108 x 96 in.) Courtesy Timothy Taylor Gallery, London © Fiona Rae. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2016
Posted by Art Eyewitness at 7:39 PM
Labels: Angela Bullock, Charles Saatchi, Damien Hirst, Fiona Rae, Gillian Wearing, Mat Collishaw, Rachel Whiteread, The Young British Artists, YBAs
Blogger September 6, 2016 at 9:32 AM
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Art Eyewitness Book Review: Artrage: the Story of ...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: How to find a Component's module? I'm building some logging libraries for Angular 12+. In my logging structure when my log() function is called from a component, I need to know which module this component belongs to.
I mean I want to know the name or Id (if have any) of the module declaring that component!
How can I find that? is there anyway?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


A Photographic Journey...: Our Little Corner of the World...More Touring of Budapest!!!
Our Little Corner of the World...More Touring of Budapest!!!
Another day of touring Budapest!!!
also one of the beautifully lit buildings I shot as we sailed into Budapest the first night!
Instead of the beach...hanging out on the sides of the Danube!!!
...Art and Linda are getting ready for some Olympics!!!
Just look at the detail under this bridge!!!
There is beauty in every nook and cranny in this stunning city!!!
This spot is a little more challenging to get to than the the steps above!
I couldn't resist photographing this precious little sweetie!!!
Just look at the details in this building!
it looked like gold leaf!
Heading back to our hotel in the Buda hills, we took the funicular!!!
It was quite a ride with quite a view!
Right outside the funicular door we found Cleo's twin!!!
Click on the image below to visit more little corners of the world!
What a lovely documentation of your trip. I love the cat photos. I too try to capture cats when I travel.
I've seen shots of the Parliament before, but not from that angle. Beautiful place to wander about!
The whole darned city is beautiful William!!!
What lovely photographs of this city! The architecture is awesome as are the other scenes that you shot.
I'm really enjoying the tour.
Gorgeous shots of the buildings and I loved the 'clowning around' shots too.
Found you! Great to see you pop up on my Coventry blog. Of course, I will miss your adventures in Mammoth Lakes but what you have done here looks super!! Back soon :).
wat is dit mooi ,zoveel prachtige fijne details,.
Gorgeous Photos Kathryn! Where we live seems so dull when compared to this place.
Budapest is a stunning city Pat!
Fantastic architecture! The parliament building is extremely impressive!
Gorgeous architecture everywhere we went in Budapest Brian!!!


The management of Continental Broadcasting Service, owners of Television Continental, TVC, this morning sacked 145 members of its staff. TVC is owned by National Leader of APC, Bola Tinubu.
Among the reason for the mass sack is over bloated workforce and high over head cost.
The media house in its downsizing, also shut down one of its TV station which is the TVC News Africa. The photo above shows the sacked workers being addressed by the management just before they were dismissed. They were however paid their entitlements as they were disengaged.


text:
Published Fri, Feb 24, 2012
Chavez heads to Cuba for new cancer surgery
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- President Hugo Chavez bid an emotional farewell laced with references to Jesus Christ and independence hero Simon Bolivar as he departed Venezuela on Friday for Cuba.
He is to undergo urgent surgery to remove a tumor he says is probably malignant.
Clasping the hand of his youngest daughter, Rosines, Chavez addressed allies of his socialist political movement and troops standing at attention at the Miraflores presidential palace.
"I say this from my gut: With cancer or without cancer come rain, thunder or lightning nobody can avoid a great patriotic victory Oct. 7," the president said, referring to the date of Venezuela's presidential election.
"Long live Chavez!" he cried.
"Our (founding) father Simon Bolivar once said, 'I am a man of troubles.' I say as a son of Bolivar, I too am a man of troubles. We are a people of troubles," Chavez said.
"Let the troubles come and add like the cross of Christ to the definitive liberation of the country."
Chavez, 57, is turning to the same Cuban doctors who extracted a baseball-size cancerous tumor from his pelvic region last summer.
This time, the growth is smaller, about an inch in diameter.
The president has not disclosed the precise location of either tumor, nor said what kind of cancer he had, but described next week's surgery as urgent.
Spokesman predicts warfare between sects
BAGHDAD (AP) -- A spokesman for al-Qaida in Iraq said Friday that a Sunni Muslim war against Shiites in Iraq is inevitable and threatened relentless waves of attacks like the one a day earlier that killed at least 55 people.
The statement by Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, spokesman for the al-Qaida-linked Islamic State of Iraq, tap into fears in Iraq and abroad about the country's future stability and the government's ability to protect its citizens following the withdrawal of the last U.S. troops in December.
"The war of the Sunnis with the (Shiites) is a religious war, a holy war of faith," he said. "There is no way out of it and there is no swerving from it."
Despite deadly assaults against the Shiite-led government's security forces and Shiite pilgrims, there has been no indication that Iraq is returning to the sectarian bloodshed of 2006 and 2007 that pushed the nation to the brink of civil war. But Iraqis are increasingly frustrated with the government's failure to prevent attacks that continue to kill scores of Iraqis every month.
Prince in ski accident remains unconscious
AMSTERDAM (AP) -- A Dutch prince hit by an avalanche while skiing in Austria last week has suffered massive brain damage and may never regain consciousness, his doctors said Friday.
Johan Friso, the second of Dutch Queen Beatrix's three sons, was buried for 25 minutes before rescuers found him. It then took nearly 50 minutes to resuscitate the prince after he was pulled from the snow, time that may have caused permanent damage, said Dr. Wolfgang Koller, head of trauma at the Innsbruck hospital where the prince is being treated.
"It is clear that the oxygen starvation has caused massive brain damage to the patient," Koller said. "At the moment, it cannot be predicted if he will ever regain consciousness."
Friso, 41, who is married and has two young daughters, will be moved later to a rehabilitation clinic for further treatment. But Koller cautioned it may take years before he awakens from his coma -- if he ever does -- and any recovery from such significant brain damage is a process of "months or even years."


Ryan White is a Google Certified Educator and EdCamp coordinator for EdCamp Rome. He spent 8 years in the classroom as an English and social studies teacher, which eventually transitioned into a technology coaching role, and now leads Floyd County Schools as their Instructional Technologist. He has trained several schools on GAFE, technology integration, 1:1 initiative, and web resources for schools. You can also follow him on twitter @FloydInstTech.


text:
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text:
Making it Real: Ian Chillag on Everything is Alive
Have you ever considered whether the train seat you sit on every day to work has its own thoughts? Or what the lamppost that peers into the window of your apartment thinks about the TV shows you're watching? Welcome to the world of Everything is Alive, one of the most unlikely hits of the podcasting universe, in which inanimate objects bare their souls and spill their stories. Novel's Jess Swinburne spoke to founder and host Ian Chillag about how you get a bar of soap to say what's really on its mind
Imagining the inner voices of inanimate objects is something many of us have probably thought about – though rarely to the extent that Ian Chillag does in Everything is Alive, a Radiotopia show from PRX. From a grain of sand to a satellite orbiting Earth; a set of Russian Dolls to a Shrek tattoo; a pane of glass to a balloon – since the series launched in July 2018 Chillag has invited them all into the studio and subjected them to the kind of thoughtful, compassionate probing that psychoanalysts generally reserve for their clients. What does a rental car think of the hip-hop its renters pump out on the stereo? What are a baguette's true feelings about the French? And if you haven't heard the series, and are wondering how a can of Coca-Cola or lamppost can talk … Maybe it's time to listen to an episode or two of this genre-bending show. It might just change the way you move about it in the world.
Ian Chillag is a producer and writer who lives in Brooklyn. Along with making Everything is Alive (which has just finished its fifth season), he's been a producer on NPR's Wait, Wait… Don't Tell Me and Fresh Air with Terry Gross. His most recent show is In the Scenes Behind Plain Sight: a "TV rewatch podcast for a TV show that never existed".
Jess Swinburne:Where did the idea for Everything is Alive begin?
Ian Chillag: I've always joked around and pretended to know what objects are thinking. I think it's a thing that all humans naturally do, but most people stop at a certain point and I continued. Some of my interest also came from producing news at NPR. I'd be working on a story about banana blight somewhere, say; if you're producing, the thing you want to find is a primary source, so we'd go find the banana farmer who is dealing with this thing. It always occurred to me that an even more primary source would be the banana itself.
Jess: What draws you to the objects you interview?
Ian: It's more art than science. Some things feel like they possess a personality and some things don't. If you have multiples of an object, like four wine glasses, let's say, and you pull one away from the set – if you can feel the loneliness and contemplation of that glass, that's a good indicator that you can create something that feels like it's actually thinking.
The other thing I figured out early on is that there are two types of objects – objects that are used all the time and objects that are used only once. In Everything is Alive, that's a very profound difference. For an object that's used once (like the can of cola , the subject of our first episode), its whole life is spent in anticipation, thinking about the moment it will be used. It spends almost all of its life not doing the thing that it was made for, and that's a strange existence. Something like a subway seat, on the other hand, is used all the time, and so it constantly gets to experience what it is. I hadn't thought about that binary until I got into making the show, so I felt it was important to have a mix of those objects. I strive to have a diversity of objects, personalities and cultures in each season.
Jess: Going back to what you just said about the loneliness and contemplation of an object, one of my favourite episodes is the Russian Dolls one . You observe that even though the smallest doll sits inside the others, it's also in a room by itself. That really stayed with me.
Ian: That was one of my favourites to make. It was the first time we had multiple objects in one episode, so it made it easier to think about the objects' world without us. If the objects are mostly talking about their experiences with humans, it's kind of a failure. The episode should really feel like they are talking about their experience of the world.
Jess: Of course when you're "interviewing" an object, you're in fact interviewing an actor playing the object. How does that work? Do you think, say, Connor Ratliff would be a perfect pair of leather pants and approach him, or do people sometimes come to you with objects they'd like to play?
Ian: Usually we bring the object to the actor. Often we tell them that we're thinking about a number of different objects. If any jump out at them, they'll pick one. But then for the most recent series, we approached Jes Tom and said that we wanted to work with them and it was Jes who suggested they be a baguette. That's how that one began.
Ian Chillag
Jess:The show is described as "unscripted", but is that true? Do you genuinely not have a plan? You just let the interviews run and see how they go?
Ian:I used to strive for perfection, which means it felt a little less real; I'd do a number of retakes. These days, I'm a little more willing to not do retakes. I have a little conversation with the actor a few days before to map out scenes, images and an ending that I want. It's like guided improvisation. Sometimes we end up somewhere else entirely.
Jess: Can you tell me more about that? Do you leave it up to them to create the character they're playing, or are you involved in that process too?
Ian: I start by asking what comes to mind and what character starts to form when they think about the object. In that first conversation before the recording, we spend a little time shaping the basic character notes. So, for example: If you're going to be a pencil, what are your hopes and dreams? Do you always dream of writing your own message? Are you bitter because you have to write whatever a person wants to write? Are you anxious because you're constantly afraid of the pencil sharpener? These big questions will inform the base notes of a personality and they can then go away to think about those things.
Jess: Each episode features a brief insert interview with a "real" human, in which you discuss something specific to do with the object central to the episode. How do you plan these too?
Ian: When I start thinking about an object, I do a bit of research to find stories from the world of that thing. We'll try three or five of those over the course of an interview. Sometimes one will work, sometimes a couple, sometimes none. In the most recent episode, Playing Cards , the Four of Clubs asks why he's called "Club" when he doesn't look anything like a club. Peter Grosz was just joking around, but I thought it was an interesting question so I found Ken, a card collector and historian of cards, who could help me figure it out. I like to get the interview with the object edited down pretty far. Whenever it feels like there's a question hanging, that's where the phone call should go. I always want to speak to a real human being rather than an expert.
Jess: Do you explain the context to the people you're interviewing? Do they know they're on a show that interviews inanimate objects?
Ian: I try not to. I never want them to play with it. One thing I like about that part of the show is that you never know where reality ends and the fiction begins, so I'm careful not to explain the show.
Jess: My favourite example is in the Baguette episode , where you call up Lambert's Cafe in Sikeston, Missouri, which advertises itself as "Home of the Throwed Rolls" . We discover that "throwed rolls" aren't a special kind of bread, but a description of how servers actually throw the rolls to their customers. Luke, who you speak to, takes the job incredibly seriously.
Ian: The whole thing of Everything is Alive is that it's a ridiculous premise treated with absolute seriousness. You almost never hear me laugh. I take great pains to make it very deadpan. You don't want the suspension of disbelief to fall apart.
Jess:What does the future hold? Are you going to continue until you run out of objects?
Ian: At the moment we only do 5 or 6 episodes a year – both because it's a hard show to make but also because I have other things to think about. Sometimes I think I've done enough but inevitably there are more interviews with objects I want to do or new things to find out. It's difficult because the suspension of disbelief is so fragile – if a conversation sounds too planned, the whole thing falls apart. You know there is a human being telling another human being to pretend to be an object. If you hear too much of this then it falls apart. I sometimes feel a little pinned in by the show. The show has to continue to be what it is and it is very hard to break the formula in the way that I would like to.
Jess: How hard is it to sustain the suspension of disbelief and get the tone right?
Ian: When the show was starting, a friend said they thought it would be more like giving a croissant a French accent. But I want it to sound like real people. The flatter it is, the more you can hear the contrast between the comedy and meaning. We fail a lot, though. There are many episodes that don't see the light of day because we don't get the tone right. It's hard to get right.
Jess: A lot of the objects seem to have quite sad inner lives. Which object do you have the most sympathy for?
Ian: Sometimes people ask me if making the show has changed my attitude to the inanimate objects in my life. I will say, after I interviewed Tara, the Bar of Soap , every time I got in the shower and looked at my bar of soap getting smaller and smaller, I felt something I hadn't felt before.
Jess: Sadness?
Ian:Sadness and guilt.
Jess:A sad and guilty shower is a bad way to start the day.
Ian: It really is.
Talk/Talk: Laura Mayer & Mythili Rao
Tape Head: Kaitlin Prest on Sex, Sound and Storytelling
Talk/Talk: Marc Smerling & Austin Mitchell
Tape Head: Sayre Quevedo
Futile Attempts (At Surviving Tomorrow)
Tape Head: Latif Nasser on Coke, fiancés and imposters
Tape Head: Avery Trufelman on Dating Apps and Genesis P-Orridge
The Superhero Complex
© 2023 Novel
Snippet: 00:00/00:00


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Climate Change Denialists Dubbed Auto Makers the 'Opposition' in Fight Over Trump's Emissions Rollback
Written by Global Warming & Climate Change
Mr. Ebell's C.E.I. and other groups have previously received funding from the fuel-manufacturers' organization, though as a nonprofit, the C.E.I. is not required under law to disclose its donors, making it difficult to verify current funding.
Last month, Congress opened an investigation into petroleum companies' involvement in the rollback.
The latest emails also show Trump administration officials in contact with other free market groups like the Heritage Foundation and FreedomWorks, both of which have supported the rollback, as well as the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization run by mostly Republican state legislators and corporations that work together to write and promote model legislation for the nation's statehouses.
In one email, in June 2018, an ALEC staffer wrote to Michael Abboud, the E.P.A. press secretary, to introduce him to the head of ALEC's task force on energy, environment and agriculture, Grant Kidwell. Mr. Kidwell "would love the connection to the EPA," the staffer wrote.
"Thanks for the introduction!," Mr. Abboud responded. "I would love to get together for coffee and chat?" ALEC, which has said it welcomes debate among its members on climate change and has promoted policies that would lead to more emissions, later adopted a model resolution that "fully supports" a rethinking of the fuel economy standards.
Read More At The New York Times
Climate Leviathan: A Political Theory of Our Planetary Future
by Joel Wainwright and Geoff Mann
How climate change will affect our political theory—for better and worse. Despite the science and the summits, leading capitalist states have not achieved anything close to an adequate level of carbon mitigation. There is now simply no way to prevent the planet breaching the threshold of two degrees Celsius set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. What are the likely political and economic outcomes of this? Where is the overheating world heading? Available On Amazon
Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis
by Jared Diamond
Adding a psychological dimension to the in-depth history, geography, biology, and anthropology that mark all of Diamond's books, Upheaval reveals factors influencing how both whole nations and individual people can respond to big challenges. The result is a book epic in scope, but also his most personal book yet. Available On Amazon
Global Commons, Domestic Decisions: The Comparative Politics of Climate Change
by Kathryn Harrison et al
Comparative case studies and analyses of the influence of domestic politics on countries' climate change policies and Kyoto ratification decisions. Climate change represents a "tragedy of the commons" on a global scale, requiring the cooperation of nations that do not necessarily put the Earth's well-being above their own national interests. And yet international efforts to address global warming have met with some success; the Kyoto Protocol, in which industrialized countries committed to reducing their collective emissions, took effect in 2005 (although without the participation of the United States). Available On Amazon
How Solar Heat Drives Rapid Melting Of Parts Of Antarctica's Largest Ice Shelf
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In the long war against COVID, this Waltham biotech is designing a way to fight all variants
By Anissa Gardizy Globe Staff,Updated December 7, 2021, 6:22 p.m.
Adagio Therapeutics cofounders Tillman Gerngross, chief executive officer, Laura Walker, chief scientific officer, and Rene Russo, chair of the board.Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
The Omicron variant has driven home the reality that COVID-19 may be with us for a long time. But if one of New England's leading biotech thinkers is right, there could soon be a new way to fight it.
The day after Thanksgiving, as reports of the variant were circulating, Tillman Gerngross's team at Adagio Therapeutics ran a test that suggested the company's experimental antibody treatment, which is still in clinical trials, would work against Omicron.
There's a much bigger idea at stake: The therapy is designed to work against all variants of the coronavirus, and also could help prevent disease. Whether it will or not remains to be seen — it is very early. But with questions swirling around how effective vaccines and treatments will be against Omicron and future strains, it's a key moment for Adagio, which has positioned its antibody drug as a supplement to existing options.
Investors have liked its approach. The market value of the 18-month-old public company, based in Waltham, doubled after Thanksgiving to about $5 billion, before settling around $4.3 billion on Tuesday.
Adagio is one of several players in the growing field of monoclonal antibody treatments, which have been gaining traction since the rise of the Delta variant last summer. The Biden administration has purchased millions of doses from Regeneron and Eli Lilly, as well as an antibody treatment from GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology, which on Tuesday reported promising results against Omicron mutations in lab tests.
Monoclonal antibodies are based on proteins developed in a laboratory, and they mimic the immune system's ability to fight off viruses. They are given usually by intravenous infusion in a hospital, and work by binding to the virus and blocking it from entering cells.
Gerngross, a prominent scientist-turned-entrepreneur, didn't originally plan to join the fray of companies working on COVID-19 therapeutics. But during the first wave in the spring of 2020, he was intrigued by an idea from his colleague Laura Walker, an expert in antibody science.
Tillman Gerngross, Adagio Therapeutics' cofounder and chief executive officer, at Adimab in Lebanon, N.H.Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
Given the time and money it takes to develop drugs, she said, it would make sense to create a monoclonal antibody treatment that would work against COVID-19, any potential variant, and even other SARS-like viruses that might emerge in the future.
Several drug and vaccine makers have targeted the spike protein, a part of the coronavirus that the pathogen uses to invade cells. Omicron's spike protein has more than 30 mutations, and scientists are concerned that they might diminish the ability of antibodies to bind to and neutralize the virus. But Walker analyzed antibodies that worked against the virus that causes COVID-19, the virus that caused the SARS outbreak in 2003, and other known bat viruses to find a patch on the spike protein that didn't appear to change over time. In theory, an antibody that binds to that spot could neutralize multiple coronaviruses and be less vulnerable to mutations.
"[Laura] said that's important, because that's going to make this molecule work when 'SARS-CoV-3′ [the next coronavirus] comes around, and also make it more useful against variants, which at the time no one was talking about," Gerngross said.
Adagio Therapeutics cofounder and chief scientific officer Laura Walker.Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
That conversation, which took place at their separate antibody company Adimab in Lebanon, N.H., led them in July 2020 to spin out Adagio, which raised hundreds of millions of dollars from investors and went public in August 2021, valued at $1.8 billion.
It's a dizzying pace for a startup whose name was inspired by a musical term for going slow. But Gerngross, a bioengineering professor at Dartmouth College who is CEO of both Adimab and Adagio, has always done things a little differently.
"Everyone else was going allegro," Gerngross said, moving quickly to get experimental vaccines and treatments into the clinic. But he decided to move at a more deliberate pace (adagio), so Walker could find the perfect molecule.
Related: Adagio raises $336 million to advance COVID-19 antibody treatment
"To actually generate this molecule, we were coming to work while everyone else was hunkering down at home," Walker said.
In June 2020, Walker settled on a particular monoclonal antibody, called ADG20. Adimab tried to shop it around to a pharmaceutical partner. But negotiating a deal could take months.
So Gerngross cofounded Adagio with Walker and René Russo, the chief executive of Xilio Therapeutics in Waltham.
Russo had led another Gerngross-founded antibody startup, Arsanis, until 2018, when its drug candidate failed. She wasn't surprised when Gerngross called her and said, "I need you to take a look at something." She joined Adagio after one board meeting.
"I canvassed everyone I knew who were no-nonsense, hard-core, infectious disease development people," said Russo, chair of Adagio's board of directors. "I begged them to come to this company that didn't exist."
Adagio Therapeutics cofounder and chair of the board, Rene Russo.Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
Gerngross was tasked with raising money. He corralled 20 venture capitalists on a Zoom call on June 11. It was a highly unusual way to ask for support, but these were people who had poured hundreds of millions of dollars into his previous companies. A day after the call, Adagio raised $50 million.
"I think he prefers the most efficient, candid, straightforward way to get to a solution," said Terry McGuire of Boston venture capital firm Polaris Partners, who was on the call. McGuire sits on the boards of Adimab and Adagio and has invested in every Gerngross startup since he cofounded GlycoFi, which Merck bought for $400 million in 2006.
Adagio would raise another $400 million from investors before completing a $356 million IPO. The company has 85 employees across 25 states and considers Waltham its headquarters. (Gerngross is based in New Hampshire.)
The company's antibody is now in clinical trials as both a prophylactic — a drug that aims to prevent disease — and a treatment. It's different from a vaccine, which prepares your immune system to make antibodies if you are exposed to the virus; here the drug is the antibody.
Adagio's can be delivered via an intramuscular shot in the thigh in an outpatient setting. Lab data suggests it might be effective at preventing disease for up to one year, the company says. It expects to have clinical results, which would support an emergency use authorization filing, in the second quarter of 2022.
Meanwhile, COVID-19 vaccines from Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson, antibody treatments from Regeneron, Eli Lilly, and GSK/Vir, and antiviral pills from Pfizer and Merck are either authorized in the United States or nearing clearance.
Related: Pfizer vaccine gives partial protection against Omicron in early study
But it's becoming clear that each option has limitations. COVID vaccines and boosters don't work well for some 8 to 10 million immunocompromised people, not to mention the vaccine-hesitant or countries that can't afford to buy them, Gerngross said. And he thinks a vaccine booster strategy that reacts to variants is "really dumb," so Adagio is studying its antibody as a supplement to vaccination.
"By the time they have Omicron ready, we're going to be at whatever the next letter in the Greek alphabet is," he said. "This game of whack-a-mole and chasing your own tail . . . we are not going to vaccinate ourselves out of this problem."
Oral pills, which treat COVID infection, would be more convenient and less expensive than antibodies, but they would not offer long-lasting protection.
Adagio Therapeutics cofounders Tillman Gerngross, Laura Walker, and Rene Russo.Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
Dr. Helen Boucher, an infectious disease specialist at Tufts Medical Center and interim dean of Tufts University School of Medicine, said Adagio's strategy to broadly target coronaviruses seems promising, especially with the emergence of Omicron. If its preventative treatment could last for a year, she said, that would be "extremely helpful." (Monoclonal antibodies typically dissipate in a few weeks or months.)
Adagio has spent $400 million to have 4 million doses ready for a potential FDA authorization next year. A "Warp Speed 2.0,″ or advance purchase commitments, would help increase supply, Gerngross said.
Related: Omicron v. Delta: Battle of coronavirus mutants is critical
Biotech investor Robert Nelsen, cofounder and managing director of Arch Venture Partners and a board member of San Francisco-based Vir, a competitor to Adagio, said there is an undersupply of antibodies.
"I'm a huge fan of Tillman and I think they likely have a good antibody," he said. "What Adagio is doing is great, what Regeneron is doing is great, what Vir is doing is great. Vaccines are the best, but for breakthrough [cases] or people that are unvaccinated, they should get antibodies."
Peter Dedon, who heads the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology, agreed that more antibodies are needed. But he is skeptical of Adagio's claims about Omicron. "Adagio comes out and makes a rosy prediction with no data," he said. "Everyone else is hedging their bets."
But to Gerngross, that's the point — we need a hedge against the existing approaches. He thinks antiviral pills, such as the one from Pfizer, will be useful against Omicron, but he expects some vaccines and antibodies to take a hit.
Gerngross has long warned that a COVID-19 variant could wipe out existing therapeutics that were not designed to work as well after the virus mutates. And beyond that, he's certain there will be another COVID-like pandemic in the future.
When that day comes, he said, "I would rather hold my cards than anyone else's cards."
Anissa Gardizy can be reached at anissa.gardizy@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @anissagardizy8.


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Nature, conservation and wildlife holidays
Iberianature
Nature apps
Wildlife calendar
Wildlife extra
Wildlife books about China
China is a vast country, now very much in the news in the run-up to the 2008 Olympic Games, and as a result of her burgeoning economy. The wildlife of China is still not well known in the West, as it is only relatively recently that the country has opened up to eco-tourism. China is one of the most diverse countries on Earth, whose habitats range from the vast deserts of the northwest and the Tibetan Plateau, through forested mountain slopes, to a myriad of rivers and lakes and the steamy tropical forests of the far south. China is home to many rare and threatened species, and conservation is now a firm priority for the Chinese government. Interest in China s green heritage has never been greater, and this is growing fast as eco-tourism takes off and as the Chinese Government starts to grapple with problems of conservation and environment protection. Although much of China s fertile lowlands are intensively cultivated, there remain plenty of wild areas rich in unusual animals and plants, from giant pandas to colourful pheasants and peacocks, and the Chinese alligator (probable model for the famous Chinese dragon). China is also home to beautiful and intriguing plants the rare ginkgo tree, thousands of herbs as well as species with healing properties. Richly illustrated throughout with specially commissioned world-class photographs, Green China is both a celebration of China s natural world and a general introduction to the flora, fauna and landscapes of one of the world s most diverse countries.
Exploring Natural China
In this vast country – the third largest in the world – varied climate conditions produce an array of habitat types, from the snowy wastelands of the frigid northeast to the tropical paradises of the far south. Spectacular scenery – much of it unique – includes breath-taking karst stone forests, multiple columnar peaks, dramatic caves and solitary pines clinging precariously to bare rocky peaks reminiscent of a Chinese ink-brush painting. Heather has had unusual access to little-known parts of China for many years. Over 26 million foreign tourists visited China in 2007, up 17% on the previous year, and the numbers continue to increase.
Wild China [DVD and book] here from Amazon
Beautifully filmed, Wild China takes an expansive look at the fourth largest country in the world. Over a period of more than six hours, the miniseries–which was co-produced by the BBC and China's CTV–lets viewers into a world that is straddling the line between modern-day efficiency and old world traditions. Fans accustomed to travelogues with personable hosts such as quirky Anthony Bourdain or perky Samantha Brown leading them through far away places may get a little bored with the hands-off approach here. But the beauty of this production is in the country and the people, and the way the filmmakers present them in crisply edited vignettes. We see the jumping spiders atop Mount Everest, the winding grace of the Great Wall, and of course some shy pandas that many people equate with China. But some of the best moments are the simple ones–children in a classroom, fishermen working the waters, and monks meditating in monasteries. As did the Planet Earth series, Wild China makes viewers wish they were there. The film doesn't touch heavily on the politics of China, but it isn't lacking because of the omission. As it is, Wild China ends all too soon, leaving viewers longing for more for a country that once didn't welcome foreigners Wild China (book here)
A Field Guide to the Birds of China
China is one of the largest countries in the world, covering 7% of the earth's land surface, and encompassing a hugely diverse range of habitats. As a result it boasts a rich and diverse avifauna, including some of the most spectacular and fascinating birds to be found anywhere in the world. John MacKinnon and Karen Phillipps' important new guide will be the first truly comprehensive, taxonomically modern, and fully illustrated field guide to the birds of China. Over 1300 bird species are illustrated in 128 original colour paintings, by Karen Phillipps and Dave Showler. The species accounts stress the key points for field recognition and give a full description of the plumage, voice, range, distribution, status, and behavioural characteristics for every bird, with additional descriptions provided for hundreds of subspecies. Colour distribution maps are provided for all illustrated species. The book also includes a useful introductory section that presents a background to the ecology of China, a brief history of Chinese ornithology, and plenty of practical hints on birdwatching in China. The guide's portable format means it will fit easily into a backpack or pocket. John MacKinnon lived in China and Hong Kong for eight years, and has extensive experience of watching and writing about Chinese birds. He has been working in ecology and conservation in Asia for over 30 years, and his work in China included co-authoring the master plan to save the Giant Panda and its habitat. He has written and co-authored many books on the natural history of Asia, including a number of other bird guides. Karen Phillipps was born in Borneo, lived in Hong Kong for over 20 years, and has illustrated several other books on the birdlife of the region.
Chinese Wildlife -I love the Bradt guides
China is home to a remarkable variety of unusual wildlife, including many rare and threatened species under conservation. This new wildlife guide provides a colourful introduction to the species of a country that is beginning to emerge as a fascinating destination for natural history enthusiasts.
Visitors can discover a range of habitats: the huge deserts of the northwest and the Tibetan Plateau, forested mountain slopes and the rivers, lakes and steamy tropical forests of the deep south. Interesting features on medicinal plants, rare cranes and, of course, the giant panda supplement animal and habitat listings. Accessible and beautifully illustrated, "Chinese Wildlife" will appeal both to the first-time visitor and the serious naturalist seeking a compact volume. It is also a great souvenir.
* The only guidebook on the market dedicated to China's wildlife. * Around 200 first-class photographs illustrating China's most interesting species. * All major animal groups covered: mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates, with habitats and plantlife.
A Guide to the Mammals of China A very useful reference for anyone with an interest in Chinese mammals
A Guide to the Mammals of China" is the most comprehensive guide to all 556 species of mammals found in China. It is the only single-volume reference of its kind to fully describe the physical characteristics, geographic distribution, natural history, and conservation status of every species. An up-to-date distribution map accompanies each species account, and color plates illustrate a majority of species.
Tiger Bone and Rhino Horn
In parts of Korea and China, moon bears, black but for the crescent-shaped patch of white on their chests, are captured in the wild and imprisoned in squeeze cages, where steel catheters drain their bile as a cure for ailments ranging from upset stomach to skin burns. Rhinos are being illegally poached for their horns, as are tigers for their bones, thought to improve virility. Booming economies and growing wealth in parts of Asia are increasing demand for these precious medicinals while already endangered species are being sacrificed for temporary treatments for nausea and erectile dysfunction. Richard Ellis, one of the world's foremost experts in wildlife extinction, brings his alarm to the pages of "Tiger Bone & Rhino Horn", in the hope that through an exposure of this drug trade, something can be done to save the animals most direly threatened. Trade in animal parts for traditional Chinese medicine is a leading cause of species endangerment in Asia, and poaching is increasing at an alarming rate. Although most of traditional Chinese medicine is not a cause for concern because it relies on herbs and other plants, as wildlife habitats are shrinking for the hunted large species, the situation is becoming ever more critical. Ellis tells us what has been done successfully, and contemplates what can and must be done to save these rare animals from extinction.
Wildlife of the Tibetan Steppe
The vast remote Tibetan steppe, the Chang Tang, is home to a unique assemblage of large mammals, including the Tibetan antelope, gazelle, argali sheep, wild ass, wild yak, wolves and snow leopards. This text is the result of the author's research into the natural history of this little-known eco-system. The plains ungulates are the main focus of the book, especially the Tibetan antelope or "chiru", whose migrations define this eco-system much as those of the wildebeest define the Serengeti. Descriptions of mammal numbers and distribution, behaviour and ecology are provided, information which may allow wildlife, grasslands and pastoralists to continue to coexist harmoniously in this region. This project led to the creation of the 130,000-square-mile Chang Tang reserve by the Tibetan government in 1993, and conservation and management efforts continue.
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Giant panda news archive
Pandas seriously affected by Sichuan earthquake
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Wildlife of Taiwan
Wildlife of the Yangtze
Wildlife of Tibet
Nature news about China
Golden hair monkey 2011/01/07
Biologists dressed as pandas 2010/12/12
Giraffes in Imperial China 2009/08/24
Asian wildlife news 2 2009/08/21
Himalayas threatened 2009/08/10
Wildlife and nature holidays in China
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Asian nature news
The largest flower in the world – Rafflesia arnoldii 2011/01/29
Best camera-trap photo 2010/11/29
Lions being killed for Chinese medicine 2009/10/20
World Press nature photos 2009/10/01
Cheetah reintroduction plan in India 2009/09/21
Natural history of China, Mammals of China, Reptiles of China, Birds of China, Animals of China, Snakes of China, Dangerous animals of China, Insects of China, Birdwatching in China, Wildlife watching in China
A great source on the net for world wildlife news is Wildlife Extra
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Preparing for the future is an important part of anyone's financial wellbeing. Investing and saving are two of the best ways to secure your financial future. Many investment options require a fair amount of money in order to start out though. The most well-known options for savings are the ones that require a lot of money.
To help anyone and everyone start investing in their future we have created a list of savings and investment options that don't require you to have a lot of money to start up.
A standard savings account is easy to set up and many people already have them. However, they are not using them to their full potential. Even a small investment of $5-$10 a week can start to add up over time. While you may not get a high interest rate, you can often avoid fees by attaching the account to your checking account. For small amounts of money, paying fees can feel like it is counterproductive, and it can be.
Debt incurs interest rates and the more debt that you have, the more money that you are losing every month when interest gets added on. If you are able to pay off debt any quicker with that small amount of money you invest you will instead have more money available sooner. Debt will also impact your credit score which will make it harder to get certain financial accounts, buy houses, and other financial practices.
You might not even be able to get an apartment rental. Having outstanding balances can really affect many aspects of your life.
Many major corporations that are traded on the stock market offer the ability to buy small amounts of stock from a company at a time. You will only need between $20 and $30 to get started. When you get your regular dividend, you can reinvest it into more stock. Most of the DRIP accounts even allow you to set up automatic reinvestment into more stock. It may be slow but you will start to build up as time goes by.
Thousands of different options are available for both DRIP plans and DIrect Stock Purchase PLans (DSPP). Best part about it? You get to bypass brokers and other third parties to buy the stock directly. That means that you won't need to pay commissions or many fees.
Motif is a platform that uses mini-mutual funds that are created by users on the website. The name Motif, is actually the type of mini-mutual fund that you are working with. A great feature of this website is that it shows what Motifs are doing really well each week and which ones are doing the worst. You can get an idea of what to invest in and what not to invest in.
Hundreds of Motifs exist on the website and you are free to choose which ones you want. You can also have the company use their professionals to help build a portfolio that is customized for you.
With a minimum investment of $250 a Motif isn't the lowest cost investment option you have, but that $250 can perform really well depending on how it is invested. There is also a $9.95 transaction fee whenever you make a transaction.
If you aren't already taking advantage of your employer sponsored retirement plan (i.e. 401K) then you should be doing that. These retirement plans are almost always taken out of your paycheck pre-tax. In most cases, investment can be between 1% and 20%. For most people who are looking for small investments this small amount of your paycheck is optimal. Throughout the life of your investing, you can change the amount you want to invest every month up to the limit. As time goes by, these investments tend to perform very well. It is one of the best ways to save money that is only for retirement (with a few exceptions).
If your employer offers any type of investment matching, you need to be taking advantage of the plan. Otherwise, that is free money that you are passing up. Some employers offer up to 100% matching. Often times, these accounts can have enough to retire on if you continue to invest.
Acorns is a small amount investment platform. You can start with as little as $5. The money that you put into Acorns is invested into smart portfolios based on the amount of risk that you are willing to take on. From conservative to risky. One key feature of Acorns is that they take spare change from your bank account and round it up. So, every time you spend a portion of a dollar, Acorns rounds that dollar point up and invests it. You can also make one-time investments and weekly investments.
Fees are very low compared to other investing platforms. Any account with less than $5,000 has a fee of $1/month. Accounts with more than $5,000 have a fee of 0.25%.
The one thing about Acorns is that it is built to be a mobile first investment platform. They released their platform first with only being able to access Acorns on an iPhone or Android device, now you can access it on the internet.
Lending from one person to another is a great way to make money off of the interest. There are a variety of websites that can be used to help you connect with people looking for lenders. Prosper and Lending Club are just two examples of these kinds of websites. A lot of people who participate in peer-to-peer lending use the interest that is earned through the lending, to invest in new loans. The more loans you have going, the more interest you build up. However, there is always risk involved. Most of these platforms allow you to choose from safe lending to more risky lending, depending on the amount of risk vs. reward that you want to take on.
Depending on where you live, peer-to-peer lending might not be an option for you. Some states require a minimum monthly income and net worth before allowing people to participate in peer to peer lending. Or loaning of any kind.
A small business or part time business requires some work but it can be a great way to know that you are going to continue to earn money. There are many businesses that can be started with only a small amount of money, or even with just an investment of time. Online platforms are making this easier and easier.
One example of a part time business you can start is a freelancing business. Companies and individuals all over the world are looking to hire freelancers to perform jobs. From writing, to web design, to consultation, there are freelancing jobs for everything.
An important part of starting a part time business is taking a portion of your income and investing it. With the money you are making on the side you can have an amount of spending cash and investment money. The more time you are willing to invest in your business, the more income that you can make. The more you can invest.
When investing it is important to keep in mind that there are always ups and downs. Never invest all of your money in one place. Diversifying your portfolio is important and it allows you to be safeguarded if something happens with the market.
Another thing to keep in mind is that while we have done some research into these investing options, we always encourage you to do research of your own. An investment platform that is right for one person, might not be right for another. Investment options also fluctuate and the reliability of a platform can go up and down. Completing your own research makes you an informed investor.
Investing and saving is important for your financial future. With these small investment options you can start to secure your future even if you don't have a lot of money to start with. Many of these platforms are versatile and allow you to mix up the amount of money that you want to invest. Start investing today to start making progress on your future.


text:
Q: why can't i call variable from other class using object.variable_name? I have just begun learning Java and I am trying to test stuff by myself. Below is the code where I am getting an error. I am trying to call the local variable in class B in class Demo using object of class B.
public class Demo {
    public static void main(String args[])
    {
        B obj=new B();
        System.out.println("printing that variable "+obj.a);
    }
}
class B{
    public void test()
    {
        int a=10;
    }
}

Output:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.Error: Unresolved compilation
  problem:  a cannot be resolved or is not a field at
  Demo.main(Demo.java:7)

A: You can always call, but that needs to be in scope and when the current context have access to.
System.out.println("printing that variable "+obj.a);

You cannot do that since the variable a is local to the method test() and scope is restricted to that method only.
To access the way you want now, make it as a instance member.
class B{
int a;  // instance member now
public void test()
{
a=10;
}
}

Now note that unless you call the method test() the default value is 0 only. Hence you might want to change your code as
public static void main(String args[])
{
B obj=new B();
obj.test();
System.out.println("printing that variable "+obj.a);
}

and if you don't want to call a method at all want to access a directly, you can do
public class Demo {
public static void main(String args[])
{
B obj=new B();
System.out.println("printing that variable "+obj.a);
}
}
class B{
public int a= 10;
}

Imp note :Always resolve all the compile errors before running your program :)

A: Because in
class B {
    public void test() {
        int a = 10;
    }
}

a is local variable of test method. If what you are trying to do would be possible, what value should be used in scenario like
class B {
    public void test1() {
        int a = 10;
    }
    public void test2() {
        int a = 20;
    }
}

Should a come from test1 or from test2? For compiler this two methods are equally correct so it can't decide for you, which would cause the problem. Also lets not forget that method can have few variables with same name as long as they are in different scope, that is why we can have few for(int i...) methods (so from which scope you would want to use i).
Generally . operator is used to get access to member of class, not variable from method. So via object.member you may access to object.method() or object.field. If your class would look like
class B{
    public int x;
    public void test1() {
        int a = 10;
    }
}

you could use object.b since b is class B field.

Anyway if you want to get access to value of variable created and used only in method test, you could change this method to return this value. In other words you could rewrite it like
public int test1() {
    int a = 10;
    //... you can do something with a
    return a;
}

Now in main method in Demo class you could use int result = obj.test();


No, it's not the anesthesia, Grace: Your ex-husband really is standing right in front of you.
After Grace remembers that she told Karen to update her contact info — which is the same as telling no one at all — the nurse senses some unresolved issues between the former lovers. Actually, Grace could probably use a bit more of that anesthesia, while you're at it, nurse.
Elsewhere in this week's episode, "Jack takes on a new job he never expected to love, and Karen befriends a 12-year-old girl in the Bronx, despite her best efforts," per NBC's official description.
Press PLAY on the video below to see Harry Connick Jr.'s return to Will & Grace, and then hit the comments and tell us: Should he stick around long enough for another shot at love with Grace?


Today here is a quick bodyweight flow that you can do if you don't have time to hit the gym or that you can do before your workout.
Sylvia Favela: Hey guys, Sylvia and Tyler here, and we are the creators of Bodyweight Flow.
Tyler Bramlett: This special guest video is for you over at ExercisesForInjuries.com. It's a 2-3 minute bodyweight flow. You can use it before your next workout to burn fat faster, maximize your workout, and accelerate your results.
Let's get you started on this Advance Full Body Flow.
Sylvia will start by walking her hands out in a downward dog position and she's going to start by doing a push up. Bending your elbows, bring your head down as low as you can, and then pressing your back up.
From there, she's going to lower down her hips to a plank, bring her knee up, rotate and extend the leg, come back and then press everything up as long as possible.
Bring the foot down and repeat by starting with the next push up right there. So push up and then plank, rotate to the opposite side, down out back and extend.
You want to make sure that you never let your shoulders shrug up and get relaxed.
You are keeping everything tight in your mid section.
You are keeping your shoulders externally rotated the entire time.
This is a complex movement so make sure you master it with control first and then we can speed up the exercise second. You want to make sure that right here where you extend your leg out you are feeling the stomach muscles on one side work as you come back and then rotate and we repeat on the other side.
Sylvia Favela: We hope that you enjoy the 2 to 3 minutes Bodyweight Flow.
Tyler Bramlett: If you are interested to learn 63 more bodyweight flows, go here.


text:
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From the Feuilletons
From the Feuilletons is a weekly overview of what's been happening in the German-language cultural pages and appears every Friday at 3 pm. CET.. Here a key to the German newspapers.
The Beijing Book Fair?
A censorship scandal has already erupted around October's Frankfurt Book Fair, whose guest of honour this year is China. This coming Saturday, in the lead up to the fair, Frankfurt will be hosting a symposium on "China and the World", (pdf) together with the Chinese. One of the speakers, an influential investigative journalist and environmental activist, Dai Qing, has now come under pressure from the Chinese delegation not to give her talk, as Bernhard Bartsch reported yesterday in the Frankfurter Rundschau: "The written invitation issued by the Frankfurt Book Fair, which Dai needed to apply for her visa, vanished into thin air at the behest of the Peking authorities for Press and Publication (GAPP), which is now threatening to pull out of conference entirely if the disagreeable author is allowed to enter the country."
In the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Henrik Bork reported: "The Chinese have 'stated unequivocally that if Ms Dai Qing does turn up after all, they will pull out all together,' according to Peter Ripken, the symposium's organiser. This has created a 'catch-22 situation', because it would mean that the entire 10-person delegation from Beijing boycotts the symposium."
It was announced today that Dai Qing has received an express visa from the German embassy and is intent on coming to Frankfurt this weekend, Henrik Bork reports. And the Book Fair? It is making "worried noises about Dai's insistence on coming to Frankfurt. 'It could bring the whole event to its knees,' says Peter Ripken. 'We want a real debate, but without the Chinese attendees the conference would become a tribunal.' Last Wednesday he was still under the assumption that Dai would agreed not to come to Frankfurt until October when she would talk at an event that was not connected to the official Chinese programme at the Book Fair." Hang Hui, professor of Humanities at Tsinghua University and a pioneer of the government-critical "new left" in China who was to give a key note speech at the symposium, will also not be attending. He told the FR that "his visa application had been rejected by the German embassy on formal grounds".
Another speaker who has been "uninvited" after pressure from Beijing, is the poet and political commentator, Bei Ling, who lives in exile in the USA, as Andrea Lorenz reports in Spiegel Online. "'Yesterday I received a phone call urging me not to fly to Frankfurt,' Bei Ling told Spiegel Online. 'All hell would break lose if I turned up, I was informed.'"
In the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Henrik Bork and David Steinitz translated excerpts of the speech which Bei Ling was due to deliver at the Frankfurt symposium: "In China every writer knows exactly what he can write and what not. Self-censorship is imperative for survival and for a writer's success, particularly for novelists. Because membership in the state writers' associations is linked to market influence, payment and potential fame after publication, self-censorship and state censorship enter into a complex co-existence. This relationship makes Chinese writers, journalists and publishers into conscious or unconscious accomplices in the state control of the news and press."
Other stories:
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 07.09.2009
Now that the EU has signed the death warrant for the incandescent light bulb, art critic and novelist Ulf Erdmann Ziegler recommends stocking up before it's too late. "Admittedly it was a lot of work, it cost me an arm and a leg and it was a logistical nightmare of storage and labelling. I gave up counting at some point, but I have collected two or three thousand light bulbs of various kinds, which is probably enough to last me a lifetime. The pitying looks of my neighbours have not escaped me."
Der Freitag 10.09.2009
In Freitag magazine, a number of prominent writers - including Martin Walser, Elfriede Jelinek and Charlotte Roche - call for the German army to pull out of Afghanistan. "The enemy is not an army but a culture. This is why this conflict cannot be resolved by military engagement, but only through long-term engagement in political development…. In the course of the next two years Germany should terminate its military presence in Afghanistan. This time should be used for a transition to non-military engagement."
Die Zeit 10.09.2009
In an Op-Ed piece, Karsten Polke-Majewski describes the disinterest and incompetence of German politics in the World Wide Web as a threat to society: "More than 52 million citizens organise their daily lives with the help of the Internet. But the Bundestag does not have a single influential committee that deals with the protection of this critical infrastructure. Instead a cloud of angst-ridden terms are darkening the political landscape. Their names are IP theft, killer games, child pornography and cyber-terrorism… Any one who believes that the Internet is nothing but a mass medium like radio or TV, is misguided."
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signandsight.com - let's talk european.
Saturday 11 - 17 December, 2010
A clutch of German newspapers launch an appeal against the criminalisation of Wikileaks. Vera Lengsfeld remembers GDR dissident Jürgen Fuchs and how he met death in his cell. All the papers were bowled over Xavier Beauvois' film "Of Gods and Men." The FR enjoys a joke but not a picnic at a staging of Stravinsky's "Rake's Progress" in Berlin. Gustav Seibt provides a lurid description of Napoleonic soap in the SZ. German-Turkish Dogan Akhanli author explains what it feels like to be Josef K.
Saturday 4 - Friday 10 December
Colombian writer Hector Abad defends Nobel Prize laureate Mario Vargas Llosa against European Latin-America romantics. Wikileaks dissident Daniel Domscheit-Berg criticises the new publication policy of his former employer. The Sprengel Museum has put on a show of child nudes by die Brücke artists. The SZ takes a walk through the Internet woods with FAZ prophet of doom Frank Schirrmacher. The FAZ is troubled by Christian Thielemann's unstable tempo in the Beethoven cycle. And the FR meets China Free Press publisher, Bao Pu.
Saturday 27 November - Friday 3 December
Danish author Frederik Stjernfelt explains how the Left got its culturist ideas. Slavenka Draculic writes about censoring Angelina Jolie who wanted to make a film in Bosnia. Daniel Cohn-Bendit talks about his friendship, falling out and reconciliation with Jean-Luc Godard. Wikileaks has caused an embarrassed silence in the Arab world, where not even al-Jazeera reported on the what the sheiks really think. Alan Posener calls for the Hannah Arendt Institute in Dresden to be shut down.
Saturday 20 - Friday 26 November, 2010
The theatre event of the week came in a twin pack: Roland Schimmelpfennig's new play, a post-colonial "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" opened at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin and the Thalia in Hamburg. The anarchist pamphlet "The Coming Insurrection" has at last been translated into German and has ignited the revolutionary sympathies of at least two leading German broadsheets, the FAZ and the SZ. But the taz, Germany's left-wing daily, says the pamphlet is strongly right-wing. What's left and right anyway? came the reply.
Dieter Schlesak levels grave accusations against his former friend and colleague, Oskar Pastior, who spied on him for the Securitate. Banat-Swabian author and vice chairman of the Oskar Pastior Foundation, Ernest Wichner, turns on Schlesak for spreading malicious rumours. Die Zeit portrays the Berlin rapper Harris, and the moment he knew he was German. Dutch author Cees Nooteboom meditates on the near lust for physical torture in the paintings of Francisco de Zurburan. An exhibition in Mannheim displays the dream house photography of Julius Schulman.
Saturday 6 - Friday 12 November, 2010
The NZZ asks why banks invest in art. The FAZ gawps at the unnatural stack of stomach muscles in Michelangelo's drawings. The taz witnesses a giant step for the "Yugo palaver". Bernard-Henri Levy describes Sakineh Ashtiani's impending execution as a test for Iran and the west. Journalist Michael Anti talks about the healthy relationship between the net and the Chinese media. Literary academic Helmut Lethen describes how Ernst Jünger stripped the worker of all organic substances.
Saturday 30 October - Friday 5 November, 2010
Now that German TV has just beatified Pope Pius XII, Rolf Hochmuth tells die Welt where he got the idea for his play "The Deputy". The FR celebrates Elfriede Jelinek's "brilliantly malicious" farce about the collapse of the Cologne City Archive. "Carlos" director Olivier Assayas makes it clear that the revolutionary subject is a figment of the imagination. The SZ returns from the Shanghai Expo with a cloying after-taste of sweet 'n' sour. And historian Wang Hui tells the NZZ that China's intellectuals have plenty of freedom to pose critical questions.
Saturday 23 - Friday 29 October, 2010
Author Doron Rabinovici protests against the concessions of moderate Austrian politicians to the FPÖ: recently in Vienna, children were sent back to Kosovo at gunpoint. Ian McEwan wonders why major German novelists didn't mention the Wall. The NZZ looks through the Priz Goncourt shortlist and finds plenty of writers with more bite than Houellebecq. The FAZ outs two of Germany's leading journalists who fiercely guarded the German Foreign Ministry's Nazi past. Jens-Martin Eriksen and Frederik Stjernfelt analyse the symptoms of culturalism, left and right. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht demonstratively yawns at German debate.
A new book chronicles the revolt of revolting "third persons" at Suhrkamp publishers in the wild days of 1968. Necla Kelek is appalled by the speech of the very Christian Christian Wulff, the German president, in Turkey. The taz met a new faction of hardcore Palestinians who are fighting for separate sex hairdressing in Gaza. Sinologist Andreas Schlieker reports on the new Chinese willingness to restructure the heart. And the Cologne band Erdmöbel celebrate the famous halo around the frying pan.
Saturday 9 - Friday 15 October, 2010
The FR laps up the muscular male bodies and bellies at the Michelangelo exhibition in the Viennese Albertina. The same paper is outraged by the cowardice of the Berlin exhibition "Hitler and the Germans". Mario Vargas-Llosa remembers a bad line from Sweden. Theologist Friedrich Wilhelm Graf makes it very clear that Western values are not Judaeo-Christian values. The Achse des Guten is annoyed by the attempts of the mainstream media to dismiss Mario Vargas-Llosa. The NZZ celebrates the tireless self-demolition of Polish writer and satirist Slawomir Mrozek.
Saturday 2 - Friday 8 October, 2010
Nigerian writer Niyi Osundare explains why his country has become uninhabitable. German Book Prize winner Melinda Nadj Abonji says Switzerland only pretends to be liberal. German author Monika Maron is not sure that Islam really does belong to Germany. Russian writer Oleg Yuriev explains the disastrous effects of postmodernism on the Petersburg Hermitage. Argentinian author Martin Caparros describes how the Kirchners have co-opted the country's revolutionary history. And publisher Damian Tabarovsky explains why 2001 was such an explosively creative year for Argentina.
Saturday 25 September - Friday 1 October
Three East German theatre directors talk about the trauma of reunification. In the FAZ, Thilo Sarrazin denies accusations that his book propagates eugenics: "I am interested in the interplay of nature and nurture." Polemics are being drowned out by blaring lullabies, author Thea Dorn despairs. Author Iris Radisch is dismayed by the state of the German novel - too much idle chatter, not enough literary clout. Der Spiegel posts its interview with the German WikiLeaks spokesman, Daniel Schmitt. And Vaclav Havel's appeal to award the Nobel prize to Liu Xiabobo has the Chinese authorities pulling out their hair.
Saturday 18 - Friday 24 September, 2010
Herta Müller's response to the news that poet Oskar Pastior was a Securitate informant was one of overwhelming grief: "When he returned home from the gulag he was everybody's game." Theatre director Luk Perceval talks about the veiled depression in his theatre. Cartoonist Molly Norris has disappeared after receiving death threats for her "Everybody Draw Mohammed" campaign. The Berliner Zeitung approves of the mellowing in Pierre Boulez' music. And Chinese writer Liao Yiwu, allowed to leave China for the first time, explains why schnapps is his most important writing tool.
The poet Oskar Pastior was a Securitate informant, the historian Stefan Sienerth has discovered. Biologist Veronika Lipphardt dismisses Thilo Sarrazin's incendiary intelligence theories as a load of codswallop. A number of prominent Muslim intellectuals in Germany have written an open letter to President Christian Wulff, calling for him to "make a stand for a democratic culture based on mutual respect." And a Shell study has revealed that Germany's youth aspire to be just like their parents.
Saturday 4 - Friday 10 September, 2010
Thilo Sarrazin has buckled under the stress of the past two weeks and resigned from the board of the Central Bank. His book, "Germany is abolishing itself", however, continues to keep Germany locked in a debate about education and immigration and intelligence. Also this week, Mohammed cartoonist Kurt Westergaard has been awarded the M100 prize for defending freedom of opinion. Chancellor Angela Merkel gave a speech at the award ceremony: "The secret of freedom is courage". The FAZ interviewed Westergaard, who expressed his disappointment that the only people who had shown him no support were those of his own class.
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How do you feel about this hi-jack of the industry?
These sinister and racist white individuals have been playing with us for centuries. They are pretenders to the throne of the black Jews of Ethiopia asking them to prove their are real Jews. These European Jews own the football teams and a player cannot demonstrate about the killings of black people by police officers before he become blacklisted and no team wants to sign him. All this being done to please the racist white men including so called fake greedy European Jews in Israel.