Corporate cafeterias have taken off over the last decade, and the trend is not slowing. Businesses and building owners have been adding new cafeterias or expanding current ones to help with recruitment of the millennial generation, boost employee retention and morale, and establish a more inviting wok environment. While adding lasting value to employees, cooperate cafeterias are one of the largest operation costs within the building. After all, food service areas account for the highest energy cost per square foot in the commercial building sector.
The expansion of cafeterias and new cooking techniques create new obstacles around kitchen design, code compliance, and added ventilation among other things. A commercial building's HVAC system accounts for about 29% of energy consumption, and up to 75% of the HVAC energy consumption is contributed to the kitchen hood ventilation system. Kitchen hoods normally run at 100% fan speed from open to close, sometimes even running for 24 hours a day. Even during slow hours of operation, the system is continuously running at 100%. Any time the fan is on, the kitchen hood's exhaust fans are pulling perfectly good conditioned air out of the building. At the same time the Makeup Air Unit is trying to respond to this and is heating/cooling air and redistributing it back into the kitchen. It is a vicious cycle of wasted energy and wasted money.
DEMAND CONTROL KITCHEN VENTILATION (DCKV).
DCKV systems utilize optic and/or temperature sensors to actively modulate the exhaust and make up air fans based on the cooking activity within the fume hood. Meaning if your kitchen has downtime and there is no active cooking, the fans will automatically lower their run speed to conserve energy. As cooking starts, fan speed will rev up appropriately until it hits the maximum speed of 100%, if necessary. This allows the highest energy savings and increased comfort and safety for building occupants. DCKV is also easy to implement. It is a low-cost project that is equally effective in new construction or retro-fit during remodels. Savings from installing DCKV can be used to accelerate your payback for the addition of your corporate kitchen, making the cost of the kitchen less.
Interested in seeing how DCKV could benefit your company or commercial building? Contact us for a free energy savings report to see just how much you could save!


Home / Podcast / Are You a Good Steward of the Second Amendment?
We're blessed in most of the US in regards to our rights, and with that blessing comes a large responsibility to secure it for future generations.
I've talked extensively on the podcast and blog about how I've found just being a normal guy, who is open about guns tends to win the favor of most people when the topic comes up. People are quick to ask questions when you're just a normal guy who's not all "mah rights!" in their face all the time.
Now, don't get me wrong, I love muh rights, but in the battle of public perception, it's seen as a bit of an extreme thing to lead with. If the conversation goes there, no worries, that's totally fine, but if someone asks you why you carry, and you respond "Because the 2A is my gun permit! They can take it from my cold dead hands!" you're not going to win them over to our side. Someone on the fence will put up a wall at that point.
Be normal. Just be yourself around people, and don't change when the topic of guns comes up. As i mentioned a minute ago, I've seen a lot of people clam up, and get huffy when they're met with a differing opinion. Personally, I tend to just blow off someone whos in my face about not liking guns when they're clearly not educated on the issue. IF someone is well educated on guns, and they still don't like them, then I can at least respect their opinion, even if I think they're wrong.
Don't do stupid irresponsible crap, and for the love of Pete, don't post videos of it on the internet. I don't really care if you want to blow up your washing machine with binary explosives, but I don't feel like doing this sort of thing really helps our cause. A lot of people are put off by the "dumb ignorant toothless white redneck from the south" and this sort of thing just kind of perpetuates that, even if you don't fit that stereotype.
Be helpful! If someone has legitimate questions, and they're asking them genuinely, go out of your way to be helpful. Offer to take them to the range, offer to pay their range fees and provide some ammo. Lets face it, shooting is fun as heck, so helping people to be educated about it does nothing but help our cause.
The Caldwell Ballistic Precision Chronograph is a great buy. The app works well, and I don't have any complaints about the chronograph itself. If you reload, I think you should at least put a chronograph on your short list of things to buy.
Last week the BATFE released a memo that wetted nitrocellulose would be classified as an explosive and be subject to the transportation and storage rules that go along with that. The trouble with this is that it came down without any warning, and the firearms industry isn't setup to handle this sort of change overnight.
Nitrocellulose is a component of smokeless powder. It's needed in the process of making ammo.
Not being classified as an explosive allows it to be transported without the licenses and regulations that go along with that, and it's basically not explosive while it's wetted (at least that's how I understand it).
Thankfully, it seems like the BATFE is reeling this back in a bit, but I don't think we've seen the last of this sort of thing.
There's a charity match coming up that you local folks might want to be aware of. It's Woody's Warrior/Patriot Match, and you can find the details here.
Here's all the ways you can send a voicemail.


Voted one of the ten best books in Native American and Indigenous Studies by the membership of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association.
Despite the passage of time, our vision of Native Americans remains locked up within powerful stereotypes. That's why some images of Indians can be so unexpected and disorienting: What is Geronimo doing sitting in a Cadillac? Why is an Indian woman in beaded buckskin sitting under a salon hairdryer? Such images startle and challenge our outdated visions, even as the latter continue to dominate relations between Native and non-Native Americans.
Philip Deloria explores this cultural discordance to show how stereotypes and Indian experiences have competed for ascendancy in the wake of the military conquest of Native America and the nation's subsequent embrace of Native "authenticity." Rewriting the story of the national encounter with modernity, Deloria provides revealing accounts of Indians doing unexpected things—singing opera, driving cars, acting in Hollywood—in ways that suggest new directions for American Indian history.
Focusing on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—a time when, according to most standard American narratives, Indian people almost dropped out of history itself—Deloria argues that a great many Indians engaged the very same forces of modernization that were leading non-Indians to reevaluate their own understandings of themselves and their society. He examines longstanding stereotypes of Indians as invariably violent, suggesting that even as such views continued in American popular culture, they were also transformed by the violence at Wounded Knee. He tells how Indians came to represent themselves in Wild West shows and Hollywood films and also examines sports, music, and even Indian people's use of the automobile—an ironic counterpoint to today's highways teeming with Dakota pick-ups and Cherokee sport utility vehicles.
Throughout, Deloria shows us anomalies that resist pigeonholing and force us to rethink familiar expectations. Whether considering the Hollywood films of James Young Deer or the Hall of Fame baseball career of pitcher Charles Albert Bender, he persuasively demonstrates that a significant number of Indian people engaged in modernity—and helped shape its anxieties and its textures—at the very moment they were being defined as "primitive."
These "secret histories," Deloria suggests, compel us to reconsider our own current expectations about what Indian people should be, how they should act, and even what they should look like. More important, he shows how such seemingly harmless (even if unconscious) expectations contribute to the racism and injustice that still haunt the experience of many Native American people today.


What is the one thing that over 200 young people from across Canada had in common? What is the one thing that these young people desired? What is the one thing that these young people knew they couldn't live without? The answer to that question is God.
For four days in August, 2016, over 200 youth and young adults gathered at All Nations Full Gospel Church, located in Toronto, Ont., to seek out God at the "One Thing 16" ANY Goodlife International Youth conference. The conference featured guest ministers, Pastor Derrick Marshall from the United States and Elder Sheldon Neil from Toronto. The "One Thing 16", an international youth conference was held by ANY Goodlife, the youth ministry network of All Nations churches. On the last day of the conference, Pastor Derrick Marshall talked about the love of the Father.
He spoke about how Jesus Christ came to seek what was lost—us.
The youth learned that in Isaiah 64:8, it tells us we are the clay and God is the Father, and we are the workmanship of His hand. During the One Thing 16 youth conference, Pastor Marshall pointed out that we were made to be sons and daughters of God, and that no matter what we do, no matter where we go, God's love still chases after us.
Pastor Marshall emphasized God is an amazing Father, and no matter what sin you think is too big for Him to forgive, or no matter how far you feel like you are from Him, He is always there, waiting with His arms outstretched. Just like the story of the Prodigal son, Pastor Marshall taught the youth that the Father is telling us that it is time to go back to our homes, so that God can restore everything that we left with, and more. The ANY Goodlife youth this holiday season will be putting into action God's love and what they learned at the conference by going into their community to share acts of kindness, and to tell individuals that Jesus was sent for all of us in hopes that they will come to know Him.
Real Talk with Nathan White: Does It Matter That We Celebrate New Year's Eve At Church? Is It Important?


TRY is your new home on RUvideos. A place where people try things for the first time. Similar to popular RUvideos channels such as BuzzFeed, WatchCut, GMM & TheFineBros' React, our goal is to create content to entertain you and to bring a positive light to the start or end of your day.


text:
package org.olat.commons.coordinate.cluster.jms;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.LinkedList;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;

import javax.jms.Connection;
import javax.jms.ConnectionFactory;
import javax.jms.JMSException;
import javax.jms.Message;
import javax.jms.MessageConsumer;
import javax.jms.MessageListener;
import javax.jms.MessageProducer;
import javax.jms.ObjectMessage;
import javax.jms.Session;
import javax.jms.Topic;
import javax.management.openmbean.CompositeDataSupport;
import javax.management.openmbean.CompositeType;
import javax.management.openmbean.OpenDataException;
import javax.management.openmbean.OpenType;
import javax.management.openmbean.SimpleType;

import org.olat.core.commons.persistence.DBFactory;
import org.olat.core.gui.control.Event;
import org.olat.core.id.OLATResourceable;
import org.olat.core.logging.AssertException;
import org.olat.core.logging.OLATRuntimeException;
import org.olat.core.logging.OLog;
import org.olat.core.logging.Tracing;
import org.olat.core.logging.activity.ThreadLocalUserActivityLoggerInstaller;
import org.olat.core.util.cache.n.impl.cluster.ClusterConfig;
import org.olat.core.util.event.AbstractEventBus;
import org.olat.core.util.event.GenericEventListener;
import org.olat.core.util.event.MultiUserEvent;
import org.olat.core.util.event.businfo.BusListenerInfo;
import org.olat.core.util.event.businfo.BusListenerInfos;
import org.olat.core.util.resource.OresHelper;

/**
 * This class realizes a clustered (multiple java vm) system event bus. it uses JMS (per default, apache activeMQ 4.1.4 is configured using spring) as an implementation.
 *
 * @author Felix Jost
 */
public class ClusterEventBus extends AbstractEventBus implements MessageListener, GenericEventListener {
	static OLog log = Tracing.createLoggerFor(ClusterEventBus.class);
	// ores helper is limited to 50 character, so truncate it
	static final OLATResourceable CLUSTER_CHANNEL = OresHelper.createOLATResourceableType(ClusterEventBus.class.getName().substring(0, 50));

	ClusterConfig clusterConfig;

	// settings
	long sendInterval = 1000; // 1000 miliseconds between each "ping/alive/info" message, can be set using spring
	long jmsMsgDelayLimit = 5000; // max duration of ClusterInfoEvent send-receive time in ms

	// counters
	private long latestSentMsgId = -1;
	private long numOfSentMessages = 0;

	// stats
	private final List<String> msgsSent = new ArrayList<String>();
	private final List<String> msgsReceived = new ArrayList<String>();
	private int msgsSentCount = 0;
	private int msgsReceivedCount = 0;

	// latest incoming info from other Nodes
	private final Map<Integer, NodeInfo> nodeInfos = new HashMap<Integer, NodeInfo>();

	private final int maxListSize = 10; // how many entries are kept in the outbound/inbound history. Just for administrative purposes

	// for bookkeeping how many resources have how many listeners
	BusListenerInfos busInfos = new BusListenerInfos();
	protected boolean isClusterInfoEventThreadRunning = true;
	private ConnectionFactory connectionFactory;
	private Topic destination;
	private Connection connection;
	private Session session;
	private MessageConsumer consumer;
	private MessageProducer producer;

	private long lastOnMessageFinishTime_ = -1;
	private final SimpleProbe mrtgProbeJMSLoad_ = new SimpleProbe();
	private final SimpleProbe mrtgProbeJMSDeliveryTime_ = new SimpleProbe();
	private final SimpleProbe mrtgProbeJMSProcessingTime_ = new SimpleProbe();

	private final SimpleProbe mrtgProbeJMSEnqueueTime_ = new SimpleProbe();
	final LinkedList<Object> incomingMessagesQueue_ = new LinkedList<Object>();

	private final static int LIMIT_ON_INCOMING_MESSAGE_QUEUE = 200;

	/**
	 * [used by spring]
	 *
	 * @param jmsTemplate
	 */
	ClusterEventBus() {
		super();
	}

	public void springInit() throws JMSException {
		connection = connectionFactory.createConnection();
		session = connection.createSession(false, Session.AUTO_ACKNOWLEDGE);
		consumer = session.createConsumer(destination);
		consumer.setMessageListener(this);
		producer = session.createProducer(destination);

		connection.start();
		log.info("ClusterEventBus JMS started");

		final Integer nodeId = clusterConfig.getNodeId();
		final Thread t = new Thread(new Runnable() {
			@Override
			public void run() {
				// send an infopacket to all olat nodes at regular intervals.
				while (isClusterInfoEventThreadRunning) {
					try {
						final ClusterInfoEvent cie = new ClusterInfoEvent(clusterConfig, createBusListenerInfo());
						fireEventToListenersOf(cie, CLUSTER_CHANNEL);
						if (log.isDebug()) {
							log.debug("sent via jms clusterInfoEvent with timestamp:" + cie.getCreated() + " from node:" + nodeId);
						}
					} catch (final Exception e) {
						// log error, but do not throw exception, but retry.
						try {
							log.error("error while sending ClusterInfoEvent", e);
						} catch (final NullPointerException nex) {
							// ignore, could happen when shutting down
							System.err.println("ClusterEventBus : error while sending ClusterInfoEvent, could happen in shutting down, Ex=" + e);
						}
					}
					try {
						Thread.sleep(sendInterval);
					} catch (final InterruptedException e) {
						// ignore
					}
				}
				try {
					log.info("ClusterEventBus stopped, do no longer send ClusterInfoEvents");
				} catch (final NullPointerException nex) {
					System.err.println("ClusterEventBus stopped, do no longer send ClusterInfoEvents");
				}
			}
		});
		t.setDaemon(true); // VM can shutdown even when this thread is still running
		t.start();
		// register to listen for other nodes' clusterinfoevents
		this.registerFor(this, null, CLUSTER_CHANNEL);

		final Thread serveThread = new Thread(new Runnable() {

			@Override
			public void run() {
				ThreadLocalUserActivityLoggerInstaller.initEmptyUserActivityLogger();
				while (true) {
					try {
						Message m = null;
						long time = -1;
						synchronized (incomingMessagesQueue_) {
							while (incomingMessagesQueue_.size() < 2) {
								try {
									incomingMessagesQueue_.wait();
								} catch (final InterruptedException e) {
									// ignore
								}
							}
							m = (Message) incomingMessagesQueue_.removeLast();
							time = (Long) incomingMessagesQueue_.removeLast();
							incomingMessagesQueue_.notifyAll();
						}
						serveMessage(m, time);
					} catch (final RuntimeException re) {
						Tracing.logError("RuntimeException enountered by serve-thread:", re, ClusterEventBus.class);
						// continue
					} catch (final Error er) {
						Tracing.logError("Error enountered by serve-thread:", er, ClusterEventBus.class);
						// continue
					}
				}

			}

		});
		serveThread.setDaemon(true);
		serveThread.start();
	}

	public SimpleProbe getMrtgProbeJMSDeliveryTime() {
		return mrtgProbeJMSDeliveryTime_;
	}

	public SimpleProbe getMrtgProbeJMSProcessingTime() {
		return mrtgProbeJMSProcessingTime_;
	}

	public SimpleProbe getMrtgProbeJMSLoad() {
		return mrtgProbeJMSLoad_;
	}

	public SimpleProbe getMrtgProbeJMSEnqueueTime() {
		return mrtgProbeJMSEnqueueTime_;
	}

	/*
	 * (non-Javadoc)
	 * @see org.olat.core.util.event.GenericEventListener#event(org.olat.core.gui.control.Event)
	 */
	@Override
	public void event(final Event event) {
		// we listen only on our own channel, the event must be a clusterInfoEvent.
		final ClusterInfoEvent cie = (ClusterInfoEvent) event;
		final Integer nodeId = cie.getConfig().getNodeId();
		final NodeInfo ni = getNodeInfoFor(nodeId);
		ni.update(cie);
		// check duration of send-receive ClusterInfoEvent
		final long now = System.currentTimeMillis();
		if ((now - cie.getCreated()) > jmsMsgDelayLimit) {
			log.warn("JMS-Performance problem: JMS-Message delay is too big, send-receive take:" + (now - cie.getCreated()) + "ms. event=" + event);
		}

		// update the eventBusInfo from the node
		final BusListenerInfo busInfo = cie.getBusListenerInfo();
		busInfos.updateInfoFor(nodeId, busInfo);
	}

	/**
	 * this implementation must sum up all counts from all cluster nodes to return the correct number.
	 */
	@Override
	public int getListeningIdentityCntFor(final OLATResourceable ores) {
		return busInfos.getListenerCountFor(ores);
	}

	/**
	 * @see org.olat.core.util.event.AbstractOLATSystemBus#fireEventToListenersOf(org.olat.core.util.event.MultiUserEvent, org.olat.core.id.OLATResourceable)
	 */
	@Override
	public void fireEventToListenersOf(final MultiUserEvent event, final OLATResourceable ores) {
		// 1. fire directly within vm, because it used to be so before, and in this way this olat node can run even if jms is down
		doFire(event, ores);

		// 2. send the event wrapped over jms to all nodes
		// (the receiver will detect whether messages are from itself and thus can be ignored, since they were already sent directly.
		long msgId;
		Integer nodeId;

		nodeId = clusterConfig.getNodeId();
		try {
			// <XXX> TODO: cg/18.11.2008 ev JMS performance bottleneck; Do not check message-sequence => remove sync-block
			synchronized (this) { // cluster_ok needed, not atomar read in one vm
				msgId = ++latestSentMsgId;
				final ObjectMessage message = session.createObjectMessage();
				message.setObject(new JMSWrapper(nodeId, msgId, ores, event));
				producer.send(message);
			}
		} catch (final Exception e) {
			// cluster:::: what shall we do here: the JMS bus is broken! and we thus cannot know if other nodes are alive.
			// if we are the only node running, then we could continue.
			// a) either throw an exception - meaning olat doesn't really run at all and produces redscreens all the time and logging in is not possible.
			// b) or warn in the log/jmx - but surveillance is critical here!!
			// -> do the more fail-fast option a) at the moment for correctness reasons.
			System.err.println("###############################################################################################");
			System.err.println("### ClusterEventBus: communication error with JMS - cannot send messages!!!" + e);
			System.err.println("###############################################################################################");

			throw new OLATRuntimeException("communication error with JMS - cannot send messages!!!", e);
		}
		numOfSentMessages++;

		// store it for later access by the admin controller
		final String sentMsg = "sent msg: from node:" + nodeId + ", olat-id:" + msgId + ", ores:" + ores.getResourceableTypeName() + ":" + ores.getResourceableId()
				+ ", event:" + event;
		addToSentScreen(sentMsg);
		if (log.isDebug()) {
			log.debug(sentMsg);
		}
	}

	/**
	 * called by springs org.springframework.jms.listener.DefaultMessageListenerContainer, see coredefaultconfig.xml we receive a message here on the topic reserved for
	 * olat system bus messages.
	 */
	@Override
	public void onMessage(final Message message) {
		synchronized (incomingMessagesQueue_) {
			while (incomingMessagesQueue_.size() > LIMIT_ON_INCOMING_MESSAGE_QUEUE) {
				try {
					incomingMessagesQueue_.wait();
				} catch (final InterruptedException e) {
					// this empty catch is okay
				}
			}
			incomingMessagesQueue_.addFirst(message);
			incomingMessagesQueue_.addFirst(System.currentTimeMillis());
			incomingMessagesQueue_.notifyAll();
		}
	}

	void serveMessage(final Message message, final long receiveEnqueueTime) {
		// stats
		final long receiveTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
		if (receiveEnqueueTime > 0) {
			final long diff = receiveTime - receiveEnqueueTime;
			mrtgProbeJMSEnqueueTime_.addMeasurement(diff);
		}
		if (lastOnMessageFinishTime_ != -1) {
			final long waitingTime = receiveTime - lastOnMessageFinishTime_;
			// the waiting time is inverted to represent more like a frequency
			// the values it translates to are the following:
			// 0ms -> 100
			// 1ms -> 66
			// 2ms -> 50
			// 4ms -> 33
			// 6ms -> 25
			// 8ms -> 20
			// 18ms -> 10
			// 20ms -> 9
			// 23ms -> 8
			// 26.5ms -> 7
			// 31ms -> 6
			// 38ms -> 5
			mrtgProbeJMSLoad_.addMeasurement((long) (100.0 / ((waitingTime / 2.0) + 1.0)));
			lastOnMessageFinishTime_ = -1;
		}

		final ObjectMessage om = (ObjectMessage) message;
		try {
			// unpack
			final JMSWrapper jmsWrapper = (JMSWrapper) om.getObject();
			final Integer nodeId = jmsWrapper.getNodeId();
			final MultiUserEvent event = jmsWrapper.getMultiUserEvent();
			final OLATResourceable ores = jmsWrapper.getOres();
			final boolean fromSameNode = clusterConfig.getNodeId().equals(nodeId);

			// update nodeinfo statistics
			final NodeInfo nodeInfo = getNodeInfoFor(nodeId);
			if (!nodeInfo.update(jmsWrapper)) {
				log.warn("onMessage: update failed. clustereventbus: " + this);
			}

			final String recMsg = "received msg: " + (fromSameNode ? "[same node]" : "") + " from node:" + nodeId + ", olat-id:" + jmsWrapper.getMsgId() + ", ores:"
					+ ores.getResourceableTypeName() + ":" + ores.getResourceableId() + ", event:" + event + "}";

			// stats
			final long jmsTimestamp = om.getJMSTimestamp();
			if (jmsTimestamp != 0) {
				final long deliveryTime = receiveTime - jmsTimestamp;
				if (deliveryTime > 1500) {
					// then issue a log statement
					log.warn("message received with long delivery time (longer than 1500ms: " + deliveryTime + "): " + recMsg);
				}
				mrtgProbeJMSDeliveryTime_.addMeasurement(deliveryTime);
			}

			addToReceivedScreen(recMsg);
			if (log.isDebug()) {
				log.debug(recMsg);
			}

			// message with destination and source both having this vm are ignored here, since they were already
			// "inline routed" when having been sent (direct call within the vm).
			if (!fromSameNode) {
				// distribute the unmarshalled event to all JVM wide listeners for this channel.
				doFire(event, ores);
				DBFactory.getInstance(false).commitAndCloseSession();
			} // else message already sent "in-vm"

			// stats
			final long doneTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
			final long processingTime = doneTime - receiveTime;
			if (processingTime > 500) {
				// then issue a log statement
				log.warn("message received with long processing time (longer than 500ms: " + processingTime + "): " + recMsg);
			}
			mrtgProbeJMSProcessingTime_.addMeasurement(processingTime);
		} catch (final Error er) {
			log.error("Uncaught Error in ClusterEventBus.onMessage!", er);
			throw er;
		} catch (final RuntimeException re) {
			log.error("Uncaught RuntimeException in ClusterEventBus.onMessage!", re);
			throw re;
		} catch (final JMSException e) {
			log.warn("JMSException in ClusterEventBus.onMessage", e);
			throw new OLATRuntimeException("error when receiving jms messages", e);
		} catch (final Throwable th) {
			log.error("Uncaught Throwable in ClusterEventBus.onMessage!", th);
		} finally {
			lastOnMessageFinishTime_ = System.currentTimeMillis();
		}
	}

	private NodeInfo getNodeInfoFor(final Integer nodeId) {
		synchronized (nodeInfos) {// cluster_ok node info is per vm only
			NodeInfo f = nodeInfos.get(nodeId);
			if (f == null) {
				f = new NodeInfo(nodeId);
				nodeInfos.put(nodeId, f);
			}
			return f;
		}
	}

	/**
	 * [used by spring]
	 */
	public void setClusterConfig(final ClusterConfig clusterConfig) {
		this.clusterConfig = clusterConfig;
	}

	/**
	 * [used by spring to auto export mbean data]
	 *
	 * @return the number of sent cluster event bus message since startup of this java vm
	 */
	public long getNumOfSentMessages() {
		return numOfSentMessages;
	}

	/**
	 * [used by spring to auto export mbean data]
	 *
	 * @return the id of the latest msg sent from this cluster
	 */
	public long getLatestSentMsgId() {
		return latestSentMsgId;
	}

	/**
	 * [used by jmx] cluster:::: to be improved: this is just a quick solution to output all data from all nodes
	 *
	 * @return jmx-readable data of all statistics of all foreign cluster nodes
	 */
	public CompositeDataSupport getForeignClusterNodeStatistics() {
		final Map<String, String> p = new HashMap<String, String>();
		for (final Integer key : nodeInfos.keySet()) {
			final NodeInfo fns = nodeInfos.get(key);
			final Integer nodeId = fns.getNodeId();
			p.put(nodeId + ".getLatestReceivedMsgId", "" + fns.getLatestReceivedMsgId());
			p.put(nodeId + ".getNumOfReceivedMessages", "" + fns.getNumOfReceivedMessages());
			p.put(nodeId + ".getNumOfMissedMsgs", "" + fns.getNumOfMissedMsgs());
		}
		return propertiesToCompositeData(p);
	}

	private CompositeDataSupport propertiesToCompositeData(final Map<String, ?> properties) {
		// try {
		try {
			final String[] keys = properties.keySet().toArray(new String[0]);
			final OpenType[] itemTypes = new OpenType[keys.length];
			for (int i = 0; i < itemTypes.length; i++) {
				itemTypes[i] = SimpleType.STRING;
			}
			CompositeType propsType;
			propsType = new CompositeType("Properties type", "properties", keys, keys, itemTypes);
			final CompositeDataSupport propsData = new CompositeDataSupport(propsType, properties);
			return propsData;
		} catch (final OpenDataException e) {
			throw new AssertException("problem with jmx data generation", e);
		}
	}

	Map<Integer, NodeInfo> getNodeInfos() {
		return nodeInfos;
	}

	List<PerfItem> getPerfItems() {
		final List<PerfItem> l = new ArrayList<PerfItem>(2);
		l.add(new PerfItem("Cluster Events Sent", -1, -1, 1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, msgsSentCount));
		l.add(new PerfItem("Cluster Events Received", -1, -1, 1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1, msgsReceivedCount));
		return l;
	}

	void resetStats() {
		msgsSentCount = 0;
		msgsReceivedCount = 0;
	}

	private void addToSentScreen(final String msg) {
		synchronized (msgsSent) {// cluster_ok is per vm only
			msgsSentCount++;
			msgsSent.add(msg);
			if (msgsSent.size() > maxListSize) {
				msgsSent.remove(0);
			}
		}
	}

	private void addToReceivedScreen(final String msg) {
		synchronized (msgsReceived) {// cluster_ok is per vm only
			msgsReceivedCount++;
			msgsReceived.add(msg);
			if (msgsReceived.size() > maxListSize) {
				msgsReceived.remove(0);
			}
		}
	}

	/**
	 * @return the copied list of the latest "maxListSize" received messages (copied so that iterating is failsafe)
	 */
	List<String> getListOfReceivedMsgs() {
		synchronized (msgsReceived) {// cluster_ok is per vm only
			return new ArrayList<String>(msgsReceived);
		}
	}

	/**
	 * @return the copied list of the latest "maxListSize" sent messages (copied so that iterating is failsafe)
	 */
	List<String> getListOfSentMsgs() {
		synchronized (msgsSent) {// cluster_ok is per vm only
			return new ArrayList<String>(msgsSent);
		}
	}

	/**
	 * [used by spring]
	 */
	public void stop() {
		log.info("ClusterEventBus: Set stop flag for ClusterInfoEvent-Thread.");
		isClusterInfoEventThreadRunning = false;
		try {
			session.close();
			connection.close();
			log.info("ClusterEventBus stopped");
		} catch (final JMSException e) {
			log.warn("Exception in stop ClusteredSearchProvider, ", e);
		}
	}

	/**
	 * [used by spring]
	 */
	public void setSendInterval(final long sendInterval) {
		this.sendInterval = sendInterval;
	}

	/**
	 * [used by spring]
	 */
	public void setJmsMsgDelayLimit(final long jmsMsgDelayLimit) {
		this.jmsMsgDelayLimit = jmsMsgDelayLimit;
	}

	/**
	 * [used by spring]
	 */
	public void setConnectionFactory(final ConnectionFactory conFac) {
		this.connectionFactory = conFac;
	}

	public void setDestination(final Topic destination) {
		this.destination = destination;
	}

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
You are here: Home1 / News2 / Dogs3 / Bidens rehome rescued shepherd, Major, and welcome a new puppy to the ...
Bidens rehome rescued shepherd, Major, and welcome a new puppy to the family
A new puppy has been welcomed to the White House. As reported by CNN, a German shepherd named Commander was gifted to President Joe Biden for his 79th birthday. The puppy, born on September 1, will be the only shepherd residing with the Bidens because Major, the family's rescued German shepherd, has a new home.
Michael LaRosa, Jill Biden's press secretary, explained that Major will be living elsewhere following some "aggressive" incidents at the White House.
"After consulting with dog trainers, animal behaviorists, and veterinarians, the first family has decided to follow the experts' collective recommendation that it would be safest for Major to live in a quieter environment with family friends."
LaRosa said that the decision to let Major live with another family came after "months of deliberations."
President Biden introduced the new puppy via Twitter on Monday afternoon, Tweeting:
Meet the newest Biden.
The Biden's German shepherd, Champ, passed away earlier this year at 13 years of age.
https://petrescuereport.com/wp-content/uploads/puppy-8.png 589 876 Penny Eims https://petrescuereport.com/wp-content/uploads/PRR-Logo3b-300x38-1.png Penny Eims2021-12-20 20:27:272021-12-20 20:27:28Bidens rehome rescued shepherd, Major, and welcome a new puppy to the family
THANK YOU FOR ADOPTING THIS ANGEL DOG!January 17, 2022 - 2:50 pm by Jan Barnes
MANY MANY THANKS TO THESE HEROES AND ANGELS AND ALL LAW...January 17, 2022 - 2:48 pm by Jan Barnes
PLEASE PLEASE--DEAR SWEET BEAR STILL DESPERATELY NEEDS OUR...January 17, 2022 - 2:45 pm by Jan Barnes
ONLY THE DEEPEST LOVE CAN TAKE AWAY THE PAIN AND SUFFERING...January 17, 2022 - 2:42 pm by Jan Barnes
Unbearable pain – six horses perished in barn fire, 'they were like... Animal service officer rescues dog hiding under trailer home after being hit...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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text:
Boston Indies: "Stop Remaking Mario"
« What Playfulness Can Change: "Serious Game Co-design"
Global Game Jam 2017 at MIT »
Sponsored by the MIT Game Lab
RSVP Required.
The MIT Game Lab is happy to host the Boston Indies group this January for their monthly meeting. As usual, doors open at 6pm for networking. The talk starts at 7pm.
"Stop Remaking Mario"
Seth and Kelsey are back from Omaha, Nebraska, after a three month adventure as paid artists-in-residency. There, they wowed the local art community with their "interactive art" (aka video games). They have a lot to tell you about their experience there and the art world in general. What does "the art world" think of video games? What does it take to make a game that is also art? And why should you do it?
About Boston Indies (www.bostonindies.com):
Boston Indies is a community of dedicated independent game developers in Massachusetts and the surrounding area. Boston Indies works to foster a sense of community among Boston's independent game developers, facilitate monthly meet-ups and other related community events, encourage developers to create games independent of large budgets and large company ties, provide a safe environment to obtain critical feedback on game development works in progress and serve as a brain trust for important information sharing among local independent developers.
art, boston indies, game development, interactive art
https://www.meetup.com/bostonindies/events/234501054/
Cambridge, MA 02143 United States
Boston Indies
admins@bostonindies.com
http://bostonindies.com
Technological Worlds
CMS Colloquium presents Jesper Juul: "The Pain of Playing Video Games"
Play Nice! The Science of Player Behavior in Online Games


Known and appreciated for its high winning chances, the Quina lottery is a one-night event held six days in a week. It was introduced in 1994. This lottery is unique for the players because it enables them to choose their own numbers instead of buying a ticket with pre-selected numbers. Hence, it became one of the most popular lottery games in Brazil.
The Quina lottery is hosted in Brazil on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. It is blessed with a guess ratio of 5/80 and offers tax-free prizes. The next Quina lottery game will provide whopping R 6.9 M to the players.


text:
Navigation About The Database Interviews Blog Resources Contact
By Dahlia Schweitzer
Cindy Sherman by Martin Schoeller. Image reproduced with permission under a Creative Commons 2.0 Attribution License.
Most known for her Untitled Film Stills, American photographer Cindy Sherman has consistently produced work since the 1970s that is judged to be some of the most successful work produced by any American photographer. Sherman's photographs are an encyclopedia of body language, identities performed with carefully arranged figures. The body is a collection of limbs used to convey roles, personalities, and situations. Each gesture, each object, is loaded with meaning. Her photographs are never casual snapshots or self-portraits. Rather, they are explorations of arrangement and archetype. She questions stereotype and learned behavior through her compositions and subjects, and through the diorama-like environments she creates for each scenario. She exposes the ruptures under the surface by taking everyday life and shifting it off-kilter, examining society's expectations for appearance and behavior. Her photographs work for the attention they bring to that which does not fit, to the exact point of the tear.
Born in New Jersey in 1954, Sherman spent her childhood in Long Island, immersed in the television and culture of the era. The 1950s combined worries of nuclear war with dreams of a better life, conformity with capitalism, amidst a growing blitzkrieg of images that sold everything from washing machines to cigarettes, bras to Cadillacs. What better time to be watching (and absorbing) television? What better to way to understand the constant consuming at the heart of American life? What better way to sow the seeds that would germinate into the Untitled Film Stills? The context of her early years not only influenced the Untitled Film Stills but also all of Sherman's later work. Key aspects of what it means to be a woman—established in our cultural vernacular in the 1950s—are evident in Sherman's work today.
Containing sixty-nine black and white images, sometimes crudely developed and a modest 8.5x11 inches in size, with no titles or explicit citations, the Untitled Film Stills became Sherman's most well known significant body of work. Reverberating with references to the 1950s and film noir, the series of photographs plumbed the depths of the common cultural mind through images of the Girl Next Door and the Girl in Trouble, images we recognized because they told stories we knew, women whose roles and faces we had seen before. However, despite the familiarity, there was no specific reference point; Sherman was not simply recreating and re-presenting an original. Her appropriation of cultural imagery and stereotype was broader than that. She set out to document all the facets of "The American Woman."
Especially significant is not just the art of the masquerade, but the artificiality of its construction. The glamorously perfect facades of the women who fill films and advertising serve to conceal the actual body that lies underneath—a raw, wet and bloody expanse that would slowly creep out in Sherman's later work, eventually evolving into the gaping and damaged bodies of her only feature-length film, the horror-comedy Office Killer, released in 1997. The tension between inner and outer, between the surface and the real underneath, was hinted at with the Untitled Film Stills, a hint that would only grow louder and messier with Sherman's later work.
In 1980, Sherman's aesthetic underwent two significant changes. She began shooting in color, and she began using projected images of locations behind her, rather than shooting in actual physical locations. The effect of the projections not only created a shallower depth of field, thus flattening the image, but it also began Sherman's move towards isolation and alienation, another trend which would surface later in Office Killer. Her women were no longer allowed outside, much as the characters in Office Killer also appeared trapped indoors.
A year later, another significant change occurred—Sherman's images went horizontal, like a movie screen. Commissioned by ArtForum, this series were called the Centerfolds. These images were explicitly internal and indoors, claustrophobic and dramatically lit. There was no pretense of an outside world, however artificially implied. Sherman's facial expressions throughout the series were also more intense and more emotional than in her earlier work. Unlike our conventional expectations for centerfold-type imagery, Sherman often looked lonely, upset, or afraid. A darkness was creeping in.
This darkness would take a firm hold in her next series, a set of fashion images commissioned by fashion designer Dianne Benson for Interview magazine and by French fashion house Dorothée Bis for French Vogue. These images were also atypical for their intended use. Described as "silly, angry, dejected, exhausted, abused, scarred, grimy and psychologically disturbed," [1] they were a response by Sherman to the confines and expectations placed on women by the fashion world. Sherman herself says about the experience: "From the beginning there was something that didn't work with me, like there was friction. I picked out some clothes I wanted to use. I was sent completely different clothes that I found boring to use. I really started to make fun, not of the clothes, but much more of the fashion. I was starting to put scar tissue on my face to become really ugly." [2]
It is not simply that the photographs were shot with overly bright, unflattering light, or that the poses were awkward and sometimes angry. What makes this series stand out is the model herself. Sherman's role, the characters she was playing, was evolving. Not only did she grotesquely parody the kind of image normally found in fashion magazines, subverting restrictions commonly imposed on women in terms of their appearance and behavior, but she began to suggest that the perfect body which had appeared in her earlier work, the perfect body on the pages of every fashion magazine, was only one half of the equation. The other half was the other extreme—the grotesque, the disgusting, the imperfect—the internal. The faces we normally see on the cover of Vogue, the models in their editorial spreads, photoshopped and styled to perfection, are nothing more than a shell concealing what lies beneath. This surface, still present in Sherman's early photographs, was now "dissolving to reveal a monstrous otherness behind the cosmetic facade." [3] In Sherman's own notes to herself for the series, she wrote phrases the opposite of what we would expect to find in connection with a fashion spread, like "throwing-up, drooling, snot running down nose, bag-lady like; end of bad night; fat person; shooting up, snorting coke; bleeding, dying, etc.; but clothes perfect looking." [4] It is clear that Sherman's fascination is with the tension between extremes, between the messy and the neat, between the impeccable outside and the bloody inside, with the struggle to conceal our humanness with fashion and cosmetics.
Untitled #140, 1985, "Fairy Tales" series. Reproduced under Fair Use from the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). © Cindy Sherman 2012.
The façade would crack further in Sherman's later work, which grew explicitly horrific, the external torn open, and even disappearing outright, as the internal was fully exposed. Full of menacing monsters, dismembered body parts, and sinister lighting, her Fairy Tales series (1985) and her Disasters series (1986-89) seem inspired by the stuff of nightmares. If her earlier work hinted at this inner nightmare, now Sherman had thrown the door wide open. The journey that began in the 1970s would take a pronounced turn with the Disasters series, as Sherman abandoned the figure completely in favor of "the disgust of sexual detritus, decaying food, vomit, slime, menstrual blood, hair. These traces represent the end of the road, the secret stuff of bodily fluids that the cosmetic is designed to conceal." [5] The body had deteriorated, the façade had been destroyed, the internal made fully external. Sherman had finally exposed the messy reality of not only what it meant to be a woman, but what it meant to be human. Sherman had removed the mask, chipped away at the armor, and taken a hard look at the wounds, guts, and gore that make us real.
In 1997, Office Killer, Cindy Sherman's only film, would be released—even if that release was exceedingly short-lived. A story of a lowly and modest copywriter, Dorine Douglas (played by Carol Kane), who wreaks havoc on her workplace as she kills off those who upset her (or the status quo), Office Killer is truly the tale of underdog makes good, with Norah (Jeanne Tripplehorn), as the magazine's manager, the antagonist embezzling funds from the magazine as the staff is laid off and downsized.
Reproduced under Fair Use from Miramax, which holds copyright.
However, on a much more complex level, Office Killer combines concurrent fears of technology and contagion with the film noir aesthetic—yet it is not a typical noir film. If 1940s noir represented insecurity about people's places in the workforce and at home during a time of great transition, in the 1990s things were even more dire. Bodies were literally and metaphorically disappearing as a result of AIDS and technological developments. Communication became abstract, anonymous, and sterile. A pervasive sense of isolation began to spread, exacerbated by a growing realization of the vulnerability of human boundaries to contagion and contamination. What makes Office Killer a noir film is not only its tale of exploited workers and a vengeful protagonist in a bleak and oppressive urban environment, but its depiction of a complex anti-hero searching for her place in the world, avenging the wrongs done to the things and people she cares about, preserving and rearranging bodies in an environment that speaks to warmth, nurture, and order rather than cold, productive, anonymous uncertainty.
While Sherman does not physically appear in Office Killer, she has said that Dorine is "a stand-in" for herself, and it is impossible not to recognize the parallels between the character of Dorine and Sherman herself. Not only does Dorine bear a visual resemblance to a Sherman character, but in the final shot of Dorine in the car's rearview mirror—hair blonde, sunglasses chic and retro—she could be Sherman herself, yet another devotee of the power of makeup to transform, a societally sanctioned form of postmodern role-play.
The decaying corpses in Office Killer are bodies literally turning inside out, the internal exposed without the pretense of perfection; an uncomfortable confrontation with everything we hope to conceal and avoid. Part of the reason horror is so disturbing is because it exposes our tenuous hold on all that is pretty and perfect. Death, after all, is always just around the corner, a constant reminder of the fragile grip we have over life and our own bodies. It is not only that the bodies got bigger as Sherman's work progressed, but that we also get the full story in Office Killer, not just a captured still. We get the sound and the movement, the before, during, and after—and we get to watch the decay. We see the maintenance, arrangement, and presentation of these bodies.
Sherman's most recently exhibited work, from 2016, depicts her as aging starlets from the 1920s and 1930s poignantly depicting the struggle to maintain youth and beauty in the face of age, an ongoing motif in Sherman's work over the last two decades. With the Untitled Film Stills, Sherman had turned our attention to the tension between the screen image and the off screen self, emphasizing not only the art of the masquerade but also the artificiality of its construction. However, this latest series does not document roles of women common to the screen. This latest series looks at women performing as themselves, or, to be more precise, as the self they wish to be.
These images capture not only the struggle of aging Hollywood beauties to seize a few more moments of fame, but also the struggle of women everywhere to keep up with a society that equates sagging flesh with neglect and wrinkles with an expiration date. After all, no industry is crueler to the aging process than Hollywood. In a culture where women over thirty struggle to find roles on screen or on TV, Sherman brings her critical eye to how just how much of our identity is determined by youth, appearance, and the perfect pose.
1. Elizabeth Manchester, "Untitled #126." Tate Collection. Tate, Oct. 2001.
2. Cindy Sherman qtd. in Sandy Nairne, State of the Art: Ideas and Images in the 1980s. London: Chatto & Windus, 1967, pp. 136.
3. Laura Mulvey, Fetishism and Curiosity. London: British Film Institute, 1996, pp. 70.
4. Sherman, Cindy. Cindy Sherman Retrospective. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997, pp. 124.
Dr. Dahlia Schweitzer is a pop culture critic and writer. Her latest book, Going Viral: Zombies, Viruses, and the End of the World, explores depictions of pandemics and outbreak narratives in contemporary American film and television. She is also the author of Cindy Sherman's Office Killer: Another Kind of Monster, as well as essays in publications including Cinema Journal, Journal of Popular Film and Television, Hyperallergic, Jump Cut, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, and The Journal of Popular Culture.
Additional Resources on Cindy Sherman
Bibliography of Further Reading/Viewing
Avgikos, Jan. "Cindy Sherman, Metro Pictures." ArtForum, September 2004.
Burton, Johanna, ed. Cindy Sherman, The October Files. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007.
Clover, Carol J. Men, Women, and Chainsaws. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992.
Cindy Sherman: Transformations. DVD. Directed by Paul Tschinkel. New York, NY: Inner-Tube Video, 2002.
Cruz, Amanda, Amelia Jones, and Cindy Sherman. Cindy Sherman Retrospective. New York, NY: Thames and Hudson, 1997.
Frankel, David. "Cindy Sherman Talks to David Frankel." ArtForum, March 2003.
Friedman, Martin. Close Reading: Chuck Close and the Artist Portrait. New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, 2005.
The Hasselblad Award 1999: Cindy Sherman. Goeteberg, Sweden: Hasselblad Center, 2000.
Krauss, Rosalind. Cindy Sherman, 1975–1993. New York, NY: Rizzoli Press, 1993.
Morris, Catherine. The Essential Cindy Sherman. New York, NY: Harry Abrams, 2001.
Morris, Catherine, et al. Cindy Sherman: Working Girl. St. Louis, MO: Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, 2005.
Nobody's Here But Me: Cindy Sherman. Dir. Mark Stokes. Arena and Cinecontact Production for BBC and the Arts Council of Great Britain; BBC2, 1994.
Tomkins, Calvin. "Her Secret Identities." The New Yorker, May 15, 2000.
Waller, Gregory, ed. American Horrors. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1987.
Except where indicated, work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.


From the off, I fully expected this to be a solid, yet not particularly exciting, fairly standard black metal album. I based this on the fact that Hellsaw have produced a few standard black metal albums, and judging by the corpsepaint, album art and song titles, this is no massive departure. I expected a beans-on-toast album. I like beans on toast, it's good. But I'd never order it at a restaurant.


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Listings >> Guitar
Spiros Karagkounis
Spiros Karagkounis was was born in Greece in 1983 and started playing classical guitar at the age of 10. At that time he started playing Greek Folk music in school bands. At the age of 15 he picked up his first electric guitar, after that, his love for music became a way of life. In 2001, he moved to Athens and studied electric guitar with a well known rock-metal guitarist named Theodore Ziras. Three years later, he attended and completed a Rock course at the 'Art Music School of Athens'. All the time, Spiros Karagounis had proven to himself that he is willing and determined to work as hard as it takes in order to achieve his targets as far as his performance skills were concerned.
In 2006, Spiros relocated to London in order to study and work as a professional musician in the London scene. He registered at the Guitar-X of London for further music studies and attended lessons with some of the very finest guitarists such as: John Wheatcroft, Iain Scott and Mike Outram. He graduated 3 years later getting his Bachelor (honors) Degree, in Music Performance & Composition.
His style in improvisation has been influenced by his passion for music and made him develop an individual and unique approach. He draws influences from guitar greats such us Jimi Hendrix, Albert Collins, Grant Green, Frank Gambale, Scott Henderson etc.
Spiros is currently performing with his Jazz Duo 'The London Jazz Instrumental Jazz Guitars' and other bands, working as a session guitarist and performing all around London.
spirosguitar@hotmail.com
Surbiton, London
Home visits available
Hourly Rate: 25
Half Hourly Rate: 15
Boo-Boo Sianturi
Alex LoSardo


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Travel Pics Theme: On the Road Again! What a Capitol structure.
grahamcairns / October 22, 2016
Capitol Records building
I'm not sure how this building is still standing – after all, I'm sure I've seen it destroyed a number of times!
Ah Hollywood, how deeply ingrained into our collective psyche you have become 🙂
The Capitol Records building is one of the most recognizable icons in LA .. which says something, given the number of iconic structures there are there.
The building dates back to the late 1950s .. and the circular building was designed by a 24 year old architect who "wanted everyone to be able to get the same views" .. rather than the corner offices getting the views, as was traditional to that time.
Despite the oft-expressed claim, it is NOT supposed to look like a stack of records – that's just a coincidence.
Capitol, launched in 1942, was the first major West Coast music label.
Until then, the music industry was based primarily in New York.
Oh, there were labels in the South of the US (Sun Records in Memphis was just one) and a nascent music production centre in the Great Lakes area (that would solidify into Detroit's Motown 20 years later) – but Capitol broke the mold.
After 15 years or so, the label decided it needed a brash statement of its presence .. and called on young Californian architect Lou Naidorf – who designed the world's first circular high-rise office building for Capitol.
Nobody knew at the time that the building would become a lasting visual icon of Hollywood – but it certainly has.
Partly because it's appeared in films so many times – in spectacular fashion.
I've seen it brought down in Earthquake, I've seen it shot up by Cylons in the 80s version of Battlestar Galactica, I've seen it hit by a tornado in The Day After Tomorrow, I've seen it impale an errant flying car in the otherwise forgettable "Hancock", and I've even seen it crumble after 150 years of neglect in the documentary series Life after People.
But it is still there (or at least it was still there when we wandered past recently on a fleeting trip to Hollywood) – as is the recently renewed jazz-themed mural at its base, well worth a look.
Oh – and if you happen to pass by at night, watch the blinking light atop the spire.
It spells out "Hollywood" in Morse Code 🙂
October 22, 2016 in Comment, Travel, travelpics. Tags: Cinema, Hollywood, Tourism, Travel, travelpics, USA
Travel Pics Theme: V for Valletta. Elevating the view.
Travel Pics Theme: T for Temples. Hidden gems near Home.
Travel Pics Theme: On the Road Again! Mud pies and straw
← Travel Pics Theme: On the Road Again! The Plane, The Plane!
Travel Pics Theme: On the Road Again! La Brea Tar Pits →


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You are here: Home » Country star Chris Young funds recording scholarship
November 2016 | 0 Comments
Country star Chris Young funds recording scholarship
Murfreesboro-native Chris Young. Photo by Larry McCormack.
Chris Young embraced the holiday spirit of giving for MTSU students this year.
The Murfreesboro native and former Middle Tennessee State University student revealed plans for the Chris Young Scholarship in Recording Industry — a scholarship for recording industry students at MTSU.
"They have such a great recording industry program there, and Murfreesboro is my hometown, and it made a lot of sense to be able to partner with them and create a scholarship," said Young, who explained it's something he's wanted to do for years. "The passion that I had for the recording industry program and the passion the school shows for the program, it's just an amazing thing they do."
Beginning in the fall of 2017, Young's donation through his Chris Young Foundation will allow MTSU's Department of Recording Industry to annually grant a scholarship for a rising junior or senior.
"There is nothing more meaningful than having a former student pay it forward by helping current and future students," said Beverly Keel, chair of the Department of Recording Industry. "It's so generous of Chris to use his time and resources to help make our students' dreams become a reality. This is especially poignant to me because I have so much respect for Chris, not only as an artist but also as a person."
For more information about Young's scholarship at MTSU, email Keel at beverly.keel@mtsu.edu.
Young's new Christmas album "It Must Be Christmas" is in stores now. The country singer will appear on the Country Music Association's "CMA Country Christmas" on Nov. 28 at 7 p.m. Central on ABC.
Tags: Beverly Keel, Chris Young, Chris Young Foundation, CMA Country Christmas, country music, Country Music Association, It Must Be Christmas, MTSU College of Media and Entertainment, MTSU Department of Recording Industry, scholarship
Categories: Alumni, News
← EMC Productions is busy through the spring
Recording Industry ranked again by Hollywood Reporter →


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Pall mall (cigarette) – wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Craver, Richard (2012 09 26). "Pall Mall surpasses Camel. Reynolds to offer more menthol versions of Pall Mall cigarettes". Winston Salem Journal.
Wootten, Harry M. "Cigarettes up 4.8% in 1960 Pall Mall No. 1 for first time". Printers Ink. 23 Dec. 1960.
Gilpin, Kenneth N. (October 9, 1996). "American Brands Ends Tobacco Role". The New York Times. Retrieved May 21, 2010.
Craver, Richard (2010 11 14). "Reynolds marketing push for Pall Mall puts it into same league as Camel". Winston Salem Journal. Retrieved 2010 11 23.
Craver, Richard (2012 09 26). "Reynolds to offer more menthol versions of Pall Mall cigarettes". Winston Salem Journal.
Barber, Lynn (February 5, 2006). "I smoke, therefore I am". London The Guardian Observer. Retrieved 2007 04 12.
Pall Mall Presents M Squad Tobacco Videos.
Illegal cigarette truck shipping ring busted by new york authorities
Cigarettes online Blog Archive Morality and marketing
It turns out that cigarettes do more than just harm your health. They affect your bottom line too.
For the second time in recent months, a trucking company is in trouble with the law after it s alleged that the firm shipped contraband cigarettes to New York City residents as part of an illegal shipping network.
LaserShip, a Virginia based last mile package delivery service, has been sued by New York City Corporation Counsel Michael A. Cardozo, Health Commissioner Thomas A. Farley, and Finance Commissioner Beth E. Goldman, for its role in the delivery of "untaxed" cigarettes. Shipping and delivering cigarettes that are untaxed is illegal under the federal Contraband Cigarette Trafficking Act (CCTA), the federal Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act (PACT), federal racketeering statutes, and New York state laws.
According to the complaint, LaserShip worked within a broader delivery network that avoided the requirements of the PACT Act. Under the PACT Act, cigarette sellers are required to assure all taxes are paid on the cigarettes shipped to consumers.
The delivery network was broken up by authorities in May 2013 when the city obtained a court injunction against Regional Integrated Logistics, a Buffalo, NY, logistics firm alleged to have been shipping untaxed cigarettes nationwide. The suit claims LaserShip joined the network in 2011 and shipped approximately 75,000 cartons of cigarettes into New York City prior to May 2013.
"All businesses, especially the package delivery industry, must understand the enormous legal penalties they face in doing business with cigarette traffickers. If you engage in these illegal activities, we will take aggressive action," said Cardozo.
In September, four New York State District Attorneys announced a settlement with R L Carriers for its involvement with shipping illegal cigarettes. The agreement made no admission of guilt on R L s part, but the company did make a $140,000 payment to the American Lung Assn. and the American Cancer Society as part of the agreement, which also called for R L to set up compliance procedures to avoid future violations and an agreement of cooperation from R L with what is a continuing investigation into illegal shipments of cigarettes within the state.
"In addition to putting honest businesses at a competitive disadvantage, LaserShip s actions cost nearly $4.4 million to the state and city in foregone cigarette tax revenue used to fund vital services," said Goldman.
Federal law provides for penalties of up to $5,000 per violation for violations of the PACT Act or the CCTA, as well as treble (or triple) damages under federal racketeering statutes, which classifies cigarette trafficking as a "racketeering" offense. New York state law provides for a maximum penalty of $5,000 per delivery or $100 per pack of cigarettes delivered to a consumer, whichever is greater.
The city s lawsuit also invokes Public Health Law 1399 ll, which prohibits carriers from delivering cigarettes to consumers.
What these two cases say, however, is that trucking companies must have some awareness of what is being shipped. R L admitted no wrongdoing in its settlement and LaserShip alleged involvement is now in the courts, so it s difficult to say whether either company knowingly broke the law or not. Regardless, it is clear that, at least in New York State, violations of this kind are going to be pursued and prosecuted if necessary.
Carriers, then, could become unknowing accomplices and could face fines, criminal prosecution and a severe hit to their reputation if they are caught hauling illegal goods. And the old adage, "what you don t know won t hurt you," does not apply in this case. Carriers must be aware of what they are hauling and build relationships with shippers to ensure that what is said to be loaded in their trailers are really what is being loaded.
If not, the authorities may be close behind.


Laval Virtual ReVolution is an annual series of world wide VR technology demonstration competition since 2006. This is the competition that brings together the most innovative projects in the world. These projects, ranging from the most playful to the most scientific, represent the early beginnings of future Virtual Reality technologies which could become a part of your future daily life. Selected by a jury of professionals and scientists, the best projects receive a booth in the Laval Virtual exhibition.
Laval Virtual ReVolution 2019 calls for innovative virtual reality demo projects that fall under the theme, "VR5.0". Let us bring in the next version of VR. In prehistoric age, the human race had worked by hunting and farming. The extra commodities were used to exchange for other goods which gave birth to commerce, market, and currency. Later industrial and logistics creates new products and opens up new possibilities. We, the human society believe the reality of virtue of economy that contains gold, law, products, companies and efficiency…etc. However, they might as well felt as imaginary things in the past era. Some virtue, small examples and experiences could bring us to the next era. Now we are living in the internet age, which began from "Web1.0" with static servers and HTML page contents. Today we all have smartphones which connect all people by IPs with a small touchable display. The web technology is going to from 2.0 to 3.0 thanks to the personalized filtering and smart contracts by block chains. However, we still have not recognized the new virtue in the history of virtual reality. The VR3.0 were developed by game engine and personal HMD. VR4.0 will be developed by social media and commerce technology that will be faster and more efficient than real commerce. The ReVolution 2019 will try to focus on the cross point of VR3.0 and VR4.0, social + web and the next generation of our virtual reality. Do not forget to recognize the future virtue of reality.


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The 20 Most Ridiculous Moments from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Let's admit it: They were always pretty god-awful.
By Nick Schager
Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Rafael return to theaters tomorrow in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a Michael Bay-produced reboot about the beloved team of pizza-eating, crime-fighting, martial arts-using, line-dancing, quip-dispensing anthropomorphic turtles. Bay's new film takes a modern approach to its material, which is to say it balances the darker atmosphere of Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird's original comics with the more lighthearted tone of the mid-'80s cartoon series. But who wants gritty when we already have three live-action films — 1990's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 1991's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, and 1993's best-left-forgotten Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III — that perfectly encapsulate the cornball ridiculousness of the entire property? From highly flexible yet weird-looking animatronic suits, to incessantly lame one-liners, to action full of groan-worthy slapstick, the original TMNT films are a treasure trove of unintentional humor. To celebrate their latest CG-infested outing, here's a look back at the most ridiculous moments from their first, and "finest" (read: least embarrassing), big-screen effort.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles opens with a montage of clips detailing the crime wave sweeping through Manhattan, replete with this clueless older woman losing the TV she's watching on her fire escape.
The Turtles are guided by their second-rate-Yoda sensei, Master Splinter, a mutated rat who speaks in fortune-cookie platitudes and is apparently a great ninja master, even though he throws like a complete wuss.
Of course, the Turtles' own moves are, shall we say, less than graceful, especially when they channel their inner Pee-wee Herman during their rendition of "Tequila," here oh-so-cleverly renamed "Ninjitsu."
Still, their weapons skills are unparalleled, as evidenced by this bit of supreme nunchaku show-offery by Michelangelo.
Martial-arts tools, however, aren't the Turtles' only means of fighting crime. Sometimes, they triumph by using their innate turtle-y abilities.
They also like to brag and goof off during combat, which lends the film its juvenile cartoon-y vibe. It also leads to more than a few gestures that, courtesy of their weird animatronic costumes, makes them seem like spastic monsters.
Pizza is the foursome's favorite food, and watching the rubber-suited Turtles try to eat it is one of the film's most bizarre pleasures.
Mercifully, director Steve Barron doesn't attempt to have his puppet-Splinter also try to consume pizza, opting instead to humiliate him with this absurd food gag.
There's something hypnotically awful about the way the Turtles' mouths move — they're at once more animated than one would expect them to be, and yet weirdly loose-looking, like a cross between a horse's maw and the oral cavity of the vehicles from Cars.
Eventually, the Turtles strike up a relationship with ace reporter April O'Neill (Judith Hoag), who shows up on their radar after having a run-in with some decidedly rude, misogynistic ninja bad guys.
Given their creepy mouths and plastic-y shells, it's no surprise that April's initial reaction to the Turtles results in the same expression made by anyone over the age of seven who sat through the film itself.
Shortly after teaming with the Turtles (and hiding them at her place), April is harangued by her news station boss in her apartment bathroom, because apparently, early-'90s NYC employer-employee standards were far different than they are today.
The Turtles soon find themselves in a battle against a shadowy criminal organization known as the Foot Clan, whose members are actually delinquent teens who like to hang out at a graffiti-decorated arcade/skate park where they can have anything they want — including cigarettes, which new recruits are offered (Regular or Menthol!) by none other than a young Sam Rockwell.
In their fight against the Foot Clan, the Turtles are also joined by hockey mask-wearing, sports equipment-swinging vigilante Casey Jones (Elias Koteas), who, in this classic bit of language-is-funny banter, reveals that his love of athletic gear is matched by his fear of seeming gay.
The Foot Clan are led by masked ninja Shredder, who regularly enters the frame with some sort of whooshing camera pan around his head.
As Splinter explains, the Turtles were transformed from lowly baby sewer turtles into their current, human-size form by a canister of ooze. His own martial arts expertise, though, was acquired years earlier when, as a pet, he mimicked the butt-kicking moves of his master Yoshi.
In this flashback, we learn that Yoshi, though a famed ninja, also worked as a construction worker, and that in Japan, construction workers apparently go to work wearing overalls and flannel shirts.
Ultimately, the Turtles triumph over Shredder. Well, not really — it's Splinter who comes to the rescue, felling the villain and then letting his Turtle disciples celebrate as if it was their own victory via a group high-five and their trademark nails-on-a-chalkboard catchphrase.
After defeating Shredder in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Turtles were rewarded with a sequel that, to its ever-lasting shame, featured this team-up between the heroes and another unstoppable 1990s icon of dope moves and super-fly style.
(Yes, that's Vanilla Ice.)
And now, they return to theaters in all their newly Michael Bay-ified splendor, replete with wholly unnecessary and unwanted humanoid nostrils.
Nick Schager Nick Schager is a NYC-area film critic and culture writer with twenty years of professional experience writing about all the movies you love, and countless others that you don't.
The Badass Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie That Could've Been
The 15 Best Movies That Didn't Win Oscars
Style Don'ts On Display in New Dumb and Dumber To Movie Poster
We Are Living in a Golden Age of Movies
Reconsidering the Cop Movie After Ferguson


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Scottish Nationalists
Alex Salmond, Showbiz and whatever happened to the politics of optimism?
Alex Salmond, Showbiz and whatever happened to the politics of optimism? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, August 16th 2017 All political leaders have a certain limited shelf life. If they are very successful and lucky they win elections, hold power and make decisions, but the public eventually grow tired and wary of their constant public presence. The twilight years and long goodbyes of the likes of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Ted Heath and his thirty year grudge with Thatcher, are all examples of how difficult many find the transition. Thatcher, whatever your political views of her, won three elections in a
Continue Reading Alex Salmond, Showbiz and whatever happened to the politics of optimism?
From Peak Nat to Pique Nat: Is Alex Salmond becoming a problem for Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP?
From Peak Nat to Pique Nat: Is Alex Salmond becoming a problem for Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP? Gerry Hassan The Guardian Comment, August 15th 2017 Alex Salmond is one of the big beasts not just of Scottish, but British politics and the defining figure of modern Scottish nationalism and the SNP. He has been leader of the SNP for a total of twenty years (1990-2000; 2004-2014), First Minister of Scotland for seven years, and in 2014 took the SNP closer than any of its opponents thought possible to the party's ultimate goal of independence. Yet he now finds himself
Continue Reading From Peak Nat to Pique Nat: Is Alex Salmond becoming a problem for Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP?
A Summer of Discontent in Scotland's Independence Movement
A Summer of Discontent in Scotland's Independence Movement Gerry Hassan Sceptical Scot, August 9th 2017 It isn't a happy time for the Scottish independence movement. To some it seems like the silly season; to others a summer of discontent. But clearly something is going on which matters for the state of Scottish politics and the cause of independence. The context is important. The SNP reverse in the 2017 election came as an unwelcome shock to many independence supporters. It has thrown many post-2014 assumptions into the air concerning the inevitability of another independence referendum, its timing and result. The differences
Continue Reading A Summer of Discontent in Scotland's Independence Movement
The High Road and the Low Road of Scottish debate and politics
The High Road and the Low Road of Scottish debate and politics Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, August 2nd 2017 These are serious and dangerous times across the globe. There is the instability and gangland nature of the Trump administration, its 'America First' isolationism, disparaging of traditional allies, and open admiration for autocrats such as Putin and Erdoğan. Then there is the threat of North Korea and its kleptocratic notionally Communist regime and its nuclear and aggressive ambitions which have so far found the international community wanting. And on a less dramatic scale, but no less important for the UK
Continue Reading The High Road and the Low Road of Scottish debate and politics
The Limits of the Ruth Davidson Show
The Limits of the Ruth Davidson Show Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, June 21st 2017 These are times of change. An election that shocked. Parties in crisis. And a world which never seems to stop in terms of news, surprises and tragedy. Scotland isn't immune to this. But one take as we come up for two weeks after the election has been that the Tories are back and that this is all due to the appeal of Ruth Davidson. And then there is the secondary story of Scottish Labour showing that it isn't dead, and has possibly even come off
Continue Reading The Limits of the Ruth Davidson Show
We have reached a watershed for UK politics: Time for independence to catch the wave of change
We have reached a watershed for UK politics: Time for independence to catch the wave of change Gerry Hassan Bella Caledonia, June 20th 2017 These are bewildering and often disorientating times to live in. In recent weeks and months it has felt at times difficult to keep up with the speed of events – as history has been seemingly made and remade every few days. Such periods call for being honest, respectful in debate, and reflection and self-awareness in everything any of us say or do in public. Look around at the events in the UK and world and they
Continue Reading We have reached a watershed for UK politics: Time for independence to catch the wave of change
A new era of Scottish politics has begun: The Forward March of the SNP Halted?
A new era of Scottish politics has begun: The Forward March of the SNP Halted? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, June 14th 2017 There was a UK election last week. We have the semblance of a UK Government, but underneath all this there remains little that could be called British politics. This was a four nations UK election. Each gave a different party a conditional victory. The SNP were the most popular party in Scotland with 36.9% of the vote. The Tories were the biggest force in England with 45.6%. Labour were by far the strongest party in Wales with
Continue Reading A new era of Scottish politics has begun: The Forward March of the SNP Halted?
Build It and They Will Come: Scotland and Independence after the election
Build It and They Will Come: Scotland and Independence after the election Gerry Hassan Bella Caledonia, June 13th 2017 The 2017 election marks the end of an era of Scottish politics. The immediate shadow of the 2014 indyref dominating everything is over. As is the age of the Big Tent, omnipotent SNP carrying all before it. The re-emergence of the Scottish Tories and the stalling of the retreat of Scottish Labour has confounded many Nationalists. Not only is the post-2014 indyref environment over, so too is politics defined by the constant invoking of Thatcher and Blair. No matter the depths
Continue Reading Build It and They Will Come: Scotland and Independence after the election
A World of Borders, Space and Culture: A Tribute to Roanne Dods
A World of Borders, Space and Culture: A Tribute to Roanne Dods Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, May 31st 2017 Much of modern life is shaped by the chasm between the official narratives of institutions, authority and experts and how most of us experience everyday life. This is obvious in the bizarre experience of Britain and Scotland's current election - one which is consuming the attentions of the political classes and its hangers-on, but which is bemusing and infuriating most of the rest of us. Don't switch-off now. This isn't another piece about the election and how awful it is. Instead,
Continue Reading A World of Borders, Space and Culture: A Tribute to Roanne Dods
The SNP and Tories have swapped places in Scotland: The former is the party of government. The later the party of protest
The SNP and Tories have swapped places in Scotland: The former is the party of government. The latter the party of protest Gerry Hassan The Guardian Comment, May 31st 2017 It is a topsy-turvy time in Scottish politics. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon now regularly challenges Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson for going on about nothing else but independence. Tories in Scotland have become a party of protest. Today Tory protestors stood outside the SNP manifesto launch earlier in Perth with anti-independence placards. The SNP have become a party of government. The two have literally swapped roles. The SNP
Continue Reading The SNP and Tories have swapped places in Scotland: The former is the party of government. The later the party of protest


Standard operating procedure to check the programme files of the software related instruments, installed in quality control.
To define the method for programme file checks of software of instruments.
This procedure is applicable to software related instruments, installed in the quality control department.
5.1 Switch 'ON' the mains.
5.2 Switch 'ON' the instruments.
5.3 Refer respective manual of instruments.
5.4 Follow all the instruction before taking any programme file of any instruments.
5.5 Perform programme file checks.
5.6 Take the print out and maintain the record as per Annexure-I.
5.7 In case any file found not O.K follow S.O.P.


text:
/* Sample UDP server */

#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main(int argc, char**argv)
{
    int sockfd,n;
    struct sockaddr_in servaddr,cliaddr;
    socklen_t len;
    char mesg[1000];
    int ct = 0;

    sockfd=socket(AF_INET,SOCK_DGRAM,0);

    bzero(&servaddr,sizeof(servaddr));
    servaddr.sin_family = AF_INET;
    servaddr.sin_addr.s_addr=htonl(INADDR_ANY);
    servaddr.sin_port=htons(32000);
    bind(sockfd,(struct sockaddr *)&servaddr,sizeof(servaddr));

    for (;;)
    {
        len = sizeof(cliaddr);
        n = recvfrom(sockfd,mesg,1000,0,(struct sockaddr *)&cliaddr,&len);

        printf("-------------------------------------------------------\n");
        mesg[n] = 0;
        printf("Received the following:\n");
        printf("%s\n",mesg);
        printf("-------------------------------------------------------\n");
/* -- This requires a valid UDP key before it can be enabled
        if (++ct > 5)
        {
            char buf[10];
            ct = sprintf(buf, "GET,MAC,xxxxxxxx");
            sendto(sockfd,buf,ct,0,(struct sockaddr *)&cliaddr,sizeof(cliaddr));
            ct = 0;
            printf("Sending GET,MAC Command\n");
        }
*/
    }
}


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Books, Books By Other People, Dogs, Nonsense, Press, The Hole We're In
Miscellany Bonanza: Starring a Ridiculous Picture of My Dog in a Hat
May 23, 2010 July 21, 2013 by Gabrielle Zevin
"My Dog in a Hat"
Also, a nifty feature in the Chicago Tribune where a reader reviews The Hole We're In.
And finally, an agreeably prickly quote on criticism from Graydon Carter in the NY Times Book Review's review of Martin Amis's new novel:
"Writing, remember, is the only art in which the creator is publicly judged by people who do precisely the same thing, but as a rule less well."*
*I assume this may be a reference to a different quote that was in Martin Amis's memoir, Experience. Graphic dentistry passages notwithstanding, Experience is one of my favorite books about writing. The pencil mark is someone else's and should be ignored. I had scanned this quote years ago to e-mail to a despondent writer friend, which is why I happen to have it around.
"If you're sad and like beer, I'm your lady": Reading Tomorrow Night! In a Bar!
Reading! In Brooklyn! At Word!


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Foggy morning at Dream-time
Angophera Costata
Benefits of Trees
Dream Time - The Dreaming
Navigation Header
The beginning of something wonderful
The Dreamtime word is widely used, but not very well understood, the term describes key aspects of Aboriginal spiritual beliefs and life.
It is beyond dispute aboriginals survived for thousands of years. The Australian aborigines believed that the land they occupied was once empty. This belief was a great mystery to them, because the ancestors had said this was the way things were. Then during what has become known as the Dreamtime, the Sky above, the Land and all they contained were formed by mysterious and supernatural beings.
The Aborigines learned about the origins of the tribes (clans) through their Dreamtime creation of stories and myths that told of the significant actions of the creators. Aboriginal society was responsible for providing certainty about their existence by re-telling the stories that their forebears once told them.
The Aboriginal people understood the Dreamtime as a beginning. Here there is significant difference between Aboriginal thinking and that of others. In particular the belief that the Dreamtime is a period that is on a continuum of past, present and future.
Aboriginal people understood the Dreamtime as a "beginning" that has never ended.
In one sense it was the past, "sacred past" but also the present and future.
The land itself was an icon, because on the spiritual basis it was created and that some of the creators continued to live in the Sky or on the land. They told of the creation of the formation of the earth, the sky and all they contain. Every mountain, tree, water hole, every animal, bird and marine life along with every other living creature and natural phenomenon was believed to come into existence in the Dreamtime.
During the Dreamtime the creators made men and women, laws which all must obey. Their behaviour to one another, customs of food distribution, rules about marriage, rituals about initiation, ceremonies of death which must be performed that the spirit of the dead would travel peacefully to his or her spirit resting place. They believed that the creators disappeared from the sight of mortals, but continued to live in sacred places. Some lived in the tribe's territory in rock caves and crevices, in trees and water holes. Others went up into the sky as heavenly bodies. Others changed into natural forces such as rain, wind, thunder and lightning.
The Dreamtime itself has been explained in a number of ways. Some explanations refer to the creators being mysterious and supernatural beings. They include men & women "like us" who had the ability to change shape into fauna and other animals, creators like the Rainbow serpent and Minggah and also "all father and all mother figures". There have also been creators that where heroes and heroines. The main point is that each tribe (clan) had a collection of Dreamtime stories.
Such is the Aboriginal people's love of the land (Australia) and all it contains in the past, present and future. These hopes and dreams we also share at Dream-time nursery.
Copy write reserved to Dream-time wholesale nursery
Designed & Powered by Webforce 5


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Responsive design is more important than ever for websites, especially those that are focused on e-commerce. It isn't necessarily easy.
As online commerce continues to expand and define the future of retail, some brands are still making one of two serious yet avoidable strategic design errors.
Either they cobble together an abbreviated mobile version of their desktop site that leaves mobile users wanting more or they expect that Responsive Web Design (RWD) will solve all of their mobile problems, including unacceptably slow page load times.
Even when RWD and other modern design techniques are leveraged, 53 percent of all mobile users are still dissatisfied with mobile web performance and almost half of all shoppers abandon mobile sites when the experience is not up to their expectations.
Responsive web design overcomes some of the disadvantages of the older techniques of generating slimmed-down mobile sites that lose some of the depth and lavishness of the original desktop versions. RWD is essential to satisfying users who expect the same personalized content and rich experience on mobile as they enjoy on larger screens.
However, as one set of problems is solved by RWD, others can be created. This may include slower page load times, which can translate into poor mobile browsing sessions, lost sales, dissatisfied customers, and potential damage to brand reputation and trust.
Implementing RWD is a great first step, but best practices require site designers to go further. Rather than falling back on the responsive design default of simply reconfiguring the site and sending the entire page to the mobile device as a single package, the content should be segmented into individual components and artfully orchestrated so that the most important parts are downloaded first to captivate consumers immediately.
As bandwidth has improved, shoppers have become more comfortable with online channels, resulting in higher expectations in terms of web performance. People want everything fast. However, if they are not adequately engaged in relevant ways, they rapidly lose interest.
The dilemma here is that retailers need to provide a mobile experience with the same informative content, stunning images, and persuasive video as is displayed on their full desktop sites, but they must also ensure that everything is delivered quickly.
In the world of mobile commerce, performance, speed, and instant engagement are what drives conversions. As the performance bar rises, retailers with mobile sites are finding that eight seconds is an eternity for mobile users, and many of them will leave a shopping site if they have to wait longer than that.
Responsive design helps ensure that one source of content can be used for all devices from desktop to smartphones and tablets.
Today, shoppers will not tolerate a truncated site for mobile, and they are not willing to wait for a lot of data to load. This is why prioritizing page loading on mobile is an essential part of every new design initiative.
Retailers need faster device load times to drive higher mobile conversion rates. They must also attract, engage, and delight shoppers across all channels and devices so that while some page components are still downloading, there is plenty of compelling content and colorful imagery instantly visible to grab and hold buyer interest.
Published at DZone with permission of Tedd Rodman , DZone MVB. See the original article here.


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Home › Nova Scotia Tartan Tie
Nova Scotia Tartan Tie
Nova Scotia Tartan Tie - 100 % pure new wool, made in Scotland
The Nova Scotia Tartan represents the flag of the Province which dates back to the Charter of New Scotland granted to Sir William Alexander (Earl of Stirling) by King James VI of Scotland and I of England in 1621.
Nova Scotia has the proud distinction of being the only Province of Canada and the first colony of Great Britain to posses (through Royal Charter) its own flag and the colors of the tartan tell their own story.
The blue is for the sky, sea and lakes. Green is for the trees and white is for the rocks and surf of the coastline. The gold band surrounding the blue and green represents the Royal Charter and the red lines crossing suggest the Scottish Lion on the gold shield of the Provincial crest


text:
What's the Problem with British Charity?
a modern-day parable.
Published in "The Third Sector" on 29-Jan-16 (https://www.thirdsector.co.uk/online-comment-whats-wrong-british-charities-modern-day-parable/fundraising/article/1381528 ) this article is based on some real stories from charities helped by Small Charity Support.
A certain man was going from Chelsea to Westminster, and he fell among muggers, who beat him up and left him half dead. By chance, Larry, a well-to-do businessman, was going the same way. He was so distressed by the sight of the beaten up man that he had to cross the road to pass by on the other side. In the same way, Percy, a well-known local politician, when he came to the place, was also so distressed by the sight of the injured man that he had to cross the road to pass by on the other side.
But when Sam, a street trader in the nearby rather run-down housing estate came by in his donkey cart he was moved with compassion, gave the injured man some basic first aid, took him in his donkey cart to a nearby inn, bought him some food and drink and gave him enough money to get home.
For most people the story ends there. But that is actually not the case.
Sam was so moved by the plight of the person that he'd helped – and particularly the comment of the inn-keeper that it was not uncommon for people to get mugged on that road – that he decided to get together with some friends to set up a small charity to help the victims of muggings on that road. Unfortunately his first application to the Charity Commission was rejected on the grounds that, although its proposed objects were indisputably of benefit to the individual victims who were mugged, they did not meet the "public benefit" requirements for registration as a charity. However, with the help of a clever (and expensive) lawyer, Sam was able to redraft his charitable objects as being for the relief of the distress and inconvenience caused by the presence of mugged and injured persons forcing the general public to have to cross the road in order to pass by on the other side.
And so "The Good Sam" charity was duly registered.
Sad to say, the inn-keeper was right – and "The Good Sam" charity was regularly called upon to help others who had been mugged on the road. And so "The Good Sam" charity started to grow. Fundraising events were needed to supplement the personal donations of Sam and his friends, and Sam needed to employ an administration assistant to deal with all the calls for help and to organise the volunteers.
But still "The Good Sam" charity grew despite the difficulties in raising funds.
"The Good Sam" charity took on a fundraiser who quickly realised that most of the victims who got mugged were quite well off themselves (that was part of the reason they had been mugged) and were actually able to repay "The Good Sam" charity for the help they received. So a "victim's contribution" system was introduced to supplement the charity's income. And as the public benefit of keeping streets clear of the victims of mugging was promoted to other local authorities the outsourcing of such services to "The Good Sam" charity became politically expedient and contracts to provide commissioned services started to come in. As a result, the income from such primary purpose trading quickly and substantially outstripped the meagre income from voluntary donations. "The Good Sam" charity set up its own chain of "Good Sam" Cafes to provide victims (and other members of the public as a way of generating further income) with food and drink because, being staffed by volunteers they were "more cost effective" than commercial cafes. And the growing fleet of iconic "Good Sam" trade-mark donkey carts (by now with superior facilities for the comfort of beneficiaries) became a well-loved sight in the community – particularly for the victims of muggings.
"The Good Sam" charity soon became a local and then national phenomenon.
Sam stood down as a Trustee to become the CEO. And as the charity grew, so did the complexity of its operations and, therefore, Sam's salary.
Businessman Larry & Politician Percy, now impressed by all the good work that Sam was doing, agreed to join "The Good Sam" charity as Trustees and were often seen out and about promoting the cause at this high-profile event and that. The "Good Sam Fun Run" became a popular annual fundraising event, with "I've Done the Good Sam Fun Run" T-shirts being in high demand as social status symbols. "The Good Sam" annual report proudly proclaims that it meets it charitable objects "by providing quality services that its beneficiaries are prepared to pay for".
Eventually Sam, by then a wealthy man, decided to retire. His final charitable act was to use his wealth to set up a donkey sanctuary to provide a safe home for all the donkeys who had served "The Good Sam" charity so well, ferrying the victims of mugging to safe havens.
And the story does finally end with Sam being recognised for his services to charity by being awarded a Knighthood in the New Year's Honours List.
So what's wrong with British Charity?
For those charity trustees and executives with the skill and acumen to be able to exploit the needs of others by running their charities like large profitable commercial businesses, clearly, nothing at all.
The problem is that most ordinary people (ie: "The people on the Clapham omnibus") understand 'Charity' as meaning "The voluntary donation of money/time/resources for the benefit of those in need" (the definition you'll find in most dictionaries).
But the legal meaning of the term 'charity' (ie: as defined by the Charities Act), and hence the way in which many charities (particularly the larger ones) operate, is quite different.
The problem is reinforced by section VCHAR2000 of the HM Revenue & Customs internal manual for the management of charities – which can be found in another "Charity Thought".
The Good Sam