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Tuesday, December 31st, 2019 at 11:30 AM by Ryan - The Curmudgeon by night studios larp world of darkness white wolf vampire rpg roleplaying games geeks crisis
A White Wolf property is mired in controversy. This signals that it's time once again to change your batteries in your smoke alarms.
It wasn't that long ago I was writing a blog called, "The White Wolf Dilemma." Here we are once again, and much of this is going to be updated rehash of lessons still unlearned. So, let's start the same way and have at it, then…
The World of Darkness and Vampire: the Masquerade is one of the most influential and prolific intellectual properties in recent history. Drawing influence from vampiric tales throughout history across folklore, film, literature and television. It revolutionized the role-playing game industry and, itself, became an influencer. From television's Kindred: the Embraced to the Underworld films and hundreds of popular creations in between, the World of Darkness is a pop culture juggernaut. The IP has persevered through five editions, an in-game ending, a tangental spinoff universe (Chronicles of Darkness), three different owners (the founders, CCP and Paradox), collectible card games, a highly-publicized failed MMO and four different companies currently producing rpg content (The Onyx Path, Modiphius Entertainment, Hunters Entertainment and By Night Studios). They have even managed to recently move from a developer/publisher model to a licenser model.
With so much success, how is it that every few months, this unstoppable behemoth becomes mired in controversy? The problems always seem to begin with a decision by White Wolf or their affiliates.
This time, the larp license holder By Night Studios was sold to a team of individuals that includes Shane Robinett, a guy with a history of incredibly controversial social media posts and opinions including that America should just shoot immigrants crossing the border and that the decision to cancel a White Wolf larp at a fascist nightclub a few years ago was a mistake.
The fans of White Wolf rebelled. The loudest voices were those who wanted to see Robinett gone for being a "right-wing nutjob" "racist" "white supremacist," and those who wanted By Night Studios to ignore the "cancel culture" "social justice warriors trying to ruin my vampire" and let him stay because he "did nothing wrong." These two groups then turned on each other, as they always do.
It's important to note, By Night Studios is a licensee of White Wolf, they are not the same company. However, the brand is shared and ultimately, that means that By Night Studios' mistakes reflect on White Wolf, their products and their other licensees.
Recently, White Wolf posted that they were hiring a Brand Community Developer for the World of Darkness (we'll call it the BCD from now on because I'm too lazy to type all that again). I had a lot of people encourage and ask me to apply for the position, but I did not. I see the position as a risk for me professionally, as I would never take a position in which I was uncertain that I would have the support from leadership to succeed. It is my hope that White Wolf is prepared to trust, listen to and follow through with the decisions necessary that are made by whoever fills that position to do what needs done to begin to heal the fandom.
But what needs done?
Get the House in Order
First, White Wolf must allow the new BCD to be a part of leadership conversations and creative processes in which important decisions are being considered. A good community marketing manager understands the behaviors of people and can generally predict responses and advise on how to navigate the sea of audience opinion. Then, trust the BCD's assessment and have the courage to change the decisions if they are problematic and empower the BCD to help manage and market the outflow of the resulting decisions. This means hiring a communications professional with brand management experience and not some vampire fan gamer that's friends with someone who already works at White Wolf.
In fact, it means all hires should be professionals and not some vampire fan gamer that's friends with someone already at White Wolf. The World of Darkness is a business brand, it's not just some hobby club. If you're listing "Studied the Darkness" or some stupid vampire joke thing under the "Occupation" entry on your Facebook page instead of your actual business title, you're probably not professional enough to be working for an international company.
Second, White Wolf leadership needs to just stop making poor decisions. In this most recent case, the primary owner of By Night Studios was previously Jason Carl, who is currently White Wolf's Brand Marketing Manager, and a personal friend of Robinett. This means that White Wolf's Brand Marketing Manager sold a White Wolf licensee to a known problematic individual, resulting in another stain on the already tarnished, struggling White Wolf brand image and fracturing the fan community once again.
Choose the Target Demographic
White Wolf fandom is a messy, broken thing right now. As I said above, there are two loud, vocal fandom groups: the "edgelords" and the "extreme social justice warriors" – both are empowered by internet courage to be aggressive, mean and destructive to the fandom. White Wolf has to recognize that these two groups are contrary demographics and stop inexplicably trying to court both at the same time with the same product – a task that keeps the fanbase fractured and hinders their product, brand and ultimately, sales.
Certainly, the reality is that many fans are a silent majority in the middle. They like some darkness and some safe edginess that doesn't go too far, while still wanting to make sure the gaming space is respectful and inclusive of others. They get lost in the fight, often tuning out or walking away from the forums because they don't want the drama. From a marketing and communications perspective, this means the brand loses a touching point with their demographic and that means potential lost sales.
At some point, White Wolf must decide who they are targeting with V5 and W5, and clearly make that known before actively directing and marketing their product with greater focus.
Be Relatable to the Public
Having a professional and relatable image seems like a fairly common sense rule of thumb, but White Wolf hasn't really had that. The former leader at White Wolf, Martin Ericsson, represented the company on stage, at conventions and in media appearances looking like an interpretation of Dracula who needed a shower and a hair wash. It would have worked great in the 1990s, when most Vampire players were young. The problem is, people of all ages play World of Darkness today. Grown ups just want to play the game and not feel like the people running the company might actually believe they are Tremere.
The new BCD needs to make public appearances in a professional manner that's not off-putting to the fans. Don't show up in a suit, but don't show up in leather pants and puffy shirts either. The person needs to respect the company and understand they are a reflection of it. Jeans and a nice shirt can be really relatable to everyone while still being presentable on a stage.
In terms of communications, White Wolf has handled every crisis in the last few years poorly, possibly founded in their lack of a communications or public relations officer in their leadership team. Currently, the only real "face" of the company is Jason Carl, who is well known in the gaming community and hosts the V5 live play stream LA by Night. Beyond that, there is no clear communicator on behalf of the company, creating a sense of disconnect and distrust between the fans and the company.
The new BCD needs to be someone the fans can latch on to, identify with and respect. It needs to be someone with a positive history in the White Wolf community (or no history in it). It also should be someone that is new to the White Wolf team, so that there is a feeling of changing guard to help usher in the opportunity to get the fandom and the brand in order.
Most importantly, however, the fandom needs to see the company's mission and values actually demonstrated. They're well-written words, but just words. The BCD has to police their communications forums in a way that actually interacts with fans and addresses their behaviors in accordance with the decided-upon target demographic and these company statements.
I've said this previously, but it needs saying again:
Fandoms are a reflection of those in control of what they are fans of. Gaming companies bear responsibility for their gaming communities. How gamers are behaving when discussing the game, and how they actually play it, are fundamentally influenced by, and based in how, the company interacts with their fans when presenting their product.
White Wolf doesn't seem to know which fans they want, let alone what they want from them, dooming the company to keep repeating this cycle. They will never be able to course correct anything without making these key decisions and equipping themselves with the people, wisdom and skills to then properly follow through.
The World of Darkness is still one of the most influential and prolific intellectual properties. I hope changes can save it before it becomes history.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


vSoup Episode #4 is now available!
Bob Plankers from The Lone Sysadmin joins us this episode for a veritable buffet of vSoup, it seems to be of a distinctly networking flavour this week with a light scatting of certifications, conferences and books on top.
Contest question: Where does Bob work?
VMware vSphere design – the book by Forbes Guthrie, Scott Lowe and Maish Saidel-Keesing.


HomeVows, commitments and modern life: Don't let delusions hijack the Dharma within your mind.
Vows, commitments and modern life: Don't let delusions hijack the Dharma within your mind.
Do not turn a god into a demon. God in this context refers to training the mind, and demon refers to delusions such as pride and attachment. If we practice incorrectly we may increase our delusions, such as pride, with our Dharma practice. Therefore, we should try to study and practice with firm understanding and correctly.
Because for many of us our delusions are at present more powerful than our virtues, they have an uncanny ability to hijack our Dharma understanding and use it to make us even more deluded. Pride is the most common example of this. Ordained people can feel like only they are the real practitioners and everybody else just can't let go of samsara. Prasangikas can read there is no enlightenment outside of the wisdom realizing emptiness and then conclude they have the monopoly on the truth. Mahayanists can look down on Theravadan practitioners as being "lesser." Dorje Shugden practitioners can look down on the Dalai Lama's followers as having sold out the pure Dharma for Tibetan politics. Buddhists can look down on devout Christians with their grasping at an external creator and denials of basic science. Resident Teachers can look down on those who are not "committed enough" to follow the study programs perfectly. Center administrators can look down on those who contribute little to the functioning of the center. So called "scholars" can look down on those with a simplistic understanding of the Dharma. So-called "practitioners" can look down on scholars as just intellectual masturbators. Those from more established, successful Dharma centers can look down on those whose centers are struggling to survive. Those who have not yet been fired by Geshe-la can look down on those who have been. Those who have been fired several times can look down on those who haven't yet. Those who have been around for many years can look down on those who are naively enthusiastic in the honeymoon stage. Those on ITTP can look down on those just on TTP; those on TTP can look down on those just in FP; those on FP can look down on those just in GP. Those who go to pujas at the center can look down on those who don't. Highest Yoga Tantra practitioners can look down on those who are not. The list goes on and on and on. It's all the same though: people can look at some good aspect of their Dharma practice as being somehow superior to that of others, and they use this as a basis for generating pride.
It is not just limited to pride. Our attachment to worldly pleasures can kidnap our understanding of the Tantric teachings to use them as a justification to indulge in our attachments. Dharma Teachers' attachment to people coming to their classes can kidnap their compassion and bodhichitta to use them as a justification to manipulate or guilt trip others into coming to class. Center administrators' attachment to growing the center can kidnap their wish to flourish the Dharma to take advantage of people's time, labor and circumstance. Our wrong understanding of renunciation can cause us to feel we are somehow not allowed to be happy. Our discouragement can kidnap the teachings on humility to become an excuse for not really trying. Our doubt can kidnap our wish for wisdom and cause us to reject generating faith. Our intellectual laziness can kidnap our faith and prevent us from pushing beyond faith to generating personal wisdom. Our attachment to remaining with our partner can kidnap the teachings on cherishing others to remain in an abusive or dysfunctional relationship. Our laziness can kidnap the instruction "don't worry, be happy, just try" as a pretext for never getting serious about training in our vows and commitments. Our aversion to our family, jobs and life circumstance can kidnap the teachings on our precious human life to convince us such things are obstacles to our practice instead of objects of our practice. Our externally exaggerated understanding of what it means to be a Dharma practitioner can create tension in our mind when, due to our circumstance, we are unable to practice in such a way. Our self-hatred can transform every Dharma teaching about the faults of our delusions into a whip we beat ourselves with. Our judgmental attitude towards others can kidnap all of the teachings and use them as grounds to condemn others for their shortcomings.
Every correct Dharma understanding is necessarily a middle way between two extremes. One extreme is our normal samsaric views, the other extreme is some wrong understanding of the meaning of the instruction. How do we know if we have gone to the other extreme with a Dharma instruction? Kadam Bjorn said, "there is not a single Dharma mind that is tight and narrow, they are all spacious and open." The function of all correct Dharma understandings is to make our mind more peaceful and calm. So the test is simple: if our mind is becoming more tight, narrow, agitated or judgmental we have gone too far; if our mind is becoming more open, spacious, peaceful and accepting we are on the right track.
← Vows, commitments and modern life: Be the first to get the worst!
Delusion is deceptive. Finding evidence for this deception may or may not be difficult. Delusions promise but lie. Finding evidence of this may or may not difficult.
Assumptions can be very deceptive but not all are delusions, some are very very important and useful and even highly virtuous.
Kadam Ryan has made many seemingly assumptive statements and generalisations, highlighting certain concepts for the reader. What could potentially happen or has happened to some.
These may or may not be the experience of some people. Just reading: "Because our delusions are at present more powerful than our virtue" could have a profound effect on mind or could not. It is true for some and not true for others.
Deconstructing personal opinion, understanding the perspective from someone else's samsara and relating it to our own inner Dharma jewels is what adds value, how can I use what was given to increase my inner wealth for the benefit of others?
Love it, so many great points that you are reminding us. Thank you.
I didn't quite understand this bit (pushing beyond faith?) Would you elaborate on this a little please?
p.s. nah, scratch that, I love that my heart is touched so deeply by your words!
Sorry it wasn't clear. Faith is good, but it is not good enough. Faith is when we know an object's truth in dependence upon our faith in the one who spoke it, but we don't directly know the object to be true for ourselves. In some religious, faith about certain ideas is enough. In Dharma, we keep going until we realize directly the truth of every apsect of Dharma with our wisdom. There are some topics which are particularly difficult, and it is easy for us to get lazy thinking, "I don't know why this is right, but if Geshe-la say's so, then that's good enough for me." Such faith is good (certainly better than a doubt rejecting the idea), but it is not good enough. We need to know for ourselves.
We come to know over time that a person, or a persons words can be trusted. Blind faith is both good and bad, depending on context and karmic conditions. It can be dangerous and it can be beneficial. In itself it can depreciate ones practice and become an obstacle to tasting and experimenting. On the good side, it pages the way for the other types of faith.


An evening of individual jazz vocals featuring a spin-off group from the Blue Jazz Voices programme held at the Sage Gateshead.
Indigo … one step beyond blue.
Performance gigs feature up and coming local jazz vocalists singing a selection of blues, bossa, and swing. Vocalists include Jenny Lingham, David Edgar, Miriam McCormick, Carrie McCullock, Barry Keatings and Jen Errington.


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In this article the author discusses of the policy of not seeking to recruit staff from South Africa for Great Britain. He says that South Africa has staffing shortages and need more qualified professionals. He suggests the recruiters to stop targeting skilled staff from South Africa and must realize the impact of it.
Lists the questions that need to be considered when hiring a pay-for-placement firm. Audience; Guaranteeing of results; Communication of key messages.
Discusses the increasing popularity of Internet recruiting. Comment from Eric Greenberg, director of American Management Association (AMA); Information on employment resources; Benefits of recruiting online.
Reveals the unethical practice of online employment agencies of charging people fees to help them find jobs through the Internet. Tactics of such agencies; Impact on jobseekers; Advice to jobseekers.


text:
Site Map: MAIN / A Reader's Journal, Vol. 2 Webpage Printer Ready
A READER'S JOURNAL
The Influences of Lucifer & Ahriman, GA# 191
Five Lectures given in Bern and Dornach 1919
Published by Anthroposophic Press in 1993
A Book Review by Bobby Matherne ©1998
Web www.doyletics.com
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In Christian theology the forces of Christ are set against the forces of the devil who represents in one figure all that is evil, and one is exhorted to abjure all that is of the devil. This might lead one to wonder, "How is the knowledge of good and evil bad? Isn't that what the devil in the Garden of Eden wanted to share with Adam and Eve?"
Steiner divides the devil into two beings, Lucifer and Ahriman, and shows us how neither is bad per se, each provides gifts to human beings that further our evolution, and that it is us who must learn to balance these gifts in our individual lives. His recommendation for a solution to the problem of the devil is to transcend the tendency towards either Luciferic frenzy or Ahrimanic tedium by creating a spirit-filled synthesis of the two in our lives from now on.
Luciferic Traits, Attributes
Ahrimanic Traits, Attributes
frenzy, hyperactivity
tedium, boredom
unification, generalization
diversity, particularization
one language
gnosis, speaking and thinking
statistics, proof, literal Gospel reading
fantasy, illusion, superstition
concrete sensory-based, materialism
spirit-permeated cosmology
mathematical astronomy
eating & drinking w/o spirituality
un-read knowledge stored in libraries
unified vision [United Nations]
individual vision [Chauvinism]
flexibility, airy
solidification, granite-like
the high flight of Icarus
the humility of Francis Bacon
pagan wisdom
technological advances
Steiner says that Lucifer incarnated in a human body during the third millennium before Christ, and that Ahriman will likewise incarnate in the third millennium after Christ, the one we are currently entering. How can we be prepared for the coming of Ahriman? We must balance both the attributes of Ahriman and the attributes of Lucifer with Christ as our guide and companion. In Steiner's words:
[page 18] But woe betide if this Copernicanism is not confronted by the knowledge that the cosmos is permeated by soul and spirit. It is this knowledge that Ahriman wants to withhold. He would like to keep people so obtuse that they can grasp only the mathematical aspect of astronomy.
One of the wonderful aspects of Steiner is that he sees the value of both a spirit-filled cosmology and an abstract mathematical astronomy, thus modeling for us readers how to maintain the balance between the Luciferic and Ahrimanic tendencies in our lives. The superb congruency of Steiner's process (what he does) and content (what he says) characterizes all great teachers. Steiner never tells us to follow his instructions to the letter, instead he models for us the behaviors that will bring us the desired balance in our lives if we were to exhibit those behaviors.
In light of the imminent incarnation of Ahriman, Steiner offers caveats and suggestions on how to avoid "strengthening Ahriman's impulse."
[page 21] I shall merely put before you the deeper fact, namely that no true understanding of Christ can be reached by the simple, easy going perusal of the Gospels beloved by most religious denominations and sects today.
[page 22] The point to remember is, however, that the people who do most to prepare for the incarnation of Ahriman are those who constantly preach, "All that is required is to read the Gospels word-for-word -no more than that!"
In other words, Steiner is saying that the fundamentalists are fundamentally wrong. In their zeal to follow Martin Luther's dictum, to read the bible, they have gone to such an extreme that they are preparing a fertile seed bed for Ahriman, up until now.
[page 52] You see, a barrier which prevents the single Gospels from unduly circumscribing the human mind has been erected through the fact that the event of Golgotha is described in the Gospels from four — seemingly contradictory — sides. Only a little reflection will show that this is a protection from too literal a conception.
[page 52] In the absolute sense, nothing is good in itself, but is always good or bad according to the use to which it is put.
And the scientists, with their penchant for studying only the external sensory world by means of statistics and abstract principles, are also fundamentally wrong. They will never reach "the innermost being of things" unless they change their approach and include that most delicate of instruments, the human being, in their panoply of measuring devices.
[page 31] And so a future must come when people will be able to say, "Yes, with my intelligence I can apprehend the external world in the way that is the ideal of natural science. But the vista thus presented to me is wholly ahrimanic."
[page 54] For to experience a thing is a very different matter from attempting to prove it intellectually.
[page 77] It is a scientific fallacy to trace back to mineral causes the forces manifesting in air and water and in the mineral realm; in reality the causes are to be found within the human beings.
The scientists assume that the geology of the earth occurs whether human beings are present or not, but I note that Steiner says that the very opposite is true.
[page 83] The all-essential causes of what happens on the earth do not lie outside the human being; they lie within humankind. And if earthly consciousness is to expand to cosmic consciousness, humanity must realize that the earth — not over short but over long stretches of time — is made in its own likeness, in the likeness of humanity itself.
Can we escape Ahriman and Lucifer by avoiding both of them? You may have thought so, as I did at first, but Steiner's answer is a firm, "No!" Instead he argues for you and me to maintain a balance between the influence of Lucifer and of Ahriman.
[page 34] But the truth of the matter is that Lucifer and Ahriman must be regarded as two scales of a balance and it is we who must hold the beam in equipoise.
[page 34] And how can we train ourselves to do this? By permeating what takes ahrimanic form within us with a strongly luciferic element.
We are led inexorably to the conclusion that only by experiencing our world via the external senses of the materialistic scientist and at the same time experiencing the super-sensible aspects of our reality as well can we become full human beings in relation to our cosmic environment.
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It's been just over four months since my world came crashing down around me. I'm still alive, although four months ago I wouldn't have believed it. I thought the pain in my heart would have caused me to die, some days it felt preferable to the prolonged agony that was waking up each day to find out that the nightmare was in fact reality. Thankfully, those dark thoughts subsided and I was able to smile and laugh again.
December was always going to be a difficult month, it would have been my third anniversary at the beginning of the month, not to mention everyone is so geared up for Christmas. I will fully admit to not looking forward to Christmas, cosy couples everywhere, people partying and celebrating life? No thanks. That wasn't for me. I wanted December to come and go as quickly as possible. I dreaded Christmas day, I was afraid that I would wake up already crying and that I would spoil the day for my family. As it happened, I didn't wake up crying. I woke up in a surprisingly good mood, I only had one moment of not being quite myself - at lunch as I sat with my family, just the four of us for the first time since I was a child, and I couldn't quite believe that it was Christmas day.
January was a very good month, my thoughts hardly touched upon my ex-husband, I went out with friends a lot, I laughed, I danced, I enjoyed life. I started a new job and thought more of the future. It wasn't until this month that a cloud descended on me again, keeping me awake long into the night despite being agonisingly tired, filling my dreams when I did sleep with thoughts I had kept at bay for weeks and waking me with his image already burning into my mind's eye, wondering what he was doing, who he was doing it with, was he thinking of me, when would he go home so I wouldn't have to live in fear of bumping into him? Horrid, tiresome thoughts that caused me heartache.
I know that this will pass. I know that eventually, although I don't know how long it will take, I will be ok. The time between the highs and lows will grow increasingly longer until one day I'll realise that it's been a year since my last low point. I yearn for another month of not thinking about him and what my life may have been. I know that I deserve so much more in a partner, but I know it will be difficult to give myself up to someone next time because I will be afraid of rejection and hurt again. From reading other blogs and websites of other women in similar situations it would seem that I'm not alone in thinking as I do, from which I take a little comfort. Although it's sad to know that other people have shared the same pain as me (which I wouldn't even wish upon my worst enemy, should I have one), it's good to see that they have come out on the other side and in some cases have gone on to marry again and even have families.
In the mean time, I'm left to weather the stormy seas that trouble me. The dark thoughts that swim around in my head, the ones that make my stomach lurch with fear, that make me feel physically ill, they have made a home for themselves for a little longer. The difference in me after four months however, means that I can banish them and think of positive things a lot easier than before. Each day I wake up is another day that I have survived, another day that I have become stronger, another day to be thankful for what I do have in my life rather than mourning what I used to have. It's a long slog, and sometimes I can't believe that four months have gone by, but if four months ago you had told me that I could have a smile on my face again I would never have believed you. I'm looking forward to calmer seas ahead.
You just have to keep taking each day as it comes, eventually you'll get there.
One of the women I work with is going through the same thing, it has been almost a year and the Divorce is nearly through, she is finally starting to get back to her old self.


I went over to Billericay this morning for the first time in about three weeks. I normally go there once every week or 10 days - not only to peruse the charity shops but also to get a few tasty bits and pieces in Waitrose. Waitrose is an expensive shop but they do have a wonderful array of delicacies which are completely unavailable in my small town, where only Aldi and Somerfield are available for food shopping.
Some changes had occured in Billericay in the past three weeks - and none of them good really. One, I'd missed the annual 'Linen and Lace' event in the Oxfam shop there. Now this is a bit of a b*gger as they do have some really nice craft bits and pieces during the 'Linen and Lace' and I've got some excellent things there in the past. This time all I came away with was a length of black and white herringbone webbing which will come in useful for bag handles at some point.
The second 'bit of a b*gger' was one of the cheaper charity shops was closed for refurbishment. That can only mean higher prices when they re-open. This is one of my perennial grouses - why do charity shops feel they have to emulate upmarket boutiques?? Give me a grotty charity shop with reasonable prices any day.
The third 'bit of a b*gger' was that the council have removed the very convenient pedestrian crossing which was right outside one of the best charity shops and relocated it much further down the high street - why?? I guess it was done to speed the flow of traffic and not for the convenience of pedestrians!
Anyway, enough of the moaning! I did find one of my favourite crime writers latest book in the 29p basket in the first charity shop I called in at.
I love a good crime novel, and the books by Arnaldur Indridason combine not only a really good thriller but are also set in Iceland - two of my favourite things in one. I only came across his books by finding one in a charity shop last year and they are excellent. If you enjoy a good crime / thriller type book I can highly recommend these. He hasn't written many - well, not many have been translated into English put it that way - and they also give a fascinating (to me anyway) insight into Icelandic life.
Finally, on to something a little more frivolous. I've been doing a bit more embroidery and have just finished these two cake cards.
Both done using the iron-on transfers from the fabulous book Sublime Stitching by Jenny Hart.
I hate it when that happens to charity shops - they have done it to mine and it simply isn't the same since. Cards are pretty though - the craft shop round the corner from my house, and where we relocated our craft group to, has just started stocking the Sublime Stitching transfers. I'm now working on them to get the Sulky transfer pens in.... They only opened in November bless them!


text:
Past and Present companions
Cumha Collection
'THE GRICER' Selects...
You can download a PDF copy of the catalogue by clicking on this text
Tweets by @SLPNostalgia
The NORTH YORKSHIRE MOORS Railway Past and Present (Standard Edition)
Availability: Reprint due March 2016
Author: John Hunt
There has been a railway through the heart of the North York Moors for almost 180 years, but the fact that it is still possible to go by train from Whitby to Pickering is due entirely to the tenacious efforts of the early preservationists, who refused to let the railway die when it was closed by British Railways 50 years ago in 1965.
This book stands as a tribute to all that has been achieved over the past half-century, and by means of more than 250 'past and present' photographs, most in colour, the reader is able to take a journey along the entire original route from Whitby to Malton, and also to travel through time to witness the evolution of one of Britain's longest and most successful heritage railways.
The railway from Grosmont to Rillington Junction, serving a largely remote rural area of the North York Moors, closed in 1965, one of the many victims of the infamous Beeching Report, leaving the line from Middlesbrough as Whitby's only rail link. The closure led to widespread concerns in the area, and thoughts turned to the possibility of reopening the line under private ownership. A meeting in 1967 led to the setting up of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway Preservation Society (NYMRPS); the following year volunteers were allowed access to what remained of the line, and the first motive power and rolling stock arrived.
In 1972 the NYMRPS evolved into the North Yorkshire Moors Historical Railway Trust, and a Light Railway Order was obtained, allowing the establishment of public services. The line was formally reopened by the Duchess of Kent on 1 May 1973, and eventually trains were running once more throughout from Grosmont to Pickering. In 2007 it at last became possible to run steam trains into Whitby, and the second platform for NYMR use was rebuilt in 2014.
It is now 50 years since the line closed, and the enormous achievements by the railway's staff and volunteers, from those first small steps right up to the present day, can be clearly seen by anyone who enjoys a ride along this wonderfully scenic 24-mile route from Whitby to Pickering. Could those early preservationists back in 1967 have possibly imagined that their project would evolve into a 5 million pound business carrying more than 350,000 passengers a year?
Taking a pictorial journey along the entire original route from Whitby through to Malton, this book allows the reader to compare the railway of old and the desolation of the early closure period with today's vibrant heritage line. In so doing, it also serves as a tribute to half a century of progress and to the many hundreds of people who made it all possible.
Post & Packing:UK customers: Please add 10% (minimum £1.50, maximum £4.00).Orders over £40 value are sent post-free. Overseas: please add 20% (minimum £2.00). Orders over £100 please add 10%.All orders are securely packed in purpose-made cardboard wrappers.
Delivery: We endeavour to despatch all available items within two working days of receipt of your order. However, please allow 14 days for delivery to UK addresses - longer overseas. Where an item is not yet available or is temporarily out of stock we will where possible advise you of the anticipated date of despatch. Where an item is no longer available we will advise and refund accordingly.
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All items are offered subject to availability; prices, specifications and publication dates where given are correct at time of printing but are subject to change without notice.
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Attach your important memos and reminders to the Coil Memo Holder. Has an adjustable clip length and makes the perfect office accessory. Coil stretches to 9 inches long and has an alligator clip on the end.


text:
Home Global South America Corinthians unites with Galera.Bet in long term partnership
Corinthians unites with Galera.Bet in long term partnership
Joe Streeter
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Corinthians has announced that sports betting firm Galera.Bet will become the club's new sponsor after agreeing a five-year-deal.
Under the terms of the collaboration, the sports betting brand will appear on the sleeves of the team's shirts. In addition, the fans will be able to choose the name of the sponsor's logo by voting on a club website. The options will be Coringao.bet, Alvinegro.bet and Fiel.bet.
"The fans are very important to the club, therefore we want to offer them more entertainment and engagement options. We ask them to participate in deciding the name of the platform. We want to democratize this moment," said Andrés Sanchez, president of Corinthians.
According to Galera Group Vice President of Sports Operations Chanoch Ben-Simchon, the company will manage Corinthians' sports betting platform remotely and outside of Brazil. Currently, it has offices in Israel and Cyprus.
"We're very pleased with this commercial agreement. Corinthians will be a pioneer in this sports betting market, which has a huge potential in Brazil."
To launch the digital platform, which will happen in August, Galera Group has already started developing apps in Brazil that use artificial intelligence (AI) to calculate odds and statistics related to sports.
As the sports betting industry in Brazil is still waiting for full regulation, none of the Galera products offered in the country will involve money. But Ben-Simchon believes that getting market penetration with free-to-play products will help longer term.
"It's essential to have a local branch that understands the Brazilian market," he said. "This is a crucial factor for us in order to be successful in our operations."
Galera.bet
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Corinthians announces 20-year stadium naming rights deal worth £41.7m
SBC Leaders: 'Filling the financial void' of football betting sponsorships
In-game betting will drive deeper engagement with US sports fans, says...
Heineken's Pincus replaces Barnett as F1 director of commercial partnerships
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text:
bubble animation with [Velocity.js](http://julian.com/research/velocity/)

## Libraries

- [Velocity.js](http://julian.com/research/velocity/)

## License

The MIT license.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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What Is A Group Of Pandas Called and How They Live In 2021?
By Leslie Oberholtze
The pandas are one of the most beautiful and adorable animals in the world. This beautiful animal is widely used as a model for children in various fascinating toys and animations. There are some species of pandas. The red panda is also known as the tiny panda and the red cat. Currently, pandas are known as endangered species.
What is a group of pandas called? Pandas are the most solitary animals. Usually like to stay alone but have a unique group name called embarrassment.
We will know details about the pretty and adorable animals. So, without any thinking let's follow the article.
1 What Is Panda?
2 Different Types Of Panda
2.1 Giant Panda:
2.2 Red Panda:
3 What Is A Group Of Baby Pandas Called?
4 What Is A Large Group Of Pandas Called?
5 What Do You Call A Group Of Pandas?
6 The Daily Life Of A Panda
6.1 What Do Pandas Eat?
6.2 What Does A Panda Sound Like?
6.3 What Is A Panda's Natural Habit?
7.1 Wrapping Up
What Is Panda?
Pandas are bearlike mammals with a bulky body and mostly round face. They are black and white in colors. They are found in the bamboo and mountain areas of central China. They are very peculiar species among all. The pandas have a captivating appearance which attracts worldwide people.
Different Types Of Panda
There is a debate about the classification of panda since the past because the pandas share the characteristics with both raccoons and bears. Due to farming and deforestation, the pandas have been driven out of the lowland areas.
Let's have a look at the classification of the pandas-
Giant Panda:
The giant pandas are mostly solitary animals and rarely make a group. They have a strong sense of smell to avoid others directly. Only the male pandas find the females to mate during the spring season.
What is a giant panda? The giant pandas are also known as the panda bear. They are characterized by large and black patches around their eyes. The giant pandas are also a folivore.
Red Panda:
The red pandas are considered as the original or true pandas. They are native to the eastern Himalayasand southwestern China. They are listed as the endangered species.
What is red panda? Red pandas are also the original panda which are found in central China. They continue to decline due to fragmentation, habitat loss, inbreeding depression, and poaching.
What Is A Group Of Baby Pandas Called?
The baby pandas are so cute and pretty. They grow so fast. The babies grow about ten times from their birth weight in six weeks. They can stand and a little walk between eighty days. The baby pandas stay with their mothers for the first few months and they are fully weaned from eight to nine months. Baby pandas have a different lifestyle. They can poop up to forty times a day. And rest of the time of the day they eat and sleep. The cute baby is called in a nice name cub.
What Is A Large Group Of Pandas Called?
There are large species of the panda. They are also known as giant pandas who are native to Central China. They are characterized by large size, black color over their ears, and black patches around their eye areas. Giant pandas are mainly solitary animals and love to stay alone. They rarely make any group without any emergency.
What Do You Call A Group Of Pandas?
When animals meet with one another, they make a group. And the group is called in different names. The solitary animal pandas don't like to live with a group naturally. They just avoid any gathering and make their won world. You can see the group of pandas rarely. The group of cub pandas plays sometimes together and the adult male pandas meet with the female during their mating session. After all, the group of pandas is called in some different names and these are a bamboo of pandas, a cupboard of pandas, and normally the group is called an embarrassment.
A bamboo of pandas
A cupboard of pandas
An embarrassment
The Daily Life Of A Panda
The pandas have an amazing lifestyle. They just pass their day mostly similar to bears, the giant pandas are expert in climbing and they are good swimmers also. They love to eat about ten to twelve hours a day because they are bamboo lovers. The bamboos have low nutrients and the pandas need to eat a lot amount of bamboo. They divide their day time into some categories. They like to groom and climb. They play for two to three hours and love to sleep eight to nine hours per day. The pandas don't make any hibernate or den except to put their cubs.
What Do Pandas Eat?
The pandas are mostly dependent on bamboo species. Bamboo species refer to the different bamboo plants like stems, bamboo leaves, and different shoots. They eat bamboos from twenty-six to eighty-four pounds of bamboo per day. The captive panda species also eat apples and cornbread beside bamboo plants. Besides bamboo, they like to eat some specific plants like grasses, vines, different colorful flowers, honey, and green corns. Some species of pandas eat some meat like small fish, mammal animals occasionally.
What Does A Panda Sound Like?
The pandas are the most solitary animals but they make some unique noises to communicate with others. Baby pandas make squeaking sounds most of the time. The male pandas attract the females by calling Tian, Tian. Their different sound is bleat. For communication with others, the pandas make some noises. They can make growl, bark, huff, and sometimes squeak.
Bleat
What Is A Panda's Natural Habit?
The different species of pandas live in different areas. The red pandas mostly live in Nepal, China, and Bhutan. They are found in the Eastern Himalayas areas. They mostly spend their time on amazing trees. The giant pandas live in the mountain areas of south-central China areas. In the past, they are found in different lowland areas. But due to the deforestation process, pandas are not found in these areas. They prefer the mountains where bamboo sources are available.
Are pandas dangerous for humans?
The pandas are more cool animals but they can be dangerous sometimes. They often attack humans due to aggression and irritation.
Can a panda be a pet?
No, pandas are solitary animals and these animals cannot be kept as a pet anywhere.
Can a panda kill a human?
Pandas are the most adorable animals. But we should not go closer to the wild giant panda. The pandas have strong grips and can give powerful bites which can be most harmful to human life.
How many cubs does a panda give together?
The babies' number depends on the mother pandas. It mainly depends on the first few years of the life of a mother panda. The female pandas birth one to three babies at a time.
What is the average lifespan of a panda?
The span of life of a panda depends on its care and lifestyle. The wild panda can live about 15 to 20 years. And the pandas with caring can live up to 35 years old.
Pandas are the most adorable animals worldwide. What is a group of pandas called? We have already known about the details of the panda groups and their lifestyle. They are uniquely shaped and good appearance animals but a little similar to the bear.
Leslie Oberholtze
Hi there, my name is Leslie Oberholtze. I am a write and editor for ALittlebright.Com. I am a resourceful farm manager with lots of experience in taking care of farm animals. I have written so many articles on farm management. My other hobbies are; driving, cooking and traveling.
Copyright © Alittlebright.com | All Right Reserved.


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Iconic British Band Duran Duran Comes to Hard Rock Live at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Fla. Wednesday, April 5
Tickets on Sale Friday, Jan. 27, at 10 a.m.
Editor's Note: Hi-res images are available at: http://bit.ly/HRL_Shows. All media interested in reviewing or photographing this concert must request credentials at Hard Rock Live Hollywood
Hollywood, Fla. (Jan. 25, 2017) – Duran Duran brings their Spring 2017 World Tour, in support of their current album "Paper Gods" to Hard Rock Live at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Fla. on Wednesday, April 5, at 8 p.m. Tickets go on sale Friday, Jan. 27, 2017, at 10 a.m. Fans will have access to presale tickets beginning Thursday, Jan. 26 at 10 a.m. through Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood's Facebook and Twitter pages. American Express® Card Members will have access to presale tickets beginning Wednesday, Jan. 25, at 10 a.m. through Thursday, Jan. 26, at 10 a.m. Fan club members can purchase VIP packages and tickets now through Thursday, Jan. 26, at 10 a.m.
"Paper Gods" was released in September 2015 and entered the Billboard 200 Chart at No. 10, earning the iconic British band their highest charting album in 22 years. Produced by Grammy Award-winners Nile Rodgers and Mark Ronson, along with Mr. Hudson and Josh Blair, the band's 14th studio album features collaborations with Janelle Monáe, John Frusciante, Kiesza, Jonas Bjerre (of Mew), and Lindsay Lohan.
Duran Duran's latest release is a very special, limited-edition, deluxe vinyl box set of "Paper Gods" featuring previously unreleased material from the album recording sessions and brand new remixes of the single "Last Night In The City." Visit TheVinylFactory.com for more details and purchase information.
Tickets cost $235, $130, $100, $80 and $55.* All seats are reserved and available at all Ticketmaster outlets online at www.myhrl.com, www.ticketmaster.com or charge by phone: 1-800-745-3000. Doors open one hour prior to show start time. *Additional fees may apply.
Hard Rock Live, a spectacular state-of-the-art facility, further expands the ultimate entertainment experience at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. This 5,500-seat indoor arena has attracted more than 3 million people since its opening in 2005 and has regularly hosted South Florida's greatest variety of musical acts such as Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, Marc Anthony, Billy Joel, Andrea Bocelli, Tim McGraw and Carlos Santana; top comedians including Chris Rock, Robin Williams, Kathy Griffin and George Lopez; as well as major sporting events and events of major sports stars, from UFC matches to charity galas for Jason Taylor, Alonzo Mourning, Dwyane Wade and more. For additional information, please visit www.hardrocklivehollywoodfl.com or www.myhrl.com.
About Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida, located minutes from Fort Lauderdale's world-famous beach, features a AAA Four Diamond resort with 469 luxury rooms and suites, award-winning restaurants, high-energy nightlife, a lagoon-style pool and Beach Club, a Hard Rock-inspired spa, and premium meeting and convention space. As South Florida's premier entertainment destination, Seminole Hard Rock hosts top-name acts at its 5,500–seat Hard Rock Live concert arena and offers more than 100 table games, 2,000 of the most popular slots and a stand-alone poker room. Fine dining options include Council Oak Steaks & Seafood, the resort's signature steakhouse, and Kuro, a luxe and socially vibrant restaurant offering new-style Japanese cuisine. The resort also features contemporary and casual eateries, including Blue Plate, the hotel's 24-hour diner-inspired restaurant; Constant Grind, a gourmet coffee and pastry shop; and the ever-famous Hard Rock Cafe – Hollywood, part of Hard Rock's 177 globally recognized rock 'n' roll restaurants.
For more information, call 800-937-0010, visit us online at www.seminolehardrock.com or follow us on Facebook: @SeminoleHardRockHollywood, Twitter: @HardRockHolly, Instagram: @HardRockHolly
-SHR-


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Sacramento State University College of Business Administration to Sponsor Sacramento Speakers Series
By: PRUnderground
Speakers Series announced today that the College of Business Administration at California State University Sacramento, a long-time sponsor of the Series, has agreed to sponsor the upcoming 2014-2015 season. This exciting season begins on Tuesday, September 23, 2014 with food pioneer Alice Waters speaking during Sacramento's own Farm to Fork week. The series lineup also features former Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, world renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma, television journalist Anderson Cooper, long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad and New York Times columnist David Brooks. Sacramento State University will be recognized at the Anderson Cooper engagement on January 20, 2015.
Managing principal and attorney Mitchell Ostwald is particularly proud of the Speakers Series partnership with the College of Business Administration, "which for more than 50 years has developed business leaders who possess top management skills, along with a deep understanding of the responsibilities not only to their business, but just as importantly, to their community. Some 24,000 business school alumni remain in the Sacramento region, fueling the success of our vibrant economy."
Celebrating its 10th anniversary season, Sacramento Speakers Series offers an impressive list of leaders, authors, scientists, and visionaries, each chosen on the basis of career achievements, unique expertise in a particular field of endeavor, and ability to communicate their particular passion to the audience. The Sacramento Speakers Series is a community lecture series that provides an open forum for a free discussion of timely and important issues by nationally acclaimed speakers. Ostwald described the series as "an extraordinary community experience that gives our patrons an opportunity to hear about and question renowned and influential people from a wide variety of backgrounds on an even wider variety of topics."
WHERE: Sacramento Community Center Theater, 1301 'L' Street, Sacramento CA
Memorial Auditorium, 1515 J Street, Sacramento, CA
PRESENTER: Sacramento Speakers Series
TICKETS: Sold online at www.sacramentospeakers.com or by phone 916-388-1100
About Sacramento Speakers Series
The Sacramento Speakers Series invites you to join us for our tenth anniversary season in Sacramento. Our 2014-2015 season includes six evenings of topical insight from today's newsmakers in politics, journalism, education and more. Now is the perfect time to become a subscriber and reserve your seats for this incredible series.
Sacramento State University College of Business Administration to Sponsor Sacramento Speakers Series is a post from: PRUnderground
Cibt Education Group Inc


text:
Conflicting Beliefs and Actions and Cognitive Dissonance
HomeMind
By Shayna, Facty StaffUpdated: May 19, 2020
Humans generally strive for consistency in all areas of their lives, including their thoughts and actions. When we don't achieve that consistency, inner turmoil or cognitive dissonance is often the result. The theory of cognitive dissonance states that when a person's thoughts or beliefs do not align with their behavior, they will experience psychological turmoil. Holding two contradictory beliefs also results in cognitive dissonance. Although it sounds unpleasant, experiencing cognitive dissonance is not always a bad thing.
An American psychologist, Dr. Leon Festinger, postulated the theory of cognitive dissonance in the 1950s after he observed the life and failure of a cult. His theory was that humans need their actions to match their beliefs and thoughts. When this doesn't occur, discomfort motivates them to address the inconsistencies to bring back cognitive consonance or consistency. Dr. Festinger and his students at Stanford University conducted multiple laboratory experiments that supported his theories. Cognitive dissonance is still one of the most researched and influential theories in social psychology today.
Ekaterina79 / Getty Images
Everyone has dealt with cognitive dissonance at some point, whether they recognized it or not. One example of cognitive dissonance is continuing to smoke despite the common, medically-proven knowledge that smoking causes gum disease, emphysema, and cancer. Continuing an unhealthy diet while wanting to live a more health-conscious lifestyle is another real-world example of cognitive dissonance.
Terroa / Getty Images
Although each person experiences cognitive dissonance differently, people generally exhibit common behaviors to deal with dissonance. An individual may try to hide the belief or behavior, or attempt to rationalize it. They avoid taking in any new information that contradicts their belief, often by refusing to talk about certain topics, a practice that supports the confirmation bias thought process. People experiencing cognitive dissonance also ignore research, news media, and doctors' advice that confirms their feelings of dissonance.
nortonrsx / Getty Images
Degrees of Dissonance
The effects of cognitive dissonance vary from person to person, and the strength of the feelings depends on the degree of dissonance. Factors such as the type of belief, the value placed on the belief, the size of the disparity between the belief and action, and the number of inconsistencies present all affect the degree to which the person feels the discomfort of cognitive dissonance.
Vichai Phububphapan / Getty Images
Personality and Cognitive Dissonance
The psychologist Dr. John M. Grohl recently suggested that personality plays a role in the likelihood that a person will experience strong feelings of cognitive dissonance. He posits that introverts are more likely than extroverts to feel the effects of cognitive dissonance, possibly due to the introverted tendency toward introspection. Research also suggests that the higher a person's need for consistency, the more likely they are to experience cognitive dissonance.
fizkes / Getty Images
Impact on Mental Health
Living in a state of cognitive dissonance can feel a bit like not being true to oneself at the very least and like living a lie at the worst. This leads to guilt, anxiety, and shame, resulting in feeling overwhelmed and isolated if the person cannot correct the discrepancy. If consistency is not restored, more severe issues such as depression can develop.
PeopleImages / Getty Images
Dissonance Elimination
Cognitive dissonance, like almost any other unpleasant feeling, can be managed and changed. People can work on eliminating the feeling in a few different ways. A person can add more consonant beliefs or try to reduce the importance of the dissonant beliefs. They can also change the dissonant belief so that it is no longer inconsistent. Eliminating cognitive dissonance is not easy, but it is possible.
Positive reinforcement, the practice of rewarding behavior, is most often discussed in relation to children and puppies, but it is also a valuable tactic to dampen feelings of cognitive dissonance. While this practice won't eliminate the issue, it can weaken it. This was demonstrated by one of Dr. Festinger's Stanford experiments. He predicted that the higher the reward, the less likely a person will experience cognitive dissonance. His studies supported this theory.
Daisy-Daisy / Getty Images
Cognitive dissonance is not just an intangible sensation or theory. It has practical applications in decision making processes and problem-solving. That unpleasant feeling can help people identify when they have made an incorrect choice, or at least on that does not fit with their belief structure. It also helps people recognize the need to change problematic behaviors. Cognitive dissonance is a useful therapeutic technique some psychologists employ to help clients change unwanted behaviors and unhealthy thought patterns.
KatarzynaBialasiewicz / Getty Images
Cognitive dissonance can serve as an aspect of conscience in a person's life. To feel cognitive dissonance, the individual must have a certain level of self-awareness. Experiencing the effects can help people learn about themselves, recognize changes they have made consciously or subconsciously, and encourage and guide personal growth as they evaluate their lives and relationships to achieve consistency again.
Tempura / Getty Images


text:
Johannes Witte de Hese (14e-15e eeuw) ofwel Jan Voet ofwel Joannes Heseus was een priester uit het bisdom Utrecht. Hij schreef het imaginaire reisverhaal Itinerarius over het Midden-Oosten en het Verre Oosten, op zoek naar het Aards Paradijs. Zowel het reisverhaal als, in het algemeen, het literair thema waren populair in de 15e-16e eeuw.

Levensloop
Over zijn leven is niets bekend. Hij was een priester uit het bisdom Utrecht en was mogelijks afkomstig uit Maastricht.

Itinerarius
Witte schreef in het Latijn. De volledige titel van zijn werk is Itinerarius Joannis de Hese, presbiteri, a Hierusalem describens dispositiones terrarum, insularum, montium et aquarum ac etiam quedam mirabilia et pericula per diversas partes mundi contingentia lucidissime enarrans. De vertaling van de titel luidt: Reisverhaal van priester Johannes de Hese, die beschrijft vanuit Jeruzalem de situaties van landen, eilanden, bergen, rivieren en die zeer helder enige wonderen en gevaren vertelt op (doorreis door) diverse continenten van de wereld.

Witte begint zijn reisverhaal in Jeruzalem, waarna hij het Heilig Land bezoekt. Vandaar reist hij via de Jordaan naar de Rode Zee en Egypte. In Egypte bezoekt hij Sinaïkloosters en plekken verbonden met de jeugd van Jezus. Vandaar trok Witte op de Middellandse Zee vanaf de haven van Damietta. Hij voer naar Edessa. Zijn reis bracht hem in het Rijk van pape Jan, waarover de Middeleeuwers veel fantasie hadden. Witte werd gevangen genomen door soldaten van de Grote Khan (Latijn: Grandicanis). Zijn reisbeschrijvingen waren fantasievol: hij zag pygmeeën, vliegende vissen, eenhoorns, levende woestijnen en dergelijke. Witte maakte persoonlijk mirakels mee vanuit een christelijke devotie. In het Oosten zag hij de muren van het Aards Paradijs op de berg Edom. De muren ervan glommen door het mos en reikten hoog tot aan de hemel, als een onneembare burcht. Hij trof eveneens de toegang tot het Vagevuur aan. In het Oosten beschrijft Witte Amazonië (geen relatie met huidig Amazonegebied tenzij de Griekse oorsprong van de naam): hier zag hij een Insula Masculina (eiland met mannen) en daarnaast een Insula Feminina (eiland met vrouwen).

Zoals andere imaginaire reisverhalen in de Nederlanden, was de Itinerarius populair. Met de komst van de boekdrukkunst werd het werk herhaaldelijk gedrukt: in Keulen (1500), Deventer (1504) en Antwerpen (1565).

Latere bewerkingen
Later voegden uitgevers beschrijvingen toe over de christelijke volkeren (Tractatus de decem nationibus Christianorum of ook Divisiones decem nationum totius Christianitatis) en brieven tussen paus Pius II en Johannes Soldanus ofwel lieten ze zelfs stukken weg uit de Itinerarius. Er volgden vertalingen vanuit het Latijn naar het Middelnederlands.

14e-eeuws schrijver
15e-eeuws schrijver
Latijns schrijver
Middelnederlands schrijver
Persoon in de Nederlanden in de 14e eeuw
Persoon in de Nederlanden in de 15e eeuw

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Mitra Sumara is a 16-legged psychedelic funk band that plays a repertoire of music from pre-revolutionary Iran -- Persian pop music of the 1960s and early '70s.
The group features Yvette Perez on vocals, Peter Zummo on trombone, Bill Ruyle on hammer dulcimer, Julian Maile on guitar, Jim Duffy on keyboard, Sam Kulik on bass, Michael Evans on percussion and Brian Geltner on drums.
Read about Mitra Sumara in the Washington City Paper!
Read an interview with Yvette Perez here!
And another interview with Yvette here!


Great to see your students riding in the winter weather to take part in this two week challenge. Mt Lockyer might like to check out the 'Make Your Move Week' competitions that have been happening in the Town of Victoria Park at Ursula Frayne Catholic College and Victoria Park Primary School. 25 YM Monsters were placed around local streets for a week long challenge encouraging students to be active every day of the week. Great prizes too with the school holidays on the horizon! Well done!!


Bookry is one year old in October and to celebrate we're delighted to be exhibiting at the Frankfurt Book Fair for the very first time – yay! We're so excited to be joining this prestigious event, where we'll be demonstrating all our iBooks Author services, including interactive widget generation and Reader Cloud.At the event we will also be launching a brand new tool that we've developed for existing book publishers which automatically converts InDesign files into iBooks Author files, complete with interactive widgets. We already have many publishers trialing this service, and the feedback we're getting is amazing. Look out for more about this new tool at the beginning of October.
via Join Us at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2013.
Вау. То есть понятно, что в iBooks Author верстать так себе удобство. Но ради этого тулз делать… Нну, не знаю.


text:
Porąbka – wzniesienie o wysokości 173,1 m n.p.m. na Pojezierzu Drawskim, położone w woj. zachodniopomorskim, w powiecie drawskim, w gminie Złocieniec.

Teren Porąbki znajduje się w Drawskim Parku Krajobrazowym, ponadto został objęty obszarem specjalnej ochrony ptaków "Ostoja Drawska", specjalnym obszarem ochrony siedlisk "Jeziora Czaplineckie", a także obszarem chronionego krajobrazu Pojezierze Drawskie.

Przy południowej części Porąbki leży wieś Chlebowo. Na zachód od wzniesienia znajduje się jezioro Siecino.

Nazwę Porąbka wprowadzono urzędowo w 1950 roku, zastępując poprzednią niemiecką nazwę Hege Berg.

Zobacz też
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I am in the throes of an eBay phase at the moment. It all started because I couldn't sleep one night so I decided to waste time online. And here we are, a couple of happy purchases down.
I am a specific shopper, only hunting for used Sass & Bide - an Australian designer duo I have always had a thing for since I bought their jeans in the early 2000's. I have managed to secure some absolute bargains and this top, as seen below, is one of them.
It's difficult to describe. Black jersey material, double layered, with rose gold details creating a zigzag pattern and a pronounced V at the front.
FYI: That V can fall pretty low so for daytime we put a little Topshop body underneath!
This top is one of those one-off items but I am keen to know from any of you if you have uncovered some great finds recently - particularly if you know the eBay seller has stock! Let us know!
...and finally I can announce the winner of the Hamsa necklace giveaway.
I always think giveaways are going to be so simple and straightforward but the reality is that I look over all the comments, make sure there are no duplicates and then do the random.org thing. It's always more work than I thought.
Congratulations! Email me your details at buynowbloglater@gmail.com and I will forward them on to Elisabeth, the store owner who will ship it out to you.
Thanks to everyone for taking part - I think I have ruined the purity of the "enter me" contest for many...that's my dirty mind for you :) Happy Friday!
thanks Florence - they were bought last year and i love them. Comfortable too!
Love how different the shirt is!
Wow you look beautiful. Such a simple but gorgeous outfit!
The top is beautiful, I'm actually tempted to see if I can find one on ebay! I had a few pairs of Sass & Bide Misfit jeans in the early 2000s too.
That top is gorgeous. Wish there was more available!
I know :( you never know though ...worth a look!
i really like this one you. rose gold seems to look really good with your skintone :) also, i have serious hair envy. i need to get my hands on some bleach ASAP, but the weather has been pants here lately so haven't really felt the need to do it... yet!
any good stuff purchased lately? I always see good wedges on ebay...need to invest!
Gorgeous top! And yes, eBay lies within the dangerous realms! But the bargains-- oh the bargains!
haha i know!!! if you ever find any fab bargains you need to hook me up!
I love your watch and shoes!
Your top is gorgeous and you look fab!
Love the top, I'm absolutely loving rose gold right now :) You look lovely.
Gorgeous top, love the detail!
Sass and Bide is definitely one of my favourites; have a soft spot for them as I live in Australia, haha.
i love the top, looks so gorgeous!
Lovely top! I like the mix of colours. I'm not the biggest ebayer but yesterday I bagged myself a gorgeous Coast cocktail dress for £35 rather than £145, brand new- it was bought for a bridesmaid, who then couldn't make the wedding. It's beautiful, and just what I was looking for after days of scouring the internet for a dress for my Grad ball which I adored and wouldn't break the bank. Hooray for ebay!!
yay another cool blog discovered!!!!!!! great top!!!!!
Pretty top. Will have to look out for it.
I love ebay. Love finding bargains!
Loveeeeee this outfit, that top is stunning!
I just stumbled on your blog, and love it! I love the concept and idea!
fashion stylist. I love hearing from and connecting with fellow bloggers!
AMazing TOP...nice pink pastel colour in TOP...is perfect to use with jeans.
Love that top! Congrats on scoring such a deal!
And lovee that top!! Beautiful detailing.
We miss you in Youtube!
awesome top & loving your blog!
I'm a sucker for good Ebay bargains as well! I discovered the magic of Ebay recently and I've used it to purchase from tees to vintage Levis to shark teeth!
Following your blog now with bloglovin, please check out my blog if you wanna follow back!
Totally loving this outfit! cute top!!!
LOVE this top. Would look great in Miami!
Nice post. The necklace is made up of overlapping layers of chain that together create an appealing-looking neckpiece.


text:
How Beijing's billions are buying up the Commonwealth
As more countries turn to China for financial support, Britain has been asleep at the wheel, say experts – can it redress the balance?
By Gordon Rayner, Associate Editor and Sophia Yan, China Correspondent 26 November 2021 • 7:03pm
In total, China has invested £685 billion across 42 Commonwealth countries since 2005
When Tuesday morning dawns in Barbados, British influence in the Caribbean will retreat one more step as the island becomes a republic, ending almost 400 years of loyalty to the Crown.
The Queen will be head of state of one fewer Commonwealth realm, though the transition will be a gentle one, as her replacement, president-elect Dame Sandra Mason, is currently the governor-general, Her Majesty's official representative.
In truth, however, Barbados has already drifted away from Britain, and in common with dozens of other Commonwealth members it has become increasingly dependent on another international partner: China.
Britain may have the Queen, but China has the cash, and in recent years Beijing has ploughed almost £500 million into the Barbadian economy, which equates to around a tenth of its gross domestic product. Roads, homes, sewers and a hotel have all been constructed with Chinese yuan, not British pounds or US dollars.
The picture is the same in Jamaica, widely expected to be the next Commonwealth realm to become a republic, where £2.6 billion of Chinese investment, against a GDP of £16.4 billion, makes it the biggest recipient of Chinese cash in the Caribbean.
In total, China has invested £685 billion across 42 Commonwealth countries since 2005, according to figures compiled by the American Enterprise Institute. To put that figure in context, Chinese investment in Commonwealth member states is, on average, three times higher as a proportion of the recipient's GDP than in non-member countries, a Telegraph analysis has established.
Much has been made by Boris Johnson of the opportunity for increased trade with Commonwealth countries as part of his post-Brexit Global Britain strategy, but the evidence suggests President Xi Jinping was way ahead of him.
President Xi Jinping wants to "create more opportunities for the world to benefit from China's high-quality development" – in other words, to be more dependent on China Credit: Getty
On Wednesday Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, announced plans to replace the Commonwealth Development Corporation with a new body, British International Investment, which she hopes will provide "up to £8 billion" of investment per year in Commonwealth countries by 2025, up from £1.5 billion per year at the moment, by encouraging the private sector and western allies to put money into member states.
The plans are undoubtedly welcome, but critics wonder why it has taken so long.
"We have been completely asleep at the wheel for decades," says Didi Kirsten Tatlow, a senior non-resident fellow at the Sinopsis project in Prague, a world-leading resource on China's foreign policy.
"We fundamentally misunderstood what the Chinese Communist Party is, and what it wanted. We have blundered into this scenario."
From an economic perspective, President Xi made it clear in a speech last year that he wants to "create more opportunities for the world to benefit from China's high-quality development" – in other words, to be more dependent on China, and in that goal he is having remarkable success.
Economic might, of course, is the most powerful tool in exerting political control, and the consequences of the West allowing China to become the main economic partner for so many countries are far-reaching.
"They are using their considerable financial resources to build strategic dependencies in societies wherever they can," says Tatlow. "This is how you start to control the world around you and start making it safe for totalitarianism because countries can't afford to do anything about it."
When China wanted United Nations members to support its draconian Hong Kong National Security Law – giving it sweeping powers to suppress dissent in the former British colony – it received backing from 53 countries, including two out of the 16 remaining Commonwealth realms: Papua New Guinea and Antigua and Barbuda. Both have received significant Chinese investment: £5.3 billion in the case of Papua New Guinea, or 21 per cent of its GDP, and £1 billion in the case of Antigua and Barbuda, or 60 per cent of GDP.
Other Commonwealth members that supported the Chinese crackdown in Hong Kong, and which have been in receipt of Chinese investment, included Sierra Leone, where Chinese investment since 2005 amounts to 145 per cent of GDP; Pakistan (21 per cent of GDP); Sri Lanka (17 per cent of GDP); Zambia, Lesotho, Cameroon and Mozambique.
Baroness Helena Kennedy, a prominent human rights barrister, says: "What China is doing is a way of making friends and it impacts on votes in the UN. Attempts to get a collaborative approach to things can be undermined so you end up with client states.
"It has a serious impact, it starts being a return to the old Cold War scenario and that's not a healthy way for us to be going forward.
"The money they are investing does start to penetrate our areas of influence. One wants to strengthen the Commonwealth, not find it undermined."
Alan Mendoza, executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, a foreign affairs think tank, says China appears to be targeting the Commonwealth because it sees it as "weak".
He says: "They would like to undermine whatever they can internationally, so they can pick off countries and prevent anti-Chinese resolutions in the Commonwealth and elsewhere. It is a very clever move and we have come late to the party by not really understanding the extent of this challenge.
"China is commercially preying on the Commonwealth. The question is, can we respond with a better offering? Can the UK steer western investment funds into these places?"
Mendoza says the stark statistics on Chinese investment in Commonwealth member states leads to the inevitable question of what the Commonwealth is for.
When Barbados becomes a republic next week, it will remain a member of the Commonwealth, the 54-member association which has expanded during the Queen's reign and remains one of her proudest achievements.
The danger, though, for British diplomacy is that a future president of Barbados could decide to leave the Commonwealth and build new alliances elsewhere.
"Is the Commonwealth a group of states working together or just a random collection of states that has no future?" Mendoza asks.
"Richer members of the Commonwealth should be the lead investors in the poorer member countries, but instead it's China. Surely this is the time to tackle the subject, or are we just going to allow the Commonwealth to become a relic?"
A modern-day Silk Road
In Jamaica the projects financed by China include a new 41-mile toll road from the capital, Kingston, to the north coast's tourist resorts. A journey which used to take two hours now takes just 50 minutes, thanks to Beijing.
Across the Caribbean, China has given equipment to military and police forces, including coastal patrol vessels, as well as building a network of Confucius Institutes (including one at the University of the West Indies in Barbados) which offer Mandarin language classes but have been accused of spreading Chinese propaganda. Covid has also been used as an opportunity to ship test kits, masks and ventilators to help combat the pandemic.
Caribbean nations are not, on the whole, rich in the minerals or natural resources that China seeks elsewhere, but they are coveted by Beijing because they lie so close to America. Beijing has long been upset by US military dominance in the Pacific and any Chinese leverage in the Caribbean is seen as one in the eye for Washington. In the long term, China may even have military ambitions in the area, though we are a long way from anything resembling the former Soviet Union/Cuba alliance.
The Chinese Communist Party is also determined to win over nations that recognise Taiwan as a sovereign nation, many of which are in the Caribbean and Latin America.
Rasheed Griffith, a senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank who specialises in China's presence in the region, says Britain is guilty of a failure of diplomacy as well as failing to provide financial help to its allies.
He says: "The UK has abrogated foreign policy in the Caribbean; their foreign policy is simply performance art. There is nothing happening; they don't know what's going on, they don't do anything, the embassies don't actually know much about the Caribbean any more."
On the other side of the world, Commonwealth member Pakistan, which is the biggest recipient of UK Overseas Development Assistance, to the tune of £305 million in 2019, is also being targeted by China. Since 2005 it has received £60 billion of investment from China, more than a fifth of its GDP, and it now buys 70 per cent of its arms from China.
The US believes Pakistan passes on some of those arms to the Taliban, which used them to defeat the coalition forces in Afghanistan. And the resulting destabilisation of the Afghan economy provides opportunities for China to move in and exhaust the country's vast mineral deposits, which include coal, copper, iron ore, lithium, uranium, gold, oil and gemstones. Chinese money comes in the form of straightforward investment – buying land and building hotels, for example – but also in the form of loans, which are by no means risk-free for the nations that accept them.
The Colombo Port City project in Sri Lanka, funded with Chinese investment Credit: Getty
If recipient countries cannot afford to repay what are often high interest loans, China will simply seize the assets that have been used as security.
In Sri Lanka, for example, when the government became unable to make payments on a loan it had taken out to build the Hambantota container port, it was forced to hand over the port and 15,000 acres of land around it to Beijing on a 99-year lease.
Although the port is likely to remain loss-making, it gives China a strategic foothold in a critical shipping channel off the coast of a rival nation, India.
Critics call this "debt trap diplomacy", and Ms Truss is well aware of the problem.
"Too many countries are loading their balance sheets with unsustainable debt," she said this week. "Reliable and honest sources of finance are needed. Britain and our allies will provide that." But China will provide more.
China calls it the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), its somewhat enigmatic name for the global infrastructure development strategy brought in by President Xi in 2013.
Sometimes referred to as a modern-day Silk Road, it includes investment in around 70 countries with roads, railways, ports, airports, power stations, hotels and other buildings among the panoply of real estate taking shape.
The Belt refers to the economic belt through Central Asia to Europe, while the Road refers to the Silk Road element.
Put simply, it is Xi's policy of using China's vast cash reserves to gobble up raw materials, form political alliances and dominate global trade long into the future.
The challenge for the West
Commonwealth countries would far rather borrow from Britain or other western countries, but they complain that the investment they need simply isn't available from more natural allies.
Biyika Lawrence Songa, an MP in the Parliament of Uganda, a member state which has had almost £9 billion of Chinese investment, says: "Commonwealth countries, including Uganda, are running to China instead of Britain or other countries, because it is very easy to access Chinese money and it is easy for our businessmen to get Chinese visas if they want to go there to buy materials, for example.
"In contrast, there are lots of conditions attached to loans from European or American countries and visas are harder to get."
He says the UK and Europe "must address the challenges that have driven Commonwealth countries to China. It is because of a lack of alternatives that this has happened".
Andreas Fulda, a China scholar and associate professor in social sciences at Nottingham University, adds: "In the case of Africa, the UK has taken its eye off the ball and has given Africa insufficient attention, and that has given China an opening that wouldn't otherwise exist.
"If you don't invest and if you don't have a forward-looking foreign policy other players will fill the gap.
"It's in the G7's self interest to re-engage with these countries because otherwise China can use its economic heft to buy its way in."
The US, Japan and Australia tried to counter it with their own Blue Dot Network in 2019, followed by the G7's Build Back Better World agreement earlier this year, essentially a western version of BRI, but China has such a head start that it may be too late for the West to catch up. Indeed, the West is suckling at the teat of China's cash reserves just as poorer nations are doing.
Chinese investment in the UK since 2005 amounts to £98.6 billion, some 0.03 per cent of GDP, though the more pertinent fact is the extent to which the West has been happy to rely on China for its manufacturing needs.
Almost all of us have a mobile phone, laptop, television, electric car, toys, almost anything you care to name, that was made in China, and western firms continue to flock there to build factories that provide cheap labour.
A report by Parliament's business select committee earlier this year warned that Uyghur Muslims from Xinjiang in northwest China were being used as "slave labour" in factories all over the country. The report said companies that were "directly or indirectly benefiting from the exploitation of Uyghur workers" included Adidas, Amazon, Apple, Google, Jaguar, Land Rover, Nike, Samsung, Uniqlo, Victoria's Secret and Zara.
Sir Ian Duncan Smith: 'We need to stop buying Chinese goods and we need to look to other places to make things' Credit: Eddie Mulholland for The Telegraph
Fulda says: "It's quite a messy picture – it's not a case of big bad China versus the ethical West; it's all intertwined.
"British companies are heavily invested in China in terms of global supply chains and the West is partially responsible for what we see in China. Some sort of partial decoupling would be needed to reverse this – for example don't build factories in Xinjiang."
Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader and a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), says: "China has strategically made sure that we have to rely on them in key areas, like making electric cars.
"The answer is to start shifting our investments from China to countries like India. We need to stop buying Chinese goods and we need to look to other places to make things."
Paul Flather, a fellow of Mansfield College, Oxford, adds: "We need to put a brake on China, and the Commonwealth could do that. This is a chance for the Commonwealth to test itself. It can't continue to be a diminishing historical legacy; it needs to recognise its role and if it's going to be influential, it needs to step up."
Democracies, with their ever-changing governments, tend to prioritise short-term gains, whereas, says Flather: "China has a permanent government and now an almost permanent leader... it's able to think long-term."
As to whether the Commonwealth has a future, Songa says: "That is a very good question. Countries are bypassing the Commonwealth and although they are Commonwealth members by name there is nothing coming from the Commonwealth to help these countries. Where is that wealth that is common to us?
"Europe and America are now realising there is a problem. But it's a bit late."
A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office source said that Ms Truss thinks that by investing more overseas we can draw more countries into the orbit of freedom-loving democracies while also improving lives, so it's very much a positive agenda".
A spokesman for the department said Ms Truss's plans for extra finance, called British International Investment, would provide "honest, responsible investment to create new markets in Africa, the Caribbean and the Indo Pacific" by partnering with capital markets and sovereign wealth funds "to co-invest in projects and scale the offer further".
As well as having "high standards, transparency and reliability" the BII plan would create jobs in the UK by generating export opportunities in countries that were being helped.
The West has finally woken up, but China's challenge is changing
By Tom Tugendhat MP, Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee
Tom Tugendhat: 'It's not surprising that in many Commonwealth countries, the opacity of the debt and the poor environmental and labour standards on those projects have triggered backlash' Credit: BBC
There was a week in 2019 which should have set alarm bells ringing. In the space of just four days, Kiribati and the Solomon Islands both announced that they were immediately severing diplomatic ties with Taiwan and switching allegiances to Beijing. These two tiny Commonwealth island nations are both about 5,000 miles from Beijing. Welcome to the new era of global China.
The seeds of that diplomatic win for Beijing were sown a decade ago. From 2008 to 2009, China's two biggest lending banks went from overseas lending of £7.5 billion to over £45 billion almost overnight. Roads, bridges and railways sprang up across Africa, the Caribbean and the South Pacific.
By the time Xi launched the One Belt One Road – now known as the Belt and Road (BRI) – in 2013, China's expansion of overseas lending was already well under way. From Dhaka to Darfur, governments loaded themselves up with debt in exchange for the infrastructure they desperately needed.
But the reality is that many recipients of this flow of cash signed up to bad deals. In too many cases, Beijing cosied up to corrupt leaders, loading up their countries with debt on opaque terms under contracts laden with confidentiality clauses.
That is why we are in a situation where Zambia's new government has just confirmed that the country actually owes more than £4.5 billion to China – double what the previous government claimed. For a country with a GDP of £14 billion, that is a striking difference.
It's not surprising that in many Commonwealth countries, the opacity of the debt and the poor environmental and labour standards on those projects have triggered backlash. The current riots in the Solomon Islands are at least partly a protest against extractive arrangements with Chinese businesses. Kenya abandoned plans for a huge new Chinese-built coal plant after staunch local opposition in Lamu. And Nigerian MPs have voted to review all of its Chinese loans.
We can't blame the Commonwealth countries. The UK and the rest of the West seem to have taken the last decade off. There were no better alternatives.
The good news is that we have belatedly woken up. Our allies, Japan and Australia, have stepped up their game in the Indo-Pacific, and the US is on a mission to revive its influence in Africa and Asia.
But the challenge of China's investment is also changing. We are now in the era of BRI 2.0. In the wake of the pandemic, Chinese leaders appear to be trying to reset. Lending for infrastructure has collapsed. Kenya's feted high-speed railway, from the port of Mombasa to Uganda, was meant to be a headline BRI megaproject but now it lies unfinished, 300 miles short of its destination, after the project ran out of cash. Beijing is embroiled in debt renegotiations with at least 18 African countries.
In the face of this debt disaster, Beijing is pivoting. The BRI is being rebranded as the Digital Silk Road. Beijing has pledged to kit out the world with 5G networks and datacentres.
We should be wary, because this creates a new set of risks. Building Africa's digital infrastructure creates a stronger lock-in effect than physical infrastructure. Anyone can build a bridge, but not everyone can build a 5G system that works alongside Huawei. And technology also makes it much easier to export a brand of digital authoritarianism which China has implemented at home.
The Commonwealth needs sustainable infrastructure and investment. We can't compete with China on the sheer amount of capital, but we can compete on transparent lending and inclusive growth. The UK needs to work with allies to ensure that Commonwealth countries have a genuine alternative to China's deep pockets. The British International Investment (BII) announced on Wednesday will be a good start if it doesn't just rebrand the Commonwealth Development Corporation, but builds on it, and brings in new partners.
That's the challenge we need to take on. The world deserves to be able to choose to invest in freedom, not be forced to take Beijing's controlling cash.
The Commonwealth,
Xi Jinping,
Barbados,
By Ben Riley-Smith 16 Jan 2022, 10:16pm
By Tony Diver 16 Jan 2022, 9:48pm
Young woman died of cardiac arrest after falling from bucking bronco


At Samurai Karate we offer traditional Japanese karate in a warm and friendly environment. Karate is known to build confidence and self esteem while you are getting fit and challenging yourself in new ways. It is not biased to any race, age or gender. We teach separate classes for ages 4 years to 7 years, 8 years to 15 years and Adults (15+ years) in beginner, intermediate and advanced levels. Sports Karate is also a part of the Samurai curriculum.
Our clubs are affiliated with the AKF (Australian Karate Federation), Victoria Karate, WKF (World Karate Federation) and SWKA (Shukokai World Karate Association).


text:
Q: The order of functions' execution in a high order function I have a function here
(map (\ (a, b) -> dir a b) $ routes

where routes is a list of tuples and it contains
routes = [...
           ("graph-fb", seeOther redirectUrlGraphEmail $ toResponse ""),
           ("post-fb", seeOther redirectUrlGraphPost $ toResponse ""),
          ...]

Here is the question: when I call this function to apply dir on each tuple, which function is going to be returned as b in dir a b first, the function seeOther redirectUrlGraphEmail or seeOther redirectUrlGraphEmail $ toResponse ""?

A: Tuples items are separated by , which means that in your example for graph-fb,
a == "graph-fb"
b == seeOther redirectUrlGraphEmail $ toResponse ""

The first function call to resolve will be toResponse "", and that will be fed into seeOther as the second parameter. The result of this will then have the label b inside the mapping function.

A: There's no way to tell from that code. Even ignoring the compiler's freedom to reorganize your program in various dramatic ways, the usual approach to Haskell evaluation is lazy, which you can think of as demand-driven, case-driven, and (ultimately) I/O-driven. Whoever actually inspects the results determines the evaluation order.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Reliance 4 Mobile Client is a program intended to run a visualization project on mobile devices equipped with Windows CE.
Because Microsoft stopped supporting Windows CE 5.0 in 2014 and Reliance SCADA customers don't use this module anymore, we've decided to exclude Mobile Client from the Reliance system. This change takes effect as of Reliance 4.7.3.
Reliance SCADA users prefer using Smart Client, which is based on HTML5 and designed for use with smartphones and tablets, and Web Client, a Java-based program designed for use with desktop computers. The development of and support for these modules is still a high priority to us.


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