Did you know that the use of pictures to display data in a more understandable way is not a new concept? In fact, it was originally used in the 17th century as a way to teach concepts. For example, Charles Minard mapped out Napoleon's invasion of Russia in one of the first examples of the value of visualization. Turning numbers, figures, statistics, and data into pictures makes it far easier for that data to be understood and comprehended even by the most experienced professional. The same is true for your IT infrastructure.
Monitoring your network is essential, but in today's small- to medium-sized enterprise, achieving a consistent level of management is difficult. The problem is that networks and connectivity change frequently, leaving network managers and IT teams scrambling to always have an update available when they need it. The risk of not knowing what is occurring on your platform is high and the cost of overcoming a challenge can be even more difficult. However, the right system and solution can help you to learn more about what is happening on your network when it is happening, and when you need to take action.
Understanding what is occurring on your network is critically important and yet, for many business owners, it seems impossible to learn. Every business today must take steps to effectively manage their IT infrastructure and do so effectively. Yet, it is quite common for businesses to overlook the opportunities to do this. When you have a comprehensive view of your network, you can manage it effectively.
Managing devices on any network is a challenge. The adoption of new technology allows for connection points to happen from multiple points. Connectivity does not happen in a single building, nor does it include a set number of systems all on hand. The extensiveness of today's IT infrastructure is not only incredible, but it can be difficult to manage. Proper device inventory is necessary for multiple reasons, stemming from ensuring connectivity to monitoring risks. Yet, having a detailed device inventory is not as simplistic as it may seem.


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El comtat de Penthièvre -en bretó Penteür [pεnteyr] - fou una jurisdicció feudal de Bretanya, situat a l'est i sud de Saint-Brieuc a l'est del modern departament de Côtes-d'Armor. Formava amb el comtat de Goëlo un dels dos arxidiaconats de la diòcesi de Saint Brieuc. Les capitals històriques són Saint-Brieuc i Lamballe. Limitava amb el baix Gouët, el riu Arguenon, l'alt Lié al sud fins a La Chèze on tocava al territori del vescomtat de Porhoët (diòcesi de Saint Malo) i al vescomtat de Rohan al país anomenat Vannetais (Vannes). Els comtes de Penthièvre, cadets dels ducs de Bretanya, dominaven a més del Penthièvre, el comtat de Goëlo i el comtat de Guingamp, necròpolis familiar; al final de l'edat mitjana el comtat s'estenia per la major part del que avua dia és el departament de Côtes d'Armor.

Història
El duc de Bretanya Alan III, net de Conan I, va constituir el territori de Penthièvre en comtat en benefici del seu germà gran Eon o Eudon (equivalent a Eudes o Odó), el 1035, a la mort del seu oncle Ricard I de Normandia i un any després de la mort d'Havoisa, la mare del duc (1034), que havia exercit la seva tutlea en nom del seu germà Ricard. Eon, alliberat de la mare i del seu oncle al que havia fet homenatge el 1033, confirmava amb aquest acte que no aspirava a ser un simple vassall del seu veí normand, tot i la sang normanda aportada per la seva mare. Nomenant al seu torn un vassall amb títol de comte mostrava la posició de duc igual a la de Normandia. A més el nomenament afavoria a la casa de Rennes (la de Alan III) que havia accedit al títol ducal, sobre territoris que abans depenien de les altres cases rivals de Bretanya, les del comtat de Léon, la del comtat de Cornualla i la del vescomtat de Dinan, tasca facilitada per l'erecció el 1032 de noves diòcesis: Trégor, segregada de Léon, i Saint Brieuc segregada d'Alet (Saint Malo) la tutoria dels quals seria pel comte de Penthièvre des de les residències de Guingamp i Lamballe (la capital).

Els comtes (Conan IV de Bretanya -dit el Negre o el Petit- i Constança) foren ducs de Bretanya de 1156 a 1201. El 1173, el marit de Constança, Geoffroi II de Bretanya, tercer fill del duc de Normandia i rei d'Anglaterra Enric II, va confiscar el comtat en la seva condició de duc de Bretanaya per representació, consolidant així l'imperi Plantagenet. El 1185 en el marc de la reorganització operada, va citar Penthièvre com una de les nou baronies, el que obligava al comte a residir com els altres principals vassalls a la cort ducal deixant actuar en el territori a senescals nomenats pel duc; posteriorment però Geoffroi es va revoltar contra el rei d'Anglaterra.

Durant el govern de Pere I Mauclerc, que tenia per sobirà al rei de França, els comtes de Penthièvre van estar a l'origen d'una declaració d'independència de Bretanya que fracassarà. Ja uns anys abans s'havien revoltat quan per una estricta aplicació del dret de guàrdia, pere Mauclerc sota pretext de la minoria de l'hereu del comtat Enric, va retirar la tutoria al comte Conan de Léon, i va confiscar provisionalment el comtat deixant només a Enric el comtat de Goëlo i la senyoria d'Avaugour. El 1235, quan es va acostar la majoria del duc Joan i doncs el final de la influència del seu para Pere Mauclerc, els vassalls reunits es van aliar als del país de Léon sota la direcció de Guyomarch, fill del comte de Léon. Van demanar ajut al rei Lluís IX de França amb la declaració anomenada "Communes petitiones Britonum". Sufocada la revolta Per Mauclerc va privar definitivament a Enric d'Avaugour de l'herència del comtat i el va donar a la filla Iolanda fins que el 1272 el duc Joan I el va incorporar al ducat.

El 1318 el besnet de Joan I, Guiu de Penthièvre, pel seu matrimoni amb Joana d'Avaugour, descendent de la línia legítima, va annexionar temporalment el comtat de Goëlo al de Penthièvre, que li havia estat donat en assignació. Per matrimoni Joana de Penthièvre va aportar el comtat a la família de Châtillon-Blois el 1337. El 1363, Joana va aspirar al ducat de Bretanya en oposició de Joana de La Flamme en l'anomenada guerra de successió de Bretanya; tenia un feu prou important i poderós perquè Joan IV de Montfort li proposés la sobirania
de tot el nord de Bretanya a canvi de la pau, proposta que Joana va refusar, allargant així la guerra fins al segon tractat de Guérande de 1381.

Els Penthièvre, com tots els grans vassalls bretons, tenien possessions a França, la principal el vescomtat de Llemotges. Això els permetia apel·lar les decisions ducals al Parlament de Paris on tenien suports. Així Joan II de Brosse, el marit de la descendent de Joana de Penthièvre, Nicolaua de Châtillon, es va oposar al duc Francesc II quan aquest va posar en practica per mitjà de Pierre Landais una política d'independència en relació a França, política que molestava als feudals bretons perquè comportava una centralització del país. La crisi va esclatar el 1465 quan Joan II de Brosse va refusar allotjar al duc bretó que s'havia unit a la Lliga del Bé Públic contra Lluís XI de França. Això va comportar l'annexió del comtat al ducat.

La comtessa Nicolaua de Châtillon va vendre els seus drets a la successió de Bretanya el 1480 al rei de França Lluís XI, que tenia en virtut del primer tractat de Guérande de 1365 que li donava aquestos drets en cas d'hereu mascle de la casa de Montfort. A canvi el rei es comprometia a retornar el comtat de Penthièvre. Francesc II de Bretanya només tenia dues filles, incloent la futura Anna de Bretanya. Després de la conjuració de Montargis, la fronda va esclatar en cop d'estat el 25 de juny de 1485 portant al poder al mariscal de Rieux, futur gendre de Joan III de Brosse, però que va comportar una guerra acabada pel tractat del Verger, preludi a l'annexió de Bretanya.

El 23 de març de 1535, el tractat de Crémieu entre el rei de França Francesc I i Joan IV de Brosse ratificà l'accord de 1480, preparant la fusió del ducat de Bretanya dins el regne de França. El tractat no fou ratificat pel rei Enric II fins a la majoria de Joan i l'esgotament dels seus recursos el 1555. Joan no tenia posterioritat i sa germana Carlota va aportar Penthièvre per matrimoni al vescomte Francesc de Martigues, de la casa de Luxemburg.

Sebastià de Luxemburg, el seu fill, fou el cap del partit catòlic bretó contra els hugonots d'Andelot. Com agraiment per la seva conducta militar el rei va erigir Penthièvre en ducat pairia (1569). En aquest moment el ducat incloïa Lamballe, Moncontour, Guingamp i Bourbriac, el comtat de Plourhan o de La Rochesuart, l'illa de Bréhat, les terres i castellanies de Minibriac, Belle-Isle-en-Terre i Beaufort d'Ahouet, Le Pontneuf, els ports de Couesnon i Arguenon i les senyories de Cornualla, amb les seves dependències. El gendre de Sebastià (vescomte de Martigues) fou Felip Manel de Lorena duc de Mercoeur, entrant Penthièvre a la casa de Lorena. Felip Manel fou també un campió del catolicisme enfront del rei Enric IV de França, i va fomentar la secessió de Bretanya.

El ducat de Penthièvre fou transmès altre cop a un gendre per la filla de Felip Manel; va passar així a la casa d'Orleans. El 1657, Lamballe, Moncontour, Guingamp, Bourbriac i el Minibriac amb les seves dependpencies foren venuts i separats del ducat, pera i foren reintegrats el 1666. El darrer hereu fou Lluís Josep de Vendôme, mort el 1712 sense sucesssió. El títol, terres i fortuna fou requisada el 1697 per Lluís Alexandre, darrer dels fills naturals de Lluís XIV i la marquesa de Montespan.

Llista de comtes i ducs de Penthièvre

Casa de Rennes
 1035 - 1079: Eó o Odó (999 - 1079), fill de Geoffroi I duc de Bretanya. Casat amb Agnès, filla d'Alan Canhiart, comte de Cornualla
 1079- 1093: Geoffroi I de Penthièvre (mort el 1093), fill
 1093- 1120: Esteve I (1055 - 1137), germà. Casat amb Havoisa de Guingamp, fou el pare de Geoffroy II, que segueix, d'Alan el Negre, comte de Guingamp, casat amb Berta de Bretanya i pare de Conan el Negre, duc de Bretanya; i d'Enric de Trégor, casat amb Matilde de Vendôme, filla de Joan I de Vendôme, i pare d'Alain I, comte de Penthièvre, qui seguirà

 1120- 1148: Geoffroi II de Penthièvre (mort el 1148), fill
 1148- 1162: Rival·ló de Penthièvre (mort el 1162), fill
 1148- 1164: Esteve II de Penthièvre (mort el 1164), germà
 1164- 1177: Geoffroy III de Penthièvre (mort el 1177), nebot
 1177- 1212: Alan de Penthièvre (1151 - 1212), cosí prim, net d'Esteve I. Casat amb Petronila de Beaumont.
 1212- 1230: Enric II d'Avaugour (1205 - 1281), fill : Espoliat de fet del comtat de Penthièvre el 1214 pel duc de Bretanya Pere I Mauclerc, que el va donar a la seva filla Iolanda en ocasió del seu matrimoni amb Hug XI de Lusignan, comte de La Marche.

Senyors d'Avaugour
 1230-1267 : Alan II d'Avaugour (mort el després 1267), fill d'Enric II
 1267 - 1301: Enric III d'Avaugour (1260 - 1301), fill
 1301- 1334: Enric IV d'Avaugour (1280 - 1334), fill
 1334- 1384: Joana de Penthièvre, neta

Casa de Dreux
 1230 - 1237: Pere I Mauclerc (1191 -1250), duc de Bretagne, fill de Robert II, comte de Dreux. Casat amb Alix de Thouars, duquessa de Bretanya, neta de Conan IV, duc de Bretanya
 1237- 1272: Iolanda de Bretanya (1218 - 1272), filla:casada amb Hug XI de Lusignan
 1272- 1286: Joan I el Roig (1217 - 1286), germà. Casat amb Blanca de Navarra
 1286- 1305: Joan II de Bretanya (1240 - 1305), fill. Casat amb Beatriu d'Anglaterra
 1305- 1312: Artur II de Bretanya (1262 - 1312), fill. Casat amb Maria, vescomtessa de Llemotges
 1312- 1331: Guiu de Penthièvre (1287 - 1331), vescomte de Llemotges i comte de Penthièvre, fill. Casat amb Joana d'Avaugour (1300 - 1327), filla i hereva d'Enric IV d'Avaugour.
 1331- 1384: Joana de Penthièvre (1319 - 1384), vescomtessa de Llemotges, comtessa de Penthièvre i d'Avaugour, filla:casada amb Carles de Blois-Châtillon (mort el 1364)

Casa de Blois-Châtillon
 1384 - 1404: Joan I de Châtillon (1340 - 1404), fill: casat amb Margarita de Clisson, filla d'Oliver V de Clisson
 1404- 1433: Oliver de Châtillon (mort el 1433), fill
 1433- 1454: Joan II de Châtillon (mort el 1454), germà
 1454- 1479: Nicolaua de Châtillon (1424 -1479), neboda, filla de Carles de Châtillon i de Nicolaua de Vivionne:casada amb Joan II de Brosse (1423 - 1482), fill de Joan I de Brosse

Casa de Brosse
 1454 - 1482: Joan II de Brosse (1423 -1482),. Casat amb Nicolaua de Châtillon
 1482- 1502: Joan III de Brosse (mort el 1502), fill. Casat amb Lluïsa de Laval
 1502- 1525: Ramon de Brosse (mort el 1525, a la batalla de Pavia), fill. Casat amb Joana de Commines, filla de Felip de Commines
 1525- 1566: Joan IV de Brosse (mort el 1566), fill

Casa de Luxemburg
 1566 - 1569: Sebastià de Luxemburg (mort el 1569), nebot, fill de Francesc de Luxemburg, vescomte de Martigues, i de Carlota de Brosse. Casat amb Maria de Beaucaire
 1569- 1623: Maria de Luxemburg (1562 -1623):casada amb Felio Manel de Lorena (1558 -1602), duc de Mercoeur

Casa de Lorena
 1576 - 1602: Felip Manel de Lorena (1558 -1602), duc de Mercoeur i de Penthièvre. Casat amb Maria de Luxemburg (1562 -1623)
 1602 - 1669: Francesca de Lorena (1592 -1669):casada amb Cèsar de Vendôme (1594 -1665)

Casa de Borbó
 Branca il·legítima de Vendôme (sorgida d'un bastard del rei Enric IV de França)
 1608 - 1665: Cèsar de Vendôme (1594 -1665), casada amb Francesca de Lorena (1592 -1669)
 1665- 1669: Lluís II de Vendôme (1612 -1669), casat amb Laura Mancini
 1669- 1712: Lluís III Josep de Vendôme (1654 -1712)
. Casat amb Maria Anna de Condé (1678-1718)

 Ducs de Penthièvre Branca il·legítima de Borbó (sorgida d'un bastard del rei Lluís XIV de França):
 1697 - 1737: Lluís Alexandre (mort el 1737), comte de Tolosa (1681), duc de Penthièvre (1697), duc de Rambouillet (1711), bastard legitimat de Lluís XIV i de la marquesa de Montespan.
 1737- 1793: Lluís Joan Maria (1725 -1793), fill, duc de Penthièvre i de Rambouillet.

 Branca d'Orléans (sorgida de Felip de França, duc d'Orleans)
 Títol de la segona Restauració : 1820 - 1828: Carles d'Orleans (mort el 1828), quart fill de Lluís Felip I de França
 Títol de la monarquia de juliol: 1845 - 1848: Pere d'Orleans (1845 -1919), duc de Penthièvre, fill de Francesc d'Orleans (1818-1900) príncep de Joinville i de Francesca de Brasil.

Penthievre
Història de Bretanya

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


DC Super Hero Girls™ Harley Quinn™ action doll is ready to spring into action whenever the "Save the Day" alarm rings! 12" Harley Quinn™ action doll comes with iconic accessories and a high level of articulation that allows her to perform her acrobatic tricks. She's everybody's favorite prankster, and now she and her signature mallet are ready for lots of silly fun as the mallet shoots three projectiles—one of which is a rubber chicken! Also available and sold separately is Batgirl™ action doll "transforms" to be mission-ready in an instant with a mask that pops over her head and wings that pop out of her back with a simple press of the button on her belt. Collect both dolls and have a blast unleashing your inner hero! Each sold separately, subject to availability. Colors and decorations may vary.
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Also available (sold separately, subject to availability) is Batgirl™ action doll who with a simple press of the button on her belt "transforms" to be mission-ready with a mask that pops over her head and wings that pop out of her back!


Get the latest 2007 Nissan Pathfinder recall updates.
On July 12, 2010, Nissan recalled 1,873 Nissan Pathfinder. Nissan is recalling certain front and rear lower links, p/nos. 54501zq00a, 54500zq00a, 551a1zq00a, 551a0zq00a , 54501ea00a, 54500ea00a, 551a1ea500, 551a0ea500, 54501zr00a, and 54500zr00a, sold between november 25, 2009 and may 14, 2010 as replacement parts for model year 2004 through 2010 titan, armada, and qx56, and model years 2005 through 2010 frontier, xterra, and pathfinder vehicles. the lower control link assembly has two cylindrical collars forming the inboard attachment points to the chassis. due to an improper welding process some collars may contain welds that do not meet strength specifications.


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What AI researchers can learn from children's learning
Intrinsic motivation as a key ingredient in human and artificial intelligence
Andy Kelly, Unsplash
by Catherine Hartley
In recent years, artificial agents have achieved superhuman levels of performance in complex games such as Go, poker, and Atari Arcade Classics. Underlying each of these artificial intelligence (AI) success stories is an algorithm called "deep reinforcement learning", which combines neural network modeling with a process for learning from reward and punishment. In these games, rewards are baked into the environment: The artificial agents receive rewards when they win a hand, gain points, or advance to a subsequent round.
In contrast, humans in the real world learn to solve problems in complex environments even in the absence of such extrinsic rewards. How might AI agents demonstrate intelligent behavior in contexts in which these rewards are absent?
"How might AI agents demonstrate intelligent behavior in contexts in which extrinsic rewards are absent?"
Insights from developmental science into how children learn may be key to building general purpose AI agents that can learn in the absence of explicit rewards. Developmental psychologists have proposed that human learning is scaffolded by intrinsic motivations. Intrinsic motivation refers to the impetus to do something because it is inherently rewarding. Curiosity and agency — drives to understand and influence one's environment — are two such intrinsic motivations that have been proposed to guide children's play and exploration and speed their learning.
Recent advances in AI suggest that similar intrinsic motivations might also promote machine learning — when the drives to predict and control the environment are incorporated into the algorithms that govern the behavior of artificial agents, they learn faster and can solve a broader range of problems.
"Beyond being motivated to understand their environments, children may also be motivated to control them by learning about when and how their actions can influence future events or outcomes."
What are children motivated to play with and explore in the lab and in the real world? Many laboratory studies suggest that children direct their exploration toward parts of the environment about which they are most uncertain. But uncertainty-directed exploration can fail in real-world contexts, because some aspects of our world will always be impossible to predict. For example, a robot programmed to explore the most uncertain parts of their environment might become stuck watching the static on a broken television, transfixed by a series of patterns that will always remain unpredictable and surprising.
Human children don't get stuck in this way, but instead, appear to preferentially engage with stimuli that are at an intermediate level of complexity — not entirely predictable, but still learnable. AI researchers have similarly found that by rewarding progress in learning, AI agents can learn to efficiently direct their exploration to the parts of the environment where they are able to reduce their uncertainty the most.
"Intrinsic motivations such as curiosity and a drive toward agency that can be readily observed in children's play and learning are also critical component processes for developing intelligence in artificial agents."
Beyond being motivated to understand their environments, children may also be motivated to control them by learning about when and how their actions can influence future events or outcomes. Infants or young children at play commonly engage in behaviors that may seem largely without purpose — sticking fingers or toes in their mouths, banging objects against a table, or stacking and knocking down blocks. However, through such play, infants learn contingencies between their actions and changes in what they see, hear, or feel.
Laboratory studies suggest that infants and children prefer situations in which outcomes are contingent on their own actions. Being drawn to contexts in which one can exert control in turn provides a scaffolding for causal learning and planning, cognitive processes that are critical for goal-directed behavior. Likewise, artificial agents that are programmed to seek out high levels of "empowerment", a metric of how much an agent can reliably and perceptibly influence their current environment, learn to solve complex tasks faster.
These findings suggest that intrinsic motivations such as curiosity and a drive toward agency that can be readily observed in children's play and learning are also critical component processes for developing intelligence in artificial agents. Beyond intrinsic motivation, building into artificial agents other features of children's cognitive development, like the reactivation of prior experiences during sleep, the flexible use of different learning strategies, and the ability to monitor and infer the goals and intentions of others, may also promote the speed and flexibility of machine learning.
"It may be that developmental science holds the key to the genesis of machine intelligence."
As so many of the algorithmic innovations that have yielded rapid advances in AI have strong parallels to processes that underpin the development of human learning, it may be that developmental science holds the key to the genesis of machine intelligence.
Intrinsic Motivation
Data Science newsletter – November 29, 2019 | Sports.BradStenger.com January 17 2020, 00:47
[…] What AI researchers can learn from children's learning […]
Cognitive Artificial Intelligence: Building better machines (and babies!)
by Moira R. Dillon / September 24, 2019
"Just being around peers seems to encourage curiosity"
Interview by Sabine Gysi / December 15, 2017
How social robots can make children more curious
by Goren Gordon / October 27, 2017

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Parkey Embraces Challenge Of New PATs
Chris McPherson
Cody Parkey checked Twitter on Tuesday afternoon and noticed that he had a few more mentions than usual. Eagles fans were to first to let Parkey know of the changes to the PAT rules for 2015.
"For me, I just look at it as another way to get better," Parkey said. "Twenty yards is pretty short and they figured it out after this long period of time where kickers are getting better and not many people are missing them. So, a 33-yard extra point is not far, but it's not a chip shot by any means. There will be more misses.
"I'm up for the challenge and I'm really looking forward to hitting those kicks in practice and nailing them and feeling good about it."
Parkey had a storybook first season in the NFL. After signing with the Colts as an undrafted free agent, he was traded from Indianapolis to Philadelphia just before the third preseason game. Parkey won the Eagles' kicker job in the final two weeks and went on to set the NFL rookie record for most points in a season with 150 while earning a trip to the Pro Bowl. He also set franchise records for most 50-plus-yard field goals (4) and touchbacks (46) and tied the Eagles' single-season mark for field goal percentage (88.9).
Parkey's job will be a little bit tougher in 2015 as the line of scrimmage for an extra point attempt is now the 15-yard line instead of the 2. Parkey hit all 54 of his extra point attempts last season from 20 yards out. He also happened to hit all of his field goal attempts from 33 yards and in.
Jones, Parkey Meet A Legend
What did you do this offseason? Punter Donnie Jones and kicker Cody Parkey met golfing icon Arnold Palmer ...
Donnie Jones and Cody Parkey show the personalized Eagles jersey they planned to present to Arnold Palmer
At the Bay Hill Golf Course in Orlando, Florida, Donnie Jones and Cody Parkey played and then got to meet Arnold Palmer
The Eagles present the seven-time major winner with a jersey of his own
The meeting was setup through Dr. Howdy Giles (not pictured), a lifelong Eagles fan and close friend of Arnold Palmer
At the Pro Bowl, the NFL experimented with not only with just the 33-yard PATs, but a goal post that was over four feet narrower. Parkey hit both of his extra point attempts, while the Colts' Adam Vinatieri, whom Indy kept over Parkey, missed two extra points and a field goal.
"If they were going to change something, I'm glad they scooted it back and not narrowed the goal posts or both because as you see Adam Vinatieri, one of the best in the game, he even missed a few," Parkey said. "It's good and bad at the same time. I think a lot of us in the league are thinking of it as another way to help our team, maybe make us more valuable."
Parkey said that he appreciates having a year of NFL experience under his belt before having to adjust to the new rules.
"The first year of something I like to have a foundation to work off. Last year, for me, was great. I had a plan. I had a process of warming up. I didn't have to worry about anything changing," Parkey said. "This year, I'm a lot more comfortable with something like this changing. I do think it's a big deal that I have a year under my belt and to go forward from there."
Success has not been a problem for Parkey. This offseason, Parkey is working on a low kick count, but training hard in order to peak during the season. Even after a Pro Bowl appearance, Parkey sees plenty of room for improvement.
"The best advice that I've gotten in the league so far is once you feel comfortable, that's what you start slacking off and someone might come take your job. I think it's a good thing for me because it makes me work hard 24/7. I'm always thinking about kicking," Parkey said. "Going to the Pro Bowl that first year, some people could look at it as, 'Hey, how is he going to get better?' I think that's something to strive for. I missed four kicks last year, maybe I won't miss any. That's the goal and what we're trying to reach."
READ: Spadaro: New Rules A Great Add For NFL Game
READ: Parkey: The Most Prolific Rookie Kicker
READ: Parkey's Cleats Are Headed To The Hall
READ: Parkey: The Revelation Of The Year


Distributed energy sources, such as solar and wind generated electricity, provide intermittent, yet "free" and renewable energy. Distributed (or decentralized) energy has the potential to empower consumers and is likely to spearhead the next energy revolution, but only if the use of renewable energy can become more reliable, regardless of weather conditions. Recognizing the importance of renewable energy, including energy storage, the state of California recently set mandates on the expansion of energy storage to 1.3 gigawatts by 2020. One common form of energy storage, car batteries,are manufactured in the tens of millions each month, and as much as 98% are recycled for lead and plastic. These lead-acid batteries (LAB) have been overlooked as potential storage devices for home energy because they are specifically designed as automobile starter batteries. However, with so many units in circulation, used automobile LAB are an easily accessible option that deserve to be tested for their energy storage capacity and residual economic value.


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By Win McNamee/Getty Images
Hundreds of Thousands March for Gun Control in Protests Across the Country
The March for Our Lives protests were inspired by survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets Saturday to join the March for Our Lives, a massive nationwide—and now worldwide—protest that was organized in part by the teenage survivors of the the Parkland school shooting earlier this year. After 17 people were murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, students responded by launching an unprecedented activist effort to call for strengthened background checks, new restrictions on who can obtain a gun, and an all-out ban on assault-style weapons, such as the AR-15 rifle that was used to kill their classmates.
The central focus of the marches was the protest in Washington, D.C., near the Capitol Building, where huge crowds gathered to hear from young student activists and to call for change. The speeches were interspersed with a recurring chant from the crowd, aimed at any lawmakers who fail to hear their message: "Vote them out."
Protesters brought signs illustrating the various ways they say Congress has failed to strengthen gun control compared to the stricter policies it has established with other legislation.
Countless celebrities came out in support, including Paul McCartney, Laura Dern, Miley Cyrus, and newly announced New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon.
McCartney told CNN that he was marching because fellow Beatle John Lennon was lost to gun violence in 1980. "This is what we can do," he said, "so I'm here to do it."
In Washington, Parkland student Cameron Kasky read a list of names of the 17 classmates and teachers who died in the school shooting, ending with Nicholas Dworet, who would have been 18 years old on Saturday.
"Nicholas, we are all here for you," Kasky said. "Happy birthday."
See More By Emma Stefansky »
"The News Forgets": Inside the Parkland Students' Race to Make History
During a two-day odyssey in Florida, the #NeverAgain kids learned a simple media lesson: tell the truth, the whole truth—not some sanitized, poll-tested version. Now that they're back to school, will it last?
By Dave Cullen
Inside the Secret Meme Lab Designed to Propel #NeverAgain Beyond the March
In an undisclosed strip-mall location, the survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High shooting—and a few key alumni allies—are building a social-media content studio that just might reform America's crazy gun laws.
Some Teens Behind March for Our Lives Aren't So Sure They Want Celebrity Help
"The minute they don't see our faces anymore and they just see the Hollywood elite, they're going to stop taking it seriously."
By Hilary Weaver
Can Illinois's Assault Weapons Ban Survive Scores of Rogue Sheriffs?
At least 90 county sheriffs have vowed to defy the law, sparking backlash from gun-reform advocates who say law enforcement is derelicting its duty. "There's a real impact of this chest-beating," the bill's sponsor tells Vanity Fair. "They're making political decisions about the safety of their community."


The nuclear decommissioning industry has long required a reliable and robust means of sampling internal conditions, such as temperature, from within intermediate nuclear waste containers but to date, no measurement method has been able to survive the harsh radiation environment.
This Case Study demonstrates the capability of Instrumentel's wireless data acquisition system to function within an elevated radiation environment such as that found in intermediate level waste containers. We show how the advanced Hardened XT01 Data Tag was able to continue to operate effectively after a cumulative gamma radiation does of 11.5 MGy, almost double the required exposure for the lifetime of an ILW container.


team is having a ball.
such activity on the computers or the specific programs.
they'll get caught in the lab,"
required to sign a statement.
is Ms. Faye Day, an Associate Professor for the Education Department.
ethical, moral, and spiritual issues."
spent the last four years at St.
since he gave his first test.
him they said "Thank you."
to show his students how important it is to Christian testimony to understand the perspective of the secular world.
quality teaching, these professors have a reputation to uphold. It appears that they intend to do just that.
group that is ready and waiting to help students.
services include peer counseling and a listening ear for students who need it.
at a recent training meeting.


text:
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Northeast Historic Film collects moving images related and of interest to northern New England, as well as related documents, books and periodicals, annotations, photographs, and technology.
Our collection of moving images consists primarily of film and videotape related to the northern New England region (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts). Major collections include film and videotape originating from television stations or created primarily for broadcast, industrial works created by and for corporate and industrial entities, professionally-created fictional works, and titles made by independent creators intended for public viewing.
NHF also has one of the largest collections of amateur films and home movies in North America. The range of collections at NHF offers a glimpse of how life in northern New England has changed during the past 100 years, and how it continues to evolve.
Your Film Is An Important Part Of Our Collection.
Home movies are an important cultural and historical record that were too often neglected in the past. Not only do home movies offer intimate glimpses of family activities, they also capture unique events and places long gone.
Northeast Historic Film has been a leader in raising an awareness of the need to preserve these films and make them accessible.
Northeast Historic Film also collects moving-image technology such as projectors, cameras, and editing equipment. This equipment helps to provide an overall picture of the filmmaking process, with a strong emphasis on amateur filmmaking. The addition of the Alan & Natalie Kattelle Collection provides NHF with an extensive collection of cameras, projectors, and other amateur moviemaking equipment.
The technology collection contains a wide variety of machines used to record and play moving images. Examples of equipment assist with an understanding of the production and presentation of the moving images in our collections. From 9.5mm to 28mm, the technology collection contains a broad range of film cameras and projectors. Especially interesting is the Wittnauer Cine-Twin, which doubled as both an 8mm projector and camera. Many of the items in the technology holdings are still in working order.
Also, accompanying the moving images at Northeast Historic Film are collections of still images and ephemera. Consisting largely of photos and notes, these often give added meaning to the films that were donated along with them. Some films in our collections, such as Cherryfield, 1938, come with thorough manuscripts that identify the people and places present.
NHF collects a wide variety of still images, ranging from production and publicity shots to postcards of small-town theaters in northern New England. These postcards help to give a picture of the theatrical exhibition history of the region.
The collections also include business records and theater logs, both of which provide a glimpse at the economics of the industry. Northeast Historic Film has used its ephemera collections to develop a database of all known locations of regular movie screenings in northern New England during the 1900s. From the Anchor Theatre in Kennebunk, Maine to the Eagle in Lubec, Maine, a listing of well over 600 locations has been compiled for Maine alone.
The letters and scrapbooks in the ephemera collection give a glimpse at the public and private transactions relating to film and television, while the sheet music collections serve as a record of the type of music that accompanied early silent films. This music is also useful to today's silent film accompanists and was used at Northeast Historic Film's Northeast Silent Film Festival.
The Study Center at Northeast Historic Film contains numerous reference works to assist the staff and serve researchers and students. Areas of interest are standard reference works in the archival field, film histories, relevant interpretive works, biographies, instructional volumes, and directories.
There is also an ever-growing collection of periodicals related to the field of amateur filmmaking. The collections include issues of The Cine-Kodak News, Bell & Howell's Filmo Topics, Amateur Cine World, and many more. Foremost in the collection is a near-complete run of the Amateur Cinema League publication Movie Makers. Beginning in 1926 and running through 1954, each Movie Makers issue features stunning cover art and articles covering all facets of amateur filmmaking.
Check our Collecting Policy for specifics on donating your items.


text:
Exposed by CMD: KIPP's Efforts to Keep the Public in the Dark while Seeking Millions in Taxpayer Subsidies
Submitted by Lisa Graves on April 28, 2016 - 10:04am
By Lisa Graves and Dustin Beilke
Charter schools are big business, even when they are run by "non-profits" that pay no taxes on the revenue they receive from public taxes or other sources.
Take KIPP, which describes itself as a "national network of public schools."
KIPP (an acronym for the phrase "knowledge is power program") operates like a franchise with the KIPP Foundation as the franchisor and the individual charters as franchisees that are all separate non-profits that describe themselves as "public schools."
But how public are KIPP public schools?
Not as public as real or traditional public schools.
New documents discovered on the U.S. Department of Education's website reveal that KIPP has claimed that information about its revenues and other significant matters is "proprietary" and should be redacted from materials it provides to that agency to justify the expenditure of federal tax dollars, before its application is made publicly available.
So what does a so-called public school like KIPP want to keep the public from knowing?
1. Graduation and College Matriculation Rates
KIPP touts itself as particularly successful at preparing students to succeed in school and college.
Yet, it insisted that the U.S. Department of Education keep secret from the public the statistics about the percentage of its eighth graders who completed high school, entered college, and/or who completed a two-year or four-year degree.
A few years ago, professor Gary Miron and his colleagues Jessica Urschel and Nicholas Saxton, found that "KIPP charter middle schools enroll a significantly higher proportion of African-American students than the local school districts they draw from but 40 percent of the black males they enroll leave between grades 6 and 8," as reported by Mary Ann Zehr in Ed Week.
Zehr noted: "'The dropout rate for African-American males is really shocking,' said Gary J. Miron, a professor of evaluation, measurement, and research" at Western Michigan University, who conducted the national study.
Miron's analysis was attacked by KIPP and its allies, who said KIPP's success was not due to the attrition of lower performing students who leave the school or move to other districts. One of its defenders was Mathematica Policy Research, whose subsequent study was used to try to rebut Miron's analysis. (That name will be important momentarily.)
The Department of Education has been provided with the data about what percentage of KIPP students graduate from high school and go on to college, but it is helping KIPP keep that secret—despite the public tax dollars going to these schools and despite KIPP's claim to be operating what are public schools.
Real public schools would never be allowed to claim that high school graduation rates or college matriculation rates are "proprietary" or "privileged" or "confidential."
Why does the Education Department's Charter School Program "Office of Innovation and Improvement" defer to KIPP's demand to keep that information secret from the public?
Meanwhile, the KIPP Foundation regularly spends nearly a half million dollars a year ($467,594 at last count) on advertising to convince the public how great its public charters are using figures it selects to promote. Almost no public school district in the nation has that kind of money to drop on ads promoting its successes.
2. Projected Uses of Federal Taxpayer Dollars (and Disney World?)
Even as KIPP was seeking more than $22 million from the federal government to expand its charter school network, it insisted that the U.S. Department of Education redact from its application a chart about how much money would be spent on personnel, facilities, transportation, and "other uses" under the proposed grant. KIPP also sought to redact the amount of private funding it was projecting.
The agency's compliant Office of Innovation and Improvement obliged KIPP.
However, after the grant was approved, KIPP did have to comply with IRS regulations to file a report on its revenues and expenditures, as all entities given the privilege of having their revenue tax-exempt or tax-deductible do. (Those filings usually are made available a year after the revenue and expenditures accrue.)
That is, the federal government's Office of Innovation and Improvement redacted information about KIPP's revenue and expenditures on the basis of an unsupportable assertion that such information was exempt under the Freedom of Information Act as proprietary, confidential, or privileged even though it is not.
Here are some of the key details from KIPP's 2013 tax filings (uploaded below):
KIPP received more than $18 million in grants from American tax dollars and more than $43 million from other sources, primarily other foundations;
KIPP spent nearly $14 million on compensation, including more than $1.2 million on nine executives who received six-figure salaries, and nearly $2 million more on retirement and other benefits;
KIPP also spent over $416,000 on advertising and a whopping $4.8 million on travel; it paid more than $1.2 to the Walt Disney World Swan and Resort;
It also paid $1.2 million to Mathematica for its data analysis; that's the firm that was used to try to rebut concerns about KIPP's performance and attrition rates.
KIPP's revenue and spending in 2014 were similar, but there are some additional interesting details (uploaded below):
KIPP spent nearly $18 million on compensation and nearly $2 million more on retirement and other benefits;
KIPP paid its co-founder, David Levin, more than $450,000 in total compensation, and its CEO, Richard Barth, more than $425,000 in total compensation, in addition to six-figure salaries for eight other executives;
KIPP also spent over $467,000 on advertising and more than $5 million on travel;
It also paid nearly $1 million to Mathematica for its data analysis.
In that tax year, which covers the 2013-2014 school year, as traditional public schools faced budget cuts across the country, KIPP spent more than $3.5 million on "lodging and hospitality," including more than $1.8 million alone at the posh Cosmopolitan Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
Since its revenue from taxpayers is commingled with its revenues from wealthy charter school advocates and the foundations they control, there is no way to sort out how much of taxpayer money has directly gone into luxurious trips for KIPP employees versus how much having revenue from taxes helps subsidize such largesse.
But, there is no public school district in the country that would be allowed such travel and promotional expenditures for its executives or teachers if the voters knew about it or had a say in it.
Perhaps it should be no surprise that KIPP would want the grant-makers at the U.S. Department of Education to redact the amount of its expenditures for personnel, facilities, transportation, and "other uses"—especially with extravagant expenditures like its transportation and lodging at fabulous resorts, as opposed to transportation for kids to school—but why would the federal agency charged with oversight go along with redacting information about how much KIPP was projecting to spend in those categories?
KIPP did request that budget information about how much it or its affiliates paid the executive directors for individual charters, principals, accountants, grant managers, community coordinators, and IT teams be kept from the public, under a claim that such information is proprietary.
But the Office of Innovation and Improvement did not accommodate that request.
Notably, KIPP's grant application sets forth "regional leadership" expenses that total nearly $5 million of the projected budget for the grant. There is no indication how much taxpayers are directly or indirectly subsidizing the six-figure salaries of its executive suite including the nearly half-million in total compensation for each of KIPP's two highest paid employees. (This grant application only pertains to one source of federal and state grants that annually provide revenue to KIPP.)
3. Full Disclosure of Attrition and Performance Results
Not only did KIPP seek to keep the public in the dark about how it spends tax-exempt funding and how many KIPP students make it to high school graduation or college, it also sought to redact information "KIPP Student Attrition" by region and "by subgroup" and "KIPP Student Performance" on state exams on "Math and Reading."
The Office of Innovation and Improvement did as KIPP requested.
But why would KIPP, which advertises its claimed superiority, and the Department of Education, which uses KIPP as an example of the success of charters, keep information about attrition and performance secret, especially when that subject is one of great public interest as noted by the Economic Policy Institute?
Page after page after page in KIPP's application that shows the percentage of school students who leave KIPP is blacked out along with information about student test results by school for the three years prior to the grant application.
How can the Department of Education acquiesce in a request by a charter it cheerleads for to keep data about that charter's retention or dropout rate secret?
If both sets of redacted figures were truly excellent, why wouldn't both KIPP and the Department of Education release those results? After all, KIPP included glossy PR documents on some of its schools in its application materials touting select data about test results.
Why should unelected bureaucrats at the federal agency get to see the data about attrition and performance in awarding millions in taxpayer dollars to KIPP but go along with KIPP in keeping those specific statistics from the public?
In short, what are KIPP and the Department of Education hiding from the American people?
4. The CEO Foundations Pushing School "Choice" and Subsidizing KIPP
KIPP also asked the Office of Innovation and Improvement to redact the amounts of funding provided to KIPP by foundations that wrote letters of support for KIPP to receive federal taxpayer money under the grant.
The grant documents the Center for Media and Democracy has examined reveal that these are the names and amounts that KIPP sought to keep the public from knowing and that the Department of Education blacked out at KIPP's request:
Robertson Foundation: $20M
Atlantic Trust/ Kendeda Fund: $15 million
Marcus Foundation: $4.5M
Zeist: $1.7M
Lowe Foundation: $357,000
Webber Family Foundation: $351,780
Sooch Foundation: $675,000
Tipping Point Community: $2M
Schwab Foundation: $2.5M
Koret Foundation: $2,135,000
SAP: $297,389
Kobacker: $100,000
Todd Wagner Foundation: $1,000,000
El Paso, $1,000,000
Charles T. Bauer Foundation: $1,242,000
Karsh: $8M
Charter Schools Growth Fund: $2 million
Formanek: $526,000
Goldring Family Foundation: $1,000,000
Charles Hayden Foundation: $1.393 million
Victoria Foundation: $626,000
CityBridge Foundation: $2.9M"
Almost all of these donors are foundations that have to annually disclose to the IRS and make available to the public the names of their grantees and the amounts granted. So this information is not privileged, confidential or proprietary.
Why would the Office of Innovation and Improvement go along with a request to keep secret from the public information that is subsequently required to be made public?
While many of the foundations listed above are led by corporate CEOs or their families, only a few are corporations whose donations might not be routinely disclosed.
SAP, for example, is the name of a German corporation that made headlines 18 months ago for dumping the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) after Google dumped ALEC for its climate change denial and obstruction. Should Americans be concerned that a foreign multinational corporation is influencing American "public charters" through KIPP? The truth is foreign multinationals are exercising increasing influence over American charter schools and testing. Just look at the growth in U.S. business of the British firm, Pearson.
At the same time, the volume of such private philanthropic support begs the question of why the American taxpayer ought to be subsidizing schools that are touted as public but act like private ones when it comes to executive compensation and roadblocks to transparency, especially at a time when traditional public schools are facing such budgetary pressures?
KIPP is a taxpayer-subsidized school franchise that pays no taxes on its revenue and provides a tax-deductible vehicle for uber-wealthy families to promote the school "choice" agenda.
And, the fact that taxpayer money is going to a group spending millions on luxury trips to resorts in Las Vegas is mind-boggling in an age of austerity when many public schools are going without basic necessities.
With each new fact that comes out, the charter school industry is looking more like the military defense industry with the scandals of the 1980s as with the infamous $600 toilet seat. There's no indication of fraud by KIPP.
But from an optics standpoint some might consider a $600 plastic seat small change, compared with a "public school" spending more than a million to go to Disney World in one year, even if only one-third of KIPP's funding comes from taxpayers directly and the remainder comes at taxpayer expense due to CEOs writing off donations to foundations that help underwrite KIPP.
Plus, separate from the grant application discussed here, KIPP has been funded by the U.S. Department of Education to conduct leadership training summits for KIPP principals and other personnel. That application also includes significant redactions, including about key components of the budget for what it calls KIPP "summits" or annual meetings and other gatherings (as well as a total redaction of the Mathematica analysis commissioned by KIPP).
Meanwhile, KIPP told the Education Department that in its first 10 years it had raised more than $150 million from private philanthropic sources, which underscores the question of why taxpayers are subsidizing an operation that already has ample support from the corporate community and those taxpayer dollars could be going instead to strengthen traditional public schools that are truly public and that are not subsidized by tax write-offs for the one percent through their foundations.
Indeed, those tax write-offs serve to diminish the base of revenue available for tax revenue to fund public schools and other genuinely public goods in the first place.
A Closer Look at KIPP
It appears that all the redactions were in response to "proprietary" instructions KIPP dictated to DOE through a four-page document titled, "Proprietary Information."
The Education Department complied with almost all of KIPP's instructions, despite how contrary they are to public policy and even to publicly available information.
These black marks come at a time when cracks are starting to show in KIPP's once beyond-reproach veneer.
KIPP is the largest and most lauded charter school chain in the United States and the recipient of many millions of dollars in taxpayer grants, foundation gifts and handouts from billionaire charter school enthusiasts.
A new book by Jim Horn, Work Hard, Be Hard: Journeys Through 'No Excuses' Teaching, focuses on the experiences and perspectives of dozens of former KIPP teachers who have become critics of the chain and many of the principles it is based on, including the Teach for America program that supplies KIPP with many of its teachers.
The book's title is a reference to "Work Hard. Be Nice" the book-length puff piece authored by Washington Post education reporter Jay Matthews about KIPP's founders Mike Feinberg and Dave Levine.
In a review of Work Hard, Be Hard that is excerpted on Diane Ravitch's blog, education professor Julian Vasquez Heilig writes that screaming at students is accepted teaching practice in KIPP schools:
Why does KIPP encourage and/or allow these practices? Horn writes, school leaders relayed that 'because of cultural differences, black students are accustomed to being screamed at…because that's how their parents speak to them.' A KIPP teacher characterized the worst offender at her school as a 'screamer, swearer and humiliator.'
"KIPP might also argue that they are the beneficiaries of widespread support in communities across the nation. It is very clear that KIPP benefits from powerful influential and wealthy supporters in government, the media, and foundations. Their no excuses approach to educating poor children has resonated with the elites in society and they have showered the corporate charter chain with resources for decades. So it may be surprising to some to read the counternarrative from KIPP teachers that is quite different than what you typically read in the newspapers, see in documentaries like Waiting for Superman, and generally experience in the public discourse. I proffer that the KIPP teachers' counternarratives in Journeys should be required reading for all of KIPPs influential supporters."
So what is the disgruntled KIPP teachers' counter-narrative? For one, the model seems to create lousy working conditions for the purpose of encouraging high teacher turnover. One former teacher says, "I wouldn't wish it on anyone who wanted to be a teacher for the long-term…It's exhausting. It's demoralizing."
And this is where Teach for America comes in. "Without a constant infusion of new teachers to replace all those who burn out," Horn writes, "KIPP would have to shut its doors… The role of Teach For America and programs based on Teach For America's hyper-abbreviated preparation are crucial, then, for the continued survival of… KIPP."
In short, the new book offers a devastating critique of the KIPP business model at a time when KIPP and the Department of Education appear to be aiding each other in trying to keep critical information out of the public debate through redaction.
KIPP redactions 137.84 KB
KIPP redaction list 45.7 KB
KIPP 2013 990 1.93 MB
Lisa Graves is President of the Board of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) and co-founder of Documented Investigations. She served as CMD's executive director for eight years from July 2009 through October 2017.
CMD launched its award-winning ALEC Exposed investigation after a whistleblower gave Lisa all of the model bills secretly voted on by lobbyists and lawmakers. CMD also publishes PRWatch.org, SourceWatch.org, and ExposedbyCMD.org.
Kochs' Dark-Money Network Bankrolls Campus "Free Speech" Group
ALEC Teams up with Anti-LGBT Alliance Defending Freedom to Promote So-Called "Campus Free Speech" Bills
American Federation of Teachers Targets Mass Incarceration, Private Prison Profiteers
Meet Scott Beightol: Anti-Worker Corporate Lawyer and Scott Walker's Lame Duck Pick for UW Board of Regents
Billionaire Eli Broad Takes Public Education Private
Aaron replied on April 28, 2016 - 8:09pm Permalink
Please keep exposing these buttholes! My job is miserable because of charter schools. If you walked in the front door of my school you would come to the conclusion that we were a business. In the end I've learned that history repeats itself. When the imperialists came for Native American land, Tecumseh tried to unite the southern civilizations and they didn't react. We know the outcome.
Lauren replied on April 29, 2016 - 10:03am Permalink
Public School Ads
Please look into spending connected with St.Louis Public Schools. They have spent millions on ads showcased in billboards, radio and even in movie theaters.
Ken Derstine replied on April 29, 2016 - 8:18pm Permalink
No-excuses and KIPP schools
For the role of the no-excuses education philosophy in Philadelphia schools, including KIPP, see Riding the 'Turnaround Merry-Go-Round in the Continuing Assault on Philadelphia Public Schools: Part III http://www.defendpubliceducation.net/philadelphia-turnaround-part-3
Henry J. replied on April 30, 2016 - 10:22am Permalink
Why, Indeed?
Sounds like the federal Dept. of Education needs to be investigated, or at least some of its offices, like Innovation and Improvement, which is clearly stacking the deck against public schools and against taxpayers. Why should US taxpayers have to subsidize any organization whose main goal is to make profits for a few at the top? Someone needs to ask John King that question. Thanks for this great investigative reporting! We in public education appreciate it more than you know.
Laura H. Chapman replied on May 7, 2016 - 7:49pm Permalink
I looked at the KIPP application for federal funds for 2012 and the reviewers comments. I also looked at Appendix 5.8 where school reports give percentages for attrition and for students receiving special education services. These reports invite some gymnastics with a spreadsheet for deeper analysis. I checked a later application from KIPP and it was also redacted. On the other hand, the MASTER charter school application in 2012 was not redacted except for personal phone numbers and amounts from contributors and their handwritten signatures. Having looked at the budget details in the 2012 report is not hard to see how fuzzy accounting begins, with taxpayers paying a percentage contribution to the KIPP Foundation benefits for the highest paid managers, auditors, and so on. The budget includes uniforms for KIPPsters, pennants for promos, musical instruments, easels, computers, furniture, and, and.... travel galore. This in the midst of severe budget cuts for public schools.
IfTheWallsCould... replied on September 9, 2016 - 1:00am Permalink
wasteful spending, nepotism, cult-like control, cover-up, PRing
I agree that you should keep exposing these arrogant fakes; They think they are beyond reproach but it is a mission soaked in ego, greed, and secrecy. I saw the lack of ethics, targeted raises, lavish travel, and sick loyalty first hand and got out while I could but not before seeing an eyefull, working day and night for egotistical bosses with no leadership or integrity, and being treated like a child. 'work hard, be nice' really means people walking around there in a daze, obedient, fake smiling, and behaving exactly how they are told to. There are positive slogans and buzz words plastered on the walls and behind the closed doors, its a corrupt circus. I was not allowed to express my opinion, told to smile alot, scolded and alienated for raising any issues. A PR machine and high-school mentality cult complete with bullying. No one there would let their own kid go to KIPP, yet they obey the cult. They even passed around an email comparing the CEO to Obama, ya sure..EGO
Kim replied on May 2, 2017 - 5:55am Permalink
We can do bettwr
I don't support kipp in any way, but this article is useless unless you put the numbers alongside those from non-charter public schools of similar sizes from the same districts numbers for comparison. Running schools costs an INCREDIBLE amount of money. I'm surprised by phrases such as "six figure salaries" (gasp!)--which by the way public school principals make, as they should for doing that crazy hard job (charter schools often title what we call principals as executive directors). We don't need to attack acknowledging educators as professionals (if only because that's a different debate entirely) It all sensationalizes and steers us away from the important data... Which is those kids getting kicked out so they aren't part of the stats. Bad reportage is undermining this very important article.
International Science Politics War / Peace Propaganda Economy ALEC Exposed Journalism Corporations Wisconsin Public Relations U.S. Congress Secrecy Environment Human Rights Activism Health Right Wing U.S. Government Marketing Ethics Lobbying Iraq Democracy Media


Voxengo Polysquasher is a mastering compressor for professional audio and sound production applications. Polysquasher was designed with a main goal: to be transparent. Transparent compression action is a cornerstone for any mastering compressor. Transparency of audio signal processing is necessary to preserve all existing elements in the mix, while compression itself is necessary to make the mix sound uniform to other mixes (tracks) and to make it sound more solid and "glued".
Polysquasher achieves its goal by using a unique compression algorithm which requires a small number of parameters basically threshold and ratio only making this compressor a joy to use. More advanced settings are hidden in the compressor mode editor panel where you can create your own compressor modes that can be easily recalled later.
Redesigned the compression algorithm and its parameters.
Added Pro Tools 12+ AAX-64 support.


Rebellin hearts him some doping.
According to Gazzetta dello Sport, Davide Rebellin is among the athletes who has tested positive in the re-testing of the Olympic samples. The silver medalist reportedly tested positive for CERA, that magical fruit which sent Riccardo Riccò, Emmanuele Sella, Leonardo Piepoli, Bernhard Kohl, and Stefan Schumacher on vacation last season. Gazzetta does not reveal the source of the information. Presumably it is a member of the Italian Olympic Committee, who is not authorized to speak on the story. I was trying to come up with a catchy acryonym for that, and so totally failed.
This is not Rebellin's first brush with the doping authorities. In 2001, prosecutors named him in connection with a doping investigation in Padova. According to the investigation, Rebellin received doping products from Dr. Enrico Lazzaro. The evidence allegedly included telephone intercepts and video tape, in addition to evidence seized during the 2001 raid on the Giro at Sanremo. The Italian cycling federation subsequently banned Lazzaro from working with cyclists.
By 2004, the case reached the courts. With a trial date looming, Rebellin won Amstel Gold Race, Flèche Wallonne, and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, but later that Summer, the Azurri excluded Rebellin from the Olympics and Worlds teams. In response, Rebellin applied for Argentinian citizenship. The Argentinian passport did not arrive in time, and Rebellin missed worlds anyway.
In the meantime, Italian legal shenanigans continued. Specifically, the Padova prosecutor sent the evidence over to Pistoia, for reasons of jurisdiction. In Pistoia, they weren't interested, apparently. For reasons unclear, the district attorney's office in Pistoia archived the case. And as best as I can uncover, that was that. For the next four seasons, Rebellin continued to ride and win, including the 2009 edition of Flèche Wallonne.
Which brings us back to the present. Rebellin is one of six athletes involved in the emerging scandal from Beijing, including one other cyclist. No word yet on who the second cyclist might be, though reportedly he or she did not receive a medal. For those who wish to play along at home, the officials tested the top five placers in each event plus two randoms. I leave further speculation to the enjoyment of the reader.
Track and field will also get to join the fun. Current reports say that at least one athlete from track and field was male and won "only one" gold medal. Sheesh, they might as well come out and say, no?
The best English language summary is at ESPN and they are updating constantly.
Repeat after me: Io sono tranquilo.
ok that was supposed to be a smirk….


This 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home is located in a desirable Cherry Hill neighborhood with an award winning elementary school. The home offers great curb appeal and features a new custom kitchen with granite countertops, tile flooring, stainless steel appliances, and a custom built-in bar area. The entire home features updated energy-efficient windows and new interior doors (including closets). Enjoy wood flooring throughout the home, a gas fireplace, a large laundry room with high efficiency washer and dryer, and updated bathrooms. The 3rd bedroom is currently being used as a large walk-in closet and can easily be converted back to a bedroom. On the exterior of the home you'll find a new paver walkway from front to back as well as new siding on the front of the house. There is a spacious, light-filled sunroom off the kitchen with vaulted ceilings and a ceiling fan. The yard includes a new sprinkler system, pavers, a shed and is beautifully landscaped. There is also additional storage under the back porch and the spacious garage, which includes an updated garage door. The home also features a new humidifier, new roof and an updated HVAC system. Don't miss this well-maintained, move-in ready home in one of Cherry Hill's most sought after neighborhoods. Schedule your private showing today!


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## Персональные данные

* Город проживания: Ереван, Армения
* Часовой пояс: GMT+4/МСК+1
* Email: doublic[at]gmail.com
* Telegram: [@strangeman](https://t.me/strangeman)
* Рассматриваю предложения о удаленной работе, готов обсудить релокацию

## Коротко о себе

Более 13 лет в системном админинстрировании и эксплуатации. Сейчас специализируюсь на внедрении DevOps-практик, разработке и сопровождении инфраструктурной платформы и консультации разработчиков. Предпочитаю удаленную работу. Хобби: бег, настолки, компьютерные игры.

## Компетенции

### Умею и люблю

* Выстраивание процессов так, чтобы работало с миниммальным моим участием. Лучше подготовить необходимые инструменты, показать и рассказать как ими пользоваться и отдать в руки коллег-инженеров, чем быть узким горлышком, на которое замыкается слишком много;
* Kubernetes. До Kelsey Hightower мне далеко, но несколько лет эксплуатации в продакшене имеется. Однажды даже довелось менять CNI в живом кластере, получилось успешно, но повторять такое больше не хочется. С сопуствующим стеком типа Istio, Helm и прочего тоже поработал довольно плотно;
* Организация CI/CD это классно. Медитация на правильно настроенный пайплайн успокаивает и расслабляет. Тыкнув в кнопочку и получив развернутое и настроенное окружение, ощущаешь себя демиургом. А когда эта кнопочка доступна не только тебе, а удобна и для всех коллег - это вообще кайф;
* Хороший мониторинг (и логирование) - это довольно веселое испытание на баланс между манией контроля (хочу знать ВООБЩЕ ВСЕ о том, что происходит с окружением и приложениями) и ограниченными человеческими возможностями (слишком большой поток информации переварить человек все равно не в состоянии);
* Расследования - самая интересная часть работы. Все системы сейчас распределенные в большинстве своем, и докапываться до сути проблем с разработчиками и тестировщиками всегда чертовски увлекательно. Предыдущий пункт про правильный мониторинг в этом обычно отлично помогает;
* Документация. В анамнезе есть опыт работы новостным журналистом, наверное, это легкая стадия графомании. Ну и страсть к контролю никто не отменял. Когда все описано, причем так, что документацией могут воспользоваться окружающие - это прекрасно. По факту, тот же пайплайн, только про человеков и словами;
* Работа в небольших кроссфункциональных командах намного интереснее, чем кручение своей строго определенной гайки отсюда и до обеда. Короче цикл обратной связи, проблемы разнообразнее, но и найти того, кто с ними поможет (или погрузиться самому) куда проще;
* Программирование. Разработчиком себя назвать не могу, но создать необходимый инструментарий на Python, Go или Ruby в состоянии.

### Умею, но не особо люблю (но время от времени приходится)

* Честно, не люблю возню с сетями. Сложные правила для iptables крутил миллион лет назад, всякие хитрые VLANы - и того раньше. При надобности все эти знания легко освежаются, но надобности такой давно уже не возникало;
* Сложные рутинные ручные процедуры с нечеткими алгоритмами выполнения. Выматывает жутко. По возможности стараюсь перестроить процесс либо автоматизируя, либо хотя бы декомпозируя и составляя документацию для работы в brainless режиме. К сожалению, такое не всегда возможно;
* Есть опыт выстраивания системы развертывания инфраструктуры и доставки кода для Windows (все через Ansible), но это не то, чем хотелось бы постоянно заниматься;
* Проектная работа. Не люблю работу в ритме "кинули тушить пожар, только-только привел все в порядок - иди разгребай следующий". Без пожаров и соответствующего выгорания работать куда интереснее.

### Умею не так хорошо, как хотел бы

* High Load и High Availability. Не было проектов с очень высоким RPS, так что какие-то ошибки наверное прощались. А так, конечно же со всяческим резервированием и балансировками позаниматься доводилось;
* Управление командой и менеджмент проектов. Несколько лет руководил небольшой командой, но каких-то вызовов в этом не было, ребята все адекватные, сильные специалисты, так что сильно прокачаться было не на чем;
* Есть небольшой опыт участия в конференциях, хотелось бы развивать его дальше;
* Облака. Вся работа с облачными провайдерами сводилась к написанию довольно типового Terraform (Terragrunt точнее) кода для деплоя статики в S3 и настройки CloudFront distribution перед ним. Да и то, после пары повторений и обкатки отдали всё это в хозяйство фронтендерам, теперь они сами себе инфраструктуру создают и манифесты для этого пишут.

### Список buzzword'ов для поисковых систем (если вы вдруг ищете не человека, а набор скиллов)

DevOps, Kubernetes, Linux, Docker, CI/CD, Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, Graylog, Golang, Python, Ansible

## Места работы

### [United Traders](https://unitedtraders.com/), Системный инженер, тимлид команды инфраструктуры (Август 2016 - настоящее время)

Полная занятость, удаленная работа. Занимаюсь проектированием и обслуживанием dev-, test- и prod- инфраструктуры компании, разработкой и поддержкой инфраструктурной платформы и поддержкой разработчиков. По мере расширения отдела эксплуатации появился функционал тимлида.

**Достижения**:

* Построил (не один, конечно, но планировал и вёл проект) платформенную команду, предоставляющую разработчикам Infrastructure Platform as a Service, позволившую разработчикам самостоятельно обслуживать весь цикл разработки приложения, от создания репозитория, до выкатки в прод и эксплуатации;
* Поэтапно перевел сборку и выкатку микросервисов сначала в Docker, а затем в bare-metal и managed кластера Kubernetes;
* Настроил процесс интеграционного тестирования внутренних микросервисов компании с помощью Jenkins, Kubernetes и Ansible;
* Внедрил сбор метрик на уровне ОС и приложений с помощью Prometheus, сбор логов и ошибок с помощью Graylog и Sentry, а также алертинг на появление аномалий в метриках и логах;
* Настроил автоматическую выкатку новых Windows-серверов с помощью Ansible и libvirt;
* Внедрил какую-никакую отказоусточивость (HA-кластера Postgres, Clickhouse, Kafka), балансировку бэкендов и фронтендов (nginx, haproxy).

### [Hexlet](https://hexlet.io), Наставник курса DevOps для программистов (Ноябрь 2021 - Май 2022)

Частичная занятость, удаленная работа. Проводил вебинары, ревьюил проекты студентов и консультировал их по возникающим вопросам. В общем, делился опытом и рассказывал про DevOps-практики и всякие хитрости в эксплуатации.

### [Express42](http://express42.com), Стажер на должность инженера (Май 2016 — Август 2016)

Полная занятость, удаленная работа. В течение месяца проходил обучение и затем два месяца работал с реальными задачами.

**Достижения**:

* Участвовал в разработке community- и внутренних Chef-кукбуков компании;
* Участвовал в аудите ИТ-инфраструктуры клиента и формировании требований к ее улучшению;
* Участвовал в докеризации и развертывании на демо-стенде DC/OS части инфраструктуры клиента;
* Провел масштабное сравнительное исследование существующих систем оркестрации контейнеров: DC/OS, Kubernetes, Aurora, Fleet, Nomad, Docker Swarm.

### [Upwork](https://www.upwork.com/o/profiles/users/_~01f3f1414b3156fe80/), Системный администратор Linux (Сентябрь 2013 – Май 2016)

Частичная занятость (8-10 часов в неделю). В основном работал с тремя постоянными клиентами, занимался администрированием веб-серверов и обслуживанием (администрирование, оптимизация, мелкие правки в коде) WordPress сайтов. Изредка выполнял заказы на написание плейбуков и модулей для Ansible и Puppet, а также BASH-скриптов.

**Достижения**:

* Оптимизировал высоконагруженные веб-сервера (lamp стек) для беспроблемной работы с более чем миллионом пользователей в сутки;
* Написал необходимую конфигурацию и развернул с помощью Ansible ферму из 40 серверов (load-balancing, раздельные фронтенд-сервера для посетителей и сотрудников сайта, централизованный мониторинг и сбор логов);
* Написал модуль для CPanel, позволяющий через хуки автоматически предустанавливать кастомизированный WordPress пользователям.

### Солнце, сеть магазинов стройматериалов и мебели, Системный администратор (Октябрь 2013 – Апрель 2016)

Полная занятость, работа в офисе. Администрировал инфраструктуру компании, распределенную по 12 филиалам в 2 городах. В инфраструктуру входило, в общем-то, все: веб-сервера, терминальные Windows-сервера, файлсервера, Asterisk PBX, LDAP, Hyper-V и ProxMox кластеры, Git-сервер. Всего мной обслуживалось порядка 100 серверов, из них около 80 – виртуальные.

**Достижения**:

* Привел Linux-сервера к одному "базовому" модулю Ansible, отражающему стандарт настройки серверов в компании и позволяющему централизованно управлять обновлениями, мониторингом и бэкапами;
* Развернул среду для тестирования изменений в этом модуле (Test-Kitchen + Vagrant + BATS-тесты);
* Настроил хранение и деплой из Git сложных конфигураций (Asterisk, Bacula) с тестированием корректности изменений после деплоя;
* Перенес в кластер Hyper-V большую часть Windows-серверов компании.

### ООО "Дальстраж", разнопрофильный холдинг, Системный администратор (Сентябрь 2008 – Октябрь 2013)

Полная занятость, работа в офисе. Начинал как помощник системного администратора, потом, после ухода предыдущего сотрудника, сам стал администрировать. Обслуживал около 50 серверов, расположенных в 8 офисах по городу и объединенных в одну сеть через OpenVPN.

**Достижения**:

* Разработал и внедрил автоматическое развертывание пользовательского рабочего места (Ubuntu 12.04) с помощью Puppet;
* Виртуализовал значительную часть сервисов компании, перенеся их в OpenVZ контейнеры на ProxMox;
* Внедрил централизованный мониторинг всех серверов с помощью Zabbix.

## Профили и проекты

* [Github](https://github.com/strangeman)
* [LinkedIn](http://www.linkedin.com/pub/anton-markelov/64/a75/322)
* [Хабр.Карьера](https://career.habr.com/anton-markelov1)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


SANTA MONICA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Happy Returns, a technology, logistics and service provider for online retailers, today announced its expansion to college and university campuses. The initial rollout of Happy Returns Return Bars on college campuses includes five schools launching ahead of the busy back-to-school shopping season, including University of Arizona, University of Washington, North Carolina State University, Portland State University, and Gonzaga University. The partnerships allow campuses to offer students a convenient physical location to return unwanted items purchased from popular online retailers such as Outerknown, Everlane, Eloquii, UNTUCKit, Carbon38, Rothy's, Tradesy and others.
Happy Returns is solving the #1 pain point of e-commerce: returns. Happy Returns does this by providing a seamless integrated system of technology, service, and logistics that gives shoppers the frictionless returns experience they want and retailers the low-cost and efficient service they require. Happy Returns operates a national network of 150+ Return Bar locations in 30+ metro areas staffed by friendly, well-trained Returnista™ return specialists located in premier shopping centers, national retailers, independent stores and boutiques and college campuses.
Happy Returns' co-founders met at HauteLook/NordstromRack.com, where they led the launch of the highly successful Return-to-Rack program, in which HauteLook shoppers return online purchases to Nordstrom Rack physical stores. The company is based in Santa Monica, California, and its investors include USVP, Upfront Ventures and Lowercase Capital.


text:
ASIAN WRAP: Parsons wins on China Endurance debut
> News > International
By Slade Perrins
Monday 17th September, 2018 - 3:01pm
The Jake Parsons/James Winslow Craft-Bamboo entry
China Endurance Series
Australian Jake Parsons took victory on debut in the FRD LMP3 China Endurance Series alongside James Winslow at Zhuhai International Circuit.
Parsons and Winslow steered the #95 Craft-Bamboo Racing car to the top step of the podium in what is Winslow's first win since a nasty crash in December 2017.
Winslow started the race assuming the lead before handing the car over to his young team-mate.
Twenty three-year-old Parsons brought the car home in Race 1 with a faultless performance, with Race 2 cancelled due to the arrival of Super Typhoon Mangkhut.
"I would say I'm incredibly proud of the team and my team-mate James. Such a good feeling to win my debut LMP3 race and continue the streak of finishing on the podium in every race this year from F3 to LMP2 and now this," said Parsons.
"Returning to Zhuhai had good memories after winning there last year, again we were strong & we topped the practice timing sheets," added Winslow.
"My new co-driver Jake Parsons & I worked extremely well together with our engineer Bruce & we moved the car forward each session.
"We knew we were strong heading into the race & very effectively activated a strategy which saw us lead the whole race from start to finish.
"The start was extremely close & 3-a-breast into T1 & once I passed Nigel Moore on lap 1 we controlled the pace of the race from the front & pulled a gap.
"Jake held our lead through his amazing stint. Jakes's debut in LMP3 with a victory & our fifth victory as a team in this series. Very proud of the whole team after a perfect weekend."
Jenson's Button's Honda pic: SuperGT Official Twitter
Ex-McLaren F1 driver Jenson Button and Naoki Yamamoto took a convincing victory in the sixth round of the Super GT championship at Sugo.
Button and Yamamoto started from pole and and cleared off early in the Honda, fending off every challenge from behind before Button earned his first win in any category since the 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix.
New Zealander Nick Cassidy and teammate Ryo Hirakawa's day ended with a DNF after the pair started ninth and made up a number of positions before having to retire with mechanical issues five laps from the end.
Honda drivers Tomoki Nojiri and Takuya Izawa finished second, while Daiki Sasaki and Jann Mardenborough completed the podium for Nissan.
Cassidy and Hirakawa have now slipped to third in the Super GT standings, with Button and Yamamoto moving into the lead.
Super GT travels Autopolis for its next round over October 20-21 before the season finale at Twin Ring Motegi on November 10-11.
The Carrera Cup Asia field at Singapore pic: Carrera Cup Asia Facebook
Carrera Cup Asia
Chris van der Drift won the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia race at the Marina Bay Street Circuit in support of the Singapore Grand Prix.
Van der Drift sliced past pole-sitter Philip Hamprecht on the first lead to capture the lead, holding sway through to the chequered flag.
Hamprecht then came under pressure from Martin Ragginger who also got by the German, as Kiwi Will Bamber made it onto the podium with his own move on Hamprecht.
New Zealander van der Drift now holds a 167 points advantage to Hamprecht heading into the final events of the season at Sepang and Shanghai, the former taking place from September 28-30.


Love is love that doesn't harm.
where my children felt safe and happy.
palm trees dance in breezes.
Pulse, there are no words.
We are all one with Orlando.
Note: Let's ban assault rifles. More people need to speak out in support of a ban. The only voices I hear are pro-gun activists. Let's ban assault rifles. Our children are dying.
The guns didn't act alone, for sure. Killers shouldn't be able to use such efficient killing guns on innocent people.
My deepest condolences to you and all America!
Thanks, Resa. All countries have their problems, but this one seems to have made everyone the world over sad.
Lovely post. Orlando is just a couple hours from me so it really hits hard.
We need to ban guns. No doubt about it. Lovely post, Brenda.


I now own an iPad (iPad2) and I was looking for software that allowed me to easily transfer stuff back and forth between the iPad and my laptop; I picked one called Air Sharing. I also wanted to be able to use my Word and related documents, so I got OfficeHD.
Taken as themselves they seem to work fine, but I can't seem to find a way to ACCESS things brought over by Air Sharing except THROUGH Air Sharing, and similarly with OfficeHD. And if I try to open ones on Air Sharing, they don't use OfficeHD to open them.
Any ideas on how to solve this? Ideally I want to bring stuff over to the iPad and have it be accessible by the appropriate apps.


text:
Romford News
Hornchurch News
Havering News
Brentwood News
News Brentwood News Things to do Sport Lifestyle Support Us
Romford Recorder > News > Local Council
Popular councillor Andrew Curtin to run as an independent in Romford Town after Tory deselection
Published: 10:57 AM April 14, 2014 Updated: 9:39 AM December 1, 2020
Cllr Andrew Curtin at the opening of a new skate park in Harold Hill - Credit: Archant
A popular councillor who was dumped from the Romford Conservative Association will stand as an independent candidate in the upcoming local elections.
Cllr Andrew Curtin has topped the Romford Town polls in every election since the ward was established in 2002, and will hope to do the same on May 22.
For the last 12 years he has been responsible for the borough's work in libraries, parks and nature conservation, sport, arts and heritage.
He was deselected by the Romford Conservative Association (RCA) last year, after being accused of not attending events regularly or having a "strong belief and understanding of Conservative values," as well as being publicly critical of the association - accusations he denies.
Turning his attention to his new campaign, he explained why he would be different from other candidates.
He said: "Firstly, I will be the only candidate with experience of reforming public services to minimise negative impact on quality of life and avoid pressure for excessive Council Tax rises. I think this experience will be useful over the next few years, when the council will have to make unprecedented levels of savings.
"Secondly, I believe strongly that our future depends on what we share, our libraries, parks, sport and arts facilities, museums and environment.
1 Illegal car meet in Rainham sees 49 fined for Covid breaches
2 Letters: Social distancing, vaccination experience and how to stop catalytic converter thefts
3 Romford MP hails charity's 'extraordinary' work during Covid pandemic
4 Havering households to be asked to participate in census
5 Deputy head: School's teachers have gone 'above and beyond' during Covid pandemic
6 Infection rates are now falling in Havering - is lockdown working?
7 Christmas Day babies to spend their first few weeks in lockdown
8 Havering parks and gardens five feet under water as rivers burst their banks
9 BHRUT thanks families of NHS workers who are keeping service afloat
10 Charity boss hails response after 'army of volunteers' come forward to support vaccine centres
"Clearly what has happened in the RCA is very sad, but I have been overwhelmed by the number of people who have asked me to stand as an independent, and am very grateful to all of them."
In a parting shot, he took aim at the RCA, saying it was in "self-inflicted turmoil."
"If they can't even run themselves efficiently then I think many residents wonder how they could possibly run the borough, particularly at such a difficult time for public spending," he said.
On his proudest achievements over the last 12 years, Cllr Curtin mentioned the huge increase in membership of Havering Library Service from 49 per cent to 67 per cent.
'Fabrication' - deselected Romford councillor Andrew Curtin slams appeal decision report
Fines issued to Romford and Upminster restaurants flouting coronavirus...
Doctors and nurses 'exhausted' as hospitals reach breaking point
Tom Ambrose
More than 100 Covid dead at Queen's and King George this week


Today, January 5, 2010, will be a big day in the history of mobile technology. A huge day. Any tech news site worthy of your attention should devote many resources to the events of today.
I am, of course, referring to the impending Newtpocalypse.
The Apple Newton was a groundbreaking device. The picture accompanying this post is my much-beloved Newton MP120.
NewtonScript tracks time intervals using a 30 bit signed integer, with an epoch of 1993. 229 bits from 1993 is January 5, 2010, at 6:48:31 pm. Tonight. When the NetwonScript time overflows into bit 30 it becomes a negative number, and Bad Things Happen. Fixes have been developed, but only for the later model Newtons. My beloved MP120 will stop working tonight. Sniff. Of course, it hasn't been charged since 1999 so its effective behavior will be unchanged.
PS: in addition to being the Newtpocalypse, I think Google has some kind of announcement today relating to mobile tech.


Pavan Sukhdev is Founder-CEO of GIST Advisory, an environmental consulting firm that helps governments and corporations discover, value, and manage their impacts on natural and human capital. He has been awarded the 2011 McCluskey Fellowship by Yale University. Previously, he was Special Adviser and Head of UNEP's Green Economy Initiative, lead author of their "Green Economy Report", and Study Leader for the G8+5 commissioned project on The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity ("TEEB"). A former banker at Deutsche Bank, he founded and chaired Global Markets Centre – Mumbai, a leading-edge front-office offshoring company. Pavan chairs the World Economic Forum's "Global Agenda Council" on Biodiversity, was a speaker at Davos in 2010 and 2011, and serves on the boards of Conservation International and the Stockholm Resilience Centre.
Earlier this week, Corporation 2020 author Pavan Sukhdev wrote about Peabody Energy filing for bankruptcy protection in light of news that the company has funded dozens of climate-denying groups. Read what he had to say about how this funding undermines the resilience of business and relates to lessons from Corporation 2020, and check out an excerpt from his book below.
On its way to bankruptcy, Peabody, along with four other major U.S. coal producers spent nearly $100 million over the last ten years on political lobbying to help protect federal tax-funded fossil fuel subsidies.
Pavan Sukhdev, author of Corporation 2020, reflects on Peabody Energy filing for bankruptcy protection in light of news that the company has funded dozens of climate-denying groups. He offers his thoughts on how this funding undermines the resilience of Peabody and how it undermines the resilience of all businesses.
Peabody Energy, the world's largest private-sector coal producer, applied for "reorganisation" under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code on April 13, 2016. This means it will retain control of its operations, but under judicial oversight, and present to the court a reorganization plan within 120 days, and persuade its creditors to accept the plan within 180 days. The company had been struggling to stay afloat due to a drop in coal prices, competitive natural gas prices, the Chinese economic slowdown and increasing environmental regulation.
In late-2015, Peabody settled an investigation launched in 2007 by the New York State Attorney General, recognising the need for and agreeing to make full disclosures around the business risks posed by climate change to its investors. The AG's office accused Peabody of "providing incomplete and one-sided discussions" of the International Energy Agency's findings by only reporting the highest future coal use projections in an attempt to mislead investors2. Further, a consulting firm hired by Peabody projected in March 2014, that a $20/tonne carbon tax would reduce coal demand for power generation in 2020 by 38% - 58%; it did not disclose this either to its investors.
Investors ought to have been sceptical of a carbon intensive company claiming inflated future profit projections, as Peabody's bankruptcy was by no means an outlier. Since 2012, around 50 coal companies in the U.S. have declared bankruptcy, including three of the four largest coal producers in the U.S. - Peabody, Arch Coal and Alpha Natural Resources - accounting for 41% of total output. Given such adverse conditions, investors now find themselves in a risky environment where, on a conservative scenario analysis, global assets worth $2 trillion risk becoming stranded assets. Over 500 institutions valued at $3.4 trillion have already divested from the fossil fuel industry.
Peabody's stock price has fallen from a high of $72.71 in April 2011 to $1.37 in June 2016. This is not the first time we have come across such a story. Years ago, Enron also pursued risky investments under highly leveraged structures to the point that they declared bankruptcy. Their stock also tumbled from $90 in 2000 to less than $1 in 2001. Much of Peabody's downfall can be ascribed to its poorly timed $5.2 billion purchase of Macarthur Coal in 2011, for which it borrowed $4.1 billion, even as industry experts projected a grim outlook. Peabody's pursuit of size and overleveraging, much akin to Enron's, placed in danger the futures of its 7,000 employees, its creditors, and its investors.
On its way to bankruptcy, Peabody, along with four other major U.S. coal producers spent nearly $100 million over the last ten years on political lobbying to help protect federal tax-funded fossil fuel subsidies. As part of its aggressive and unethical lobbying, Peabody made generous Political Action Committee (PAC) donations to federal candidates—an alarming majority of which went to Republican candidates over each of the last nine election cycles (Table 1).
Peabody's bankruptcy filing inadvertently exposed its funding of the "climate denial" movement by means of donations to think tanks, climate sceptic scientists and lobby groups. In 2014-15, the company donated $332,000 in "charitable gifts and donations" through the Peabody Investment Corporation to organisations involved in attacks on climate science. Donations were also made to several climate deniers, most notably Richard Berman, who had once compared the U.S. EPA to terrorists. Peabody is also a vocal opponent of President Obama's Clean Power Plan, which is widely hailed as the most ambitious step taken against climate change and supported by major corporations such as Unilever, Nestle, eBay and L'Oréal.
By funding the climate denial lobby, Peabody acted in a self-serving manner in a failed attempt to maintain its position in the market. It was evidently trying everything it could to survive in a changing economic landscape where the vast majority of consumers have chosen to no longer ignore anthropogenic global warming.
We have been here before—with the tales of Enron, Volkswagen, ExxonMobil, BP and others.
In an evolving landscape of consumer interests and citizen demands, Peabody's "Corporation 1920" model and ethics are outdated. Peabody undermined its own future and survival by acting against the public interest. Worldwide, capital misallocation to earth-system-threatening fossil fuel fuels over the last decade has been huge, averaging an estimated USD 950 billion a year. Markets are meant to punish the misallocation of capital, and the message from investors is clear: they recognize that fossil fuel investments are stranded assets, and will gradually re-allocate capital away from them. The lesson for the fossil fuel industry as well as those that produce fossil-fuel-intensive goods and services is clear: evolve or perish.
We have been here before—with the tales of Enron, Volkswagen, ExxonMobil, BP and several other such corporations that made considered choices to pursue private profits at the expense of public risks and losses. They all have recurring themes that revolved around the DNA of "Corporation 1920." We must address these recurring corporate traits through appropriate legislation while improving citizen education in order to tackle the demand and supply sides of our Corporation 1920 challenge. To build an inclusive green economy of permanence, one that works for everyone, we need Corporation 2020. Its time is now.