text:
package msp.game.network;

import framework.*;
import msp.game.AI;
import msp.game.MSPGame;
import msp.game.MSPGameWindow;

import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.WindowAdapter;
import java.awt.event.WindowEvent;
import java.net.*;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

public class Server extends JFrame{

    MulticastSocket broadcaster ;
    ServerSocket server;

    String serverName="MSP Server";
    String serverIP="127.0.0.1";
    String mapName="default";

    MSPGame game;

    boolean running=true;

    boolean gameStarted=false;

    int connectedClients=0;
    JLabel connectedClientsLabel;

    List<ServerClient> clients=new ArrayList();

    public Server () throws Exception{

        setTitle("MSP - Create a new server");
        setSize(400,200);
        setLocationRelativeTo(null);
        setDefaultCloseOperation(WindowConstants.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

        //TMP
        setLayout(null);
        JButton btn=new JButton("Start game!");
        btn.setSize(100, 30);
        btn.setLocation(145, 120);
        getContentPane().add(btn);
        btn.addActionListener(new AbstractAction() {
            @Override
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
                startGame();

            }
        });

        //get ip
        InetAddress addr = null;
        try {
            addr = InetAddress.getLocalHost();

        } catch (UnknownHostException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        serverIP = addr.getHostName();

        connectedClientsLabel=new JLabel("Ready to connect ("+serverIP+")");
        connectedClientsLabel.setSize(400,30);
        connectedClientsLabel.setLocation(10,80);
        getContentPane().add(connectedClientsLabel);

        broadcaster=new MulticastSocket();

        new Thread(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                while(!gameStarted && running) {
                    try {
                        String msg="{"+serverName+";"+serverIP+";"+mapName+"}";
                        byte[] msgB=msg.getBytes("UTF8");
                        broadcaster.send(new DatagramPacket(msgB,msgB.length, InetAddress.getByName("225.255.255.0"),31006));
                    }catch (Exception e) {

                    }
                    GUtils.sleep(500);
                }
            }
        }).start();

        server=new ServerSocket(31007);

        new Thread(new Runnable() {

            @Override
            public void run() {
                while(running) {
                    try {
                        Socket s=server.accept();
                        ServerClient c=new ServerClient(s,Server.this);
                        clients.add(c);
                        new Thread(c).start();
                        GDB.i("New connection");
                        connectedClientsLabel.setText(connectedClients+++1+" Clients connected !");
                    }catch (Exception e) {

                    }
                }
            }
        }).start();

        setVisible(true);
    }

    private void startGame() {

        setVisible(false);

        for(ServerClient c:clients)
            c.requestJoin();

        GProperty map=GResource.instance.getMap(mapName);
        MSPGameWindow w=new MSPGameWindow(map,getPlayerID(),"Host");
        w.addWindowListener(new WindowAdapter() {
            @Override
            public void windowClosing(WindowEvent e) {
                running=false;
                game.dispose();
                Server.this.dispose();
                super.windowClosing(e);
            }
        });
        w.setVisible(true);

        List<TCPConnector> clientConnectors=new ArrayList();
        for(ServerClient client:clients)
            clientConnectors.add(client.connector);

        int numPlayers=1+clients.size();
        if(numPlayers<map.getInt("num_players")) {
            int d=map.getInt("num_players")-numPlayers;
            for(int i=0;i<d;i++) {
                AI ai=new AI(getPlayerID(), w.game);
                w.game.cpuPlayers.add(ai.getPlayer());
            }
        }

        w.game.setNetworkModule(new NetworkModule(w.game,clientConnectors,clientConnectors));
       game=w.game;

        gameStarted=true;

        new Thread(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                while (gameStarted) {
                    GUtils.sleep(3000);
                    sendUpdate();
                }
            }
        }).start();

    }

    private void sendUpdate() {
        for(GEntity e:(List<GEntity>)game.entities.clone()) {
            if(e.properties.getBool("passive"))
                continue;
          //  game.getNetworkModule().sendFullUpdate(e); //TODO //TODO
        }
    }

    @Override

    public void dispose() {
        running=false;
        gameStarted=false;
        super.dispose();
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        try {
            UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getSystemLookAndFeelClassName());
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        try {
            new Server();
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

    }

    int lastID=10;
    public int getPlayerID() {
        return lastID++;
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Lock in a great price for Facón Del Mar Hotel – rated 8.9 by recent guests!
Staff is very attentive and they tried their best to accommodate our requests ..food was ok !
The whole experience was super positive! The staff was beyond friendly and kind. They even offered to refund our taxes since we were foreigners. We loved it!!
The hotel was clean, close to everything downtown, the breakfast was excellent, the staff outstanding! Very friendly people, ready to help at a moments notice. I've stayed in other "better" hotels in the city but this one is the best by far! I'll book it again on my next visit, for sure!!
A very good option in MdP; excellent relation cost-benefit...out of summer at least!!
Good breakfast. Everything worked properly in the room which had everything we like - safe, bedside tables/lights, mirrors, hair dryer, good WiFi, etc. A kettle would have been nice. Staff very helpful and spoke some English. Only 5 minutes walk to the beach.
Nice room but quite noisy (from the outside). Great location and even better breakfast!
The staff were outstanding, night of the 24th of December they even shared their own food with me (shared pic with those awesome guys) I didn't realise just about all restaurants are shut and if they are open you need to book well in advance. Location is great, safe to walk everywhere, good restaurants nearby. Beautiful building and nice lounge area downstairs. The hotel had no problem me changing rooms as I did not like the first one.
We travelled with our 20-year-old daughter and were given 2 connected rooms, a single with shower and a double with full, roomy bathroom. The rooms had spacious closets and our room had a frigo bar. Breakfast was good, with a variety of pastry and fruit in a renovated, well lit and comfortable breakfast room. There is valet service to park the car, which of course is an extra bonus in the city centre. The staff is very kind and correct.
Facón Del Mar Hotel This rating is a reflection of how the property compares to the industry standard when it comes to price, facilities and services available. It's based on a self-evaluation by the property. Use this rating to help choose your stay!
One of our top picks in Mar del Plata.Facón Del Mar Hotel offers accommodations in Mar del Plata, only 1,150 feet from the beach. There is a restaurant and bar that serves a daily breakfast. Guests can have fun at the games room as well.
The rooms have a flat screen TV. All of them have a private bathroom with a bath or shower and a bidet. Free toiletries and a TV are provided.
Guests will find a 24-hour front desk at the property. They can also play table tennis and billiards at the hotel.
The hotel offers bike hire and car hire. Mar Del Plata Central Casino is 1,650 feet from Facón Del Mar Hotel, while Bristol Beach is 1,950 feet from the property. The Bus Station is 8,200 feet away, whereas Astor Piazzolla International Airport is 4.3 mi from Facón Del Mar Hotel.
This property is also rated for the best value in Mar del Plata! Guests are getting more for their money when compared to other properties in this city.
When would you like to stay at Facón Del Mar Hotel?
Private parking is available at a location nearby (reservation is needed) and costs USD 8.85 per day.
House Rules Facón Del Mar Hotel takes special requests – add in the next step!
Facón Del Mar Hotel accepts these cards and reserves the right to temporarily hold an amount prior to arrival.
Poor condition of bathroom. We had to change of room because the water closed was leaking on the floor and the bath thumb was full of hair.
The aircon was too cold with no option to turn it off & the elevator was too noisy.
Great location, short walk to the beach.
No cable provided so it was local tv the 7 days we were there and all in Spanish what made my husband upset because he doesn't speak the language . also no airconditioner only ceiling fan provided .
Rooms doesn't have air conditioning (and its not clear on the hotel description). Also while on the checkout process i asked for a cab and the staff told me to cross the street and look for one.
The breakfast, no eggs, tomatoes nor bacon. The first room I got was like a box and pretty much step over the toilet to get to the shower behind. A bit claustrophobic. I asked for a different room which was no problem at all and was moved from 810 to 405, way better which also had the bidet advertised.
In this period no issue but aircon could be missed.
We enjoyed our stay. Old hotel but already partially renovated. Quality -Price one of the best hotels we ever had. Breakfast was very good and fresh. No eggs std on the buffet but for us no issue. Rooms comfy. Can image in summer that a fan is not enough to cool down the room.
The elevator is incredibly annoying as it sounds an alarm each time someone enters or leaves it. Woke me up several times. And as I had one window towards some inner yard I heard a door slam over and over again. Too bad since it was otherwise good isolation from other rooms.
Clean, good bed and bathroom, aircon. The breakfast and restaurant is ok. Friendly and helpful staff. For the price it was worth it!


If you need a real tutorial you can have it for free with Gdevelop.
You have to pay for some lessons on Phaser on the other hand.
You can publish on android.
Still needs to subscribe for full features.
You download It after subscribing for free. I can't see where is a problem. Can you tell me something more about it?
Subscription lets you package more often for Android.
There may be some other benefits, sounds like the author has tried really hard to keep it as free as possible.
We've been through this in another thread. There are many many Phaser resources, most are free, some are paid books/courses etc.
Phaser vs GDevelop isn't even a like for like. They approach the issue of creating games in very very different ways, which will appeal to different people.
You can create your entire game in GD5 without ever using the build service. This is completely optional and only helps with packaging your game as an Electron App for PC or a Cordova App for mobile platforms. The free plan lets you create and download a package two times per day. Personally I haven't reached that limit yet, since you probably won't publish a game or update it more than once per day and running a preview works without the build service.
The export dialog in GD5 lets you export your game locally without using the online services at all. If you are working on a pure HTML5 game, you can just do a local export and upload the files to your webserver. If you want to release for PC or mobile it is also possible to export your game as an Electron or Cordova project on your local PC (see the manual export options in the wiki). But in this case you need to install the Electron/Cordova dependencies yourself and build the app on your local computer. But since this process isn't straight forward and GD is aimed at novices in game development, the online build service was created to make it easier for them. But since no one lets you host the whole tool chain for free, the developer of GD needs to charge some money for the service. (which isn't very much compared to the commercial competitors).
TL;DR: You don't need to pay anything to use GDevelop5. All features of the IDE are available without any subscription. The only thing that costs money is using the "one click online build" service for Cordova/Electron Apps more that twice per day. But this can also be done on the local PC of the game developer. (after installing the tool chain and reading some tutorials).


›Coaching, Communication Skills, Employee development, Employee Engagement, Leadership Training and Development, Mentoring, Our Blog, Performance Reviews, Rant, Talent Management, Uncategorized›Changing Corporate Mindsets is the Critical Path to Cultural Change: Now We Have Research to Prove It!
I recently found on strategy+business.com a long article on how the brain is wired to perpetuate those rote tasks and roles that make up a corporate culture, and how changing the wiring of those established mindsets is the critical foundation to improving employee engagement and productivity.
Eureka! Science is finally uncovering the reasons why our "changing mindsets" and Foundation of Excellence approaches have been so successful.
Habits, good and bad, get wired into the part of the brain that retains learning.
To break the bad habits, you have to motivate employees to recognize and challenge their own individual "wiring" or mindsets before they can see the need to change.
After gaining their agreement that a new set of mindsets would be more productive, you have to install a learning regime that teaches the new behavior repetitively enough to permanently rewire the new mindset into the brain.
This brings to mind what the wife of one of our Bovo-Tighe associates says about her private-lesson piano students: It is easier to imprint her system on students new to piano than on those who come from other teachers. Transfer students need extensive "rewiring" before she can make any progress.
Unrecognized, perhaps, but not that young. We have been using this approach for over 20 years!
But these are quibbles: It is nice to be right, and to have such esteemed people agree with us!


It is important to know that if you discuss an incident with a faculty or staff member at Western other than a psychologist, mental health counselor, survivor advocate, or other health care professional, that person is required as a "responsible employee" to report the incident to the Title IX Coordinator. "Responsible employees" are required to report such information as soon as possible to the Title IX Coordinator so a review of the situation may commence. Western is required to take immediate and appropriate steps to investigate or otherwise determine what occurred and, if the investigation determines that the sexual misconduct created a hostile environment, Western must take appropriate actions to address the circumstances. The university has this obligation regardless of whether you choose to file a formal complaint.
You may talk confidentially with the resources listed here. Additionally, students who work or volunteer as peer counselors, with CASAS, or in Resource and Outreach Programs Offices (including the Sexual Awareness Center, Women's Center, and Queer Resource Center) are not responsible employees, and are therefore not required to report sexual violence they learn about to the Title IX Coordinator. However, it is helpful for these offices to provide the Title IX Coordinator with aggregate data (omitting personally-identifying information) that can be used to help inform Western's prevention and response efforts.
When you report sexual violence to the Title IX Coordinator, University Police, or the Student Conduct Officer, the University will keep that report confidential to the greatest extent possible while also providing protective measures and accommodations requested by you and taking any necessary action to keep others safe. If you request that your name not be disclosed to an alleged perpetrator or ask that Western not investigate the report, Western will discuss with you the limitations this places on Western's ability to hold the perpetrator accountable.


12 Slides explaining Water Activity; what it is and how to use it!
Water activity is a useful parameter for many industries. Measuring water activity takes only a few minutes so can provide results quickly, ideal for critical control points.
However water activity is a qualitative measure therefore interpreting results can be complex. The following slides provide an overview to water activity and how to utilise Aw measurements.
For further information please do not hesitate to contact us or visit our webpage to download our latest AW White Paper!
Previous PostFive Applications where Water Activity is critical and why!Next PostWhat is the latest monitoring system from Rotronic? A practical answer and a technical answer.


text:
jquery.parallax.js
======

A jQuery parallax plugin

* [View horizontal demo](http://weblinc.github.com/jquery-parallax)
* [View vertical demo](http://weblinc.github.com/jquery-parallax/vertical.htm)

Tested in IE6-9, Chrome, Firefox 3.6, 12, Safari

Options
---
* `speed`: multiplier at which the rate of the selected elements scroll (default: `1`)
* `axis`: axis on which the selected elements scroll. Takes a string of `'x'` or `'y'` (default: `'x'`)

Example
---
Turns parallax on two layers on the Y-axis at different speeds.

```javascript
  $('.layer1').parallax({ speed: 0.5, axis: 'y' });
  $('.layer2').parallax({ speed: 0.3, axis: 'y' });
```

TODO
---
* Implement start/stop positions for parallax to trigger on and off.

Contributing
---
This project uses [smoosh](https://github.com/fat/smoosh) for compiling, linting.


Please click the link below to read President Suzanne Solum's excellent article on chamber music. Thank you Suzanne!!
Settle Down, Enjoy the ride.
© 2019 East Texas Music Teachers Association. All Rights Reserved.


text:
Longtime Houston attorney Tom Kirkendall's observations on developments in law, business, medicine, culture, sports, and other matters of general interest to the Houston business, professional, and academic communities.
The Houston Open at a Crossroads Again
Posted on April 3, 2017 by Tom
With Shell Oil Company pulling out as the Houston Open's title sponsor after a successful 26-year run, the Houston Golf Association finds itself in an all too familiar position — what must be done to make the venerable tournament something other than an afterthought among the numerous non-major PGA Tour events?
Houston has a rich golf history, so there is considerable amount of civic pride involved in this question. But finding a title sponsor is no easy task — the price tag to sponsor an event such as the Houston Open is almost certainly in the $10 million range.
The first Houston Open was in 1922 and the tournament is tied with San Antonio's Valero Texas Open as the third oldest non-major championship on the PGA Tour behind only only the Western Open (1899) and the Canadian Open (1904).
Despite that legacy, the tournament has periodically struggled. After the tournament was revived at River Oaks in 1946, the Houston Open became a regular Tour stop when it was played at Memorial Park Golf Course during the 1950's and early 60's, and then moved to Champions Golf Club in the late 1960's for six years.
But the tournament wandered to several different area courses after its stint at Champions and its future seemed uncertain.
Indeed, after a particularly unfulfilling mid-1970's tournament, the late Jack Gallagher, a crusty, old school golf columnist at the Houston Post, penned a column in which the basic thrust was "if this is the best the HGA can do, then why don't we just forget about the whole damn thing."
The Houston Golf Association recognized the dire circumstances and turned things around in 1975 by entering into a long term agreement with The Woodlands Corporation, which was in the early stages of developing a master-planned suburban community on the far north side of the Houston metro area.
For the next 26 years, the Houston Open and The Woodlands enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship as the golf tournament rode The Woodlands' extraordinary growth to become one of the top tournaments on the PGA Tour in terms of money raised for charity each year.
That status was cemented when Shell stepped up in 1991 to become the stable title sponsor that the tournament had always lacked.
Unfortunately, by the late 90's, the mutually-beneficial relationship between the HGA and The Woodlands Corporation was unraveling.
The HGA believed that the tournament needed to move from the Tournament Players Course in The Woodlands, which had parking problems and limited adjacent land to stage a Tour event.
Moreover, the tournament struggled with a date on the calendar a few weeks after The Masters, which is a time in the Tour schedule when many top players rest in preparation for the summer grind of the Tour.
After The Woodlands Corporation developed two outstanding courses at Carlton Woods Golf Club on the west side of The Woodlands, the HGA concluded that The Woodlands Corporation had reneged on a commitment to build a new TPC Course along Spring Creek on the west side of The Woodlands to host the Houston Open.
The Woodlands Corporation — which was owned by different owners than George Mitchell and his aides who had struck the original 1975 deal with the HGA — concluded that the HGA did not sufficiently appreciate how much The Woodlands had contributed to the success of the tournament and that The Woodlands really did not need the golf tournament to continue its success.
Consequently, in 2002, the HGA decided to leave The Woodlands and relocate to Redstone Golf Club (now Golf Club of Houston) in Humble on the northeast side of Houston.
The HGA struggled through three tournaments at Redstone's Jacobson-Hardy Course (the renovated El Dorado Country Club course), which was not close to as good a tournament venue as the TPC in The Woodlands. Charitable donations to the tournament dipped and few of the top Tour pros played in those first tournaments at the new location.
Nevertheless, the scrappy HGA made the best of a bad situation.
In connection with the opening of the Rees Jones-designed Tournament Course at Redstone in 2006, the HGA persuaded the PGA Tour to give the Houston Open the weekend before the Masters as its permanent date. Then, the HGA groomed the Tournament Course to simulate conditions that the players would confront the following week at Augusta National during The Masters.
The result was that many top Tour players embraced the idea of playing tournament golf and practicing in Augusta-like conditions the weekend before the Masters. After a few years in its pre-Masters weekend date, the Houston Open was enjoying some of its strongest fields in its history.
Alas, prolonged success is elusive for the Houston Open. A year or so into the latest downturn in the energy industry, Shell announced that it was not renewing its title sponsorship for the tournament.
Meanwhile, the lack of a title sponsor tends to expose some of the other shortcomings of the tournament.
Although the HGA continues to do a great job of promoting the tournament with Tour players, the reality is that the Tournament Course is a rather boring, flat-land course built in the coastal plain of Texas that bears little resemblance to the hills of Augusta National.
Moreover, the Tournament Course is not fan-friendly. Although the course has some interesting holes, the routing of the course is an unmitigated disaster.
Sixteen of the course's holes are separated from the 1st and 18th holes, the practice facilities, and the clubhouse by a half-mile walk along and over an unsightly drainage ditch. Because of that long trek, some fans at the tournament never venture beyond the 1st and 18th holes and the adjoining practice facilities.
Also, the Tournament Course is located far away from Houston's quality hotels and other accommodations that attract Tour players and visitors to golf tournaments. Meanwhile, The Woodlands has developed the Houston area's best destination resort, along with a beautiful downtown river walk area dotted with quality restaurants, entertainment venues, shops, and hotels.
One can only imagine how much the Houston Open would have benefited from close access to those amenities had the HGA and The Woodlands Corporation found a way to bridge their differences.
Perhaps those shortcomings are what prompted Houston Mayor Sylvestor Turner's display of nostalgia at the tournament over this past weekend.
Apparently without consulting the HGA, Mayor Turner announced at the tournament that he thought that the Houston Open should return to Memorial Park Golf Course, which has not hosted a Tour event since 1963.
In making that announcement, Mayor Turner overlooked that Memorial Park GC has a tiny clubhouse, nominal practice facilities, virtually no driving range, and no place for public parking. It would require a multi-million dollar investment in improvements constructed over several years before Memorial Park GC could even be considered as a host for a Tour event.
The bottom line is that such an investment is not going to happen.
Which brings us back to the question — what is going to become of the Houston Open in its post-Shell crossroads?
Participation by top Tour players has lagged a bit in recent years, but this year's tournament attracted four of the top 10 in the Official World Golf Rankings and 10 of the top 25. That's comparable to what other Tour events generate that are not a major or a World Golf Association tournament.
And although the Tournament Course is not optimal, the reality is that there are few courses in the Houston area that have the combination of location, facilities, and accessible areas for public parking necessary to host a PGA Tour event.
And one of those is not Memorial Park GC.
With a workable date on the PGA Tour calendar and a serviceable golf course to host the event, my sense is that the HGA — which has been a wonderful steward of the tournament — will find another title sponsor (or multiple sponsors) to replace Shell and continue to hold the tournament at the Golf Club of Houston's Tournament Course.
Sometimes maintaining a pretty good thing well is the best that can be done.
Posted in News - Houston Local, Sports - Golf	| Leave a reply
The Astrodome, Trade-offs and the Public's Revolt
Posted on February 13, 2017 by Tom
Who would have ever thought that the combination of hosting a Super Bowl and dealing with the question of what to do with the Astrodome is teaching us a valuable lesson in economic trade-offs and the declining importance of the mainstream media?
The lesson started just a few days after Houston completed hosting a successful Super Bowl LI weekend.
Even before Houston's leaders were done patting themselves on the back for that effort, the local mainstream media mouthpiece for the Houston Texans — the Houston Chronicle — was already proclaiming the need for Harris County taxpayers to step up and fund millions of dollars of improvements to 16-year old NRG Stadium or else — heaven forbid! — Houston will be excluded from hosting future Super Bowls.
As an aside, not being eligible to host a Super Bowl might be a problem if it was even reasonably clear that the Houston area would suffer economically from not hosting the event.
However, there is substantial doubt that hosting a Super Bowl has any positive economic impact for the host city at all. But you won't hear that information from Houston's political leaders and mainstream media, all of whom revel in the media hubbub that surrounds the Super Bowl.
But back to the story. The Chronicle being the Texans' mouthpiece for spending additional public funds on NRG Stadium is not surprising. Frankly, there aren't many public funding initiatives that the Chronicle opposes, no matter how absurd.
Nevertheless, this particular piece of Chronicle propaganda was surprising because it suggests that the $100 million or so of public funds being allocated to another of the Chronicle's favorite boondoggles — Harris County Judge Ed Emmett's plan to turn the Astrodome into a combination parking garage and nebulous public use facility — would be better used in upgrading NRG Stadium.
Meanwhile, in Austin, Houston area State Senator John Whitmire announced that he is proposing a bill in the Texas Legislature that would require local governments such as Harris County to hold a voter referendum before spending the $100 million in public funds that Judge Emmett wants to spend on his Dome Parking Ramp project.
That announcement hilariously generated several ensuing Chronicle articles fretting that Senator Whitmire's proposal would likely derail Judge Emmett's Dome Parking Ramp project because, well, uh, Harris County citizens already decisively voted against a similar — albeit more expensive — plan for the Dome in 2013.
Darn those pesky voters!
So, by the end of the week, Judge Emmett was publicly blasting Senator Whitmire's proposed bill while Chronicle management was trying to figure out how it had supported public funding of both Judge Emmett's Dome Parking Ramp project and the Texans' plan to use those funds to upgrade NRG Stadium. Houstonians were left holding on to their pocketbooks for dear life.
One of my sage friends commented that it only took building two domed stadiums next to each other and then letting them compete for limited public funding for the Chronicle finally to learn about trade-offs in spending public funds.
What are we to make of all this?
My sense is that the public's skepticism of its local leaders and mainstream media over the Dome is a reflection of the ongoing dynamic that Martin Gurri addresses in his 2014 e-book, The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millenium, which is generating interest in academic circles trying to figure out the unexpected turn of events in the 2016 Presidential election.
In essence, Gurri argues that the exponential increase of information available to the public since 2000 through the internet and social media is fundamentally altering the public's relationships with — and trust of — societal institutions such as government and the mainstream media.
Gurri maintains that political leaders can no longer rely on mainstream media to be the sole filter of the message that the leaders want the public to embrace. Now, the public has innumerable sources of information in which to evaluate a leader's message.
Consequently, the reality is that the public is long past listening to the propaganda of mainstream media outlets in evaluating Judge Emmott's Dome Parking Ramp plan or additional funding for NRG Stadium.
Although most Houstonians revere the Dome, Houstonians now understand that Harris County has spectacularly mismanaged the Dome and that it is a waste of limited public funding to perpetuate that mismanagement. Even if it means the destruction of an iconic structure.
The legacy of Harris County mismanagement of the Dome is long and appalling. The original Dome was always a magnificent baseball stadium first and a rather pedestrian (but dry and comfortable) football stadium second.
But when Bud Adams threatened to move the Oilers from Houston during an economic downturn in the oil and gas industry in the mid-1980's, Harris County Commissioners panicked.
By rolling over for Adams, the Commissioners damaged the Dome as a baseball stadium by adding 15,000 seats, which made the Dome a marginally more attractive football stadium. However, the extra seats required removal of the Dome's exploding centerfield scoreboard and Judge Hofheinz's rightfield apartment, two characteristics of the Dome that made it a truly special baseball park.
And to make matters worse, the Harris County Commissioners received only a 10-year commitment from Adams to continue playing in the Dome in return for making those "improvements." After that term expired, Adams took Nashville's money and moved the Oilers to Tennessee in 1997.
Not surprisingly, the Astros soon tired of playing baseball in a mediocre football stadium. So, the County assisted the Astros in building Minute Maid Park, which opened in downtown Houston in 2000. At the time, County Commissioners made no effort to develop a new plan for the Dome.
Even when Harris County assisted Bob McNair in bringing the NFL back to Houston by financing construction of NRG Stadium next door to the Dome, County Commissioners sat back and had no plan for the Dome.
So, the Harris County Commissioners simply decided to let the Dome rot.
That decision was bad enough. But to compound that mismanagement, the Commissioners ceded effective control over NRG Park — the parking lots and facilities that surround the Dome — to the Texans and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo for substantial portions of each year.
That transfer of control of NRG Park effectively precludes any private business from investing in the Dome. No private business is going to invest in the Dome for an alternative use when it knows that its prospective customers won't be able to use the adjacent parking lots for numerous dates each year.
Even the County's tenants who control NRG Park aren't enthused with Judge Emmott's Dome Parking Ramp plan. The Texans have no use for the Dome and prefer that the space be turned into badly needed parking for NRG Stadium. The Rodeo has been more diplomatic about Judge Emmett's plan, but has made clear that it doesn't really need the additional public use space and is not interested in investing a dime in the plan.
In defense of Judge Emmett, most of Harris County's legacy of mismanagement in regard to the Dome occurred before he became County Judge in 2007. Since that time, he has worked to come up with a plan for the Dome, which is more than can be said for his predecessors. For better or for worse, he has attached his legacy wagon to his Dome Parking Ramp plan.
But here is what Judge Emmett is missing. Through no help of the mainstream media, Houstonians have come to understand that investing over $100 million in the Dome has trade-offs.
As even the Chronicle has noted, investing $100 million in the Dome may mean that NRG Stadium is not updated sufficiently to host a future Super Bowl.
Similarly, spending $100 million in the Dome means that the Harris County Jail — a third world-like hell-hole for decades — will not receive those funds and will continue to be an embarrassment to Houston and a constant source of lawsuits against the County in federal courts.
Likewise, investing $100 million in the Dome means that those funds will not be available for use on badly-needed flood control improvements to protect citizens during Houston's frequent periods of heavy rain.
Finally, spending $100 million on the Dome means that Harris County's legacy of mismanaging the Dome will continue and that Harris County taxpayers will be on the hook for subsidizing that mismanagement in the future.
Given those trade-offs, most Houstonians understand that it's time to move on.
Posted in Economics - Urban Boondoggles, News - Houston Local, Politics - General, Uncategorized	| 2 Replies
My Jeff Bagwell Story
Posted on January 19, 2017 by Tom
Astros legend Jeff Bagwell was finally elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, something that I pointed out should have been a no-brainer over a decade ago.
But Hall of Fame voting is not always rational or even well-informed, so Bags' election is one of those things that is definitely better late than never.
Bagwell endeared himself to Houstonians partly because he was similar to many of us who moved to Houston to start our careers and then ended up making it our home.
As with his long-time teammate and fellow Hall of Famer Craig Biggio, Bags was from the northeast and came to Houston for the first time as a wide-eyed 23-year old in 1991.
Over the years, Bagwell and Biggio embraced Houston and made it their home. Houstonians responded by making Bagwell and Biggio the icons of the Astros franchise.
My first connection with Bagwell was during his remarkable Rookie of the Year season in 1991 when I got to know his father Bob, who sat in the row in front of my Astrodome seats about 20 rows behind the Astros dugout.
However, after that season, I got an opportunity to know Bagwell better. A friend of mine asked me to host a golf game for him, Bagwell, and former Astro Norm Miller at Lochinvar Golf Club, which was my golf club at the time.
So, on a warm November day in 1991, Bagwell, Miller, my friend, and I got together and played a round of golf while walking around Lochinvar. It was Bagwell's first of many rounds that he would eventually play at Lochinvar, where he later became a member.
Golf is a wonderful form of recreation primarily because of its social nature — you can get to know someone reasonably well talking with them while walking around a beautiful pasture for four hours.
That certainly was the case with Bagwell, who is friendly and easy-going. And Norm Miller — who is one of the funniest professional athletes that I've ever met — kept the group loose throughout the round as he shared many witty anecdotes from his ten-year Major League career.
After we had gotten to know each other over a couple of hours on the course, Bags asked me how I became interested in baseball. I replied that I'd been a decent catcher as a youth ballplayer in Iowa, but gravitated toward football in high school because I didn't much like the baseball coach.
In my senior year of high school, I swallowed my dislike of the baseball coach, played that final season of high school baseball, and performed well enough to generate an offer from the University of Iowa baseball coach to walk-on and compete for a spot on Iowa's baseball team.
But at the time, my folks and family were in the process of pulling up our deep Iowa roots and moving to Houston. So, I passed on the walk-on offer and moved with my family to Texas.
My decision was also helped by several games of summer league ball that I played that year with Jim Sundberg, the former University of Iowa catcher who went on to have a fine 16-year MLB career, primarily with the Rangers and the Royals.
Sundberg was so much better than me (as well as every other player in the summer league) that I realized quickly that a future in baseball was not in the cards for me.
After explaining all that, Bagwell asked me: "So, why didn't you walk-on at Iowa?"
You see, ballplayers such as Bagwell and Miller love to play baseball so much that it is pretty much unimaginable to them that someone wouldn't jump at any opportunity to continue playing the game. Miller re-emphasized that point during the round when he told us a hilarious story premised on the question: "Do you know what I would do to be able to play baseball for $100,000 a year?"
At any rate, I replied to Bagwell's question: "I was an O.K. defensive catcher. But to be honest, I was a lousy hitter. I couldn't hit a decent breaking pitch, much less a good one."
Bagwell smiled with a twinkle in his eye and observed:
"That shouldn't have stopped you. No one can really hit a decent breaking pitch."
Congratulations on making the Hall of Fame, Bags. You hit more than a few decent breaking pitches in doing so.
Posted in News - Houston Local, Sports - Astros & Baseball	| Leave a reply
Some of My Favorite Houston-Area Golf Holes
One of my resolutions for 2017 is to blog more, so here we go.
The video below contains photos that I've taken over the years of some of my favorite holes from about a dozen Houston-area golf courses that I've had the privilege of playing.
Houston remains an underrated golf destination. The city has dozens of high-quality public and private courses, and the price of a round on most of those courses is less (and sometimes far less) than the price of a round in traditional golf destinations such as the Carolinas and Florida. Given the vast physical size of the Houston metropolitan area, its courses have delightful variety, from the flatland courses of the coastal plain, to the sloping courses built on the edge of Houston's bayous, and the hillier courses of the north side that are carved out of the East Texas forests.
My Favorite Arnold Palmer Story
Posted on September 26, 2016 by Tom
Arnold Palmer, one of the iconic figures of our time, died on Sunday at the age of 87.
Palmer's story is truly remarkable. Charismatic and dashing, Arnie burst on to the national scene in the mid-1950's just as the age of television was taking hold of American society. Through his lifelong business partnership with the late Mark McCormick of IMG fame, Palmer was instrumental in transforming how professional sports were presented, financed, and viewed throughout the world.
Incredibly, by the time of his death, this humble son of a western Pennsylvania greenskeeper had amassed a net worth of well over a billion dollars.
But what set Arnold Palmer apart from many icons was that he was a genuinely nice man to whom people naturally gravitated.
Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson and Sam Snead may have established professional golf in the United States from the late 1930's through the mid-1950's. But it was Palmer's magnetism that made it popular with the masses during the 1960's.
As a result, it seems as if everyone has a favorite Arnold Palmer story. Here is mine, but some background first.
One of Palmer's numerous accomplishments was his leadership during the 1980's in forming the PGA Tour for senior PGA Tour professionals, which is now called the Champions Tour.
Several years ago, Houston's Champions Tour event — The Insperity Invitational — moved to The Woodlands Tournament Course, which is where the Houston Open PGA Tour stop was played for about 20 years before the Houston Golf Association moved the tournament to a bigger venue at the Golf Club of Houston.
In order to promote interest in The Woodlands event, Insperity and the Champions Tour asked Palmer to play in an exhibition with Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player at the initial Insperity Invitational. Of course, Palmer agreed to do so and continued to participate in the exhibition each year until he was physically unable to do so. The exhibition was a tremendous success and drew thousands of fans to the course for the tournament.
Which gets to my story.
A friend of mine named Dan who lives in The Woodlands used to pilot Palmer's private jet for several years back in the 1980's. Dan eventually moved on to pilot for Continental Airlines for many years, but he and Palmer remained good friends over the years from their many flying experiences together.
However, there is another interesting golf-related tidbit about Dan — he is a dead-ringer for Ben Crenshaw, the popular former University of Texas golfer and PGA Tour professional who still lives in Austin. Dan and I attend the same church and his resemblance with Crenshaw is so strong that I've actually had friends who do not know Dan ask me after church: "Hey, Tom. Was that Ben Crenshaw in church today?"
So, the first year that Arnie came to The Woodlands to play in the Insperity exhibition, Dan went over to The Woodlands Marriott Hotel on The Waterway to greet his old friend and reminisce about old times.
Arnie was happy to see his old friend, so Dan and Arnie plopped down in the lobby of the big hotel to talk. As was typical with Palmer whenever he was in a public place, a steady stream of fans interrupted to ask for his autograph, a photo, or both. Arnie accepted each request graciously and with a big smile.
But after Arnie had accommodated dozens of such requests, a nice-looking middle aged woman approached Dan, not Arnie.
Excuse me," she said to Dan. "Could I ask you a question?"
Being gentlemen, both Dan and Arnie stood up while Dan addressed the nice lady.
"Why, of course," replied Dan.
"I've just got to ask you," said the lady nervously. "Are you Ben Crenshaw? He is my favorite golfer."
Dan smiled at the nice lady. "No, I'm sorry. I'm not Ben Crenshaw. I just look like him."
But then, with the prescience that comes only from being in the presence of someone such as the King, Dan put his arm around Arnie's shoulder and exclaimed to the lady:
"But this is Arnold Palmer!"
Godspeed Arnold Palmer.
The Astrodome as a . . . garage?
Really? This is what over a decade of Astrodome redevelopment plans have come to?
The Astrogarage?
That's not exactly the stuff of grand legacies.
So, here is my unsolicited advice for County leaders.
Rather than continuing to waste time on what to do with the Dome, come up with a solution for the problems that have plagued the Harris County Jail for decades.
I would bet that the County leader who leads the community in finally making the County Jail a reasonably humane place will have a grander and more lasting legacy than the leader who turns the Dome into a garage.
Posted in Economics - Urban Boondoggles, News - Houston Local	| Tagged Astrodome, Harris County Jail	| 4 Replies
A Day in the Life of a Texas Neurosurgeon
Posted on January 8, 2016 by Tom
Posted in Culture, Education, Health Care, News - Med Center	| 1 Reply
NASA Looking Ahead
Posted in Education, News - Houston Local, News - NASA, Science	| 1 Reply
Leon Bridges Tiny Desk Concert
Posted on December 18, 2015 by Tom
Posted in Culture	| Leave a reply
Houston's Bubble Boy
Posted in Education, Health Care, Science	| Leave a reply
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Mueller 'Pitbull' Andrew Weissmann To Head Biden Fundraiser On Zoom | Verity Weekly on A Crushing Defeat for the Enron Task Force in the Enron Broadband Case
Former Top Mueller Lieutenant Will Do 'Fireside Chat' to Raise Money for Joe Biden's Campaign – NewsHub on A Crushing Defeat for the Enron Task Force in the Enron Broadband Case
Former Top Mueller Lieutenant Will Do 'Fireside Chat' to Raise Money for Joe Biden's Campaign – Totally news on A Crushing Defeat for the Enron Task Force in the Enron Broadband Case
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A misfired missile shot at the Rocket | Houston's Clear Thinkers on $20 million for that?
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
How To Make Three Days in Hell Last Three Weeks
By Genevieve Burgess | Miscellaneous | November 2, 2016 |
World Series Game #7 on Fox at 7:30pm ET. As of writing, it appears that this will be happening. I am very sorry if I jinx it for any Cubs fans out there.
Arrow on The CW at 8:00pm ET.
Salem on WGN at 9:00pm ET. Third season premiere. I've heard some rumblings that this and the show WGN has about the Manhattan project are pretty good, but the channel name is literally meaningless to me, so I can never actually find them or remember them. So nice to see that someone's watching. Peak TV is great, but kind of exhausting.
American Horror Story on FX at 10:00pm ET. We're in the bloodbath part of the season, and it's only going to get grosser before it ends.
Rectify on Sundance at 10:00pm ET.
Finally, a 'Woman of the Year' We Can All Get Behind: Bono
What Movies Made You Feel the Most Feelings?


Chevrolet C10 Stepside Pickup 1965 is a hidden Derelicts Car in Need For Speed Payback. This NFS Payback location guide details Where To Find all 5 hidden parts of Chevrolet C10 Stepside Pickup 1965.
Nissan Fairlady 240ZG 1971 is a Hidden Derelicts Car in Need For Speed Payback. Here's Location Guide on Where To Find Nissan Fairlady 240ZG 1971 All 5 Hidden Parts in Need for Speed Payback.
Ford Mustang 1965 is a hidden Derelicts Car in Need For Speed Payback. Here's Location Guide on Where To Find Ford Mustang 1965 All 5 Hidden Parts in Need for Speed Payback.
Watch this graphics comparison video of Star Wars: Battlefront II PS4 Pro vs Xbox One S. There is a startling difference between the two in the interior lightning department.
There is a way to get Star Wars: Battlefront II beta code without pre-ordering the full game. Here's how to get Star Wars: Battlefront II beta without buying full game.
Star Wars: Battlefront II beta is now available for download for those who pre-ordered full version of Star Wars: Battlefront II. The Battlefront II beta will go live for all on October 6, and will end on October 9.
A lot of interesting features of FIFA 18 is missing on Nintendo Switch as compared to other versions i.e. PC, PS4 and Xbox One. FIFA 18 on Nintendo Switch is not a complete game, it's a casual sport game.
DICE revealed PC Specs Requirements for Star Wars: Battlefront II Open Beta. Also, DICE revealed a new trailer of Star Wars: Battlefront II featuring all the maps, modes, and new footage of single-player campaign.
Electronic Arts reveals Need for Speed Payback PC Specs requirement for two settings - Low i.e 720p/30FPS and High i.e. 1080p/60FPS. Also, a new PC gameplay of Need for Speed Payback is released in 4K/60FPS.


As of 2016, Canada is home to an estimated 1.17 million businesses. Nearly 98 percent of these are small, independently owned and operated businesses, of which half reside in Ontario and Quebec.
However, for every new Canadian business that opens its doors in a given calendar year, another one closes its doors for good. What is the reason for such a high rate of closure annually?
One reason is the lack of business liability insurance. In this article, learn more about how business liability insurance protects your company if you are found legally liable for events beyond your individual control as owner-operator.
Let's say you produce a certain product. A customer uses it and gets injured. They pursue your company for damages. Here, general liability will protect your business if you have to go to court or pay out a settlement.
General liability insurance covers your company for four types of events: bodily injury, medical costs, property damage, and slander/libel.
Also, if your company runs as a sole proprietorship or a small partnership that does not afford you as the owner the protection of a legal corporate entity, general liability insurance can protect your personal assets if you need to sign for a business loan, if you have caused someone injury, or if either you or a business partner wishes to depart the company.
General liability can also include a number of specialty endorsements as may be required for your specific industry.
Now let's say you work in a high-risk industry. Court settlements, while rare, can and do bankrupt affected companies.
In this scenario, you may want to take out what is called an umbrella liability insurance policy to protect your company from damages over and above what a general liability policy will extend to cover.
An umbrella policy is especially beneficial if your company does business internationally, runs a fleet of company automobiles, or is involved in more than one type of industry.
Whether your company is for-profit or nonprofit, and regardless of its revenue or total number of employees, you're probably governed by a board of directors. Here, while your directors and officers may do their utmost to protect your company from legal exposure, sometimes even their utmost may not be sufficient to protect them from personal liability.
In this situation, you may find it tough going to attract the kind of top talent you want represented in your board of directors—unless you provide each director and officer with the protection of Directors & Officers liability insurance.
With this type of policy in place, your directors and officers can continue to do their legal due diligence for your company without fear of reprisal on a personal level for actions they take on your company's behalf.
A Directors & Officers liability policy also covers your company both for financial losses and for payment of necessary legal costs incurred as a result of any action one of your directors or officers may take.
Errors & Omissions liability is no longer recommended only for those companies that operate in very high-risk professions (i.e., accountants, lawyers, physicians). In today's litigious society, many businesses can benefit from having this protective policy in place.
has attended training to qualify for their role.
adheres to guidelines outlined by an industry professional association or organization.
operates under a set of provincial laws or regulations.
provides their services professionally on a fee basis.
A basic Errors & Omissions policy will provide coverage up to a moderate level in the case of a breach of contract, an incorrect appraisal, a delay in provision of services, a transmission of advice that was not true or complete, a design defect, and other similar situations.
At Mackay Insurance Brokers, we have proudly served our clients in the Belleville, ON, and surrounding areas for 35 years. When we first opened our doors, we had just a handful of clients. Today, our client list numbers well over 5,000 and is still growing!
Together, our professional staff has amassed more than 165 years of professional insurance industry expertise. As a fellow independent business, we remain committed to helping our clients obtain the most comprehensive and protective business liability insurance coverage at the most competitive rates.
To learn more and receive a FREE quote, you are warmly invited to contact us at 613-966-5740 (1-888-853-5552 long distance) or online.


You all know how much I LOVE Mabel's Labels for my kids' stuff. It's almost time for back to school and both parents and children are counting down the days! Help the little scholars in your life stay organized this school year with Mabel's Labels. Identify clothes, footwear, books, backpacks and more. Best of all, spend $100 and receive a free package of Write Away labels now through 8/31.
There are only a few more days to take advantage of this amazing offer, so don't miss out!


text:
<?php

namespace Anax\HTMLForm;

/**
 * Anax base class for wrapping sessions.
 *
 */
class CFormSignup extends \Mos\HTMLForm\CForm
{
    use \Anax\DI\TInjectionaware,
        \Anax\MVC\TRedirectHelpers;

    /**
     * Constructor
     *
     */
    public function __construct()
    {
        parent::__construct([], [
            'acronym' => [
                'type'        => 'text',
                'label'       => 'Användarnamn:',
                'required'    => true,
                'validation'  => ['not_empty'],
            ],
            'name' => [
                'type'        => 'text',
                'label'       => 'Namn:',
                'required'    => true,
                'validation'  => ['not_empty'],
            ],
            'email' => [
                'type'        => 'email',
                'label'       => 'E-post:',
                'required'    => true,
                'validation'  => ['not_empty', 'email_adress'],
            ],
            'password' => [
                'type'        => 'password',
                'label'       => 'Lösenord:',
                'required'    => true,
                'validation'  => ['not_empty'],
            ],
            'submit' => [
                'class'     => 'signupButton',
                'type'      => 'submit',
                'value'     => 'Skapa användare',
                'callback'  => [$this, 'callbackSubmit'],
            ],

            'reset' => [
                'class'     => 'signupButton',
                'type'      => 'reset',
                'value'  => 'Rensa',
            ],
        ]);
    }

    /**
     * Customise the check() method.
     *
     * @param callable $callIfSuccess handler to call if function returns true.
     * @param callable $callIfFail    handler to call if function returns true.
     */
    public function check($callIfSuccess = null, $callIfFail = null)
    {
        return parent::check([$this, 'callbackSuccess'], [$this, 'callbackFail']);
    }

    /**
     * Callback for submit-button.
     *
     */
    public function callbackSubmit()
    {
        date_default_timezone_set('Europe/Berlin');
        $now = date('Y-m-d H:i:s');

        $gravatar = 'http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/' . md5(strtolower(trim($this->Value('email')))) . '.jpg';

        $this->user = new \Anax\Users\User();
        $this->user->setDI($this->di);

        //Is the acronym already used by anoter user?
        $isAcronymTaken = $this->user->query()
            ->where('acronym = ?')
            ->execute(array($this->Value('acronym')));

        //If acronym is not taken, create new user in database
        if (empty($isAcronymTaken)) {
            $addUser = $this->user->save([
                'acronym' => $this->Value('acronym'),
                'email' => $this->Value('email'),
                'name' => $this->Value('name'),
                'gravatar' => $gravatar,
                'password' => password_hash($this->Value('password'), PASSWORD_DEFAULT),
                'created' => $now,
            ]);

            //If created successfully
            if ($addUser) {
                return true;
            }
            else {
                return false;
            }

        //If username is taken, inform the user
        } else {
            $this->AddOutput("
Användarnamn upptaget
");
            return false;
        }
    }

    /**
     * Callback What to do if the form was submitted?
     *
     */
    public function callbackSuccess()
    {

        $this->redirectTo('login');

    }

    /**
     * Callback What to do when form could not be processed?
     *
     */
    public function callbackFail()
    {
        $this->AddOutput("
Misslyckades att skapa användare.
");
        $this->redirectTo();
    }
}


text:
Two Point Hospital Review
Two Point Hospital is the spiritual successor to management games in the style of Theme Hospital and Mall Tycoon. In it, you manage a variety of hospitals across the fictitious Two Point County, while listening to Two Point Radio talk about the two Pointy Mountains from which the county derives its name. Just for added flavor, the developers themselves are Two Point Studios. They get a lot of mileage out of that name. Despite their apparent infatuation with their own nomenclature, it seems that publisher Sega picked a winner with this up-and-coming developer.
The premise is simple: Two Point County's health network is in shambles, and you, the intrepid hospital manager you are, are in charge of fixing it. Gameplay starts off slowly, allowing you to unlock a handful of offices and treatments that your doctors and nurses can perform. As you work your way through objectives, more and more of these unlock until you get a Research office, which allows you to develop new treatment techniques at your own pace.
You accrue money by leveraging these techniques on the myriad patients that walk through your door. You then use these funds to improve your hospital through the addition of new treatment facilities, decorations, and plots until you've met all the objectives for that map. If you wish, you can keep playing with that hospital for fun, or move on to a new hospital with new quirks and objectives.
JUST A LITTLE UNWELL
While the whole title exudes charm and character, the standout act here is the line-up of diseases. During your journey through Two Point County, you'll treat such harrowing ailments as Grey Anatomy, Mock Star, Lazy Bones, and Denim Genes. Each of these has their own difficulties in diagnosing and methods of treatment. You'll need a smattering of doctors and nurses to run the machines, and in turn, those doctors and nurses will require a salary of some kind each month. You'll also need a group of janitors to keep the place clean, a group that needs payment as well. Finally, someone has to see to it that your patients can check in at reception, and you'll have to pay the assistant at reception, too.
The crux of the game, as with most management games of its ilk, is the delicate balance between income and expenditure. Every month bills come due and, hopefully, you've treated and diagnosed enough patients over the past 30-ish days to cover them. The key, I've found, it not necessarily to avoid debt, but rather to avoid loss. Debt in this entry is not the end, as it only prevents you from buying new things. The game only ends should you acquire $300,000 in debt. Rather, the true enemy is unprofitability.
The only issue is that revenue streams are not consistent. You earn money through the treatment of patients. Treatments, regardless of success, net you the most money. Diagnostics net you a fraction of what treatments cost, but are still a vital part of the hospital ecosystem. Each patient requires a certain degree of diagnosis before they can be sent to treatment. If a patient runs the gamut of your diagnostic offices and still comes up under that threshold, you can either wait and build more diagnostic offices, chance a treatment with diminished success chance, or send them home. Likewise, if you diagnose a patient with a disease that you don't have the facilities to treat, you can either have them wait until you do, or send them home. In both cases, failing to build the requisite office or sending the patient home in time will lower your reputation.
I'M SURE YOU'VE NOTICED BY NOW...
...This game has a lot of moving parts. Much like in Dungeon Keeper, you can only abstractly control any given variable. Patient inflow increases whenever your prestige and reputation increase, thigns that are tied to how many and what rooms and decorations you have in your hospital, as well as how many staff members you have. Each room can only service one patient at a time and requires a staff member of some stripe to operate. As such, more patients doesn't necessarily mean more money. Frequently, you'll run into an issue where your patients bog down your staff and interrupt your cash flow. Worse yet, as patients have a health meter that slowly ticks down the longer they're in your hospital, many patients start dying, tanking your reputation. Theoretically, firing staff and selling items will allow you to equalize and save yourself, but this takes so much time that it's almost always better to just back out to the menu and restart the hospital.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is poor game design. Two Point Hospital punishes you adequately for expanding too quickly. The issue is, however, how this information is displayed. Every month you're given a short demonstration of how much money you made and how much you spent, and the difference between the two of them. That's about it. You'll be shown how much you're paying your staff and "other" expenses, whatever that means, but only for previous months. There's no running tally of how much money you made already in the current month or how much your staff currently costs you.
POSITIVELY CHARMING
None of the above issues are particularly condemning. There's enough good in Two Point Hospital to justify playing it. The title is positively funny, especially the radio broadcasters. Every time one of them chimed in between music breaks, I expected multiple repeats of their voice lines. There are a few that repeat, particularly because they comment on celebrities and other visitors to your hospital, but more often than not the broadcasters have a variety of voice lines to offer. The music, however, is innocuous at best and repetitious at worst.
The visuals match the charm of the entry as well. Everything is rendered in a sort of candy-coated, soft-edge style, much like a Saturday morning cartoon. Animations are exaggerated and expressive, ranging from receptionists laying down from boredom while they check patients in to patients struggling to free themselves from the fluid extractor when it draws their blood. Altogether, the personality Two Point Hospital exudes is enough to keep me coming back for more, in spite of the information issues and bugs I encountered.
COLD BUG
Two Point Hospital is not without its bugs. The most prevalent one I found was hitching while it autosaves, which happens semi-frequently. Thankfully, there's an option to turn down autosave frequency. The worst bug I found was when one of my patients died during diagnosis, but didn't clear out of the hospital. Pearl Brick will be forever immortalized in one of my hospitals, eternally trying to queue into a General Practitioner's Office. At other times characters were unable to navigate places, despite nothing impeding them. However, these issues were few and far between, and usually fixable by picking up a staff member and moving them about, or kicking people out of rooms by editing them. Except for the immortal Pearl Brick, of course.
The Verdict: Great
Two Point Hospital is a charming romp in which you manage a pretend-hospital with challenging mechanics and clever make-believe illnesses. It's a meditative entry full of personality that's sure to please any fan of the management genre, despite some of its more negative quirks.
Written by	John Gerritzen
Published in Strategy
https://opnoobs.com/reviews/strategy/two-point-hospital#sigProIdbdfa1b79cf
John Gerritzen
John Gerritzen is a programmer by education, author by hobby, and game critic by occupation. While he usually favors RPGs, he will play anything that engages him narratively or mechanically. When he's not playing games for fun or profit, he's usually reading or watching anime.
Esports Life Tycoon Early Access Review
Hell Let Loose Early Access Review
Cooking Simulator Review


text:
Bermuda Monetary Authority's Cox: Solvency II equivalence will make us a more attractive jurisdiction
The head of the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) says Bermuda is making itself more attractive to international business by becoming Solvency II equivalent, reports the Royal Gazette.
During a panel discussion at the Bermuda Captives Conference yesterday, BMA CEO, Jeremy Cox told an audience that while Bermuda regulators have been pushing ahead to be ready to meet the European Union's Solvency II equivalence requirements, other domiciles have not — and that may work to Bermuda's benefit.
"People are still trying to understand the potential impact of what we've done in terms of equivalence and what impact it will have on the sector. So we've got to continue to do a good job of communicating the reality as opposed to the perceptions," Mr Cox said. "We have some mischief makers out there — some competitor jurisdictions — that wish people to believe that Bermuda's following a path that will destroy its captive sector. The reasons are obvious why one would do that but certainly, as I mentioned before, we're not planning on doing that."
Solvency II is the name given to new EU regulations for the insurance industry that will introduce enhanced capital and corporate governance requirements. Captive insurers, which largely provide self-insurance for their parent corporations, have argued their case in Brussels that they should not be subject to the same stringent regulations as commercial re/insurers covering third-party risks.
The Europeans have suggested that they will consider "segmented" equivalence for Bermuda, that would allow captives to be treated differently.
Laurence Bird, president of the Bermuda Insurance Managers Association (BIMA) said he thinks not complying with the new regulations will hurt other competing domiciles.
"In terms of a couple of mischief makers — or noisy friends of ours in Cayman and Guernsey, specifically, they've both put their flags in the sand and said, 'We're not going to be Solvency II equivalent, look at Bermuda what are they doing? Why are you going there? You should come to us.' Now I think that's going to backfire, but that's my personal view," Mr Bird said.
The panel discussion, which focused on Bermuda, Solvency II equivalence and its effects on the re/insurance and captive sectors of the insurance industry had a recurring theme: reputation and credibility, something all on the panel agreed are Bermuda's strong suits.
"I can't speak to the strategies that Cayman and Guernsey have adopted but I can refer you to my comments earlier highlighting the benefits of having a seat at the table, the benefits of being trusted and the benefits of being credible," Mr Cox said. "Those out there in the industry, those regulators that may be out there that think that they can hide under a radar — those days are gone. And, in my view, it's far better to put yourself in a position where you are trusted or credible and can be relied on because remember equivalence means a lot."
"You really can't put a price tag on credibility," said panellist Leila Madeiros, deputy director of the Association of Bermuda's Insurers and Reinsurers (ABIR). "I think it's so significant that Bermuda was selected to be reviewed and assessed in the first wave with Switzerland and Japan. There is an opportunity in the captive market for equivalence. Not if, but when Bermuda is deemed equivalent, we may see increased interest in captives from Europe because then they can base themselves in Bermuda without a penalty."
"This goes far beyond just insurance," Mr Cox said. "It's almost like Bermuda's trying or has achieved a sort of rebranding that represents credibility and high quality.
"I think that we are on a path that really will put this country in a tremendous position, not only from an insurance perspective, but also from some of these other industries like the fund sector. So I hope you have your teams in place to take some of this business that I believe is going to be coming."


text:
Hollande acknowledges threat of Euro 2016 attack
The country is on high alert for possible terror strikes during the football extravaganza opening on Friday, following the jihadist attacks in Paris in January and November last year.
Paris 05 June, 2016 23:51 IST
"This (attack) threat exists," he told public radio France Inter. "But we must not be daunted. "We must do everything to ensure that the Euro 2016 is a success." - REUTERS
French President Francois Hollande acknowledged on Sunday there was a threat of an attack during the Euro 2016 football championship but said the country must not be intimidated.
He also issued an appeal for a halt to transport strikes that threaten to disrupt the month-long football extravaganza opening on Friday.
"This (attack) threat exists," he told public radio France Inter. "But we must not be daunted.
"We must do everything to ensure that the Euro 2016 is a success."
The United States warned last week of the risk of attacks, with the French stadiums hosting the matches but also the so-called fan zones where spectators will be gathering in large numbers potential targets.
France has also been in the grip of nationwide protests and transport strikes over controversial labour reforms, with the sense of malaise compounded by flooding in the Paris region.
A final round of negotiations is due to take place between French rail operator SNCF and the government in a bid to break a five-day strike that has blocked trains and created transport chaos across the country.
And Air France pilots are threatening to start a four-day strike on June 11, when the Euro tournament is in full swing, and a major protest is planned in Paris on June 14.
"No-one would understand if the trains or the planes... prevented the smooth transport... of spectators."


text:
Category: Alice Hunter
A Serial Killers Wife. Alice Hunter
Beth has it all, a lovely daughter, Poppy; a loving husband, Tom; and the perfect village life where she runs her own coffee shop.
Then one day Tom's late from work and by the time he gets home two police officers are waiting to talk to him. Taking him to the station he doesn't return till late and he tells his wife he'll explain everything the next day after work. But he doesn't get the chance because he's arrested, for the suspected murder of his ex girlfriend 8 years ago.
Life begins to unravel. She knows Tom likes to be a bit dominant in the bedroom but he's no killer………is he
Dealing with the aftermath of Toms arrest in the village, the gossipy wives, the other kids at Poppy's school, and the influx of journalists is making her life unbearable.
But not as unbearable as the elements of doubt that start to creep into her thoughts.
Written in the first person, from both Beth and Toms point of view, and occasionally a mystery 3rd person, this book is addictive.
The story isn't as simple as it sounds, but to go any deeper would mean too many spoilers.
Beth is the kind of character that you can't help but have empathy and sympathy for. Tom is a character you won't trust from the start.
And who is the third person
Alice Hunter is great at building tension in the way she writes, even when the story is apparently taking a bit of a breather there is an underlying fizz of electricity.
Don't get me wrong, this book never really takes its foot of the accelerator, and it goes no where near the brake, it just cruises along at just the right speed all the way through.
I really enjoyed this one.
Pages: 400. Publisher: Avon. Publishing Date: 27th May 2021
Author nkadams999Posted on February 22, 2021 Categories Alice Hunter, Avon, Avon Books, book blog, Book review, books, Crime fiction, Crime novel, Psychological Thriller, sisters in crimeTags Book Blog, book review, Books, Crime Fiction, Crime Fiction Lover, Crime novel, Crime Thriller, good read, Must Read, netgalley, Psychological Thriller, Recommended Book, ThrillerLeave a comment on A Serial Killers Wife. Alice Hunter


text:
Q: How to pass array reference from function? I want to pass value of array in function by reference

*

*My first try with variable (it works well):
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int input(int &);
int main()
{
    int a;
    input(a);
    cout << "the value : " << a << endl;
    system("pause");
    return 0;
}

int input(int &a)
{
    cin >> a;
}

*But when i change a to a[] like in the following code, it
doesn't work
#include <iostream.h>
using namespace std;

int input(int &[]);
int main()
{
    int a[2], i;
    input(a);
    for(i=0;i<=2;i++)
    {
        cout << a << endl;
    }

    system("pause");
    return 0;
}

int input(int &a[])
{
    int i;
    for(i=0;i<=2;i++)
    {
        cin >> a[i];
    }
}

A: This record
int &[]

denotes an array of references that is forbided in C++.
Declare the function the following way
void input( int ( & )[2] );
Also you are using invalid range of indeces. The valid range is [0, 1]. So the function will look as
void input( int ( &a )[2] );
{
   for ( size_t i = 0; i < 2; i++ ) std::cin >> a[i];
}

Also you could define the function the following way
void input( int a[], size_t n );
{
   for ( size_t i = 0; i < n; i++ ) std::cin >> a[i];
}

and call it as
input( a, 2 );

A: It should be:
void input(int (&a)[2]);

or simply
void input(int (&)[2]);

But in function definition, you need also to give the array name:
void input(int (&a)[2]) {...}

You need to use (&array) to clarify to the compiler that you want a reference to an array, rather than the (invalid) array of references int &array[2];.
And call it like this:
input(a);

A: The syntax for returning and taking array references is:
template<typename T, size_t N>
T(&do_nothing(T(&arg)[N]))[N]
{
    return arg;
}

Or, more simply with a templated type alias:
template<typename T, size_t N> using arrayref = T(&)[N];

template<typename T, size_t N>
arrayref<T, N> do_nothing(arrayref<T, N> arg)
{
    return arg;
}

When you have defined the previous type alias template, it becomes very simple to work with array references, e.g. This is how you would declare a function that takes a reference to an array of two integers:
void give_me_two_ints(arrayref<int, 2> two_ints);

To be used like:
int a[] = {1,2,3};
for(auto const& i : do_nothing(a)) std::cout << i << "\n";

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


↑ Mills, Mills (May 10, 2010). The Twelve Blessings of Christmas. Thomas Nelson Inc. p. 54. ISBN 9780529124319.
↑ Gassmann, Günther; Larson, Duane H.; Oldenburg, Mark W. (April 4, 2001). Historical Dictionary of Lutheranism. Scarecrow Press. p. 87.


text:
Judge won't block speed cameras that issued 12,000 tickets
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A judge has declined to temporarily block a speed camera program in Providence, Rhode Island, that issued more than 12,000 tickets in 33 days.
Some of the ticketed drivers filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the city last month. They had asked the judge for a restraining order to prevent the city from issuing new tickets or collecting on existing ones. The judge denied that request Tuesday.
WPRI-TV reports that the city will update its violation notices to address one of the lawsuit's allegations. The suit says the notices do not properly cite the speeding laws that drivers are accused of violating. A spokesman for the mayor says the city believes the summonses were clear but they will be updated to be more specific.


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