I am a melodeon player, as well as a computer scientist at a university in London. We would to hear like your thoughts on the following.
Please have a listen, and if you like, tell us what you think about the idea, quality, etc.
Also, perhaps some locals would like to help us put together a session of such computer generated tunes?
# Posted by Bob Sturm 3 years ago .
Sounds interesting but for me the percussion is too annoying for more than a brief listen.
that's what I thought, too. I'd loose the percussion and speed up the tempo a little on you tunes.
Neat! I think what it is lacking is the artistic conversation that usually exists around the composition of a work of art. It may be able to create Irishy tunes but its doing so essentially as an outsider albeit one with a deep understanding of the span of Irish tunes. There is no context beyond that though. Now limiting the inputs would be an interesting way to direct the random creation of tunes inside of particular context. Then the act of selecting and modifying those tunes that make sense would create real art.
Something about the tonality and beat of it all reminds me of a walk through China town. Personally, if I were writing a program to generate Irish style music, I would want to generate the one tune that surpasses all of the rest not another 40,000 of lesser nature. I could go so far as to say that I could write a unix shell script to go through all of the reels in the 17,000+ ABC files on my computer and find the highest incidence of a particular note for each position within a bar progressing through an entire typical reel structure and generate a tune of the most common notes. But I'm won't. I bet it would sound horrid, trite and lack the involvement and tradition associated with tunes that exist now. Still, the effort of the computer program to generate the tunes is pretty impressive and I suspect it would be even better if some "randomization" akin to drinking a few pints were introduced into the process.
Nothing against the music or the the imaginative idea, but I can't help thinking of the 100 chimpanzees randomly plonking away at their typewriters, trying to create some Shakespeare.
Jeez. A computer that noodles. That's all we need.
What motivated the selection of the learning algorithm? It seems like a simple n-gram or marlon chain type algorithm would have been much more natural than neural networks.
I listened to a couple and they sound — weird. I mean the melodies themselves, not the production. Nothing going on. I think you'd have to get a good musician or two to actually play a few of these for them to make sense, if they can make any sense. But for that you'd have to either pay someone, or maybe get someone on this board to do one up.
Thanks everyone! Your comments are invaluable.
I agree with Scott that the music composition is far less putting symbols on paper and far more conversation, practice, and interaction within a community. The system doesn't even know about playability, ornamentation, harmonies, instrumentation, etc. So, it is by definition a very naive one; but judging from the proportion of things it has generated which have an identifiable key, phrasing, structure, etc., I think it is more successful than rolling dice (or typing monkeys). :) It also titles the pieces, and most often generates correct ABC.
I am not attempting to create new and "better" trad, or "surpassing" what already exists. I don't know what that would mean. :) At the heart of this research are the following questions: can this artificial system produce sensible models of the conventions underlying the music at The Session? And can we measure the sensibility of these models by using them to generate new material?
Frank: Indeed, modeling by n-grams and markov chains are other possibilities, and can provide suitable comparison models. For instance, here is one discussion contrasting n-grams and RNN: http://nbviewer.ipython.org/gist/yoavg/d76121dfde2618422139 The inputs to our RNN are characters (ABC).
Thank you all! You have great experience in the music here, judging by all your transcriptions, commentary, and regular participation. You have the "golden ears" that can provide the expertise we need in future experiments. (I am a mere noodler on my pokerwork. :) If any of you live in London and would like to chat, or if you want to be involved, please send me a mail!
# Posted by Chad Merkley 3 years ago .
Hi Chad. Thanks for reading!
The system knows only what we feed it, i.e., a bunch of ABC. It seems to have learned that certain notes occur with other notes, that certain notes occur at the end of phrases (resolution), that phrases tend to be 8 measures long and repeated, etc. It is almost magic how it works.
To make it generate a piece from its model, we have it produce one symbol at a time. These symbols are fed back to it, which is a form of memory. It starts by producing a "T: " and it makes up a title, then it produces a "M: " and chooses a meter, then produces a "L: " and chooses the length of the quaver, then it produces a "K: " and picks a key, and then it begins to write the notes, barlines, repeats, numbered endings, etc etc. We are not constraining it or correcting its mistakes. We have not hard coded it to understand scales, melodies, etc. It is only manipulating the ABC characters it has learned. In "The Doutlace," it actually repeats the figure with which it begins. It also ends the turn on the root. We have not taught it to do these things; it seems to have learned it by itself from the tunes at The Session.
By the way, what do you think of my "corrections" to "The Doutlace"? I have been playing it for the past few days and find it fits well under my fingers. (G/C pokerwork).
Damn, I was going to do that! No seriously, very interesting. I don't know too much about those deep search algos (except for the recent popular science stuff about that google "deep dream" and all)… so you didn't give it any guidelines at all did you?
The thing is, most of the time the "tunes" just sound like going nowhere. Maybe the results would be better if you first fed the computer with some common phrases (there aren't *that* many actually) and train it to concatenate them in a reasonable way, given a certain tune type and maybe mode and key.
"…Please have a listen, and if you like, tell us what you think about the idea, quality, etc…."
Tell me this: Are you lads listening to all 29-thousand-s0omething tunes yourselves? I'll bet you're not. Maybe your next project can be an application that will do the listening.
"We have extracted from the *great* tune collection at The Session some 23,000 tunes"
Everyone knows you start with Dow's 60. Why not begin with an established foundation & build on it.
You merely took the express elevator to the penthouse & now you're walking your way down the stairwell.
Remember your penance too ~ 5 trad tunes for every computer generated composition.
Hi Bob, Re my earlier response:- I realise that your design is far more complex than the completely random typing of Chimps, and I apologise if my image seemed derogatory to your efforts. My original thought on that analogy though was more that I love the idea of creating the possibility of eventually finding something that you couldn't have ever imagined in the first place. This is an interesting post and I hope you intend to keep us informed in the future. I just wonder though,… why did you pick this particular music?
So, are these "tunes" going to be the basis for copyright lawsuits? I'm not sure which way they would go, particularly as perhaps they might be considered derivative works (from the input)? Or may we take them and adapt them royalty-free?
Oh yeah, the drumming needs to go. Totally unnecessary & a really bad fit.
Frankly when I listened to the samples the percussion was the only bit which may have redeeming value. The tunes, as they were, weren't. Tunes that is.
Basically it's crude turntabling without the sense of a musician familiar with the significance of various motifs & phrases.
This has to be a windup, they're terrible!!
This windup begins with the input criteria. What is that criteria?
AB Steen: Duly noted! :) What do you mean "Dow"? Is that a particular collection? Is this Dr. Dow (https://thesession.org/members/4763)? As for your comment of a lack of musicianship, I completely agree. These are really raw materials, and certainly there are many "losers" in the output. I try not to say the pieces are "composed"; they are generated, and then need composition if they are ever to become music.
Why we picked this particular music? 1) the plethora of ABC data makes it very attractive; 2) the music has identifiable characteristics and goals; 3) I like playing it!
kkrell: No nefarious intellectual property aims here! Your question of authorship is a real good one, but adapt away if you find something you like.
d>j<f and AB Steen: Not a windup, but there is no guarantee of quality! :) At best, our system is a very poor student shifting characters on paper with an incomplete understanding of the rules — but enough unerstanding to produce proper ABC.
Ah fair dues to you Bob - it's an interesting idea and project, even if a bit meaningless at the end of the day in terms of humans and music.
Regardless of the results, I think this is a fascinating project!
Bob, I'm curious, did you use the CSV files from here for the tunes?
Or were you making multiple API calls?
As an extension of your project it would be interesting to have some players learn a few of the computer-generated tunes and play them along side authentic tunes at a session to see if people could hear the difference.
# Posted by sligo cousin 3 years ago .
I thought about doing this once, using Markov chains (as already alluded to above) instead of a machine learning method. Alas my actual PhD work got in the way.
It's interesting, but to me the take-home point is that phrasing is all-important - some of the tunes may have taken popular patterns or whatever, but ABC alone as it stands doesn't really encode stresses, volume, phrasings, and without that I don't think you'll get a tune to pass the ITM equivalent of the Turing test without that.
Jeremy: Looks like multiple calls to the API. Here is the code my colleague used: https://github.com/jfsantos/trad-rnn. Thank you for maintaining and making the data here so accessible!
Sligo: Indeed, that is one direction in which to go. It would be nice to have a mechanism to feed back to the model the "errors", like the problems I fix in "The Doutlace" (https://highnoongmt.wordpress.com/2015/08/11/deep-learning-for-assisting-the-process-of-music-composition-part-1/). It's future work. Also, what may sound fine synthesized may not play fine given the limitations of the instrument.
This sounds like evil devil work. A database of infinite computer generated tunes? It's madness! I hope the end goal you all have in mind is something other than contributing to the already infinite repertoire. My head already wants to explode at the thought.
# Posted by Jerone, LoM 3 years ago .
There might be some good in data mining a lot of ABC data. That's why I said he should get away from just predicting the next note and actually look at an analysis of 2 bar patterns.
Interesting, but the results sound rather dull.
And the drummer… take him out behind the woodshed!
Whatever made you include that drumming in your ABC to MIDI conversion?
I think your algorithm suffers from the same problem as a similar project many years ago at the University of Uppsala, where a guy let a computer generate pieces of music which were supposed to be in Mozart's style. They had a superficial "mozarty" feeling to them, but… The main problem was that it just didn't sound like Mozart. This was pointed out at the dissertation by Sweden's foremost expert in Mozart's music, much to the dismay of the author and his colleagues.
hnorbeck - great comment as I was searching for some Mozart on my PC the other day and dug up a program I'd completely forgotten about. It takes Mozart's well-known set of tunes for musical dice - basically you throw a number and then look up the phrase it generates. Not random exactly as Mozart has "programmed" the snippets of music, but randomly put together by the dice (or computer in this case).
Don't know if it works on a tablet / phone - oh, and refresh the page if you get more than one tune going at once. Maybe there's a less flaky version somewhere.
# Posted by Mark Harmer 3 years ago .
Thank you all again for your helpful comments!
Nate: That is a good idea to remove the factor of key. That would hopefully increase the generalisation of the model. As for the system predicting the next note, it is a little more complex because of the recurrent nature of the model, as well as the memory. Every note it picks has implications for the dozens to follow, so it is in a sense picking several notes at once. Sometimes it is noodling, but sometimes it is producing phrases, like in "The Doutlace". However, I agree with you that doing this correctly will involve working at several time scales at the same time.
Jerone: At the heart of our research are the following questions: Can this artificial system produce sensible models of the conventions underlying the music at The Session? And can we measure the sensibility of these models by using them to generate new material?
hnorbeck: Yes, the drummer is a bit aggressive. :)))) Or rather, my ABC to bodhran conversion is unsatisfactory. It seems our decisions in the synthesis of the generated ABC is unfortunately distracting from the underlying material that we wish to judge. I am going to fix that now, and resynthesize everything without the timing issues.
The work of which you speak (generating Mozart) is from 1995, and much progress has been made since then. For instance, David Cope has done fantastic work in building a system that can emulate the styles of many composers (http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/cope/mp3page.htm). The field of meta-creation (http://metacreation.net/) is pushing the boundaries even further.
"Jerone: At the heart of our research are the following questions: Can this artificial system produce sensible models of the conventions underlying the music at The Session? And can we measure the sensibility of these models by using them to generate new material? "
What would be the real-world use for this?
"Every note it picks has implications for the dozens to follow, so it is in a sense picking several notes at once. Sometimes it is noodling, but sometimes it is producing phrases," - You need to have your algorithm better model the process for creating a musical phrase. Every note is not equal. This is probably why sometimes you get a phrase and sometimes you get noodling. Yes, you need to be working on more than one level of time. but you also need to be working with this more like a language. These small phrases that recur over and over in tunes are the vocabulary of this music. Its the same with other styles. If you want to sound like Irish music, you have to "say" things that are idiomatic. That is what an extensive catalogue of the repeated small phrases in the ABC tunes will give you: your dictionary of "words" and "phrases" to then put together in a larger form to generate the tune.
BTW, I think this work you're doing is very interesting and if you could find a way to model the process of composing tunes, it really would be fascinating stuff.
"Can this artificial system produce sensible models of the conventions underlying the music at The Session?"
Nate Ryan, that to my mind is a good observation. It's what the Mozart Dice game is doing in a sense: choosing phrases which are already written but combining them in new ways.
From the more computer-generated side, I had a listen to some of the Bach-like generated music on David Cope's page linked to by Bob Sturm at http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/cope/mp3page.htm and while very nice to listen to, it somehow also seems very sterile. I found it just unsatisfying but can't put my finger on why. But one thing I've learned from playing (for example) the "real" works of J.S. Bach, is that he constantly amazes you in doing things you didn't expect and that satisfies at a deep level. The computer-generated stuff, not so much. At the moment. But fascinating research all the same, if it gives an insight into the process.
@Bob Sturn, have been having fun on your wordpress site playing some of these tunes. I wonder if there's mileage in having a link that just grabs you one of the compositions at random so you can listen / download / have a go at playing. That might lead to some interesting discoveries? A sort of crowd-sourcing? Maybe that's what you're getting at. It's intriguing enough - have been enjoying playing particularly The Doutlace on the harp. PS unless I missed it (I confess I went straight to the music) does it generate the titles too?
like so many said, it's not really going anywhere. Music is about question and answering, building up and releasing tension, creating emotions (grief anger relief speed relaxation) and this like Nate Ryan said within phrases of two to four up to eight measures. Also the B part has to be an answer or a turn of the A part, a prolongation of the A part, not a new tune.
That's what music is about for me, that's what give people their strong emotions about it.
Nevertheless a composer could pick nice ideas out of it and start working with it to create a really beautiful session tune.
Thanks again for your great comments and ideas.
Ergo: Good question! Machines that learn from data have a variety of uses, from autocomplete on your phone, to medical diagnostics, and everything in between. The field is called "machine learning," "data mining," or more broadly "artificial intelligence." (One buzzword you might have heard is "big data.") We start by assuming there to be a process that produced the data, and that it is not just noise. Now, can we make an artificial system uncover that process automatically? It may be that we are having an artificial system process a bunch of ABC data, but the bigger picture is that it can be any data. A major problem is knowing whether a system has found real aspects of that process. How can we know? Does the model really match the process? Or, how well does it match the process? By producing more data from that model, we can perform a sanity check, and learn how to improve the system (some of which you experts have pointed out!). That is what I am most interested in here. We can also do interesting things like, "autocomplete" for music composition (https://highnoongmt.wordpress.com/2015/08/15/deep-learning-for-assisting-the-process-of-music-composition-part-4/), generating or remixing music to fit people's needs (http://www.jukedeck.com/), and so on. There are also applications to musicology (http://dml.city.ac.uk/), flexible search and retrieval of music data (http://www.shazam.com/), automatic music transcription (imagine going from a YouTube video to ABC!), and so on.
AB Steen: Indeed, I agree with you 100%. Composing music requires many more things than writing symbols. Painting requires many more things than making marks and adding colors.
Mark and Nate: Thank you! The system does generate the titles! That is a very funny aspect of it. I would be happy to share all the ABC generated. If you find a tune in here (http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~sturm/research/RNNIrishTrad/Session/), let me know and I will post the ABC. I am interested in the process of "correcting" the algorithm output. Or email me (b.sturm@qmul.ac.uk) and we can chat offline.
Old discussions here have included the idea that a lot of the interest a tune comes from it not going where we expected but somewhere else that we like.
With a "question-answer, question-different answer" structure we want the second answer to be consistant with the first one but not quite predictable.
What we expect comes in large part from what we have heard before. Your machine has some information about what we expect a tune is the idiom to sound like. Can it recognise that the same information carries what we *don't* want to hear in a competely new tune ?
It may have been said above, but I wonder if given half of the tunes (not settings) at random it could come up with anything in the other half.
Dow's 60 is https://thesession.org/sessions/1311#comment241459; other essential tune lists have been posted over the years, but this one has stuck. Starting with a body of standards as your learning corpus could make the tunes more likely to sound authentic. A bigger corpus than 60 might help, like, the several hundred in https://thesession.org/discussions/110/ .
TheSession.org contains ABC from many authors with more or less knowledge of the ABC standard and different approaches to embedding ornamentation for different instruments (or choosing not to do so). Narrowing your selection, or even choosing a different ABC source like Henk Norbeck or Bill Black's collections where there's a consistent author of the ABC, might make your machine learning more effective, maybe?
I've had a romp round the archive of mp3s. It's a slightly surreal experience, like you are listening to the output of someone locked in a cell and forced to write tunes! That's what I'm imagining anyway. Interesting to listen to a few - normally you know pretty much immediately whether a tune's going to be good or not, but there is quite a lot of variation during the tune - not "totally unexpected variation" but not simple repetition either.
Mark: Yes, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, etc. are far from being imitated by a machine. Good analogy of locking my machine in a room to generate an unlimited amount of symbols it doesn't really understand. :) To be sure, I am giving it lots of positive reinforcement.
benhockenberry: Thanks for the links and advice!
Just as a suggestion : for the program, I'd probably look at it from the point of view of numbers and other 'measurements'.
For the moment, let's just concentrate on the melody, forget about accents and ornaments and stick to the 4/4 time sig family.
What about the relationship between the notes?
Are the intervals close or far apart?
Is there a sequence of them from bar to bar?
What's the interval between the last note of a bar, and the first note of the next bar?
Is there a sequence for this entity?
Does the B part in a higher or lower register than the A part?
There was a thread on here a while back on variation, improvisation and composition, and I had a go at doing something based on Dowd's No 9 [ https://thesession.org/tunes/761 1st setting ].
I didn't use any of the 'numbers and measurements' I mentioned earlier, and it was just 'composed' on the spot.
# Posted by Jim Dorans, Fiddleologist 3 years ago .
Great example, Jim. That's a valid tune in my ears, and much more "alive" than something a computer generated based on say, which notes are likely to be first, second etc. What the generated examples (the very few I listened to) lacked was simple things like call-and-response, phrases, arpeggios and endings.
I'm still of the belief that a program can generate decent tunes. However, I think it will take a while to get it to a decent standard. There is a formula (or several) - no doubt about it, in my mind, that will be able to generate tunes based on rules.
If the patterns are working, fine. If they aren't, and are producing nebulous bundles of tuneoids - then burst them! … and start again. I can't think of any better systematic approach than that.
" the quality of the tunes produced is ultimately dependent on the evaluation skills of the human at the top of the tunes chain"
That seems logical, Jim. But it depends on what you mean by evaluation skills & quality of tunes. Your reasoning seems to dismiss any intuitive sense as part of composing tunes. Do composers (of quality tunes) have brief, passing moments of inspiration; without relying on their skills of evaluation?
"The Infinite Irish Trad Session"
"Music composed and titled by a recurrent neural network,"
"trained on 23,962 tunes from The Session"
"This set is performed by Barbalan Rog (playlist updated every 5 minutes)."
I don't remember who posted it, but it's deserves attention for anyone considering ITM based composition.
Jim and Jeff: What one hopes from an automatic learning system such as the one we are using is that it will figure out all of these things on its own. The rub is that one needs enough data. This "agnostic" approach is in opposition to the "expert-based" approach, where rules or pointers are specified based on our knwoledge of the problem. The rub there is that one needs to specify the rules in a way the machine can understand. A hybrid of the two approaches can also be made. For our system, we have given only a buch of ABC, and specified nothing about resolution, cadence, mode, tune/turn structure and repetition, meter, pickups, etc., and yet, the trained system generates many ABC outputs that exhibit these. For instance, see "The Mal's Copporim" above for a stellar example, and I would say a tune that is near "session-ready." You can browse through all pieces so far generated here: http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~sturm/research/RNNIrishTrad/Session.
Of course, a few great ABC tunes of thousands of less-great or bad ones is likely to happen by chance. The system could then be labeled a "one-hit wonder". :) But maybe human composers have the same success rate?
Jim: Since music is a human-centred activity, humans must be in the loop! :) Evaluation of the success of a tune is still far outside the purview of machines. For instance, "hit song science" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hit_Song_Science) hasn't really succeeded.
AB Steen: Thank you for your suggestions! I have implemented several of them.
By the way, What is "ITM based composition"?
ITM - Irish Traditional Music.
I think you might get better results if you preprocessed the ABC.
E.g. take just the actual ABC and convert it to pitches according to the K: field. Same for note lengths. And then expand repeats etc. Then you would generate a preprocessed text which would just consist of pitches and note lengths (and of course bar lines), in whatever internal text format suits your generation algorithm best (you might try something akin to how midi files represent notes).
When generating tunes, you would then of course get them in your internal format, which would then have to be retransformed into ABC.
# Posted by jardineromi 3 years ago .
Bob : could I make a couple of suggestions - don't use any backing, not at the moment anyway.
For all the tunes, use a MIDI piano for the output, with a bit of quantisation.
# Posted by michaelr 3 years ago .
"This is a step towards artificial intelligence, but not towards better tunes in a human sense… once that sort of intelligence (artificial) is achieved, who knows what the tunes created would be like ? G"
If they'd be anything like the quality of speech recognition (also using AI) that I have to deal with when I call my local utility then they'll be horrible.
As Jim Dorans suggested previously, there are ABC, MIDI and audio versions of each tune.
That seems that suggestion of the user hnorbeck is also worked - the key is in prepossessing of the initial ABC database.
# Posted by Bill_Murphes one year ago .
Huh! I still don't honestly know what a tweet is, apart from what my many bird friend s do in the morning. None of this has anything to do with playing my fiddle.
Re:- ""the pile of crap slowly swamping our pathetic society"…. No Steve, it isn't slow mate. The tide is coming in fast and deep.
Add human feedback to help the machine learning process? Maybe a very simple swipe style app that 'volunteers' quickly decide if a phrase (or any other piece of a tune) sounds good or not.
Hi all. Please don't confuse me or my work with that at http://irishabc.com . I have no connection with that. I don't know what "more advanced algorithm and tunes" means, but from what I can tell they are using the same machine learning algorithm as folk-rnn (https://github.com/IraKorshunova/folk-rnn), but less training data expressed in a less musically meaningful representation. Several of the generated tunes posted at http://irishabc.com don't possess characteristics of session music, e.g., "The Rub of the Green" (http://irishabc.com/tunes/reels/) is AABB, but A is 4.5 measures long, and the B part doesn't answer the A part. Each part lacks consistency and character, and they do not fit together. Most of the transcriptions on those pages suffer similar problems.
Anyhow, have a listen to Irish musician Úna Monaghan (http://www.unamonaghan.com/) perform her lovely modern composition "Safe Houses" at our May 23 2017 concert here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6LS9MbQj7Y&feature=youtu.be . She writes about her work: "This tape piece is my response to "The folk-rnn Session Book Vol. 1 (of 10) http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/%7Esturm/research/RNNIrishTrad/folkrnn/folkrnn_vol01of10.pdf ". The title is because I was struck by the sense of unease felt by some musicians when I describe the work of the folk-rnn team and system. The tunes from the folk-rnn collection are all numbered, and I used the house numbers of places in Belfast I'd lived during my life as a starting point to select particular tunes. For example, 55 (Delhi Street); 34 (Malone Avenue). The melodies played here on concertina are composed by the computer, having learned from collections of notated traditional music. The piece played here by computer, is composed by me from recordings of my playing as I learned the computer's compositions. We each play the other's work, and the work is made from the process we each went through, of learning the other's material."
# Posted by Bob Sturm one year ago .


text:
Villa, West Brom target Forrester ponders Brentford exit
by Tribal Football Staff 2013-05-21 03:44:57.000000
Harry Forrester admits he may leave Brentford after missing out on promotion to the Championship.
The midfielder has been linked with West Bromwich Albion and former club Aston Villa.
"I have got to talk with the manager and the owner but I do not know," he said. "They will probably give me a call next week."
TransfersEPL News
Tribal Football Staff

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
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IBM Corporation
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"Our new iDataPlex-powered SuperMUC system will help enable the scientific community to test theories, design experiments, and predict outcomes as never before," said Professor Dr. Arndt Bode, director of the LRZ supercomputing center. "In addition, the new SuperMUC system will be able to provide previously unattainable energy efficiency along with sustained performance."
Mid-sized Business Clients
IBM also introduced new and affordable SmartCloud solutions powered by its latest IBM System x 3650 M4 server, the most expandable, upgradeable system of its kind. The x3650 M4 demonstrated excellent performance on industry-standard benchmarks. It achieved a leadership two-processor score for SPECvirt_sc2010 benchmark3, set a new record for two-processor server performance on TPC-E4, more than 45 percent faster than the previous-generation result achieved by the HP ProLiant DL380 G7 server5, and a leadership two-processor result on Windows on two-tier SAP SD standard application benchmark.6
The System x 3650 M4 also comes with IBM eXFlash solid-state storage technology, bringing exclusive IBM enterprise-class storage capability to a two-socket rack server. The SSD technology enables 30 times more performance and a 90 percent increase in performance per watt for consolidating collaboration and database workloads. In addition, the new x3650 M4 system supports the IBM Smarter Analytics portfolio of offerings, a set of compact, integrated, single-analytics offerings supported by storage-dense System x two-socket systems running IBM InfoSphere Data Warehouse and Cognos business intelligence and performance management software.
IBM's new portfolio of x86 computing solutions also include:
The IBM System x iDataPlex dx360 M4, which offers significant flexibility for supporting a wide range of high-performance computing workloads. The system is designed for datacenters requiring high performance with limited floor space, and power and cooling infrastructure. Available with specially designed exclusive IBM warm water-cooled technology, this iDataPlex system is up to 40 percent more energy efficient than air-cooled systems, recovering 90 percent of heat per nodes.
The IBM System x 3550 M4, a dense, feature-rich 1U server designed for data and business critical workloads, and the IBM System x3500 M4 tower that provides data center performance in a desktop package. The x3550 delivers four times more memory, more virtual machines, and improved networking performance in less space at a comparable price. The x3500 also offers four times the memory, plus 33 percent more storage capacity than prior generations. It is designed for quiet operation and fits easily under a desk or rack, making it ideal for office environments.
IBM Feature on Demand across the IBM System x product line. Feature on Demand allows clients to activate or unlock features in the firmware or software on demand, providing customers the ability to grow their systems as they grow their businesses without the need for costly rip and replace.
Business Partner Incentives
The IBM Solution Accelerator incentive is a new channel initiative to sell combined software and systems, and business solutions. It has two elements. First is a Software and Systems reward that amounts to a 5 percent incremental rebate for selling eligible IBM systems and a 15 percent incremental rebate for selling eligible software together to a single client. Second, a Business Solutions Reward offers an additional 10 percent rebate for selling a solution aimed at a particular IT challenge on eligible software content of the solution. Eligible solutions cover client needs such as turning information into insights, managing risk, security and compliance and social business. In addition, approximately 1 percent in fees can be earned when clients finance their solution through IBM Global Finance.
The new products will begin shipping worldwide by March 16, 2012. For additional information about IBM System x and BladeCenter solutions, visit: www.ibm.com/systems/x86/betterfuture. Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/IBMSysxBlade.
1. IDC Worldwide Enterprise Server Cloud Computing 2011-2015 Forecast, doc #228916, June 2011.
2. IBM 2011 Global CIO Study, "The Essential CIO".
3. x3650 M4's result: overall performance score of SPECvirt_sc2010 2,158 @ 132 VMs. Configuration: 2 chips/16 cores/8 cores per chip, Intel Xeon Processor E5-2690 (2.9GHz with 20MB L3 cache per processor), 512GB of memory, Red Hat Enterprise Linux® 6.2 and Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor. Result referenced is current as of March 6, 2012, and posted at http://www.spec.org/virt_sc2010/results/. View all results for SPEC benchmarks at http://www.spec.org/. SPEC and SPECvirt_sc are trademarks or registered trademarks of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC).
4. x3650 M4's results: 1,863.23 tpsE (transactions per second E) at $207.85 USD / tpsE, total solution availability May 31, 2012. Configuration: 2 processors/16 cores/32 threads, Intel Xeon Processor E5-2690 (2.9GHz with 20MB L3 cache per processor), 512GB of memory, Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition SP1. Results referenced are current as of March 6, 2012. View all TPC results at www.tpc.org. See the details for this result at http://www.tpc.org/tpce/results/tpce_last_ten_results.asp
5. HP ProLiant DL380 G7 Server with Intel Xeon Processor X5690 (3.46GHz—2 processors/12 cores/24 threads, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition; 1,284.14 tpsE at $250.00 USD / tpsE, total solution availability of May 4, 2011. Results referenced are current as of March 6, 2012. To view all TPC results, visit www.tpc.org.
6. IBM System x3650 M4's result of 7,855 SAP SD benchmark users on the two-tier SAP SD standard application benchmark: 2 processors/16 cores/32 threads, Intel Xeon Processor E5-2690 (2.9GHz with 20MB L3 cache per processor), 128GB of memory, 64-bit DB2 9.7, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise x64 Edition, and SAP enhancement package 4 for SAP ERP 6.0. Certification number 2012---.
Results referenced are current as of March 6, 2012. View SAP benchmark results at http://www.sap.com/benchmark.


text:
Q: Is there any settings in wpf to align buttons in fixed distance App contain more than 30 buttons but there alignments are incorrect
my question is:
Is there any property for arranging all 30 button in fixed length and height?

A: Have you tried using a Style to declare your Button dimensions? Try adding this into your Resources section:
<Window.Resources>
    <Style TargetType="{x:Type Button}">
        <Setter Property="Height" Value="24" />
        <Setter Property="Width" Value="150" />
    </Style>
</Window.Resources>

This will affect all Buttons within scope of the Style, but you could change it to this...:
<Style x:Key="SizedButton" TargetType="{x:Type Button}">
    <Setter Property="Height" Value="24" />
    <Setter Property="Width" Value="150" />
</Style>

... and then explicitly assign the Style to each Button:
<Button Content="Something" Style="{StaticResource SizedButton}" />

A: If you want share same setting between all 30 buttons you should use Styles:
<Style TargetType="Button">
    <Setter Property="Width" Value="20" />
</Style>

After you'll have all buttons with width 20. This is happening due to a concept called implicit styles. Any time you are specifying style without Key it will automatically apply it to all TargetTypes without explicitly defined style.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Q: OpenSSL e ASP.NET WebAPI Estou desenvolvendo uma aplicação interna, porém em um certo modulo vou precisar trafegar um certo dado sensivel.
A priori pensei em usar SSL, porém devido a limitações (não técnicas) não poderei fazê-lo, então pensei em usar OpenSSL.
Até consegui fazer funcionar usando a implementação abaixo, porém não sei se a mesma está implementada da forma correta, então gostaria que alguém a revisasse.
Model
public class SecurityModel
{
    public string Token { get; set; }
    public string PublicKey { get; set; }
}

public class EncryptedModel
{
    public string Token { get; set; }
    public string Encrypted { get; set; }
}

Controller
[HttpGet]
public async Task<SecurityModel> GeneratePublicKey()
{
    var model = new SecurityModel();
    using (var generator = new RSACryptoServiceProvider(1024))
    {
        try
        {
            var token = Convert.ToBase64String(Guid.NewGuid().ToByteArray());
            var keys = generator.ExportParameters(true);
            var pemString = generator.GetPublicKeyAsPemString();

            MemoryCache.Default.Add(token, keys, new CacheItemPolicy
            {
                AbsoluteExpiration = ObjectCache.InfiniteAbsoluteExpiration,
                SlidingExpiration = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(30),
                Priority = CacheItemPriority.NotRemovable
            });

            model.Token = token;
            model.PublicKey = pemString;
        }
        finally
        {
            generator.PersistKeyInCsp = false;
        }
    }
    return model;
}

[HttpPost]
public async Task<bool> ReadSensitiveData(EncryptedModel model)
{
    using (var generator = new RSACryptoServiceProvider(1024))
    {
        try
        {
            var keys = (RSAParameters)MemoryCache.Default.Get(model.Token);
            generator.ImportParameters(keys);

            var binary = Convert.FromBase64String(model.Encrypted);
            var decrypted = generator.Decrypt(binary, false);
            var sensitive = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(decrypted);

            return sensitive == "Sensitive Data";
        }
        finally
        {
            generator.PersistKeyInCsp = false;
        }
    }
    return false;
}

A extensão RSAUtils.GetPublicKeyAsPemString(this RSACryptoServiceProvider csp) basicamente devolve a chave publica no formato esperado no JavaScript. Algo semelhante à:
-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQDlOJu6TyygqxfWT7eLtGDwajtN
FOb9I5XRb6khyfD1Yt3YiCgQWMNW649887VGJiGr/L5i2osbl8C9+WJTeucF+S76
xFxdU6jE0NQ+Z+zEdhUTooNRaY5nZiu5PgDB0ED/ZKBUSLKL7eibMxZtMlUDHjm4
gwQco1KRMDSmXSMkDwIDAQAB
-----END PUBLIC KEY-----

Agora segue os meus scripts:
Depedências
A Javascript library to perform OpenSSL RSA Encryption, Decryption, and Key Generation
Scripts
var encrypt = new JSEncrypt();
var token = "";
var generatePublicKey = function () {
    var httpRequest = new XMLHttpRequest();
    httpRequest.open('GET', '/api/Security/', true);
    httpRequest.responseType = "json";
    httpRequest.addEventListener("readystatechange", function (event) {
        if (httpRequest.readyState == 4) {
            token = httpRequest.response.Token;
            encrypt.setPublicKey(httpRequest.response.PublicKey);
            sendSensitiveData();
        }
    });
    httpRequest.send();
}

var sendSensitiveData = function () {
    var sensitive = "Sensitive Data";
    var encrypted = encrypt.encrypt(sensitive);

    var httpRequest = new XMLHttpRequest();
    httpRequest.open('POST', '/api/Security/', true);
    httpRequest.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/json;charset=UTF-8");
    httpRequest.addEventListener("readystatechange", function (event) {
        if (httpRequest.readyState == 4) {
            console.log(httpRequest);
        }
    });
    httpRequest.send(JSON.stringify({ Token: token, Encrypted: encrypted }));
}

generatePublicKey();

A: Cara, a solução não é 100% seguro, mas já tem algumas proteções, o ideal é convencer o uso do SSL. (é possível conseguir certificados válidos por preços bem acessíveis).
Mas sobre o seu caso, em um ataque de sniffer creio que esteja protegido, mas o ataque for mais elaborado, não... Faça um teste, ative o Fiddler para descriptografar SSL, mas sem instalar o certificado. Tipo, ir até o passo três do link abaixo: http://docs.telerik.com/fiddler/Configure-Fiddler/Tasks/FirefoxHTTPS
Ao acessar qualquer site https, os navegadores modernos irão abrir uma página avisando que há algo errado com certificado, creio que no seu site isso não vai ocorrer (se fizer o teste nos passe o que aconteceu), a princípio imagino que os dados poderão está criptografados no Fiddler, mas se não houve alerta, significa que um programa qualquer poderia estar no lugar do Fiddler alternado os dados de envios e de recebimento, fazendo uma ponte entre o cliente e o servidor, e dessa forma, obtendo os dados criptografados. É verdade que é um ataque mais complexo, mas estará exposto, dependendo da criticidade dos dados, não me arriscaria.


My mother would have called her a pistol, this bright and bubbly, willful and irrepressible adolescent Jewish girl Anne Frank. Is there a chronicle in Western culture more famous, or more grievous, than hers?
Yet what makes Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett's 1955 play "The Diary of Anne Frank" so compelling – and it is nothing less in the current production at Writers Theatre – fills a larger frame of human drama. It is a complex profile of hope shadowed by terror and despair, and finally crushed under the boot of hatred. But still, first, there is innocent hope, a luminous vision of life abounding in wonder, possibility and good.
Watching young Sophie Thatcher's rambunctious, delightful and wise performance as Anne, I couldn't help making a bizarre connection with Eloise at the Plaza. Of all the birds that might be closely caged with seven others, this feisty humming bird may be the least likely to adapt. If Anne was going to be locked away from sunlight and the wide world, she should at least have several floors to explore, rooms to dart through and space for her formidable intellect to expand.
But Anne's family – mother Edith, father Otto, sister Margot – and the three members of another Jewish family consider themselves fortunate to have this cramped upstairs hideaway in an Amsterdam office building. It's their refuge from the Nazis' relentless hunt for Jews to be shipped off to the camps. Though effectively prisoners even here, the two families – soon joined by a dentist – at least enjoy a steady stream of basic supplies scraped together by a sympathetic, and quite courageous, woman who is not Jewish (the radiant, empathic Leah Karpel).
Thus the parallel narratives, Anne's flowering into young womanhood and the stress-ridden arc of eight souls forced together by narrow walls, unfolds over a period of more than a year. If ever there was ensemble theater, this is it, and Writers' fine company directed by Kimberly Senior gets down to the very fiber of human reckoning, of valiant mutual accommodation thrown against personal frailty and ravaging fear.
"The Diary of Anne Frank" might be called children's story with an adult twist: It's the grown-ups, not the young people, who are preoccupied with the terror that lurks just outside the door of this tiny commune. They all have nightmares, kids and adults alike, but the greater weight of the situation clearly falls on the tall people.
During the day, silence reigns, lest these refugees betray themselves to workers in the building. At night, however, pent-up anxiety flares, frustrations erupt, accusations get tossed around like balls at recess.
Sean Fortunato and Kristina Valada-Viars present a warm-hearted pair as Anne's parents, he the intellectual and moral anchor of this constrained community and she the generous support group of one. Edith Frank bears a personal burden: Smart, gifted, petulant Anne feels no connection to her mother, but she's devoted to her father. Valada-Viars negotiates the woman's emotionally thorny path with agility, layering a mother's love and pain with the constant fear of capture and death.
Perhaps more intriguing as a married couple, because of more volatile issues between them, are Lance Baker and Heidi Kettenring as the Mr. and Mrs. van Daan. He is Otto Frank's business partner. She is a classic princess, albeit a presentable cook. He is increasingly put upon by Anne's boisterous behavior; she clings to her fur coat as the last remaining token of a normal, meaning privileged, life that now seems little more than a memory.
Tossed into this mix is the dentist, Mr. Dussel (Kevin Gudahl), who has an almost psychotic aversion to cats. Young Peter van Daan (Antonio Zhiurinskas) has a cat. Between the complaining of van Daan and the carping of Dussel, life in this barracks of dread is made even more trying.
But meanwhile, the kids are crossing that divide between childhood and life's next chapter. Herein lies the real beauty of Thatcher's portrayal, as she takes Anne from childish narcissism to mature awareness of her place in a world now shrunk within the borders of this little room. She learns to give space to the irascible dentist Dussel, by necessity her roommate. And she embraces her older sister Margot (Lila Morse), the more deferential and not so precocious one.
Central to Anne's new consciousness is her sexual awakening. Thatcher's emergent Anne and Zhiurinskas' appreciative Peter begin to see each other in a new light, and their mutual attraction becomes a charming diversion for a group that, despite all differences, shares a collective memory of youth and first love.
And still ominous reality hovers: It will come through that door. Whether sooner or later, it will come, inexorable, inescapable and horrific.


Club drugs are a broadly-defined collection of well-known party favorites, like Ecstasy, to some concoction some high school chemistry genius cooked up at home. That's one big part of the club drug problem. You don't know what you're actually taking.
You don't know the dosage amount, side effects, impact on judgment, signs of allergic reactions. Used in night clubs, at parties, raves, rock concerts, bars, and other hangouts, club drugs have become a problem of epidemic proportions.
They're easy to get, they're cheap, and you can experience the "experience" from a pharmaceutically enhanced point of view. You can also alter your brain's chemistry. There are plenty of studies on the effects of Ecstasy, known as MDMA, on the human brain, and none of them are good.
Ecstasy delivers anything but ecstasy. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIH), "Studies have shown that some heavy MDMA users experience long-lasting confusion, depression, and selective impairment of working memory and attention processes." In other words, regular use of ecstasy isn't going to make you smarter.
What are some popular club drugs?
Club drugs are most popular with younger abusers at club events, concerts, and other high-energy social interactions. The use of these drugs is said to enhance the "club" experience, though an individual's reaction to any popular club drug will vary depending on age, gender, dosage, use in combination with other drugs including alcohol, and a number of other factors including frequency of use.
GHB, or Gamma-Hydroxybutyrate, is also known as the "date-rate" drug. It's often slipped into a victim's drink and can lead to loss of consciousness in 69% of reported cases, hallucinations, amnesia, and even coma. Victims become incapacitated because of the sedative effects of GHB.
LSD – d-lysergic acid diethylamide – is often simply called "acid." It's a hallucinogen that's been popular with substance abusers going back to the '60s psychedelic years.
A single "tab" of acid can affect perception for up to 12 hours or longer. Regular acid users may experience psychotic episodes with highly-altered perceptions of reality. Hallucinations can be visual, aural, tactile, or any combination of senses.
Some LSD users report "bad trips" in which perceptual changes can cause psychosis and personal injury due to loss of perception.
Ketamine, or Special K, was developed as an anesthetic but has become part of the club scene because of its hallucinogenic properties.
Methamphetamine, also called meth, chalk, ice, crystal and other street names is a highly-addictive stimulant. It can be smoked, ingested, snorted, injected, mixed with alcohol, and because meth is so addictive, abusers quickly become snared in the meth binge and crash cycle. Meth addicts require on-going support to avoid relapse. They also must learn coping mechanisms to prevent a return to a very dangerous, highly-addictive drug.
Long-term use of meth causes chemical and even molecular changes in the brain leading to anxiety, confusion, the inability to sleep, violent outbursts, and psychosis including visual and aural hallucinations. Meth actually causes structural changes in the brain in areas tied to memory, emotions, learning rate, and a variety of cognitive issues.
Physically, long-time meth addicts often experience extreme weight loss, severe dental problems called meth mouth and open sores caused by repeated scratching. Because it delivers a potent high when injected, needles are often shared by meth addicts, causing the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Heavily abused by the club crowd, methamphetamine is addictive and destructive. In fact, meth is so addictive it requires a schedule of therapies combining traditional behavior modification and education with soothing therapies that bring meth addicts closer to reality and away from environments where meth is accepted.
Club drugs – designer drugs – present a long list of dangers from extreme addiction to loss of consciousness and physical control. The dangers of these substances are not only well-documented, but addicts will also tell you the horrors associated with the abuse of these concoctions.
In many cases, addicts require on-going treatment designed to address the problems associated with club drug abuse and addiction. At Hawaii Island Recovery, located in the Kailua-Kona district on the island of Hawaii, our professional staff and small residential population increase the chances of kicking a dangerous, even lethal, habit and taking control of life again with customized therapeutic routines and after-care to prevent relapse – often common among addicts who try to clean up on their own.
You can reach Hawaii Island Recovery 24/7 to turn around your life and leave the "rave" clean and sober.


From the Jetsons to Futurama, cartoons have long been envisioning what the world will be like in the space age. In many ways we've surpassed what animation told us to expect from technology. But animation's very existence is closely tied to technology in ways that enable that fantastic storytelling.
I had this same experience. there would be a weird "bonk" noise followed by record scratch sounds. is there an issue with the recording?


Rusty wrenches? Brittle bits? Sad screwdrivers? It's time for an upgrade, if you ask us. Outfit your hangar and workbench with the very best in hand tools for aviation applications by shopping for Performance Tool hand tools online at SkyGeek. Made by the trusted Wilmar Corporation, these are some of the roughest, toughest tools and accessories around. They'll withstand all kinds of challenging jobs and outlast most of the other hand tools you've had experience with. In addition to durable bit sets, screwdriver sets, grease guns and other tools, you can also get protective tarps and other useful accessories from the Performance Tool line.
Make sure you're stocked with high-performing, durable hand tools and accessories by shopping for Wilmar's Performance Tool products online today at SkyGeek. You'll get a great value on these high-quality aviation products.


Stand holding the dumbbells at your sides. Take a step forward until your front thighs is parallel to the floor. Bring your rear leg forward and repeat with the opposite leg. Perform 8-10 reps with each leg.
Stand holding the dumbbells level without jaw. Press them overhead as you step forward. Lower them, while bringing your rear leg forward. Repeat with the other leg. Do 8-10 reps with each leg.
Assume the push-up position, but keep your arms straight and rest your hands on the dumbbells. Pull one weight up towards you body until your elbow is above your back and then lower it. Do five or six reps per arm.
Hold the dumbbells at your sides and squat until they touch the floor. Then support your weight with your arms as you kick both legs behind you into a reverse push-up position. Reverse the move – pull back to the squat position and then stand up. Do eight reps.


ggsdolls: Today's Mail on My Bday!!Yay!
Today's Mail on My Bday!!Yay!
Two of the items above, I got thru ebay, a set of xmas presents for this year's diorama, a camera bag, and the rest are Pico Neemo and Obitsu clothing items for Charlotte!!
This Motif digital camera bag I got, for easy storage for Charlotte. I actually found out about them from a friend's flickr stream here! She uses hers for her MMS too!
I also received these amazing miniature xmas gifts/presents. Beautifully done, I might add. Will be used in a diorama for this year's Christmas decor!
This one above is made by Obitsu for their 11cm line. I love the color on her, but the fashion itself is a bit short on the top and the skirt is bulky. The socks fits nicely though!!
Then, my ultimate fave of Today's mail!! I received my lovely second trade from a dear sweet fellow Aquarian, "Boopsie Daisy" Missy, her shop is here on etsy!! We've decided to make a yearly trade and I'm so happy we did!! She handmade these gorgeous items below!!
Some extra goodies for me above. A lolly, some scrapbook extras, and a sweet tiny hangy!!
The trade was for these above!! She adopted some cute vintage cups from my shop and she handmade, for me, these amazing Toei Animation "Little Mermaid" Christmas Ornaments!! I simply looove them! I can't wait to use them!!
Each ornament is made with love and smell so sweet and delicious!! I love how she added sea type plants and decor to each ornament, so, unique. I will treasure them always! My daughters and I were fighting over them! Thank you dear Missy they are awesome!!
Okay, off to redress Charlotte!! It was an amazing Birthday!!
Happy Birthday!!!!! I'm going to have to check out that little suitcase!
Happy birthday! Congrats on all the wonderful stuff! I hope you have a wonderful day!!
Ahhhh! Your comment has me swooning! Thank you so much!! I'm happy you liked my photos enough!!
New Azone Dolly and More Yahoo Japan Goodies.
Cobaanii Mokei Kobo 1/12 Garden Set!!
I got a Konami MMS 3rd Naked Flesh Small Figure!!
Some Items in the Mail this Week!


text:
· 20 September 2019
Sanlorenzo SD96: the new yacht designed by Patricia Urquiola at Cannes Yachting Festival 2019
The ability to embrace new ideas, all the while remaining faithful to their heritage, the courage to dare to push beyond their limits when it comes to innovative solutions, have led Sanlorenzo to start a new and prestigious partnership: continuing along the same path that for years has linked it closely to the world of design, the company has entrusted Patricia Urquiola with the interior design of the new SD96 yacht, officially presented on the occasion of 2019 Cannes Yachting Festival.
"I chose Patricia because I wanted to add a more feminine touch to the interiors in Sanlorenzo yachts, something which until now had been foreign to the nautical world. And today she is the most sought-after woman in global design thanks to her ability to combine beauty and comfort. All done with a touch of irony and almost poetic sensitivity, with love for all that is glocal and a great respect for the hard work of the artisans", Massimo Perotti, Chairman Sanlorenzo.
Best in its field, Sanlorenzo has in fact involved such noteworthy names as Dordoni Architetti, Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel and Piero Lissoni (Art Director of the company since 2018), in the interior design of yachts, thanks to which it has added new visions allowing it to rethink the concept of space on board, an established asset of Sanlorenzo, through innovations and new stylistic features.
And as Sanlorenzo is one of the main yacht and superyacht production yards in the world, the decision was made to start a new project, the SD96, the result of tireless research and attention to the importance of liveability on board.
Thanks to the vision of Mr. Massimo Perotti, Chairman of the company, Sanlorenzo once again innovates and rethinks the style of nautical design. The motivation came from the idea of new scenarios through the introduction of the concept of transforming spaces to enrich the experience of those who live the boat.
SD96 is the entry level model of Sanlorenzo's historic semi-displacement SD yacht line, a 28-meter-long model that will replace the SD92, another of the shipyard's success stories, which was launched in 2007 with 27units sold, showing and maintaining its natural evolution, that stylish hallmark that has always distinguished the yard.
Like all the models in the line, the SD96 is built on three bridges, but thanks to the carefully studied proportions and the great balance achieved between design and volume, it is not only exceptionally elegant, but also exactly as light and manageable as a two-deck yacht.
This concept of flexibility and modularity, which defines the SD96 project, decided the flow of the interior spaces designed by Patricia Urquiola.
In bringing her vision on board, the architect and designer laid out the interior of the SD96 with transformability taking centre stage-making for a boat capable of evolving and continuously adapting to the needs of those who live on it.
A flowing space in which the distinctive style of the Spanish architect and designer blossoms and blooms, combining a minimalist approach with a mix of carefully selected materials that summon forth thoughts of the sea.
"Our starting point for this collaboration with Sanlorenzo was doubtlessly the sea, a great source of inspiration for the whole development of the concept and therefore the interior of the yacht. The materials, shapes and colors evoke the marine world, creating a flowing and elegant space full of natural colors." Patricia Urquiola
In a balance between severity and irony, between an industrial and artisan approach, Patricia Urquiola creates different styles and furnishings via her search for material sensibility and attention to detail that makes SD96's interiors warm and welcoming yet with a modern sophisticated, elegant overall look, meaning we can enjoy these spaces as a symbol of both past and present.
The principal living area located on the main deck, characterized by cannulated oak panelled walls and parquet flooring, is a true example of the concept of modularity; it's function can in fact be increased by setting up, if necessary, a dining table for 10 people, cleverly folded away inside a bench in front of the sofa.
We then move on to the central staircase, in bronzed steel and wood and enclosed in a travertine shell, it is designed to reach the other two bridges, and is a focal and iconic point that connects all the floors and also serves to divide the areas via a metal mesh screen.
Moving on to the upper deck we find the Sky lounge, with fully opening windows that can be used as a living room, dining area or cinema thanks to modular furniture. The uniformity of finishes between interior and exterior, such as the parquet floor with Biscuit pattern creates a unique environment with the fly bridge, which can also be used as a lounge or outdoor dining area thanks to the coffee table which can be converted to a dining table if desired.
The principle of flexibility returns to the lower deck where the living room can be totally transformed by closing a system of sliding panels, creating a VIP cabin with bathroom.
On the same level, there are also two guest cabins, while the owner's cabin is located on the main deck. Much wider in width than those offered on yachts of similar sizes, it has large windows that, together with the glass wall with a Liquefy motif that evokes the sea, create a feeling of uniformity with the surrounding environment.
The travertine bathroom with ribbed glass walls coupled with a bronzed mirror amplifies this feeling in a game of pleasant reflections.
The choice of furnishings made by companies that symbolise the excellence of international design and that have studied ad hoc solutions, where necessary adapting their products to the technical characteristics, materials and constructive solutions to fit our design requirements is also fundamental to our interior design.
With SD96, Sanlorenzo once again shows its ability to respond to the needs of a constantly evolving market, through a lot of careful research and innovation, while at the same time never betraying its image, an image that has always stood out for its timeless elegance and linear simplicity, light and streamlined, an everlasting expression of refined luxury, never loud, which is evident in the choice of materials and in the care given to the smallest details.


Item is a watercolour sketch of a costume design for Dalhousie Theatre's 1982 production of The Rivals. The costume is the first costume for a character named Bob Acres. The sketch shows one male figure wearing the costume. There are fabric swatches attached to the sketch.


text:
AAA says Americans warm to electric cars, but most aren't ready to buy
Americans aren't ready to buy electric vehicles and don't think their neighbors are either, according to a new study by AAA.
That said, as many as 40 million Americans say they will at least consider a battery-electric vehicle, or BEV, for their next vehicle, the automotive group found. And the public may be more interested in battery-based vehicles as a flood of new models comes to market, but only four in 10 people believe that the majority of vehicles will be electric by 2029. The majority of Americans actually expect that most new cars will be able to drive themselves within the coming decade.
"Today, more than 200,000 electric cars can be found on roads across the country as almost every manufacturer sells them," said Greg Brannon, AAA's director of automotive engineering. "But, like other new vehicle technologies, Americans don't have the full story and that could be causing the gap between interest and action."
Battery-based vehicles of all forms, including conventional hybrids, plug-in hybrids and BEVs, accounted for barely 5% of the American new car market last year. But plug-based models, BEVs in particular, saw sales roughly double, according to industry data. And the numbers are expected to continue growing rapidly as more long-range offerings, such as the Audi e-tron crossover, the Tesla Model Y SUV and the Porsche Taycan sports car come to market. By mid-decade, industry analysts such as LMC Automotive anticipate well over 100 options for potential buyers.
But the AAA study shows that Americans haven't been keeping up with the rapid rate of change reshaping the electric vehicle market, including the shift from first-generation models barely capable of running 100 miles on a charge to new and updated offerings that are now approaching 400 miles per charge.
"Many consumers are not sure what to expect from an electric vehicle," a summary of the AAA report found, such as what sort of conditions typically yield the best range. As with hybrids like the Toyota Prius, electric vehicles can recapture energy lost during braking and coasting, which means they actually do better in stop-and-go traffic than on the highway – the opposite of what's true for conventional, gas-powered vehicles.
There remains plenty of confusion about what electric vehicles can and can't do, and not only in the United States. A survey of British motorists last year found 42% saying a BEV can't be driven through a car wash. It can. Some new models, like the Jaguar I-Pace, can even ford moderately deep levels of water.
The AAA study found that a growing number of Americans are at least considering BEVs and other electrified models, with millennials at the forefront. Other findings show:
Sixteen percent of those surveyed said they are likely to buy an EV next time they shop for a new vehicle.
Concern about the environment is the primary motivator, cited by 74% of those surveyed; lowering vehicle operating costs is mentioned by 56% of those surveyed.
There are fewer worries about the traditional obstacles to widespread adoption. The study found 11% fewer respondents pointing to a lack of places to charge up than raised that concern in a 2017 study.
Significantly fewer respondents pointed to higher purchase prices and repair costs than in the 2017 AAA study.
Limited range, higher costs and the lack of a public charging infrastructure are traditionally seen as the key obstacles to mainstream adoption of battery-electric vehicles. But a number of new models now cost under $40,000. And the AAA found 44% of buyers would be willing to pay up to $4,000 more for an electric vehicle than a gas model, with 23% willing to pay even more of a premium.
A potential selling point is that the range of the second-generation models now coming to market routinely top 200 miles. Tesla is now offering an extended-range pack for its Model S sedan capable of 370 miles.
Concerns about charging nonetheless remain a major issue, with six in 10 of those surveyed raising that issue as a reason they are unlikely to buy, or are unsure about buying, a BEV. Fifty-seven percent said they think electric vehicles aren't suitable for long-distance travel.
Public charging is still limited, especially in the middle of the country, but companies including ChargePoint, EVgo and Electrify America plan to invest billions over the coming decade to fill that gap. And the latest versions of their high-speed Level 3 chargers are capable of delivering as much as 20 miles of range per minute, meaning a "fill-up" can be cut to around 10 minutes on some vehicles, roughly matching what it takes to fill a gas tank.
"These vehicles are a big part of the future of transportation since self-driving cars, when they do arrive, will likely be electric," AAA's Brannon said. "The difference, of course, is that electric vehicles are already here (and) have become an even more viable option for many Americans."
Markets could roar after Friday's Uber, tariff gauntlet
Wolters Kluwer accounting giant hit by malware, causing 'quiet panic'


text:
Answering the offseason's lingering questions
164dKristen Shilton
Answering some of the biggest lingering offseason questions
Vincent Ethier/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Kristen ShiltonESPN NHL reporter
Kristen Shilton is a national NHL reporter for ESPN.
Training camps begin to open in four weeks. After an entertaining start to free agency in July, the marketplace has cooled. Teams settled in on rosters, and everyone adjourned to their summer homes. Only those execs left some unanswered questions behind. We're here to pick up the slack.
While this next month unfurls toward the start of the 2022-23 campaign, there's a few notable questions that remain unanswered and topics to keep an eye on. How those play out could still have a serious impact on teams entering the season.
1. Where does Nazem Kadri land?
Nazem Kadri entered this offseason as one of the NHL's top unrestricted free agents. The 31-year-old had a career-best 87 points in 71 games and was fresh off a Stanley Cup run in which he produced seven goals and 15 points in 16 games.
Seven potential destinations for Nazem Kadri
184dGreg Wyshynski
NHL free agency tracker
137dESPN staff
The best NHL free agents still seeking new contracts
The consensus was that Kadri could have a pick of suitors. He seemed to prepare as such, switching agents (to Darren Ferris) during the season and homing in on a lucrative, long-term pact reflective of a strong recent history.
But now it is mid-August and Kadri remains a free agent. The longer that's true, the harder it will be for Kadri to reel in a big-ticket contract. By now, most clubs have made their major moves. Cap space is tight all over, especially for contending teams.
Columbus locked up Johnny Gaudreau. Detroit nabbed Andrew Copp. The New York Rangers wooed Vincent Trocheck. Heck, Florida and Calgary swapped Jonathan Huberdeau and Matthew Tkachuk, then inked them both to long-term deals. Money's been spent, just not on Kadri.
How long until it happens? Will Kadri reveal a next stop by the time he brings the Cup home to London, Ontario, on Aug. 27?
Kadri has been linked through multiple media outlets to the New York Islanders. Daily Faceoff's Frank Seravalli reported last week that New York was offering Kadri a seven-year contract in the $49 million range. Colorado also reportedly put an extension closer to four years and $24 million on the table.
Almost any team doling out a Kadri-sized contract now would have to make corresponding cap-related shuffles. The Islanders could certainly use Kadri's contributions after averaging less than three goals per game in 2021-22, and Kadri has a history with GM Lou Lamoriello from their time in Toronto. In fact, it was Lamoriello who signed Kadri to his deal that just expired, a six-year agreement worth $27 million.
Will it now be Lamoriello giving Kadri a significant raise? Stay tuned.
2. Which veterans will sign new deals?
We know Kadri will play somewhere next season. What about some of those other free agents still available, particularly those in the later stages of their careers?
Take Phil Kessel. He's 34, coming off a 52-point season with Arizona and the expiration of an eight-year, $64 million contract. The winger won't pull in $8 million a season again, but there's still some scoring prowess there, even if Kessel did net just five even-strength goals last season. And Kessel has his sights set on breaking Keith Yandle's record for consecutive games played (he's eight games away).
A 36-year-old Paul Stastny surpassed the 20-goal mark last season for the first time in almost a decade and tallied his highest point total (45) in four years. Stastny remained remarkably consistent no matter where he slotted in for Winnipeg -- at center or on the wing -- and he could easily bring that versatility elsewhere now. Plus, Stastny remains in the hunt for an elusive Cup title. Depending how Kadri's situation shakes out, might Colorado be open to a Stastny reunion? The Avalanche drafted Stastny 44th overall in 2005 and he played eight seasons for them from 2006-14. Colorado learned this season the value of role players on a title run.
Same for P.K. Subban. The blueliner drew interest during the March trade deadline, but his hefty contract -- with a $9 million cap hit -- held teams off. Now Subban is free to prove himself anywhere, and while he may not be the same top-pairing defenseman of old, he has potential to be a solid depth option. Could Florida, which lost some defensive pieces in free agency, benefit from Subban's experience -- and desire to win -- at the right price?
And then, of course, there are the real (and literal) graybeards: Joe Thornton and Zdeno Chara.
For Chara, at 45, there might be less incentive to come back for a 26th season. He won a Cup with Boston in 2011, has been to three Cup Finals and earned a Norris Trophy as the NHL's top defenseman in 2009. Perhaps that's enough. But if Chara does have another year in him, what might a potential return to Boston look like? Chara played 14 seasons for the Bruins, and now Boston has brought back Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci for one more go-around. Could Chara fit into the mix too, for old times' sake?
Thornton has never hoisted a Cup. Now 43, he has taken on smaller roles in recent years with playoff-bound teams to try to finally reaching that pinnacle. Thornton appeared in just 34 games for Florida last season, scoring five goals and 10 points. Can he earn another one-year deal and take one last stab at a championship? We'd love to see it.
3. Will there be more trades?
Where were you when Calgary and Florida orchestrated the blockbuster Huberdeau-for-Tkachuk trade at 11 p.m. ET on a Thursday in early August?
(It's OK if you were asleep; we won't tell.)
Suffice it to say, most of us didn't see that trade coming. Our antenna is up now, though. We won't be fooled again. Although we could wind up disappointed. It has happened before, particularly with the (probably) most commonly tossed-around trade target: Arizona's Jakob Chychrun.
Nothing spices up the late-summer doldrums like imagining where a potential top-flight defenseman could be shipped off to. If you recall, Chychrun had a monster season in 2020-21, producing 18 goals and 41 points in 56 games. Last year, the 24-year-old was derailed by injuries, and his output (21 points in 47 games) suffered accordingly. But Chychrun is young, and his best years may be ahead. Naturally that makes him an appealing trade target. And no player seems to be so frequently discussed as one.
Chychrun has three years left on his current deal (at an AAV of $4.6 million) but a modified no-trade clause kicks in after this season. If the Coyotes do have any interest in moving him, now might be the time.
Then there's J.T. Miller. The Vancouver Canucks forward is entering the final year of his deal and admitted recently on hockeyfights.com's "Dropping the Gloves" podcast that negotiations on an extension haven't gone smoothly with the Canucks' new management team of GM Patrik Allvin and president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford.
"We didn't really find a happy ground there," Miller said. "There's just a lot going on. With Patrik and Jim, they haven't been here long. They have a lot of hard decisions to make."
Will one of those be parting with Miller? The 29-year-old had a career year in 2021-22, tallying 32 goals and 99 points in 80 games. If Vancouver doesn't see itself signing Miller long-term, could a preseason trade help the Canucks excel in the new direction they're heading?
4. Will the top remaining RFAs get deals done in time?
Enough with the current (and future) unrestricted free agents. Let's talk about some restricted free agents.
More specifically, the top-tier ones crucial to their team's success who are still unsigned for next season.
Jason Robertson is an emerging star in Dallas. He secured a top-line role, leading the club in goals (41) last season and was second in points (79). The Stars' offense has been flowing through their 2017 second-round pick, who will command a new contract to reflect that. It just hasn't materialized.
Dallas has some cap constraints with big-money deals on the books for Tyler Seguin ($9.8 million per season through 2027-28) and Jamie Benn ($9.5 million per season through 2024-25). Would that make a short-term, lower-money bridge contract for Robertson now more appealing than an all-in, long-term pact? Probably for the Stars. Potentially less so for Robertson.
The other possible holdup? Goalie Jake Oettinger, Dallas' other exceptional RFA.
Like Robertson, Oettinger was also drafted by Dallas in 2017 (No. 26 overall) and will be a major key to the club's future. Oettinger was tremendous last season, going 30-15-1 with a .914 save percentage and 2.53 goals-against average. The 23-year-old was even better in Dallas' first-round playoff loss to Calgary, giving the Stars every chance to advance with a sterling .954 SV% over seven games.
The Stars have over $10 million in cap space for the coming season. Will that be enough to satisfy both of its young talents?
Noah Dobson is another standout who doesn't have an (official) new deal, either. The Islanders' defenseman had a strong season last year, netting 13 goals and 51 points in 80 games. New York knew when it drafted Dobson No. 12 overall in 2018 that he'd be a critical part of their present and future on the blue line. He has lived up to the hype. While an extension for Dobson hasn't been announced, there's speculation that Lamoriello has an agreement in place already with the 22-year-old that has yet to be revealed. The Islanders also have another RFA defenseman, Alexander Romanov.
Other intriguing RFA contract situations to monitor around the league: Kirby Dach's status in Montreal, Filip Zadina's in Detroit, and Rasmus Sandin's in Toronto.
5. What major holes still exist for contending teams?
Carolina thought when it acquired Max Pacioretty from Vegas for basically nothing (aka, "future considerations") last month that its top six would be well set up for the coming season.
Fast-forward to last week, when the Hurricanes announced Pacioretty is having surgery on a torn Achilles and will be out six months. Ouch. GM Don Waddell believed that he'd addressed a major need for Carolina -- but now he'll be back searching for another possible target.
Meanwhile, the Golden Knights just announced this month that starting goaltender Robin Lehner will miss all of the 2022-23 season following hip surgery. Who can GM Kelly McCrimmon find last-minute to take his place?
Things can change that quickly. Happens all the time. And Carolina and Vegas aren't the only teams hoping to make the playoffs with some areas of concern.
The Minnesota Wild didn't do much early in free agency and haven't been active since. Who will fill the void left by Kevin Fiala after he was traded to Los Angeles following a 33-goal, 85-point season? Will moving Cam Talbot to Ottawa and putting all the Wild's hopes in net on veteran Marc-Andre Fleury prove to be the right call? The Central Division is stacked with talent, and Minnesota will be striving to keep up.
At least on paper, the Islanders have a few needs pending in order to get back in the postseason picture. But if contracts for Kadri, Dobson and Romanov come through, much of that worry disappears.
And what about Winnipeg? The Jets want to make a return of their own to the postseason, in part to show star players like Mark Scheifele and Pierre-Luc Dubois that they're a team worth committing to.


We teamed up with Tokyo-via-NYC streetwear brand MOANDMO for a series of tees and totes featuring classic Americana iconography with a distinctly FG twist. Fully custom cuts in ultra-limited quantities, get yours while they last! 14"x14" canvas tote.


text:
package com.precog.client;

public class Formats {

	/** Valid JSON. Multiple records must be in a JSON array. */
	public final static JsonFormat JSON = JsonFormat.JSON;

	/** White-space separated JSON values. */
	public final static JsonFormat JSON_STREAM = JsonFormat.JSON_STREAM;

	/**
	 * A CSV format for comma-separated values. This format uses commas as
	 * separators, double-quotes for quoting values, and double-quotes to
	 * escape values.
	 */
	public final static DelimitedFormat CSV = new DelimitedFormat(',');

	/**
	 * A CSV format for tab-separated values. This format uses tabs as
	 * separators, double-quotes for quoting values, and double-quotes to
	 * escape values.
	 */
	public final static DelimitedFormat TSV = new DelimitedFormat('\t');

	/** An alias for {@link Formats#TSV}. */
	public final static DelimitedFormat TAB = new DelimitedFormat('\t');

	/**
	 * A CSV format for semicolon-separated values. This format uses semicolons
	 * as separators, double-quotes for quoting values, and double-quotes to
	 * escape values.
	 */
	public final static DelimitedFormat SSV = new DelimitedFormat(';');
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Puzzling Meta
Puzzling Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for those who create, solve, and study puzzles. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Binary Sudoku Puzzle
Modified 1 year ago
The rules of Binary Sudoku are quite simple. It is very similar to regular Sudoku, except here we try to fill a 9x9 board with only black and white tiles following the below rules:
Every row, column, and $3$x$3$ box (the same nine $3$x$3$ boxes as in regular Sudoku) must have 2 black tiles — no more and no less, which leaves 7 remaining white tiles.
Black tiles can never be adjacent to other black tiles (this includes diagonally adjacent, so every tile has 8 adjacent neighbors).
Warm-up question: How many possible completed boards are there, given we start out with the two black tiles in the middle $3$x$3$ box as shown below?
Challenging (final) question: Starting with an empty board, how many possible different completed boards are there?
logical-deduction
grid-deduction
no-computers
edited Jan 25, 2022 at 0:57
menalaus
asked Jan 24, 2022 at 3:08
menalausmenalaus
$\begingroup$ FYI, this is more well-known as Star Battle. $\endgroup$
– Deusovi ♦
$\begingroup$ Are computer-aided solutions allowed? $\endgroup$
– bobble
$\begingroup$ So it's not this Binary Sudoku... $\endgroup$
– Darrel Hoffman
$\begingroup$ @bobble My bad, there's no fun in solving the puzzle with a computer, I should have made it more clear by adding a tag, but try to find a non-computer method of solving this puzzle! $\endgroup$
– menalaus
There's no no-computers, and it was easy enough to hack my Kyoto CNF generator to produce a SAT instance for the problem: a 9×9 bit array where each row, column and box has two 1s and no two adjacent variables may be both 1.
Solving the instance showed that there are exactly nine non-isomorphic (up to rotations/reflections of the whole grid) solutions: Of these only two satisfy the constraint of the first question (marked by a blue centre box). All solutions are totally asymmetric except the central one (which has 4 equivalents), yielding 68 solutions in all, 6 of which satisfy the first question's constraint.
no-computers proof:
This is basically a manual SAT proof, where the first level of cases is the centre cell star configuration (I use Hensel notation for the names). Blue, pink and white stars (mostly) indicate choices while blue backgrounds indicate solutions; note that box centres can never be starred because that would leave no room for the second star.
Case n is very easy to knock out by forced star placement. For k R5C9 is not a star because that alongside the (WLOG placed) R5C6 kills all locations for a second star in box 6, so [a star is in] R5C1 and R4C3. Subsequent assumptions, contradictions and inferences are as follows:
1. Assume [there is] not [a star in] R9C123, then R8C3 and R7/8C1, then R13C2, × (contradiction). (Slash means "or" and concatenation means "and".)
2. Assume R9C1, then R17C2 (col 2 slots), then R3C3, ×.
3. Assume R9C3, then R17C2 (col 2 slots), not R8C6, R7C6, R8C79, ×. Hence R9C2.
4. Assume R7C1, then R1C2, R3C3, ×. Hence R7C2.
5. The two stars in col 5 cannot both be in box 8. Suppose one is, then it is R9C5, then R7C6 and R8C79, ×. Hence R13C5 (box 2).
6. Assume R9C4, then not R7C8 (second star of box 9 extinguished, or E9), then R7/8C7. But either choice gives E8. Hence R8C4. 7. Assume R7C7, then R8C9, R1C8, R3C7, R4C8, ×. R8C7 gives E8, so R9C7, R7C6, R8C9.
8. Assume R8C9, then × as in 7., so R6C8.
9. Assume R4C9. This forces a complete solution (#4 in the solution summary above). Hence (for further solutions) R4C8.
10. 9. forces R3C1, at which point exactly two of R2C379 may be true and the remaining column is starred in row 1. This yields #7, #8 and #9.
1. With case c R5C19, then R4C37 are forced. Not R9C5, so R8/9C4 and R8/9C6, so R13C5. Assume R1C2, then R3C1, R7C2, R9C3 and two stars cannot be packed into box 8 (×). Hence the stars in col 2 (and 8 by symmetry) must go in box 7 (9) and R8C46.
2–5 are just short further cases that either lead to solutions #1, #2, #3 or a contradiction.
1. In case i assume (WLOG) R46C1, then R19C2, R37C3, WLOG R1C4, R2C9, R2C7 and R3C5, R7C5/6 and R9C5/6, R8C79, R79C5. But then col 5 has three stars, ×. Hence at least one of R46C2 is true, as is R46C8.
2. Assume these stars are cis, i.e. R6C28. Exactly one star then lies in each of the four pairs of R8/9C1379, forcing R7C46, R9C37, R8C19.
3. Still with the assumption from 2. assume R4C1. This forces the whole of solution #6, so for further search we assume R4C28.
4. The latter inference above (built on 2.) leads to row 3 having only one star, ×. The case induced by the choice in 2. has been exhausted.
5. We move on to the trans case, i.e. R6C2 and R4C8. To avoid repeating the cis case we have R4C1 and R6C9. Assume both stars in col 3 are in box 1, then R9C2 and R7C1, ×. Hence exactly one star in col 3 is in box 9.
6. Assume R9C3, which forces R1C2 and R8C1. Assume further R7C46, easily forcing a whole grid filled... but col 9 contains three stars, ×.
7. Given the first choice in 6. there must be R8C9; together with the whole of 6. this implies R7C7, then R6C9, R1C8, R3C7, R4C8, ×. Hence on col 3 R8C3, and by symmetry R2C7.
8. Assume R9C1, then R1C2, R3C3, R2C9, R2C7 and R3C5, R1C5, R79C6. But then col 6 has three stars, ×. Hence R8C1 and by symmetry R2C9. 9. From the end of 8. solution #5 is forced all the way.
Parcly TaxelParcly Taxel
$\begingroup$ Nice! Can you find a no-computer justification to these solutions and why they are the only ones? $\endgroup$
$\begingroup$ @menalaus done, and you just lost The Game. $\endgroup$
– Parcly Taxel
Thanks for contributing an answer to Puzzling Stack Exchange!
Use MathJax to format equations. MathJax reference.
Largest cages Killer Sudoku
A 16 Clue Sudoku Puzzle (but the kings can't be in check)
Kropki Sudoku – Sudoku based on the relation between neighbouring numbers
No Numbers Sudoku: The Ball of Queens
Sudoku: Odd Bonds
Escape from Sudoku!
Sudoku + Slitherlink
Deriving a 3x3 grid from another one
9x9 Sudoku Slitherlink Hybrid
How many Nonconsecutive Sudoku solutions are there?


text:
SSW advised on the USD 240M deal to sell 100% of shares in Impexmetal S.A.
Szymon Okoń
Tomasz Wickel
Tomasz Kwaśniewski
Katarzyna Solarz
Dawid Brudzisz
Przemysław Szabat
Jakub Jędrzejewski
HIGHLIGHT17 February 2020
The deal involves the sale of the production assets located in Konin (Aluminium Konin). Having signed a preliminary sales agreement, the shareholders of Impexmetal S.A., then made the commitment to sell their shares in the company. The price shall undergo the standard adjustment of the company enterprise value, agreed by the parties at PLN 938M (i.e. USD 240M), with the values of i.a.: net debt, net working capital, pre-paid investment outlays and other adjustments arising from the terms of the deal.
Impexmetal S.A. is a company which operates mainly in the non-ferrous metals sector. Impexmetal S.A. specializes in the production of rolled aluminium products. The company has been distributing these metals and semi-finished products abroad for more than 50 years.
Lawyers from SSW Pragmatic Solutions were responsible for offering comprehensive legal services on the deal. The team was managed by Szymon Okoń, PhD (partner), assisted by Tomasz Kwaśniewski (senior associate) and Dawid Brudzisz (associate). The following persons were also involved in the deal: Katarzyna Solarz (corporate law), Tomasz Wickel and Przemysław Szabat (tax law) and Jakub Jędrzejewski (competition law).
Congratulations to all those involved in such an important deal. Special thanks to the investment bankers of Santander Consumer Bank Polska: Maciej Skarul, Urszula Świeczkowska and Anna Witczak.


I cannot believe how blessed we are to walk in such a beautiful place. I never tire of the sunlit trees and the flowers.
This entry was posted in Photography, Poetry and tagged colour, foliage, light, New Zealand, Poetry, rata, trees, Whanganui. Bookmark the permalink.
Beautiful indeed. You have moved from one lovely spot to another. Truly blessed.
You do seem lucky to have such amazing trees nearby. We have to travel at least an hour for anything even remotely like this.


text:
title:  A Döntéseink
date:  06/04/2019
---

### E hetitanulmányunk
Példabeszédek 18:24; Prédikátor 2:1-11; Máté 7:24-25; 22:35-37; 1Korinthus 15:33; Efezus 1:1-4

>

> "De ha nem tetszik nektek, hogy az URat szolgáljátok, válasszátok ki még ma, hogy kit akartok szolgálni: akár azokat az isteneket, akiket az atyáitok szolgáltak a folyamon túl, akár az emóriak isteneit, akiknek most a földjén laktok. De én és az én házam népe az URat szolgáljuk" (Józs 24:15, RÚF)!

Észrevettük már, hogy az élet tele van választásokkal? Sõt, azt is mondhatnánk, hogy egész nap, az ébredésünk pillanatától kezdve csak döntéseket hozunk, olyan sokat, hogy igazából nem is gondolunk rájuk. Egyszerûen csak döntünk.

Néhány döntés egyszerû és rutinszerû, míg mások megváltoztatják az életünket és örökre kihatnak, nemcsak ránk, hanem a családunkra nézve is.

Mennyire fontos tehát, hogy jól átgondoljuk a döntéseinket, különösen a nagyokat, amelyek kihatnak ránk és a családunkra, nemcsak a mi egész életünkben, hanem még az övékében is!

Hányan bánjuk a mai napig bizonyos döntéseinket? Hányan élünk együtt most is bizonyos "roncsokkal", a régi, rossz döntéseink maradványaival? Szerencsére létezik bûnbocsánat! Van megváltás, gyógyulás, még a legrosszabb döntések esetében is!

Ezen a héten nagy vonalakban áttekintjük a választásaink kérdését: hogyan döntsünk, és választásaink milyen hatással lehetnek ránk, a családunkra.


text:
Megyn Kelly Unfazed By Trump Drama
By Philip Elliott
Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has had lots of bad things to say about Fox News Host Megyn Kelly. He has called her "very biased," implied that her hormonal cycle affects her journalism and tweeted as recently as Wednesday, "I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct. Instead I will only call her a lightweight reporter!"
But Kelly isn't taking the bait. In an interview with TIME just hours before Trump bailed from Thursday's Fox News debate, Kelly even found some nice words to say about the celebrity real estate developer. "He doesn't care about that P.C. culture," she said. "It's a breath of fresh air."
That doesn't mean Kelly is giving any credence to his criticisms of her. "Working the refs is part of the job," she said. Asked if she actually had any bias towards any candidate, she answered, "Absolutely not."
On Tuesday, Trump announced that he would skip this week's debate if Kelly were involved. Her network said it—not Trump—would pick the moderators, and sent out a press statement taunting Trump as a coward for threatening to walk away from tough questions. Trump promptly quit the debate stage, and said he would counter-program the Fox debate with an event of his own. In retribution, Fox released another statement saying Trump's campaign manager had threatened to further smear Kelly's name if she remained the manager. "We can't give into terrorizations toward any of our employees," the statement said.
For her part, Kelly is trying to stay out of the mess, which began at the first Republican debate, when she asked Trump about some of the crass things he has said about women in the past. She spoke with TIME on Tuesday before Trump withdrew from the debate. Her reps at the network said she was unavailable for a follow-up interview on Wednesday.
Kelly knows all the sound and fury is part of Trump's brand. "I haven't been on Twitter as much lately," she deadpans. Speaking more broadly about the tone of the 2016 race, she cautions that some of the candidates have been cavalier in their approach. "They want George Washington's job. They all need to watch their communications carefully," she said.
Even before the latest chapter in the Trump-Fox spat, Kelly was preparing for a debate that she promises will focus on substance and not personalities. It will be the final time the candidates meet face-to-face before Iowa's Feb. 1 caucuses. "This is probably Debate 501. We've moved past Debate 101," Kelly said. As such, her questions are going to be even tougher.
But that doesn't mean she's going out on limbs or trying to trick candidates, she said. "I won't be asking any questions to which I don't know the answers," she said. It's an approach she brings to the anchor chair after years as an attorney. "It's your journalistic responsibility. It's a security blanket," she said.
That preparation has helped her keep the candidates honest when they try to blow off her questions, whether on the debate stage or on her nightly show, The Kelly File. When she quotes one of their earlier statements or cites a statistic, she makes a point of having the original source just off-camera. "You only have to take that lesson once or twice," she said.
It will be Kelly's second turn as a debate moderator during the 2016 campaign, but perhaps not her last. Asked if she would like to moderate one of the three general-election debates between the eventual Republican and Democratic candidates, she had little hesitation. "Hell yes," she said.
She added that she remains disappointed that the Democrats didn't partner with Fox News for one of their debates. "They're crazy not to come over here. We have proven that we are not in the tank for anyone," Kelly said. "It's going to be fair, if they did it."
Write to Philip Elliott at philip.elliott@time.com.