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Viewing posts from: National Conference
Major powers commit to "peaceful resolution" in Libya 20 Jan 2020
Press Conference USA VoA Podcast: Overview of the Situation in Libya with Jason Pack 20 Jan 2020
Rhiannon Smith on CNN Newsroom on Berlin Conference 20 Jan 2020
Jason Pack on Al Jazeera and VOA discussing Berlin conference and proxy conflict in Libya 20 Jan 2020
Al-Monitor reveals meetings between Haftar representatives and US officials 17 Jan 2020
Major powers commit to "peaceful resolution" in Libya
On 20 January, Managing Editor of Libya-Analysis LLC Rhiannon Smith was interviewed by Russell Padmore for World Business Report on BBC World Service Radio and Radio 4. Smith commented the conclusions of the international conference on Libya which took place in Berlin on 19 January, and most particularly the reaction of the international community to the pressure applied to the oil sector by forces aligned with Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA).
Click here to listen to the interview (between 1:00 and 06:32)
Press Conference USA VoA Podcast: Overview of the Situation in Libya with Jason Pack
On 17 January, Founder of Libya-Analysis LLC Jason Pack was interviewed by Carol Castiel and Mohamed Elshinawi as part of Voice of America's Press Conference USA for a special Libya update. In this detailed interview, Pack highlights the changing nature of the Libyan file, where external actors such as Russia and Turkey have gained significant influence. For Pack, these actors are progressively taken the place of traditional foreign actors such as the United States, or European countries such as France or Italy. In that regards, he reminds of the strategic importance of Libya, at both a regional and international levels, and urges the international community to implement the right solutions to help Libya out of its chaos. Drawing on his recent researches, Pack demonstrates Libya's critical need for economic reform and how breaking the cycle of war economy could pave the way for stabilisation.
Click here to listen to the interview:
Jason Pack on Al Jazeera and VOA discussing Berlin conference and proxy conflict in Libya
On 17 January, Founder of Libya-Analysis LLC Jason Pack was interviewed by Mohamed Elshinawi for Voice of America's International Edition to discuss the situation in Libya as the international community prepared for the Berlin conference. In this interview, Pack insists on the extraordinary nature of the Libyan conflict, which witnesses foreign powers fighting directly against each other on the Libyan soil. For him, this confrontation is almost unprecedented and aggravates the Libyan crisis.
The same day, Pack also appeared on Al Jazeera, where he discussed the meeting of Khalifa Haftar with Greek government representatives on 17 January. For Pack, the meeting has to be understood as a reaction to the Turkey-Government of National Accord (GNA) MoU on maritime and military cooperation, which boosted the support of Turkey to the GNA and the threat posed by Turkey to Greece. Moving on, Pack also presented the aims of the Berlin conference set to take place on 19 January in Berlin.
Click here to listen to Pack's discussion for VOA (between 04:40 and 10:08) and here to listen to the AJ interview.
Traditional international actors in competition with Russia and Turkey on the Libya file
The fact that Turkey and Russia were able to pressure their respective Libyan clients into agreeing to the ceasefire and significantly reducing military engagement on the Tripoli frontlines highlights the increasingly dominant role that these two countries are playing in the 'Libya file', overshadowing the roles of Italy and France who were previously two key interlocuters for the opposing sides. In particular it seems it was Russian pressure which finally convinced Haftar to agree to the ceasefire, with Cavusoglu stating on 11 January that, "We are waiting for our Russian friends to succeed in convincing Haftar."
Internationally, Europe and the US have been playing catch up to the unexpected Turkey-Russia mediation with Italy in a particular trying to reassert itself as a mediator. On 14 January, Germany announced the Berlin conference would be held on 19 January with the following participants: USA, Russia, Great Britain, France, China, United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Republic of the Congo, Italy, Egypt, Algeria, as well as the UN, the EU, the AU and the Arab League. Serraj and Haftar are also invited to Berlin. The UN and Germany will hope to use the fragile ceasefire as a starting point for Berlin, but the tensions between the international actors are as divisive and complex as ever. As such, the most realistic best-case outcome for the Berlin conference is gathering the rival internationals together in one place and eliciting some sort of loose agreement to continue towards a political solution.
Economy at the heart of tensions in Libya
In his latest article published on 20 November with The Chatham House, Tim Eaton highlights the key role of economic matters in the tensions between Libyan factions. As a result, Eaton advocates for the creation of an economic commission as a tool to ensure transparency and accountability for the management of Libya's finances. For Eaton, the economic aspect should be included in the negotiations for a political solution that are expected to take place within the coming months with the Germany pushed initiative for the resolution of the crisis.
In his latest research, Jason Pack, founder of Libya-Analysis LLC, has also demonstrated the central role of economy in the Libyan crisis and drawn recommendations for an economy-driven approach to mediating the Libyan conflict.
Berlin Conference delayed until April 2020, increasing pressure on GNA PM Sarraj
On 21 October, the Government of National Accord's (GNA) Ambassador to Italy, Omar Tarhouni, stated that the planned international conference on Libya to be held in Berlin will occur in April 2020. The precise cause for the delay is unclear, but it does not come as a surprise as international actors and their Libyan allies have been setting competing trajectories for peace, insisting on uncompromising and often unachievable conditions for their attendance, and in some cases seeking new approaches – often requiring the exclusion of others.
In the meantime, Libyan politics are likely to be marked by the development of international tensions within the GNA. Indeed, the main aim of the international conference is to establish a new political process which would likely see the whole GNA structure dismantled, removing Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj source of authority and legitimacy. Internal tensions have already surfaced, with reports that the GNA's Minister of Interior, Fathi Bashagha, is pushing for a reshuffle of the GNA's ministerial positions in order to include more Misratan powerbrokers and allies in the international recognised government – and possibly to even supplant PM Sarraj himself.
The delay to the Berlin conference reinforces the assessment that momentum for a peace process in Libya appears to be stalling. This delay is likely to increase pressure on Serraj and his inner circle in the short term, and he will likely be scrambling to find other avenues to retain his hold on power in the coming weeks. Other actors within the GNA and broader anti-Libyan National Army (LNA) coalition are likely to seek to turn this delay to their advantage by using the time to better position themselves politically and strategically in anticipation of the eventual mediation.
Berlin Conference on Libya delayed as UN Special Envoy Salame calls for action not words
The planned "Berlin Conference" on Libya will be delayed until at least November, or even as late as early 2020 according to some reports, despite originally being slated for this October. Germany is now looking to hold a pre conference meeting with international states involved with the Libya crisis, excluding Libyan actors. The precise cause for the delay is unclear, though both domestic and international actors have been digging in their heels and setting uncompromising conditions for their attendance – often requiring the exclusion of others.
On 11 October, the UN Envoy to Libya, Ghassan Salame, said he remained hopeful that the Berlin Conference would lead to a UN Security Council resolution preventing foreign countries from escalating the crisis in Libya through a proxy war, as well as the implementation of mechanisms to enforce the arms embargo. In an interview he added that the countries where those weapons are produced or bought should commit publicly to stop any transfer of arms to Libya
International momentum towards a peace process in Libya appears to have stalled as a result of international actors and their domestic clients insisting on setting unhelpful and often unachievable terms for their participation. In addition, while the international drivers of the Libyan conflict are significant and justify an international focus to the talks, the prospect of holding a Libya conference without the presence of any Libyan actors could undermine the conference's integrity, particularly among Libyans. This in turn would undermine the chances of converting any international agreement into a political agreement on the ground in Libya. While Salame and other actors are undoubtedly working as best they can to bring about productive talks, there is little indication at present that the actors (foreign and Libyan) responsible for the worst of the destructive, partisan behaviour in Libya are serious about changing their approaches.
Seizing the opportunity of Haftar's gradual collapse
On 4 October, Tarek Megerisi argues in an article for Middle East Eye that General Haftar is gradually losing terrain and power since the launch of his Tripoli offensive in April. For Megerisi, the gradual collapse of Haftar and the Libyan National Army (LNA) has manifested itself through the escalation of air strikes by Haftar's foreign backers over the course of September. As such, Megerisi advocates for its opponents to seize the opportunity to impose their conditions.
Reports suggest Qatar excluded from upcoming Berlin conference by Egypt and UAE
Over the course of the past week, reports suggested that the Government of National Accord's (GNA) Minister of Interior, Fathi Bashagha, has been having secret meetings with French officials in order to reach a settlement to the Tripoli conflict. Through mediators, Bashagha has allegedly been working with significant figures in the East in order to find common ground to end the fighting. On 3 October, several reports emerged claiming that Egypt and the UAE have successfully lobbied to have Qatar excluded from the Berlin conference on Libya, slated for November. No date for the conference has been publically released, and it remains unclear who will make up the international and domestic delegations.
International allies of the Libyan National Army (LNA) – namely France, Egypt and the UAE – appear to be pre-cooking the Berlin conference on Libya to ensure that it proceeds on the terms that best serves the LNA's interests. While constructive dialogue between rival Libyan parties is key to the Berlin conference achieving a tangible outcome, how those talks are organised, who participates in them and who mediates them are all very important. If international and Libyan actors perceive that the parameters of the talks have already been pre-arranged by the pro-LNA alliance in their favour, this is likely to significantly undermine the chances of the talks achieving an end to the fighting and a way forward.
For the LNA General Command, they may interpret this stacking of the deck in their favour as support for their demands that Tripoli must be 'liberated' before a new political process can be agreed. For Sarraj and the GNA, the exclusion of Qatar and secret French-mediated talks between Bashagha and the East is indicative of the GNA losing international traction and becoming increasingly isolated. As the Berlin conference draws near, the GNA is likely to push harder for conditions which swing greater negotiating leverage back to its side. This is likely to an intensification of conflict, at least in Tripoli, in the lead up to the conference and could undermine the longer-term chances of success for the Berlin talks.
Troubled Libya is not a lost cause for all
In an article published with The National Interest on 4 October by Michael O'Hanlon and Jason Fritz argue that Libya is not a lost cause for the United States, despite its persisting troubled state. Fritz and O'Hanlon analyse that the Trump administration is in need of a foreign policy success and Libya could be the opportunity for this success.
Click here to read the article
International divisions on Libya crisis openly voiced at UN General Assembly
Interventions by foreign powers involved in the Libyan crisis at the UN General Assembly revealed their conflicting positions regarding the Libyan crisis, John Irish reports for Reuters on 24 September. At the session of the General Assembly on 24 September, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi indirectly reiterated Egypt's support to General Haftar and his Libyan National Army (LNA) as well as for the attempt by the LNA to take control of Tripoli. This intervention was then followed by a speech by Qatar's Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani denouncing alleged violations by Haftar and his armed forces and the support provided by foreign powers to Haftar. As efforts are underway by Germany to provided Libyan factions with a mediation platform to address their issues, these discussions at the UN General Assembly highlight the difficulties faced by the international community to unify its voice and lead a concerted action.
International efforts likely to fail unless critical events happen on the ground
For Atlantic Council, Karim Mezran reviews in an article published on 19 September the conditions under which international efforts could influence positively the political stalemate in Libya. Indeed, it has been announced earlier this month that international efforts to reach an agreement in Libya were to resume with two events. First, a meeting organized by France of the main international actors at the margins of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in late September. This meeting would be then followed by a high-level international conference organized by Germany for the second half of the month of October in which Libyan actors will be invited to participated. However, for Mezran, unless a critical event happens on the ground, these international meetings are unlikely to reach their objectives as international actors will have no incentive to rethink their strategies.
Germany to host conference on Libya
On 11 September, Germany announced via the German ambassador to Libya to host an international conference about Libya, Reuters reported. Germany hopes that the event will lead toward a solution for the stabilization on Libya. The organisation of the conference is reportedly still in the early stages, hence it remains unclear which actors will be participating and how Germany envisions to set the ground for meaningful results. Indeed, over the course of the past two years, there have been several similar initiatives, among which the February 2017 Cairo meeting between Government of National Accord (GNA) Fayez Al-Sarraj and General Khalifa Haftar, the Paris conference in July 2017, the Palermo international Conference in November 2018 and also the March 2019 Abu Dhabi meeting between Haftar and Sarraj. However, these meetings all failed to meet expectations.
Jason Pack on VOA's Africa News Tonight
On 4 September, Founder of Libya-Analysis Jason Pack was interviewed by Mohamed El Shenawi from Voice of America's Africa News Tonight to discuss the plan by the international community to mediate a solution to the ongoing military stalemate in Tripoli. For Pack, while the initiative decided by the UN and G7 members to reignite international efforts for a political solution in Libya is commendable, its chances of success remain rather low as long as significant international actors such as Egypt, or Russia, do not support it.
Click here to listen to Pack's interview, between 15:30 and 20:45.
UN report notes polarisation in Libya and reduction of UN presence
On 29 August, the UN published a report outlining the UN Secretary General's (UNSG) overview of the Libyan crisis as presented to the UN Security Council on 26 August. The report detailed the political, economic and security developments in Libya. Notably it stated that the conflict in southern Tripoli has "further polarised an already fragmented political landscape" with both sides "engaged in efforts to garner international support." The report called for a one-year extension to the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) mandate in Libya strengthen the UN stance that there is no military solution to the current conflict. Additionally, the report called for UN members states to observe the arms embargo on Libya.
The report will likely serve to establish an agenda for the excepted side-line meetings between the international community on Libya at the UN General Assembly in New York on 17 September. Moreover, the statements coincided with the conclusion of the G7 summit, where the latter called for an international conference with local, regional and international actors involved in the conflict. This conference is expected to be take place in Berlin in the coming months. However, it remains unclear how the UN intends to establish and implement tangible mechanisms for building international consensus and ensuring UN member states actually abide by their commitments regarding Libya.
Sarraj's peace proposal sets scene for renewed diplomatic push
Khalifa Haftar's sudden willingness to engage with the UN and equivocally set out his political position in an interview, which is a rare event in itself, follows Government of National Accord (GNA) Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj's launch of a new peace initiative on 16 June, which inside sources indicate was pre-planned with the US.
According to insiders, Sarraj's initiative revolves around 3 key points:
It completely disregards Khalifa Haftar and the leadership of the Libyan National Army (LNA). It also abandons the Sarraj-Haftar peace ticket started by France during the La Celle Saint-Cloud meeting in 2017 and pursued in the Abu Dhabi meeting in 2019 – days before Haftar launched his offensive on the capital.
It purposefully fails to provide specific details and instead highlights a general political process which will include a national conference and elections. The peace initiative avoids politicising any actor or dictating the content of such a process because it would undermine the current cohesion of the anti-LNA coalition.
It stresses Libya's role as a key ally of the US in combating terrorism, adding that this role is a source of international legitimacy and credibility. This stance is a direct challenge to Saudi Arabia and the UAE's current monopoly over US patronage and influence to countries in the region.
Sarraj's effort to push for a ceasefire and new political negotiations appears to be a high-level strategic move designed to ensure his political survival and that of the GNA rather than reflecting a genuine attempt to reach a ceasefire or enter political negotiations. While both Sarraj and Haftar appear to be going through the motions of diplomatic engagement in response to this international shift, the conditions laid out by both are predicated on their forces winning the conflict, not on finding a negotiated end to it. In reality, the depth and vitriol of political polarisation in Libya at present mean neither Haftar nor Sarraj could agree to grant the concessions that would be required to reach a ceasefire, otherwise they would lose their support base and their leadership positions, while their loosely aligned forces carried on fighting.
Is the United States the way forward for Libya?
On 1 June, Hafed Al-Ghwell and Karim Mezran published with The Hill an op-ed in which they plead for the United States to intervene in Libya to put an end to the conflict and stop General Haftar's advance on Tripoli. For Al-Ghwell and Mezran, the support of the United States to the Government of National Accord (GNA) and the UN efforts in Libya is vital and Washington should manifest it clearly. Mezran and Al-Ghwell move on to drawing several recommendations for actions to undertake. First they recommend for NATO under U.S leadership to declare a no fly zone over the Libyan territory to undermine external support to factions and protect lives. Following, they propose the re-establishment of a status quo between the two warring factions and the revitalization of the UN-led negotiation process. Lastly, they argue in favour of developing an effort towards supporting the emergence of a new leadership in Eastern Libya, instead of General Haftar and supporting the implementation of the UN embargo prohibiting arms to Libya. This call for a greater engagement of the United States on the Libyan matters echoes many other voices that have been petitioning over the past few months for the U.S to revise its Libya policy.
Analysis Kingdom of Militias: Libya's Second War of Post-Qadhafi Succession
On 31 May, Jason Pack, Founder of Libya-Analysis, published with the Italian Institute For Political Studies (ISPI) an in-depth analysis of the Libyan militia landscape. The research looks at the different groups and factions on the ground in Libya, to understand the current crisis which Pack labels as Libya's second war of post-Qadhafi succession.
Drawing upon the Libya-Analysis proprietary real time militia mapping project, this paper examines the main armed groups involved in the war: ascertaining their strengths, weaknesses, command and control structures, motivations, alliances, military capacities, and financing. This paper illustrates that the balance of power persists in Libya due to its being sustained by the war economy. As such financial leverage, is the international community's sharpest policy instrument. Should it wish to halt the fighting it should block the LNA's funding streams, as well as those of other belligerents, and then facilitate a face-saving compromise.
Click here to read the research.
ICG report advocates for political dialogue between Libyan factions
On 23 May 2019, International Crisis Group (ICG) published a report on the conflict in Libya, providing a set of recommendations to move beyond the present stalemate. Their report insists on the importance for the two rival factions to compromise and come to an understanding through political dialogue. If not, ICG fears the escalation of the conflict which will plunge Libya in a more chaotic situation, in which external actors will also be embarked.
Click here to read the report.
Political solution as the way forward for Libya
On 21 May, Middle East Institute (MEI) released a report by Jonathan M. Winer which looks at the origins of the Libyan conflict and proposes options for its resolution. Winer argues that Libya faces the threat of an extended war of attrition as a consequence of General Haftar's assault on Tripoli, with dire humanitarian impacts for the Libyan population. For Winer, it is essential to convince Libyan actors that a political solution is the only way forward for the country. Well-articulated, the reports reviews Libya's history and presents in clear manner the main domestics and international actors of the Libyan conflict in the fields of politics and security.
Click here to download and read the report.
The implication of Haftar's offensive for Libya
In an article published on 3 May with Atlantic Council, Karim Mezran analyses the implication of General Haftar's offensive on Tripoli. For Mezran, the future for Libya is likely to take the shape of a partition of a sort. He states:
After the battle sorts itself out there will be an opportunity for peace talks, but these must happen on a different level than the discussions that produced the Skhirat agreement of December 2015. The difference will consist in understanding the mutated situation on the ground and accepting that to obtain a degree of peace and stability the two parts of the country will have to be ruled according to the conditions that have evolved in the last few weeks.
External actors at the heart of Libyan tensions
In an article published on 5 May by WRAL.COM, Tim Lister summarizes the ongoing tensions and developments which have taken place in Libya over the course of the past month. Lister points out that, as exposed in Libya-Analysis Jason Pack and Lachlan Wilson's article for the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, the current chaos in Libya provides opportunities for a significant resurgence of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Libya. Since the beginning of tensions around Tripoli, ISIS claimed two attacks in Southern Libya.
Saudi Arabia's financial support to Haftar's operations
On 12 April, Jared Malsin and Summer Said reported in an article with the Wall Street Journal that prior to the launch of the Libyan National Army (LNA) offensive on Tripoli, Saudi Arabia allegedly promised tens millions of dollars to Eastern Libyan General Haftar to support his operations. The article describes the support received by General Haftar and the LNA from foreign actors, such as the United States and some European members state over the past few months. Jonathan M. Winer, the former U.S. special envoy to Libya, argues that such support was granted as foreign actors believed Haftar's commitment to the UN-led political process. For Wolfram Lacher, such support has enable Haftar to become the player he currently is on the Libyan political scene.
ICG provides recommendations to avert a full-blown war in Libya
On 10 April, International Crisis Group (ICG) published an analysis of the turmoil in Western Libya which resulted from the launch of an offensive of the Libyan National Army (LNA) by General Haftar. For ICG, the outcomes of the fight in Tripoli largely depends on the response of outside actors and the need for more explicit support to the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA). Drawing on this statement, ICG provides several recommendations to the international community in order to avoid the escalation of tensions. The recommendations insist on the fact that new negotiations would need three components reflecting what ICG identifies as Libya's three-tiered nature: political, financial and military tracks.
Click here to read the article in full.
Analysis of voter participation in Libya's 2019 Municipal Elections
On 11 April, Dr Otman Gajiji shared with Libya-Analysis his analysis of the municipal elections which took place in Libya at the end of March of this year. These elections were highly expected in Libya due to their importance as they constitute a step towards the restoration of the state's legitimacy.
The second Libyan municipal elections started early this year. On 30th Mar 2019 the first round of municipal elections concerned 9 municipalities. The preliminary results were later published by the Central Committee for Municipal Elections (CCMCE) . Voter registration was opened for all municipalities to allow for more voters to register and voters who had registered for the first round which took place in 2013-2016 did not need to register again. The second round took place on 6th April and concerned a group of 7 municipalities located in Western Libya. The preliminary participation rates were also later published by CCMCE.
The security situation in the western and southern regions was taken into consideration given the recent turn of events in Western Libya. CCMCE postponed Kikla elections (on the Nafusa mountain) before voting day, and both Al Asabia and South Zawia were stopped on the polling day.
The attached tables show voter and candidate registration for some municipalities. The last table of participation rates in this election also includes a comparison of participation with the first round of elections in 2014.
Municipal Elections Libya 2019
Salame postpones National Conference, Germany calls for UNSC consultations
On 9 April, UN Envoy to Libya Ghassan Salame said in a statement that he is postponing the National Conference that was due to take place on 14- 16 April. In addition, Germany has reportedly called for a UN Security Council briefing on Libya (UNSC), to take this afternoon. Salame will brief the UNSC members at this meeting on the situation in Libya. Salame concluded his lengthy statement saying:
I therefore reiterate that I am more determined than ever to hold the National Conference at the earliest possible opportunity, as we cannot allow the historic opportunity it presents to be lost. We also cannot ask Libyans to attend a Conference to the backdrop of artillery shelling and air raids as we must ensure that all of those who expressed willingness to respond to this historic and national event from all over the country are able to attend and are able to voice their opinions freely. I will work, to the fullest possible extent, to enable the Libyan National Conference to take place as soon as possible, once the conditions to enable it to be held are re-established. I will work day and night to put an end to the current military escalation, ensure that reason and national interest once again supersede force and mend the external differences to enable the resolution of the crisis in Libya.
Postponing the conference is not unexpected given the circumstances, but nevertheless reiterates that the UN and internationals have so far not had enough to leverage to even enforce a humanitarian ceasefire, let alone a return to dialogue. Salame remains in Tripoli but some UN staff have been evacuated to Tunis. Salame's efforts will likely now be focused on finding at least a temporary halt to the fighting in Tripoli. Russia is likely to veto any UNSC movement to directly criticise Libyan National Army (LNA) leader Khalifa Haftar, so it is unclear how much pressure the UN will be able to apply to end the violence.
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text:
Q: typedef emulation in C# I have a field variable named uid in a class. The type is int, but I want to open the possibility that I change it long or short.
With C++, typedef is the one for this purpose, but I see C# doesn't have typedef.
Is there a way to mimic typedef in C#?

A: I think you're trying to alias the type. If so, you can alias it via the using alias directive. You must specify the fully qualified type (the entire namespace) when assigning an alias.
For example:
using System;
using MyAlias = System.Int32;

namespace UsingAlias
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            MyAlias temp = Math.Min(10, 5);
            Console.WriteLine(temp);

            MyAlias result = MyAlias.Parse("42");
            Console.WriteLine(result);
        }
    }
}

A: Try making a class.  It's like a typedef on steroids, and you can change the internal representation as much as you want without affecting the interface!
You could even make it a guid!

A: Make it a struct:
struct Uid { public int Value; }

A: Encapsulate it in it's own class (or a struct, if more appropriate).
public class UID
{
    public int Value { get; set; }
}

Write your methods in terms of your UID class, limiting the exposure to the actual value type to the smallest subset of code necessary.
publc class Entity
{
     public UID ID { get; set; }

     public void Foo( UID otherID )
     {
         if (otherID.Value == this.ID.Value)
         {
             ...
         }
     }
}
}

A: Define a struct with just one field
  public struct ID_Type
  {
      public long Id;
  };

and use it whereever you need it.
If you have just one class where the ID type is needed, you can also try to make this class a generic class with the UID type being a type parameter.

A: You could always use generics:
public class Foo<T>
{
  public T MyField { get; set; }
}

public class FooInt : Foo<int>
{
}

public class FooShort : Foo<short>
{
}

or, just change it later on.
/// want an int
public class Foo
{
  public int MyField { get; set; }
}

/// and just change it later on:
public class Foo
{
  public short MyField { get; set; }

}

A: Wouldn't the result be the same if you used int and then changed it later on?

A: See this , he uses Operator Overloading
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/csharplanguage/thread/019a258e-8d50-4a9f-b0ef-8311208ebb6a/

A: Here is a simple solution that helped.
    using typedef = System.Int32;

     class MyTypeDef
     {
          typedef ERROR, TRUE=1, FALSE=0;
          public int MyMethod()
          {
              if(this is an error condition)
              {
                 ERROR = TRUE;
              }
              else
              {
                  ERROR = FALSE;
              }
              return ERROR;
          } // end MyMethod
      } // end MyTypeDef

A:
Is there a way to mimic typedef in C#

No

to solve my problem

What problem?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
The Music Court
Write for the Music Court.
Elijah Behar and Hollow Body
Elijah Behar
What happens when you combine influences like The Doors and the Velvet Underground with Radiohead, then stir the concoction with soulful singer-songwriter's Jose Gonzalez and Leonard Cohen, and then top it off with a taste of modern electronica. Well you certainly get an intriguing blend of experimental folk, and Elijah Behar, a 22-year-old Californian musician now living in Los Angeles, has proven that such a blend of influences can not only work but also flourish.
Elijah released a solo EP entitled Hollow Body in April (which can be downloaded for free on his bandcamp page), and I do not hesitate in saying that this five-track release is fresh and exciting. His deep, lush voice invokes the engaging baritone of The National's lead singer, folk powerhorse Matt Berninger, and it also features a sensual quality like Jim Morrison himself. The voice suits the music perfectly as expressed in the first track on Hollow Body, "Black Sage."
I had the opportunity to interview Elijah through e-mail where I asked him about his influences, music, and future. Before I post our conversation, I want to pull out one apt comment he made when asked about the creation of "Black Sage"
My aim for a track like Black Sage and the whole EP in general was to do only as much production as the song needed to deliver its full impact. I have been involved with projects that get produced and "perfected" to the point where the songs turn sterile and lifeless. On this EP I wanted to start with an acoustic guitar and a voice and build elements around those two instruments that simply compliment the original intention of the song.
Here is "Black Sage"
I would stress to Elijah that what he is doing here is what he should continue doing. The haunting piece features this dark acoustic riff that mixes with his slippery voice that is almost surreptitious and devilish. The song shifts at 1:30 into a Radiohead-like keyboard riff that purposefully lags with the percussion. The following echo is just a total mindscrew. The effects are well done. It is a treat to listen to Elijah manipulate the music and I think this has a shot to be the title track on full LP.
Here is the rest of the interview:
1) When did you first start writing and recording tunes?
I started playing music at 14 and by the end of high school I was writing, recording and playing with a handful of bands in my hometown, Ojai, CA.
2.) When you were growing up who were some of your biggest influences and how did those musicians shape you?
Growing up my biggest influences were The White Stripes, The Doors, and The Velvet Underground; pretty much the basic rock and roll package. Over the last few years I have become a diehard Radiohead fanatic (post OK computer), and have been loving more direct singer-songwriters like Jose Gonzalez, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, and Elliot Smith. I also love electronic musicians like Modeselektor and Aphex Twin. These musicians continue to shape how I approach songwriting and performance.
3.) Is Hollow Body your first release? What were you trying to accomplish with the songs?
Hollow Body is my first solo release but definitely not my first project. I put out an album with the rock band I fronted, Marquee (www.marquee.bandcamp.com) a year ago, and have released a few other projects before that.
With Hollow Body, my goal was to define myself as a musician who combined the raw intensity of rock with the emotional honesty and directness of a more stripped down form, like folk music. I would define my genre as Experimental Folk.
4.) What is your favorite part about recording music?
My favorite part of recording music is towards the end of mixing where I feel like I can finally let go of the material that has bouncing around my skull for months. It's a relief to have the music exist outside of me.
5.) I always ask this and it is often the most difficult question. If you had a chance to have record a session with three musicians (alive or dead) who would they be and why?
If I could have a recording session with anyone live or dead it would be with any members of Radiohead and Nigel, their producer. Actually I would be happy just bringing them coffee and cooking for them while they recorded new material.
6.) What is in the future for Elijah Behar?
In the immediate future, I will continue playing shows in and around LA, make some music videos, and record some demos of new material I have written since Hollow Body was released. Beyond that, I hope to tour the west coast as soon as possible, and I have been meeting with some heavy hitters in the music industry (can't mention names) who want to help me expand.
One more song for you and then I urge you to check out his Facebook for more details.
A pretty standard folk tune that accentuates Elijah's killer voice. Good luck to him!
Tags: Acoustic, Arts and Entertainment, Music, Radiohead
Categories Musical Interludes (Melodic thoughts from the Jester)
Author Matthew Coleman
← Save The Starlite – Preserving English Rock History
London Calling – Back in the Middle of June →
3 Responses to "Elijah Behar and Hollow Body"
El Guapo May 30, 2012 at 10:10 am #
I can hear the Doors in the first track. Second one reminded me of Dave Matthews a bit.
Thanks for the turn on. Going to check out his site.
Matthew Coleman May 30, 2012 at 1:40 pm #
Yeah, I can certainly hear Dave Matthews in his music. Hope you enjoy the other stuff you check out.
The Boy! June 7, 2012 at 2:15 pm #
"It's a relief to have the music exist outside of me."
I can understand that. I wish him well, too.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Aznavour, Charles [Aznavourian, Varenagh]
[Aznavourian, Varenagh]
(b Paris, May 22, 1924). French singer and songwriter. His parents were Armenian immigrants, and he began acting as a child. In 1941 he wrote the lyrics to the song J'ai bu, with music by Pierre Roche, and which brought the songwriting team to the attention of Edith Piaf. Aznavour subsequently wrote songs for Piaf (Il pleut, 1949), Gilbert Bécaud (Donne-moi, 1952) and Juliette Greco (Je hais les dimanches, 1950). As a singer, he toured with Piaf, but major success only came with Sur ma vie (1955). Such reflective and romantic songs as The Old-Fashioned Way and She (1974) brought him international acclaim, while numbers such as Hier encore (translated as Yesterday when I was Young) typify his introspective and melancholic style. His operetta, Monsieur Carnaval, was performed in Paris in 1965, and his film appearances include François Truffaut's ...


Details of Whitney Houston's will have been filed.
Papers relating to her inheritance were unveiled in Atlanta yesterday (March 7), with the late singer leaving everything to her only child, 19-year-old Bobbi Kristina Brown.
Her daughter, whose father is ex-husband Bobby Brown, will receive part of her inheritance after she turns 21, before receiving further payments at the age of 25 and 30.
No specific assets were mentioned but furnishings, clothing and jewellery were all to be included, according to papers obtained by The Insider.
Houston's trustees, which include her sister-in-law Donna and brother Michael, can give her daughter money for various purposes, including tuition, to buy a house or to start a business. Her sister-in-law and manager, Patricia Houston, has been appointed administrator of the estate and her mum Cissy named as executor of the will.
It was signed by the late singer on February 3, 1993, about a month before she gave birth to her daughter.
Earlier this week, Los Angeles County Coroner's Office apparently received calls from people claiming to be relatives of Houston and demanded a murder investigation be opened into her death.
Despite these claims, her death is likely to be ruled as accidental, according to sources close to the investigation.
Houston passed away on February 11 at the age of 48, after she was discovered underwater and unconscious in a bath at a hotel in Beverly Hills.


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The public interest in documentary film and photography has taken a flight in recent decades. However, we would be mistaken to take such developments to mean that the 'genre' of documentary has established a uniform tradition and stable identity for itself. In a historical sense, the notion of documentary film and photography is relatively young – the term stems from the 1920s – but the meaning and function of documentary has undergone many transformations. In a general sense, a 'documentary' is expected to provide a 'factual' or 'objective' portrayal of the world we live in. Based on real events, it's function is understood to provide evidence of socio-historical events and circumstances. Ideally, then, a documentary image would not subjected to any form of manipulation or mediation. The point of this course is to examine how such claims to truth and authenticity were articulated, but also came to be questioned. We shall pay attention, for instance, to such issues as the mode of address, the framing of images, the use of stylistic devices and narrative techniques, and the function of captions and commentary. In particular, we shall focus on the relationship between fact and fiction, examining the role of re-enactments in documentary, for instance, or the deliberate blending of fictional and actual film footage in recent film and video essays.
Students who successfully complete this course will:
be able to provide a historical survey of the most important postions and reflections of the documentary practice of film and photography.
be able to reflect on the difference, but also the intersection between documentary and fictional modes of image production.
have acquired insight into the most important historical and contemporary practices of documentary film and photography.
have acquired knowledge of the most important theoretical, aeshetic and political debates concerning the 'documnetary' truth of filmic and photographic media.
The timetable is available on the website.
Lecture and presentations
Total course load: 140 hours
Self-study: 114 hours
Paper (90%) and short writing assignments (10%)
The final mark for the cours is established by determing the weighted average.
Rewriting of paper.
Blackboard will be used for announcements, providing literature and other study materials, peer-review, plagiarism control, and weekly assignments.
Nichols, Bill. Introduction to Documentary, 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana U.P, 2010. Print.
Grant, Barry Keith and Jeannette Sloniowski, eds. Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video. Detroit: Wayne State U.P. 1998. Print.
Enrolment through uSis for classes, exams and final papers is mandatory.
Registration Contractonderwijs
For questions about the content of the course, you can contact the teacher Dr. E.C.H. de Bruyn.
Student administration: Van Wijkplaats
Coordinator of studies: ms. drs. E.M.T.Poolman
For more information please check the website of the study program Film and Literature Studies.
Dr. E.A. Steinbock
5542VDF
Film- en literatuurwetenschap Bachelor
Studielast (26u)
Werkcollege
(Schriftelijk) Tentamen
Overige toetsvormen


The prominence and quality of School of Medicine researchers and physician faculty further the patient-care mission at the UC Davis Medical Center. As inland Northern California's only academic medical center and only level 1 trauma center, the medical center provides patients with access to the latest technological advances and investigational drugs and therapies.
As the main tertiary care referral center for a 33-county area of more than six million residents, the 627-bed hospital and 150-plus specialty clinics provide a diverse patient population for a well-rounded medical school education. UC Davis admits tens of thousands of patients per year and handles nearly 1 million visits, and the medical center's emergency room can see more than 200 patients per day on average.
UC Davis Health continues to support the growth of its multidisciplinary clinical centers. Each of these programs integrates broad areas of clinical and research expertise and offers a variety of multidisciplinary clinical programs featuring state-of-the-art care and leading edge research. Together they provide comprehensive care and essential services to the residents of Northern California.
The medical center is nationally recognized for a variety of its initiatives, including UC Davis Children's Hospital and UC Davis Cancer Center. The medical center also offers services and programs that are unique to the region. These include a burn center, poison control center, hemophilia program, eye and tissue bank, skull base surgery program, limb salvaging/lengthening program, bone marrow transplant center, pancreas transplant program, computerized visual field research, cultured epithelial allografting, and pediatric oncology program.


The short answer to this question is "not really," but they do need to be aware of the developer tools that are available and adopt a developer mindset.
The way networks and network devices are administered has not really changed very much in the last 30 years. Most network engineers are doing it the same way they always have.
Telnet, or more recently SSH to the command line interface (CLI) of a network device, issue a show command or a configure command, save the config, and log out. The configuration would then be stored on the engineer's laptop or in a central folder with a naming convention like switch1-config-v2-change293fix.txt.
This process is repeated on every device they want to configure. This process if fine if you only have a few devices to administer, but what if you have 1000 switches to make a one-line configuration change to? If the one-line configuration change takes 30 seconds to perform, then 30 seconds x 1000 devices = 500 man hours to make one change! This process is prone to human error and when configuring multiple devices is very time consuming.
Using programming languages like Python or automation frameworks like Ansible, network engineers today are starting to adopt developer mindsets and treating their network infrastructure as code. Utilizing tools like Git & Github for version control with the focus on creating consistent and repeatable deployment models, they are treating the network as a single configurable entity instead of a collection of single appliances.
With project requirements getting more time-critical, the ability to bring up network infrastructure in a deterministic and repeatable manner is becoming a standard requirement. Cloud networking is also advancing at a rapid pace: you are no longer configuring your own physical switches, but a provider's virtual switches or routers.
So with all these advancements in network administration, do network engineers have to be become developers?
None of these tools or mindsets are a new thing: server administrators have been managing their infrastructure in an automated way for many years and developers have been writing code for a lot longer! What has been lacking is the transition of the network world into the devops mentality, currently referred to as NetDevops (Network Development & Operations). Companies are already automating their infrastructure with their engineers thinking like developers, but they are still in the minority.
What Is a Developer Mindset?
A developer mindset means a network engineer needs to start thinking about repeatable tasks that can be automated and developing the code once to make that happen many times, instead of repeating common tasks over and over.
Now with all this talk of code, a common fear is that you have to become a developer or programmer, but with tools like Ansible–Puppet & Chef are also being used, but Ansible is becoming the standard tool for network automation–you don't need to learn to code, but just learn how to write playbooks. A playbook is a list of tasks that are run by Ansible to make network changes or discovery tasks that can pull information back from your network. You don't actually have to write in a programming language.
Ansible playbooks are written in Jinja2, a human-readable language that makes it very easy to get started with automating your network and very easy for anyone else to read and understand the changes that are being made.
Some would argue that network engineers are already coders in that they configure devices using the command line language of Cisco or Juniper, which may be seen as a coding language, but it is not a recognized software development language like Python.
With all that said, there is nothing stopping network engineers from becoming developers and learning Python; however, to use Python for network automation tasks, the level of coding you need is not that in depth and one would argue that a Python developer writing code for a corporate application is more of a coder than a network engineer running a few simple scripts.
Will Engineers Automate Themselves Out of a Job?
The big fear is often the fear of change: specifically, that by automating daily tasks, a network engineer will automate themselves out of job. This is not the case.
Most network engineers never have enough time to actually focus on the work they really need to do, which is optimizing and re-designing the network, deploying new sites with standard configurations, and improving performance. Instead, they spend their day ploughing through endless changes to keep up with the demands of the business. They never have enough time to ensure every network device is compliant with corporate standards and that every device in the entire network is configured to an approved configuration.
By using network automation and thinking more like a developer, network engineers can take the labor-intensive tasks and automate them giving them more time to focus on the more interesting parts of the job.
Network Engineer With a Bit of Developer? Or Developer with a Bit of Network Engineer?
This is the chicken and egg scenario: who came first the network engineer who likes to write code, or the coder who likes network engineering?
The most common route of entry is the network engineer who likes to write code, typically an engineer with many years of experience who realizes the benefit the developer mindset can bring to their job. However, there is a problem here in that the speed of adoption into solid developer best practices is usually slow.
The other route of entry is a developer (someone who has been writing code for many years) with solid experience in programming languages like Python or Ruby and developer tools like Git, Github & Jenkins. But they have zero experience as a network engineer.
They are being told the requirements and asked to develop code without any real appreciation of the live network operations. Developers who are moving into the world of network engineering, though, have a massive head-start on the network engineers in terms of code development and are learning (or being told) just what they need to configure for.
The final point of entry is for a new network engineer who has no knowledge of network engineering or development. They will not know any different and will start learning both and will probably wonder why the network engineers of today have taken so long to move into the new world of network automation and the developer mindset.
So how do you adopt a developer mindset and which tools should the network engineers of tomorrow start learning? The way to get started is to begin with small, low impact tasks like taking config backups and storing them in version control. Here is a great tutorial on taking a backup from a Cisco router using Ansible.
Then for version control, Git is the go to solution. Check out this great self-hosted Git solution.
The next step is to develop configuration templates. These enable you to easily deploy new sites without writing all the configuration files from scratch and also creates a corporate standard for configurations. This supports configuration compliance and security compliance.
Once you have a standard configuration template and you have defined how all your network switches, routers, and firewalls should be configured, you could then prevent changes to these devices from anything but the automation platforms and then enforce compliance.
A typical use case would be to deploy the standard configuration to your network infrastructure on a regular basis (typically every 4 hours). Any unauthorized changes would be overwritten and reported on. This also leads nicely into security compliance, ensuring that all security best practices are defined and applied to every device.
Once the process is stable and predictable, this way of working would be the standard practice for network configuration changes. This is the new world of network automation where you can trust your network administrators to think like developers.
While NetDevops engineer is quickly becoming a more common position, there will always be a need for someone to configure the network the old way. Network engineers are not going to be replaced by computers, but if they want to safeguard their career and really embrace what the future has to offer then learning some devops tools and looking towards a developer mindset is going to build a great foundation for their future.


Imo Chigboromogu Michael is a creative artist with a bias for painting at this phase of his carrer. At the moment, he is a full time studio artist who is currently practicing in Abuja, Nigeria. His works dominantly is a voice he uses to bring to the fore the current socio-political runnings in the society. He has constantly been in tune with his innerself and one of the results is his painting, a path he hopefully yearns to find a space for himself. He is a member of the Society of Nigeria Artist, Abuja Chapter. Aside from painting, he uses body and a performance arts as another tool to make his arts known ad his voice. Some selected exhibitions; 2010 Inaugural Exhibition 'SNA' Nasarawa State Chapter, 2010. 2015 Barcelő: An Artist between the Mediterranean and Africa. Thought Pyramid Arts Center, Abuja. Getting to Zero, Arts Competition / Exhibition. American Embassy, Abuja. 2016 Feast Your Eyes. Flamingo Rooftop Restaurant, Abuja. DENIM EXHIBITION.Exhibition Pavillion, Abuja. The CONVERSATION; Creative Youth as Drivers of the Change Agenda. STATE HOUSE, Abuja. 2017 'THOUGH I DONT KNOW YOU' (Performance Arts) AMBASSADE DE BELGIQUE, Abuja.


It was a beautiful day to hike…I mean go cross country skiing. It's the thing to do around here in winter, so I let my friends take me out to learn a new skill.
Teacup Lake sounds so quaint and proper and cute. I looked forward to a delightful day in the snow.
As it turns out, I'm not much of a natural on skis. I'm sure that's not unusual, but for some reason I thought it would be easier. Must have been all those images in my head of old people gliding so gracefully along on their skis. It didn't occur to me that perhaps they had decades of practice behind them and I only had an hour or two.
Shoot, this was much more awkward and difficult than I thought.
Take a good look. You're not going to be seeing much of this ?.
Here's my beef with cross country skiing: you have to stay on groomed trails. What's the point of that? We skied along a wide, flat path that had been nicely groomed before our arrival. Seemed a bit pretentious to me. Where's the sense of exploration? Where are the downed trees to crawl over? Where are the steep hills, the iced-over creeks, the curious side paths? I think I'll stick to snowshoeing. Sure, it's slower, but it's way more interesting.
This entry was posted in Hiking, Oregon and tagged hike366 on December 17, 2008 by Jess B.


Remember climate change? Remember how President Donald Trump didn't mention climate in his State of the Union 2019? Of course you do and of course he didn't. DJ Trump don't spin that record. Well, according to The Guardian's Emily Holden, more than a few notable people noticed.
Also incensed, Joel Clement, a Senior Fellow with the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Or simply, a concerned scientist who had been in attendance at the SOTU.
How irresponsible? Look no further than the content of the Climate Report released this past November, on Black Friday of all days, a day when people are distracted with like, you know, killer discounted couches and prices on plasma TVs so slashed you'd think they were horror movie props. Yeah, almost no one noticed, but hey, we did, and now we've published the report as a handy-dandy full color illustrated book so simple in its message that THIS IS WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF WE DO NOT FIX THIS PROBLEM that even Trump could understand it.
The article goes on to note that Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey are releasing expanded language on the high-level goals of a Green New Deal. Twitter, meanwhile, has made use of Speaker Nancy Pelosi's golf-clap greeting to Trump as he took to the podium to address the nation. Enjoy.


Profile German-born, Dubai-based Anja Schwerin often blogs about fantastic desserts that use alternative sugars and flours, like almond meal in a breakfast bread and coconut sugar in oatmeal cookies. "You'll also find raw, paleo and vegan recipes," she says. Because of the huge expat community in Dubai, she doesn't have trouble finding Western ingredients. "But I do cook with a lot more Middle Eastern and Indian spices than the average German would ever use," she says.


Come visit the shop this weekend for more free goodies, new prints and cards, and amazing deals on bookmarks, washi tape, stickers, and stamps. Also, make sure to present your student or teacher ID for 15% off your entire purchase.
To find the shop, following your nose! I'm located in front of Mrs. Field's Cookies, just a skip away from the Women's Macy's.
Le Petit Elefant Summer Shop is now OPEN!
. The #LPESummerShop features new art prints, stationery, rubber stamps, stickers, mason jars, and more!
, I have "Shop Local. Shop Love" Clink tote bags EXCLUSIVE to the #LPESummerShop. I'll be giving away tote bags to the first 10 customers who spend over $25 both this Saturday & Sunday (August 2 & 3). Get 'em while you can! At the end of the month, I'll put the remaining for sale online.
, #LPESummerShop) and you'll get 10% off. Weeeee!!
OK everyone, thanks for reading and visiting! I hope you'll come to the shop. This moment is huge for me, and I'm so thankful you're all here to share this crazy adventure.
Kickin' off my 30s with a SALE!!
I'm coming to Houston everyone!! The land of BBQ, NASA and a wonderful museum district.
I met Leila & her husband, the owners of Space Montrose, a little over a year ago at Renegade Craft Fair Austin. Leila, like many of her shop's patrons, is a geek at heart, and I thought it would be perfect to bring my illustrated explorations of space to her shop for a art exhibition. Won't you join us? It's the first exhibition in their new location, and the opening happens to fall on the summer solstice. So there's lots to celebrate!
Scroll down for more info & sneak peeks!
! I'm nervous but mostly excited because I have so much new stuff to share. Find me at SP-120 in the back left corner of the Anaheim convention center.
Supahcute Science Fair opens this Saturday!
because one, it's an amazing roster of talented artist, and two, SCIENCE!! Little known fact: I was a biology major during my freshman year at USC. Weird, right? I totally wanted to work in the sciences and be a geek in a lab, etc, but the calling for art was stronger. So this combines my two great loves. I hope you can attend!
If not, you can view the art online very soon. I'll post a link when ready.
to view & purchase the art. All my pieces sold (yipeee!!) but there are some really amazing ones still left!!
Happy Valentine's Day! 6 years ago, I hosted an anti-Valentine's day party. Thankfully Kevin decided to attend rather than watch Juno, drink a bottle of wine, and eat a KFC bucket like he originally planned.
, or snag one at the info booth at most Renegade Craft Fairs. They're usually there repping.
. Think of it as another version of Etsy but without the facade of being all "handmade" (quotations around handmade because I've been seeing more and more mass-produced items on there and it's watering down the quality of Etsy, but that's another topic). It's marketplace to find small businesses, and it's absolutely wonderful. They've been putting together gift guides as well, and I had the great fortune of being featured on their latest two. If you haven't browsed through Square Market, you're in for a treat. Make sure you set a budget for yourself though! ;).


The Horizons headstall features great basic tack perfect for everyday riding. This single-ply 5/8" headstall is constructed from durable, weather resistant harness leather and features a doubled and stitched v-browband. Double cheek adjustments offer a great fit. Chicago screw bit ends. Durable nickel plated hardware. Horse size.


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Category Archives: Rumor
Natalie Dormer as a Time Lady? Yes, Please…
GAME OF THRONES star Natalie Dormer has said she would consider playing a female version of the Doctor if DOCTOR WHO ever decided to change the gender of its star Time Lord — but only provided the script is there.
While doing press for her current film, The Huger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, Dormer said:
"For me it's always about the script. It has to be real human beings, contradictory, flawed, complex, multidimensional characters. It can't just be concept, you know? 'Female James Bond' — CONCEPT. It has to have quality in the writing of real human psychology."
I applaud Dormer for being all about the script. So far, 90 percent of those advocating changing the Doctor to female all line up behind the idea "Why not?" Since it's possible, those fans believe the show should change the Doctor's gender. But to me, doing it just because the show can smacks as the very definition of a "gimmick." Just doing it for the novelty would be short-term ratings bait.
I believe there needs to be a reason to do it that goes beyond "It's a great gimmick." What's the story? Why does the Doctor need to be female?
I am all for Dormer portraying a Time Lady — but does she have to become the Doctor? How about a new character? She could be a rival or friend of the Doctor from university. (That certainly was an interesting class they had — the Doctor, the Master and the Rani all in the same year? Wow.
One thing is certain: Dormer would look terrific in the period clothing the Doctor usually wears…
Moffat: The Doctor Could Become a Woman — In Theory
Posted on November 19, 2015 by Joe Standard	1
Romana and Romana II
With the end of the ninth season of DOCTOR WHO approaching — as well the imminent departure of Clara (Jenna Coleman) — a lot of folks think it's time to shake the trees and talk about turning the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) into a woman for his next incarnation.
During the DOCTOR WHO panel at London's Comic-Con, executive producer and lead writer Steven Moffat was asked if the Doctor could regenerate into a woman. He replied:
"Yes [Long applause]. But there is no vacancy. I'm being really explicit in my answer here because I gave this answer once in San Diego. I was asked if the Doctor could ever be a woman and I said 'I think there's a subtext in the show, maybe you should read it.' And I turned and gestured to Michelle Gomez sitting next to me as Missy, and everyone laughed. This was reported, widely, as me saying the Doctor would never be a woman. So let me just make this very, very clear: There is no vacancy, and it may never happen. However artistically it could work. Commercially, the audience would go with it, we've proven that with Missy. And that's why we did it, frankly. Yes, it can happen. It doesn't need to happen, but it can, absolutely."
After Clara Departs DOCTOR WHO, She Will 'Never Return'!
When Jenna Coleman departs DOCTOR WHO — possibly (probably) this week! — Clara will "never return," according to executive producer and Clara's creator, Steven Moffat.
"Clara is gone and will never return. I will not reveal any forecast about her fate. I can only say that what will happen will shock, terrify and surprise you. Strictly in that order."
Fans have known Clara is leaving the TARDIS for months now, but not when. The show is running out of options, since the penultimate episode, "Heaven Sent," is a Doctor solo story, and the Christmas special will see the 12th Doctor (Peter Capaldi) finally meet River Song (Alex Kingston).
That leaves this week's "Face the Raven" or the season finale, "Hell Bent," to see off the Impossible Girl.
Will DOCTOR WHO Tackle Fracking Controversy?
If you liked the way "The Zygon Invasion" and "The Zygon Inversion" pretty much directly tackled issues about integrating immigrants (some willing, some not) into societies and the use of terrorism to pursue minority interests, you'll be happy to know that DOCTOR WHO may not be finished tackling controversial real-world issues.
The newly confirmed 10 series may see a return to one of the show's favorite themes, environmentalism — see "The Green Death" and, yes, "Terror of the Zygons" from back in the 1970s.
Frequent scriptwriter and Friend of Moffat Mark Gatiss — who wrote this week's "Sleep No More" and counts Season 10's "Green Death" among his favorite stories — recently revealed that he is a fan of what he called "warn about the future" stories and would love to do a story about — fracking!
In case you've never heard about it, "tracking" is a way of extracting natural gas from the ground by drilling deep and injecting a high-pressure water mixture into the rocks to release any gas inside. The fluid pumped down there is a mixture of water, sand and chemicals that is injected into the rock at high pressure.
Moffat Confirms He's Making a Full, 12-Episode Series 10
Posted on November 6, 2015 by Joe Standard	Reply
Exterminating nasty rumors that have been running rampant among the British tabloids, DOCTOR WHO executive producer and lead writer Steven Moffat confirmed today that the next season of DOCTOR WHO — the 10th since its revival — will consist of a full slate of 12 episodes plus a Christmas special.
And the whole season will star Peter Capaldi!
Moffat said:
"We're making a full series. I can confirm that. I'm making a full series of 12 episodes, plus a Christmas special. I don't know when it goes out. That's up to someone else. And even if I did know – which I genuinely don't – I wouldn't be allowed to say so as I have absolutely no say in it whatsoever.
It's not being reduced in size. We're not making fewer episodes. That's all complete bunk. I can confirm that absolutely."
DOCTOR WHO Prequel Pics Trigger 8th Doctor Speculation
It's a truism that every scrap of information about DOCTOR WHO spawns a myriad of questions and even more speculation; nothing is too insignificant to drive fandom into paroxysms of fantasy repercussions. Strap yourself in for these nuggets about the new season!
Consider these two photos from the pending prequel to series nine, "The Doctor's Meditation," scheduled to be shown at 3D screenings in movie theaters of the series eight finale "Dark Water"/"Death in Heaven" here in the USA on Sept. 15 and 16.
The first shot features Daniel Hoffmann-Gill as Bors, who reappears in the series nine opener, "The Magician's Apprentice," alongside Peter Capaldi as the 12th Doctor, who is holding a chalice. No biggie.
Or is it?
Moffat's Discarded 10th Doctor Arc
Just a few short hours away from the season eight premiere of DOCTOR WHO and executive producer Steven Moffat's introduction of Peter Capaldi as the 12th Doctor, I thought it might be fun to look back the abandoned plan Moffat had for series five if David Tennant had decided to stay on for another year.
Stupidest 'Star Wars' Rumor of the Day
Considering the heavy blanket of secrecy thrown over the production of Star Wars: Episode VII, it's easy to understand people grasping at the most flimsy of straws when it comes to rumors about what director J.J. Abrams is up to – but today's alleged plot leak is so extremely ridiculous that I'm not even labeling it a spoiler. It's just too dumb to consider.
Actor With a Beard Cast on DOCTOR WHO, so… Master
Posted on April 8, 2014 by Joe Standard	Reply
It's become a sort of game with the upcoming season eight of the rebooted DOCTOR WHO: How many minutes does it take before that latest actor cast is tipped as playing "the new Master" (or, for the ladies, "the new Rani")? It's probably down to a delay of mere seconds now.
So along comes the newest guest star of the season Ben Miller, a veteran of PRIMEVAL and DEATH IN PARADISE (on which he played a policeman), who has a beard (in some photos) — and is actually referred to as being cast to play a villain! Ta-dah! Meet the new Master.
Well, maybe not so fast. But then again, see what executive producer Steven Moffat had to say about the casting of Miller:
"Mark Gatiss has written us a storming villain for his new episode, and with Capaldi in the TARDIS, we knew we needed somebody special to send everybody behind the sofa. And quite frankly, it's about time Ben Miller was in DOCTOR WHO!"
So Miller is playing a baddie — and a "storming" one at that. Could he be the Master? Yes.
But what does Miller himself have to say about the role? The actor told the BBC Doctor Who website:
"As a committed Whovian, I cannot believe my luck in joining the Twelfth Doctor for one of his inaugural adventures. My only worry is that they'll make me leave the set when I'm not filming."
So. Could Miller be the playing the latest incarnation of the Master? Of course he could be. But is he? That information, we will not know for a while.


The movie is pretty to look at, but when you get down to it, Live By Night is as hollow as a shell.
Silence is Martin Scorsese classically telling an epic tale that is worth the near three-hour running time.
Where you thought Shane Black's The Nice Guys was a love letter to the 70s, 20th Century Women is Mike Mills' visual encyclopedia guide to 1979.
What Peter Berg can truly capture (which can be said for now all of his films) is the human spirit. As much as it's hard to admit this, Patriots Day does, in fact, brings out the true American patriot out of you.
For this being the third Amazon Studios film, it's weird to say that Amazon can actually produce some great film content and with this arguably more so than Netflix.
With the $43,000,000 budget, the film puts all of its effects to work.There are so many branches in him that are so detailed realistically that it integrates well with the interactions of these characters.
If you have been a New Yorker or a broadway fanatic who desirably wished to have seen this revival on Broadway in 2010 but never had the chance to see it, this film is the answer to your long-awaited prayer.
If you're wondering where that one billion dollar profit from Illumination's Minions went, it went straight to Sing. With Illumination Entertainment's second film released this year, Sing shows that there are much more things animation can do with anthropomorphic animals and can keep everyone smiling.
When you are in a Robert Zemeckis film you put your all into the role no matter what.


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To Infinity and Beyond Immediate Parties: The Fourth and Ninth Circuit Split on the Enforceability of "Infinite Arbitration Clauses"
Alternative Dispute Resolution, Appellate Practice, Litigation
By: Dustin M. Paul, Gaela R. Normile
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Imagine walking into an AT&T store to sign up for a service plan and buy a new cellphone. Perhaps, you are excited to finally get your hands on the latest iPhone. At the same time your new phone is placed into one hand, a pen is placed into the other. You sign the dotted line at the bottom of the consumer service agreement. How carefully did you read the terms and conditions before you signed?
Did you intend to give up your rights to sue DIRECTV, a company who had no relationship to AT&T when you signed up for your cell phone plan? What effect does that customer service agreement have years later after you transferred your phone service to another provider and added your cellphone number to the National Do Not Call Registry? If you receive repeated and unsolicited calls, have you given up your rights to file or participate in a class action lawsuit against DIRECTV under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act ("TCPA")?
The answers may depend on where you live. Because, at some point after you signed your agreement with AT&T, DIRECTV became an AT&T affiliate and, under your service agreement, you agreed to arbitrate not only "all disputes and claims" between yourself and AT&T, but also between yourself and AT&T's "respective subsidiaries, affiliates, agents, employees, predecessors in interest, successors, and assigns."
This type of contract clause has been coined the "infinite arbitration" clause and recently led to a circuit split between the Fourth and Ninth Circuits.[i] The Fourth and Ninth Circuits heard facts that were almost identical to the hypothetical above and came to two different conclusions. The Fourth Circuit concluded that DIRECTV could compel arbitration as an affiliate of AT&T and that the plaintiff's TCPA claim fell within the scope of the arbitration clause. Mey v. DIRECTV, LLC, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 24993 (4th Cir. 2020). In contrast, the Ninth Circuit held that DIRECTV was unable to invoke the agreement to compel arbitration because it was not a party to the arbitration agreement. Revitch v. DIRECTV, LLC, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 31056 (9th Cir. 2020).
This Circuit conflict reflects an important dispute about the role and future of arbitration. And it is important to understand how the Fourth and Ninth Circuits reached such different holdings and the reasoning behind the rulings.
Fourth Circuit
In Mey v. DIRECTV, LLC, the Fourth Circuit disagreed with the plaintiff's argument that "affiliates" in AT&T Mobility's ("AT&T") service agreement was limited to affiliates existing at the time the contract was signed. Instead, the Court found that the agreement applied to DIRECTV, LLC ("DIRECTV"), a later acquired affiliate, because the agreement contained forward-looking provisions and language. Accordingly, the Court concluded that "it [was] unlikely the parties intended to restrict the covered entities to those existing at the time the agreement was signed." Mey, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 24993, at *14.
In addition, the Fourth Circuit concluded that the plaintiff's TCPA claims were within the scope of the agreement because the "[t]he text of the agreement arguably contemplate[d] arbitration of [plaintiff's] claims, and any ambiguity about whether those claims [were] included 'must be resolved in favor of arbitration.'" Id. at *22 (quoting Lamps Plus, Inc., 139 S. Ct. at 1418). In this regard, the court heavily relied on the Federal Arbitration Act's ("FAA") policy favoring arbitration.
As a final note in the majority's opinion, the Fourth Circuit acknowledged "that construing the broadest language of [the] arbitration agreement in the abstract could lead to troubling hypothetical scenarios." Id. at *22. However, the court declined to consider such hypotheticals because "the question before [the court] . . . [was] not abstract; it [was] tethered to the facts of this dispute and the categories of claims specifically included in [the] arbitration agreement." Id. (citing Parm v. Bluestem Brands, Inc., 898 F.3d 869, 878 (8th Cir. 2018) (rejecting interpretation by hypothetical in favor of looking "to the underlying factual allegations [to] determine whether they fall within the scope of the arbitration clause")).
In her colorful dissent, Judge Harris disagreed with the majority's opinion. More specifically, Judge Harris stated that she would have affirmed the district court's holding—which denied DIRECTV's motion to compel arbitration—on the threshold question of contract formation. Judge Harris concluded that a reasonable and objective person would not have found the parties here agreed to arbitrate. In support of her conclusion, Judge Harris utilized hypotheticals—hypotheticals the majority specifically declined to address—to illustrate the potential consequences of enforcing AT&T's infinite arbitration clause.
In one example, Judge Harris discussed the possibility of a customer signing up for an AT&T cellphone service and later cancelling that contract the following year. Ten years later, this same customer is a federal judge and writes an opinion that someone at CNN does not like. To ruin the federal judge's reputation, CNN reports a story that the federal judge was "drunk on the bench during oral argument." Id. at *44. Naturally, the federal judge sues CNN for defamation. However, CNN objects to the federal judge's suit and seeks to compel arbitration because CNN's parent company, Time Warner, merged with AT&T after the judge ended her service agreement with AT&T. Under the terms of AT&T's arbitration agreement and, in accordance with the Fourth Circuit's holding, the judge would be obligated to arbitrate her defamation claim against CNN.
Judge Harris emphasized in her dissent that there is "nothing far-fetched" about the hypotheticals she described, "indeed, they are the straightforward result of DIRECTV's position in [the] case." Id. at *46. In fact, "at oral argument . . . DIRECTV embraced precisely these scenarios, insisting that they fell squarely within the hypothetical cell-phone customer's agreement to arbitrate with AT&T Mobility." Id.
Ninth Circuit
Alternatively, in Revitch v. DIRECTV, LCC, the Ninth Circuit came to the opposite conclusion as the Fourth Circuit and held that DIRECTV was unable to invoke the agreement to compel arbitration because it was not a party to the wireless services agreement between the plaintiff and AT&T. Revitch v. DIRECTV, LLC, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 31056 (9th Cir. 2020).
In support of its holding, the Ninth Circuit relied on California contract law which states that "[a] contract must be so interpreted as to give effect to the mutual intention of the parties as it existed at the time of contracting." Cal. Civ. Code § 1636. California determines the mutual intention of the parties "from the written terms [of the contract] alone," so long as the "contract language is clear and explicit and does not lead to absurd results." Id. at *8. This is known as the "absurd results" rule. Under this rule, the Ninth Circuit concluded that interpreting "affiliates" in the consumer service agreement to include DIRECTV would lead to absurd results because the plaintiff "would be forced to arbitrate any dispute with any corporate entity that happens to be acquired by AT&T, Inc., even if neither the entity nor the dispute has anything to do with providing wireless services to [plaintiff]—and even if the entity becomes an affiliate years or even decades in the future." Id. at *9-10.
Interestingly, the Ninth Circuit acknowledged the Fourth Circuit's conflicting decision and recognized that it was creating a circuit split by issuing a contrary opinion. The Ninth Circuit noted that it disagreed with the Fourth Circuit's use of Parm v. Bluestem Brands, Inc. to refrain from examining "troubling hypothetical scenarios" that could arise under the broadest interpretation of the arbitration agreement. The Ninth Circuit interpreted the Parm case more narrowly and concluded that the issue in Parm was limited to whether the "plaintiffs' claims f[e]ll within the scope of [those] arbitration clauses." Id. ay *16 (quoting Parm, 898 F.3d at 871). However, the Ninth Circuit concluded that Parm was inapposite here because the issue presented to the Fourth and Ninth Circuits was not one of scope, but rather one of agreement formation.
In this regard, the Ninth Circuit disagreed with the Fourth Circuit and found that the use of hypotheticals was essential to "discern whether the mutual intent of the parties could have been to form an agreement to arbitrate any and all disputes that might ever arise between [the plaintiff] and yet-unknown affiliates such as DIRECTV." Id. at *17. The Ninth Circuit indirectly reaffirmed Judge Harris's use of hypotheticals and concluded "that the parties' intention—based on their reasonable expectations at the time of the contract—was not to form an arbitration agreement of the kind that DIRECTV" interpreted. Id. at *18.
Judge O'Scannlain went on to say in his concurrence that had the court concluded there was an agreement to arbitrate, he would have denied DIRECTV's motion to arbitrate under the issue of scope as well. According to Judge O'Scannlain, "[t]he dispute between DIRECTV and [the plaintiff] . . . simply [did] not 'aris[e] out of' [the plaintiff's] contract with AT&T," as he believes is required by the FAA.[ii] Id. at *18. In other words, Judge O'Scannlain found that the dispute at issue was "wholly unrelated to the contract in which the clause was contained" and therefore was outside the FAA. Id. at *23.
In his dissent, Judge Bennett disagreed with the majority and came to the same conclusions as the Fourth Circuit. More specifically, Judge Bennett found that the "arbitration clause's express terms encompass[ed] the parties' dispute" and that DIRECTV could compel arbitration because "affiliates" in the arbitration clause "clearly include[d] DIRECTV." Id. at *26.
In addition, Judge Bennett expressly rejected the majority's application of California's "absurd results" doctrine to the current issue because the doctrine applies if there is ambiguity and, according to Judge Bennett, "'affiliates' unambiguously includes DIRECTV." Id. at *32. Moreover, Judge Bennett found the majority's reliance on the doctrine problematic because the "Supreme Court has instructed that 'the FAA provides the default rule' in construing ambiguities about the scope of arbitration agreements and that [the court] must 'resolve[] [those ambiguities] in favor of arbitration.'" Id. at *33-34 (quoting Lamps Plus, 139 S. Ct. at 1418).
With the current circuit split regarding infinite arbitration clauses—i.e., those clauses that broadly compel arbitration of "all disputes and claims" with an immediate party to the contract and any of its "subsidiaries, affiliates, agents, employees, predecessors in interest, successors, and assigns"—it may only be a matter of time before the issue is heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.
There is a fundamental question about how broadly Courts will allow arbitration agreements without limitations on the scope, parties, subject matter, or time. As this circuit split indicates, courts are struggling with the answer. In the meantime, these cases should serve as a reminder to anyone who drafts arbitration agreements to be sure that the arbitration term reflects the agreement the parties intend. And it should serve as a cautionary tale to all of us to make sure to review agreements we sign as consumers to see if they contain an infinite arbitration clause. Whether we intend to or not, we may be agreeing to arbitrate a dispute years later against a non-party, unrelated to the underlying agreement—at least if you live in Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, or one of the Carolinas.
[i] The Fourth Circuit issued its opinion on August 7, 2020 and the Ninth Circuit came to the opposite conclusion on September 30, 2020. Mey v. DIRECTV, LLC, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 24993 (4th Cir. 2020); Revitch v. DIRECTV, LLC, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 31056 (9th Cir. 2020).
[ii] Under the FAA, "[a] written provision in any maritime transaction or a contract evidencing a transaction involving commerce to settle by arbitration a controversy thereafter arising out of such contract or transaction . . . shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable . . . ." 9 U.S.C. § 2.
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CBS Digital is expanding into external renderer research for studio look development and offline rendering for select client applications. We are looking for an experienced Unreal Engine 4 developer to help build our look dev and offline rendering pipeline into an easy to use and powerful testing pipeline. The project will require in depth knowledge of the current Unreal Engine 4 code base and tool sets. Do you love renderers, visual effects and television? Would you love them more if they were rolled into one research and development job? If so, we need you.
The position is currently full time work for the duration of this first project. Work must be performed on site and on dedicated hardware. The hours are very flexible but must meet certain weekly core hours. We can speak about the details of the project after the application process begins. You will be expected to work on your own and therein be self-motivated. There will be regular code reviews as well as architecture planning meetings.
About CBS Digital Tools Development Dept.
The CBS Digital Tools Development staff is a small group of programmers with a blend of various professional disciplines. We serve multiple departments and their software and development needs. We research not just software, but technical solutions in hardware, software and new technology. We work with Digital Cinema cameras, tracking solutions, high-end vendor technology testing (Chaos Group, NVIDIA), Community Software Development, and more.
* Gotta be nerdy, geeky or some derivation of, even if it's just a little bit.
Please apply if you are excited about this position, even you don't meet all requirements.


a boat is was really fun we throw ball over boats. There's a lot people whom flipped their boat. We had a lot fun.
and creepy. I'm bit fear of heights so I'm a risk taker. I think is scary when you look at the top.
We had camp fire at the first night. We tell ghost story, riddles and sing songs. I'm a thinker because we need to think and guess the riddle a lot. It was really fun. We had some hot chocolate and marshmallows and the fire is worm.