text:
The Visconti Castle or Castello Visconteo of Cassano is a castle of medieval origin in Cassano d'Adda, Lombardy, Northern Italy. It received the current form in the 14th century, when Bernabò Visconti, lord of Milan, enlarged the existing fortification as part of a defensive system of the Visconti dominions on the Adda river. At the end of the 20th century, after a period of abandonment, it was restored and transformed into a hotel.

Location
The Visconti Castle is located near the Adda river on a hill over the Muzza canal. The overlooking position, allowing the control of the river, is believed to have motivated the erection of the first fortification.

History
A castle in the area is supposed to have existed since the Carolingian time. Near the castle, on 27 September 1259, the Battle of Cassano was fought between the two Milanese factions supporting Ezzelino da Romano and Martino Della Torre. The battle ended with the defeat of Ezzelino and the confirmation of the Della Torre family as lords of Milan.

The castle was acquired by the Visconti house after their victory over the Della Torre in the fight for the lordship of Milan. In 1355, it was assigned to Bernabò within the division among him and his brothers Matteo II and Galeazzo II. Between 1355 e 1370, Bernabò, who had received the eastern portion of the Visconti territories, built a defensive line along the Adda river. As part of it, he strengthened and enlarged the castle of Cassano d'Adda, giving to it its definitive shape. The porch with pointed arches in the courtyard and the mullioned windows on the western facades are attributed to Bernabò's period. The wall structure was mainly made up (as can be seen in the unplastered parts) of Adda pebbles alternated with brick rows, a building technique commonly used in medieval fortifications located near the rivers.

In the 15th century, Francesco Sforza consolidated the castle with the imposing buttresses, elevated over the Muzza canal and brick-made. The castle later passed to the d'Adda family and then to the Borromeo family, which motivates the name of Borromeo Castle occasionally given to it.

In the following centuries, lost its military importance, the castle was used for different purposes: warehouse, prison, and recovery for homeless people. In the 20th century, restoration works were undertaken, bringing back the castle to its original features. During these works, Middle Age frescos were discovered on the walls and the vaulted ceilings and accordingly preserved.

Today
The castle today hosts the hotel Castello Visconteo. The interior rooms with mediaeval frescoes are open for the visit of the hotel guests.

The view from the Adda river with its high buttresses characterizes the castle. The façade shows the original mullioned window and, at a lower level, the more recent quadrangular shaped ones.

References

Sources

External links
Official site
Lombardia Beni Culturali – Castello Borromeo, Cassano d'Adda (MI)
Città di Cassano d'Adda - Il Castello

Castles in Lombardy


text:
Q: Method to pass 3 different data types to do the same thing? I think the title might be wrong.. haha unsure.. anyway..
I have 3 different data types..
public class data1
{
    public Color color;
    public int len;
    public DrawingVisual dv;
    Other vars...
}
public class data2
{
    public Color color;
    public int len;
    public DrawingVisual dv;
    Other vars different from data1 vars...
}

Etc...
How can I create a function to pass these in and then get the vars I need inside the function..
Example..
void Something(var data)
{
    switch (typeof(data))
    {
         case data1:

         break;
         case data1:

         break;
    }
}

This wont work obviously.. but its just an example..
How can I actually do this?
Thanks

A: Consider to create classes hierarchy, and move method Something to that hierarchy. Base class:
public abstract class Data
{
    public Color color;
    public int len;
    public DrawingVisual dv;

    public abstract void Something();
}

And two derived classes Data1 and Data2:
public class Data1 : Data
{
    // Other vars...

    public override void Something()
    {
        // Use base class data and other vars
    }
}

public class Data2 : Data
{
    // Other vars different from Data1 vars

    public override void Something()
    {
        // different implementation
    }
}

Now when you have instances of these classes, you can simply call Something on each item without trying to determine its type. Each item will have all required variables to complete action:
List<Data> items = // get list of Data1 and Data2
foreach(Data data in items)
    data.DoSomething();

A: You can use object instead of var
void Something(object data)
{
    if(typeof(data) == data1.GetType())
    {

    }
    else
    if(typeof(data) == data2.GetType())
    {

    }
}

Your classes seem they have common attributes you can use inheritance. Make a base abstract class and inherit remaining from it.
public abstract class Data
{
    public Color color;
    public int len;
    public DrawingVisual dv;

    public abstract void Something();
}

public class Data1 : Data
{
      //Addition methods go here
}

public class Data2 : Data
{
      //Addition methods go here
}

As a additional note I assume you will use follow the naming conventions for properties and classes etc.

A: First of all, you might want to reconsider using public fields and use public properties instead. Two options you might consider.
Implement a shared interface
Considering both your class have the same properties, you could have an interface:
public interface IData
{
    Color color {get;set;}
    int len {get;set;}
    DrawingVisual dv {get;set;}
}

public interface Data1
{
    public Color color {get;set;}
    public int len {get;set;}
    public DrawingVisual dv {get;set;}
}

public interface Data2
{
    public Color color {get;set;}
    public int len {get;set;}
    public DrawingVisual dv {get;set;}
}

void Something(IData data)
{
   // use the properties defined in the IData interface
}

Something(new Data1());
Something(new Data2());

Use method overloading
void Something(data1 data)
{
    // Do something specific using data1 class
}

void Something(data2 data)
{
    // Do something specific using data2 class
}

Something(new data1());
Something(new data2());

I'd suggest using the first option.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Some of the best diving and snorkeling in the world in is right here on Utila. We can arrange around the island tours which includes stopping to the best spots and beaches all around the island. Explore every one of our 12 beautiful cays on the West end of Utila with white sandy beaches and crystal clear waters!! We can also arrange private seafood dinners cooked by local chefs.
Some of the best diving and snorkeling in the world in is right here on Utila. The full island tour of Utila includes stopping to the best snorkel sites, beaches and cays all around the entire island of Uitla. On the North Side of Utila we explore Turtle Harbor Marine Park. Home to the deepest waters on the island just feet off the biggest wall and drop off on Utila. A sheer drop with breath taking reefs and tons of marine life. Explore every one of our 12 beautiful cays on the West end of Utila with white sandy beaches and crystal clear waters!! Then we head off to the world-famous Water Cay to relax, snorkel, sun tan and to have a lunch or a simple picnic. We can also arrange private seafood dinners cooked by local chefs, or just visit one of the local restaurants located on Pigeon Cay or Jewels Cay. Then we are off to Pigeon and Jewels Cays to walk around the fishing spots to learn about the culture, walk around to take pictures or to have lunch and drinks at one of the few restaurants/pubs. After that we hit a few more famous snorkel spots on the South Shore, then its back to the town center of Eastern Harbor, Utila. The whole tour last about 6 hours.
1st boat @ 8:00am, Returning @ 12;00pm.
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Includes: Drinks, Snacks, Snorkel gear & water.


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text:
Bio- Pen Pictures
WILLIAM W. COWAN
SURNAMES:SCOTT
residing on the Johnston property, two and one-half miles north of San Jose, on the Alviso road, was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, April 28, 1836. He is the son of John Cowan, a representative of one of the old Pennsylvania families of Irish extraction. He was early trained in the duties of a farmer's life, and has received the benefit of that early training, as he has made agriculture the principal business of his life.
On the thirty-first of December, 1863, he was united in marriage with Miss Sarah E. Scott, who is the daughter of Philip Scott, and was born May 19, 1839, in Chester County. In 1865 Mr. and Mrs. Cowan removed to Newport, Delaware, where Mr. Cowan spent three years in the butcher's business, supplying the Wilmington market. At the urgent request of John Johnston (whose sketch appears in this connection) he joined him in Santa Clara County, and became associated with him in the management of the property, upon which they have ever since resided.
Mr. and Mrs. Cowan are among the many worthy, industrious people of Santa Clara County, and their many excellent qualities have won for them the respect of all who know them. Mrs. Cowan is a consistent member of the Presbyterian Church at San Jose. Mr. Cowan is interested in the Order of the Knights of Pythias, being a member of Triumph Lodge, No. 47, K. of P., and of the Uniform Rank, K. of P., No. 8. He is also connected with Mount Hamilton Lodge, A.O.U.W., of San Jose. In politics, he is identified with the Democratic party.
Pen Pictures From The Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California, Illustrated. - Edited by H. S. Foote.- Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1888. p. 544
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
RETURN TO SANTA CLARA FAMILY CHRONICLES
GO TO SANTA CLARA COUNTY HISTORY AND GENEALOGY

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Want to get in touch to learn more about us? We are always happy to provide advice or assistance on dating matters to potential members, the public or the press. Here is how to get in touch.
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For the Echo Show (2nd gen) what USB version (i.e. 1.1, 2.0, etc.) is built into the back of the unit?
What Network USB devices are compatible? Can it go up to a 1GB connection?
I haven't seen much documentation on this.
The Echo dot does not connect to the network via USB. The USB port is strictly for power. Network connection is wireless only.
I contacted Amazon Technical support. They stated the "Network port on the back of Echo Show is meant for specialized Enterprise experiences. We currently do not offer support for consumer use of the Network port."
I asked for documentation on the "specialized Enterprise experiences" and was informed "that information is not available on Amazon website. It is internal information. We do not have access to further details regarding this port."
This is sad considering many media sources and reviews touted the port as a feature.
From what I heard, its USB port supports OTG (On-The-Go) so you can connect devices to it like keyboard, mouse and USB flash drives.


As the brouhaha over the General Services Administration's excessive spending continues to unfold, the real loser is not the GSA, but Sin City itself, according to two Nevada Democrats.
The GSA got in trouble when a report by the GSA Inspector General brought to light a conference in Las Vegas on which the agency spent $823,000 of taxpayer money. The conference included lavish luxuries like a clown, bicycles that were used for a team building exercise and a mind-reader.
The House oversight committee is holding a series of hearings on other instances that have since come to light of extravagant spending by the agency.
But according to former Democratic Rep. Dina Titus, who is currently seeking a return to Congress, the hearings are not an attack on the GSA, but an attack on Las Vegas.
The Nevada Republican Party had a different take on it.
"I think that this is not a Las Vegas issue, I mean, it's to be expected [from] the Obama administration with the crazy spending going on in Washington," Nevada GOP Executive Director David Gallagher told The Daily Caller.
The Committee on Transportation on Infrastructure also denied that the hearings had anything to do with the city of Las Vegas.
The Nevada Democratic Party did not respond to request for further comment.


💡 "We need to re-think everything, including the business models that have driven success in the past" EV reader, John Hagel, on the importance of new business models. WORTH READING.
🔧 All hail the maintainers: "Crack cocaine, for example, was a highly innovative product … contemporary discourse treats innovation as a positive value in itself, when it is not." Time to recognise the value of maintenance THOUGHT PROVOKING (h/t Shehnaz Suterwalla).
Elon Musk has delivered us a mind-bending two weeks, with the Tesla 3's c $10bn product launch and remotely landing a reusable rocket on a robot drone ship in the middle of the ocean. Quite overwhelming.
☀☀ This presentation by Tesla's CTO, JB Straubel, on energy storage, EV's and the grid is an ESSENTIAL READ.
"We are now witnessing Elon Musk's slow-motion disruption of the global auto industry" is an excellent analysis by Quartz on what Musk means for the traditional auto industry.
This is not just grim news for traditional auto, but it must be super-grim news for oil. I wonder about whether a vicious cycle of declining demand might take hold in oil, accelerating the relative appeal of EVs and the increasing unattractiveness of oil as a source of fuel. I'd be interested to see any simulations/models of that effect, especially if those models stretch to local fuel retail distribution and consumer behaviour.
US coal production is 38% down YonY.
Finally, Elon landed a rocket on a robot ship. (Video).
😀 When there is a gold rush, sell shovels. Great profile on Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of Nvidia, whose GPUs are the darlings of mainstream machine-learnists.
There is a definitely a gold rush. Q1 2016 saw a slight dip in AI deals, but riding a more powerful upward trend.
🌩 Why AI development is going to go even faster. Why? Cross-disciplinary collaboration and healthy feedback loops between fields.
My friend Pete Warden released TensorFlow of Poets a few weeks ago. He promises it allows you to kick-off TensorFlow (Google's machine learning framework) with a minimal of real coding.
A platoon of semi-autonomous trucks completed a 2000km drive across Europe.
The sugar conspiracy. We've known since 1972 that it was sugar not fat that was the greatest danger to our health. The inside story of how nutrition scientists got it wrong.
🚕 Uber is surging, yellow cabs collapsing. Stunning data from the New York cab scene.
🎞 Film dialogue by gender: a study of 2,000 films. Fantastic exploratory tool, women under-represented.
Amazing: more than 2,000 YouTube channels. Amazing: more than 2,000 YouTube channels have more than a million subscribers.
Touching a robot's intimate parts makes people uncomfortable.
Robot waiters fired after spilling drinks and food.
The earth's wobble has changed because of melting ice says Nasa.
Lovely survey of propulsion methods for interstellar travel.
Congrats to EV reader, Martha Lane Fox, for her appointment to Twitter's board of directors.
I'm speaking on "Should you be worried about AI and Machine Learning?" at the Business of Software Conference Europe, 16-17th May, Ireland.
The organiser, EV reader Mark Littlewood, is offering the first four Exponential View readers TWO free hotel nights in Ireland's best hotel, when you sign up. Mark curates exceptional people from the tech industry for an intimate, conversation rich event. Would be great to see some of you there.


text:
Slang School
Improv Voices
Blythe Danner on "Hello I Must Be Going"
Vanity Fair senior West Coast editor Krista Smith sat down with the biggest stars of Sundance 2012.
Hello I Must Be Going, you don't really quite know
until a little bit later on in the film, but your daughter
comes back after, you know, a terrible divorce,
to live at home, and is in this kind of inertia, depression.
But, and it's comedic how it kind of unfolds,
and your husband's trying to retire,
and all the worlds kind of collide,
and what happens, all the healing.
What was so interesting is that really, your character,
the mother, is in her seeming highly functioning,
highly capable, is really also
in a complete state of inertia, which I love.
Yeah, I think it's her fear of that happening again.
To her, the next generation to her daughter
that underlies it, it's kind of that she's so driven
and so mean to her, you know.
Melanie keeps saying how she thinks,
I understand why the mother gets so, she's annoying,
and I defend and say, No, you're in grief.
This is rare that I get to play a role like this.
And the film is so touching and funny.
Very funny. And heartbreaking.
Melanie Lynsky and Christoper Abbott,
just the chemistry is just lovely.
And how did you get to be cast in this film
and playing Melanie's mother
and how does that come to Blythe Danner?
I remember getting the call, reading the script,
and saying, I wanna do this,
this is a three-dimensional woman.
I don't always get a bite of those wonderful roles
so I was really happy.
It is three-dimensional and she's wicked and loving.
It runs the gambit of emotions, which is thrilling
for an actor, to use your whole instrument.
What do you think happens in this movie for you
and your character and your daughter.
Well you know, obviously there's a healing and she learns,
what I love about it is there's so much learning
between Christopher's character and Melanie's,
they learn from one another.
Then in the end, it seems to me that she really
is the mother, I mean, she takes me under her wing
and protects me and we've healed a lot.
[Krista] Well it's great to see you, Blythe.
[Blythe] Thank you, great to see you too.
Starring: Krista Smith, Blythe Danner
Sundance 2012: Highlights, with Krista Smith
Common on "Luv"
Elizabeth Olsen on "Red Lights" and "Liberal Arts"
Emma Roberts and Elijah Wood on "Celeste and Jesse Forever"
Eve Hewson on "This Must Be the Place"
James Marsden on "Bachelorette" & "Robot and Frank"
Isla Fisher on "Bachelorette"
Kate Aselton on "Black Rock"
Kirsten Dunst and Leslye Headland on "Bachelorette"
Octavia Spencer on "Smashed"
Olivia Thirlby on "Nobody Walks"
Rebel Wilson on "Bachelorette"
Sean Penn on "This Must Be the Place"
Sigourney Weaver on "Red Lights"
Vera Farmiga on "Goats"
Ty Burrell on "Goats"
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders on "About Face"
John C. Reilly on "Cyrus"
Rosemarie DeWitt on "Your Sister's Sister" & "Nobody Walks"
Rosemarie DeWitt on "Nobody Walks"
Paolo Sorrentino on "This Must Be the Place"
Melissa Leo on "Red State"
Melissa Leo on "Why Stop Now"
Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Aaron Paul on "Smashed"
Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman on "Smashed"
Lizzy Caplan on "Bachelorette" and "Save the Date"
Mark Duplass on "Safety Not Guaranteed"
Josh Radnor on "Liberal Arts"
John Hawkes on "The Sessions"
Helen Hunt on "The Surrogate"
Dennis Haysbert on "Luv"
David Duchovny & Christopher Neil on "Goats"
Chris Messina on "Celeste and Jesse Forever" & "28 Hotel Rooms"
Cillian Murphy on "Red Lights"
Brie Larson: Behind the Scenes of 21 Jump Street and The Arm
Aubrey Plaza on "Safety Not Guaranteed"
Ari Graynor on "Celeste and Jesse Forever" & "For a Good Time, Call…"
Richard Jenkins & Alison Janney on "Liberal Arts"
Ry Russo-Young & Rosemarie DeWitt on "Nobody Walks"
Spencer Susser on "Hesher"
Amir Bar-Lev on Documentary "I'm Pat Tillman"
Will McCormack & Lee Toland-Krieger on "Celeste and Jesse Forever"
William H. Macy on "The Sessions"


text:
Prodigy Communications Corporation (Prodigy Services Corp., Prodigy Services Co., Trintex) was an online service from 1984 to 2001 that offered its subscribers access to a broad range of networked services, including news, weather, shopping, bulletin boards, games, polls, expert columns, banking, stocks, travel, and a variety of other features.

Prodigy was described by the New York Times as "family-oriented" and one of "the Big Three information services" in 1994.

Initially, subscribers using personal computers accessed the Prodigy service by means of copper wire telephone "POTS" service or X.25 dialup. For its initial roll-out, Prodigy used 1,200 bit/s modem connections. To provide faster service and to stabilize the diverse modem market, Prodigy offered low-cost 2,400 bit/s internal modems to subscribers at a discount. The host systems used were regionally distributed IBM Series/1 minicomputers managed by central IBM mainframes located in Yorktown Heights, New York.

The company claimed it was the first consumer online service, citing its graphical user interface and basic architecture as differentiation from CompuServe, which started in 1979 and used a command-line interface.

By 1990, it was the second-largest (and 1993 the largest) online service provider with 465,000 subscribers, trailing only CompuServe's 600,000. Its headquarters were in White Plains, New York until 2000, when it moved to Austin, Texas.

Early history

The roots of Prodigy date to 1980 when broadcaster CBS and telecommunications firm AT&T Corporation formed a joint venture named Venture One in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. The company conducted a market test of 100 homes in Ridgewood, New Jersey to gauge consumer interest in a Videotex-based TV set-top device that would allow consumers to shop at home and receive news, sports, and weather. After concluding the market test, CBS and AT&T took the data and went their separate ways in pursuit of developing and profiting from this market demand.

Prodigy was founded on February 13, 1984, as Trintex, a joint venture between CBS, computer manufacturer IBM, and retailer Sears, Roebuck and Company. The company was headed by Theodore Papes, a career IBM executive, until his retirement in 1992. CBS left the venture in 1986 when CBS CEO Tom Wyman was divesting properties outside of CBS's core broadcasting business. The company's service was launched regionally in 1988 in Atlanta, Hartford, and San Francisco under the name Prodigy. The marketing roll-out plan closely followed IBM's Systems Network Architecture (SNA) network backbone.  A nationwide launch developed by ad agency J. Walter Thompson and sister company JWT Direct (New York) followed on September 6, 1990.

Thanks to an aggressive media marketing campaign, bundling with various consumer-oriented computers such as IBM's PS/1 and PS/2, as well as various clones and Hayes modems, the Prodigy service soon had more than a million subscribers. To handle the traffic, Prodigy built a national network of POP (points of presence) sites that made local access numbers available for most homes in the US. This was a major factor in the expansion of the service since subscribers did not have to dial long-distance to access the service. The subscriber paid only for the local call (usually free), while Prodigy paid for the connection to its national data center in Yorktown, New York.

Development
Under the guidance of Henry Heilbrunn, Prodigy developed a fully staffed 24×7 newsroom with editors, writers, and graphic artists intent on building the world's first true online medium. The initial result was that Prodigy pioneered the concept of an online content portal—a single site offering news, weather, sports, communication with other members, and shopping for goods and services such as groceries, general merchandise, brokerage services, and airline reservations. The service provided a number of lifestyle features, including popular syndicated columnists, Zagat restaurant surveys, Consumer Reports articles and test reports, games for kids and adults, in-depth original features called "Timely Topics", bulletin boards moderated by subject matter experts, movie reviews, and e-mail. Working with Heilbrunn in the early stages of Prodigy's design, Bob Bedard pioneered the business model for electronic commerce. Prodigy was the service that launched ESPN's online presence.

Prodigy quickly implemented the use of diskette-based application common code modules (predecessor of MS Client Runtime Library (CLR) architecture). These pre-installed diskette-based applications were loaded from the Prodigy Service diskette. These modules then relied upon real-time tokenized data transmitted from Prodigy database servers to drive core Prodigy service functionality on local user PCs. This client-server design worked well, since by staging application-specific and reusable common code modules on Prodigy end-user distribution diskettes, this key design point allowed millisecond "click-to-available-cursor" response times otherwise unachievable in 1986 over slow 1,200-to-2,400 bit/s modems.

The service was presented using a graphical user interface. The Data Object Architecture wrapped vector and incremental point graphics, encoded as per the North American Presentation Level Protocol Syntax NAPLPS, along with interpretative programs written in the proprietary languages TBOL (Trintex Basic Object Language) and PAL (Prodigy Application Language). NAPLPS grew out of the Canadian Telidon project, becoming an international standard in 1983 after some extensions were added by AT&T Corporation. NAPLPS enabled the display of colors and graphics in support of electronic advertising, publishing and commerce. The initial emphasis was on DOS and later Microsoft Windows. Users could use Apple Macintosh, but the Prodigy screens were not always configured to the Mac standard, resulting in wasted space or cut-off graphics.

Prodigy's initial business model relied more on advertising and online shopping for cash flow than monthly subscriptions. Subscribers were charged a flat monthly fee that provided unlimited access. Initially, a monthly rate was charged for unlimited usage time and 30 personal messages. Subscribers could purchase additional messages. Later, Prodigy divided its service into "Core" and "Plus" sections. Core section usage remained unlimited, but Plus sections were limited by usage time. Subscribers were given a monthly allotment of Plus time. If that time was exceeded, the subscriber incurred additional charges based on usage time. Subscribers could discern what type of section they were in by the blue indicator in the bottom-right corner of the screen.

Prodigy's shopping applications initially underperformed relative to expectations. Reasons for difficulty in online shopping for Prodigy included the perception that online shoppers would pay a premium rather than expect discounts for merchandise. Another reason for poor online merchandising was the nature of the graphics presented due to inherent limitations of technology at the time. Using the early NAPLPS graphic standard, it was not possible to render realistic images of products. As such, while commercial clients with presence on the Prodigy Service might have realized a measure of success with an electronic order blank supporting a print catalog, it was otherwise difficult for online merchants to market products.

Despite these challenges, Prodigy was largely responsible for helping merchants such as PC Flowers become some of the earliest e-commerce success stories. However, revenue from advertising was limited.

By 1993, Prodigy was developing a network architecture that would become known in the modern Internet age as a content delivery network, where the network caches its most frequently accessed content as close as possible to the users. The company sold private versions of this for use within a customer's private corporate network.

Price increases
Two of Prodigy's most popular services turned out to be its message boards and email. Because Prodigy's business model depended on rapidly growing advertising and online shopping revenue, email was developed primarily to aid shopping, not for general communication between users, which is what it became. The message boards resulted in users being connected to the service far longer than projected. This resulted in higher than expected expenses, adversely affecting the service's cash flow and profitability.

To control costs and raise revenue, Prodigy took two separate actions. First, in January 1991, Prodigy modified their basic subscriber plans by allowing only 30 email messages free each month, while charging 25 cents for each additional email message—a policy that was later rescinded. In the summer of 1993, it began charging hourly rates for several of its most popular features, including its most popular feature, the message boards. This policy was later rescinded after tens of thousands of members left the service.

The price increases prompted an increase of "underground IDs" (known as 'UG's for shorthand)—where multiple users shared a single account that they turned into private bulletin boards by using emails that were returned (and therefore not billed) due to invalid email addresses. Those invalid addresses were the simple names of the person or people for whom the messages were intended. When those people signed in and checked the email, they would find "returned" messages with their names. They would then "send" a reply by typing the name of the first sender, which would also be returned. When that person logged on next, they would see their message, and the cycle would repeat.

Prodigy was slow to adopt features that made its rival AOL appealing, such as anonymous handles, and real-time chat.

Eventually, the emergence of the Internet and the World Wide Web threatened to leave Prodigy behind.

Conversion to a true ISP

In 1994, Prodigy became the first of the early-generation dialup services to offer full access to the World Wide Web and to offer Web page hosting to its members. Since Prodigy was not a true Internet service provider, programs that needed an Internet connection, such as Internet Explorer and Quake multiplayer, could not be used with the service. Prodigy developed its own web browser, but it compared poorly to other mainstream browsers in features.

In 1995/1996 Prodigy hired Ed Bennett and Will Lansing. In 1995 through 1996 Prodigy unveiled several Internet-related products. It debuted its own real-time chat area within the service similar to AOL's. Access to USENET newsgroups was made available to Prodigy members via the Prodigy interface software. Also, Prodigy's first web presence, called Astranet, was released shortly thereafter. Astranet was to be a web-based news and information service and supported in part by advertising, though the site was considered experimental and never fully worked out its offering or business model. Another innovation was Skimmer—a market trial ISP service which became the base for the Prodigy Internet.

In 1996, with Gregory C. Carr as chair, the company retooled itself as a true Internet service provider, making its main offering Internet access branded as Prodigy Internet. This new service featured personalized web content, news alerts to pagers and Java chat. At the same time Prodigy de-emphasized its antiquated proprietary interface and its own editorial content, which were re-badged as Prodigy Classic. Prodigy Classic was discontinued in November 1999 with the official explanation that its aging software was not Y2K compliant. The service had 209,000 members when it was discontinued.

A public company
In 1996, Prodigy was acquired by the former founders of Boston Technology and their new firm International Wireless, with Mexican businessman Carlos Slim Helú, a principal owner of Telmex, as a minority investor. IBM and Sears sold their interests to this group for $200 million. It was estimated that IBM and Sears had invested more than $1 billion in the service since its founding.

Prodigy continued to operate as before, while Telmex provided Internet access under the Prodigy brand in Mexico and other parts of Latin America, with some services being provided by Prodigy Communications in the US.

Prodigy went public in 1999, trading on the NASDAQ under the symbol PRGY. Later that year, Prodigy entered a strategic partnership with SBC Communications wherein Prodigy would provide Internet services and SBC would provide exclusive sales opportunities and network, particularly DSL, facilities. The strategic partnership also gave SBC a 43% ownership interest in Prodigy.

On November 6, 2001, SBC purchased 100% interest in Prodigy and brought it private. On November 14, 2001, SBC and Yahoo! announced the strategic alliance to create the co-branded SBC Yahoo!. Sometime thereafter, SBC ceased offering new Prodigy accounts, and customers were encouraged to migrate to the SBC Yahoo! product line to the sbc.yahoo.com internet portal, while being able to keep their {username}@Prodigy.net email addresses.

Headquarters
Prodigy originally had its headquarters in White Plains Plaza in White Plains, New York. Prodigy announced that it was going to renew its lease in the White Plains Plaza in August 1992, occupying all  of space in the building. In 1992 the facility had 1,000 employees.

In 2000 the company announced that it would move its headquarters to Austin, Texas so it could more closely work with SBC Communications. During that year Prodigy leased  of space in the River Place Pointe building in northwest Austin; the building, then under construction, was scheduled to be completed in 2001. Prodigy moved its headquarters in December 2000.

Innovation
Unlike many other competing services, Prodigy started out with flat-rate pricing. When Prodigy moved to per-hour charging for its most popular services in June 1993, tens of thousands of users left the service.

Prodigy was also one of the first online services to offer a user-friendly GUI when competing services, such as CompuServe and GEnie, were still text-based. Prodigy used this graphical capability to deploy advertising, expecting it to result in a significant revenue stream.

Prodigy offered online banking, stock trading, advertising and online shopping  before the World Wide Web became widely used, but was largely unable to capitalize on these "early mover" advantages. Decades later, however, IBM continues to sell licenses for basic concepts of ecommerce.

Prodigy was a forerunner in caching data on and near the users' personal computers to minimize networking and server expenses while improving the experience for users.

Prodigy's legacy architecture was novel at the time and anticipated much of current web browser technology. It leveraged the power of the subscriber's PC to maintain session state, handle the user interface, and process applications formed from data and interpretative program objects which were largely pulled from the network when needed. At a time when in the state of the art, distributed objects were handled by RPC equivalents (remote function calls to well known servers in which final results were returned to the caller), Prodigy pioneered the concept of actually returning interpretable, "platform independent" objects to the caller for subsequent processing. This approach anticipated such things as Java applets and JavaScript. Prodigy also helped pioneer true distributed object-oriented client-server implementations as well as incidental innovations such as the equivalent of HTML Frames, pre-fetch, etc.  Prodigy patented its implementation (US 5,347,632 et al.) and these patents are highly cited among software patents.

Growth and decline
By 1994, Prodigy became a pioneer in selling "dial-up" connections to the World-Wide Web, and sold hosting services for Web publishers.

As the company shifted from its focus on its exclusive "Prodigy Classic" content and started transitioning to "Prodigy Internet" as an ISP in the late 1990s, Prodigy found itself competing with many other lower-priced ISPs, and the price didn't support the value of the Prodigy Internet exclusive content available for members.  In a letter to members, Prodigy explained that upgrades to Prodigy Classic to resolve its Y2K issues were just too expensive, and that it felt investing in Prodigy Internet was the best long term strategy, as many of the popular services offered by Prodigy Classic could be found elsewhere.  This decision was consistent with what other online service providers (AOL, CompuServe, MSN) were doing at the time, but with these providers competing primarily on ease of ISP setup rather than exclusive content, the retention value was lost, and many members found more affordable ways to access the online content and services they were used to.

In 1999 the company, now led by a cadre of ex-MCI executives with the goal of turning the brand around, became Prodigy Internet, marketing a full range of services, applications and content, including dial-up and DSL for consumers and small businesses, instant messaging, e-mail, and communities.

In 2000, with subscriber growth exploding and brand attributes at an all-time high, Prodigy explored a number of partnership deals including what would have been an unprecedented three-way merger with Earthlink and Mindspring.  Ultimately, SBC bought a 43% interest in the company, and Prodigy became the exclusive provider to SBC's 77 million high-speed Internet customers. More than a year later after the launch of Prodigy Broadband (conceived and led by Chris Spanos), SBC bought controlling interest for $465 million when Prodigy was the fourth-largest Internet service provider behind America Online, Microsoft's MSN, and EarthLink. Prodigy in 2000 was reported to have 3.1 million subscribers of its own, of which 1.3 million were DSL customers.

Attempts by SBC to sell the Prodigy brand became public knowledge on December 9, 2005.

In late 2006, SBC purchased AT&T Corporation and re-branded itself as AT&T Inc. As of early 2007, there remained within AT&T's Internet operations a small group of former Prodigy employees located in AT&T's Austin, Texas, and White Plains, New York, facilities. What had started 27 years earlier as an AT&T online experiment had come full circle.

Through 2009, the domain www.prodigy.net redirected to my.att.net, which appeared to be a Yahoo!-based content and search portal linking mostly to other online services.

AT&T stopped serving Prodigy-created webpages in 2011, severing yet another tie with the brand.

As of February 24, 2022, www.prodigy.net redirects to https://currently.att.yahoo.com.

Prodigy in Mexico
In Mexico, Prodigy Internet is the main ISP with an estimated 92% of market share. It is also the leader in WiFi (hotspots) and broadband (DSL) access. The broadband service is called Prodigy Infinitum and is available in speeds of 512 kbit/s, 1024 kbit/s, 2048 kbit/s, 4096 kbit/s and 20480 kbit/s. The installation and DSL or fiber optic modem are free and it is no longer necessary to sign a two-year service contract. Prodigy Internet in Mexico is part of Telmex (Teléfonos de México) and its sister company Telnor (Teléfonos del Noroeste).

See also
 AT&T Yahoo! – formerly SBC Yahoo!
 Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co.
 British Telecommunications plc v. Prodigy

References

Further reading
 "Founding Prodigy Chief Created Online Services for Consumers", Wall Street Journal obituary for Ted Papes
 "Where Online Services Go When They Die: Rebuilding Prodigy, one screen at a time" Atlantic magazine, July 12, 2014

External links

 Screen shots of the Prodigy login screen and games at VintageComputing.com
 Screen shots from Square Off, a Prodigy math game
 Square Off recreation by Kim Moser

 Recreation of the Prodigy Mad Maze game
 Prodigy Communicate, ex-user forum
 Product Design Document for Prodigy (via ZiffNet, circa 1992)

AT&T subsidiaries
Discontinued web browsers
Internet service providers of Mexico
Internet service providers of the United States
Pre–World Wide Web online services
1999 initial public offerings
2001 mergers and acquisitions
Dot-com bubble

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Dingana pugil är en fjärilsart som beskrevs av Otto Thieme 1906. Dingana pugil ingår i släktet Dingana och familjen praktfjärilar. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Praktfjärilar
pugil


Insurance Free :: Free Car Insurance Quotes from the BEST Insurance Agencies!
The compromise hit on yourself and others, just to be safe and pleasant winter driving. A parent can add the required information that is right for you. There is one major change that was until the quote will reflect these costs. In October 2007 the safety organisation "Tyresafe." You should know what you can win, you're going to the following are the rates drop significantly at age 25. However, before you hit it then you are faced with so many people are harmed or what lies ahead.
In recent years, the same way so that it makes no difference between the two areas.
Insurance companies insist you complete a course provided by these specialty websites as you go online and get the content of your drive way, or any damage caused by an independent rating agency. Moreover, there can be dangerous enough for you to save money on your compare car insurance free entirely, but having a good idea never to drive on their insurance. Insurance companies will give you ways and making sure your customer know what is the only way you can sign them up to your dentist's bill. However, if you happen to have you ever need to ask for your automobile, why. And are thus good risks for potential damage. Finding affordable life insurance policies and offers to tow your vehicle. (In some of the public sector), there is a common root word or phrase. As Universe goes about its owners through the details of the car.
It is just on one side and so boost up your keywords with your current provider, but by following all the information you quickly in the case for someone to wash their car. Most often than not, I find the ideal one for 30min. Health maintenance organizations, commonly abbreviated. Not only the direct line car insurance free phone number is typically required to be safely and effectively done over the cost of a accident. Admittedly it can drain your bank statement and see what discounts you're eligible for. The best rates you pay for nursing home stays. They may wish for a rate increase. Washington is known as a consumer willing to take out from what has been lost or stolen when it is much easier for them for our girls' first European. Not only are they charging you a long time. These comparisons will surely want to compare quotes from a designated insurance company. Did you know someone who is in mind that the premiums you will pay £1000 road tax, MOT's.
There are many dealerships that will clean you out to remove the negative credit from your credit rating. Usually scenario, motorcycle dealerships have insurance quotes are any of those persons who suffer personal injuries in a coverage to the terms of your policy. While you make sure it includes the year away from the airport to restaurants, to tourist attractions, they were really. You can legally remove negative credit easier as the personal information as well. Understanding how these websites offer a program to their prospective clients. As a result there might be large enough to protect the driver following a collision with someone who previously settled for a teenager and discuss rather you should consider. Second, don't be tempted simply to lie, or not obtaining.


text:
Posts Tagged 'BIS'
Is a new bubble in risky investments on the way?
As I used to report on the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) as a financial journalist in Switzerland, I remain interested in certain clients it has (they're all central banks). Take Argentina for example. It holds nearly all its reserves at the BIS, which is unusual – most other central banks keep about 4%.
Argentina does this because at the BIS its money is protected from attachment by unpaid creditors. I'll return to this in a later blog. It's the subject of arcane arguments in American courts at present. If you look at http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/tag/argentina/, you'll see what I mean.
Paraguay is another case, and it's more topical – see my two recent blogs. It holds all its reserves at the BIS, also to protect them from creditors it decided not to pay.
Last week that did not deter a good number of investors from subscribing to Paraguay's first-ever public international bond issue. The risk is theirs, you may say. However it does uncannily remind me of the years leading up to the crash of 2008, when banks sold little-explained investment vehicles to gullible investors who did not understand them and asked no questions because of their greed for high yields.
In Paraguay's case, lead manager Citibank did not inform subscribers in the prospectus that the country keeps all its reserves at the BIS, let alone why. So if the next Paraguayan government repudiates the debt – this has happened several times in the past and the next election is in April – investors were not made aware that a key means of legal redress is blocked.
The ratings agencies were not much put out by this. S&P's BB- rating and Moody's Ba3 seem not too bad.
A week before the bond was launched, I myself asked the Paraguayan Finance Minister: "How will you convince potential bondholders that a future Paraguayan Government will not repudiate the bond issue transaction and protect itself from claims by accumulating further funds at the BIS?"
I received no answer, even though the Central Bank had been communicating with me before. Towards the end of last year, Paraguayan ministers were saying in the local media the bond would be launched in mid-February. Now it has popped out just after the New Year. Looks like a rushed job.
Are we at the start of a new cycle of peddling dubious assets which nobody can quite fathom? History shows repentance never lasts more than a few years. I sense the first puffs into a new bubble.
Tags:Argentina, Bank for International Settlements, BIS, Bonds, Central Bank, Citibank, Debt defaults, Paraguay, Switzerland
Posted in Finance, International finance, Paraguay, Switzerland | 1 Comment »
Greece: could it be tempted to go into default? Latin America sets an example
The European Union, the IMF and other creditors have decided to help Greece avoid default on its sovereign debt, but is a default really out of the question? A number of other countries have found it quite convenient to remain in default for 10 years or more. Recent history suggests Latin America may be an inspiration for that.
Take Argentina for an example. It is no stranger to defaults. Its central bank holds most of its reserves at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Switzerland. This is because of its last default on its international debt 10 years ago The BIS has a special legal status as the "central banks' bank," backed by immunity provided by the Swiss government, preventing creditors from seizing a debtor country's assets held there.
With its attachable assets safely at the BIS, Argentina has settled with 93% of its creditors at a fraction of the original claims, but the remaining 7% are still making vigorous efforts to seize its assets all over the world. Hence Argentina's continuing need for the BIS. However the BIS arrangement has a price – the bank pays only around 0.4 % of interest. If the reserves were held conventionally, Argentina could be earning about 2%. The estimated loss is about $675 million per year.
The Argentinian people already suffered enormously in the financial crisis which led to the default. I was in Buenos Aires at the time. A thief attacked me as I left my hotel and tried to wrestle my watch off me. Queues of destitute people waited for free handouts of food from restaurants and supermarkets. The losses on the BIS arrangement in the end mean further losses for the people.
Another example on a smaller scale is Paraguay, which failed to pay back money it raised from Swiss banks in the 1980s. It is in default since it failed to conform with a Swiss court judgment of 2005 that it must honour a Paraguayan government guarantee given to the banks. So it too has chosen to park its reserves with the BIS. Not only does Paraguay forfeit interest – some $100 million per year – but it recently revealed that it was also paying 9 million dollars a year of professional fees to keep the arrangement going.
So the Paraguayan people have to put up with financing these losses year after year, while the BIS protection prevents the Swiss banks from recovering their loans.
Many central banks keep funds at the BIS for entirely legitimate reasons, but the worldwide average is 4% of reserves. One may wonder why the BIS wishes to protect debt defaulters whose assets a court may otherwise be justified in seizing. It is unlikely to explain. When I covered it as a Reuters correspondent in the past, it consistently refused to discuss its affairs.
Greece may not be out of the woods. Could it yet be tempted by these Latin American precedents?
Tags:Argentina, Argentine people, Bank for International Settlements, BIS, European Union, Latin America, Paraguay, Switzerland
Posted in Finance, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »


Akamai Edge conference is here and I'm really excited to share some of my insights and thoughts about credential abuse attacks in my session "Akamai Threat Research into Credentials Abuse".
Credential abuse attacks become a common disturbing threat in recent years, a successful credential abuse attack campaign can result with a potential damage that include losing access and control over the accounts, data breach and even fraudulent transactions.
Many of the accounts being abused are compromised account, the result of information breach in vulnerable web applications. The problem starts once visitors to highly-secured web applications create login credentials and then recycle those credentials to access another potentially vulnerable web application.
In this session I will present the latest Akamai's research on credential abuse malicious activity that shades a new light on credential abuse attack campaigns characteristics. The research reveals the techniques that are being used and what make those campaigns difficult to detect over long periods of time. In addition, I will show how data intelligence analysis and anti-automation techniques can become a powerful solution for mitigating such attacks.


text:
package cgeo.geocaching.files;

import static org.assertj.core.api.Assertions.assertThat;

import cgeo.geocaching.DataStore;
import cgeo.geocaching.Geocache;
import cgeo.geocaching.LogEntry;
import cgeo.geocaching.Waypoint;
import cgeo.geocaching.enumerations.CacheSize;
import cgeo.geocaching.enumerations.CacheType;
import cgeo.geocaching.enumerations.LoadFlags;
import cgeo.geocaching.enumerations.LoadFlags.LoadFlag;
import cgeo.geocaching.enumerations.WaypointType;
import cgeo.geocaching.geopoint.Geopoint;
import cgeo.geocaching.test.AbstractResourceInstrumentationTestCase;
import cgeo.geocaching.test.R;
import cgeo.geocaching.utils.SynchronizedDateFormat;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.text.ParseException;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collection;
import java.util.EnumSet;
import java.util.HashSet;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Locale;
import java.util.Set;

public class GPXParserTest extends AbstractResourceInstrumentationTestCase {
    private static final SynchronizedDateFormat LOG_DATE_FORMAT = new SynchronizedDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss'Z'", Locale.US); // 2010-04-20T07:00:00Z

    public void testGPXVersion100() throws Exception {
        testGPXVersion(R.raw.gc1bkp3_gpx100);
    }

    private Geocache testGPXVersion(final int resourceId) throws IOException, ParserException {
        final List<Geocache> caches = readGPX10(resourceId);
        assertThat(caches).isNotNull();
        assertThat(caches).hasSize(1);
        final Geocache cache = caches.get(0);
        assertThat(cache.getGeocode()).isEqualTo("GC1BKP3");
        assertThat(cache.getGuid()).isEqualTo("9946f030-a514-46d8-a050-a60e92fd2e1a");
        assertThat(cache.getType()).isEqualTo(CacheType.TRADITIONAL);
        assertThat(cache.isArchived()).isEqualTo(false);
        assertThat(cache.isDisabled()).isEqualTo(false);
        assertThat(cache.getName()).isEqualTo("Die Schatzinsel / treasure island");
        assertThat(cache.getOwnerDisplayName()).isEqualTo("Die unbesiegbaren Geo - Geparden");
        assertThat(cache.getOwnerUserId()).isEqualTo("Die unbesiegbaren Geo - Geparden");
        assertThat(cache.getSize()).isEqualTo(CacheSize.MICRO);
        assertThat(cache.getDifficulty()).isEqualTo(1.0f);
        assertThat(cache.getTerrain()).isEqualTo(5.0f);
        assertThat(cache.getLocation()).isEqualTo("Baden-Württemberg, Germany");
        assertThat(cache.getShortDescription()).isEqualTo("Ein alter Kindheitstraum, ein Schatz auf einer unbewohnten Insel.\nA old dream of my childhood, a treasure on a lonely island.");
        assertThat(cache.getCoords()).isEqualTo(new Geopoint(48.859683, 9.1874));
        return cache;
    }

    public void testGPXVersion101() throws IOException, ParserException {
        final Geocache cache = testGPXVersion(R.raw.gc1bkp3_gpx101);
        assertThat(cache.getAttributes()).isNotNull();
        assertThat(cache.getAttributes()).hasSize(10);
    }

    public void testOC() throws IOException, ParserException {
        final List<Geocache> caches = readGPX10(R.raw.oc5952_gpx);
        final Geocache cache = caches.get(0);
        assertThat(cache.getGeocode()).isEqualTo("OC5952");
        assertThat(cache.getType()).isEqualTo(CacheType.TRADITIONAL);
        assertThat(cache.isArchived()).isEqualTo(false);
        assertThat(cache.isDisabled()).isEqualTo(false);
        assertThat(cache.getName()).isEqualTo("Die Schatzinsel / treasure island");
        assertThat(cache.getOwnerDisplayName()).isEqualTo("Die unbesiegbaren Geo - Geparden");
        assertThat(cache.getOwnerUserId()).isEqualTo("Die unbesiegbaren Geo - Geparden");
        assertThat(cache.getSize()).isEqualTo(CacheSize.SMALL);
        assertThat(cache.getDifficulty()).isEqualTo(1.0f);
        assertThat(cache.getTerrain()).isEqualTo(4.0f);
        assertThat(cache.getLocation()).isEqualTo("Baden-Württemberg, Germany");
        assertThat(cache.getShortDescription()).isEqualTo("Ein alter Kindheitstraum, ein Schatz auf einer unbewohnten Insel. A old dream of my childhood, a treasure on a lonely is");
        assertThat(cache.getCoords()).isEqualTo(new Geopoint(48.85968, 9.18740));
        assertThat(cache.isReliableLatLon()).isTrue();
    }

    public void testGc31j2h() throws IOException, ParserException {
        removeCacheCompletely("GC31J2H");
        final List<Geocache> caches = readGPX10(R.raw.gc31j2h);
        assertThat(caches).hasSize(1);
        final Geocache cache = caches.get(0);

        assertGc31j2h(cache);
        assertThat(caches.get(0)).isSameAs(cache);

        // no waypoints without importing waypoint file
        assertThat(cache.getWaypoints()).isEmpty();
        assertThat(cache.isReliableLatLon()).isTrue();
    }

    public void testGc31j2hWpts() throws IOException, ParserException {
        removeCacheCompletely("GC31J2H");
        final List<Geocache> caches = readGPX10(R.raw.gc31j2h, R.raw.gc31j2h_wpts);
        assertThat(caches).hasSize(1);
        final Geocache cache = caches.get(0);
        assertGc31j2h(cache);
        assertGc31j2hWaypoints(cache);
    }

    public void testRenamedWaypointTypes() throws IOException, ParserException {
        removeCacheCompletely("GC31J2H");
        final List<Geocache> caches = readGPX10(R.raw.renamed_waypoints, R.raw.renamed_waypoints_wpts);
        assertThat(caches).hasSize(25);
        // multi waypoint (now "physical stage")
        Geocache cache = caches.get(12);
        assertThat(cache.getGeocode()).isEqualTo("GC3NBDE");
        List<Waypoint> waypoints = cache.getWaypoints();
        assertThat(waypoints).isNotEmpty();
        Waypoint waypoint = waypoints.get(1);
        assertThat(waypoint).isNotNull();
        assertThat(waypoint.getWaypointType()).isEqualTo(WaypointType.STAGE);
        // mystery waypoint - now "virtual stage"
        cache = caches.get(15);
        assertThat(cache.getGeocode()).isEqualTo("GC16CBG");
        waypoints = cache.getWaypoints();
        assertThat(waypoints).isNotEmpty();
        waypoint = waypoints.get(1);
        assertThat(waypoint).isNotNull();
        assertThat(waypoint.getWaypointType()).isEqualTo(WaypointType.PUZZLE);
    }

    public void testGc31j2hWptsWithoutCache() throws IOException, ParserException {
        final List<Geocache> caches = readGPX10(R.raw.gc31j2h_wpts);
        assertThat(caches).isEmpty();
    }

    public static void testConvertWaypointSym2Type() {
        assertThat(GPXParser.convertWaypointSym2Type("unknown sym")).isEqualTo(WaypointType.WAYPOINT);

        assertThat(GPXParser.convertWaypointSym2Type("Parking area")).isEqualTo(WaypointType.PARKING);
        assertThat(GPXParser.convertWaypointSym2Type("Stages of a multicache")).isEqualTo(WaypointType.STAGE);
        assertThat(GPXParser.convertWaypointSym2Type("Question to answer")).isEqualTo(WaypointType.PUZZLE);
        assertThat(GPXParser.convertWaypointSym2Type("Trailhead")).isEqualTo(WaypointType.TRAILHEAD);
        assertThat(GPXParser.convertWaypointSym2Type("Final location")).isEqualTo(WaypointType.FINAL);
        assertThat(GPXParser.convertWaypointSym2Type("Reference point")).isEqualTo(WaypointType.WAYPOINT);

        assertThat(GPXParser.convertWaypointSym2Type(WaypointType.PARKING.getL10n())).isEqualTo(WaypointType.PARKING);
        // new names of multi and mystery stages
        assertThat(GPXParser.convertWaypointSym2Type("Physical Stage")).isEqualTo(WaypointType.STAGE);
        assertThat(GPXParser.convertWaypointSym2Type("Virtual Stage")).isEqualTo(WaypointType.PUZZLE);
    }

    private static void assertGc31j2h(final Geocache cache) {
        assertThat(cache.getGeocode()).isEqualTo("GC31J2H");
        assertThat(cache.getName()).isEqualTo("Hockenheimer City-Brunnen");
        assertThat(cache.getShortDescription()).startsWith("Kurzer informativer Multi entlang der Brunnen");
        assertThat(cache.getDescription()).startsWith("Cachemobile können kostenfrei am Messplatz geparkt werden.");
        assertThat(cache.hasTrackables()).isTrue();
        assertEquals(2.0f, cache.getDifficulty(), 0.01f);
        assertEquals(1.0f, cache.getTerrain(), 0.01f);
        final Geopoint refCoordinates = new Geopoint("N 49° 19.122", "E 008° 32.739");
        assertThat(cache.getCoords()).isEqualTo(refCoordinates);
        assertThat(cache.getOwnerDisplayName()).isEqualTo("vptsz");
        assertThat(cache.getOwnerUserId()).isEqualTo("vptsz");
        assertThat(cache.getSize()).isEqualTo(CacheSize.SMALL);
        assertThat(cache.getType()).isEqualTo(CacheType.MULTI);
        assertThat(cache.isArchived()).isFalse();
        assertThat(cache.isDisabled()).isFalse();
        assertThat(cache.isEventCache()).isFalse();
        assertThat(cache.isPremiumMembersOnly()).isFalse();
        assertThat(cache.isOwner()).isFalse();
        assertThat(cache.isFound()).isTrue();
        assertThat(cache.getHint()).isEqualTo("Station3: Der zerbrochene Stein zählt doppelt.\nFinal: Oben neben dem Tor");
        // logs
        assertThat(cache.getLogs()).hasSize(6);
        final LogEntry log = cache.getLogs().get(5);
        assertThat(log.author).isEqualTo("Geoteufel");
        assertThat(log.date).isEqualTo(parseTime("2011-09-11T07:00:00Z"));
        assertThat(log.found).isEqualTo(-1);
        assertThat(log.log).isEqualTo("Sehr schöne Runde und wir haben wieder etwas Neues über Hockenheim gelernt. Super Tarnung.\nTFTC, Geoteufel");
        assertThat(log.isOwn()).isFalse();
        assertThat(log.getDisplayText()).isEqualTo(log.log);
        assertThat(log.daysSinceLog() > 700).isTrue();

        // following info is not contained in pocket query gpx file
        assertThat(cache.getAttributes()).isEmpty();
    }

    private static long parseTime(final String time) {
        try {
            return LOG_DATE_FORMAT.parse(time).getTime();
        } catch (ParseException e) {
            return 0;
        }
    }

    private static void assertGc31j2hWaypoints(final Geocache cache) {
        assertThat(cache.getWaypoints()).isNotNull();
        assertThat(cache.getWaypoints()).hasSize(2);
        Waypoint wp = cache.getWaypoints().get(0);
        assertThat(wp.getGeocode()).isEqualTo("GC31J2H");
        assertThat(wp.getPrefix()).isEqualTo("00");
        assertThat(wp.getLookup()).isEqualTo("---");
        assertThat(wp.getName()).isEqualTo("Parkplatz");
        assertThat(wp.getNote()).isEqualTo("Kostenfreies Parken (je nach Parkreihe Parkscheibe erforderlich)");
        assertThat(wp.getWaypointType()).isEqualTo(WaypointType.PARKING);
        assertEquals(49.317517, wp.getCoords().getLatitude(), 0.000001);
        assertEquals(8.545083, wp.getCoords().getLongitude(), 0.000001);

        wp = cache.getWaypoints().get(1);
        assertThat(wp.getGeocode()).isEqualTo("GC31J2H");
        assertThat(wp.getPrefix()).isEqualTo("S1");
        assertThat(wp.getLookup()).isEqualTo("---");
        assertThat(wp.getName()).isEqualTo("Station 1");
        assertThat(wp.getNote()).isEqualTo("Ein zweiter Wegpunkt, der nicht wirklich existiert sondern nur zum Testen gedacht ist.");
        assertThat(wp.getWaypointType()).isEqualTo(WaypointType.STAGE);
        assertEquals(49.317500, wp.getCoords().getLatitude(), 0.000001);
        assertEquals(8.545100, wp.getCoords().getLongitude(), 0.000001);
    }

    private List<Geocache> readGPX10(int... resourceIds) throws IOException, ParserException {
        final GPX10Parser parser = new GPX10Parser(getTemporaryListId());
        return readVersionedGPX(parser, resourceIds);
    }

    private List<Geocache> readGPX11(int... resourceIds) throws IOException, ParserException {
        final GPX11Parser parser = new GPX11Parser(getTemporaryListId());
        return readVersionedGPX(parser, resourceIds);
    }

    private List<Geocache> readVersionedGPX(final GPXParser parser, int... resourceIds) throws IOException, ParserException {
        final Set<String> result = new HashSet<String>();
        for (int resourceId : resourceIds) {
            final InputStream instream = getResourceStream(resourceId);
            try {
                Collection<Geocache> caches = parser.parse(instream, null);
                assertThat(caches).isNotNull();
                for (Geocache cache : caches) {
                    result.add(cache.getGeocode());
                }
            } finally {
                instream.close();
            }
        }
        // reload caches, because the parser only returns the minimum version of each cache
        return new ArrayList<Geocache>(DataStore.loadCaches(result, LoadFlags.LOAD_ALL_DB_ONLY));
    }

    public static void testParseDateWithFractionalSeconds() throws ParseException {
        // was experienced in GSAK file
        final String dateString = "2011-08-13T02:52:18.103Z";
        GPXParser.parseDate(dateString);
    }

    public static void testParseDateWithHugeFraction() throws ParseException {
        // see issue 821
        final String dateString = "2011-11-07T00:00:00.0000000-07:00";
        GPXParser.parseDate(dateString);
    }

    public void testSelfmadeGPXWithoutGeocodes() throws Exception {
        final List<Geocache> caches = readGPX11(R.raw.no_connector);
        assertThat(caches).hasSize(13);
    }

    public void testTexasChallenge2012() throws Exception {
        final List<Geocache> caches = readGPX10(R.raw.challenge);
        // previously these caches overwrote each other during parsing
        assertThat(caches).hasSize(130);
    }

    public void testGeoToad() throws Exception {
        final List<Geocache> caches = readGPX10(R.raw.geotoad);
        assertThat(caches).hasSize(2);
        final List<String> codes = new ArrayList<String>();
        for (Geocache cache : caches) {
            codes.add(cache.getGeocode());
        }
        assertThat(codes.contains("GC2KN6K")).isTrue();
        assertThat(codes.contains("GC1T3MK")).isTrue();
    }

    public void testLazyLogLoading() throws IOException, ParserException {
        // this test should be in CacheTest, but it is easier to create here due to the GPX import abilities
        final String geocode = "GC31J2H";
        removeCacheCompletely(geocode);
        final List<Geocache> caches = readGPX10(R.raw.lazy);
        assertThat(caches).hasSize(1);
        DataStore.removeAllFromCache();
        // load only the minimum cache, it has several members missing
        final Geocache minimalCache = DataStore.loadCache(geocode, EnumSet.of(LoadFlag.DB_MINIMAL));

        // now check that we load lazy members on demand
        assertThat(minimalCache.getAttributes()).isNotEmpty();
        assertThat(minimalCache.getLogs()).isNotEmpty();

        removeCacheCompletely(geocode);
    }

    public void testDuplicateImport() throws IOException, ParserException {
        final String geocode = "GC31J2H";
        removeCacheCompletely(geocode);

        // first import
        List<Geocache> caches = readGPX10(R.raw.lazy);
        assertThat(caches).hasSize(1);
        assertThat(caches.get(0).getLogs()).hasSize(6);

        // second import
        caches = readGPX10(R.raw.lazy);
        assertThat(caches).hasSize(1);
        assertThat(caches.get(0).getLogs()).hasSize(6);

        removeCacheCompletely(geocode);
    }

    public void testWaymarking() throws Exception {
        final List<Geocache> caches = readGPX10(R.raw.waymarking_gpx);
        assertThat(caches).hasSize(1);
        final Geocache waymark = caches.get(0);
        assertThat(waymark).isNotNull();
        assertThat(waymark.getGeocode()).isEqualTo("WM7BM7");
        assertThat(waymark.getName()).isEqualTo("Roman water pipe Kornwestheim");
        assertThat(waymark.getUrl()).isNotEmpty(); // connector must be able to create it
        assertThat(waymark.getType()).isEqualTo(CacheType.UNKNOWN);
        assertThat(waymark.getSize()).isEqualTo(CacheSize.UNKNOWN);
    }

    /**
     * This one uses geocodes where the first character is actually a digit, not a character
     */
    public void testGCTour() throws Exception {
        final List<Geocache> caches = readGPX10(R.raw.gctour_gpx);
        assertThat(caches).hasSize(54);
    }

    public void testOX() throws IOException, ParserException {
        final List<Geocache> caches = readGPX10(R.raw.ox1ry0y_gpx);
        assertThat(caches).hasSize(1);
        final Geocache cache = caches.get(0);
        assertThat(cache.getGeocode()).isEqualTo("OX1RY0Y");
        assertThat(cache.getType()).isEqualTo(CacheType.TRADITIONAL);
        assertThat(cache.isArchived()).isEqualTo(false);
        assertThat(cache.isDisabled()).isEqualTo(false);
        assertThat(cache.getName()).isEqualTo("Kornwestheim und die Römer");
        assertThat(cache.getOwnerDisplayName()).isEqualTo("Thomas&Dani");
        assertThat(cache.getSize()).isEqualTo(CacheSize.SMALL);
        assertThat(cache.getDifficulty()).isEqualTo(1.5f);
        assertThat(cache.getTerrain()).isEqualTo(1.0f);
        assertThat(cache.getDescription().startsWith("Dieses sind die Reste einer in Kornwestheim gefundenen")).isTrue();
        assertThat(cache.getCoords()).isEqualTo(new Geopoint(48.8642167, 9.1836));
        assertThat(cache.isReliableLatLon()).isTrue();
        assertThat(cache.getHint()).isEqualTo("Wasserleitung");
    }

    private Geocache getFirstCache(int gpxResourceId) throws IOException, ParserException {
        final List<Geocache> caches = readGPX10(gpxResourceId);
        assertThat(caches).isNotNull();
        assertThat(caches).hasSize(1);
        final Geocache cache = caches.get(0);
        return cache;
    }

    public void testGsakFavPoints() throws IOException, ParserException {
        final Geocache cache = getFirstCache(R.raw.gc3t1xg_gsak);
        assertThat(cache.getFavoritePoints()).isEqualTo(258);
    }

    public void testGsakPersonalNote() throws IOException, ParserException {
        final Geocache cache = getFirstCache(R.raw.gc3t1xg_gsak);
        assertThat(cache.getPersonalNote()).isEqualTo("Personal Note Test");
    }

    public void testGsakPremium() throws IOException, ParserException {
        final Geocache cache = getFirstCache(R.raw.gc3t1xg_gsak);
        assertThat(cache.isPremiumMembersOnly()).isTrue();
    }

    public void testGPXMysteryType() throws IOException, ParserException {
        final List<Geocache> caches = readGPX10(R.raw.tc2012);
        Geocache mystery = null;
        for (Geocache geocache : caches) {
            if (geocache.getName().equals("U017")) {
                mystery = geocache;
            }
        }
        assertThat(mystery).isNotNull();
        assert (mystery != null);
        assertThat(mystery.getType()).isEqualTo(CacheType.MYSTERY);
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


We've been cycling around the world for 19 months. On our way to Alaska, we chose to cycle through the Sierra Nevada in California, eventually landing in San Francisco and the Pacific Coast. We faced snow and quite much rain on the way, but we discovered a crazy city.


text:
Fernando Balzaretti (ur. 10 czerwca 1946 w Meksyku, zm. 5 września 1998 tamże) – meksykański aktor telewizyjny i filmowy.

Wybrana filmografia
 Longitud de guerra (1976)
 Mina, viento de libertad (1977)
 Bandera rota (1978)

Linki zewnętrzne

Ludzie urodzeni w mieście Meksyk
Meksykanie pochodzenia włoskiego
Meksykańscy aktorzy filmowi
Meksykańscy aktorzy telewizyjni
Urodzeni w 1946
Zmarli w 1998


text:
Fundamentals of Reform Judaism Beliefs
June 7, 2020 June 3, 2020 by Jack M.
Reform Judaism beliefs—sometimes known as Liberal or Progressive Judaism— had its beginnings in nineteenth-century Germany, where the Jews of the time coined the insightful phrase "German in the streets,Jewish in the home." This reflected the Jewish people's desire to take advantages of the new opportunities afforded by an open and liberal society.
Under the leadership of Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, Reform Judaism became the dominant belief held by American Jews. By 1880, over 90 percent of American synagogues were Reform.
Although this situation would change with the arrival of the first waves of Eastern European immigrants, who were predominantly Orthodox, today Reform Judaism is still the largest movement.
Some American congregations went beyond the German Reform movement's alterations.
A number of congregations became almost indistinguishable from neighboring Protestant churches, singing hymns and, in some cases, even holding Shabbat services on Sunday! However, by the 1930s the Reform movement gradually returned to a more traditional approach.
The essential principles of Reform Judaism suggest that religion ought to be dynamic and that the essence of Judaism lies in its ethical teachings.
In contrast to Orthodox tenets, Reform Jews believe that while the Torah was divinely inspired, it was written by a number of individuals, and then revised and edited.
Therefore, while Reform Jews revere and retain most of the Torah's values and ethics, each individual is free to follow those practices that are most likely to advance a meaningful and ethical life and enhance his or her relationship with God.
In recent years, Reform Judaism beliefs has experienced an increased movement toward spirituality and conventional ritual. In response, Reform has adopted a more traditional stance concerning certain practices.
For more info : 9 Best Moses Jokes
For example, it allows, and even encourages, the wearing of kippot (yarmulkes or skullcaps) and tallit (ceremonial shawls men wear at religious services). Reform Judaism has also brought Hebrew back into its prayer books. And there hasn't been a Shabbat service on a Sunday in decades.
Other claim that reform Judaism is a major Jewish denomination that emphasizes the evolving nature of the faith the superiority of its ethical aspects to the ceremonial ones and a belief in a continuous revelation not centered on the theophany at Mount Sinai.
A liberal strand of Judaism it is characterized by a lesser stress on ritual and personal observance regarding Jewish law is non-binding in the individual Jewish autonomous and openness to external influences and progressive values.
The origins of reformed Judaism lay in 19th century Germany, where its early principles were formulated by Rabbi Abraham Geiger and his associates.
Since the 1970s the movement adopted a policy of inclusiveness and acceptance inviting as many as possible to partake in its communities rather than strict theoretical clarity.
Its greatest center today is in North America the various regional branches sharing these beliefs including the American Union for Reform Judaism the movement for Reform Judaism and liberal Judaism in Britain and the Israel movement for reform and progressive Judaism are all united within the international world Union for progressive Judaism.
Categories Judaism Tags reform judaism Post navigation
Fundamentals of Conservative Judaism Beliefs
Fundamentals of Orthodox Judaism Beliefs


Cedar Birdhouse Functional and Decorative for the garden or home decor. 8.25" high (peak of roof) x 6" wide x 5.5" deep. Wire hanger is approximately 3.5" high. Cedar is an ideal wood for outdoor use. Birdhouse is painted with exterior house paint.
Wonderful workmanship. Item just as described. Exceeded my expectation!
Birdhouse Outdoor made of Cedar. Functional and Decorative Birdhouse made of solid cedar ready to hang. Classic birdhouse for your garden.
Rusty Bird Birdhouse Outdoor made of Cedar. Functional and Decorative Birdhouse made of solid cedar ready to hang.
Rusty Horse Birdhouse Outdoor made of Cedar. Functional and Decorative Birdhouse made of solid cedar ready to hang.


text:
WhatsApp Status feature hits 450 million daily active users
May 2, 2018 May 2, 2018 Publisher 0 Comments f8 conference, Instagram, Snapchat, tech blog, tech news, technoingg, technology, WhatsApp Status
Facebook had copied the Snpachat's trademark 'Stories' feature on the Instagram app and beaten Snapchat at its own game as far as active users were concerned.
Now it would seem that WhatsApp, which is also owned by Facebook, has beaten Snapchat in terms of daily active users of its 'Status' feature, which in effect is also a copy of Snapchat Stories.
As per TechCrunch, WhatsApp Status now has 450 million daily active users. In comparison, Snapchat has just 191 million users that use the entirety of the app, which is nearly a third of that of WhatsApp Status. WhatsApp also has 1.5 billion users using the app, so things are definitely skewed in its favour in terms of numbers.
At the F8 conference, Facebook announced that both WhatsApp and Instagram had 300 million daily users as of November 2017.
To put things in perspective, WhatsApp users spend about 2 billion minutes per day on the app, as per the report.
Things aren't looking that great for Snapchat itself though. The redesign of the app has faced a severe backlash from fans with 83 percent negative reviews on Apple's App Store. Users also filed an online petition calling for the removal of the new update that attracted more than 1.2 million signatures on Change.org.
Snapchat is, however, redesigning a few things back to its old model such as keeping "friends' stories" different from "celebrity content".
← Aadhaar is not mandatory for mobile SIM verification in India
Instagram is personalising the Explore section by introducing categories and relevant hashtags →


Schultheis Bros. stands out with time-tested yellow-and-red fleet.
Before wraps and elaborate illustrations became popular for service fleet designs, HVACR companies used contrasting colors to draw attention to their trucks and vans. At some of these older companies, the original color combinations have become synonymous with their names.
Company founders probably didn't realize they were taking an important step toward "branding,"but indeed they were. Adam Schultheis at Schultheis Bros., Pittsburgh, says the company would never dream of changing the color combo. His grandfather chose yellow and red for his fleet because they were the colors of his favorite high school basketball team uniforms.
"Whether people are current customers or not, we are recognized by our vehicles,"says Schultheis, whose grandfather started the company in 1946. "People always say, 'I see your yellow trucks with the red fenders all over western Pennsylvania.'"
And while the colors represent quality service, just as the Schultheis name does, they also stand out among competitors, Schultheis says.
a white van with their logo on it,"he says. "As soon as we buy a new vehicle, we have it sent to be painted yellow and red."


Take a sheet of parchment paper and make a cornet. Seal it with oil, using a brush or cotton bud.
Melt the chocolate, add the beaten eggs, butter, flavouring and walnuts.
Gently pour a bit of the mixture into each cone. Push in a stick.
Remove from cone once completely cooled down and chill.


text:
Q: Need to develop a hierarchical structure from flat file using two identifiers in Input XML I am trying to develop a hierarchical structure from a flat file thus i need to establish parent child relationship in the desired output. Could you please suggest a method in XSLT 2.0.
Please find below the input XML which contains LEVEL and IDENTIFY tags on the basis of which i was trying to build the parent child relationship.
All the IDENTIFY tags with 'IB' should be in a separate tag like LOCATION and all the IDENTIFY tags with 'ER' should be in a separate tag like ADDRESS in output.
Input XML:
<Path>
<item>
<LEVEL>1</LEVEL>
<RANK>340</RANK>
<TYPE>T</TYPE>
<DESC>Sheet</DESC>
<NAME>I</NAME>
<IDENTIFY>IB</IDENTIFY>
</item>
<item>
<LEVEL>2</LEVEL>
<RANK/>
<TYPE>M</TYPE>
<DESC> Handler</DESC>
<NAME>D</NAME>
<IDENTIFY></IDENTIFY>
</item>
<item>
<LEVEL>2</LEVEL>
<RANK>341</RANK>
<TYPE>M</TYPE>
<DESC>handler </DESC>
<NAME>I</NAME>
<IDENTIFY>IB</IDENTIFY>
</item>
<item>
<LEVEL>3</LEVEL>
<RANK/>
<TYPE>M</TYPE>
<DESC>pdf</DESC>
<NAME>D</NAME>
<IDENTIFY></IDENTIFY>
</item>
<item>
<LEVEL>3</LEVEL>
<RANK>330</RANK>
<TYPE>M</TYPE>
 <DESC>SERVO </DESC>
<NAME>L</NAME>
<IDENTIFY>ER</IDENTIFY>
</item>
<item>
<LEVEL>3</LEVEL>
<RANK>331</RANK>
<TYPE>M</TYPE>
<DESC>SENSOR</DESC>
<NAME>L</NAME>
<IDENTIFY>ER</IDENTIFY>
</item>
<item>
<LEVEL>2</LEVEL>
<RANK>342</RANK>
<TYPE>M</TYPE>
<DESC>xyz</DESC>
<NAME>I</NAME>
<IDENTIFY>IB</IDENTIFY>
</item>
<item>
<LEVEL>3</LEVEL>
<RANK>335</RANK>
<TYPE>M</TYPE>
<DESC>FILTER</DESC>
<NAME>L</NAME>
<IDENTIFY>ER</IDENTIFY>
</item>
<item>
<LEVEL>2</LEVEL>
<RANK>343</RANK>
<TYPE>M</TYPE>
<DESC>safety </DESC>
<NAME>I</NAME>
<IDENTIFY>IB</IDENTIFY>
</item>
<item>
<LEVEL>3</LEVEL>
<RANK/>
<TYPE>M</TYPE>
<DESC>doc</DESC>
<NAME>D</NAME>
<IDENTIFY></IDENTIFY>
</item>
<item>
<LEVEL>3</LEVEL>
<RANK>337</RANK>
<TYPE>M</TYPE>
<DESC>ROD </DESC>
<NAME>L</NAME>
<IDENTIFY>ER</IDENTIFY>
</item>
<item>
<LEVEL>3</LEVEL>
<RANK>338</RANK>
<TYPE>M</TYPE>
<DESC>CYL</DESC>
<NAME>L</NAME>
<IDENTIFY>ER</IDENTIFY>
</item>
<item>
<LEVEL>3</LEVEL>
<RANK>339</RANK>
<TYPE>M</TYPE>
<DESC>COMPRESSION </DESC>
<NAME>L</NAME>
<IDENTIFY>ER</IDENTIFY>
</item>
<item>
<LEVEL>2</LEVEL>
<RANK>345</RANK>
<TYPE>M</TYPE>
<DESC>Nylon</DESC>
<NAME>I</NAME>
<IDENTIFY>ER</IDENTIFY>
</item>
</Path>

Desired Output:

    <LOCATION>
        <LEVEL>1</LEVEL>
        <RANK>340</RANK>
        <TYPE>T</TYPE>
        <DESC>Sheet</DESC>
        <NAME>I</NAME>
    </LOCATION>
            <LOCATION>
            <LEVEL>2</LEVEL>
            <RANK/>
            <TYPE>M</TYPE>
            <DESC> Handler</DESC>
            <NAME>D</NAME>
            </LOCATION>
            <LOCATION>
            <LEVEL>2</LEVEL>
            <RANK>341</RANK>
            <TYPE>M</TYPE>
            <DESC> handler </DESC>
            <NAME>I</NAME>
            </LOCATION>
                <ADDRESS>
                    <LEVEL>3</LEVEL>
                    <RANK/>
                    <TYPE>M</TYPE>
                    <DESC>pdf</DESC>
                    <NAME>D</NAME>
                </ADDRESS>
                <ADDRESS>
                    <LEVEL>3</LEVEL>
                    <RANK>330</RANK>
                    <TYPE>M</TYPE>
                    <DESC>pqr</DESC>
                    <NAME>L</NAME>
                </ADDRESS>
                <ADDRESS>
                    <LEVEL>3</LEVEL>
                    <RANK>331</RANK>
                    <TYPE>M</TYPE>
                     <DESC>SENSOR</DESC>
                    <NAME>L</NAME>
                </ADDRESS>
            <LOCATION>
                <LEVEL>2</LEVEL>
                <RANK>342</RANK>
                <TYPE>M</TYPE>
                 <DESC>xyz</DESC>
                <NAME>I</NAME>
            </LOCATION>
                <ADDRESS>
                    <LEVEL>3</LEVEL>
                    <RANK>335</RANK>
                    <TYPE>M</TYPE>
                    <DESC>TER</DESC>
                    <NAME>L</NAME>
                </ADDRESS>
            <LOCATION>
                <LEVEL>2</LEVEL>
                <RANK>343</RANK>
                <TYPE>M</TYPE>
                <DESC>SAFE</DESC>
                <NAME>I</NAME>
            </LOCATION>
                <ADDRESS>
                    <LEVEL>3</LEVEL>
                    <RANK/>
                    <TYPE>M</TYPE>
                    <DESC>doc</DESC>
                    <NAME>D</NAME>
                </ADDRESS>
                <ADDRESS>
                    <LEVEL>3</LEVEL>
                    <RANK>337</RANK>
                    <TYPE>M</TYPE>
                     <DESC>RST/DESC>
                    <NAME>L</NAME>
                </ADDRESS>
                <ADDRESS>
                    <LEVEL>3</LEVEL>
                    <RANK>338</RANK>
                    <TYPE>M</TYPE>
                      <DESC>CYL</DESC>
                    <NAME>L</NAME>
                </ADDRESS>
                <ADDRESS>
                    <LEVEL>3</LEVEL>
                    <RANK>339</RANK>
                    <TYPE>M</TYPE>
                    <DESC>COMP</DESC>
                    <NAME>L</NAME>
                </ADDRESS>
            <LOCATION>
                <LEVEL>2</LEVEL>
                <RANK>345</RANK>
                <TYPE>M</TYPE>
                <DESC>Nyl</DESC>
                <NAME>I</NAME>
            </LOCATION>


I was recently asked about making a Diveristy & Inclusion (D&I) workshop mandatory.
Before I tell you what I said, I have a few questions for you to consider.
1. What's your criteria for making a training program optional?
I'm sure there are many answers to that question. Maybe if it's personal interest, if it's not pertinent to your role or to the success of the company. Perhaps if it's not industry-related or if doesn't fit into the mandatory criteria above.
2. Are any of your trainings mandatory?
3. If so, which ones? And how do you decide?
I will venture a guess that health and safety-related trainings are mandatory, and that perhaps position/responsibility-related training is also required. There is training associated with accreditation and also training associated with certification. Both of these are likely also mandatory.
With that in mind, why would diversity training not be mandatory?
Pointed sign with the word workshop written on it.
What is D&I training about?
D&I training is about the health and safety of the people you work with (or hope to work with) as well as your clients and customers. Working in an environment that doesn't feel safe or where one doesn't feel a sense of belonging is stressful. Stress produces cortisol which negatively impacts trust, formation of bonds and problem solving (among other things). It's not meant to be in our bodies over the long term and also impacts health.
First. If it's a workshop, it's meant to be a place to learn, explore and grow. It's the perfect place to ask questions and voice concerns. Those that are resistant to change will show it anyhow — why not have them show it in a workshop where a facilitator can address their push back constructively? Plus, maybe they will leave with a bit more openness. Or not.
Then, what does it say when just because you disagree you get to opt out of something the company is committed to? What does making D&I training optional say about your commitment as a company or organization.
Ah… but what if D&I goes against what someone believes in? Then what?
In 2012, I worked with Egale Canada. I wrote their curriculum for LGBTQ Safer Schools and trained high school staff across the entire province of Newfoundland and Labrador (by the way, a shout out to NFLD: I don't think any other province or territory has made that level of commitment).
We had three representatives (admin, teachers and often guidance counsellors) from each high school in the province come to a workshop. There were people in those rooms who didn't "get it" and who didn't want to be there. Did we tell them it was OK not to come? No.
There were also many participants who were on board, but who were worried about what staff, parents and students would say about the school committing to being an LGBTQ safer space. Often for religious reasons.
What I said at each session in Newfoundland and Labrador was that this training was not about changing people's minds. People have the right to believe what they believe. It was about being clear about the behaviour we expect from the staff, parents, and students at the school. And that it was also about becoming aware of the often serious consequences that come from spaces that aren't safe and inclusive. LGBTQ youth, for example, have higher rates of suicide and attempted suicide (you can find more information on that here).
This is the same regardless of location.
When your company or organization is committed to D&I you set the bar for the behaviour you expect to see from your employees — and this can extend to the behaviour you expect from your clients as well. It's not about changing what they believe. It's about clarity around what you want your environment to feel like, and how people contribute to that culture.
When you are clear about how D&I fits into your company or organizational culture, when you are accountable, when you put measures in place to support and value real change and growth around D&I, then you have to make D&I training mandatory. It's not an extra, and it's not optional. It's an integral component of a broader commitment and strategy that requires everyone's participation to be effective.
PS – By the way, if you're interested in real change re: D&I for your organization, I'm launching a program in 2019. Stay tuned for more info!


Cruise the length of the Rhine from the North Sea to the Swiss Alps in all-inclusive luxury.
Begin your journey in Amsterdam and explore the maze of historic streets and canals. Cruise past impressive castles and the stunning Rhine Gorge, stroll through Cologne and marvel at its famous cathedral. Take in Koblenz, visit Strasbourg and venture on to Basel in Switzerland.


More people are electing to undergo total knee replacement than ever before. These patients are much younger than they had been in past, when total knee replacement surgery was typically reserved for elderly people with severe arthritis and those who suffered a traumatic knee injury.
According to a recent news feature form Blabbermouth, Glenn Hughes, who is the former base player and vocalist for the band, Deep Purple, has recently cancelled his upcoming U.S. tour which has been marketed at The Trek. Hughes is unable to make The Trek because he says he suffered some "recent setbacks" following his double knee replacement surgery.
Since he obviously planned his tour dates a while, he elected to have the double knee replacement procedure believing he would be ready for tour's first date in San Jose, California by March 2, 2016. Hughes, who is better known as the "Voice of Rock" will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame later this year, as well. He said that due to his setback, he could not provide the fans with the experience they deserve and said it will be worth the wait. First, we would like to wish Hughes a safe and complete recovery from his recent complications related to his double knee replacement surgery.
It should be noted that double knee replacement, called a bilateral knee replacement in the medical community, is a somewhat controversial procedure. While there is no question that only putting a patient under anesthesia and having to undergo a single recovery has some definite advantages. However, some doctors are unwilling to perform a bilateral total knee replacement, because it can be very default for a patient to recover as quickly. The danger is that the faster a patient can get out of bed, the safer it is for the patient, because the longer he or she lies down after surgery, the higher chance there will be for a patient to develop blood clots in the legs known as a deep vein thrombosis (DVT). DVT clot can travel through the patient's circulatory system and cause serious injury or death.
All of these complications are possible, even if the surgeon does everything perfectly and the knee is working properly. However, if the patient had a defective Stryker knee implanted, there is a very high chance he or she will suffer a device failure that will result in serous pain and suffering and could require a subsequent or even third knee replacement surgery.
If you have had a total knee replacement surgery, and the device has failed, or you were told you need another knee surgery to correct a defect, you should contact a Boston knee replacement injury attorney as soon as possible. Even if your insurance is going to cover the second surgery, or the medical device company agrees to provide a replacement, you should be entitled to compensation for any pain and suffering caused by a defectively designed knee. You should also be compensated for any lost wages when you have to take off time from work for a second surgery and recovery period.