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July 2003 In This Issue
Midway through the twentieth century
the Mennonite Church in North America faced a critical moment in its history.
World War II–'the 'Good War"had mobilized the patriotic zeal of the
entire nation, forcing Mennonites to articulate anew their understandings
of service, nonresistance and the nature of civic allegiances. In the
decades that followed, a generation of young Mennonites left the relative
isolation of their agrarian congregations to participate in relief work,
pursue degrees in higher education, and raise their families in the suburbs,
where they entered into the cultural mainstream with new confidence and
vigor.
The manner in which the Mennonite church
negotiated this crucial passage of cultural, social and economic transformation
is a fascinating and complex drama. However historians choose to tell
that story, one of its leading characters will have to be John Howard
Yoder. Born in 1927 into a progressive Mennonite family in Wayne County,
Ohio, Yoder devoted his entire life in service to the church, first as
a relief worker, missionary, and administrator, and then later in life
as a teacher, writer and a world-renowned theologian and ethicist.
Yoder's theology, both resolutely particularistic
and warmly missionary, defies easy summary. His restatement of Biblical
nonresistance in The Politics of Jesus (1972) challenged
readers–Mennonite and non-Mennonite alike–to rediscover the social relevance
of the teachings of Jesus. His defense of a believers church ecclesiology
found a ready audience among Christians searching for alternatives to
the reigning idolatries of nationalism and consumer capitalism. Yoder
held to a high view of Scripture that nonetheless resisted a retreat into
fundamentalism; he balanced a deeply Christocentric approach to ethics
with Trinitarian orthodoxy; and he became a leading proponent of ecumenical
conversations without ever relinquishing his commitment to the believers
church tradition. In the years since Yoder's untimely death in December
of 1997, his writings have continued to find a broad readership and conversations
about his theology'in articles and books, panels and conferences'abound.
0n March 7-9, 2002 organizers of the fourteenth
Believers Church Conference hosted a gathering on the campus of Notre
Dame University on the theme of "Assessing the Theological Legacy
of John Howard Yoder." Nearly all of the articles that follow in
this issue originated as papers presented at that conference; together
they offer a glimpse into the on-going dialogue about Yoder's ideas and
influence.
We begin this issue with several biographical
essays. Mark Thiessen Nation, compiler of the most extensive
bibliography of Yoder's voluminous writings and author of a recent interpretive
study of Yoder's theology, opens with an appreciative review of Yoder's
career organized around the themes of his Mennonite, evangelical and Catholic
involvements. Donald Durnbaugh, a friend and colleague of
Yoder for many decades, follows with an overview and analysis of Yoder's
pivotal role in a series of ecumenical conferences in Europe focused on
the theme of 'The Lordship of Christ Over Church and State.' The conferences
created a postwar forum for serious discussion of topics related to biblical
pacifism and helped to solidify the theological identity of the Historic
Peace Churches. Craig Carter, author of another recent book
on Yoder's social ethics, follows with an insightful summary of Yoder's
critique of H. Richard Niebuhr's classic Christ and Culture.
Retracing the outlines of Yoder's trenchant argument, Carter exposes the
weak Christology of Christ and Culture and suggests that
Niebuhr's view of the Trinity represented a departure from Nicene orthodoxy.
Long before postmodernity became an academic
byword, Yoder's writings reflected a nonviolent epistemology that challenged
the coercive logic of post-Enlightenment foundationalism. Ted Grimsrud,
professor of theology at Eastern Mennonite University, summarizes the
creative way in which Yoder affirmed Truth as a meaningful category for
moral reasoning while avoiding both the Scylla of foundationalism and
the Charybdis of ethical relativism.
If all this sounds overly laudatory, the
three essays that follow serve as reminders that Yoder's legacy, like
that of all seminal thinkers, will continue to be contested. Ray
Gingerich suggests that Yoder's resolute focus on Jesus as the
basis for Christian nonviolence deflected important questions about the
nature of God. Gingerich's critique of Yoder's 'warrior God' continues
the conversation about the character of God and the place of violence
in Christian understandings of the atonement that have enlivened the pages
of this journal in recent issues (e.g., January 2003). John Zimmerman
suggests that Yoder's reliance on the gospel of Luke in The Politics
of Jesus led to a radical view of Christian economics more characteristic
of Luke's opinions than of Jesus' actual teachings. By way of contrast,
J. Denny Weaver concludes this special issue with a critical
essay on various ways in which contemporary scholars have (mis)appropriated
Yoder's thought and blunted the radical edge of his thought.
Perhaps there is no greater tribute to
Yoder's legacy than this evidence of the ongoing scholarly debate regarding
his work. I look forward to helping that conversation continue to find
a voice in the pages of MQR in the future.
– John D. Roth, editor
January 2008 In This Issue April 2008 In This Issue July 2008 In This Issue


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Q: How to calculate the size for a database connection pool? Say I'm expecting about 100 requests a second, each request should take anywhere between 1 - 3 seconds (In a perfect world).
Would I create a pool of 300 connections? Or something slightly higher to compensate for potential spikes?

A: That depends on the distribution of arriving events.
Queuing theory can give you a formula (for a given distribution) how many connections you need so that the probability of failure (no free connection in your case) will be no more than certain percentage.
You may want to look at these notes (page 17) which give you some formulas, such as probability that you have n requests being served at the same time or you have a non-empty queue (the state that you want to avoid)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
An Introduction to Iterative Development
Don't go chasing waterfalls (Sing it, TLC!)
At VIA Studio, the Waterfall Methodology as applied to client work seemed to serve us well for many years. For those unfamiliar with the process, it parcels out like so:
We've followed that playbook like several other agencies for years, rinsing and repeating, ad nauseam. Lately, we've felt like there was room for improvement.
One of our central values as an organization is collaboration. Our old friend, the Waterfall, doesn't always best serve that principle. One phase of a project must be complete before starting another, which creates a hand-off mentality. Once a phase is finished, the team member responsible may have moved to to another project. It's easy to form a silo if you're juggling four or five projects at a time. Communication suffers if the decks are stacked too high.
From afar, we've always admired the SCRUM and Agile methodologies, wondering if it was possible to translate those processes from product development to client work. After attending a few workshops at this year's SXSW conference, a new pathway began to take shape in our collective brains. We decided to go back to those lakes and waters we were used to.
A Change is Gonna Come (You got it, Sam!)
With client work, the agreed upon "spec" is rarely final. Sure, you start out with noble intentions and a clear list of goals to hit, but that target starts moving wildly once you're in the trenches. A change is gonna come at some point, it's inevitable. The sooner both parties accept this, the better.
To build a flexible team, capable of agile development, we took a closer look at both workflow and our client deliverables. That workflow looks like this:
The Discovery period defines the client's goals, just as it always has. The iterative approach is entirely dependent on content strategy, first and foremost. Project Managers work in tandem with Designers and Developers to determine a basic site map.
The next phase consists of iterative prototyping, with designers and developers working together in task-based sprints, all within the browser. Those sprints yield a new set of digital deliverables, including:
Browser-based Wireframes
Silencio – a WordPress theme designed for rapid content creation. (More on this soon)
Digital Style Tiles and Typography
UI Theme Kit
These items are reviewed during internal project huddles, then demoed for the client. All questions are not answered before development begins, and that's okay. There's room to grow.
I Want to Take You Higher (Stay Sly!)
Designing within our medium yields accurate results, removing the desire for pixel perfection. Prototyping in the browser speeds up development, allowing for better collaboration amongst the team, while remaining within the assigned budget. This also forces us to ask the right questions. Our clients are educated on the importance of their content, as it's separated from the design layer. When you develop content first and mobile second, you get more Boom-shacka-lacka boom-shacka-lacka for your buck.
To us, this feels like a natural evolution from the waterfall. We've used iterative development on a few projects now, most notably on the new VIA website. There are a many more iterative projects that we'll be announcing soon.
As you can tell, we're very excited about this new approach, so please pardon the song puns. As a bonus, I've included our Spotify playlist for iterative team building. Give us a call, we'd love to collaborate with you on an iterative project.
Wireframing vs. Prototyping and Everything In-Between
By:Morgan Plappert on 7/14/2020
Prototyping demonstrates ideas, and baking prototyping into your workflow can begin to shift the way you think and approach design problems as a whole.
Email @ 50: Retrospective + The Future of Email
By:Nick Wunderlin on 11/19/2021
Welcome to the final installment of our Email @ 50 series. In this last article, Email @ 50 contributors review what they learned from writing this series and look ahead to the future of email.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Mitsubishi HC Capital Group recognizes that human rights and labor practices are important issues for achieving our mission and expanding its business footprint globally. We strive to carry out business activities while respecting the human rights of all people.
We have established a policy to proactively and continuously conduct our business activities in consideration of internationally recognized standards and the like concerning human rights, and we will fulfill our responsibility to respect human rights, as is expected of global companies.
View the Human Rights Policy[PDF:119KB]
Basic Policy on Human Rights
The Mitsubishi HC Capital Group Code of Ethics and Conduct include sections on "Respect for Human Rights and the Environment," and the Code of Conduct states under "Human rights" that "Consistent with the fundamental spirit of respect for humanity, no employee engages in any discriminatory action or human rights violation on the ground of gender, sexual orientation, age, nationality, race, ethnicity, political opinion, beliefs, religion, social status, lineage, illness, or disability."
Furthermore, we support and respect international norms concerning human rights, labor, the environment and anti-bribery, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenants on Human Rights (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (Ruggie Principles), and ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. We strive to respect the human rights of all stakeholders under these basic principles on human rights.
The Group's compliance manual states, under "Respect for human rights and the prohibition of discrimination," that "All Group employees must respect basic human rights and must not engage in any discriminatory action or human rights violation on the ground of gender, sexual orientation, age, nationality, race, ethnicity, political opinion, beliefs, religion, social status, lineage, illness, or disability." Within this section, under "Eliminating harassment," it further states, "All Group employees should respect one another as professional partners and must work to eliminate all forms of harassment, including sexual harassment, harassment related to pregnancy, and abuse of power."
Human Rights Training and Raising Awareness
The Group educates and raises awareness among employees about human rights and also provides training on human rights as they relate to certain jobs and business operations. We ensure respect for human rights through these efforts. Specifically, we provide yearly e-learning sessions for employees of Mitsubishi HC Capital and Group companies to raise awareness about human rights, and also integrate human rights training into new employee training, rank-based training, and specialization-based training such as credit screening and A/R management training. In conjunction with Human Rights Week, we issue a Group-wide call to employees and their families for slogans to raise awareness about human rights, and recognize those of particular merit.
(1) Human rights e-learning session for all employees
Once every year we provide an e-learning session for employees of Mitsubishi HC Capital and Group companies to raise awareness about human rights.
Implementation Results in FY2021 (Implementation Rate)
[5,779 employees (99.72%)]
Main themes covered in e-learning
International standards on human rights, the UN Global Compact, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (Ruggie Principles), and human rights due diligence in order to foster understanding about business in global markets
Diversity and various human rights issues in corporate social responsibilities
Current situation of the Act on the Promotion of the Elimination of Buraku Discrimination and the Dowa issue (discrimination against burakumin)
Human rights issues involving women, foreign nationals and people with disabilities
Harassment in the workplace (abuse of power, sexual harassment, maternity harassment, etc.)
Remote work harassment, telework harassment, LGBT and SOGI
In FY2021, e-learning was held for 5,795 employees in Japan (including Group companies).
Group companies outside of Japan promote awareness about human rights individually based on the laws and regulations of their respective countries.
(2) Implementation of human rights training in a group format
Training on human rights is conducted at the same time as new employee training, rank-based training, and specialization-based training, such as credit screening and A/R management training.
Rank-based training
New employee training
Training for newly promoted managers/appointed officers
Specialization-based training
Harassment prevention training
Credit screening and A/R management training, etc.
(3) Solicitation of slogan to raise awareness of human rights
In conjunction with Human Rights Week, we solicit for and recognize slogans to raise awareness of human rights from employees, including those of Group companies, and their families.
Number of Submissions in FY2021
Total of 46, including one top prize, 15 runner-ups, and 30 honorable mentions.
Slogan of top prize winner
Respect One Another and Embrace Everyone's Individuality and Diversity
Continual improvement of human rights management
Mitsubishi HC Capital recognizes the importance of continual improvement based on the latest social trends concerning human rights. We gather information on relevant trends including at the UN and also serve as a member of the Industrial Federation for Human Rights, Tokyo. This allows us to stay up to date on the latest human rights issues, along with their practical applications and utilization by management. Furthermore, staff charged with raising awareness of human rights coordinate with public relations departments to check advertisements, pamphlets and other written materials for internal and external use for discriminatory phrasing and content that could lead to unconscious bias.
Main themes covered in seminars, etc.
Pressure to conform during COVID-19
Importance of business and human rights in overseas operations
Human rights due diligence
Understanding and inclusion of sexual minorities and transgender people
UN special report on modern forms of slavery
Dealing with harassment in the workplace
Consultations from employees about human resource-related issues (such as reporting being the victim of sexual harassment or harassment related to pregnancy, or about witnessing harassment) are investigated by the staff of the Human Resources Division consultation hotline (counselors appointed to the Human Resources Department) and workplace helpline (external reporting hotline). Furthermore, by reinforcing coordination between the Legal & Compliance Department and the compliance promotion officers of each department, we proactively work to prevent abuse of power, the most prevalent type of workplace human rights issue we face.
Acting from an understanding of human rights due diligence based on the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, we will continue to go beyond efforts to ensure respect for human rights internally by engaging in dialogue and discussion with related external stakeholders about measures to address the potential and practical impacts of human rights issues in business. By doing so, we will work to prevent being complicit in human rights violations on the part of customers or business partners, and thereby help prevent such violations from occurring.
Fiscal 2021 Harassment Incidents
Other harassment
Harassment incidents (total)
The above figures pertain to the Mitsubishi HC Capital Group (consolidated basis).
Investigation and verification
Counselors investigate, verify the facts, and determine the most appropriate response considering the human rights and privacy of the employee submitting the report.
Officers and employees asked to cooperate with the investigation and verification must cooperate in good faith and cannot interfere with the investigation and verification.
Counselors cannot disclose information they learned from their response to the report or complaint to third parties without just cause and the consent of the employee submitting the report.
Evaluation and improvement
If the investigation and verification find that sexual harassment or maternity harassment, etc., has occurred, the Human Resources Department promptly implements corrective measures, including improvement of the workplace environment in question, and preventive measures.
The Human Resources Department verifies if the corrective measures, etc. are functioning, including after completion of said corrective measures, etc., and if needed, it carries out improvements to the corrective measures, etc.
The Human Resources Department conducts follow-up to make sure that the employee submitting the report and persons cooperating with the investigation are not subjected to disadvantageous treatment or workplace bullying as a result of the consultation/complain or their cooperation. If disadvantageous treatment is found, it carries out appropriate remedy and restoration measures.