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The Rules Are Different For The Rich
Last year we learned about one of the most heinous ways the poor are kept poor, through a never ending series of fines and fees that an impoverished person can't pay off, ultimately ending in jail time. Often there's a private, for-profit electronic monitoring company involved, as here in Tennessee, or in lieu of jailtime, a driver's license will be revoked (also here in Tennessee), as if people don't need transportation to get to work.
So I find it pretty outrageous that our president-elect's pick for Secretary of Education has been waltzing around the country free as a bird when she owes the state of Ohio $5.3 million. Not only that, she's owed this money for a whopping eight years. Meanwhile, in the same state of Ohio, homeless Iraq veteran Stephen Papa was sentenced to 22 days in jail because he only had $25 of a required $50 court payment.
This is unbelievably outrageous. Why Isn't Betsy DeVos' ass in jail? Anyone?
Filed under poverty
Tagged as Drain The Swamp, Poverty
Poor People Don't Vote
Bernie is right, actually. Poor people don't vote.
This is what makes me nuts about the whole "people voting against their economic interests" meme. Actually, no. As the New York Times explained last November in "Who Turned My Blue State Red?", those people are not voting at all:
In eastern Kentucky and other former Democratic bastions that have swung Republican in the past several decades, the people who most rely on the safety-net programs secured by Democrats are, by and large, not voting against their own interests by electing Republicans. Rather, they are not voting, period. They have, as voting data, surveys and my own reporting suggest, become profoundly disconnected from the political process.
The people in these communities who are voting Republican in larger proportions are those who are a notch or two up the economic ladder — the sheriff's deputy, the teacher, the highway worker, the motel clerk, the gas station owner and the coal miner. And their growing allegiance to the Republicans is, in part, a reaction against what they perceive, among those below them on the economic ladder, as a growing dependency on the safety net, the most visible manifestation of downward mobility in their declining towns.
Early in the campaign, Bernie Sanders talked about how he was all about bringing these "disillusioned and disengaged" voters back into the process. This was part of his "revolution" spiel. And then he did absolutely nothing to make that happen. Zero. Nada. He gave speeches about it but did nothing to make his vision happen. There was no organizing, there was no field game, there was nothing.
This simply reinforces my disparaging view of Bernie Sanders. It's incredibly frustrating to see someone who clearly recognizes the problems but doesn't seem interested in solving them. Complaining is not a solution.
His career has been one endless kvetch. He didn't even think to tell his supporters to register to vote as Democrats in closed primary states? How lame is that?! Part of this may be due to the fact that he never thought he'd get this far, so back in the fall when those deadlines were looming he wasn't focused on the actual mechanics of winning. But if you're running for president, you're running to win, or else you're a fraud. If the only reason he was running in the first place was to have a bigger megaphone, then he just wasted everyone's time. If all you want to do is kvetch louder and longer without following up with any tangible action then I have no use for you. All those thousands of eager kids at your rallies, did you have any organization to harness that energy? Get people registered to vote? Do some outreach to the disillusioned and disenfranchised? No. Bernie is supposed to be a man of the people, but it seems like his campaign has been all about the man, less about the people.
It is also far too simplistic to write off the country's growing divide into merely Wall Street vs Main Street. As the New York Times piece illustrates, it's more like Main Street vs trailer park or Main Street vs Skid Row. Any populist campaign that fails to speak to this issue is one focused too much on two-dimensional bogeymen, not reality.
Filed under 2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Election, poverty
Tagged as 2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Election, Poverty, This So-Called American Life
Fuck You, Internet
Today marks the internet's 25th birthday. And here is today's internet-delivered contribution to the national discourse:
Spreading ignorance and hate for 25 years. Thanks for nothing, internet!
Honestly I sometimes wonder if we wouldn't have been better off without it. This is the kind of ignorant BS your crazy uncle used to spew at the dinner table and everyone would sorta roll their eyes and pretend they weren't related. Now it's a meme seen by millions, perpetuating the kind of BS stereotypes people like Paul Ryan use as their basis for their economic policy.
Cripes. I've got to unfriend me some folks.
(By the way, that same photo was used on a "humor" site under the headline, "What a Country Girl Looks Like.")
Filed under internet, poverty, sexism, taxes, women's rights
Tagged as Poverty, Sexism, taxes
Welcome Rep. Kingston To GOP's Starving Children's Club
It appears the Republican Starving Children's Club has spread beyond Tennessee and traveled to Georgia, where it threatens to derail Rep. Jack Kingston's bid for Sen. Saxby Chambliss' seat:
Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), who from 2011 to 2012 chaired the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees funding for school nutrition programs, told party activists that kids receiving free breakfast and lunch should either be asked to pay for part of their meals or earn them by sweeping the floor. The 11-term Congressman, who is seeking his party's nomination for an open U.S. Senate seat next year, said Saturday that he had suggested the idea to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack.
What horrible people.
The Republican war on the poor continues apace, despite the beseeching of people like Ohio Gov. John Kasich to stop being such assholes. He didn't state it that way, of course, but that's what it is. Rep. Stephen Fincher, Rep. Jack Kingston, Rep. Paul Ryan and the rest of the Republican Grinches are really about just one thing: making sure some undeserving slob isn't getting "rewarded" for being lazy and fleecing the people who have had every advantage in life. Indeed, some of these same people trying to shred the social safety net had no problem taking assistance when they needed it.
Republicans are not looking like shining examples of humanity here. No, they're kinda looking like giant dicks.
Filed under poverty, Republican Party
Tagged as Poverty, Republican Party
The Unbearable Hypocrisy of Tennessee Republicans
The $940 billion farm bill went down in flames in the House, and good riddance. It would have cut $20.5 billion from SNAP, aka the food stamp program.
Tennessee Rep. Stephen Fincher, who made national news when he said churches should deal with the poor while the government should keep sending checks to farmers like himself, voted for the bill. Apparently national scorn has left him uncowed.
Also voting for the bill: Rep. Marsha Blackburn and Rep. Diane Black, who three days ago were in the news peddling junk science about fetal pain and giving impassioned floor speeches about the need to ban abortions after 20 weeks.
Said Black:
"When I became a nurse more than 40 years ago, I took a vow to devote myself to the welfare of those committed to my care," Black said.
Said Blackburn:
"We are taking an action that will enable so many children to enjoy that first guarantee, that guarantee to life," Blackburn told House members.
Hmm. I guess food isn't part of "care" and "life." Do you think Tennessee Republicans know that a fetus vessel (aka, a woman) needs food?
Proof yet again that unless you're a fetus or a corporation, Republicans don't give a damn about you.
Filed under Farm Bill, poverty, Republicans, Tennessee
Tagged as Poverty, Republican Party, Tennessee
Let The Churches Deal With Them
I just have one more thing to say about this whole "let the churches care for the poor" viewpoint which, let's be honest, is not unique to Rep. Stephen Fincher, but is pretty pervasive among conservatives of all stripes.
Nothing is stopping any church from helping anyone. Please, churches, knock yourselves out. Feed as many people as you want: old, young, whatever. We need you to do this, we really do. Wasn't that the whole point of Bush's Office of Faith-Based Initiatives? Guess what, haters: the Mooslim Usurper Nobummer didn't close that office, he expanded it. So yes, churches: feed us, house us, help us.
And indeed, the faith community is helping. Good grief, I've been part of more church-based programs helping the poor in this town than I can count: Room In The Inn, Rooftop, the Martha O'Bryan Center, Safe Haven Family Shelter, you name it. Here's Nashvllle's Downtown Presbyterian Church which feeds hundreds of homeless every week (much to the chagrin of local businesses,who don't like having a soup kitchen on their doorstep). The Salvation Army has soup kitchens all across the country feeding the hungry (for which they are reimbursed by the government, I might add.)
But the need is great. There are not enough congregations doing enough of this work to help everyone. Every church-based effort I've been part of has had to ration the amount of help it provides because the need is simply greater than funds allow. At Rooftop, which provides temporary, one-time rental and mortgage assistance to keep people from being evicted, we routinely ran out of money and had to suspend services, sometimes for an entire month.
The need is great. Many churches are helping the poor. But many do not. C'mon, you know it's true. Many church organizations prefer to spend their money on bullshit marketing efforts like the Scripturally-dubious I Am Second campaign, whose billboards have popped up all over town. Harold Camping's Family Radio empire raked in millions of dollars in donations, money which could have been spent helping the hungry and needy. Instead, it went toward buying thousands of billboards across the country proclaiming a hilariously wrong prediction about the Second Coming.
No one can tell any faith community how to spend its money. And they don't always spend it on the needy. Sometimes they spend it on ideological bullshit like this. How many kids could have been fed if the Mormons had channeled their $20 million somewhere other than the Prop 8 campaign?
Right-wingers are always telling us we don't need the government to provide services, "charity" should take care of it for us. But what do right-wing billionaires spend their money on? Think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, and Cato Institute, whose sole purpose is to promote conservative ideology. Or phony conservative "foundations" like Citizens for a Sound Economy (now known as FreedomWorks) and Americans For Prosperity — political groups spreading the low-tax, low-regulation, free-market message. Maybe if Richard Mellon Scaife and the Koch brothers redirected the billions they spend on political power toward social welfare, the need wouldn't be so great. Maybe if they walked their talk, their views might have more credibility. And yes, I know these and other billionaires spend a lot on charity, I'm not saying they don't. But they spend at least as much, if not more, on political power.
And that's the problem. The fact that so many billionaires would rather spend their fortunes on politics not people proves our point. The lure of power is great, is it not? Indeed, too often the lure of power is greater than the lure of helping your neighbor. I'm pretty sure Jesus and the Old Testament prophets knew this.
This is why we need government programs like SNAP: to fill in the holes left by human nature's failure to always do the right thing. Charities and faith communities are doing a lot but they can't do it all. Ask any social worker and they will tell you. Ask any secretary of an urban church, inundated with calls for help on a daily basis. They will tell you.
But this discussion is all big a waste time. Because people like Rep. Fincher don't really care about the poor, do they? When I hear someone say, "let the churches deal with x, y, z problem," what I'm really hearing is, "I don't want to deal with x, y, z problem." That's really what it's all about, isn't it?
If only the poor would just go away. But they won't, Rep. Fincher. They won't just "go away." They will always be with us, as Jesus said, as an eternal reminder of human failure — an eternal reminder of our sin, to use church parlance.
The poor will always be with us as long as we expect someone else to deal with the problem.
Filed under charities, poverty, religion, religious right
Tagged as Poverty, religion
Rep. Fincher Joins TNGOP's Starving Children Club
[UPDATE]:
It's not "stealing" when Rep. Fincher does it!
USDA data collected in EWG's 2013 farm subsidy database update — going live tomorrow –shows that Fincher collected a staggering $3.48 million in "our" money from 1999 to 2012. In 2012 alone, the congressman was cut a government check for a $70,000 direct payment. Direct payments are issued automatically, regardless of need, and go predominantly to the largest, most profitable farm operations in the country.
I am literally at a loss for words. Surely Tennessee's 8th district deserves better than a heartless bastard who has his hand in the till while telling poor children to go begging at the church door. And you call yourself a Christian with that mouth? No. That's not Christianity. That is the opposite of Christianity. That is being selfish, greedy, and abusive.
I'm sick of these assholes and their phony faith.
What is it with Tennessee Republicans and hungry children? First we had Williamson County GOP Chair Kevin Kookogey calling the National School Breakfast program a "perverse handout." Yes, that's right, making sure hungry kids start the day off right with some nutrition so they can actually learn something in school is perverse.
Then we had state Sen. Stacey Campfield's now-infamous "starve the children" bill. And now we have Rep. Stephen Fincher, TN-08, passionately arguing to cut food stamps in the Farm Bill because, Jesus:
Rep. Stephen Fincher, R-Tenn., then quoted a verse from the 26th chapter of Matthew, saying the "poor will always be with us" in his defense of cuts to the food stamps program. Fincher said obligations to take care of the poor should be left to churches, not the government.
Right, that worked so well for hundreds of years when the obligation to care for the poor really was left to the churches. Also, way to cherry-pick the Bible, dude.
But also, Jesus Hates Lazy Poors:
Republican Congressman Stephen Fincher of Tennessee, who supports cuts to the program, had his own Bible verse from the Book of Thessalonians to quote back to Vargas: "The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat," he said.
First of all, the idea that the poor don't work is astonishingly, dumfoundingly stupid. Here's a guy crafting policy affecting the poor and he knows absolutely nothing about what it's like to be poor in America. But second of all, since Fincher brought the work topic up, what does he do for a living? When he's not sucking on the taxpayer teet as a Congressmonster, of course.
Let's ask the Great Gazoogle:
A seventh generation farmer, Fincher is a managing partner in Fincher Farms, a family business that grows cotton, corn, soybeans, and wheat on more than 2,500 acres in western Tennessee. The company has received $8.9 million in farm subsidies over the past decade, mostly from the cotton program, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.[6][7][8] Fincher received a $13,650 grant to help buy grain hauling and storage equipment from the state Department of Agriculture in 2009 as part of the Tennessee Agricultural Enhancement Program.[9]
Oh! So Stephen Fincher thinks it's perfectly fine for the taxpayers to send him a handout, but when the poor need help putting food on the table, it's sorry! Jesus says no!
In fact, Fincher — a self-described member of the Tea Party, 'natch — was the largest recipient of farm subsidies in the U.S. Congress, according to this 2011 report, raking in $3,368,843. This was so horrifying that at one point some pundits thought this might be a problem for him with Tea Party voters.
Guffaw.
Get real. If you're looking for principles on the right side of the aisle you will continually be disappointed.
Rep. Stephen Fincher, you are a horrible person who uses the Bible to selectively justify your greedy, selfish ways. Woe unto you.
Repent, asshole.
Filed under Farm Bill, poverty, Tennessee, TNGOP
Tagged as politics, Poverty, Tennessee
Look At The Label & Remember
Next time you see "Made in Bangladesh" on your clothing, remember this picture:
This is the factory in Bangladesh which supposedly made clothing for Wal-mart, Dress Barn, Benetton, and others, where workers were ordered inside despite the sudden appearance of large cracks in the building, and a hundred or more died as a result:
The cracks that suddenly appeared on Tuesday afternoon in the Rana Plaza building were large enough to send workers fleeing into the street.
They made the television news that night, but the building's owner, Mohammed Sohel Rana, told reporters the sudden appearance of cracks was "nothing serious".
He did not say that police had ordered him to shut the factory. Nor did he mention that the top four floors of the building, in Savar, north of Dhaka, were constructed illegally without permits.
I know the New York Times' Nicholas Kristof has been trying to convince us that outsourcing our manufacturing to poverty-stricken countries like Bangladesh is a good thing because jobs and blah blah. Pretty sure he's not saying such things with anything close to a straight face any more, though. As NPR notes:
The collapse comes just five months after 112 workers were killed in a fire in another apparel factory in Bangladesh that had supplied Wal-Mart and Sam's Club.
I'd like steal a phrase (and documentary title) and say this is the high cost of those low prices. But actually, it's not even low prices anymore; Benetton ain't cheap. I've seen "Made in Bangladesh" on clothes I've purchased at higher-end stores, too. This seems to be "the way it's done" these days. Clothing manufacturing has been outsourced to desperately poor countries where people work in Triangle Shirt Waist Factory conditions. I certainly didn't ask for that, and I have no control over it. Even if I don't buy a $10 T-shirt from CostCo, my clothes are still made overseas under specious conditions. At least if they were made in the U.S. I'd have some, tiny shred of confidence that the workers weren't abused in the process (though the West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion has even put that to the test). It's damn hard to avoid it.
I really don't want people dying to make my stuff. I don't get why that's so hard for Wal-mart and Dress Barn and Macy's and The Gap and everyone else to understand.
Filed under corporations, globalization, outsourcing, poverty
Tagged as Corporate Overlords, Poverty
The Republican Welfare Gravy Train Rolls On
Ah, Christmas! The time Tennessee Republicans decide to start hating on the poor:
Sen. Stacey Campfield, R-Knoxville, said he plans to push three bills calling for drug testing in the 2012 legislative session – one dealing with persons on welfare, one for those drawing unemployment compensation and one for those receiving workers' compensation benefits.
Shadow Governor Ron Ramsey is already on record saying he thinks drug-testing the poor and unemployed is a great idea. Campfield and Ramsey need to explain how getting injured on the job is "a lifestyle," though. That one really confuses me. Also, how do you drug test those folks? I'm thinking some of them might be on medication because, y'know, injured on the job? Hello? But I'm sure they'll figure it all out.
True to form, Gov. Haslam has said he wants us to think very carefully about such an idea. Oh, indeed. Yes, we'll think very carefully and then we'll go ahead and do it anyway. I think I've seen this movie before. Gov. Goofball will wait an appropriate amount of time, during which he will supposedly consider all of the who's, what's and where's, after which he will fold like a lawnchair and announce with that shit-eating grin of his that all of the due process has been done and yes we will treat people suffering under Republican policies of tax cuts for millionaires and outsourcing jobs to China as criminals. Just you wait.
If you hadn't noticed, this is one of those ALEC-crafted ideas working its way through legislatures in all of the red states. Why? Because forensic drug companies want to feed at the taxpayer trough, that's why.
I find it very strange that Republicans don't believe government can do anything right … except decide who can marry, who can raise children, what you can watch on TV, what books you can read, which religion is the right one, when life begins, how much compensation is enough if you are injured by corporate negligence, and if your pee is pure enough to collect your unemployment which, by the way, is a benefit you paid for. Government is great at all of that stuff.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed a similar measure earlier this year and is now embroiled in a string of lawsuits. After he signed the bill into law it was revealed that Scott had transferred his ownership of Solantic, a chain of walk-in clinics that performs drug screenings, into his wife's name days before his inauguration. Isn't that convenient! Then he went on to claim he had "no interest" in the company.
So who stands to gain in Tennessee? Look no further than Tennessee Republican Congress Critter Diane Black, whose husband is CEO of Aegis Sciences, a company which does drug testing. Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is on Aegis' board of directors — presumably advising the company on how to screen for drugs via videotape. /snark
It's all so very cozy, isn't it? Speaking of cozy, let's remember that Rick Scott used to be in charge of the Frist family's hospital corporation, before getting ousted by the board when the company pled guilty to massively defrauding the government. You'd think a guilty plea and $1.7 billion fraud settlement would ensure this asshole never shows his face around Republican Party circles again, but sadly no: Republicans always fall upwards. Scott somehow became governor of Florida. Go figure.
Anyway, Florida's pee-in-a-cup law has been temporarily suspended. Now there's even a class action lawsuit. Way to go, governor! Maybe we should wait and see how these cases shake out before Tennessee signs on the bottom line, ya think?
And by all means, let's also look at how much this has cost the State of Florida, not even including the state's legal defense. In its first six weeks, only two people tested positive for drugs, and one of those cases was appealed. It's cost more to screen for drugs than they saved by denying two people benefits. Woopsies.
So it appears the poor and unemployed of Florida are not, in fact, all drug using welfare queens. Hmm. What about Tennessee, though? Surely our poor are all dopeheads and burnouts, right? Surely they must be because Tennessee Republicans can't imagine why anyone would be suffering in this glorious economy they created. I mean think about it: they spent two years doing nothing but making sure women's access to abortion is nearly impossible, access to guns is nearly ubiquitous, President Obama's birth certificate is questioned, so-called "Obamacare" is declared unconstitutional, teachers' unions lose their collective bargaining rights, and so-called "tort reform."
Amazingly, after all of this hard work and effort, the free market ponies have failed to appear. Tennessee's jobless rate continues to exceed the national average. Clearly the fault must be with the unemployed!
Here's what I wish. I really don't expect Republicans to stop hating on the poor, but I do wish our media would stop acting like the poor don't exist. Next time a conservative clown like Newt Gingrich, Ron Ramsey, or Herman Cain says some incomprehensibly stupid thing about poor people being lazy drug users, please, I beg of you: go find a poor person and ask them about their life. I mean, it really can't be that hard, can it?
Because all I hear from the media is a long, string of right-wing fairy tales about poor people taking Hawaiian vacations with their food stamps. Please do not repeat such nonsense without also talking to a poor person and asking them if that's even feasible (it's not).
I think the rich Republican assholes have had the mic long enough. If Ron Ramsey and Stacy Campfield want to demand unemployed people pee in a cup before collecting their benefits, I want to hear from the people actually affected by such a policy.
Please tell us these peoples' stories. I want to know why they are on welfare, how many jobs they work, how many kids they're feeding, what they spend their money on. If they are unemployed, why. If they got injured on the job, what happened.
I'm thinking we need to shed a little reality on this fiction the Republicans are spreading.
Filed under poverty, Tennessee, TNGOP
Tagged as Poverty, Republican Party, Tennessee, unemployment
KARMA KARMA KARMA
Regrets Of An Anti-Abortion Activist
Drive-By, SCOTUS Edition
Let's Arm Teachers, They Said
Thanks For Keeping Us All Safe, Asshole
Chickens Coming Home To Roost, Trade War Edition
Zombie Ideas Never Die
The REAL Victims (Sarcasm Alert)
Banana Republicans
Girtherism: America's Cry For Help
David Haskell
Juanita Jean's Beauty Salon
Krugman
Pith In The Wind
Rising Hegemon
The Swash Zone
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Southern Beale · Mad As Y'all, Not Taking It Anymore


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Why You Should Be Monitoring the New .Porn and .Adult Domains
Home / Technology Law / Why You Should Be Monitoring the New .Porn and .Adult Domains
By Cheryl Cooper, Esq. On March 12, 2015 0 Comment
The 30-day sunrise period for the .porn and .adult domains opened on March 2, 2015. These domains are available on a first-come, first-served basis to trademark holders registered in the Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH). The announcement was made by ICM Registry, the registry operator for the .xxx top-level domain (TLD) that was approved in 2011.
A Sunrise B period will follow from April 6-30 for .xxx Sunrise B applicants. This will enable trademark owners who participated in the .xxx Sunrise B program to register domains before they are made available to the public.
The next phase will be the Domain Matching Program, which will enable .xxx registrants to register second-level .porn or .adult domains. This phase will be open from May 6-31, but those who want to participate must register a .xxx name by April 30.
This is part of the ongoing rollout of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) that began in January of 2014 when popular domains such as .com, .net and .org were joined by more descriptive domains such as .bike, .camera and .clothing. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) believes the new domains will help Internet users find what they need and provide organizations with the opportunity to use simpler, more specific domains.
ICANN originally created the TMCH to help organizations protect their trademarks against cybersquatters and manage domains. TMCH launches a Sunrise period, or pre-registration period, each time a new group of gTLDs is rolled out, giving priority to organizations that have registered their trademarks with the TMCH. The Domain Protected Marks List (DPML), proposed by Donuts Inc., is a right protection mechanism that will block domain registrations for hundreds of gTLDs if a trademark is included.
The .xxx domain focus primarily on adult entertainment, but .porn and .adult can be used in many different ways due to the nature of the words. For example, phrases like "food porn" and "shoe porn" have been used to describe excess or overindulgence in a particular product or activity. Similarly, the word "adult" is very generic and can be used for any number of applications outside of adult entertainment. Both have meanings beyond sex, which is likely to make them both more popular than .xxx.
Although the traditional defensive strategy of registering a bunch of domain names has become impractical and expensive due to the number of gTLDs, many brands and organizations may want to proactively register .porn and .adult domains in order to prevent misuse of their trademarks. Others will want to capitalize on those gTLDs, use them in a favorable context, and integrate them into their search engine marketing and optimization strategies.
While .porn and .adult have made headlines recently, new lists of soon-to-be released gTLDs are being announced on a regular basis, from .band and .yoga to .budapest and .taipei. At this point, the types of domains being announced, and the number of domains announced each time, are random.
An attorney can help organizations monitor these announcements, determine how their brands might be affected, develop a strategy for registering gTLDs, and address disputes. Domains are being snapped up quickly, so it's important to be proactive in protecting your brand and controlling how it is used.
Why It's Important to Review Cloud Service Level Agreements
In early January of 2015, Verizon informed users that it would be shutting down Verizon Cloud...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Raoul Bott (September 24, 1923 – December 20, 2005) was a Hungarian-American mathematician known for numerous basic contributions to geometry in its broad sense. He is best known for his Bott periodicity theorem, the Morse–Bott functions which he used in this context, and the Borel–Bott–Weil theorem.
With Richard Duffin at Carnegie Mellon, Bott studied existence of electronic filters corresponding to given positive-real functions. In 1949 they proved a fundamental theorem of filter synthesis. Duffin and Bott extended earlier work by Otto Brune that requisite functions of complex frequency s could be realized by a passive network of inductors and capacitors. The proof, relying on induction on the sum of the degrees of the polynomials in the numerator and denominator of the rational function, was published in Journal of Applied Physics, volume 20, page 816. In his 2000 interview with Allyn Jackson of the American Mathematical Society, he explained that he sees "networks as discrete versions of harmonic theory", so his experience with network synthesis and electronic filter topology introduced him to algebraic topology.
Bott met Arnold S. Shapiro at the IAS and they worked together. He studied the homotopy theory of Lie groups, using methods from Morse theory, leading to the Bott periodicity theorem (1957). In the course of this work, he introduced Morse–Bott functions, an important generalization of Morse functions.
This led to his role as collaborator over many years with Michael Atiyah, initially via the part played by periodicity in K-theory. Bott made important contributions towards the index theorem, especially in formulating related fixed-point theorems, in particular the so-called 'Woods Hole fixed-point theorem', a combination of the Riemann–Roch theorem and Lefschetz fixed-point theorem (it is named after Woods Hole, Massachusetts, the site of a conference at which collective discussion formulated it). The major Atiyah–Bott papers on what is now the Atiyah–Bott fixed-point theorem were written in the years up to 1968; they collaborated further in recovering in contemporary language Ivan Petrovsky on Petrovsky lacunas of hyperbolic partial differential equations, prompted by Lars Gårding. In the 1980s, Atiyah and Bott investigated gauge theory, using the Yang–Mills equations on a Riemann surface to obtain topological information about the moduli spaces of stable bundles on Riemann surfaces. In 1983 he spoke to the Canadian Mathematical Society in a talk he called "A topologist marvels at Physics".
Bott had 35 Ph.D. students, including Stephen Smale, Lawrence Conlon, Daniel Quillen, Peter Landweber, Robert MacPherson, Robert W. Brooks, Robin Forman, András Szenes, and Kevin Corlette.
^ Atiyah, Michael (2007). "Raoul Harry Bott. 24 September 1923 -- 20 December 2005: Elected ForMemRS 2005". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 53: 63. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2007.0006.
^ McMurray, Emily J.; Kosek, Jane Kelly; Valade, Roger M. (1 January 1995). Notable Twentieth-century Scientists: A-E. Gale Research. Retrieved 28 October 2016 – via Google Books.
^ "Bott biography". Retrieved 28 October 2016.
^ "Community of Scholars". ias.edu. Institute for Advanced Study. Archived from the original on 2013-03-10. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
^ Jackson, Allyn, "Interview with Raoul Bott", Notices of the American Mathematical Society 48 (2001), no. 4, 374–382.
^ R. Bott (1985). "On some recent interactions between mathematics and physics". Canadian Mathematical Bulletin. 28 (2): 129–164. doi:10.4153/CMB-1985-016-3.
^ "The President's National Medal of Science: Recipient Details - NSF - National Science Foundation". Retrieved 28 October 2016.
^ "Raoul Bott - The Mathematics Genealogy Project". Retrieved 28 October 2016.
^ Stasheff, James D. (1984). "Review: Differential forms in algebraic topology, by Raoul Bott and Loring W. Tu". Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society (N.S.). 10 (1): 117–121.


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19 Year-Old Nigerians Artist's Painting Of 'Lagbaja' Makes History At Cyprus Museum
The painting of music legend, 'Lagbaja' by a 19 years-old Nigerian medical student, Emediong Uduak Uko, has become the first African arts to be exhibited at the Cyprus Modern Art Museum.
Station Magazine understands that Uko is the youngest and only African to have her work displayed at the museum, which is the largest in the Mediterranean region.
The excited artist made the revelation of her attainment known on her Instagram page @Emilyuko where she further revealed that her painting is now in the possession of Forbes-listed Cypriot businessman, Suat Günsel.
The medical student in her post dedicated the feet to the iconic faceless musician, Lagbaja because he inspired culture and created both war and peace with his passion.
"I'm pleased to announce to the general public that my artwork is now a part of the vast collection of the Cyprus Modern Art Museum!
"This is the largest museum in the Mediterranean region. My work is now in the possession of the owner of my university- Forbes listed Cypriot Businessman, Suat Günsel.
"Apparently, I am the youngest and only African Art piece in the entire museum with works dating as far back as 1940. Somebody pinch me!
"More importantly, this painting is dedicated to none other than the legendary Nigerian musician and political activist himself, Lagbaja. @officiallagbaja .
"I decided if I'm going to put a timeless piece in the walls of a foreign land, it should be about the ones back home.
"Sir, if you're reading this, know that you've inspired a culture. You've created both war & peace with your passion and creativity and that is everything I stand for. This is the least I could do to show appreciation."
"I'd like to thank God and his Spirit that makes things possible through me- He placed me here. The fact that my art value has gone up more than 10x by reason of this event is still mind-blowing.
"To all the curators and friends who kept this huge announcement on the down low and pumped me with endless support, I love you," she said.
Emediong is also a muralist and mixed-medium artist who runs a budding arts company called Asher's Palette.
Related tags : ArtsCreativityCultureCyprus Modern Art MuseumEmediong Uduak UkoMusicPainting
Read Chimamanda Adichie Essay About Lagos, "The Home Of Hustle"
Mothers' Day: Read Michelle Obama's Essay To The Women Who Made Her Who She Has Become
March 1, 20190137
See how Amarican Star Kevin Hart Change The Fortune of A Nigeria Artist
Fortune seemed to have changed for a young Nigeria artist, Eli Waduba who shared a pencil drawing of American comedian and actor, Kevin Hart. In response to the artist request on twitter for the dr
Kaduna Governor Denies Being Involved In A Motor Accident
The Kaduna state government has described as false, the news, that the governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai had been involved in a ghastly motor accident. The news of the governor's invo
Cee-c Reveals Reason She Fought With Tobi in BBNaija 'DoubleWahala' Show
Former Big Brother Naija housemate, Cee-C has revealed why she had always been at loggerhead with Tobi. While on the "Double Wahala" edition of BBNaija 2018 reality show, the two housemates who see
Pilot Crashes Plane Into Clubhouse In An Attempt To kill Wife
Charl Viljoen, a pilot, has lost his life in a plane crash after he intentionally crashed into a clubhouse at the Matsieng Aerodrome north of Gaborone, Botswana. The pilot, who flew a King Air priv
Entertainment NewsLatest NewsMovie/Music
African International Film Festival Call For Entries From African filmmaker
The Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF) is one of the biggest continental film festivals in Africa, and it has made a return this year with a call for entries. This is an opportunity for Af


"Good teachers know how to bring out the best in students" – Charles Kuralt.
This quote is applicable to all the teachers out there who strive day in, day out to endure their wards gets the best education to succeed in this highly competitive world. When it comes to sports, some athletes are born with talent, while others work extremely hard to reach their peak.
The role of coaches therefore is to mould these athletes into world-class ones by fine tuning their skills. A lot of work goes into physical and mental aspects of their games to ensure they can perform at their best in any situation during a match.
Let us take a look at 5 best coaches in India right now.
Balwan Singh has seen the growth of Kabaddi in India as both a player and a coach. Singh was part of the Indian team that won gold medals in the 1988 Asian Kabaddi Championship and 1989 SAF Games.
Singh started his coaching assignment in 1996 and is going strong having helped India win several medals at international events.
Under the tutelage of Singh, India won six World Cups and three gold medals at the Asian Games. The Government of India honored Balwan Singh with the Dronacharya award in 2005.
Indian squash players are proving to be a force to contend with on the world stage with each passing year. The likes of Saurav Ghosal, Dipika Pallikal, Joshna Chinappa, Harinder Pal Sandhu are household names after their achievements at various international events.
The driving force behind these successes over the past decade has been Cyrus Poncha. He is currently training players at the Indian Squash Academy (ISA) in Chennai. Poncha lays a lot of emphasis on fitness and believes it is crucial for any squash player before they hit the ground running.
Dipika and Joshna won India's first gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in women's doubles. The men's team won gold at the Incheon Asian Games after Saurav Ghosal narrowly missed out on the yellow metal in the singles final.
A lot of youngsters are now interested in squash thanks to continued efforts of Poncha and ISA. Poncha recently received the coach of the year award for the team event by the Asian Squash Federation.
The Government of India conferred Dronacharya award on Poncha in 2005.
Column: Where have all the NFL's black coaches gone?


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Tag: sleep
Finding It Hard to Focus? Maybe It's Not Your Fault
"The liberation of human attention may be the defining moral and political struggle of our time," writes James Williams, a technologist turned philosopher and the author of a new book, "Stand Out of Our Light."
A look at how social media and our obsession with it have created the new "attention economy."
This Is What Road Rage Does to Your Body
Road rage, a type of fight-or-flight response, "could actually trigger a heart attack or stroke in the hours afterward, according to a 2014 research review from the Harvard School of Public Health."
A neuroscientist explains what tech does to the reading brain
For anyone who has ever been a reader, there's much to sympathize with in Maryanne Wolf's Reader, Come Home. The UCLA neuroscientist, a great lover of literature, tries to read Hermann Hesse's Glass Bead Game, an old favorite, only to realize that she finds him boring and too complex. She wonders why he ever won a Nobel. And Wolf, who previously wrote Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, is horrified that this is what has happened to her ability to concentrate.
Here's an interview with Maryanne Wolf, who explains how technology is changing our brains by making us lose deep attention:
My biggest worry now is that a lot of what we're seeing in society today — this vulnerability to demagoguery in all its forms — of one unanticipated and never intended consequence of a mode of reading that doesn't allow critical analysis and empathy.
Maybe Your Sleep Problem Isn't a Problem
As a night owl myself, I was glad to read this in-depth look at the stereotypes (lazy, unproductive) commonly associated with those of us whose innate circadian rhythm doesn't jibe with the rest of the world's schedule:
Yes, I get it. I have heard this all my life: Society likes morning people. Loves them, actually. Early risers tend to be more punctual, get better grades in school and climb up the corporate ladder. These so-called larks are celebrated as the high achievers, the apple polishers, the C.E.O.s.
But according to Matthew Walker, director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California at Berkeley and author of Why We Sleep:
about 40 percent of the population are morning people, 30 percent are evening people, and the remainder land somewhere in between. "Night owls are not owls by choice," he writes. "They are bound to a delayed schedule by unavoidable DNA hard wiring. It is not their conscious fault, but rather their genetic fate."
'Let the soul dangle': how mind-wandering spurs creativity
Whether in the form of literature, rap or abstract oil painting, many of us know we can improve the tenor of our thoughts by contemplating art. The Germans have a lovely saying for the benefits of keeping an idle (or idling) mind: 'die Seele baumeln lassen', meaning 'let the soul dangle'. Now, the emerging science of neuroaesthetics is beginning to reveal the biological processes that sit behind such 'dangling'.
© 2018 by Mary Daniels Brown
Author adminPosted on September 10, 2018 September 9, 2018 Categories Brain, Creativity, ReadingTags road rage, sleep
When a DNA Test Shatters Your Identity
You've certainly seen the ads for genetic tests that will help you discover more leaves for your family tree. While many people are happy to discover far-flung relatives they never knew about, others are distraught to learn that their parents or grandparents aren't who they thought they were.
This article from The Atlantic discusses a Facebook group founded by a woman whose DNA test delivered disturbing results. "The DNA test didn't erase her happy childhood memories, but it recast her entire life up to now."
How We Create Personal Myths (and Why They Matter)
In graduate school I took a course called something like Identity and Personal Mythology, which centered on the fact that we all create a personal mythology, or life story, to make sense of our experiences and to create our sense of self, our sense of identity. There's a whole subgenre of psychology examining this field, which is known as narrative identity theory.
In this article self-described data nerd Angela Chen describes how, despite her preference for data over narrative, she came to realize that she, too, has a personal mythology that has shaped her life.
To resist narrative is to resist the brain itself. Sometimes we must do so, to avoid the clean, satisfying story that may be too simple. But I was wrong to think I could escape defining the narrative in my own life. We are always creating and searching for meaning, whether we recognize it or not.
Caves all the way down
Do psychedelics give access to a universal, mystical experience of reality, or is that just a culture-bound illusion?
Philosopher Jules Evans article begins with this assertion:
In case you hadn't noticed, we're in the middle of a psychedelic renaissance. Research into the healing potential of psychedelics has re-started at prestigious universities such as Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and Imperial College London, and is making rock stars out of the scientists carrying it out. Their findings are being reported with joy and exultation by mainstream media – on CNN, the BBC, even the Daily Mail. Respectable publishers such as Penguin are behind psychedelics bestsellers such as Michael Pollan's book How To Change Your Mind (2018), which was reviewed enthusiastically across the political spectrum.
Evans is an academic, policy director at the Centre for the History of the Emotions at Queen Mary, University of London. Here he explores, with an academic's vigor and rigor, the history of the nature of psychedelic mystical experience, begun by Aldous Huxley's 1954 book The Doors of Perception. He uses his own psychedelic experiences to examine the differences between science and theology to conclude:
To use the language of secular psychology, psychedelics seem to reliably take people briefly beyond their customary ego and to allow the contents of their subconscious to emerge. Even if you're not mystically inclined, that process can still be very healing.
How the West became a self-obsessed culture
It's common to hear Eastern and Western cultures contrasted in a way that goes something like this: Eastern cultures focus more on society collectively, while Western culture emphasizes the individual.
In this article Sean Illing interviews Will Storr, a British writer and author of the recent book _ Selfie: How We Became So Self-Obsessed and What It's Doing to Us_. As Illing explains, Storr's book is about a phenomenon psychologists call "collective narcissism":
An individual narcissist is someone with a deep need for validation, someone who thinks they're great and resents anyone who doesn't recognize their greatness. Collective narcissists … are "a group of people who desperately need their group to be admired and validated by others."
Collective narcissism is a fashionable idea these days in psychology, and it's linked to psychologists' larger concern about a "narcissism epidemic" — more and more individuals with an inflated sense of self.
Storr has some ideas about how a culture emphasizing self-esteem has gotten us into the self-absorbed position we're in today. Read his advice on how to find happiness and fulfillment despite the way our culture has made us think about ourselves.
Down with the larks: on the virtues of sleeping like a sloth
A Gallup poll in 2013 found that Americans sleep, on average, 6.8 hours a night, with 40 per cent getting less than the recommended minimum of seven hours. According to Nationwide Children's Hospital in Ohio, teenagers get a little more than seven hours of sleep a night, while actually needing at least nine. Yet society continues to function … if only like a frail, untuned clock.
Joel Frohlich reports on the health drawbacks of chronic sleep deprivation.
Author adminPosted on August 6, 2018 August 5, 2018 Categories UncategorizedTags DNA, self, sleep
My Recent Browsing History
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
5 Lessons to Be Learned While Writing a Memoir
Are girls really better at reading than boys or are the tests painting a false picture?
Why each side of the partisan divide thinks the other is living in an alternate reality
Nobody is normal
Sleep deprivation handicaps the brain's ability to form new memories, study in mice shows
Why Empathy Is Your Most Important Skill (and How to Practice It)
Author adminPosted on March 14, 2017 March 15, 2017 Categories Last Week's Links, Life Narrative, Memoir, Memory, Psychology, Reading, Story/StorytellingTags empathy, sleep
Falling for sleep
Sleep has been transformed from a deeply personal experience to a physiological process; from the mythical to the medical; and from the romantic to the marketable. Our misconstrued sense of sleep and consequent obsession with managing it are the most critical overlooked factors in the contemporary epidemic of sleep loss.
A look at the results of chronic sleep deprivation, which can lead to heart disease, neurodegenerative disorders, autoimmune illnesses, and depression.
Rubin Naiman argues that wakism, our devotion to what we experience while awake, prevents us from appreciating the positive aspects of sleep.
A BETTER KIND OF HAPPINESS
Here's a fascinating article on the concept of eudaemonic happiness, defined by Aristitle about 2,500 years ago:
In his Nicomachean Ethics, he described the idea of eudaemonic happiness, which said, essentially, that happiness was not merely a feeling, or a golden promise, but a practice. "It's living in a way that fulfills our purpose," Helen Morales, a classicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told me. "It's flourishing. Aristotle was saying, 'Stop hoping for happiness tomorrow. Happiness is being engaged in the process.' " Now, thousands of years later, evidence that Aristotle may have been onto something has been detected in the most surprising of places: the human genome.
Psychologists continue to look for explanations and examples of this higher-order form of happiness, which differs from (but does not preclude) sensual pleasures such as a good pizza or a glass of good wine.
Study uncovers how exposure to social news videos affects behavior
Research into how internet-based delivery of social news produced some perhaps not surprising results:
in the positive social news condition, kindness and providing help are the most salient contents–these prime conventional norms mean more altruistic behaviors as well as a greater tolerance for opponents defecting during the prisoner's dilemma game. In the negative social news condition, harm towards innocent people and unethical behavior are signs of rule violations and lower moral levels. This leads to a greater propensity to break the rules and cheat.
The 9 Biggest Myths About Creativity You Should Never Believe
Some of the most common adages are not true at all. Here are nine aspects of traditional knowledge about creativity that are wrong, at least in the business setting:
Innovation = creativity
Innovation = entrepreneurship and startups
You were either born creative or not
There is nothing you can do to increase innovation organically in your company
You need to drive innovation
You need to build an innovation space and allocate time for creativity
Financial incentives increase creativity
Innovation requires significant resources and funding
Innovation initiatives need to be implemented throughout the entire organization
Author adminPosted on July 17, 2016 Categories Creativity, Last Week's LinksTags behavior, happiness, sleep
Recent Articles on Sleep, Memory, Learning, Brain Function, and Mind Wandering
Examining Sleep's Roles in Memory and Learning
Go ahead and take that nap. New research suggests that sleep can improve both memory and creativity.
Getting smarter
Brain-training games won't boost your IQ, but a host of strategies can improve your cognitive abilities one piece at a time
Psychologist Jeffrey M. Zacks of Washington University in St. Louis looks at various popular methods advertised to improve cognitive functioning, including brain-training games, drugs, subliminal training programs, electrical stimulation
His conclusion: "Sadly, most of the rapid cognitive enhancers currently being peddled are not very effective." However, he adds, there are a few approaches that can make us better at performing specific functions, such as remembering people's names: "we can all think better in specific domains if we engage in focused practice, and be smarter, happier and healthier if we take care of ourselves."
Jerome S. Bruner, Who Shaped Understanding of the Young Mind, Dies at 100
Jerome S. Bruner, whose theories about perception, child development and learning informed education policy for generations and helped launch the modern study of creative problem solving, known as the cognitive revolution, died on Sunday [June 5, 2016] at his home in Manhattan. He was 100.
In his later work, Bruner applied ideas about thinking, culture, and storytelling to understanding legal and cultural issues.
Why Do Our Minds Wander?
sometimes, even without going to sleep, we turn away from the world. We turn inward. We are contemplative or detached. We decouple ourselves from the environment and we are set free, as it were, to let our minds play themselves.
Philosopher Alva Noë of the University of California, Berkeley, discusses the problems of studying when, why, and how our minds sometimes wander.
Author adminPosted on June 19, 2016 Categories Brain, Creativity, Last Week's Links, Memory, PsychologyTags Brain Function, Learning, Memory, Mind Wandering, sleep
Recent Articles on Psychology
10 Telling Signs You're an Emotionally Intelligent Person
Emotionally intelligent people are the advice-givers among their group of friends. Do you have a friend who seems to know what you're feeling before you've verbalized it? This friend is emotionally intelligent. There are many of those people in the world. They are the healers, the untrained therapists among friends.
Testing for Joy and Grit? Schools Nationwide Push to Measure Students' Emotional Skills
A recent update to federal education law requires states to include at least one nonacademic measure in judging school performance… . But the race to test for so-called social-emotional skills has raised alarms even among the biggest proponents of teaching them, who warn that the definitions are unclear and the tests faulty.
Should schools be testing students for social-emotional skills such as grit and resilience? The approach has both proponents and critics.
13 Sleep Lessons From A Landmark British Sleep Report
If you're like most people, these findings probably won't surprise you:
A recent report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that a third of Americans don't get enough sleep. And now, a British report finds that no one is faring any better across the Atlantic.
According to the Royal Society for Public Health — one of the world's oldest health education organizations — Britons may be missing out on as much as a full night of sleep each week, on average.
Seeing the Light: Emotional Intelligence
We know emotional intelligence is critical to personal and professional development, but how do we define this amorphous concept? A widely accepted definition: Emotional intelligence is the regulation of our own emotions and the ability to recognize, understand, and influence others' emotions.
Emotional intelligence is both an innate and a learned skill. This article contains some advice for improving it.
Author adminPosted on June 5, 2016 June 4, 2016 Categories UncategorizedTags "Emotional Intelligence", sleep


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Комахозапилення, ентомофілія — перенесення пилку з однієї рослини на іншу за допомогою комах; вид перехресного запилення. До комахозапильних рослин належать калина, гречка, первоцвіт, мак, квасоля та інші.

До комахозапильних рослин належить до 80 % видів, поширених у різних кліматичних зонах континентів світу.

Оцвітина (частіше віночок) ентомофільних рослин яскраво забарвлена, добре помітна на зеленому тлі листя. Квітки великі або зібрані в суцвіття. Пиляки менші, ніж у вітрозапильних рослин, з меншою кількістю пилку, пилок крупний, липкий, з горбкуватою або шишкуватою поверхнею. На дні віночка в багатьох квіток утворюються нектарники, в яких виробляється запашний солодкий сік — нектар. Виділення нектару залежить від кліматичних умов, ґрунту, стану рослин, часу дня; після запліднення утворення нектару в квітках припиняється.

Найважливішими запилювачами ентомофільних рослин є бджоли. Вони запилюють близько 75—80 % рослин.

Переважна більшість ентомофільних рослин має відкриту квітку (жовтецеві, розоцвіті, хрестоцвіті та ін.); нектар у них доступний для всіх комах.

У деяких рослин оцвітина (частіше віночок) зросла, витягнута у довгу вузьку трубочку, в глибині якої є нектар. Такі квітки у шавлії лучної, конюшини лучної, які пристосовані до запилення джмелями, кірказона, квітки якого запилюються дрібними мушками, інжиру, квітки якого запилюються осами-бластофагами. Квітки блекоти, дурману, бузини, рафлезії пахнуть гнилим м'ясом, їх охоче відвідують мухи, жуки, які відкладають яйця на гнилому м'ясі, гної.

Самозапиленню запобігає: дихогамія, гетеростилія, роздільностатевість (дводомність).

Пристосування квіток до комахозапилення: яскравий колір квітки, приваблюючий запах нектару, липкий пилок із шипиками.

Див. також
Інсектохорія
 Blastophaga psenes

Джерела
 Л. К. Поліщук, П. М. Береговий. Ботаніка. Видавництво «Радянська школа». Київ — 1974. (С.?)
 Заняття 5. Природний добір у рослин і його значення

Екологія рослин
Запилення
Екологія комах

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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11A024 ER Blues by Jim Davies, 1/24/2011
During the Health Care Repeal debate last week, someone made a passing comment to the effect that if all care was provided "free" (at taxpayer expense) then emergency rooms would no longer be overcrowded and mis-used.
Back when the Earth was still cooling and I was a lad, the emergency room was just that: a place where health emergencies could be treated; an injury, a heart attack. Even as late as 1969, I recall an incident in which access to emergency treatment was not blocked by lines of people who "ought" to have been in the offices of their primary physicians. Since the 60s, things have changed.
Doctors' office visits are so expensive that rather than make an appointment and pay the fee, ever more people go instead to the ER. Why so? - because payment for services rendered there are optional. I can hardly take this in, but last time I was in one, the notice hung on the wall in plain sight: treatment will not be denied for want of ability to pay. Go to the ER, don't bother about the bill. I exaggerate, but that seems to be the bottom line resulting from a 1986 law. There are a few caveats, and I don't know how they work out, but American Demographics found that only about 17% of ER patients end up paying the bill.
There's another effect of this silly law. Since costs can be passed on to third parties such as payers of taxes and premiums, the resulting bills have become grotesque, and that in turn causes people who recognise an obligation to pay, not in fact to do so; we can't afford it. In other words, the cycle is vicious. A couple of years ago a blood clot formed in my leg at the weekend so I ended up in the ER; for if the bloodstream had swept it North you might not be reading this. The subsequent bill was obscene, and though I could (just) manage to pay the deductible after Medicare paid the majority, I declined to do so. I wrote the hospital to explain why the bill was unacceptable, and offered a smaller payment based around the fact that my barber also gives treatment on demand without appointment; I made generous allowance for much higher rates of pay for the higher skills, and more costly capital equipment and 24/7 availability, but still ended up with a small fraction of the total they were billing. The hospital declined to engage me in that reasoning (no surprise there) so I declined to pay it a dime. No doubt my credit record is stained as a result, but heck, credit is greatly over-rated anyway.
So in effect and to a considerable degree, we already have universal health care underwritten by government - but it's funneled through the ER, whose genuine raison d'être is thereby impeded. The choice is to extend it fully so as to resemble Canadian and European systems, or to scrap it - to get government altogether out of the industry; that debate centers around whether or not people have a "right" to such care, presumably at someone else's expense. Both sides of that are explored quite well in a 2007 article in Business Week - where Onkar Ghate reasons clearly and a Harvard insider founders on a false premise. If they won't scrap it now, we shall have to await the coming zero government society, which certainly will. The result will be a good system, with prices so dramatically reduced that even I will be able to pay them.


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Internet phenomenon…
April 11, 2010 musingsinternetCK
This is a boring story, but I had already started the post, so I decided to finish it. It does show how crazy the internet is though.
I'm a member of Digital Blasphemy. Yesterday April 6, something interesting happened:
Ryan Bliss, the artist of Digital Blasphemy, posted on his site that another artist, Bob Hall, had accused him of copyright fraud.
Hundreds of his fans swept on Hall to see what the accusation was. Hall had art hosted at RedBubble.com, and Australian company that allows artists to sell their art on cards, prints, and even t-shirts. RedBubble has a journal feature, similar to a blog. It was there that Hall accused Bliss of copyright fraud.
In mere hours, RedBubble had hundreds of new members. Each one commenting on Hall's post and also on the page offering the image. The comments pointed out that Bliss's image was dated 2007, while Hall's was dated 2008. Either this was a case of copyright fraud in the other direction (Hall copying Bliss's image), or a coincidence. Either way, Hall had wrongly accused Bliss of fraud. Instead of doing some quick research, he publicly slandered Bliss. He also contacted sites selling Bliss's works in print, keeping them from selling the image.
Sadly, Hall then entered the hospital and missed all of the excitement. He no doubt returned home today Wednesday to an inbox full of messages scorning him for his behavior. He issued an apology today.
This story doesn't sound that exciting, but it was crazy. I think everyone involved, fans included, learned a few things:
Don't do something stupid on the internet. It's an easy way to make a lot of people mad.
A few hundred angry fans can make a big splash.
Do a little research before you publicly defame someone. Libel is illegal.
It's easy to get a hot head, and it's usually not until we've already done something stupid that we realize that it was stupid, and then we regret it. (Even fans started getting personal.)
However, my favorite part of the whole ordeal was when a RedBubble member threatened to use his federal agent connections, use "a whole floor dedicated to finding people [on the internet]", and give a person a personal phone call–all because someone called them an idiot on the internet. Honestly…
Currently listening to: "Strange" by Tokio Hotel and Kerli
← Procrastination: my mistress…	Callings… →


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Q: Is a thin power strip a safety hazard? I have a US-style power strip that is thin enough that plugs can overhang the edge. It is easy to do this accidentally.
I think that if you were to overhang a plug, and then accidentally touch the plug with one hand and a grounded object like the radiator pipe with the other, you would be creating a circuit like:

The safety page on my oscilloscope manual warns that 30 V AC (rms) can cause a fatal 30 mA AC (rms) current through a human body, so presumably the 120 V AC wall power can drive 120 mA AC; at which point the average resistance of the human would be 1 kOhm. If the appliance were a 60 W light bulb, it would be 240 Ohms, reducing the current to 97 mA AC, still fatal.
So, my best guess is that this power strip is unsafe. Is this correct?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Q: Unable to upgrade Kali to Debian Tried to upgrade kali to debian and got an error upgrading dash 0.5.8-2.5 to 0.5.8-2.6. As the result sh not found. Restored system by:
rm /bin/sh
ln -s /usr/bin/dash /bin/sh

Cuz /bin/sh gets wrong symlink when I try to reinstall dash
Tried to reinstall dash and got the same error:
apt install dash --reinstall
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 273 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0 B/113 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Preconfiguring packages ...
(Reading database ... 426445 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../dash_0.5.8-2.6_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking dash (0.5.8-2.6) over (0.5.8-2.6) ...
Setting up dash (0.5.8-2.6) ...
Removing 'diversion of /bin/sh to /bin/sh.distrib by bash'
Adding 'diversion of /bin/sh to /bin/sh.distrib by dash'
Removing 'diversion of /usr/share/man/man1/sh.1.gz to /usr/share/man/man1/sh.distrib.1.gz by bash'
Adding 'diversion of /usr/share/man/man1/sh.1.gz to /usr/share/man/man1/sh.distrib.1.gz by dash'
dpkg: error: error executing hook 'if { test "$DPKG_HOOK_ACTION" = add-architecture || test "$DPKG_HOOK_ACTION" = remove-architecture; } && test -x /usr/share/pkg-config-dpkghook; then /usr/share/pkg-config-dpkghook update; fi', exit code 32512
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)
E: Problem executing scripts DPkg::Post-Invoke '/usr/bin/test -e /usr/share/dbus-1/system-services/org.freedesktop.PackageKit.service && /usr/bin/test -S /var/run/dbus/system_bus_socket && /usr/bin/gdbus call --system --dest org.freedesktop.PackageKit --object-path /org/freedesktop/PackageKit --timeout 4 --method org.freedesktop.PackageKit.StateHasChanged cache-update > /dev/null; /bin/echo > /dev/null'
E: Sub-process returned an error code

lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Debian
Description:    Debian GNU/Linux 9.0 (stretch)
Release:    9.0
Codename:   stretch

A: There is no supported upgrade path from Kali to Debian. If you want to use Debian instead of Kali, you need to install Debian, using the Debian installer (download an installer image), over your Kali setup. You'll have to back up any data you want to keep beforehand.
In this particular case you're running into a bug in dash; this also indicates you're trying to install Debian unstable which isn't recommended if you're not very familiar with the system. You should install Debian stable instead.


text:
Immune system infighting explains pancreatic cancer's aggression
NYU Langone Medical Center / New York University School of Medicine
Internal conflict between cell types explains why the immune system struggles to recognize and attack pancreatic cancer. Curbing this infighting has the potential to make treatment more effective, according to a study led by researchers from NYU Langone Medical Center and its Perlmutter Cancer Center.
The study, which published Aug. 25 in Cell, describes how a powerful subset of immune cells, known as "gamma delta T cells," prevents other tumor-fighting T cells from entering pancreatic tumors. Without interference from gamma delta T-cells, CD4 and CD8 cells multiply and actively attack tumors the way they attack invading viruses or bacteria. Unfortunately, the immune system generates a large number of pro-tumor gamma delta T cells that infiltrate pancreatic tumors.
Recent advances in immunotherapy, an approach that activates a patient's immune system to combat cancer, boost the effects of CD4 or CD8 T cells. Results of the newly published study argue that this kind of immunotherapy must be more rigidly targeted in pancreatic cancer. Unless the gamma delta T-cells are blocked, CD4 and CD8 cells are unable to function or thwart cancer growth, the study finds.
"Standard immunotherapy does not work in pancreatic cancer, which is especially deadly. Now we have more information to help us understand why," says senior author George Miller, MD, head of the Immunology Program at Perlmutter, vice chair for research in the Department of Surgery, and associate professor in the Department of Cell Biology at NYU Langone. "The main anti-tumor defense mechanism is rendered completely useless in pancreatic cancer."
Miller's study focused on pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA), which is nearly always fatal. While overall cancer survival rates have improved dramatically with the advent of modern therapies in the past two decades, only about 8 percent of people survive five years after their diagnosis with any form of pancreatic cancer.
Gamma delta T-cells are prolific in human PDA tumors, making up about 40 percent of T cells on average. This prompted Miller and lead author Donnele Daley, MD, a postdoctoral fellow and surgery resident at NYU Langone, to theorize that gamma delta T cells play a unique role in the promotion of pancreatic cancer, as the new study shows. Separate tests revealed that gamma delta cells alone do not promote tumor growth - they simply prevent the tumor-fighting immune cells from working.
The findings also underscore the complexity of the immune system, says Miller. The same gamma delta T-cells that enable pancreatic cancer tumors to grow unchecked have been shown to fight other kinds of cancers, such as melanoma, some kidney cancers, and colon cancer. Not all immune cells have the same roles in different cancers, and they sometimes work against each other.
The research has important implications for the development of better diagnostics and treatment for pancreatic cancer. However, Miller cautions that translating it to humans may be challenging, because there is currently no known drug or other method that can block the action of gamma delta T-cells in humans.
In the current study, Miller's team analyzed tumor size and the quantity and type of immune cells present over time in mice bred with pancreatic cancer and lower numbers of gamma delta T-cells. Mice harboring pancreatic cancer with fewer than normal gamma delta cells survived nearly a year longer on average than mice with a normal number.
Along with Miller and Daley, study authors from NYU Langone were Constantinos Zambirinis, Lena Seifert, Neha Akkad, Navyatha Mohan, Gregor Werba, Rocky Barilla, Alejandro Torres-Hernandez, Mautin Hundeyin, Vishnu Mani, Antonina Avanzi, Daniel Tippens, Rajkishen Narayanan, and Elliot Newman in the Department of Surgery; Jung-Eun Jang and Dafna Bar-Sagi in the Department of Biochemistry; and Cristina Hajdu and Michael Dustin in the Department of Pathology. Venu Pillarisetty in the Department of Surgery at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle was also an author.
The work was supported in part by grants from the German Research Foundation, the National Pancreas Foundation, the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, the Lustgarten Foundation, and National Institute of Health awards CA155649, CA168611, and CA193111.
gregory.williams@nyumc.org
@NYULMC
http://nyulangone.org/
German Research Foundation, National Pancreas Foundation, Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, Lustgarten Foundation, National Institutes of Health
IMMUNOLOGY/ALLERGIES/ASTHMA


WILLISTON, N.D. – The public is invited to these upcoming events at the Missouri-Yellowstone Confluence Interpretive Center (MYCIC) near Williston. All events are free and open to the public. All times are Central times.
Feb.15-16: Confluence Quilters, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Join the Confluence Quilters at their monthly meeting. All experience levels invited and instruction provided.
Feb. 21: Confluence History Book Club, 7 p.m. Join history buffs in a discussion of this month's selected book. Free refreshments.
Feb. 24: Concert at the Confluence, 3 p.m. The public is invited to a concert featuring Phil and C'Dale Jore.
For more information, contact Kerry Finsaas or Debbie Crossland at 701-572-9034. The Missouri-Yellowstone Confluence Interpretive Center is part of Fort Buford State Historic Site managed by the State Historical Society of North Dakota. Missouri-Yellowstone Confluence Interpretive Center hours: Wednesday-Saturday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m .; Sunday, 1-5 p.m. Fort Buford is closed for the winter.
For more information about additional upcoming programs of the State Historical Society of North Dakota, go to history.nd.gov/events.


text:
Haiti's Most Recent Earthquake Puts Women and Girls at Risk
Hundreds of families settle on a football field in Les Cayes, one of the hardest hit towns. UNFPA Haiti/Ralph Tedy Erol
On August 14, 2021, a massive 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit southwestern Haiti, killing nearly 2,000 and injuring thousands more. The coming days will likely bring more deaths, especially given the lack of functional health facilities, health care workers, and supplies. Over 83,000 homes have been destroyed or damaged, leaving many Haitian women and girls either homeless or displaced.
Looking back to 2010
An elderly woman who is being evacuated by her family minutes after the earthquake, in front of the Immaculate Conception Hospital in Les Cayes. UNFPA Haiti/Ralph Tedy Erol
The earthquake struck the same fault line as Haiti's devastating 2010 earthquake. Death toll estimates range between 200,000 and 300,000 people. Further, the earthquake destroyed key government buildings, bridges, roads, homes, schools, and hospitals. Landslides, tsunamis, a cholera outbreak, and overcrowding also made it difficult for Haiti to recover after the quake. The legacy of the 2010 earthquake lives on today. In many ways, Haiti was still in the process of rebuilding when the latest disaster hit.
Navigating the Current Environment
A woman displaced by gang violence receives prenatal care. UNFPA Haiti/Samuel Laméry Pierre
The political situation in Haiti has been unstable for decades. But, the recent assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moise in early July 2021 has complicated the situation further. Prime Minister and Acting President Ariel Henry is currently leading the country through the emergency response, but rampant gang violence has posed challenges. Gangs have limited aid delivery to the south–the epicenter of the disaster–through road blockages and continued violence. The UN is calling for a "humanitarian corridor" so supplies can be delivered where they're needed most.
Women and Girls are Facing Challenges to their Basic Care
A young mother escaped the aftershocks while running with her baby. UNFPA Haiti/Ralph Tedy Erol
Women and girls are especially vulnerable right now. Thousands of women and girls are experiencing homelessness. They are at a heightened risk of gender-based violence, which increases in times of uncertainty and when women and girls experience displacement or homelessness. Further, without access to supplies like food, water, and period products, some women and girls will resort to transactional sex. This puts them at risk of violence, unintended pregnancy, and sexually transmitted infections, like HIV. These life-altering outcomes are even more likely if women and girls lose access to birth control, like condoms.
Finally, pregnant women and new moms require access to prenatal care, safe delivery care, and post-birth checkups. With the health care system weakened by the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and now this earthquake, deadly pregnancy and childbirth complications will likely rise. 22,000 Haitian women will give birth in the next three months and 3,700 of them are likely to require emergency care, like a Caesarean section.
You deliver lifesaving care in the face of crises.
UNFPA staff distribute dignity kits to women and girls affected by the earthquake. UNFPA Haiti
We are on the ground delivering lifesaving sexual and reproductive health care to women and girls in Haiti. Last year alone, we reached over 50,000 women and girls with sexual and reproductive health care and another 30,000 people with gender-based violence services. Nearly 150,000 people, including health care workers, received personal protective equipment. However, our work is far from done. With your support, we can reach vulnerable women and girls in Haiti with the lifesaving care they need, no matter what.
-Dana Kirkegaard
Your support delivers care to women and girls when they need it most.
Humanitarian Response Maternal Health Family Planning
Position Available – Volunteer Board Member
Friends of UNFPA 2019 Annual Report
Debunking 5 Myths about Condoms!


The Striped Hoop Safety Barrier is specifically designed to protect staff and visitors from machinery and vehicle hazards in the workplace. Suitable for use as a stand-alone barrier, multiple hooped barriers allow you to design your own layout to create safe walkways through warehouses, factories and loading bays.
Standing one metre high and 125cm wide, painted yellow and supplied with self-adhesive black strips as standard, the hooped barriers are hard to miss and comply with EU directive EC 92/58. Constructed from 50mm (5cm) diameter strong steel tube, you can securely bolt these down using the aluminium baseplates supplied with 16mm bolt holes (bolts not included).
For complete protection, you can combine your striped safety hoop barrier with a horizontal reinforcement bar (with connectors) and protective panel. These help to provide additional protection, prevent people from taking shortcuts under the barrier and are also highly visible with black and yellow stripes. Remember to select these using the drop-down menus.
Easy to install, the ProCity protection guards come with a 5-year manufacturer's warranty.


text:
Download Augmented Reality App
Michelangelo's Song
Tag: martin biallas
Rome comes to The Rockies! 1 week left for Early Bird Tickets…
Our Exhibit debuts in The Hangar on July 4 and will be open to the public through August 13. 1 week left for Early Bird Tickets! Find Tickets What is different about this exhibit? More immersive than ever, this refurbished aircraft hangar has 10,000 square feet for us to transform into the Sistine Chapel, giving […]
#SistineHouston Premiere of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel – While you have TIME!
HOUSTON, TEXAS, Brilliant Entertainment last week announced the opening on June 8, 2018 of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel: The Exhibition, a unique up-close look at one of the world's greatest artistic achievements, Michelangelo's renowned ceiling frescoes from the Vatican's Sistine Chapel. #SistineHouston is a one-of-a-kind showcase – presented by SEE Global Entertainment – who has reproduced the […]
Starting in April in MUNICH: The Sistine Chapel #SistineMünchen
Sixtinische Kapelle, in München at the Old Bavarian State Bank The idea behind the exhibition is to bring these impressive works to Munich. After the world premiere in 2015 in Montreal, followed by 2016 in Dallas and in Vienna, that attracted up to 100,000 enthusiastic visitors, we are proud to exhibit Michelangelo's art for 3 […]
Rome is in Phoenix @ The Historical Croft Downtown!
Explore St. Louis Welcomes Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel: The Exhibition to America's Center
EXTENDED BY POPULAR DEMAND! #SistineOC
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New experience #1: I marked my first assignments this past week. My goal is to reward effort and engagement, as well as skill and effect, and I erred on the side of generous, which is probably a rookie mistake. I have my students handing in a finished piece along with two drafts and discussion of the editing/writing process, with comments supporting their revisions. The projects that showed greatest improvement between drafts were without exception those critiqued by friends or peers. I thought that was interesting, and shows the importance of sharing work, and of editors, even if your editor is your roommate. Even if you disagree, another perspective gives you something to argue against, and more often than not provides insight into weaknessess that are impossible for the writer to see in a time-crunched situation. I explained that I'm very private with early drafts (which are terrible, let's be honest), and I set my work aside for a month or even longer, and then return with fresh eyes; but my students don't have the luxury of time. I have a system of trust worked out: my first reader is always Kevin, who has to say (mainly) nice things, and of course the book never comes near publication without having been first seen and commented on by my agent (who is my second reader), and by professional editors, including copy editors and proofreaders. That's a lot of eyeballs! And I rely on them to lift my work.
Lately I've been happily re-reading favourite books to find stories to share with the class, partly to add variety to the evening (I read passages outloud), and partly to demonstrate the different ways writers successfully do what they do — particularly in terms of technical considerations. Last night, I read the opening to Eden Robinson's "Traplines," what has very flat, stark delivery and description, with a rare punch of a metaphor to shock the system: the reader is tipped immediately into the action. I wanted to show them that, too. Then I read the opening to Raymond Carver's "Why Don't You Dance?," which begins with a long section describing furniture, zero dialogue, no flash, yet is highly suspenseful. How does he manage it? The furniture is outside on a man's front lawn and driveway, set up like it would be inside the house, with everything plugged in, and it's clearly no garage sale. Why? Wouldn't you like to know? Again, even though it's done with seemingly straightforward description, the story tips the reader immediately into the middle of something.
I find myself talking about plot, especially in stories, as something that can be found most naturally through setting and character, through relationships, through characters' reactions to situations; suspense is created by partial telling, by those bread crumbs dropped on a trail. Too little, and the reader is confused; too much, and the reader is bored. It's a balancing act. A student asked me to provide a rubric for story-writing, but I can't. You can't go down a checklist and write the perfect story. (Besides, forget perfection!) I have the feeling I might not be a great creative writing teacher, in all honesty, because my thoughts on the subject tend toward broad and vague rather than prescriptive, but my goals, as the course has progressed, have changed slightly: I want them to get time to write, in class, because writing is all about practice, and I want them to hear/read good writing.
Yesterday, before class, I read a fascinating essay on Raymond Carver's relationship with his first major editor, whose name was Lish (I've forgotten his first name). Lish, a writer himself, claimed to have rewritten the early Carver stories so thoroughly that he felt he should have been considered a collaborator or even co-author rather than an editor. The essayist, who reviewed archived materials, had to agree that Lish's fingerprints were all over Carver's first two collections, which were lauded for their minimalist style. Carver's style changed in his later collections; not coincidentally, he'd distanced himself from Lish at that point. The essayist felt that Lish's changes (which included actually writing new endings, and removing up to 70% of the original text) strengthened Carver's work — at least, his early work.
At the end of the essay, for comparison, were two Carver stories: the same story, but very different, and published at different times. The first version ("The Bath") is striking for its brusque almost brutal style: it's short, clipped, and has an ambiguous ending. The second version ("A Small, Good Thing") is more than twice as long, and striking for its flirtation with sentimentality that allows it an ending of enormous emotional power. Guess which one I liked better? Yet it can't be denied that Lish's influence took Carver from obscurity and brought him to a level of fame and success — and confidence — that allowed Carver to drop Lish and head off in his own direction.
Long tangent. It's kind of a puzzle, isn't it. What would I do if a student handed in a finished story that had been essentially rewritten by another student? Yikes! Don't do that, students! That's not the kind of editing I'm advocating. And yet, Carver's stories exist and I've loved them ever since I started reading them: does it matter how they came to be? I'm not sure, actually. I found myself wondering if it was Lish I was reading rather than Carver as I read "Why Don't You Dance?" to the class last night, and did Carver have a different version somewhere else that maybe I would have liked better (since I rather like stories that flirt with the sentimental).
New experience # 2: I spent Tuesday evening marking in my office on campus. When I checked my mailbox, look what I found: actual mail! My friend Nath sent me a postcard from England, where she's living this year. I was touched. And excited. And I must admit that I approached my mailbox with slightly more expectation before yesterday's class, but found it once again in its natural state. As an aside, I'm really liking my office. It's a weirdly comforting place to come to. I'm essentially unplugged there, and undisturbed by technology. It has no personality except for that fabulously awful brown easy chair, which I can't look at without thinking "bacteria," but I will miss it when the term ends.


text:
Contours Makati Review: More than a decade of Transformation
GCash makes investing possible with P50
Embracing the cashless culture: Makati working student makes most out...
Embracing the cashless culture: Makati working student makes most out of Makatizen Card
Unlike others, 19-year-old Jhay-Anne Cordova doesn't need to scramble for change when she grabs her after-school snack. It's with a quick swipe of her Makatizen Card that gets her through the day.
"I use my card to pay for transactions in malls when I go to the cinema or the grocery," Cordova says.
Launched in 2017, the Makatizen card is a shared initiative by the City Government of Makati, in collaboration GCash, Globe, and iBayad. The card allows thousands of Makati residents and employees to go cashless and digital.
In her second year at the University of Makati, Cordova finds it easier to accomplish her day-to-day activities with her Makatizen card. It comes in handy when she pays for her various array of books, pens, and notes — tools necessary for her to finish the activities for her courses in tourism.
Two years after its launch, the Makatizen card continues to be a staple in every Makati resident's life.
Mayor Abby Binay saw the service as a stepping stone toward achieving the goal of empowering everyone, including those in the marginalized sectors of society, to enjoy a better quality of life.
Makati residents who own a Makatizen Card have easy access to government services such as cash allowances, stipends, and other benefits. Cardholders can also easily pay their fees and taxes, including personal remittances and other financial transactions.
As a working student, Cordova finds herself with a busy schedule. Her daily routine includes adapting to her work as a barista in Taguig, a couple of miles away from her school.
"I find it easier to make transactions," she explains. The Makatizen card can also be used to withdraw from any automated teller machine (ATM) and is a valid government ID — two functions that students really need.
Most students need to obtain various papers to be able to open accounts at banks. Valid IDs are also hard to come by since students often lack the time to apply for them.
"I don't need to go to the bank anymore, it's less of a hassle for me," Cordova explains.
For students, the Makatizen Card functions as an easy alternative to a bank-issued ATM. Cordova specifically focuses on her savings, using her Makatizen card to manage her finances on GCash, the Philippines' leading digital wallet.
"I find it easier to save and keep track of transactions as it is connected with the GCash app," she says.
Every Makatizen Card comes with a GCash mobile wallet, with features customized to accommodate Makati City's expanding local merchant network. Each card is linked to a user's GCash wallet, making transactions easier as all they need to carry is an ID and mobile phone.
"I don't leave money on my debit card, I transfer it to my Makatizen Card, and I feel safer when I use it," Cordova explains.
Although her parents still give her allowance, Cordova does her best to lessen their burden. One of her biggest splurges was when she used her Makatizen card to save up for a flight ticket to Mindanao.
"The Makatizen Card really brings great value into my life, especially since I have access to many government services, while also empowering me to make transactions, save up, and many more," Cordova says.
For Makati residents like Cordova, the ease of having a digital wallet rings true. She is able to maximize and use its features to the fullest, with the help of the latest innovations in financial technology brought to the country by GCash.
The Makatizen Card, according to Binay, would help "springboard for the rapid transformation of Makati into the country's first digital city."
GCash affords users the ability to fully participate in the financial system. It offers users various financial tools under one app, such as savings via GSave, credit line via GCredit, insurance via G Insure, and investments under Invest Money. GCash also allows users to transact both online and offline, process bills payment, and even support causes through mobile donations.
"We believe in partnerships that bring great value to the lives of Filipinos. Apart from enabling more people to participate in the formal financial landscape, GCash is in the business of creating new possibilities for everyone — especially the marginalized," GCash President Anthony Thomas says.
Posted by Gabriel
Introvert, wanderer, blogger, foodie, a hip-hop music writer, and one of the co-founders of a tech start-up company called GigsManila.
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Huntsman is a private, not-for-profit research and education facility whose mission is inspiring stewardship through the engagement of the community in the discovery of the oceans. Huntsman employees play an integral role in working toward the accomplishment of this mission. If you are interested in joining the Huntsman team and are eligible to work in Canada, please refer to the list of current employment opportunities.
Maintenance Technician/ Crewman The Huntsman Marine Science Centre is looking for a successful and enthusiastic Maintenance Technician/ Crewman to join our team. This one-year contract reports directly to the Operations Manager. This position requires a self-starter who will provide high quality support services for: research vessels, and the maintenance department.
Housekeeper The Huntsman Marine Science Centre is looking for a successful and enthusiastic housekeeper to join our team. This seasonal position (April- December) reports directly to the Residence and Food Service Manager (RFS); responsibilities include providing dependable service and is responsible for making sure all assigned areas are clean, neat and tidy in a friendly manner.
Aquatic Research Technician I – Finfish Production Focus The Huntsman Marine Science Centre (www.huntsmanmarine.ca) is expanding its team of more than 15 technical personnel within its Aquatic Services department. We are seeking to fill Aquatic Research Technician I positions with individuals having specific interest, experience and skillset associated with Finfish Production. We are looking for highly motivated, dynamic individuals who work well both individually and within a team of technicians and research scientists to conduct a diverse set of confidential research contracts for commercial, government and university sponsors.