text:
F-35 deputy sees challenges ahead
by R. Jeffrey Smith and Aaron Mehta September 21, 2012 January 28, 2022
The Lockheed Martin F-35B is shown during an unveiling ceremony in Fort Worth, Texas in this 2007 photo. Donna McWilliam/AP
A little over five weeks ago, the Pentagon's F-35 program got a new deputy manager, and a few days ago, he gave a candid "outsider's" appraisal of the most costly weapons program in history — one that was noteworthy for its appraisal of how poorly the troubled aircraft program was run during the past decade and its criticism of the chaotic way that the Pentagon has been buying such high-tech weapons.
Maj. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, a seven-year Air Force acquisition veteran who last managed the KC-46 tanker program, warned an Air Force Association audience on Sept. 17 at National Harbor, Maryland, that "some of you may cringe at what I say." Then he disclosed that the F-35's buggy software "scares the heck out of me," that its computer-driven logistics system is "frightening," and that the relationship between the Air Force and the plane's lead contractor Lockheed Martin is "the worst I've ever seen."
The Pentagon intends to spend over $1.5 trillion over the next thirty years on the F-35, which it considers critical to the country's military future. It's a "joint" program because the plane is to be used by the Air Force, Navy, and Marines, an approach initially conceived to save costs. But Bogdan said that describing these as variants reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what the effort has become: "It's three separate airplane programs that have common avionics and a common engine."
Not only that, the program has eight foreign partners and two foreign customers, a number the Pentagon hopes to grow. Partly as a result, its management has been a mess: Cost overruns so far have hit a billion dollars and production and flight testing are years behind schedule. In his 15-minute talk, Bogdan used the words "complex" or "complicated" 17 times, at one point asserting that "there is not a more complex program on the planet."
Even after sixteen years of development and six years of production, the plane's design remains a moving target. Bogdan said that "one of the things in the first five weeks that really shook me a little bit about this program is the amount of change that we allow….Change in any acquisition program is destabilizing and unsettling." Affirming years of criticism by the Government Accountability Office, he said that allowing planes to be manufactured (32 so far) while it is still being designed is "the greatest of all sins in the Joint Strike Fighter Program."
Simultaneously trying to design, produce and field the plane, while training new pilots and creating a parts-and-repair system has been a huge strain, Bogdan explained. "What program would you ever put on paper to do all those things at one time? You wouldn't do it." But he said the Pentagon is now stuck in its own mess, and called "concurrency" a "way of life for us" that's "not going to go away."
Bogdan expressed optimism that some of the plane's legendary troubles are diminishing, but warned that the Air Force and the contractor are not measuring its progress by useful yardsticks. Lately, they've been boasting about passing key "test points," accumulating more "flight hours" and achieving more "test sorties," These don't matter so much, Bogdan said, because the right standards are "more capability based….I'm not sure we're measuring the right progress, but the test program is starting to create some momentum and that's a good thing."
He said a running dispute between the program's management and the Pentagon's director of test and evaluation over the scale and composition of the F-35 test program is no longer about substance, but about "where and when and who pays for it, quite frankly." He also said that Lockheed, under heavy pressure from the Pentagon, had started to cut its production costs. "Are they coming down as fast as we want them to? No. But they're coming down."
But then Bogdan spoke candidly about engineering troubles that he said keep him "up at night."
The largest of these is the software, now about three to four months behind schedule and still facing its steepest challenge: creating lines of code that fully integrate the fighter's weapons systems with the plane's operation. In anticipation, the software effort has been revamped, it's gotten independent oversight, and the contractor has been barred from moving from one set of code to the next one without government approval.
"Until we have some time to see that really play out…we'll withhold judgment as to whether or not it's a touchdown or not," he said.
Another major challenge is the jet's complex helmet, a "Star Wars"-like device meant to project onto its visor how the plane is performing, where enemy targets are, and which weapons the pilot can use to handle them. As the Center reported in June, the display has been shaking so much it's unreadable, and it also does not update swiftly enough. The helmet, Bogdan said, only works in "a very rudimentary way," warning that uncertainties remain about whether it can be used at night, in bad weather, or in warfighting – the "basic" missions, as he put it.
If the problems can't be fixed, or if an alternative ($80 million) helmet from Lockheed competitor BAE systems does not meet their needs, "then we have a big problem," he said. "You don't fly this airplane without a helmet."
The new plane also cannot function without highly-sophisticated monitoring of its flight and repair history and the requisite programming of its missions. These are to be performed for each jet by something called the Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS). Bogdan said it answers these questions: "What parts do you need? What pilots are qualified? What maintainers are qualified? What mission plan is going?" In short, ALIS is meant to hold a trove of critical, militarily-sensitive data.
There's just one major problem: The stream of data was found to contain security flaws. So the coding was rewritten, and is still undergoing testing. If ALIS doesn't work, "this airplane doesn't work," Bogdan said. While a version might be functioning by November, the Pentagon has refused to accept some planes Lockheed built because they don't have the fully functioning ALIS software.
Bogdan warned that both the Pentagon and Lockheed need to be told from now on that the F-35 managers will meet "your needs and not your wants." He said the program can no longer expect unlimited injections of cash, noting the "great gift" that DOD gave his superior, Navy Vice Admiral Dave Venlet, in February, when it agreed to restructure the F-35 contract and add billions of dollars to its budget.
"There's no more money and there's no more time" coming for the program, "so… we're going to have to do this in a disciplined way," Bogdan said, adding that if changes can be made and long-term strategies worked out, "we've got a shot at getting this done," he said. "We've got a shot. It will not be easy."
Lockheed spokesman Michael Rein responded gamely to reporters that "it's always good to have someone with a fresh set of eyes" looking at the program. "We remain committed to continuing our work to solve program challenges and build on the momentum and success we've achieved during the past couple of years," he said in a Monday statement.
But he declined to discuss the sour relationship his company has with the Pentagon, something that Bogdan described as a "cultural thing" afflicting both sides.
Cheryl Irwin, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, told the Center that "there is broad agreement…with Major General Bogdan's comments that the F-35 program will not succeed without strengthening the trust relationship between industry, stakeholders, and the government — across all aspects of the program."
Newly-installed Air Force Chief of Staff Mark Welsh told reporters in a separate session at the AFA conference that the F-35 is one of three key programs for the Air Force. But he acknowledged that the price of the plane is still an issue. "We need the airplane, but the program's got to perform," said Welsh.
R. Jeffrey Smith
R. Jeffrey Smith worked for 25 years in a series of key reporting and editorial roles at The Washington... More by R. Jeffrey Smith
by R. Jeffrey Smith and Aaron Mehta, Center for Public Integrity

F-35 deputy sees challenges ahead

by R. Jeffrey Smith and Aaron Mehta, Center for Public Integrity
September 21, 2012

A little over five weeks ago, the Pentagon's F-35 program got a new deputy manager, and a few days ago, he gave a candid "outsider's" appraisal of the most costly weapons program in history — one that was noteworthy for its appraisal of how poorly the troubled aircraft program was run during the past decade and its criticism of the chaotic way that the Pentagon has been buying such high-tech weapons.

Maj. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, a seven-year Air Force acquisition veteran who last managed the KC-46 tanker program, warned an Air Force Association audience on Sept. 17 at National Harbor, Maryland, that "some of you may cringe at what I say." Then he disclosed that the F-35's buggy software "scares the heck out of me," that its computer-driven logistics system is "frightening," and that the relationship between the Air Force and the plane's lead contractor Lockheed Martin is "the worst I've ever seen."

The Pentagon intends to spend over $1.5 trillion over the next thirty years on the F-35, which it considers critical to the country's military future. It's a "joint" program because the plane is to be used by the Air Force, Navy, and Marines, an approach initially conceived to save costs. But Bogdan said that describing these as variants reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what the effort has become: "It's three separate airplane programs that have common avionics and a common engine."

Not only that, the program has eight foreign partners and two foreign customers, a number the Pentagon hopes to grow. Partly as a result, its management has been a mess: Cost overruns so far have hit a billion dollars and production and flight testing are years behind schedule. In his 15-minute talk, Bogdan used the words "complex" or "complicated" 17 times, at one point asserting that "there is not a more complex program on the planet."

Even after sixteen years of development and six years of production, the plane's design remains a moving target. Bogdan said that "one of the things in the first five weeks that really shook me a little bit about this program is the amount of change that we allow….Change in any acquisition program is destabilizing and unsettling." Affirming years of criticism by the Government Accountability Office, he said that allowing planes to be manufactured (32 so far) while it is still being designed is "the greatest of all sins in the Joint Strike Fighter Program."

Simultaneously trying to design, produce and field the plane, while training new pilots and creating a parts-and-repair system has been a huge strain, Bogdan explained. "What program would you ever put on paper to do all those things at one time? You wouldn't do it." But he said the Pentagon is now stuck in its own mess, and called "concurrency" a "way of life for us" that's "not going to go away."

Bogdan expressed optimism that some of the plane's legendary troubles are diminishing, but warned that the Air Force and the contractor are not measuring its progress by useful yardsticks. Lately, they've been boasting about passing key "test points," accumulating more "flight hours" and achieving more "test sorties," These don't matter so much, Bogdan said, because the right standards are "more capability based….I'm not sure we're measuring the right progress, but the test program is starting to create some momentum and that's a good thing."

He said a running dispute between the program's management and the Pentagon's director of test and evaluation over the scale and composition of the F-35 test program is no longer about substance, but about "where and when and who pays for it, quite frankly." He also said that Lockheed, under heavy pressure from the Pentagon, had started to cut its production costs. "Are they coming down as fast as we want them to? No. But they're coming down."

But then Bogdan spoke candidly about engineering troubles that he said keep him "up at night."

The largest of these is the software, now about three to four months behind schedule and still facing its steepest challenge: creating lines of code that fully integrate the fighter's weapons systems with the plane's operation. In anticipation, the software effort has been revamped, it's gotten independent oversight, and the contractor has been barred from moving from one set of code to the next one without government approval.

"Until we have some time to see that really play out…we'll withhold judgment as to whether or not it's a touchdown or not," he said.

Another major challenge is the jet's complex helmet, a "Star Wars"-like device meant to project onto its visor how the plane is performing, where enemy targets are, and which weapons the pilot can use to handle them. As the Center reported in June, the display has been shaking so much it's unreadable, and it also does not update swiftly enough. The helmet, Bogdan said, only works in "a very rudimentary way," warning that uncertainties remain about whether it can be used at night, in bad weather, or in warfighting – the "basic" missions, as he put it.

If the problems can't be fixed, or if an alternative ($80 million) helmet from Lockheed competitor BAE systems does not meet their needs, "then we have a big problem," he said. "You don't fly this airplane without a helmet."

The new plane also cannot function without highly-sophisticated monitoring of its flight and repair history and the requisite programming of its missions. These are to be performed for each jet by something called the Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS). Bogdan said it answers these questions: "What parts do you need? What pilots are qualified? What maintainers are qualified? What mission plan is going?" In short, ALIS is meant to hold a trove of critical, militarily-sensitive data.

There's just one major problem: The stream of data was found to contain security flaws. So the coding was rewritten, and is still undergoing testing. If ALIS doesn't work, "this airplane doesn't work," Bogdan said. While a version might be functioning by November, the Pentagon has refused to accept some planes Lockheed built because they don't have the fully functioning ALIS software.

Bogdan warned that both the Pentagon and Lockheed need to be told from now on that the F-35 managers will meet "your needs and not your wants." He said the program can no longer expect unlimited injections of cash, noting the "great gift" that DOD gave his superior, Navy Vice Admiral Dave Venlet, in February, when it agreed to restructure the F-35 contract and add billions of dollars to its budget.

"There's no more money and there's no more time" coming for the program, "so… we're going to have to do this in a disciplined way," Bogdan said, adding that if changes can be made and long-term strategies worked out, "we've got a shot at getting this done," he said. "We've got a shot. It will not be easy."

Lockheed spokesman Michael Rein responded gamely to reporters that "it's always good to have someone with a fresh set of eyes" looking at the program. "We remain committed to continuing our work to solve program challenges and build on the momentum and success we've achieved during the past couple of years," he said in a Monday statement.

But he declined to discuss the sour relationship his company has with the Pentagon, something that Bogdan described as a "cultural thing" afflicting both sides.

Cheryl Irwin, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, told the Center that "there is broad agreement…with Major General Bogdan's comments that the F-35 program will not succeed without strengthening the trust relationship between industry, stakeholders, and the government -- across all aspects of the program."

Newly-installed Air Force Chief of Staff Mark Welsh told reporters in a separate session at the AFA conference that the F-35 is one of three key programs for the Air Force. But he acknowledged that the price of the plane is still an issue. "We need the airplane, but the program's got to perform," said Welsh.

This article first appeared on Center for Public Integrity and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.


text:
import { Component, OnInit } from 'angular2/core';
import { Router } from 'angular2/router';
import { Room } from './room';
import { RoomDetailComponent } from './room-detail.component';
import { RoomService } from './room.service';

@Component({
    selector: 'room-list',
    templateUrl: 'app/room/room-list.component.html',
    styleUrls: ['app/room/room-list.component.css'],
    directives: [RoomDetailComponent]
})

export class RoomListComponent implements OnInit {
    rooms: Room[];
    selectedRoom: Room;

    constructor(
        private _router: Router,
        private _roomService: RoomService) {
    }

    getRooms() {
        this._roomService.getRooms().then(rooms => this.rooms = rooms);
    }

    ngOnInit() {
        this.getRooms();
    }

    gotoDetail(room: Room) {
        this._router.navigate(['RoomDetail', { id: room.id }]);
    }

    gotoAdd() {
        this._router.navigate(['RoomAdd']);
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Shabwah - Abdulhadi Habtor
"Features"
https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3413556/life-returns-yemens-shabwah
Friday, 14 January, 2022 - 06:45
Forces deployed at the Al-Saadi crossing in Shabwah. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Life has again been breathed in Yemen's Shabwah province after its liberation from the Iran-backed Houthi militias.
The government had confirmed earlier this week that the province was liberated by the Giants Brigades, army and tribal fighters, and the support of the Saudi-led Arab coalition.
Asharq Al-Awsat toured the province, which has twice defeated the Houthis, where it met with its people and witnessed firsthand the scars of war and destruction left by the militias.
The journey from the provincial capital Ataq to the liberated districts in the northwest took about three hours.
The main highway leading to the districts is peppered with signs warning of landmines that have planted on the side of the road by the Houthis.
The locals said the militias have planted the explosives everywhere in order to cause as much damage to the people and the Giants Brigades as possible. Some mines have been planted less than half a meter from the road that is traversed by hundreds of people a day, they warned.
We eventually reached the strategic Al-Saadi crossing that leads to the Marib province. Units of the Giants Brigades were deployed at the crossing point to continue securing it.
Signs of the battles with the Houthis were evident in the buildings and some gas stations, but otherwise calm prevailed. After stopping to take photos, the members of the Brigades urged us to continue our journey to avoid being targeted by Houthi rockets or drones.
We moved on to the al-Naqoub region where life has returned to normal. The markets were bustling and government offices were operational. We then reached Bayhan al-Ulya, Shabwah's most populous city.
Al-Ulya was crowded, the markets lively and traffic was normal with civilian and military vehicles. The Giants Brigades were securing the city and the people were greeting and thanking them for liberating the region.
Saleh Ali Marjan, a resident of Bayhan al-Ulya, said the Giants Brigades' liberation of the three Shabwah districts in such a short time was remarkable.
Of the Houthis, he told Asharq Al-Awsat: "They fought us in everything, even the currency approved by the legitimacy. They barred us from using it. We suffered a lot and Bayhan still needs help."
He hailed the role of the Arab coalition in supporting the Giants Brigades in the battles. "The coalition strikes were effective and accurate against the Houthis."
Another resident, Saleh Ahmed Jaber said the liberation of the district from Houthi clutches is a good step.
"This is a precursor to the liberation of the country," he predicted.
"We now feel safe and secure with the deployment of the Giants Brigades. The Arab coalition jets were effective in regions outside the city and in pursuing the Houthis," he remarked.
As we toured the city, we noted the Houthi slogans that were scrawled on several stores and buildings, even mosques. Many read "Boycott American products", "Death to America", and "Death to Israel".
Resident Ahmed al-Jaashani said the liberation has revived the region after the oppression the people witnessed by the Houthis.
"Everything had come to a halt. Now, life has returned to normal. We thank God for the Giants Brigades," he added.
In the city's main market, we encountered some children. We asked them why they weren't in school, they replied that classes had been suspended due to the war.
"We will return to school soon. The defeat of the Houthis is now the most important thing," they said.
Sadr's Push to Sideline Iran-Backed Iraqi Factions Risks Clash
Costa Concordia Is Gone, but Horror Lingers 10 Years Later
Students Struggle as Lebanon Crisis Cripples University Sector

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Black Friday is just around the corner. Shoppers look forward to all of the deals that can be had on that date and this year, like years before, Black Friday is going to bring us many amazing deals on electronics and everything else.
If you want to buy an Xbox One S, you will be able to pick one up at a discount in the days leading up to Black Friday 2017. Microsoft has discounted some Xbox One S bundles and they're actually available now from its online store.
It's not uncommon for companies to start offering Black Friday deals early on in November. This lets them to bring in more people and hopefully gets them to purchase items before they decide to spend their money on something else. That's why Microsoft has announced its pre-holiday Xbox One discounts. You can get an Xbox One S bundle for $249. It includes the console with 500GB of storage and two free games of the your choice.
The bundles that are available from the Microsoft Store include the Xbox One S Battlefield 1 and Minecraft Adventure bundle. The bundles that include 1TB of storage and games like Assassin's Creed Origins, Halo Wars 2, and Middle-earth: Shadow of War cost $349. It's a good time to buy.


e*lix*ir comes into being to showcase the work of artists who find inspiration in the Bahá'í revelation and to foster an aesthetic whose key ingredient is the conviction that the mission of art is to inspire, transform, and uplift individuals and communities.
The idea for a journal of arts and letters that would showcase the work of artists who take inspiration from the Bahá'í revelation has been germinating in the minds of some of us for almost a decade. During this time, a number of artists with whom I have spoken – writers and painters – have expressed a yearning for a place where they could share their work and take up a conversation with one another, then send this work and the record of this conversation out into the world – a bright emissary of hope to other artists and art lovers on the same path who may be feeling isolated or discouraged.
Now, with one editor, one webmaster, and an editorial assistant, e*lix*ir announces itself, not with a trumpet call, but with the assertion of a simple truth: that we stand on the threshold of a new age of interconnectedness and reciprocity, an age in which fresh bonds are being forged between religions, countries, ethnicities, and races.
As we struggle to embody the spirit of our age in a new kind of art, we often feel perplexed, unsure of ourselves. What is the nature of the art we are attempting to create? Many of us conclude that we do not know. Others say we cannot know – at least not yet. We can no more describe what we are doing than a painter working in his studio in the golden light of late afternoon in Byzantium could have described what it meant to create a Christian art. All we can say is that we are on a journey towards greater understanding.
At e*lix*ir, we acknowledge that while we see clear evidence of a complex web of spiritual connections being formed worldwide, we are also keenly aware that we live and create in a world that is overwhelming secular. We lament that so much of the art produced today expresses disaffection and unease, and we find in its themes and preoccupations a note of yearning. We believe that yearning is for spirit.
e*lix*ir comes into being as a refuge for the spirit, where artists can experiment with new ways of showing forth spiritual truths. We believe in the vital relationship between art and spirit. To put it in the words of 'Abdu'l-Bahá: "All Art is a gift of the Holy Spirit." We also believe that one the most fitting expressions of this gift is work devoted to praise.
Of the many gestures towards holiness we might make in this life, making art is, possibly, one of the most powerful and enduring. Its creation mirrors the beauty and ceremony of the first act of creation, a process during which darkness and chaos gave way to form and light. I believe that art-making embodies a fundamentally spiritual quest: to acquire knowledge of the self and others. For those artists who take their inspiration from the Bahá'í revelation, creating art may have the added dimension giving voice to praise of that source of all knowledge – the Creator.
At a time when art has been relegated to the margins of society and the artist so often viewed as extraneous to the process of social change – an unwelcome outsider – we assert that art is a powerful instrument of individual and social transformation. We believe the artist is uniquely, even ideally, situated to serve as an agent of change. We seek art's engagement with community, believing that poetry, fiction, prose of all sorts, painting, and other genres of art, have an important role to play in renovating the social order by offering fresh visions of the world and how we might live in it.
We affirm, therefore, that art belongs not just in the academy or in museums, but at the heart of communities. We are interested in fostering the living arts – that is, arts that play a role in community life – because we recognize that art has the power and also the obligation to inspire, uplift, and transform individuals and communities.
So without a trumpet call, we invite those writers and visual artists who are inspired by the Bahá'í revelation to the pages of e*lix*ir, where we can learn, experiment, and grow together; where we can discern the luminous inner realities of things without denying their sometimes shadowy exteriors; where we can speak about struggle and pain at the same time we speak of transformation and healing; where we can voice our fears and doubts with all the force of the emotional authenticity that is in us, and, afterwards, issue to those in our company not a trumpet blast, but a gentle call to transformation and to praise.
Those artists among us who cling to this positive vision of social renewal in a world struggling not to sink beneath the weight of its despair, are forging a poetry of hope. Hope in the future is our conviction; faith our currency. We are journeying towards the light. We believe that art is an elixir that can change the dross of human experience from copper into gold. Let the alchemy begin.


text:
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For me, cooking is a comfort that is so basic and so unique that it does not stop to amaze me. The activity offers me time to think about things without getting too much attached to the emotions that come with it. Cooking offers me this comfort more than the actual eating but some foods are naturally comforting. Pea soup is one of the favourite winter meals of the Dutch and for most people definitely counts as comfort food. After a week that turned my heart heavy, there couldn't have been a better moment to learn how to make pea soup, from a dear friend, than today.
As I arrived at Vera her house, the first thing that I noticed was her warm smile welcoming me from the gallery of the building she lives in. I was not the only one learning today. Suzanne, a friend and former colleague of Vera, joined in today and Vera was more than prepared to teach both of us to make a good pot of comforting pea soup, but not before: coffee!
I have known Vera ever since the first day of secondary school and we cannot meet without talking about how she broke her front teeth due to me and cats. Happily Suzanne is also a cat lover so the tree of us naturally talked about cats as we petted Helmut and Lore. "Time to get to work, there is plenty of time to chat later", were the first directions Vera gave us, and of course we listened. Now there are many stories about pea soup. There might even be more recipes out there than stories. Many of these stories say how difficult the making of a good pot of pea soup is, but Vera ensured us that making pea soup is everything but difficult, it just takes time.
For starters, using the correct ingredients is the basis of every soup. Vera had already soaked the dried peas and divided the ingredients so both Suzanne and I could make our own pot of soup. I myself, being brought up with garlic in almost every dish, was rather surprised to hear there was no garlic in this soup, but there were plenty of other tasty vegetables! For 4 – 5 liters of soup, we used 500 grams of dried peas (soaked overnight), 2 leeks, 3 onions, 1 potato, half of a celeriac, a hand full of chopped celery, pork meat and pork sausage and about 8 bouillon cubes.
Now the steps were very easy. First put the peas, with loads of water (filling the pan) in the pot. Add the meat when the water is boiling. Clean the vegetables peel if necessary and cut all the vegetables in pieces. Then: Make a pot of tea, or hot choco, or any other preferred beverage and go back to what you were doing: In our case chatting about cats. At a certain point, the pork meat will be done and needs to be taken out of the pot. Now, add the vegetables and go back to what you were doing again, preferably with yet another nice drink.
After about half an hour or a bit more if the conversation is interesting, it is time for a little bit of work! Time to puree the soup. Before we did so, we separated (most of) the vegetables from the stock. "Leave some of the vegetables in the stock", said Vera, "so you can recognize what you eat, and it looks nice too. When it comes to the effort you put into pureeing, some like their soup smooth and soft, others like it with bits and pieces in it, so pick something that suits your taste." Suzanne took a vastly different approach than I did. I left quite some vegetables in the stock when I divided the two and I like my bits and pieces. Suzanne put some more effort in the dividing part and she loved to puree. After turning the vegetables in a mash and cutting the meat in pieces, we stirred the mash back through the stock, adding the meat (all of it!) and bouillon cubes. Now, all there was left to do was KEEP STIRRING! And so we did.
Vera was observing our hard work, tasting our soups and suggesting to add some pepper and salt to the soup. She was a true supervisor during the entire day, but not without leaving us choices. It were exactly those choices, and a bit more water in one of the pots, that resulted in two slightly different soups. Now, the proof of the soup is in the eating and there was never any doubt about us tasting the soup right after the making, however, a night of rest will do help the development of taste and structure of the soup. After the first bowl of soup, both Suzanne and Vera had enough, but I just needed to know the difference. If I had to pick one of them, I would not have been able to pick the best one, since both of them were decent, good and delicious pea soups.
All and all the entire experience of making the soup, taking time to share stories about cats, work and relationships, cuddling with the cats, and eventually eating the soup, resulted in a happy tummy, a comforted heart and a smile on all of our faces. I think the most important thing I learned about pea soup today is: Take your time (and put in as much meat as you want).
Thank you Vera Sanders for this wonderful and well prepared soup workshop and thank you Suzanne for sharing the experience with me!
Curious about my next experience? It will be driving electrical go-karts with Gordon de Munck and of course I will write a blog about it! Think you can teach me something? Let me know!


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The Sweetest Celebrity Mother's Day Tributes On Social Media
Robin MarchantGetty Images
Jessica Toomer
Moms don't get a day off but they do get an entire day celebrating all of the hard work they do and the unconditional love they give.
Is one day enough time to thank them for giving us life, raising us to pursue our dreams, taking care of us throughout life's trials? No, but these celebrities are using their platform to make sure their moms know just how grateful they are for the support they've given them over the years. Besides getting some candids of our favorite A-listers from when they were kids, these messages from stars to their moms are moving tributes that hopefully make you appreciate the mother-figure in your own life.
Here are some of the sweetest celebrity Mother's Day tributes on social media today. Warning: There will be feels.
Natalie Portman took time today to pay tribute to her mom who served as her Oscars date years ago. Besides being intelligent, creative, and a shining example of what a good person looks like, Portman's mom was also kind enough to let her borrow her Oscars look and alter it for a White House Correspondents Dinner.
Quantico actress Priyanka Chopra posted a moving tribute to her mother on Sunday. The beautiful photo showed her mom enjoying a stroll on the beach with a large bouquet of roses but it's what Chopra wrote to her mom, a message that included the promise she made her late father, that really brought the feels.
As a new mom herself, it seems Khloe Kardashian is extra grateful for the love and support her mom, Kris Jenner, has given her. That's why she shared this fierce photo of Jenner covered in fur with the meme-referencing caption "You're doing great, sweetie."
Actress Reese Witherspoon shared a totally '90s throwback photo of her mom for Mother's Day. After dubbing her the "embodiment of Southern grace" and gushing about their mommy-daughter convos over a glass of sweet tea, Witherspoon shared a link to an intimate convo the two women gave to "Hello Sunshine."
Anne Hathaway gave fans a quick history lesson with her Mother's Day post on Instagram. The actress shared a photo of her mom, actress Kate McCauley Hathaway, in her role as Nellie Forbush in South Pacific. According to Hathaway, her mom performed while four months pregnant, doing cartwheels on stage and being a working mother before it was cool. And she's still on stage today.
Hart of Dixie star Rachel Bilson shared a sweet candid on Mother's Day with a funny caption that held well-wishes for all the moms whose alarm clocks are now "dropkicks to the face." She also gave a shout-out to her own mother for being her best friend.
Michelle Obama penned a touching tribute to her mom on Twitter that featured an old photo of the former First Lady with her mom Marian.


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Meet Blane Howard | Singer/Songwriter
We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Blane Howard a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Blane, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We'd love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
When I was a little kid, maybe 4 years old, I wanted to grow up to be Alan Jackson. I would stand in front of the TV with my blue and green plastic guitar, and sing along to videos on CMT. I always enjoyed singing in choir and at church growing up, and I earned a lot of accolades doing it, but I never really decided it was something I wanted to do as a career until I was 16 years old. I came home from football practice one day and told my mom "I think I want to sing." She said, "Oh, is there a show or concert or something at school, other than choir?" I replied, "No, like as a career. I want to be a singer." (I know she was filled with panic at that moment).
Once the panic moment passed, my parents did everything they could to support me. From that moment on, we started talking about Nashville and whether college was the right move or not. Not long after that, we discovered Belmont University in Nashville, TN and after one tour of their music facilities, I was ready to apply! That's what got me to Nashville. Belmont University, and two parents that were willing to support me every step of the way.
The road has not always been an easy one, and I've heard the word "no" A LOT, but I've never lost sight of my dream, and I'm still chasing it today!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Arkansas native Blane Howard is putting his own personal stamp on the Nashville music industry.
Howard's biggest success to date comes from a song he wrote as a wedding gift for his wife, Megan. Co-written with ACM Award winner Jordan Reynolds ("Tequila," "10,000 Hours") and produced by Grammy, ACM, and CMA nominated producer Brad Hill (Maren Morris' Hero, Brothers Osborne), "Promise To Love Her" has grown into a massive success, garnering more than 100 million streams across all digital platforms, with the music video spending 17 consecutive weeks on CMT Music's 12-Pack Countdown, including a week at Number 1. Quite impressive for an independent artist!
Recognized for his resonating baritone vocals and his presence behind a microphone, Howard also continues to hone his songwriting skills. He has collaborated with some exceptional writers; in addition to Huckaby, Johnson, and Reynolds, he also has written with hit songwriters Steve Dean ("Watching You"), Jim Collins ("Big Green Tractor," "The Good Stuff"), Graham Edwards (Avril Lavigne's "Complicated") and others.
Since graduating from Belmont University, Howard has opened for numerous country icons including Blake Shelton, Josh Turner, Joe Nichols, Charlie Daniels, Lauren Alaina and Trace Atkins. He and his band are also popular on the state fair and festival circuit, with multiple returns to the State Fair of Texas, among others.
Named the Arkansas CMA Male Vocalist of the Year in both 2018 and 2019, Howard embraces his unique style of country, modern traditional, mixing the authenticity of the 90s with the contemporary edge of today! His relatable lyrics, powerful vocals, and entertaining shows are winning him fans around the world.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
As an independent artist, please FOLLOW and SHARE on every social media site an artist has, including streaming services. If you don't do that, you may not even see the posts from your favorite artists.
Also, get behind legislation to pay songwriters more and pressure streaming sites to follow them.
During the pandemic, our whole industry had to pivot. I went from play 75-100 shows a year, to playing ZERO. We had to find other means of income and other ways to promote our music. Social media came in to play for a lot of folks. For me, it came in the form of a song I wrote to support my favorite NFL team, the Kansas City Chiefs. I wrote a song for their playoff run back to the Super Bowl, and it really caught on in the KC area. It helped me gain thousands of new fans, led to radio play and numerous show bookings in that area, and helped increase my streaming/download numbers to help bring in some extra income
Website: www.blanehoward.com
Instagram: @blanehoward
Facebook: Facebook.com/BlaneHoward
Twitter: @blanehoward
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/BlaneHowardCountry
Other: TikTok: @blanehowardmusic
Meet Mark Lee | Founder & CEO of MDMartin
Meet Danny Arnold | Performance Coach


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Frank Sinatra Turns 100: High Society Black Tie
Frank Sinatra as Mike Connor in High Society (1956).
Frank Sinatra as Macauley "Mike" Connor, swaggering tabloid reporter
Newport, Rhode Island, Summer 1956
Film: High Society
Director: Charles Walters
Costume Designer: Helen Rose
100 years ago today, on December 12, 1915, two Italian immigrants welcomed the birth of their son, Francis Albert Sinatra, in a Hoboken tenement. A century later, their legendary blue-eyed son has left an indelible legacy on our culture that can never be replicated. Sinatra's style, stubbornness, and swagger complemented his natural skill and hard work to make him a living icon and one of the greatest singers of the 20th century.
After enjoying a decade of early success singing with the Harry James and Tommy Dorsey orchestras before his personal appeal allowed him to sign with Columbia as a solo artist, Sinatra's popularity began to decline. The death of his publicist George Evans, his tumultuous public affair with Ava Gardner, and his own throat issues nearly meant the end of Sinatra's career by the early 1950s.
Sinatra persevered. His records weren't selling, and he was singing to county fairs in Hawaii, but he wasn't going to give up that easily. His Oscar-winning role in From Here to Eternity (shades of The Godfather!) signified the start of a unprecedentedly booming career revival. 1953 also saw Sinatra signing his seven-year contract with Capitol Records that would produce his groundbreaking "concept albums" and – in my opinion – some of the greatest music ever recorded. Despite his perfectionist tendencies, even Sinatra couldn't help but to agree. After hearing he and arranger Nelson Riddle's first cut of "I've Got the World on a String", Sinatra couldn't help but to exclaim:
I'm back, baby, I'm back!
For Sinatra's birthday, it only makes sense to explore a look best associated with him: a dark tuxedo and – of course – a drink in his hand. In 1956's High Society, a musical remake of The Philadelphia Story that also starred Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly, Sinatra plays cheeky tabloid reporter Mike Connor assigned to cover a socialite's wedding.
Mike wears a midnight blue dinner jacket for a reception the evening before the nuptials. The single-breasted dinner jacket has a full 1950s cut with soft, widely extended shoulders, drape in the chest, and a suppressed waist. Although Sinatra had a famously slender frame, the large cut of the jacket is still tailored to look both flattering and fashionable.
According to Black Tie Guide, Mike's look is quintessential for the era:
Formalwear worsted became lighter during the decade eventually weighing in at ten ounces to the yard. The visual manifestation of this slightly relaxed formality was a preference for the slimming single-breasted jacket with streamlined shawl collar and understated cummerbund. Add to this a turndown collar shirt and narrow bat wing tie and the result was the quintessential fifties tuxedo.
Mike and his fellow tabloid scribbler Liz Imbrie (Celeste Holm) regard their lavish surroundings.
A few details of Mike's midnight blue dinner jacket signify that it isn't quite as formal as others, a reflection of the relaxed formality that permeated American menswear during the postwar years. The single button in the front and 3-button cuffs all appear to be plastic rather than covered in satin or silk. The shawl lapels are also self-faced rather than silk-faced.
The jacket has jetted hip pockets and a welted breast pocket, where Mike wears a white folded pocket square. The back is ventless
Frank finds a very polite way to moon Bing.
Mike's pleated formal trousers are likely made from the same lightweight midnight blue worsted cloth as his dinner jacket. There is a wide satin stripe down the side of each leg, with the side pocket cut straight just behind the stripe. The trousers are fully cut, like the jacket, with a slight taper at the plain-hemmed bottom of each leg.
Mike wears a white pleated-front formal shirt with mother-of-pearl buttons on the front placket. The shirt has a large turndown point collar and double cuffs, through which he wears a pair of gold rectangle links.
As Frank pours Bing's champagne (clearly showing who was still who in the hierarchy of the 1950s entertainment world), we also see Bing wears a more formal dinner jacket with satin-faced lapels.
Although his dinner jacket doesn't have the traditional black satin facings, Mike still sports black satin with his slim batwing-shaped bow tie and cummerbund.
Mike wears a pair of well-polished black patent leather cap-toe balmorals with black dress socks, the ideal footwear for black tie.
Frank and Grace Kelly. '50s Hollywood royalty.
Not much is seen of Mike's wristwatch, but it appears to be a gold tank watch on a black leather strap. Despite the wealth of information out there about Sinatra's personal style, it's hard to find information about his preference for timepieces.
Singing with a drink in hand: Frank, as he'd want to be remembered.
In The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin', author Bill Zehme includes Sinatra's personal credo when it comes to black tie:
For me, a tuxedo is a way of life. When an invitation says black tie optional, it is always safer to wear black tie. My basic rules are to have shirt cuffs extended half an inch from the jacket sleeve. Trousers should break just above the shoe. Try not to sit down because it wrinkles the pants. If you have to sit, don't cross your legs. Pocket handkerchiefs are optional, but I always wear one, usually orange, since orange is my favorite color. Shine your mary janes on the underside of a couch cushion.
There's no denying that Frank Sinatra and the rest of his Rat Pack cronies are legendary for their drinking habits. In High Society, we see Frank treating himself and Bing to a few – well, more than a few – glasses of champagne, but the real Frank's preference was definitely whiskey.
Frank tops off a few glasses for Bing and himself.
… and not just any whiskey. Jack Daniel's was Sinatra's elixir of choice, and there was a science to mixing his favorite concoction. Zehme gives us the recipe:
Sinatra enjoys his favorite whiskey with his best pals Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr.
Always three or four ice cubes, two fingers of Jack Daniel's, the rest water, in a traditional rocks glass.
Most surprisingly, Frank would always say: "I don't like the taste if it's too strong." And why should he? A guy like Sinatra could drink all night (and all day), so he may as well enjoy what he's drinking and be able to keep himself ready to sing – or throw down – at a moment's notice.
Ice was also a touchy subject for Frank. It had to be just right – not too little and not too much. Zehme tells a story of Sinatra sitting down at the Boston Four Seasons Hotel bar where a bartender served him a glass of Jack Daniel's filled with ice. Without a word – but with a dose of passive aggression – Sinatra began "plunking" ice cubes onto the bar. When the bartender asked if there was a problem, Frank retorted: "No, but with all this ice, I figure we're supposed to go skating here or something. That's not my sport." And with that, Frank left himself four ice cubes and was able to enjoy his drink.
Zehme even notes his favorite type of glass: "a traditional squat old-fashioned, or rocks, glass", often with a leaded base that could be elegantly held from below with a linen cocktail napkin in his right hand.
With all that work, it would certainly be a cautious honor to be able to pour Sinatra a drink. Even the man himself was reluctant to do so, groaning "Yeeesh, that's a brown mother I made!" if he poured incorrectly.
Frank also enjoyed a far simpler voice; even after his throat hemorrhage that nearly ended his career in the early 1950s, his Camel unfiltered cigarettes became a trademark. If he wasn't drinking or eating, he was smoking; he even attributed his venerable vocal talents to the constant stream of tobacco smoke and whiskey that were coating his throat on a daily basis. After Sinatra died on May 14, 1998, he was buried with his two most reliable companions – a bottle of Jack Daniel's and a pack of Camel cigarettes – tucked into his suit.
If Frank Sinatra could be honored in any way, I'm sure he would appreciate knowing the generations of men who have been inspired by his style. So pour yourself a Jack Daniel's over ice, fasten those cuff links, and step out on the town with a beautiful woman on your arm. Just make sure you look the part:
Midnight blue worsted single-breasted 1-button dinner jacket with self-faced shawl lapels, welted breast pocket, jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
Midnight blue worsted formal trousers with pleats, on-seam side pockets, satin side stripes, and plain-hemmed bottoms
White pleated-front formal shirt with turndown point collar, pearl buttons, and double/French cuffs
Black satin slim "batwing"-style bowtie
Black satin cummerbund
Black patent leather cap-toe balmorals
Gold tank-style dress watch on black leather strap
In High Society, Frank neatly folds a white handkerchief into his jacket breast pocket. In real life, Sinatra would often be seen sporting a red or orange pocket square with his formalwear.
Check out the movie
, and – of course – pay tribute to the Chairman of the Board by letting the crooner provide your soundtrack today. While any of his Christmas classics may seem right this time of year, the recently released A Voice On Air (1935-1955)
would also make a great stocking stuffer either for you or a loved one who appreciates classic style.
Fans of the man's style should also look for a copy of Bill Zehme's The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin'
; I was very lucky to have received mine from Teeritz last year, and it's become a constant reference for all things Frank.
Do yourself one more favor and pour out a birthday toast for Frank.
You know how I feel about my grandmother but I'd sell her for a drink.
Written by luckystrike721 Posted in Black or Midnight Tuxedo, Black Tie, Formalwear	Tagged with 1950s, Black Tie, Bowtie, Formalwear, Frank Sinatra, French Cuff Shirt, High Society, Journalist, Macauley Connor, Rhode Island, Single-Breasted Dinner Jacket, Summer, Tuxedo, White Shirt
Sidney Reilly's Hunting Jacket
Cary Grant's Ski Attire in Charade


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L'Américain (The American) est un roman américain d'Henry James, d'abord publié sous forme de feuilleton dans l'Atlantic Monthly en 1876-1877, puis cette même année en volume.

Le récit mêle le mélodrame à la comédie sociale dans les aventures et mésaventures de Christopher Newman, un homme d'affaires américain de bonne nature, mais plutôt gauche lors de son premier voyage en Europe. Newman est à la recherche d'un monde différent de son univers des affaires du  américain. Tout en découvrant les beautés et les tares de l'Europe, il apprend à se méfier des apparences. Le cœur du roman repose sur la cour que fait le héros à une jeune veuve de l'aristocratie parisienne.

Résumé
Séduisant Américain de quarante ans, Christopher Newman, a fait fortune dans la vente d'appareils sanitaires. Devenu riche, il ne ressent paradoxalement que du dégoût pour l'argent, et va jusqu'à négliger une affaire qui aurait pu lui rapporter un demi-million. Il choisit plutôt de s'embarquer pour l'Europe afin de se cultiver. Par le truchement de l'épouse d'un compatriote, il a des entrées dans la haute société de la capitale française.

Bientôt, il fait la connaissance de la comtesse de Cintré, une élégante jeune veuve, dont il s'éprend. Les sentiments sont partagés, et voici l'Américain fiancé. Or, l'univers culturel de la marquise, bien différent de celui de l'Américain, est un monde fermé, étroit d'esprit et pétri de traditions. C'est pourquoi la famille de la marquise mène une guerre sourde contre l'étranger américain, jusqu'à ce qu'il renonce de lui-même au mariage.

Peu après, par diverses circonstances, Newman entre en possession d'un document dont la divulgation couvrirait de honte la mère et le frère de son ancienne fiancée. Il éprouve la tentation tout humaine de s'en servir pour se venger, mais sa loyauté morale l'emporte, et il s'y refuse. Claire, résignée à perdre non seulement son fiancé, mais sa liberté et pour ainsi dire sa vie, se fait carmélite.

Adaptations
Toujours en quête d'un succès sur les planches, James adapta lui-même son roman en pièce de théâtre au début des années 1890. Cette version dramatique en altéra grandement l'intrigue, s'achevant même de façon heureuse dans le but de plaire au public. La pièce fut produite à Londres et d'autres grandes villes anglaises, où le succès s'avéra modeste.

La chaîne publique américaine PBS produisit une version télévisée du roman en 2001, réalisé par Paul Unwin, avec Matthew Modine dans le rôle de Christopher Newman et Diana Rigg en Madame de Bellegarde.

Références
 James Tuttleton (dir.), The American : an Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism, New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 1978 .
 Leon Edel (dir.), The Complete Plays of Henry James, New York, Oxford University Press, 1990 .

Liens externes

  Texte original publié dans Atlantic Monthly (1876-77)
  Texte de L'Américain dans Project Gutenberg (version de 1877)
  Préface de L'Américain pour la publication dans la New York Edition (1907)
  Études sur les différentes versions du roman sur le site de la Library of America

Roman d'Henry James adapté à la télévision
Roman américain paru en 1877
Roman américain adapté au théâtre

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Memberhsip Rewards Options - The American Express Rewards Green Card is a charge card and not a credit card. That means you have to pay your bills fully every month. It's reward program is based on the the American Express Membership Rewards Options program. It is the no fee version of the American Express Membership Rewards program. This is perhaps the most comprehensive credit card reward program. You can exchange points into miles for 24 airline partners, 15 hotel partners and tons of other shopping and entertainment rewards.
Reward Formula - Cardholders will earn one point for every dollar spent on the card. You earn double points for purchases at stand-alone supermarkets, gas stations, drugstores, the U.S. Postal Service, and for wireless phone bill payments. Membership Rewards allows you to earn unlimited points which do not expire.
Fees - The annual fee is $65.00 and $30.00 for additional card fee. Since this is a charge card, there is no apr as you may to pay your bills fully each month.
Card Shopping Benefits - The American Express Rewards Green Card offers several shopping benefits.
Firstly, American Express has an online store called ShopAmex. You can shop there using your american express card and even use your Membership Reward points to pay for your purchase.
Secondly, you get what Amex calls a Buyer's Assurance program, which will double the length of the original manufacturers' warranty (up to one year). The coverage for this program is up to a purchase price of $10,000.
Thirdly, you can shop at MSNMusic and get a free song after purchases of ten songs.
Fourthly, there is a "return purchase" program which allows cardholders to return a purchase within 90 days. If the merchant refuses to accept the return, American Express will refund the full purchase price of up to $300. You are limited to $1,000 worth of return annually.
You also get a "purchase protection plan" that insures any purchase you have made against accidental damage or theft. Worldwide purchases are covered and you can claim up to $1,000 per occurance.
$100 credit from travel benefit - You can earn a $100 credit back to your statements when you pay for your qualified* vacation of $3,000 or more on your American Express� Card at a participating American Express Travel Services location.
Verdict - The American Express Rewards Green Card will apeal to those who pay off their bills monthly and want to enjoy the wide range of travel and shopping benefits available under the Membership Rewards Options program.


the drive also can support the lesser known DVD-RAM format and the Lightscribe media.
Samsung's is a very feature packed DVD burner. Besides supporting the standard fare of media types, the drive also can support the lesser known DVD-RAM format and the Lightscribe media for burning labels directly to the disc.
More links for "SH-S202N/BEBN 20x DVD±RW IDE Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - OEM"


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Q: Xcode renames files when compiling? Every time I compile my iPhone project, Xcode renames my Default.png to default.png
The file name in my project is Default.png, so it's correct in my project. It gets renamed somewhere in the compile process; is there any way to stop Xcode from renaming this file?
It's the only file that gets renamed for some reason, and my app wont display the splash screen when put on my device unless I manually rename it back to Default.png.

A: silly mistake I made was adding an image called default.png as an Icon inside my app, so it was taking it as the only default.png. I simply renamed my image(icon) to _default.png and my splash (Default.png) didnt rename!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


During the period November 5, 2018 until November 9, 2018, Telia Company AB (publ) (LEI code 213800FSR9RNDUOTXO25) has repurchased in total 2,853,963 own shares (ISIN: SE0000667925). The share buy-backs form part of the SEK 5 billion share buy-back program that Telia Company announced on April 20, 2018. The share buy-back program, which runs between April 23, 2018, and March 22, 2019, is being carried out in accordance with the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 ("MAR") and the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) No 2016/1052 (the "Safe Harbour Regulation").
During the period November 5, 2018, until November 9, 2018, shares in Telia Company have been repurchased as follows.
All acquisitions have been carried out on Nasdaq Stockholm by Danske Bank A/S, Danmark, Sverige Filial on behalf of Telia Company. Following the above acquisitions, Telia Companys holding of own shares amounts to 78,806,963 shares as of November 9, 2018. The total number of shares in Telia Company is 4,330,084,781.
This information is information that Telia Company AB is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person set out above, at 07.30 CET on November 12, 2018.


text:
// Copyright 2015 The Cockroach Authors.
//
// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
// You may obtain a copy of the License at
//
//     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
//
// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or
// implied. See the License for the specific language governing
// permissions and limitations under the License. See the AUTHORS file
// for names of contributors.
//
// Author: Matt Tracy (matt.r.tracy@gmail.com)

/*
Package ts provides a high-level time series API on top of an underlying
Cockroach datastore. Cockroach itself provides a single monolithic, sorted
key-value map. The ts package collects time series data, consisting of
timestamped data points, and efficiently stores it in the key-value store.

Storing time series data is a unique challenge for databases. Time series data
is typically generated at an extremely high volume, and is queried by providing
a range of time of arbitrary size, which can lead to an enormous amount of data
being scanned for a query. Many specialized time series databases exist to meet
these challenges.

Cockroach organizes time series data by series name and timestamp; when querying
a given series over a time range, all data in that range is thus stored
contiguously. However, Cockroach transforms the data in a few important ways in
order to effectively query a large amount of data.

Downsampling

The amount of data produced by time series sampling can be staggering; the naive
solution, storing every incoming data point with perfect fidelity in a unique
key, would commmand a tremendous amount of computing resources.

However, in most cases a perfect fidelity is not necessary or desired; the exact
time a sample was taken is unimportant, with the overall trend of the data over
time being far more important to analysis than the individual samples.

With this in mind, Cockroach downsamples data before storing it; the original
timestamp for each data point in a series is not recorded. Cockroach instead
divides time into contiguous slots of uniform length (e.g. 10 seconds); if
multiple data points for a series fall in the same slot, they are aggregated
together.  Aggregated data for a slot records the count, sum, min and max of
data points that were found in that slot. A single slot is referred to as a
"sample", and the length of the slot is known as the "sample duration".

Cockroach also uses its own key space efficiently by storing data for
multiple samples in a single key. This is done by again dividing time into
contiguous slots, but with a longer duration; this is known as the "key
duration". For example, Cockroach samples much of its internal data at a
resolution of 10 seconds, but stores it with a "key duration" of 1 hour, meaning
that all samples that fall in the same hour are stored at the same key. This
strategy helps reduce the number of keys scanned during a query.

Finally, Cockroach can record the same series at multiple sample durations, in a
process commonly known as "rollup".  For example, a single series may be
recorded with a sample size of 10 seconds, but also record the same data with a
sample size of 1 hour. The 1 hour data will have much less information, but can
be queried much faster; this is very useful when querying a series over a very
long period of time (e.g. an entire month or year).

A specific sample duration in Cockroach is known as a Resolution. Cockroach
supports a fixed set of Resolutions; each Resolution has a fixed sample duration
and a key duration. For example, the resolution "Resolution10s" has a sample
duration of 10 seconds and a key duration of 1 hour.

Source Keys

Another dimension of time series queries is the aggregation of multiple series;
for example, you may want to query the same data point across multiple machines
on a cluster.

While Cockroach will support this, in some cases queries are almost *always* an
aggregate of multiple source series; for example, we often want to query storage
data for a Cockroach accounting prefix, but data is always collected from
multiple stores; the information on a specific range is rarely relevant, as they
can arbitrarily split and rebalance over time.

Unforunately, data from multiple sources cannot be safely aggregated in the same
way as multiple data points from the same series can be downsampled; each series
must be stored separately. However, Cockroach *can* optimize for this situation
by altering the keyspace; Cockroach can store data from multiple sources
contiguously in the key space, ensuring that the multiple series can be queried
together more efficiently.

This is done by creating a "source key", an optional identifier that is separate
from the series name itself. Source keys are appended to the key as a suffix,
after the series name and timestamp; this means that data that is from the same
series and time period, but is from different sources, will be stored adjacently
in the key space.  Data from all sources in a series can thus be queried in a
single scan.

Example

A hypothetical example from Cockroach: we want to record the size of all data
stored in the cluster with a key prefix of "ExampleApplication". This will let
us track data usage for a single application in a shared cluster.

The series name is: Cockroach.disksize.ExampleApplication

Data points for this series are automatically collected from any store that
contains keys with a prefix of "ExampleApplication". When data points are
written, they are recorded with a store key of: [store id]

There are 3 stores which contain data: 3, 9 and 10.  These are arbitrary and may
change over time, and are not often interested in the behavior of a specific
store in this context.

Data is recorded for January 1st, 2016 between 10:05 pm and 11:05 pm. The data
is recorded at a 10 second resolution.

The data is recorded into keys structurally similar to the following:

	tsd.cockroach.disksize.ExampleApplication.10s.403234.3
	tsd.cockroach.disksize.ExampleApplication.10s.403234.9
	tsd.cockroach.disksize.ExampleApplication.10s.403234.10
	tsd.cockroach.disksize.ExampleApplication.10s.403235.3
	tsd.cockroach.disksize.ExampleApplication.10s.403235.9
	tsd.cockroach.disksize.ExampleApplication.10s.403235.10

Data for each source is stored in two keys: one for the 10 pm hour, and one
for the 11pm hour. Each key contains the tsd prefix, the series name, the
resolution (10s), a timestamp representing the hour, and finally the series key. The
keys will appear in the data store in the order shown above.

(Note that the keys will NOT be exactly as pictured above; they will be encoded
in a way that is more efficient, but is not readily human readable.)

TODO(mrtracy):
The ts package is a work in progress, and will initially only service queries
for Cockroach's own internally generated time series data.
*/
package ts


tml> Bio-identical hormones, bioidentical hormones - Interview #2 With Pharmacist, Pete Hueseman, R.Ph., PD.
Guest: Pete Hueseman, R.Ph., P.D.
to Power Surge, pharmacist extraordinnaire, P E T E     H E U S E M A N.
endeared Pete to the women of Power Surge.
aren't they all still hormones?
structure is like that produced by the female body.
hormones and how long and how do I get off them?
for the rest of your life for best results.
want to get on prescription.
Joan5000:	What would you recommend for sleep?
I have tried everything, and am off HRT.
bed or sometimes 2 at a time.
taking Synthroid and Blood Pressure Medication?
If so how much ?
should not take to combat hot flashes & sweats?
a transdermal  next depending on how one responds.
what Tri-est is to those who don't know?
--Estriol 80%, Estrone 10% & estradiol 10%.
Dearest: 	Thanks, Pete. ARC, go ahead.
the micronized type than in the Progest--alot?
and I'm never sure what is in the so called others.
Pete Hueseman:	Actually not much more than last year.
will stop shedding, which began with menopause.
therapy, is it too much?
hot flashes because it is a little stronger estrogen.
MIMISUSAN:	Friend just started Wild Mexican Yams.
Doesn't know what dosage to use?
for micronized progesterone cream instead.
have real progesterone in it.
Dearest: 	Thanks.  Iconoclast, go ahead.
permanent disability for back.  I cannot exercise.
How safe is herbal phen-fen with estrace and DHEA?
if he or she cares if you try it.
You can email me at consultph@bpharmacysolutions.com.
Acelabrat:	On Tamoxifen at 38  & premenopausal.
within next year & will go off tamoxifen at 43.
Acelabrat:	WHOA ...With HISTORY of Breast cancer?
of your question now, please.
swings.  I spoke to you on Fri.
Ayindiah:	I have frequent occurrences of boils.
What does this indicate? Should I be worried?
dermatologist.  Possibly some kind of infection.
me. 1-800-728-0288.  If it works why change it.
ARC23:	"A mixture of estrogen and progesterone"
progesterone as opposed to an only powder form ?
Pete Hueseman:	Yes better absorption.
I have and why 600 mil of ibuprofin to stop it.
18 months ago and I am losing my hair, help.
bedtime)  See if your Dr. will let you try it.
Health Pharmacy in Wisconsin presently.
Pete Hueseman:	What strength of progesterone is in each cap?
BColl38000:	100 progesterone and l mg estriol.
book we could read - or something on the net?
effective re: meno muscle tingles/tremors?
Pete Hueseman:	Balancing of the hormones may help.
Pete Hueseman:	Don't know what the formula is, sorry.
Dearest: 	What is it, Hevnys?
can I get them over the counter?
wonderful to be a Man?
and yes estrogen can make fibroids grow.
depression & herbal weight loss products?
I miss something? That sounds too good.  Safe?
periods. When the time comes I mean.
Pete Hueseman:	Restate the question please.
still not bleed, and be protected.
research on the use of natural progesterone?
Transdermal application gets high grades!
other month, anything I can do? parlodel made me ill.
capsule, and see if that will help regulate you.
flagging libido, the infamous testosterone.
oil capsule.  Once a day is usually all it takes.
Dearest: 	How much do you recommend to start, Pete?
growth & increase if not enough libido.
you can add in al little testosterone to help too.
need to be done to write an accurate prescription?
flashes and BP (ed. blood pressure) fluctuations.
Take med and also synthroid. Any suggestions?
hot flashes & help your blood pressure.
but didn't grow libido - sigh can I ever win?
in and then go over the results with your doctor.
testosterone you should start with is 1.25 mg.
Dearest: 	Where can we get the saliva test kits?
than any where else, 1-800-728-0288.
my answers helped you all.  Thanks.
Sherry1015:	thanks Pete, some great info!
Kaaitjie:   	Thanks so much Pete!!!
LMossholde:	Very good answers, quick too!!!!
Dearest: 	Great, Pete.. and thanks to you, too!!!!
RCHCTH:  	Where is Bellevue Pharmacy located?
Dearest: 	Your answers, as usual, Pete, were terrific.
LMossholde:	Great guest, good answers, to the point, quick.
Dearest: 	It's in Colorado Springs, CO, RCH.
endorsement of a guest's views.
the express permission of Power Surge and the respective guest.
Read other transcripts by returning to the Library.
Copyright1994-2008 by Power Surge.  All Rights Reserved.


text:
Does 'Glass' Have a Post-Credits Scene?
By Joe Schmidt - January 17, 2019 05:43 pm EST
It's only a matter of hours until fans can get to the theaters to see how M. Night Shyamalan's superhero epic all wraps up, as the worlds of Unbreakable and Split finally collide in Glass.
Given that this is the writer/director's own take on the popular movie genre, it stands to reason that fans are curious if Glass has a post-credits scene at the end of the film.
Warning: Minor spoilers for Glass below.
The answer is no, there is not a post-credits scene in the movie. So if you decide to stick around, make sure you're paying attention to all of the talented names who helped make the movie happen, rather than getting disappointed that there's nothing extra after the film's resolution.
Glass appears to be the end of Shyamalan's saga, as he's frequently expressed that he will not make another sequel to the saga of David Dunn, Elijah Price, and Kevin Wendell Crumb. While speaking with Entertainment Weekly about the film, the director said he's finished telling that story.
"Yeah, I would say so," said Shyamalan. "I have a lot of original stories I want to tell. I'm an original filmmaker and I want to keep on telling new stories and new characters. It's fun for me to figure out a new language, and then learn it, and try to get an audience in two hours to learn, and accept it, and really find their way."
Of course, all that could change if Samuel L. Jackson pesters Shyamalan enough. The actor would constantly pester him about an Unbreakable sequel before it actually happened.
"I would just see [Samuel L. Jackson] randomly if I was in Los Angeles -- and I don't go to Los Angeles hardly at all. So one time I was driving on the studio lot and his car came, and he rolled down the window and he's like, 'When are we making that sequel motherf-cker?'" Shyamalan said to CinemaBlend. "I was like, 'Oh, I'm working on it. I'm working on it, man. I'm working on it, I got to drive, bye.'"
It finally happened, and now fans get to see how the saga ends.
Glass premieres in theaters Friday, January 18th.


They met at the funeral of one of the most prestigious men in the country, Dean Lawson, their father. Abbie Lawson, the dutiful genteel daughter bred in the lap of luxury and, Rachel Farr, a mistake born of a passionate love affair, are almost identical in appearance but are worlds apart. Only one daughter can be the heir to the endless oil fields and magnificent thoroughbreds. A fierce competition has arisen between the women, not only for the inheritance but also for the proof of a father's love. They should have been devoted to each other as friends and sisters, but they have become the most embittered of enemies. The Texas men they love watch as they tear themselves apart to become the Heiress.


text:
INNOVATION LAB FOR NEUROSCIENCE & SOCIAL CONFLICT
KEY EXCERPTS FROM THE BOOK
How Do We Imagine the Possibility of Change?
Why are some societies capable of peaceful political transitions while others descend into violence? In this compelling narrative, Beyond Conflict's founder and CEO Tim Phillips draws from over 25 years of experience on the front lines of peace negotiations around the world to offer lessons for addressing conflict and advancing positive social change. The book features reflections on Beyond Conflict's programs and history, as well as stories from six experienced leaders, each from a different country — former Czechoslovakia, South Africa, Guatemala, Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine and Chile. Each expert was asked a simple yet critical question: What does it take to make peace with your enemy and reconcile your society?
The Power of Shared Experiences
Considerable human, political and financial resources have been devoted to resolving conflict and ending dictatorship over the past century, yet war, violence and repression remain a significant part of daily global experience. Even in places where peace treaties have been signed or dictatorships have fallen, achieving sustainable peace and building effective democracy have proven difficult. This is especially true in deeply divided societies like Israel and Palestine, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Sri Lanka, where competing narratives and a range of regional and global dynamics keep citizens under constant threat of renewed violence and repression.
As a young boy in communist Czechoslovakia, Jan Urban presented flowers to Nikita Khrushchev, Ho Chi Minh, Che Guevara and other dignitaries from socialist countries around the world when they visited Prague. Urban and his schoolmates were trained to believe that "we were part of the communist vanguard—the future was ours." Yet by the time he was a teenager, this privileged son of committed communists had turned against the regime, refusing to conform to the oppressive rules it imposed on every aspect of daily life. He endured two decades of intimidation and harassment at the hands of the secret police, but he never gave up hope that one day things would change, though he never quite believed that he would see that day himself.
Few people expected that Apartheid, the system of racial segregation and white supremacy enforced by South Africa's National Party from 1948 to 1994, would end peacefully. Perhaps even fewer thought that one of the people who would play an instrumental role in its dismantlement would be a privileged member of Afrikaner society who would have likely become president of South Africa had Apartheid not ended. Roelf Meyer, who started out as a contented beneficiary of Apartheid, eventually became one of the key people who convinced President F. W. de Klerk to release Nelson Mandela from prison and then led the negotiating team of the white-minority government in the talks to End Apartheid.
In a country ravaged by decades of brutal conflict and centuries of discrimination based on ethnicity, class and language, how can citizens find anything in common, let alone create a shared vision for their future? This was the fundamental challenge facing a deeply divided Guatemala during its long civil war, which broke out in the late 1960s and lasted more than 30 years. Though initially a conflict with a clear narrative about exclusion, property and ideology that pitted the ultra-rich landowning class against the country's destitute peasantry, Guatemala's civil war transformed into a hydra that dragged every sector of society into a vicious conflict operating on multiple fronts.
When the peace process began in Northern Ireland in the early 1990s, Monica McWilliams was an academic, writing about the role of women in political conflict. Yet rather than keep her distance and observe the peace talks through the lens of the theoretical, McWilliams took a big risk and decided to make the leap from scholar to politician and bring a new perspective to the two hardened sides of the decades-long conflict. "Formal politics wasn't something that many of us wanted to spend our days on," McWilliams recalls. "It was very adversarial, tribal, there was very little productivity and little outcome." For a long time, she says, "I wanted nothing to do with it. I thought the pure stuff was all done outside. </p>
The Project began working in Northern Ireland in 1994, when it partnered with the University of Ulster to organize a historic gathering of Northern Ireland leaders from across the political spectrum to explore the possibility of peace and reconciliation with leaders who ended Apartheid in South Africa; negotiated the end to a brutal civil war in El Salvador; and worked to build new democratic institutions and confront the legacy of decades of repression in Eastern and Central Europe.
By the late 1990s, the Israeli parlimentarian and peace advocate Naomi Chazan was "totally convinced" that many political conflicts around the globe were "more intractable than the Israel-Palestine issue." At the time, an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement seemed inevitable, within reach. Israelis and Palestinians at all levels of public and private life were regularly meeting with one another, together trying to "find ways of sharing the land, of achieving dignity without eradicating the other."
If you close a wound without cleaning it, it will fester and reappear," asserts the human rights lawyer José Zalaquett Daher, who has long been a staunch advocate of seeking the truth about crimes and abuses committed in both his native Chile and other countries emerging from violence and repression. As a member of Chile's National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, Zalaquett grappled with the challenge of finding a balance between truth and justice in order to sustain peace and bolster democracy as Chile emerged from the grim years of the Pinochet military dictatorship.
In 2003, Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi invited the Project on Justice in Times of Transition to Kosovo to help Kosovar Albanian leaders prepare for negotiations with Serbia and the United Nations over Kosovo's future status. The Project worked with both Kosovar Albanian and Serb leaders to help them build leadership skills and develop the capacity they would need to achieve stability in Kosovo and across the wider region. Eventually the Project also helped them to tackle key challenges that Kosovo faced as an emerging nation, from the status of minorities to the structure of local government and the status of northern Kosovo.
After the Dayton Peace Accords were signed in 1995, Richard Holbrooke, the chief architect of the Accords, and United Nations Special Envoy Cyrus Vance asked the Project to help Bosnians from all three communities work toward reconciliation and address the painful, unresolved legacy of missing persons from the war.
The Project on Justice in Times of Transition has been working with Latin American leaders since its inaugural conference in Salzburg, Austria, in 1992. The Project was invited to assist leaders in El Salvador consider paths to reconciliation following the signing of the 1992 Chapultepec Peace Accords; to address reconciliation and lingering tensions in Nicaragua after the 1990 elections that brought Violeta Chamorro to power; and to work toward strengthening peace in Guatemala following the 1996 peace agreement between the government and the URNG guerrilla movement.
Following a meeting with Nelson Mandela during his visit to the United States in 1993, the Project was invited to help the new South African leadership with the tasks of strengthening democracy and promoting reconciliation in the aftermath of Apartheid. In 1994, the Project partnered with the Institute for a Democratic Alternative for South Africa (IDASA) to organize a historic conference in Somerset West that brought leaders from Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe to share their experiences in confronting the legacies of dictatorship and past human rights abuses with South African leaders who were considering how best to tackle the painful legacies of Apartheid.
At the invitation of Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe and Sri Lankan Senior Government Peace Negotiator Melinda Maragoda, the Project assisted the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eeelam (LTTE) prepare for peace negotiations. The Project brought leaders from Latin America and South Africa to work with both parties, and the South Africans continue to play an active role in assisting Sri Lanka's leaders.
The Middle East & North Africa
In 2000, Palestinian National Authority President Yasser Arafat invited the Project to help Palestinians prepare for statehood and to train senior government officials in democratic governance and leadership. The Project worked with the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University to facilitate lessons learned from several transitional societies. In 2006, the Project partnered with Tufts University to launch the Iraq Moving Forward Initiative, which resulted in the Helsinki Accords on peace and reconciliation. More recently, in response to the Arab Spring, the Project has been working in Bahrain to help create a space for dialogue between the government and the Shia and Sunni opposition.
United Nations & Rule of Law
In 2002, the United Nations invited the Project to help it assess the impact of UN peacekeeping operations and to assess whether UN efforts to promote the rule of law were successful. The Project brought local leaders from East Timor, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Cambodia, Afghanistan and other countries where the United Nations had established major missions in the recent past to share their experiences directly with the highest levels of the United Nations through its partners, which included the United Nations Association and the Task Force for the Development of Comprehensive Rule of Law Strategies for Peace Operations (led by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations).
Neuroscience & Social Conflict
In 2012, the Project launched a groundbreaking initiative in partnership with the SaxeLab at MIT that explores how the new tools of neuroscience can help us better understand the relationships between the brain, violence and universal human reactions to conflict. Discovering how the brain processes the experience of conflict will allow us to decipher some of the mechanisms that contribute to violence and influence the decision-making capacity of citizens, negotiators and leaders in societies engaged in conflict.
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Happy Hamby Campers: Bunk buddies!
It was quite novel to be on the road with caravan in tow!
Nick had suggested we organise dinner in a thermal cooker but easy spaghetti bolognaise didn't seem all that special as a birthday dinner - and I'd been busy packing, so the thermal cooker stayed empty.
Our tummies felt increasingly empty also and I called for a stop at Ballarat. I was hopeful of a park with a BBQ but it was hard to find one in the dark, so we drove on.
Nick was finally encouraged to stop at Learmonth, which is described as being quite picturesque. I'm sure it is - in daylight! We pulled up at a park and quickly investigated the large picnic shelter. As far as I could see there were no BBQs, so we set up our dual fuel stove with a Cobb Cooker BBQ plate.
Our more elaborate planned dinner became chicken sticks and crunchy salad, served on wrap bread. (On checking, it was quite similar to our dinner during our overnight Cobar stop earlier in the year, thankfully without the dubious microwave rice)! Our wrapped innovation was declared better than take-away though of course, dining at 10:00pm does heighten one's appreciation of the evening meal! Typically, I discovered the free BBQ after packing up but given the wind was quite strong we were glad to have set up in the sheltered area.
Nick checked the van and discovered one of the edging strips had come away. Bandit's rope was utilised as a temporary solution and we continued on to our destination. We eventually arrived at midnight, extremely thankful that our beds were already made - and we could just roll into them!
Bandit often joined me in the caravan while I was sewing curtains and other items. He adopted the bottom bed as "his", so I'm sure he saw Erin as the interloper when the two of them became bunk buddies on the trip!


The police have arraigned a 73-year-old younger brother of the late winner of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election, Mubasiru Abiola before an Abeokuta Magistrates' Court for allegedly defrauding a pastor of N1.5million.
Former Group Managing Director of Diamond Bank Plc, Mr. Alex Otti, on Monday in Umuahia emerged the gubernatorial candidate for the February 2015 general election in Abia State.
The Rockefeller Foundation has given reasons why Enugu achieved the historic selection as the first Nigerian city to join the 100 Resilient Cities Network (100RC).
Cold shock has enveloped the family and friends of 35-year-old Mrs. Martha Ifeoma Ifewulu, who was gruesomely murdered in her home at Oke-Afa, a suburb of Ejigbo Local Council Development Area of Lagos State on Monday, December 1.
As the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) holds its governorship primaries today, an opinion poll conducted by Accurate Resources, a media and marketing research firm, has put business mogul and guber aspirant in Abia State, Dr. Uche Ogah, in the lead among 13 contestants in the state.
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is miles ahead of other contenders in the hunt for delegates for the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential primaries, according to findings by Aflah Consult, an independent research group.
Yesterday, the senatorial primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) held across the country witnessed a major upset with the leader of the Red Chamber, Ndoma Egba crashing out of the exercise.
JUSTICE Musa Kurya of a Federal High Court in Lagos on Friday entered judgment in favour of the Lagos State Government in a suit by some deportees over breach of rights.
The applicants, Rosemary Nathaniel, Friday Ndukwe, Grace Igbochi, Ugulori Tutua, Chinyere Nicholas and Osondu Mbuto filed the suit on their behalf and 77 others, seeking enforcement of their rights.
With the conclusion of the gubernatorial primaries of the All Progressives Congress early friday morning, the party's flag bearers in most states across the country have now emerged.
HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS EZE FIDELIS IHEKORONYE ELUGWARAONU EZEOHA II OF UVURU.
Read more about HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS EZE FIDELIS IHEKORONYE ELUGWARAONU EZEOHA II OF UVURU.
A war of attrition and crisis of confidence is now raging among members of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Imo State, following the alleged imposition of candidates on the party by the state government.
L-R Founder, Leadership Group, Sam Nda-Isaiah, Governor Rochas Okorocha, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former head of state, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) displaying their Certificates of Clearance after receiving same from Chairman, Presidential Screening Committee of APC, Chief Ogbonnaya Onu at the APC National Headquarters in Abuja on Wednesday.
IT is decision day for Nigeria's largest opposition political party, the All Progressives Congress, APC as party faithful troop out today to decide on who would fly the party's flag in 30 states where governorship elections would hold next February.
At least 120 people were killed and 270 others wounded on Friday when two suicide bombers blew themselves up and gunmen opened fire during weekly prayers at the mosque of one of Nigeria's top Islamic leaders.
The attack at the Grand Mosque in Kano, the biggest city in the mainly Muslim north of the country, came just as Friday prayers had started.
LAGOS — Members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, yesterday, elected Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, Minister of Petroleum, as its president, making her the first female president of the oil cartel.