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Tag Archives: China
Huang Qingjun – The photographer who photographs families revealing everything they've ever bought online
We featured Huang Qingjun a little while ago with his series of earlier photographs of people with all their possessions showed the social changes that have taken place in China. "People's lives have changed enormously," he told the Magazine in 2012. "Maybe their incomes haven't been affected as much as in the cities, but their thinking has."
Now he has moved up a gear and as we learn from the BBC photographs the things people have bought on line
Liu Jun and his family have lived as nomadic herders for generations – he settled in a town but still lives in his yurt every spring and autumn. When he's on the grasslands he shops online, waiting five days for orders to arrive at a nearby outpost.
Photographer Huang Qingjun is famous in China for his photo series, Family Stuff. Since 2003 he has been asking subjects to pose with everything they own, neatly displayed in front of their homes.
Huang has eyes that crinkle at the sides when he smiles. It's a friendly face, and a huge asset when he asks people to do things that you might expect would result in a flat refusal.
"I look for people from all corners of China to showcase what they have. It's a transparent and interesting way to look into people's lives," Huang explains.
"People usually only invite good friends to their homes, because it's a private space, but my pictures show what people possess. They satisfy our natural curiosity.
Huang's new project is based on a similar idea – this time, he asked people to display everything they've ever bought online. The results are a testament to the overwhelming popularity of online shopping, particularly China's most popular internet shopping platform, Taobao.
"Taobao saw my Family Stuff project, and asked if I wanted to do a special series looking at online shopping," Huang says. "I agreed to do the project, but I had a few of my own ideas in mind. I wanted to find people from all directions: east, west, south and north."
This 28 year old woman in Beijing received some of her Taobao items as wedding gifts last year, including her favourite item, the mirror adorned with a decorative bird.
More than half of China's 1.4bn population can access the internet via a broadband connection. Many also have access to mobile internet and can shop online using their smartphones.
Internet sales rose 49.7% last year, according to Chinese government statistics, in comparison to a 12% rise in all retail sales across the country.
For people living in remote areas, internet shopping is a lifeline to the outside world – a way to access a host of products that would never be seen where they live. In some of China's more inaccessible places, delivery crews must sometimes abandon their vans to drop off packages on foot.
Wang Jafeng runs a youth hostel near China's border with Mongolia and has spent more than $35,000 (£22,800) online. He says internet shopping is a "big joy" in his life.
When he was four, Gyatsoling Rinpoche was deemed a reincarnation of a Living Buddha. Now 25, he graduated from the Tibet Medical College and works at the Buddhist Research Institute in Chandu, Tibet. He finds religious items, including yak butter lamps and candles, are cheaper online than in local stores.
A recent film school graduate in Beijing, 26-year-old Li Nian has been a model plane enthusiast since he was a small boy and now runs an aerial photography studio. He designs some of the equipment he needs and finds people online to build it.
Here is a link to the BBC article
And here is the link to Huang Qingjun's website
Art Photography, Travel Photography China, Huang Qingjun, stuff bought on internet, www.keithbarnesphotography.co.uk, www.oxfordschoolofphotography.co.uk, www.photographersworkshop.co.uk
Pictures of the Week: October 11, 2013
Leave a comment Posted by oxfordschoolofphotography on November 5, 2013
From The Denver Post
Pakistani school children chant prayers during a special class to recognize the anniversary of Malala's shooting by Taliban, at a school in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2013. One year after a Taliban bullet tried to silence Malala Yousufzai's demand for education, she has published a book and is a contender for the Nobel Peace Prize. But the militants threaten to kill her should she dare return home from Britain to Pakistan, and the principal at her old school says that as Malala's fame has grown, so has fear in her classrooms. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen) #
n this Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2013 photo, Hungarian wingsuit flier Viktor Kovats jumps off a mountain at Tianmen Mountain National Forest Park in Zhangjiajie in south China's Hunan province. Kovats died during this fatal jump into a gorge. His body was recovered Wednesday from the steep, forested valley floor at the park, state broadcaster CCTV said. The reports said the highly experienced Kovats apparently died from a head injury after crashing into a cliff-side. His 700-meter (2,290-foot) jump Tuesday afternoon was part of preparations for the Second World Wingsuit Championship being held in the park from Oct. 11 to 13. (AP Photo) #
An Afghan health worker (2R) administers a polio vaccination to a child on the first day of a vaccination campaign on the outskirts of Jalalabad, Nangarhar province on October 6, 2013. A new three-day nationwide immunisation campaign against polio began supported by Afghanistan's Ministry of Public Health country wide, officials said. AFP PHOTO
TOPSHOTS A Sri Lankan soldier stands at attention as rain falls during the army's 64th anniversary and Army Day ceremony in Colombo on October 10, 2013. Nearly 30,000 government troops were injured and 6,200 killed during the last three years of Sri Lanka's 37-year war with the separatist Tamil Tigers that ended May 2009. AFP PHOTO/ LAKRUWAN WANNIARACHCHI
Opposition fighters open fire taking cover from behind a car during fightings in the Salaheddin district of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on October 9, 2013. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported fierce fighting in Damascus province between rebels and troops backed by pro-regime militias and fighters from Lebanon's Shiite Muslim movement Hezbollah. AFP PHOTO KARAM AL-MASRI
Photo-journalism Afghanistan, China, Denver Post, Hunan, List of schools in Pakistan, Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Peace Prize, oxfordschoolofphotography.co.uk, Pakistan, photographersworkshop.co.uk, Rawalpindi
Pictures of the day from the Guardian
A man looks at a photograph titled Monkey by Oleg Dou at the ART Rio-International art fair in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Photograph: Silvia Izquierdo/AP
We're not giving you one cute panda picture today but 12! This is one of Lun Lun's newborn twin cubs at Atlanta zoo, US. Photograph: Xinhua/Landov/Barcroft Media
People cool off at the Place de la Republique in Paris, France. Photograph: Lionel Bonaventure/AFP/Getty Images
A worker sprays paint on the beak of the "Rubber Duck" that will measure 18 metres high . Photograph: Pichi Chuang/Reuters
See more of the pictures of the day here
Photo-journalism Atlanta, China, Giant Panda, Lun, oxfordschoolofphotography.co.uk, photographersworkshop.co.uk, Rio de Janeiro, The Guardian, Xi Lan, Yang Yang, Zoo Atlanta
Daily Life Around The Globe From The Denver Post
The Denver Post has excellent photo blogs bringing together some of the very best photo-journalism from around the world, here is a taste from this post 'Daily Life from Around The Globe"
Chinese artist Liu Bolin, center, is helped by his colleagues as painted to blend into rows of drinks in his artwork entitled "Plasticizer," to express his speechlessness at use of plasticizer in food additives, in his studio at the 798 Art District in Beijing, China, Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2011. (AP Photo) #
A couple prepare for wedding photos on a bridge near a Chinese pavilion at a tourist attraction in Hangzhou, in eastern China's Zhejiang province, Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2011. (AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan) #
A Pakistani eunuch chants prayers while visiting the local shrine of famous saint Beri Imam, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Thursday, Sept. 29, 2011. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen) #
A shepherd rests, as his sheep graze in Calcutta, India, Wednesday, March 14, 2007. (AP Photo/Sucheta Das) #
Afghan refugee children react while gathering in an alley of a slum on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan, Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen) #
A wall painted with the colors of the Cuban flag as a woman stand in a balcony in Havana, Sunday, Jan. 21, 2007. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos) #
See the full set of images here
Photo-journalism Beijing, China, Denver Post, Islamabad, Liu Bolin, oxfordschoolofphotography.co.uk, Pakistan, photographersworkshop.co.uk, Photography, Zhejiang
Scenes From 21st-Century China
1 Comment Posted by oxfordschoolofphotography on June 23, 2012
More images from the very excellent magazine The Atlantic
China, the most populous country and the second-largest economy in the world, is a vast, dynamic nation that continues to grow and evolve in the 21st century. In this, the latest entry in a semi-regular series on China, we find images of tremendous variety, including astronauts, nomadic herders, replica European villages, pole dancers, RV enthusiasts, traditional farmers, and inventors. This collection is only a small view of the people and places in China over the past several weeks
There are nearly 50 images to enjoy, here are just a few to whet your appetite
Liu Yang, China's first female astronaut, waves during a departure ceremony at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, Gansu province, on June 16, 2012. China sent its first woman taikonaut into outer space this week, prompting a surge of national pride as the rising power takes its latest step towards putting a space station in orbit within the decade. Liu, a 33-year-old fighter pilot, joined two other taikonauts aboard the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft when it lifted off from a remote Gobi Desert launch site.(Reuters/Jason Lee)
A woman carries her daughter who is wearing a mask as they make their way along a busy intersection in Wuhan, Hubei province, on June 11, 2012. The Chinese metropolis of Wuhan was blanketed by thick yellowish cloud, raising fears of pollution among its nine million inhabitants, as air pollution is increasingly acute in major Chinese cities and authorities are frequently accused of underestimating the severity of the problem in urban areas, especially in Beijing. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)
Farmers herd a flock of ducks along a street towards a pond as residents drive next to them in Taizhou, Zhejiang province, on June 17, 2012. (Reuters/China Daily)
A rainbow arches over Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour, on June 19, 2012. (Reuters/Bobby Yip)
A laborer works on a residential building under construction in Aksu, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, on June 17, 2012. China's annual real estate investment growth slowed to the lowest pace since the global financial crisis, official data showed recently, stoking expectations that curbs on the property market may be eased. (Reuters/Stringer)
See more images of China here
Photo-journalism, Photography China, Emperor Ming of Han, Gansu, Gobi Desert, Hong Kong, Hubei, Image Editing, Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, oxfordschoolofphotography.co.uk, Photograph, Photographer, photographersworkshop.co.uk, Shenzhou 9, The Atlantic
The Wedding Crasher
Whilst researching I came across this blog by Michael Yamashita, he writes about wedding photography and the rather remarkable way it is undertaken in some places in China,
"Who hasn't shot a wedding? On Geographic assignments, it's hard to think of a story where I did not shoot one as part of my coverage, sometimes by plan, but mostly by accident — you're in a small town out in the middle of nowhere and a procession is coming your way from down the street. What celebration/ceremony says more about a culture than an old-fashioned wedding, the ultimate cultural photo op? Everyone loves a wedding. On these joyous occasions, everyone welcomes a photo, not to mention the photographer taking them. But unique to China is the wedding studio, where the real wedding takes place before the actual wedding ceremony. Here the couple can have their choice of any of several wedding scenarios, with sets and costumes to match. A Japanese wedding at a shrine, a western church wedding, a cruise ship wedding, a Shanghai 1920s wedding, or an outdoor wedding – whatever the bride and groom's preference. Wedding packages $5000 and up include a video as well as stills. Here's a sampling."...MORE
all photos by Orange Photography Studio, wedding photos and video – Shanghai, China
Wedding Photography China, Michael Yamashita, Orange Phot Studio Shanghai, Oxford, oxfordschoolofphotography.co.uk, Photographers Workshop, photographersworkshop.co.uk, photographersworkshop.com, Photography, Shanghai, wedding, Weddings
Pollution in China
From the excellent Denver Post pblogs comes these images that at the start of a new year offer little hope.
Beijing authorities cancelled hundreds of flights and shut highways as thick smog descended on the Chinese capital on December 4 and 5, reducing visibility at one of the world's busiest airports. Air quality in Beijing reached "hazardous" levels on December 5, according to the US embassy, which conducts its own measurements, while China's state Xinhua news agency said pollution was likely to reach "dangerous" levels.
Take a look at pollution across China from the past year.
A woman wears a mask as she makes her way along a street in thick smog in Beijing on February 21, 2011. Beijing went "beyond" measurable pollution levels, the US embassy said, as a Chinese official warned people to stay indoors and avoid outdoor activities. Air pollution in Beijing has been consistently listed as among the worst in the world by international organizations such as the United Nations. (GOH CHAI HIN/AFP/Getty Images
Photo taken on January 19, 2011 shows heavy smoke after an explosion ripped through an oil refinery in Fushun, northeast China's Liaoning province. The blast shattered the windows of buildings 100 meters away and ignited a blaze later brought under control by firefighters, which left more than 30 people injured. No deaths were reported at the facility owned by a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)
Sunshine is filtered through particularist, as seen from Kowloon Peak, hanging over Hong Kong on February 6, 2011. According to the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) the pollution in Hong Kong ranged from medium to very high, with the pollutants such as respirable suspended particulates, nitrogen dioxide and ozone affecting the air quality. (ANTONY DICKSON/AFP/Getty Images)
Chinese children swim along the algae-filled coastline of Qingdao, in eastern China's Shandong province on July 17, 2011. Green algae continues to spread in waters off China's east coastline and although not poisonous, it can hinder the fishing industry and tourism in affected areas. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)
Photo-journalism Beijing, China, China National Petroleum Corporation, Denver Post, Environmental Protection Department, Hong Kong, Kowloon Peak, oxfordschoolofphotography.co.uk, Photograph, photographersworkshop.co.uk
cityscapes and silhouettes
Leave a comment Posted by oxfordschoolofphotography on February 3, 2011
these are really great, simple idea, well seen, brilliantly executed, why haven't we all done this before
By: jasper james
more about the photographer..
Exhibition, Photography, Travel Photography Arts, China, city scapes, oxfordschoolofphotography.co.uk, photographersworkshop.co.uk, photographyserved.com
Liu Bolin, the invisible artist
2 Comments Posted by oxfordschoolofphotography on November 21, 2010
Liu Bolin is an artist who is invisible, well he is just visible if you look carefully. He stands in front of iconic landmarks, telephone boxes, buildings, supermarket shelves and then with the help of 2 assistants is painted to merge with the background. The final piece is photographed.
Invisible Artist
article has an explanation of his work and more pictures
This You Tube vid has the artist explaining his work
Photography Art, China, Chinese art, Liu Bolin, Photograph


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Home Reviews Maestia
Maestia
(34 votes, 4.53 out of 5)
Maestia_s_11
Maestia_s_8
Title: Maestia
Status: Released Graphics: 3D
Developer: Gravity Interactive
Publisher: Alaplaya
Explosive Features:
Equipment can be infinitely upgraded via enchantments
Dozens of skills for each class
Thousands of quests that can be accepted on the go
Maestia is a free to play 3D fantasy MMORPG where players can customize their characters with nearly 100 skills for each of the 4 classes available. Maestia offers players the opportunity to collect 'Maestones' which are wearable skill items that give players different skill to use.
Players can collect Maestones by completing quests, doing dungeons, using the extensive crafting system, and purchasing them from various vendors. Maestones can be swapped out in order to tailor your character to the situation at hand. Whether that be PvE or PvP battles.
Maestia offers various PvP event types including 100 vs 100 battles, guild battles, open PK, and small instanced PvP battlegrounds.
Maestia System Requirements:
OS: Windows XP, Vista, 7, or 8
Processor: Dual Core 2.0Ghz or above
Memory Ram: 2GB
Hard Disk Space: At least 10GB of free Space
Video Card: Nvidia 6800GT or above
Each game profile contains useful information about the game, gameplay videos, user reviews, gameplay screenshots, system requirements and more!
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Unresolved bugs September 3, 2015 at 6:13 pm
Might be a nice game to play, if you're one of the small percentage of people actually able to log in. For the rest of us, it's off to "an unexpected error occurred, try again later" land.
Login errors have been ongoing and unresolved since 2012.
Brigitte August 10, 2015 at 12:39 am
I LOVE this game, hopefully it will keep on going and going…..
Fuhreak February 7, 2013 at 5:23 pm
This game is pretty good, but the low population really kills it. I'll go hours of questing or grinding and never see another soul until I make it back in town — even then, it's pretty barren. I think there are more people AFK-praying (gives you a little bit of currency for some items/mercs) than actual people playing the game. It's a shame, because there's some neat aspects to this game.
– Cash shop is completely balanced, and you can even do the luxury spins with in-game coins to win cash shop items.
– Mercenary system is pretty cool for soloing. You can even recruit your other characters as your own mercenary, or hire yourself out when you're offline.
– Character customization is decent. While you don't get too many options for face or tattoos, you can control your height, width, and the color of your hair/skin to any color.
– Upgrade items and potions are incredibly cheap, so there's no burden of buying overpriced goods off other players, or dealing with hoarders.
– I actually like the skill system quite a bit. Each skill only costs 1 skill point, aside from prerequisites, and you invest into passives of that skill if you want to increase it's effectiveness. I like this because you can try a skill out without devoting many skill points into it.
– Low population. Sooner or later, the question of "why am I grinding to get ahead in a game that nearly nobody plays?" will pop into your head. Due to the low population, parties seem scarce, and the auction house is pretty pathetic.
– RvR is even more pathetic than the auction house. It's a shame, cause it isn't too bad if people actually play, but most of the time one side is outnumbered (and by outnumbered, I mean 6v3 in a potentially 30v30 RvR), so it ends up with either one side afking until the battle is won to collect free rewards, or one side doing nothing but heal spamming the golem (depends on the RvR mode). Either way, it's anything but exciting.
– I really don't like the stat distribution in this game, or the effects rather. First off, investing in the usual str/melee, int/mage, agi/ranger doesn't increase the damage in a flat way like in other MMOs. Instead, it amplifies your weapon damage. This really sucks early and mid game, as having a 2% damage increase (result of 5 stat points invested in damage stats each level) on a 20 damage weapon doesn't make a difference. This gives the feeling of a very slow progression as your character levels. Second, they use a crit/dodge rating, and not a percentage. This can get confusing, as you really don't know how often those will proc, especially when the values are in the thousands.
– It feels like some of the animations are a little clunky, such as jumping and riding a mount. This is definitely not a game for compulsive jumpers.
– The dialogue is pretty awful for anyone who actually cares to read it. The storyline is okay, but your character is a complete tool.
Overall, I gave rated it a 4/5, judging it by the game itself. It would definitely lose a point, or maybe even two, if I were to include the population issue. It just isn't fun playing a vacant game with no competitive gameplay.
HammerFisrt January 28, 2013 at 5:30 pm
For me it is the best game I have played. I played WoW for more than 5 years.
The trick to Maestia is to master the maestones. They really are important and the ones you equip does matter. 2nd trick is find and join a good guild ore create your own. My guild is active, we use raidcall and we are very social. We kill bosses too. But I am never alone unless i just want to be. Both TK and SG have good people so it is not THAT important which side you join as long it is TK. 😀 I know I should be ashamed for saying that, and I will be if I really focus.
-Mercenary system. I love this so much words would not do it justice.
-Dungeons come in 2 modes and you can easily get purple gear
-It is not hard to get legendary gear.
-Has a decent player base. I always find lots of people to interact with
-Also can be played by a lone wolf. Anti social? No problem hire a mercenary and go it alone. I love this because sometimes I just want to be alone. I can still do everything I would need a group for in other games.
-Character creator is awesome. I wont play a game if I cannot create a unique character. Humans come an many colors races and so on and I want my game to reflect the diversity of human kind. If you can only make humans one color then I wont play. In Maestia you can be any color you want.
-Dungeon gear. Yeah every game has it. But here you can actually get the full set with enough runs.
-Cash shop. Has interesting items but you don't NEED them to play. '
Champions battleground allows players to just hide in base and collect Divinity points and XP and never engage the enemy. The game will be a draw and both sides gets a few points.Most battles end this way because no one want to go and fight. They all afk in base leaving 1 or 2 of us standing in the middle of the arena trying to stay awake.
To transfer gear between characters on your account you need to purchase wrapping paper. Ok yes it allows you to transfer soulbound gear to anyone but it just annoys me. So it is a pro and a con at the same time.
To plus an item you need a protection scroll or you will likely lose the item. You can buy these or win them. Feel a little like pay to win. BUT the developers have families to feed and I can't begrudge them a means to make money.
So honestly I can find a lot good to say and the only real thing i find bad is the battle ground where everyone goes AFK to collect points.
One last thing. I think the PVP/PVE balance is the best in this game. You have to enter an arena or a pvp map to be killed. This keeps high level jerks from griefing and harassing lowbies like they do on open world PvP games. Don't like pvp? Easy don't go to a PvP zone. Love PvP then go to PvP zone. Want to harass lowbies because you are an idiot? Play another game cause you can't do it here lol.
Everyone keep saying it is like all the other games. But not the way I see it. The mercenary system, pvp Maps, and arenas, and dungeons make it different and better for me. The only way to know if it is better for you is to try it and see. But go to level 40 because every game sucks for lowbies.
Brujah December 8, 2012 at 2:00 am
MrWetWipe November 29, 2012 at 4:30 pm
Is there a PVE server? I don't want open world PK.
Ranger October 19, 2012 at 12:10 am
there is a new update for this game
Sunny October 18, 2012 at 9:41 pm
yeah but I wonder if there is still an active server of it? o.O
peacefull53 September 20, 2012 at 7:29 pm
Whoa 5 stars!? im gonna try it 😀
peacefull53 October 6, 2012 at 12:35 am
Never mind, its 4 stars in a half >.>
Thunderbringer October 18, 2012 at 12:43 pm
I agree, besides it is free to play.. what else can you ask for? 🙂
ravenlore September 18, 2012 at 7:37 pm
May I asked if the game is heavily Pay2Win or does the cash shop gives little advantages only such as faster leveling etc..
Jellopy August 11, 2012 at 8:30 pm
I actually like this game a lot but it needs more servers in the us, the only one available is too far from me to keep a stable connection on dsl. The lag is very graphical so it keeps me from playing this one unfortunately but if you live close to the server i recommend trying it out as it seems like a solid contender in the free to play market with the content it offers even in this early stage of its life.
cacalips December 3, 2012 at 3:43 am
Your GRAPHIC lag has NOTHING to do with the server and all to do with your crap PC.
Kess August 10, 2012 at 11:45 pm
Maestia is… an interesting game to describe. It's nothing groundbreaking and I can't point out anything that makes it stand out greatly from any other fantasy game, but I'm drawn to it. Right now as I type this, I want to play more Maestia for no apparent reason. Anyway, it's extremely straight-forward, easy to learn, and there's lots of direction so you'll never get lost. It's very solo-friendly (I play a cleric and devastate mobs by myself) and provides a lot of incentive to keep playing once you start, such as a package that rewards with different items as you level.
There are two factions with the generic "light versus dark" theme, but it's auto-balanced per server so for the time being only the "light" faction is available for character creation. I haven't actually seen anything in relation to the factions during gameplay and I have no idea what the real significance of them are, besides the rare PVP arena events. There isn't much conflict going on that will make you loyal to one faction and against the other like in Aion or WoW. Time will tell if anything happens there.
My only real complaint lies with the community. The game has only recently been opened to the public, and there are players who have hit the level cap and are insistent on announcing how bored they are of Maestia and that they want to change games, rather than simply leaving or waiting for an update. Chat is a ghost-town and there's never any actual conversation going on, only the occasional guild recruitment. During a summer event, there was NONSTOP complaining about said event that made my attempt to enjoy it much more difficult. I would like more people to play this game who have a greater interest in being involved and growing with it, rather than simply being entertained.
You described it in a nutshell. The game doesn't feature anything of truly superior quality but it takes the good features of other mmos and implements them well enough to keep the game going while not overwhelming the players. I think the part that draws me in is the game tries to create a very relaxed atmosphere while still carrying some vibrance and being lively enough to not lose my interest. What I would expect with the gravity logo tied to it more or less. The issue with there only being one server will be remedied i hope.
Dariel August 1, 2012 at 4:37 pm
It's not revolutionary or spectacular, but Maestia is a pretty nice game to play.
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Race Riots in Russia
By Julia Ioffe
Wednesday was shaping up to be a day of excitement in Moscow. But the verdict expected in the second trial of the jailed oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky (whom David Remnick writes about in the current issue) was postponed; an unceremonious note taped to the courthouse door announced the delay. Meanwhile, across the ice-clogged Moscow River, a gathering army of police was bracing for a race riot, the second in four days.
Tensions have been running high here ever since the night of December 6th, when a soccer fan named Egor Sviridov was killed, allegedly by a group of eight men from the Caucasus, a region between the Black and Caspian Seas whose residents are stereotyped much like Italian-Americans once were in the United States: as dark-haired, swarthy, passionate southerners with a taste for organized crime. Their complexions are why Russians call them "black," or, worse, "blackasses." When the Soviet Union collapsed, many Caucasians—but also ethnic Russians, Ukrainians, and others—began migrating to Moscow, increasingly the center of commerce and opportunity. The day after the killing, rumors began to circulate that other Caucasians had bribed officials to release the presumptive perpetrators from jail. Sviridov's fellow soccer fans, enraged at the corrupt police and the alleged Caucasian killers, rioted and closed off one of Moscow's biggest thoroughfares. The police arrested no one.
Then, on Saturday, seven thousand "real guys"—a combination of soccer hooligans, nationalists, and run-of-the-mill hoodlums—gathered, ostensibly to protest the murder of Sviridov. (Spartak, the team that Sviridov rooted for, announced its refusal to participate, whereas nationalist groups eagerly stepped in to help organize.) The mob screamed, "Russia for Russians!," spray-painted swastikas and phrases like "Yids, get out of Russia!" and threw flares, bottles, and metal guardrails. Anyone on the streets who didn't look Slavic got attacked. Then some of the thugs descended into the Metro, and, screaming "white car!" dragged Caucasians and Central Asians from the trains and beat them unconscious as policemen looked on helplessly. (Trains eventually started passing through the overtaken stations without opening their doors. Watch the horrifying footage.) One person was killed, and dozens were wounded.
Saturday's pogrom was such a jaw-slackening display that the Russian President appeared on national TV and declare that "such actions threaten the stability of the state." For the next few days, the number of hate crimes spiked, there was talk that migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia would stage a retaliatory riot Wednesday night on Kievskaya Square—right by my apartment, as it happens. Special forces and armored personnel carriers started gathering in the fifteen-degree cold on Tuesday.
On Wednesday evening, there were already three thousand special forces, Interior Ministry soldiers in green camouflage, and plainclothes officers. Generals in lamb-wool hats directed troops armed with helmets, clubs, and riot shields. Buses idled, waiting to transport would-be marauders. Kiosks and flower shops around the square shut down; most of their shopkeepers are "blacks."
About a thousand Russian teenagers turned out to face off against a handful of Caucasian kids. Many of the Russians who gathered were girls decked out in their cutest pink pants and Uggs. If it weren't for the special forces and the teens' shouts of "Russia for Russians!" it could have been a Justin Bieber concert.
It was hard to take the protest seriously, especially when the kids shouting "Moscow for Muscovites!" turned out to be from outside the city. But this, the festive farce that followed Saturday's tragedy, had unsettling moments. Like Saturday's rioters, some of the Russian youths wore ski masks or surgical masks and, when asked, said they were here to "kill khachi," or some other Russian equivalent of the N-word. One especially youthful-looking boy named Nikita (who said he was seventeen) said he was here to get the "blacks" because "they cut our guys and fuck our women." A fourteen-year-old named Lesha, who also came to do his part in driving non-Russians from Russia, explained that he heard similar sentiments at home. "My dad supports me in everything," he said.
The disturbances were not limited to Kievskaya; more than thirteen hundred people were detained in clashes around the city. Police also seized a nice stash of pistols, crowbars, hammers, and even an axe. Moscow went to bed with nary a word from its officials. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin was silent, and President Dmitry Medvedev said on Twitter: "The police behaved professionally. They deserve a rest. And you should rest, too. Good night."
As for why this happened, there is, as always, the shadow of the Soviet Union. The vast multi-ethnic empire both emphasized and glossed over ethnic differences, without much discussion. Surveys indicate that about half of Moscow's population is sympathetic with the calls for "Moscow for Muscovites." "Moscow's never been very hospitable to newcomers," says Alexandr Verkhovsky, who runs the Sova Center, which tracks xenophobia in Russia.
A million young Russian men have rotated through the Caucasus during their compulsory military service, either in the wars in Chechnya or in the current counterinsurgency. When they return home, they often enter law enforcement and are expected to protect people who look like the ones they had just fought. "These were not citizens of your country but your enemy on the battlefield," says Masha Lipman, an analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Center. Which may explain why much of Russia's law enforcement sympathizes with the rioters. And, as Charles Clover of the Financial Times explained, Russia has the largest and most violent population of skinheads in Europe, and law enforcement, for fear of their strength, has taken to co-opting these extremists, protecting them, even giving them financial support.
Oleg Kashin, a journalist who covered youth movements for the Russian daily Kommersant, told me, "These nationalistic organizations are shot through with police and are well-controlled by the FSB," the successor to the KGB. Kashin spoke from his hospital bed where he was recovering from a savage beating for which some have—implausibly—blamed soccer hooligans. "When something of this size is planned, the Interior Ministry knows in advance exactly when and where it will happen. There are enough rats in these organizations."
They didn't even need that: in the leadup to the recent violence, all the information they needed was widely available on the Internet. "The police reacted improperly on Saturday," says Verkhovsky, the xenophobia expert. Had they blocked off the square where the riots took place, had they sent out enough people and rounded up instigators, the situation, Verkhovsky says, would have been like Wednesday night: a few sporadic fights and a lot of teenagers looking for a rush of adrenaline.
After a week of silence, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin finally addressed the issue this afternoon in a televised question-and-answer marathon with the Russian public. He said that Russia has always been a multi-ethnic state and this kind of violence was out of line. "We are all children of one motherland," he said sternly. But he did quibble with those who blamed law enforcement. If they criticize the hard work of the police—whom a full sixty per cent of the Russian population don't trust—he suggested that "liberals shave their little beards, put on helmets and get out into the square to fight the radicals." In other words, if you don't understand the seriousness of the task before us, keep your mouth shut.
Photograph: Mikhail Metzel/AP
Julia Ioffe has written about Russia for many publications, including The New Yorker, where she published a profile of Alexey Navalny.
More:MoscowRussia


Secretary Lori Rittweger (acting) OPEN!
I've been playing soccer since age 8 and haven't stopped. My first experience with soccer was with AYSO on the Screamers 2. I've played at the competitive club level, through college up to now, where I play in coed and women's leagues. Soccer has helped shape the person I am still becoming today. I am excited to be a part of AYSO to give back and grow a sport and organization that did so much for me.
I have lived in this town my entire life and my husband and I are now fortunate enough to be raising our 4 beautiful children here as well. This town has given me so much and I look forward to giving back starting with AYSO since so many of my cherished childhood memories were spent on the fields. When I am not busy with our family & friends, or sports, you can find me volunteering at our kids school and the Pacifica Historical Society. I look forward to working with a great team to make this year and every year there after incredible for our children who will grow up one day and do for their kids as we are doing for them now.


incadea, a Cox Automotive Brand, is pleased to announce its participation in Commercial Vehicle Forum, the leading event for the Indian Commercial Vehicle industry. The event will take place on the 24th of November, 2016 at The Westin Chennai* for one day and this year's key theme will be: Indian Commercial Vehicle Industry 2020 – 3Cs (changes, chances and challenges) and how can resulting potential be captured?
This Forum is running for the 4th time and is attracting more than 300 delegates. It is a dynamic conference and thriving exhibition with an acclaimed program of world class key note speakers, engaging presentations by industry leaders and interactive workshops, debates and panel discussions where senior figures in their field share valuable industry insight.
incadea, as a leading provider of enterprise software solutions and services to the global automotive retail and wholesale markets is sponsoring this year's Forum, sharing valuable insights on industry trends that will shape the future of car retailing.
Furthermore, a presentation will be delivered by Panos Gikas, Vice President of Operations, incadea, titled "The future of auto retail belongs to the customer. Accept and adjust to new rule of engagement with your target audience", providing to the participants the opportunity to explore how innovative technology and new business models can help them differentiate from competition.


text:
Q: Using class from another file in python package and conflicts in __init__() I'm writing a python package (python 3.6) and have the following directory structure:
package/
|  __init__.py
|  fileA.py
|  fileB.py
|  tests/
|  |  __init__.py
|  |  test_classA.py
|  |  test_classB.py

Setup
My files have the following contents:
# package/fileA.py
from package import ClassB

def ClassA:
    def __init__(self):
        self.my_ClassB = ClassB()

-
# package/fileB.py
def ClassB:
    def __init__(self):
        self.foo = "bar"

-
# package/tests/test_classB.py
from package import ClassB

# <performs some unit tests here>

-
# package/tests/test_classA.py
from package import ClassA

# <performs some unit tests here>

-
# package/__init__.py
from .fileA import ClassA
from .fileB import ClassB

Circular importing
When I ran python test_classB.py, I get the following traceback error showing that I have circular import statements, which are not allowed by python. Note - the package is not literally called package and I have edited the Traceback to match the toy example above.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "package/tests/test_classB.py", line 2, in <module>
    from package import ClassB
  File "/anaconda/lib/python3.5/site-packages/package/__init__.py", line 2, in <module>
    from .fileA import ClassA
  File "/anaconda/lib/python3.5/site-packages/package/merparse.py", line 2, in <module>
    from package import ClassB
ImportError: cannot import name 'ClassB'

Correcting the error
However, when I remove those two lines in my package/__init__.py file:
# package/__init__.py
from .fileA import ClassA
from .fileB import ClassB

...and I change the import method for package/fileA.py:
# package/fileA.py
from package.fileB import ClassB

def ClassA:
    def __init__(self):
        self.my_ClassB = ClassB()

... package/tests/test_classB.py runs correctly.
My Question
My question is: How can I keep the one file: one class structure in my files and import with from package import ClassA instead of having to import with from package.fileA import ClassA?
In my package I would like to import classes from other files, but don't know how to get around circular importing.
Edit: Solution
Thanks to @mirandak and @martin-kalcok below for their help.
The only file that I had to edit was fileA.py to not refer to the package name in the import statement.
# package/fileA.py
from .fileB import ClassB

def ClassA:
    def __init__(self):
        self.my_ClassB = ClassB()

The package/__init__.py file still contains import statements in case I want to import the package from other scripts in the future that I don't couple with the package.
# package/__init__.py
from .fileA import ClassA
from .fileB import ClassB

A: The problem is with package/fileA.py. It's both a part of package and calling the __init__.py file of package as it's imported - creating a circular dependency.
Can you change fileA.py to look like this?
# package/fileA.py
from .fileB import ClassB

def ClassA:
    def __init__(self):
        self.my_ClassB = ClassB()

A: First of all, renaming your package to literary "package" really confuses this whole situation, but here's my take on it :D.
I don't think you are dealing with circular dependency, python just states that it cannot import classB from package and that is because there is no file named classB in package directory. Changing import statement to

from package.fileB import ClassB

works because there is directory package which contains file fileB which contains object ClassB.
To answer your question whether you can import classes with statement
from package import ClassB

you can't, unless your package is file and classB is object inside this file. However i don't see how this different import statement would be a dealbraker
Side Note: Your objects ClassB and ClassA are not classes, they are functions. Python uses keyword class to create classes and def to define functions.
Side note 2: Are you sure your __init__.py file needs to hold any code at all?
Personal Note: I know that keeping 1 File / 1 Class structure is matter of personal preferences, it is not required in python and I myself find it much more comfortable to group multiple related classes and functions into one file

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Emily Lloyd-Jones
Emily Lloyd-Jones grew up on a vineyard in rural Oregon, where she played in evergreen forests and learned to fear sheep. She has a BA in English from Western Oregon University and a MA in publishing from Rosemont College. She currently resides in Northern California, where she enjoys wandering in redwood forests. Her young adult novels include Illusive, Deceptive, The Hearts We Sold, The Bone Houses, and the forthcoming The Drowned Woods. Her debut middle grade, Unseen Magic, will release in 2022.
The Drowned Woods
An instant IndieBound bestseller! A magical, ethereal fantasy from IndieBound bestselling author Emily Lloyd-Jones. Once upon a time, the kingdoms of Wales were rife with…
Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Sky in the Deep in this bewitching historical horror novel, perfect for fans of Holly Black and V.E. Schwab! …
The Hearts We Sold
An intoxicating blend of fantasy, horror, and romance--a Faustian fable perfect for fans of Holly Black, and Stranger Things. Dee Moreno is out of options.…
Deceptive
This thrilling sequel to Illusive will have readers on the edge of their seats. You don't belong with us. These are the words that echo…
Ebooks.com
Illusive
The X-Men meets Ocean's Eleven in this edge-of-your-seat sci-fi adventure about a band of "super" criminals. When the deadly MK virus swept across the planet,…
Murder on the Disoriented Express
He's a survivor. No matter the cost. Until he met Ciere and her crew of superpowered thieves, Alan Fiacre's life had been singularly focused on…
Discover More Great Reads
7 Magical YA Romances You Can't Miss
Falling in love and magic often feel like one and the same, but when both elements are present in a story, it's impossible to resist the spell. From elaborate fantasy worlds to familiar places with secret charms, prepare to be swept away by these ten magical YA romances!
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February 21, 2006, Norderstedt - CASIO Europe GmbH, in conjunction with its parent company CASIO COMPUTER CO., LTD. announced the release of the latest addition to its EXILIM Zoom digital camera series with the stylish, compact, and high-resolution EX-Z850. Offering high quality 8.1 megapixel photos, the EX-Z850 includes a 3X optical zoom, and offers both manual aperture and shutter speed priority AE options for advanced users who prefer to create customized images. The impressive 2.5" Super Bright LCD generates approximately 1,200 cd/m2 of luminescent output, making the monitor even easier to view when outdoors.
The EX-Z850 includes the latest version of the EXILIM Engine, featuring the Anti Shake DSP which considerably reduces the incidence of blurred images due to shaky hands or moving subjects, so you only have to worry about which shots to take, not how they will come out. In response to user's high demand, the EX-Z850's Super Life Battery supports 440 shots per charge, providing convenient, long-lasting usability.
Notable new features on the EX-Z850 include flash functions for a variety of settings and situations, including; Rapid Flash, which enables three flash photos in only one second to completely capture a given moment; Soft Flash, which prevents overexposure of subjects photographed up close; and High Power Flash, which ensures that subjects are properly illuminated even when photographed as far away as approximately 12.1 meters. The EX-Z850 also includes Revive Shot, which refreshes faded colors of old photos by bringing them back to life in digital format, automatically adjusts for obliquity even when photos are shot while still in the album.
The EX-Z850 represents the latest technology and functions the EXILIM digital camera line has to offer. Easy to use automatically or customizable to user specifications, this camera offers the stunningly high quality images and versatility that comes only from CASIO.
"Soft Flash" prevents over exposure when taking shots in Macro, etc.
640 x 480 (HQ) Maximum recording time per file: 10 minutes 4.0 MB/sec. 30 Approx. 16 sec. Approx. 8 min. 21 sec.
640 x 480 (Normal) 2.1 MB/sec. 30 Approx. 31 sec. Approx. 15 min. 52 sec.
320 x 240 (LP) 2.45 MB/sec. 15 Approx. 27 sec. Approx. 13 min. 34 sec.
Program AE: 1/2 to 1/1600 sec., Shutter Speed Priority and Manual Exposure AE: 60 to 1/1600 sec., Aperture Priority AE: 1 to 1/1600 sec.
EXILIM is a registered trademark of CASIO COMPUTER CO. LTD. Any other company or product names are registered trademarks or trademarks of those companies.


Download "PROGRAM FAQ What is Solar Chicago? How does it work? How can I learn more about the program?"
1 PROGRAM FAQ What is Solar Chicago? How does it work? Solar Chicago is a residential solar group program being undertaken by the City of Chicago (City), the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Vote Solar, a non-profit organization working to bring solar energy into the mainstream. The City was recently designated the Earth Hour Capital of the United States by WWF for its sustainability efforts, including its focus on lowering costs for residential solar systems. Solar Chicago will continue these efforts to help expand the local solar market by making solar easy and more affordable than ever for homeowners in the Chicago metro area. To express your interest in receiving a free solar evaluation and proposal, please register on the program webpage. Once an installer(s) is selected, a representative will call you to discuss the best option for you and will provide a customized quote, and you will benefit from the negotiated program pricing. How can I learn more about the program? We are currently developing the program schedule for a series of events and webinars throughout the summer. Once the schedule is finalized, we will post information on the News tab of the Solar Chicago program webpage. Do you have to be a City of Chicago resident to participate? Solar Chicago will cover (at a minimum) homeowners within the City of Chicago and the Villages of Franklin Park, Hanover Park, Oak Park, and Wilmette. Additional geographic availability for suburban locations outside the Chicago city limits will depend upon the specific solar installer proposals received by the program. Once the installer selection process is complete, we will be able to provide more details on the overall geographic coverage (both as a map and a list of community names) where service is available. How is the installer being selected? A community evaluation team, composed of volunteers, is vetting installer proposals received in response to a Request for Proposals (RFP). This RFP was distributed to solar installation firms both within Illinois and nationally, in the hope of finding the right combination of equipment quality, responsive customer service, installation experience, and attractive system pricing. The community evaluation team, composed of your peers, will do a lot of the back-end work to save you time and make this process simple and cost-effective. Does Solar Chicago require any certifications? Yes, the Solar Chicago program is requiring installers participating in the program to be licensed in each community within the Program Area, and by the State of Illinois as Distributed Generation installers. How long do I have to sign up? Program registration is open now through September 30th, Once installer selection is complete, the program pricing and any volume rebates will apply throughout the entire program timeframe, so sign up now and encouraging others to join as well. In addition, the earlier you get started, the sooner the installer can design and install your system to help you start saving on your utility bills.
2 How will my registration information be used / shared? The personal and household information you submit during program registration will not be shared outside of the program. We collect this information and provide it to the selected solar installer(s) to use in providing you with a no-cost, no-obligation solar site evaluation for your home. This information is useful in advance to help the installer begin to evaluate your home remotely using overhead aerial imagery, which helps speed up the overall assessment and proposal process. In addition, we will occasionally provide you with program updates. If at any time you decide to no longer participate in the program, we will gladly remove you from our contact database. If I sign up for a free solar consultation, is there any obligation to purchase or install? No. By registering for Solar Chicago, you are indicating your interest in receiving a solar evaluation & proposal from the selected Installer. The proposal will determine your home s solar suitability and will explain your financial options, but you will be under no obligation to purchase or finance a system. GENERAL SOLAR QUESTIONS Why go Solar? Solar power is the conversion of sunlight into electricity through the photovoltaic effect and is one of the fastest growing forms of residential renewable energy used in the U.S. This program offers not only include discounted equipment and financing options, but will also help you take advantage of federal and state incentives that can make solar power an affordable clean energy solution. How does a Solar Electric system work? A solar electric system is also called a photovoltaic array or PV system (Photo = light and Voltaic = energy). Solar PV panels made of semiconductor material (primarily crystalline silicon) capture sunlight and convert it to direct electric current (DC). In order to change DC power to safe alternating current (AC) that can be used in your home, the program installer will also install an inverter as a part of your system. The inverter is then connected to your electrical panel (or electrical box) for distribution throughout your house. If your system generates more electricity than your home is using at the moment, it will return to the utility grid and you will receive a bill credit (under net metering) that you can use later in the year, when you re using more than you re producing (e.g. at night / during the winter months). Is there enough sunlight in Chicago for Solar PV to work? According to the National Renewable Energy Lab, Chicago can expect an average of 4.4 kwh / m^2 / day of solar radiation, and each kw of a solar system will produce (on average) over 1,100 kwh during that year. While not as high as Arizona or California, this is comparable to the sunlight available in Germany, the world leader in solar installations. Is this enough sun for solar to work? Yes. Is it enough sun to make solar work for you? That depends on your roof's solar access and your energy usage, and we recommend getting a customized proposal for your home to find out. Can solar panels handle severe Chicago weather (e.g. hail, snow, wind, thunderstorms)? Solar panels are pretty durable, and undergo testing by Underwriters Laboratory to meet standard As part of that testing, panels undergo ice sphere impacts to simulate hail, and are designed to withstand such impacts. In addition, panels are tested to operate in a temperature range from -40 to +85 Celsius. Regarding wind and snow loading, these issues will be addressed by your local jurisdiction as part of the permitting process. And while snow on top of panels can reduce solar production, it will cause no lasting damage once it melts.
Frequently Asked Questions about the GreenFaith AP Solar Residential Solar Program Questions 1. What steps does the homeowner follow to have a solar array installed? 2. How long is the term of the agreement?
Mission Statement: Sunlight Solar Energy is dedicated to educating our customers and empowering them to make intelligent buying decisions.
YOUR SUNPOWER SOLAR SYSTEM GUIDE WELCOME TO SUNPOWER Congratulations on leasing a new SunPower solar system. With over 100,000 solar systems powering homes worldwide, more homeowners are choosing SunPower.


Division 2 $5,181 1 winner of $5,181.35 .
Division 3 $4,973 13 winners of $382.55 each.
Division 4 $5,363 49 winners of $109.45 each.
Division 5 $9,344 312 winners of $29.95 each.
Division 6 $25,851 1,231 winners of $21.00 each.
Division 7 $71,510 4,966 winners of $14.40 each.
Division 8 $138,181 12,854 winners of $10.75 each.


Welcome to my music hub! I'm so glad you're here. I'm absolutely passionate about music because I believe it is a universal language with the power to connect us all. Songs have the unique ability to transport us beyond the confines of space and time, and I think, they even have the strength to heal us from the inside out. That's precisely why I wanted to create music in the first place and that's why I'm still creating it today. Thanks for landing here!
MUSIC. ENTREPRENEURSHIP. LETTERS TO MYSELF.
JaclynSteeleInternational.com is my brand hub. It houses my blog + it exists to be my little satellite call to you all to share my music, business pursuits, + what I find to be, well, worth sharing. Life is best when it is shared + that's precisely how I intend to live it. Please join me.
Jaclyn Steele is a singer, songwriter, + entrepreneur from Dubuque, IA. Her love for creating music has led to many cross country moves, competitions, the signing of a record deal, the leaving of a record deal, turning down an audition for the Voice, + the creation of many songs + stories in between.
Her musical style is ever changing + has been greatly influenced by song writing artists like Patty Griffin, Sara Bareilles, Taylor Swift, Brooke Fraser, + Joy Williams. Jaclyn has experimented with musical genres like she plays the guitar – with a childlike curiosity + an openness to allow each song to choose it's own categorical label.
Her 2018 release, The Main Libre Demo, is a compilation of varying songs + styles geared toward deep self expression + musical experimentation. In a world where money can buy just about anything, Jaclyn challenged herself to get this EP recorded + released with spending as little of it as possible. She wrote 2 of the songs, co-wrote the 3rd, put in a lot of work-trade hours at the recording studio, designed + created all the graphics, + marketed the EP herself through her branding firm, SteeleInternational.co. She did this to encourage others to follow their dreams regardless of budget.
Main Libre means "open hand" in French. She named the EP that because during the process of creating it, she was reminded over + over that when one keeps an open hand, we allow creativity to flow + the universe to work it's magic without our interference.
She now resides in Georgia with her husband, 3 dogs, 1 cat, + lots of books.
I'm so not alone in being multi-passionate, but trying to explain what I do at a cocktail hour in one sentence + then hand someone 3 business cards with 3 different websites is too complicated for me. That's why I created Jaclyn Steele International. It houses all that is important to me + what I feel might benefit you. Multiple projects, 1 hub. Simplicity feels so good.
I am passionate about business & Steele International LLC allows me to exercise this passion. My team and I offer bespoke branding, messaging, platform building, consulting, graphic design, website design, & targeted marketing campaigns.
Everything you need for business growth and differentiation – in one place.
READY TO LOOK LIKE A BILLION BUCKS?
Want to connect? Shoot me a message and I'll get back to you ASAP. Have an AWESOME day!


text:
Council devote £250,000 to community groups to help vulnerable
Cheshire West and Chester Council have set up a new community fund
David HolmesChief reporter
Cllr Carol Gahan
Cheshire West and Chester Council is making £250,000 available for community groups to support the vulnerable as COVID-19 creates challenges to our normal way of life.
More than 1,000 residents have already pledged their support for a coordinated response organised by the council, Cheshire West Voluntary Action (CWVA) and the rest of the community and voluntary sector.
Many initiatives have started to appear as West Cheshire shows 'true community spirit' in providing practical support to some of the most vulnerable people in the borough.
This new Community Fund, worth £250,000, will help projects with setting up costs as well as more established groups that will continue to provide valuable services during the fight against COVID-19.
It could fund things like training volunteers, administration, marketing, fuel, supplies and other costs.
100 days of lockdown in pictures
Cheshire death toll by neighbourhood
Coronavirus cases search by postcode
Councillor Carol Gahan, cabinet member for finance, said: "The response so far to the coordinated community response has been outstanding.
"In times like this, our communities are playing their part and showing the real difference they can make when they come together.
"With so many new community initiatives starting to appear, we have launched this fund to help them get up and running.
"It is important that all new community initiatives and good neighbours out there have the right systems in place.
"Not only do we need to make sure that we safeguard the people being supported, but also that people getting involved with these initiatives look after themselves."
Details about how you can apply for funding will be available later this week. Your local councillor will also be able to direct you to the Community Fund so you can see how it could benefit your group.
You can register your support for the coordinated community response here.
Cheshire West and Chester Council


Today kicks off Mary Franches Fisher's Blog Tour for Paradox Forged in Blood! Check out the tour stops below and enter to win a copy!
For more information, please visit Mary Frances Fisher's website. You can also find her on Facebook.


text:
Emotions and experiences of war remain fresh for Tom Showalter, one of the U.S. Army's remaining survivors of WWII
By Liesl Graber, Contributor
Posted in Harrisonburg Issues
As a 19-year-old farm boy from Rockingham County, Tom Showalter says he had no idea what to expect when he learned he was drafted into the U.S. Army to fight half a world away in the deadliest war in human history.
"It was all new," said Showalter, who now lives in Harrisonburg. "You just didn't know anything. But then again, I wasn't the only dumb guy who didn't know anything. There were lots of us like that."
Farm life prepared Showalter for the strength required for war, but not for the terror he would face — when landing on Utah Beach in one of the subsequent waves after D-Day, then facing German soldiers or when a shell exploded near him while on guard duty sending shrapnel through his leg.
"I was scared the whole time," he said.
Fewer than 500,000 of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II are alive, according to the US Department of Veterans Affairs as of September 30. Showalter — who turns 95 today, a day after Veterans Day — is one of them.
Born on Nov. 12, 1923, Showalter grew up on a farm in Singers Glen, working with his family. His parents and his four brothers and four sisters, plus aunts, uncles and cousins all living within a mile helped each other grow and harvest wheat, milk cows and keep other livestock.
"It was kind of fun to farm, really," he said, smiling.
When he returned home on leave after basic training, Showalter's older sisters made him get his photo taken in uniform.
Tom Showalter, who turns 95 today, shows his military portrait his sisters made him get, as well as the medals for his service in Europe during World War II.
"They made me get in the car, drive in to one of the early photography outfits in Harrisonburg, and had this picture made," he said. "We never wore those hats," he said of the picture, chuckling. "Those were just for important times."
Next to this photo sit his various commendations, as he calls them, including a Purple Heart for being wounded in service and a Bronze Star for acts of valor in combat. He also received medals for sharp shooting with a rifle and reaching expert level with a carbine.
In 1942, Showalter was drafted after completing school at Mt. Clinton High School, along with his brothers Neil and Waldo. Showalter and Waldo drafted into the infantry, Neil into the Navy. All three brothers made it home. His older brother Neil is 96.
Following the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944, Tom Showalter fought in Gen. George Patton's 3rd Army, 26th Yankee Division, 328th infantry. His company landed on Utah Beach ? code for the westernmost part of Normandy, France ? traveled through France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and into Czechoslovakia.
Showalter described the conditions of the war ? marching through destroyed towns and sleeping in the snow.
"You didn't get your blanket every night," he said. Sometimes the trucks couldn't reach the camp due to weather. When that happened, Showalter would stay up all night "kicking trees" to stay warm.
"You don't realize, but this is the way things looked," he said, showing pictures of bombed towns. "The areas you went through were just about banged up."
At 5 a.m. on Feb. 18, 1945, while on guard in the town of Saarlautern, Germany, something exploded nearby, and shrapnel ripped through his thigh, a wound that earned him the Purple Heart.
"It was a mortar shell ? presuming, because you can't hear them coming. When it explodes, it's not this fine ground stuff, but it comes off in particles, and that went in my leg right here into the bone," he said, gesturing to his upper right thigh.
Showalter crawled through half a mile of snow to find help, and after eight weeks in the hospital, returned to the front lines.
The map shows the winding path Showalter's company took through France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Czechoslovakia.
The number of casualties in the war appalls Showalter. On Nov. 8, 1944, Showalter's company of 170 men suffered 35 fatalities, with 87 wounded.
"That many in one day!" he said. "You just don't realize how many people was killed."
Many of Showalter's friends died. "You can't realize what it was like to have somebody that you was in school with and have to say, well, he got killed. You know?"
Showalter recalled how scared he was. "Well, you talk about maximum fear. You just can't imagine what it was like when you laid down somewhere at night. You still thought, 'well, a shell could come in,' this or that," he said.
"It was just like that all the time, just scared to maximum fear that you was going to get killed," he said. "We wasn't in combat for much less than a year, but that's long enough to be scared like that."
Returning from the war, Showalter said, was not difficult.
"We were all ready for that day," he said.
He met his late-wife Alda Riggleman through a group of friends soon after the war.
"Alda was one of the real good friends that I got to know," he said, eyes twinkling. They married and had a son and a daughter.
When he returned from service, Showalter worked as an electrician for 58 years. He also started a local chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars with his cousin in his former high school. He wanted to make sure his children had a good life.
"I consider myself one of the luckiest people alive to call that man my daddy," said Tana Showalter, his daughter. Everyone who knows him would agree, she says.
"Whenever my nephew gets into tough spots, he asks himself, 'What would Grandad do?' and that just tells you what kind of man he is," Tana said.
"I'm very proud of him," said Showalter's son, Tommy. His father being a veteran means a lot to him, "though I've definitely heard a lot more about it now that he's in his 90s."
Tommy said his father did not talk about the war often while Tommy was growing up, though Showalter would tell an occasional story.
"Growing up, he was just Dad," Tana echoed, saying Showalter was never shy about his stories when he told them. "Whether they were good or bad, he told them like they were," she said. "There was one story of his buddy getting near blown in half."
Tommy recalled a Christmas Day story, in which enemy parties met on a hill and agreed to stop fighting to celebrate Christmas together instead. "They went down the hill, and the next time they met, they were fighting each other."
Thinking back on the war, Showalter said it's hard to be philosophical about something that caused so much death.
"You know, I think there ought to be some kind of an international deal that would prevent a country from declaring a war, or from participating in one." Millions of people died in the war, he said, from all sides involved. "I presume it's possibly a way for the population of the world to be controlled, and maybe that's God's way of controlling civilization. I don't know."
Now, as one of the dwindling number of Americans who saw the horrors of World War II firsthand, Showalter spends much of his time looking to the future and boasting about his two-year-old great-grandson, Easton.
"He is just as lively as he can be. He just can't stand still," he said. His face lit up. "Thinking of my great grandson, I just hope that things get so that it will be a pleasant pleasure to live."
HistoryVeterans DayWWII
Liesl Graber, Contributor
Liesl is an emerging writer on the freelance scene, after spending four years writing for Eastern Mennonite University's student newspaper The Weather Vane. She graduated from EMU in June 2018 and aspires to use her degree in English and writing studies to craft stories about the city she calls home. Eventually, Liesl wants to get her Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing and pursue her passion for writing children's literature.


text:
Beware the unexpected attack vector
Threats from all sides
Scott Granneman Thu 10 Feb 2005 // 11:24 UTC
A new round of attacks and phishing attempts use some unexpected attack vectors that we should have been paying attention to, but weren't, writes Scott Granneman of SecurityFocus.
Back in 1882, Los Angeles was a rough, dry town of 12,000 people that had been an incorporated municipality for a little over 3 decades. 1882 also saw the introduction of telephone service and electric streetlights. At the time there were several newspapers in town, including the Los Angeles Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. Competition between newspaper rivals was fierce, but no one at the time realized where the biggest threat would come from: a young 19-year-old sharpie named Harry Chandler, who had just moved to Los Angeles and had started working for the Times.
In 1882, Los Angeles newspapers were delivered by independent contractors spread all over the city. Chandler saved his pennies and began buying those routes, one by one, until 1886 when he owned virtually all the paper delivery routes in the city, including those of his employer's rivals. Soon newspapers weren't getting delivered to subscribers, or if they did show up, they were so late as to be useless. That is, newspapers weren't being delivered... except for the Times. And the delivery boys began to whisper to their customers that all newspapers papers were unreliable, except for the Times. Lo and behold, people began canceling their subscriptions for anything but the Times until finally all but the Times were out of business.
If only those other publishers in the late 1880s had paid attention to the real threat, they might have had a fighting chance. Having focused on the obvious danger - other publishers and other papers - they ignored an attack on their business that came from an unexpected source. They should have been paying attention to the mechanisms used to deliver their product to their customers... instead they paid for their blunder with their livelihoods. It's not a bad lesson for security pros to learn as well.
Multiple attack vectors
We've seen a lot of interesting attacks recently, ones that arose from leveraging unexpected openings that we should have been paying attention to, but weren't.
For instance, most of us know that virtually all anti-virus software packages will now scan ZIP attachments, and this is obviously a good thing. You'd think, or assume, that A/V software would also scan other compressed filetypes as well, like GZ, SIT, and RAR. However that's not usually the case, as some people discovered just a few days ago when it was revealed that viruses hidden inside RAR files passed right by A/V software from major vendors.
This is pretty shocking. I know that RAR isn't widely used - I've seen it only a few times in my years online - but still, it is in use and it's trivial to encode a virus inside a RAR file. Why wasn't it part of the A/V protection that millions of people, in hundreds of thousands of organizations and homes, use and depend upon?
Further, what other filetypes are currently not being scanned but should be? What about SIT? GZ? TAR? 7Z? ARJ? BZIP? CPIO? RPM? DEB? ACE? Z? DGCA? LHA? SHAR? SEA? ZOO? (If you know what all those mean, consider yourself awarded with a nerd gold star.)
The big example of an attack that we should have expected, but didn't, came just a few days ago when the "everyone-but-Microsoft" International Domain Name exploit was revealed at Shmoocon. As the explanation presented by the Shmoos (you do know what a shmoo is, don't you?) puts it, "International Domain Name [IDN] support in modern browsers allows attackers to spoof domain name URLs + SSL certs." Want to see it in action? Head over to either Shmoo or Secunia and try it out for yourself.
You're not really at Paypal's website; instead, you're viewing content served up by the Shmoos or Secunia. In the case of Shmoo, you're really at a site owned by Shmoo, with the domain name of www.pàypal.com - it's just that Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, Konqueror, and Safari don't display the real URL. Due to vagaries in the way that certain browsers use punycode to display URLs using homographs - letters from one character set that resemble letters in another) - it's incredibly easy to fool people into thinking they're at one site when they're actually at another. A new vector for phishing attacks! Wonderful! (And by the way - IE doesn't support the IDN spec yet, so it isn't vulnerable ... unless you installed the Verisign IDN plugin, which fortunately has an auto-update feature that we can hope will deliver a patch soon.)
A range of fixes almost immediately cropped up for Firefox and other Mozilla-based browsers, actions which display the speed and ingenuity of the open source community at its best. The first proposed solution was to edit the prefs.js file, affected by entering about:config in the Location bar, and then changing network.enableIDN to "false". Unfortunately, this doesn't stick when you restart Firefox; the safer and more permanent route is to edit user.js and add this line:
user_pref("network.enableIDN", false);
One blogger, among many others, proposed editing the registry on Windows machines, but unfortunately that solution gets overwritten any time an extension or theme is installed. Kevin Jarnot modified the SpoofStick extension for Firefox so that it clearly labels any URL homographs, which isn't a bad solution if you don't mind having the SpoofStick extension constantly visible in your browser.
You can also use the Adblock extension to block sites that use IDN - just add the following filter to your list of blocked sites (thanks to Firefox and Mozilla uber-expert John T. Haller and the WWWAC list for this one):
/[^\x20-\xFF]/
Actually, though, all of these fixes are no longer required. In a burst of speed, Firefox and Mozilla developers have already patched the browsers to solve the problem. Expect an update to be pushed out automatically soon; in the meantime, if you're highly paranoid (and I know that most of those reading this are), implement one of the suggested solutions above.
Unfortunately, Opera's Norwegian developers appear to have misunderstood the threat since, according to Shmoo, "They believe they have correctly implemented IDN, and will not be making any changes." Unbelievable. Go ahead and test the vulnerability in Opera - I did, and the flaw is clearly evident. I'm hoping that Opera soon realizes that they need to fix this fast if they want to maintain any semblance of goodwill and respect in the security community.
And where's Apple's response? So far we've heard nothing. I'm confident they'll quietly issue a patch soon that corrects this problem, but it would be nice for the company to at least acknowledge that there is, in fact, a problem.
The sad thing about this whole mess is that it really didn't have to happen this way. In February 2002 Communications of the ACM published a paper by Evgeniy Gabrilovich and Alex Gontmakher titled "The Homograph Attack" that described the problem in detail. At the time, however, IDNs were still something exotic, and no browsers supported them. Flash forward a few years, and we have browsers that support IDNs, domain registrars that are aggressively pushing them and paying absolutely no attention to the associated phishing problems... another example of the growing problem of phishing.
It just goes to show that security pros need to stay on top of things by trying to think of attacks and vulnerabilities from every possible angle, arriving from every possible direction. Remember that sometimes it is the obvious things, the ones we should have seen but didn't, that make us smack our head and shout "d'oh!" - that are the most dangerous.
As for Harry Chandler and the Los Angeles of the last 19th century, he was rewarded for his near-criminal avarice. Harrison Gray Otis was impressed with the cleverness of his young charge, and allowed one of his daughters to marry him in 1894. In 1917, Chandler took over the paper from his father-in-law Otis, a job he held for almost the next 30 years. Eventually he got into land speculation, holding over 1.5 million acres around L.A. Not too bad for a man who at one time controlled all the newspaper delivery boys in Los Angeles. Chandler succeeded, but let's hope that the virus-writers and the phishers fail.
If you'd like to read more about Chandler and the history of the Los Angeles Times, check out Privileged Son: Otis Chandler and the Rise and Fall of the L.A. Times Dynasty by Dennis McDougal. You can find reviews of McDougal's book at Business Week or in the 23 & 30 April 2001 issue of The New Yorker.
Scott Granneman is a senior consultant for Bryan Consulting Inc. in St. Louis. He specializes in internet services and developing web applications for corporate, educational, and institutional clients.
Security holes that run deep
Fighting the army of byte-eating zombies
Your data is at risk - from everything


text:
I am not grooming my son for presidency
UN in South Sudan sees possible deal but...
Rwanda suspends BBC broadcasts over genocide...
By Vision Reporter
Added 24th October 2014 02:36 PM
That is an insult. Why should I groom my son? This is not a monarchy; this is not a feudal arrangement. It is a democratic order.
President Yoweri Museveni has described as "an insult", reports that he is grooming his son Brig. Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, to take on the presidency after him. He was on Tuesday appearing on BBC's Focus on Africa News programme.
Introduction by the programme host: Uganda's President, Yoweri Museveni, has been in power for 28 years and with elections coming up in 2016, many are wondering if he will stand for another five-year term. Or if he, as some have speculated, will anoint his son, Brig. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, to succeed him.
Just last month, the President sacked his prime minister Amama Mbabazi, who has been accused of mobilizing support in the lead-up to the polls.
BBC Focus on Africa's Lebo Diseko asked President Museveni if he sacked his prime minister because he posed a threat to his candidacy.
A: Who told you that I sacked Mbabazi? I just appointed a new Prime Minister.
Q: Many Ugandans would say that there was quite a bitter competition or power struggle as it were, for power in the party.
A: If somebody is engaged in a power struggle, that is a problem. But competition is different. Power struggle is like intrigue. If it is competition, then it is according to the rules; the speculation that Museveni sacked Mbabazi is wasting your time for nothing.
These are our party issues and we shall solve them. You just watch and you will see what will happen.
Q: There has been talk that has not been going away; that you are grooming your son to take over from you. What do you have to say about that?
A: That is an insult. Why should I groom my son? This is not a monarchy; this is not a feudal arrangement. It is a democratic order.
Q: You say it is not a monarchy, but there are several members of your family that are in quite high positions. Your brother-inlaw (Sam Kutesa) is the foreign affairs minister, your brother (Salim Saleh) is senior presidential advisor on defence, your wife (Janet Museveni) is a minister for the Karamoja region and your daughter is a private secretary. There are a number of your family members who are in quite high positions; surely you cannot underestimate why people have questions around that?
A: My brother, who is a General (army), went through fighting and fighting is not a privilege. It is a sacrifice. He joined our struggle when he was, I think, 16, that is why he is in that position you are talking about.
My wife, against my advice, joined politics and she was elected. That is what you call democracy — including disobeying husbands. That is all democratic.
The other one whom you call brother-in-law joined politics long ago. So unless you say that the son of a politician should not marry the daughter of a politician, that is when we can guarantee against that.
Otherwise, it has nothing to do with the family.
Q: Are you planning to run?
A: It is not me planning. It is what my party wants and what the country needs.
We sit down as a party and assess what the country needs and what the party can offer and then who among us can deliver? That is how we have done it all these years.
Transcribed by Cyprian Musoke and Nicholas Wassajja
Museveni's son Muhoozi promoted to Brigadier
Museveni's son says not groomed for presidency
Iam not grooming my son for presidency
Weird things that happen during exams
Why Ugandans are locked out of African Court of Human Rights...
Uganda's conversations today - October 30
MTN boss allowed back, returns today
New Luuka district lacks medical staff
When should one start treatment?
Shifting talks venue is only a waste of precious time
Fill in your Name and Email Address to receive a Free Newsletter
Why Ugandans are locked out of African Court of Human Rights
KCC Inter-Cities Champs
Hasule Stays At Police
FUFA Hires 10 Lawyers
Govt, EU want results as sh110b Northern Uganda projects starts
Will Man Utd end Liverpool's unbeaten run today?
Brexit's new chapter: the 'impossible' trade deal
Trump lawyers present defense for 'dangerous' impeachment


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