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1814: Juan Antonio Caro de Boesi
Add comment October 16th, 2019 Headsman
Above: Cristus Factus Est, composed by the black Venezuelan musician Juan Antonio Caro de Boesi. He was shot on this date in 1814 by the notoriously brutal royalist caudillo Jose Tomas Boves, for his support of independence.
There are oddly conflicting claims that he shared an orchestral martyrdom with Juan Jose Landaeta, the composer of Venezuela's national anthem; however, most sources date this man's death to as early as 1812, not in connection with a firing squad but an earthquake. This might be an instance where the unreliable narrator that is Clio has conflated the biographies of two similar figures.
For both of these and others besides from that generation of strife and birth, we submit Caro de Boesi's Misa de Difuntos (Mass of the Dead).
1817: Manuel Piar, Bolivarian general - 2020
1752: William Jillet, Daniel Johnson, and David Smith - 2018
1771: Mary Jones, hanged for shoplifting - 2017
1555: Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, Oxford martyrs - 2016
1730: Nevsehirli Damat Ibrahim Pasha, Tulip Era Grand Vizier - 2015
1935: George Criner, "anything can happen to anybody" - 2014
1946: Neville Heath, torture-killer - 2013
1891: William Rose - 2012
1675: Samuel Guile, Puritan rapist - 2011
1975: The Balibo Five, before the invasion of East Timor - 2010
1946: The Nuremberg Trial War Criminals - 2009
1793: Marie Antoinette - 2008
1811: Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, for Mexican independence
1817: Policarpa Salavarrieta, Colombian independence heroine
1814: Vicente Salias, Venezuelan national anthem author
1841: Hermano Pule and his surviving followers
1922: Robert Erskine Childers, for carrying the gun of Michael Collins
1817: Gertrudis Bocanegra, Mexican independence heroine
Entry Filed under: 19th Century,Artists,Arts and Literature,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Execution,History,Occupation and Colonialism,Power,Revolutionaries,Separatists,Shot,Spain,Summary Executions,Venezuela,Wartime Executions
Tags: 1810s, 1814, juan antonio caro de boesi, music, october 16
1591: Marigje Arriens
Add comment December 18th, 2018 Headsman
On this date in 1591, the Dutch "witch" Marigje Arriens was burned at the stake.
A 70-year-old Schoonhoven folk healer, Arriens (English Wikipedia entry | Dutch) was accused of enspelling some little twerp and driven into the whole copulating with Satan in exchange for supernatural powers thing common to many witch trials.
A fairly well-known witch hunt victim, she's the dedicatee of Swedish metal band Bathory's* "Born for Burning".
* The band's name of course pays tribute to a whole other historic atrocity.
1953: Carl Hall and Bonnie Brown Heady - 2019
2009: Gerald Dube, from Cell 10 - 2017
1942: Six aspiring escapees from Dulag-205 - 2016
1946: One sex killer and four POW camp murderers - 2015
1939: Fifty-six Poles shot in retaliation at Bochnia - 2014
1894: John Cronin, by an automated gallows - 2013
1691: Eleven at Tyburn - 2012
1529: Desle la Mansenee in the Luxeuil Trial - 2011
1789: The Canadian Burglars - 2010
1609: Vicente Turixi, King of the Moriscos - 2009
1878: John Kehoe, king and last of the Molly Maguires - 2008
1838: Seven perpetrators of the Myall Creek Massacre - 2007
1571: Anneken Hendriks, cursed Mennonist
1533: The witch of Schiltach
1546: Anne Askew, the only woman tortured in the Tower
1600: The Pappenheimer Family
1327: Adso's lover in The Name of the Rose
1620: Sidonia von Borcke, the sorceress
1599: Elisabeth Strupp, Gelnhausen witch
Entry Filed under: 16th Century,Arts and Literature,Burned,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Execution,History,Netherlands,Public Executions,Torture,Witchcraft,Women
Tags: 1590s, 1591, december 18, marigje arriens, music, schoonhoven
1883: Not Alferd (sic) Packer, #nerdprom attendee
Add comment May 19th, 2018 dogboy
The National Press Club is probably best known for its White House Correspondent's Dinner. This site prefers to think of it as the site of the Alferd Packer plaque, a memorial to a cannibal who avoided hanging.
(cc) image from Kurt Riegel.
The plaque is rather unassuming, its simple polished brass declaring: "The Alferd Packer Memorial Grill — In Memory of Stan Weston 1931-1984." Weston was the public affairs officer at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, who came up with a 1977 contest to name the USDA's new cafeteria. But hold that thought for now.
Packer was born in Pennsylvania in 1842. He made his way west and joined the Union Army in Minnesota, then ambled on into the Rockies as a pioneer after the Civil War. In a particularly stunning feat of incompetence, he and five others separated from a larger expedition and tried to make it across a mountain pass in January 1874. Three months later, Packer arrived on the other side, declaring that he got separated from the other five.
But Packer had taken money and effects from them, which made the remaining members of his expedition more than a little suspicious. Caught out in a lie, Packer confessed to a carnivorous progress through his comrades: Israel Swan froze to death, and he was eaten; James Humphreys died a few days later, and he was eaten; then Frank Miller was likely murdered and eaten; and George "California" Noon fell to the pistol of Wilson Bell. With Bell armed and dangerous, Packer claims to have killed him and taken a bit of a snack for the road.*
Packer was arrested shortly after his return, but he slipped his bonds and escaped to Wyoming. There the law finally caught up to him. He was returned to Colorado, where a judge sentenced the cannibal to death.
The hanging was not to be. Packer appealed the conviction, which was ultimately overturned by the Colorado Supreme Court; on retrial he was remanded for a 40-year prison sentence instead. He was paroled in 1901, took a job as a guard at the Denver Post (who had, incidentally, helped him make parole), and died in 1907.
Back to the memorial grill.
Why would the USDA honor such an odd historical figure? Politics.
In 1977, newly appointed Secretary of Agriculture Bob Bergland had a beef with the General Service Administration, which refused to terminate the Nixon-era contract award for cafeteria services and food. Bergland's response? Let the disgruntled employees name** and shame. The USDA cafeteria became the Packer Memorial Grill,† and Bergland paraded the press through the facility, taking every opportunity to point out just how similar he felt the food was to the diet of the honoree.
The contract was rescinded later in 1977. The plaque, meanwhile, was taken off the wall just a week after its installation. Initially, the GSA claimed it was not approved prior to installation, but it turns out the building manager, a GSA employee named Melvin Schick, simply found the name distasteful.
All of which begs the question of how it ended up gracing the National Press Club's bar, emblazoned with Stan Weston's name. The answer probably lies in Wesley McCune, founding member of the "Friends of Alferd Packer" and member of the National Press Club. Schick returned the plaque to Weston after the goings-on at the USDA cafeteria, and Weston hung it in his office. McCune's group met most Aprils to hold an Alferd Packer dinner at the National Press Club. Stanley D Weston died in July of 1984, and while it's unclear when the plaque went up, by 1989, this unusual object had a permanent home.
* A memorial was placed at Cannibal Plateau in the 1920s.
** The plaque was originally purchased by Bob Meyer and Stan Weston.
† And it wasn't the first! The University of Colorado has had an Alferd Packer Restaurant & Grill since 1968.
2020: Walter Barton, coronavirus milestone - 2020
1893: Ai Yone - 2019
1732: Petrus Vuyst, governor of Dutch Ceylon - 2017
1558: Three reformers at Norwich - 2016
1865: Not Lambdin P. Milligan, ex parte man - 2015
1864: Nikolay Chernyshevsky's "civil execution" - 2014
399 BCE: Socrates - 2013
1998: Wissam Issa and Hassan Abu Jabal - 2012
1942: Shimon Cohen, ladykiller - 2011
2005: Richard Cartwright, uncensored - 2010
1817: Three criminals in Rome, as witnessed by Lord Byron - 2009
1536: Anne Boleyn - 2008
1896: Four in New Mexico, in three different towns
1876: Jesse Pomeroy's sentence commuted
1827: Isaac Desha pardoned by Gov. Joseph Desha
1885: Not John "Babbacombe" Lee, the man they could not hang
1829: William Burke, eponymous body-snatcher
1884: Maggie and Michael Cuddigan lynched in Ouray
1878: Sevier Lewis, a family affair
Entry Filed under: 19th Century,Arts and Literature,Capital Punishment,Colorado,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,Guest Writers,Hanged,History,Murder,Not Executed,Other Voices,Pardons and Clemencies,Popular Culture,USA
Tags: 1880s, 1883, alferd packer, bureaucracy, cannibal, cannibalism, cannibals, music, white house correspondents dinner
1795: Sayat-Nova
1 comment September 22nd, 2017 Headsman
The Armenian poet Sayat-Nova ("King of Songs") was martyred on this date in 1795 by the invading Qajar army.
Poet, singer, and legendary wielder of the kamancheh in the court of the Georgian king,* Sayat-Nova was also an ordained priest in the Armenian Church.
This last point would figure crucially upon the invasion of the Qajar Shah seized the Caucasus in a 1795 bloodbath:** trapped in a monastery, Sayat-Nova faced the ritual Islamic offer of conversion or death. He chose immortality.
His legendary name and likeness adorn many public places in Armenia (not to mention an Armenian cognac), as well as places touched by the Armenian diaspora like a Boston dance company.
YouTube searches on the man's name yield a rich trove of songs and movies about the man, but the best commemoration for these pages is surely his own music.
* Until he got ejected for scandalously falling in love with the king's sister and became a wandering bard. Poets!
** The Shah was assassinated two years later, and the Qajars lost their grip on the Caucasus as a result.
1630: Yuan Chonghuan - 2020
Feast Day of St. Maurice - 2019
1882: Jack Chatman, waxed wroth - 2018
1681: Maria, Jack, and William Cheney - 2016
1589: Franz Seuboldt, broken parricide - 2015
1692: The Salem witch trials' last hangings - 2014
1909: Les Chauffeurs de la Drome - 2013
1944: Pietro Caruso, fascist chief of police - 2012
1675: Little John - 2011
1913: Ernest Austin, the last hanged in Queensland - 2010
2006: Three Sulawesi Christians - 2009
1776: Nathan Hale, with regrets - 2008
1613: Ivan Susanin, a life for the tsar
869 or 870: St. Edmund the Martyr
1098: Rainald Porchet, martyr Crusader
c. 415 B.C.E.: The men of Melos
1530: Francesco Ferruccio, victim of Maramaldo
1944: Kaj Munk, Danish pastor-poet
Entry Filed under: 18th Century,Armenia,Artists,Arts and Literature,Borderline "Executions",Execution,Famous,God,History,Iran,Martyrs,Myths,Occupation and Colonialism,Put to the Sword,Religious Figures,Summary Executions,Wartime Executions
Tags: 1790s, 1795, agha mohammad khan, christianity, christians, islam, music, sayat-nova, september 22
1936: Vladimir Mutnykh, Bolshoi director
Add comment November 26th, 2016 Headsman
On this date in 1937, the director of Moscow's famed Bolshoi Theater was shot in the Gulag … even as Uncle Joe mangled his greatest commission.
Vladimir Ivanovich Mutnykh is the man whose suffering occasions this post but as with the Terror itself he will for us be a footnote to a different story.
Mutnykh ultimately fell prey to the chill that Stalin cast over Soviet arts — where come the 1930s the only fare liable to pass muster with the censors (or indeed, with the executioners) were creations of turgid doctrinal correctness or cautious revivals from the pre-Revolutionary literary canon.
The strictures on artists also reflected Moscow's abiding preoccupation with the cultural preeminence of Russia and of Communism.
Among the USSR's many and varied exertions towards the latter end during the 1930s, not least was a project to induce a return to the motherland by genius (and homesick) composer Sergei Prokofiev, who had been mostly living and working Europe since the Bolshevik Revolution.*
In the mid-1930s, Stalin's cultural ambassadors finally got their man.** And one of the plums that secured Prokofiev's permanent repatriation was a commission to create for Mutnykh's Bolshoi Theater a ballet version of the Shakespeare classic Romeo and Juliet.
Today, Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet is one of the best-known and most widely performed of all his considerable output.
Some might even call Romeo and Juliet Prokofiev's magnum opus. But Prokofiev wouldn't have called it that.
Having gone to such great trouble to lure back a revolutionary artist, Soviet cultural officers were predictably aghast to discover that he produced a revolutionary reimagining of the Bard. In Prokofiev's original composition, the star-crossed lovers get a happy ending and escape together instead of dying in the tomb. "Living people can dance, the dead cannot," Prokofiev explained, unavailingly. The idea is that their love transcends the shackles of their family rivalry; even, that they had transcended the backwards political order that made them enemies. But Soviet bureaucrats were positively hidebound when it came to fiddling with the classics, and the director was forced to return to the tragic ending.
Nor was this the end of the meddling.
In 1936, joyless cultural commissar Platon Kerzhentsev ransacked the Bolshoi leadership, including Mutnykh — who had given the initial green light to Prokofiev's first, heretical version.
For the next several years, the ballet with the checkerboard floor was twisted into shape by the Soviet bureaucracy, wringing change after change out of a frustrated but powerless Prokofiev. By the time it finally premiered — at the Kirov, not the Bolshoi — Prokofiev's collaborator dramatist Sergei Radlov disgustedly wrote to friends that "I take no responsibility for this disgrace."
"The version that's known and loved around the world is completely incorrect," said Simon Morrison, a Princeton professor. "There's an act missing. There are dances orchestrated by people against Prokofiev's wishes, and other stuff he was forced to put in there against his will."
In the course of researching his 2010 book on Prokofiev, The People's Artist, Morrison amazingly dredged up the original Prokofiev composition and documentary trails showing that the composer was forced to scrap three too-exotic dances, to "thicken" the orchestration, and to add elements like a group dance number and solos to show off the Kirov's talent.† The ballet didn't debut at the Bolshoi until 1946, when Stalin himself signed off it.
"Once the work was performed, Prokofiev was dismayed at a lot of things, including the sound of the orchestra. He wrote a long letter of protest but none of the changes were made to the score," Morrison told the London Independent. "It became the canonic version, a reorganised, torn-up work. It's a testament to how great the melodic writing is – it still became a great classic despite this mangling of it."
A few books by Simon Morrison on Prokofiev and his world
* Prokofiev was neither an exile nor a refugee; his departure from the USSR in 1918 was voluntary and legally blessed. He had had no problem in the intervening years coming back to Russia and leaving again.
** One immediate product of Prokofiev's return was the beloved 1936 children's production Peter and the Wolf.
He also in 1938 gloriously scored Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky.
† Morrison in 2008 staged performances of Prokofiev's original version of Romeo and Juliet.
1954: Jonas Žemaitis, Lithuanian Forest Brother - 2019
1766: John Clark and James Felton - 2018
1736: James Matthews and Elizabeth Greenley - 2017
2009: Hu Minghua and Su Binde, child abductors - 2015
1948: Hans Karl Möser, for rocketry - 2014
1933: Thomas Thurmond and John Holmes lynched in St. James Park - 2013
1678: William Staley, "the prologue to the bloody tragedy" - 2012
1937: Peljidiin Genden, former Mongolia Prime Minister - 2011
Daily Double: Stalinism east to west - 2011
1940: Jilava Massacre - 2010
1600: Hansel Pappenheimer, following his family - 2009
1849: Sheikh Bouzian, defending Zaatcha - 2008
1919: Felipe Angeles - 2007
1952: Night of the Murdered Poets
1940: Isaak Babel
1939: Mikayil Mushfig, Azerbaijani poet
1937: Pavel Vasiliev, peasant poet
1938: Vladimir Kirshon, Bulgakov antagonist
1937: Titsian Tabidze, poet
1939: Stanislav Kosior, Vlas Chubar and Pavel Postyshev
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Artists,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Execution,History,Russia,Shot,Treason,USSR
Tags: 1930s, 1936, ballet, communism, dance, josef stalin, music, november 26, purge, red terror, romeo and juliet, sergei prokofiev, shakespeare, stalin, vladimir mutnykh, william shakespeare
c. 1560: Dominique Phinot, queer composer
1 comment January 25th, 2016 Headsman
Jacob Bonfadius, a man otherwise not in the last place among the erudite, because of copulation with boys (a most vile and sordid thing), was beheaded in prison and publically burned. The French Dominique Phinot, a distinguished musician, was also killed in the same way for a very similar folly.
–Gerolamo Cardano
This throwaway remark by the Italian Renaissance man Cardano is our only clue to the fate — indeed, to the very biography — of the composer Dominique Phinot. Based on the volume's publication in 1561, it is thought that Phinot suffered for his folly around 1557-1560. We don't even know the place.
Whatever damnatio memoriae obscured him in death, Phinot (English Wikipedia entry | French) was a prominent and highly regarded musician in his working life, acclaimed an expert in polychoral motets. Some 90 exemplars, and dozens of other compositions, survive; the 17th century Italian musicologist Pietro Cerone credited Phinot's innovations with opening the way for Palestrina.
He emerges for posterity through those compositions; the earliest surviving date to 1538 and his publication locales (and the powerful men to whom they were dedicated) suggest a man for whom patrons in northern Italy (and across the Alps in Lyons) eagerly competed in the 1540s and 1550s. It is known that Phinot was retained by the Duke of Urbino for a period.
It is surely topical to notice that our correspondent Cardano was himself widely whispered to enjoy the same folly, too: a Venetian whose deep interest in music led him to "adopt" into his wifeless** household a number of boys with musical gifts, Cardano could hardly fail to court suspicion. "The rumor was being circulated everywhere that I was using my boys for immoral purposes," Cardano reports autobiographically of one instance where he was threatened with exposure. Cardano appears never to have been formally charged as a sodomite, but it is remarkable — and even, he admits, "foolishness" — that his brushes with danger never caused him to reconsider the boy-keeping policy.†
As a proper Renaissance man, Cardano's interests stretched far beyond pederasty and a good tune. He was, in the backhanded compliment of Sir Thomas Browne, "a great Enquirer of Truth, but too greedy a Receiver of it" and treatised profusely on philosophy, law, geology, astronomy, pedagogy, medicine, and mathematics. The latter two fields brought him his fame, but his musings flashed intermittent prescience across disciplines. Cardano argued for the full mental capacity of the deaf, and correctly inferred that mountains had once been underwater from the presence of seashell fossils upon them. A cryptographic technique, a puzzle, and a gear mechanism all bear the Cardano name. His mathematician's sure grasp on probability also made him a deft gambler — and he published yet another volume on this subject as a young man.
Cardano the physician's most famous patient was the Archbishop of St. Andrews, whom Cardano in 1553 cured of a debilitating asthma that had stricken the prelate speechless and was thought untreatable by contemporaries. Thanks to Cardano, Archbishop Hamilton became spry enough to get hanged for murder in 1571.
Yet Cardano the man had a still closer acquaintance with the executioner's office through the person of his firstborn son … a topic for another day's post.
* Opera Omnia, vol. 2, p. 354 (Theonoston seu de tranquilitate) Translation via Clement Miller in "Jerome Cardan on Gombert, Phinot, and Carpentras," The Musical Quarterly, July 1972. The aforementioned Gombert was another composer who got busted for same-sex contact; he caught a term in the galleys.
** Cardano's wife Lucia died in 1546.
† For more see Guido Giglioni, "Musicus Puer. A note on Cardano's household and the dangers of music," Bruniana & Campanelliana, vol. 11, no. 1 (2005).
1774: John Malcom, tarred and feathered - 2020
1358: Perrin Mace, de-sanctuaried - 2019
1830: Benito de Soto, a pirate hanged at Gibraltar - 2018
2017: Seven in Kuwait, including a sheikh - 2017
1788: John Price Posey, "superlative villain" - 2015
1928: Ben "Two Gun" Fowler, cinema shooter - 2014
2010: Chemical Ali - 2013
1971: Ousmane Balde, Barry III, Magassouba Moriba, Loffo Camara, Keita Kara Soufiana, and many others in Conakry - 2012
1911: Sugako Kanno, radical feminist - 2011
1996: Billy Bailey, the last American hanged - 2010
Daily Double: Throwback Executions - 2010
1795: Unspecified Robespierrists - 2009
1663: Nathaniel Greensmith, Rebecca Greensmith and possibly Mary Barnes, Connecticut "witches" - 2008
1772: The Marquis de Sade and his servant, in effigy
Feast Day of St. Cecilia, patron of music
1561: Cardinal Carlo Carafa, papal nephew
Feast Day of Saint Denis, cephalophore
1831: Julien Sorel, in The Red and the Black
1482: Richard Puller von Hohenburg and Anthony Mätzler
Feast Day of St. Lucy
Entry Filed under: 16th Century,Artists,Arts and Literature,Beheaded,Burned,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Disfavored Minorities,Execution,France,History,Homosexuals,Italy,Sex,Uncertain Dates
Tags: 1550s, 1560s, dominique phinot, gerolamo cardano, music, musicians
1894: John Hardy, desperate little man
On this date in 1894, West Virginia hanged before a crowd of 3,000 for a mining camp murder three months before.
Hardy was reportedly already at odds with Thomas Drews, a fellow laborer in the booming Appalachian coal industry, over their mutual pursuit of the same woman when Hardy lost big to Drews in a craps game on October 13, 1893.
While it's true that twenty-five cents doesn't really seem all that "big", this sum could represent a decent slice of a day's pay in the coal mining game, and that in an industry where downward wage pressure had generated a ferocious national strike only months before. Hardy was profoundly nonplussed to have to fork over the sweat of his brow to a love rival and, with the added incitement of whiskey, shot Drews dead. (Ten more spectators at his hanging wound up in stir themselves for drunk and disorderlies.)
Hardy's execution has pride of place in Americana as the inspiration for the tune "John Hardy Was A Desperate Little Man". (Or simply, "John Hardy"; as a folk figure, he has occasionally been confused or conflated with John Henry)
One of the most popular folk ballads in American history, the song has foggy origins but amazing reach: it has been performed, covered, and reinterpreted by a scores of artists including the Carter Family, Lead Belly, Duke Ellington, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Bob Dylan with the Grateful Dead.
1957: József Dudás, Hungarian Revolution wild card - 2020
2012: 34 in Iraq - 2019
1767: John Williamson, cruel husband - 2018
1735: Alice Riley, Savannah ghost - 2017
1476: Israel, the last execution of the Trent blood libel trial - 2015
1891: James Eubanks - 2014
1894: Albert F. Bomberger, for the Kreider family murders - 2013
1880: Prevost, predatory Parisian policeman - 2012
Daily Triple: 1880 and death - 2012
1866: Martha Grinder, the Pittsburgh Borgia - 2011
1661: Thomas Venner and the Fifth Monarchy Men - 2010
1870: Jean-Baptiste Troppmann, mass murderer - 2009
532: Hypatius and Pompeius, for Byzantine sports riots - 2008
1832: Lucy (Wells), jealous slave
1819: Neyonibe and Naugechek
1893: Scuffletonians in Mt. Vernon, Georgia
1814: Mary Antoine, jealous lover
1828: James "Little Jim" Guild
1854: Uhazy, amid Minnesotan depravity
1897: John Morgan, the last public hanging in West Virginia
Entry Filed under: 19th Century,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Disfavored Minorities,Execution,Hanged,History,Murder,Pelf,Public Executions,Racial and Ethnic Minorities,USA,West Virginia
Tags: 1890s, 1894, alcohol, gamblers, gambling, january 19, john hardy, mining, music, whisky
1929: Nikolaus Karlovich von Meck, wrecker
Add comment May 22nd, 2015 Headsman
On or about this date in 1929, Russian railway magnate Nikolaus (Nikolai) Karlovich von Meck was shot as a saboteur.
Von Meck (Russian link) had the iron horse in his blood: his father Karl was among Russia's first railroad-builders after the Crimean War clock-cleaning motivated the tsar to make with the modernizing.
While von Meck pere was busy laying crossties in the 1860s, the St. Petersburg Conservatory was germinating the young composer Tchaikovsky. In time, the two men would be linked by the union of their kin: our man Nikolaus Karlovich von Meck married Tchaikovsky's niece, Anna.
It wasn't just a glancing association with the musical colossus for the von Mecks. Karl's widow — Nikolaus's mother — Nadezhda was Tchaikovsky's main financial patron for 13 years. They weren't lovers: Tchaikovsky was gay, and the reclusive Nadezhda von Meck demanded as a condition of her patronage that they never meet. But they kept up a voluminous correspondence, and Tchaikovsksy dedicated several works to her — like this Sympohony No. 4 in F minor.
So Nikolaus von Meck was the genius's patron's son as well as the genius's niece's husband.
He was also a brilliant engineer and entrepreneur in his own right; over the 26 years preceding the Russian Revolution, he chaired the Moscow-Kazan Railway firm that his father had begun back in the 1860s. Under the son's leadership its rail-mileage multiplied more than tenfold. He was also one of Russia's first motorists.
Von Meck remained in Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution, continuing to work on developing the now-Soviet state's rail infrastructure — his means reduced, he remained no less the conscientious and patriotic artificer. That held even after the man was arrested as a counter-revolutionary a few different times in the revolution's early years; each time he was soon released.
But by the late 1920s, Stalin was in full control and the industrialist would become the first subject of a new Soviet law against "wreckers".
Ostensibly designed to target the saboteurs that were supposedly retarding economic growth, it would prove its utility in the frightful years ahead as a first-rate instrument of the Terror. The prospect that any economic setback, inefficiency or controversy could be lethally attributed to a cabal of global capitalists intent on strangling communism in the crib made "wrecking" as flexible and as devastating a charge as witchcraft had once been. How do you even begin to rebut that? Wrecking would in time be attributed to innumerable purge victims, great and small, and an implied whip against every worker who might be slacking on his production quota.
This potent juridical apparatus went for its first spin in the North Caucuses city of Shakhty in 1928-29. The Shakhty Trial of 53 engineers and technicians as "wreckers" also has the distinction of being Stalin's first show trial. Von Meck and four other men* were condemned to die, a comparatively modest harvest of blood next to what was to come; 44 others went to prison.
"What accomplished villains these old engineers were! What diabolical ways to sabotage they found!" Solzhenitsyn mused of those luckless souls in The Gulag Archipelago.
Nikolai Karlovich von Meck of the People's Commissariat of Railroads, pretended to be terribly devoted to the development of the new economy, and would hold forth for hours on end about the economic problems involved in the construction of socialism, and he loved to give advice. One such pernicious piece of advice was to increase the size of freight trains and not worry about heavier than average loads. The GPU [forerunner of the NKVD, which in turn became the KGB -ed.] exposed von Meck, and he was shot: his objective had been to wear out rails and roadbeds, freight cars and locomotives, so as to leave the Republic without railroads in case of foreign military intervention! When, not long afterward, the new People's Commissar of Railroads, Comrade Kaganovich, ordered that average loads should be increased, and even doubled and tripled them (and for this discovery received the Order of Lenin along with others of our leaders) — the malicious engineers who protested became known as limiters. They raised the outcry that this was too much, and would result in the breakdown of the rolling stock, and they were rightly shot for their lack of faith in the possibilities of socialist transport.
Nikolaus and Anna's daughter Galina Nikolayevna von Meck — who did time in Siberian exile herself in the 1930s — wrote a memoir of her famous family in 1973, As I Remember Them.
* Notably Peter Palchinsky, whose life is dealt with in some detail in Loren Graham's The Ghost of the Executed Engineer: Technology and the Fall of the Soviet Union.
2002: Johnny Joe Martinez - 2020
1538: John Forest and the image of Saint Derfel Gadarn - 2019
1918: Edla Sofia Hjulgrén, Finnish parliamentarian - 2018
1889: Fulgence-Benjamin Geomay, at the Paris Exposition - 2017
1916: Four French soldiers of the 96 RI - 2016
1824: Antonio Brochetti, galley-dodger - 2014
1942: Stjepan Filipovic, "death to fascism, freedom to the people!" - 2013
1856: Casey and Cora, by the San Francisco Vigilance Committee - 2012
2001: Terrance Anthony James, snitch-killer - 2011
1393: The Muzaffarids, by Timur - 2010
1946: Karl Hermann Frank - 2009
1833: Midgegooroo, Noongar rebel - 2008
1938: Seventeen former Bolshevik officials from the Trial of the 21
1950: The Leningrad Affair "culprits"
1944: Georges Suarez, collaborationist editor
1940: Vsevolod Meyerhold
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Businessmen,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Execution,History,Intellectuals,Milestones,Notable Jurisprudence,Russia,Shot,Torture,Treason,USSR
Tags: 1920s, 1929, economics, engineering, industrialization, may 22, music, nikolaus von meck, peter tchaikovsky, railroads, red terror, shakhty, show trial, stalin, wrecking
1998: Jonathan Wayne Nobles
6 comments October 7th, 2014 Headsman
On this date in 1998, Jonathan Nobles was executed in Texas for a double murder — choked off by the lethal drugs as he sang the words "…sweetmother and child" in the Christmas hymn "Silent Night".
On parole for theft, the drug-addled former electrician Nobles broke into an Austin home on September 13, 1986 wielding a 5.5-inch knife and turned it into a scene of carnage.
Nobles knifed to death two young women, 21-year-old Mitzi Nalley and 24-year-old Kelly Farquhar; when Mitzi's boyfriend, Ron Ross, attempted to come to their aid, Nobles stabbed him 19 times. Ross survived but lost an eye in the attack.
Nobles confessed and was convicted with ease. This is very obviously not a happy story (few are, on this here site) because two innocent humans were destroyed in the bloom of youth, and a third paid for the crime with his own life. But the journey of redemption and forgiveness undertaken thereafter by both Nobles and at least some of those whose lives he devastated cannot help but inspire.*
The Nobles of death row — the man who was finally executed, 12 years after the crime — was at the last a hard man to hate. He converted on death row to Catholicism, eventually becoming a lay preacher. Murder, of course, is such a great crime because in the end the loss is eternal and can never really be repaired or compensated. Nevertheless, it was clear to all those who knew him that Nobles's remorse, his change, was deep and genuine.
"I don't think I'm the monster who perpetrated these terrible acts," Nobles said not long before his execution. "Nothing I can do for a thousand years can relieve me of my responsibility."
Mitzi Nalley's mother, Paula Kurland, made an even more dramatic journey from the other side of that horrible night in Austin. Kurland decided that she needed to forgive her daughter's killer in order to release the bitterness of his crime.
"You forgive because it frees you," she said. "Hopefully, one day, it will free the offender, but that's not the reason you do it. You do it because it frees you."
Kurland eventually met Nobles face to face — "the hardest thing I ever did, second only to burying my child."
I went against my whole family, but I knew that if I didn't tell Jonathan I had forgiven him, I would be a prisoner for the rest of my life. And I couldn't live with that. …
I never wanted to ask him why. That was never important to me. What was important was that I have the opportunity to give him back the responsibility for the devastation and pain and destruction that he brought into a lot of people's lives.
The singer-songwriter (and longtime anti-death penalty activist) Steve Earle, who befriended Nobles, was one of the witnesses to his execution.** Earle quoted his friend's last statement, addressing most of those present by name, thus:
I know some of you won't believe me, but I am truly sorry for what I have done. I wish that I could undo what happened back then and bring back your loved ones, but I can't. [to Paula Kurland] I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I wish I could bring her back to you. [to Ron Ross] And Ron … I took so much from you. I'm sorry. I know you probably don't want my love, but you have it.
[to Steve Earle] Steve, I can't believe that I had to go through all this to see you in a suit coat. Hey man, don't worry about the phone number, bro. You've done so much. I love you. [to his own aunt] Dona, thank you for being here. I know it was hard for you. I love you. [to a British pen pal] Pam, thank you for coming from so far away. Thanks for all you have done. I love you. Bishop Carmody, thank you so much. Reverend Lopez and you, Father Walsh, I love you all. I have something I want to say. It comes from I Corinthians. …
The verse he then recited from memory, the "love is …" passage of 1 Corinthians 13, is all that's reported on Texas's "last statements" website.
Earle's song "Over Yonder (Jonathan's Song)" is inspired by Jonathan Nobles.
* These attempts by both offender and victim to alleviate the spiritual injury inflicted by the crime exemplify restorative justice, an approach to crime and justice that emphasizes healing over punishment.
** "I don't think I'll ever recover from [seeing Nobles executed]. I have absolute waking nightmares about it." –Earle
1943: 98 American civilian contractors on Wake Island - 2008
1999: James Beathard, on the word of a known liar
1992: Johnny Frank Garrett, "kiss my ass because I'm innocent"
1993: Ruben Cantu, an innocent child?
2002: Aileen Wuornos, Monster
1998: Kenneth Allen McDuff, Texas nightmare
2010: Michael Perry, Herzog subject
1993: Joseph Paul Jernigan, Visible Human Project subject
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Arts and Literature,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,Lethal Injection,Murder,Texas,USA
Tags: 1990s, 1998, forgiveness, jonathan nobles, kelly farquhar, mitzi nalley, music, october 7, paula kurland, ron ross, steve earle
1814: Not William Beanes, anthem enabler
Add comment September 14th, 2014 Headsman
On this date two centuries ago, a man on a mission of mercy found his accidental entry into history.
The mercy in question was required for a Maryland fellow named William Beanes. During the War of 1812, the British had seized this 65-year-old doctor on their march back from torching the White House, on grounds of his role jailing British soldiers who were doing some freelance plundering around his beloved Upper Marlboro.
They were making worrying (possibly empty) threats about hanging the man for infringing the laws of war as they held Dr. Beanes in the Chesapeake Bay aboard the H.M.S. Tonnant.* Beanes's friends recruited a respected lawyer (and amateur poet) to get the venerable gentleman out of the soup.
This was accomplished easily enough. Approaching the British warship under a flag of truce, the lawyer and a buddy who was the government's designated prisoner exchange agent managed to convince Gen. Robert Ross to parole his "war criminal" by producing a packet of testimonials from previous British POWs affirming the honorable treatment Dr. Beanes had accorded them. Problem solved.
There was one minor hitch.
Because the British were preparing to attack Baltimore, and the visiting envoys had perforce become privy to some of the forthcoming operational details whose exposure might complicate matters, the hosts detained the whole party at sea pending the encounter's conclusion.
There the Americans looked on, helplessly entranced, as the Battle of Baltimore unfolded. On September 12, there was a land battle (the munificent Gen. Ross was slain by an American sharpshooter as he directed troops in this affair). Then at dawn on September 13, the British fleet commenced a withering bombardment of Baltimore's principal harbor bulwark, Fort McHenry. Safely out of range of the fort's guns, British cannons rained ordnance on the fort throughout the day, 1,500 bombs in all. At one point a missile ripped a white star from the fort's gigantic American flag.
The firing continued into the night. The American bystanders now saw nothing of the fort save by the fleeting illumination of exploding shells. Could it possibly weather the assault? As morning approached, the fleet's firing came to a virtual stop. The Americans could only surmise that this abatement might indicate Fort McHenry's capture by the British. The suspense over the course of the long, dark night must have been near unbearable.
Dawn's early light on September 14, 1814 brought for the Yankees a wondrous sight: the tattered American banner somehow still fluttered over the fort, where they had watched it all the day before.
On September 14, 1814, Francis Scott Key beholds the American flag still flying over Baltimore, just as it had at the previous twilight's last gleaming. (1912 painting by Edward Moran.)
Overjoyed now, Beanes's deliverer Francis Scott Key put his poetic gifts to patriotic use and dashed off a verse celebrating Baltimore's fortitude. "The Defence of Fort McHenry" is better known today (when set to the tune of a British drinking song) as "The Star-Spangled Banner" — the American national anthem. We owe it all to Williams Beanes's capture and prospective hanging.
* A French-built ship captured in Egypt by Horatio Nelson. (Cool painting.) She would go on to fight in the naval prelude to the Battle of New Orleans.
1812: Juan Jose Crespo y Castillo, Huanuco rebel - 2020
2014: Darfur rebels for killing Chinese oil workers - 2019
1568: Jan van Casembroot, Lord of Backerzele - 2018
1888: Alexander Goldenson, San Francisco obsessive - 2017
1979: Nur Muhammad Taraki, grandfather of the Afghan War - 2016
258: St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage - 2015
1459: Pietro di Campofregoso, former Doge of Genoa, stoned to death - 2013
1767: Elizabeth Brownrigg - 2012
1894: Enoch Davis, like a cur - 2011
2000: Cheng Kejie of the National People's Congress - 2010
1932: Paul Gorguloff, who assassinated the French President - 2009
2004: Mamoru Takuma, for the Osaka school massacre - 2008
1347: Not the Six Burghers of Calais
1864: Retaliatory executions by John Mosby
1862: 38 Sioux
1818: Alexander Arbuthnot and Richard Ambrister
1871: The Paris Commune falls
1801: Angre Kethi, Polygar prey
1858: Qualchan
Entry Filed under: 19th Century,Arts and Literature,Doctors,England,Hanged,History,Innocent Bystanders,Maryland,No Formal Charge,Not Executed,Notable Participants,Occupation and Colonialism,USA,Wartime Executions
Tags: 1810s, 1814, baltimore, battle of baltimore, francis scott key, music, patriotism, poetry, september 14, war of 1812, william beanes


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it's cinco de mayo. and i used to teach spanish. and i turned in a major paper last night. let the festivities begin! if you avoid tequila and margaritas like me (sad, i know) then try making some white sangria tonight. white wine, brandy, fresh strawberries and mint… a very refreshing way to celebrate the battle of May 5, 1862, when a small mexican army beat the french. yummy.
ps… you can fit a whole bottle of wine in a nalgene bottle and still have room for brandy, fruit, and ice. perfect for sangria on the go!


Adventures Tracking Bicycle Racing - Why Isn't Race Tracking Ubiquitous?
Previously I asked, "is live bicycle tracking going to have a major impact on cycling"? This was in a training context and in the few weeks since, under the guidance of Dave Martin from the AIS, we started investigating its usefulness at the AIS Womens Road Cycling Camp and the first GreenEDGE training camp where we tracked rides around Canberra and Thredbo. Most of the GreenEDGE team management and Australian members have have been part the AIS in some capacity due to the longevity of the AIS cycling program so they work well together. Matt White, an AIS graduate, introduced me to pro cycling and GreenEDGE Technical Advisor, Lars Teutenberg had enthusiasm for tracking and experience in some practical aspects that proved invaluable, having worked with the Google team on tracking the 2010 Tour de France. We were using a different version of the same My Tracks software. It would be rare to find a situation more serendipitous.
Despite growing use of sports tracking at sub elite levels using services like MapMyRide, Endomondo, SportsTrackLive, Runkeeper, etc. I observed little use of live tracking amongst elite cyclists, so whatever potential it offers remains to be exploited. Even simple information, like knowing where everyone was on a training ride, was useful for increasing training efficiency. This seemed odd, but Hunter Allen from Training Peaks speaking at Interbike 2011 makes the same observation for power meters, noting they were first popularised at sub elite levels. He calls the phenomenon trickle up, in contrast to motor racing where technology trickles down. Cadel Evans, another AIS graduate, has been emphasising the importance of simulation technology and is "'confident' his team remained at the cutting edge" in his 2012 Tour De France preparations but there is a wide variety of attitudes to technology and science in cycling. Laboratory based techniques, which the AIS use intensively, are well developed but there seems a lot left to exploit in measurement and analysis of training and race data.
While aiming to increase cycling performance and training effectiveness we got the opportunity recently to track a few races. Only the biggest races have comprehensive TV coverage and even then, with the cameras mostly watching the leading riders and little statistical information, much of the action is never observed. One GreenEDGE rider at the Thredbo training camp likened bicycle racing to a chess match and it became apparent while tracking these races there is tremendous potential to expose far more of that subtlety to a race audience. Tennis, cricket and motor racing viewing are greatly improved by sophisticated audience information systems as demonstrated in this F1 system from McLaren.
The tracked races were GreenEDGE at the Jayco Bay Cycling Classic 2012, some GreenEDGE riders at the Australia Road National Championships and UniSA and some GreenEDGE riders at the Tour Down Under.
Tracking initiated by timer to align track for all riders and minimise drain on the battery prior to starting the event.
Remote monitoring of battery condition.
The ability to suspend tracking mid event to preserve batteries.
Remote control of starting, suspending and stopping tracking.
High resolution data can be remotely accessed post event using dropbox.
Tracker software and settings can be updated semi automatically which was needed for practical management of groups of trackers.
This was a lot of untested innovation. Minor tweaks and experience gained during the event in optimising its use meant tracking improved as the tour progressed. Dave Martin organised UCI approval of the tracking equipment which wasn't finally granted until the eve of the event. Paolo Menaspa took responsibility for liaising with teams and for fitting and recovering the trackers each day.
The event opened with the Down Under Classic criterium. The new interface shows all of the riders on an overhead view and takes a minute or two to download all of the data required to properly display the replay of a long race. It is most interesting when the control to speed up the replay is used to watch the race at 16 or so times faster than it was run.
riders, Bernard Sulzberger 186 and Jay McCarthy 182. The leading GreenEDGE rider was Leigh Howard 7 and the last rider tracked was Steele Von Hoff, 181 who finished in 5th position overall and was the highest placed rider tracked.
The interface also provides statisitical information including heart rate and power where it is available.
In this race Luke Durbridge, 3 was involved in a pre race collision, so did not start and tracking was lost from Lachlan Norris, 184. Most of the GreenEDGE team streamed data from their SRM Power Control 7's but only Simon Gerrans was wearing a heart rate monitor. Not many of the UniSA team were using PCS7's but power and cadence data is also available for Jay McCarthy, 182.
There is also an interface for each individual rider and their monitored data.
Zoomed in on the the individual page for Simon Gerrans, 4 to show a lap and a half of cadence and power data near the end of the race.
In a Mozilla browser, but not Chrome the power graphs can be zoomed to particular regions. Zooming to the portion of the race from the start to the time the rider eased off as they approached the finish I extracted the average power which is listed in the table below.
I'd heard a theory that Robbie McEwen had a talent for preserving energy by riding on the wheel of others which allowed him to beat many stronger riders. This data supports that theory as Robbie was the first to finish of the tracked riders with almost the lowest energy expenditure. The extra effort Jay McCarthy expended in the breakaway is also visible as he had the highest energy expenditure, 7% more than Robbie, even though he finished 15 secs later. Leigh Howard worked hard but finished over a minute behind Robbie. This demonstrates the advantage of tracking more riders. Everything in a race happens in a context and the more riders that are tracked the more meaningful is the information revealed. Each additional rider tracked increases the information content in the data of the riders already tracked so race tracking will be more useful when it is universal.
The logistics are fairly easy, starting and finishing in the same place and providing reasonable access to bikes and riders.
They are short, eliminating battery management issues.
They are generally conducted in locations with good mobile infrastructure.
Most of the course is visible to an observer.
They are short, with little time to consider statistics.
They are high action, low strategy events.
However tracking provides race coverage for remote viewers and could offer video like aerial imagery as shown in this example tracking some of the riders at a Canberra Criterium.
With a bit of effort video could be generated and delivered live via YouTube Live streaming. Alternatively the data can be streamed live into Google Earth which requires low bandwidth and allows viewers great control over how the race is viewed, choosing viewpoints, which rider they follow etc. This can be tried with the data used to make the Canberra Criterium video.
In Prospect to Clare Stage 1 the GreenEDGE trackers travelled by car so part way into the race the GreenEDGE trackers were remotely switched off. The race was tracked from the start and Dennis Rohan, 183 was tracked well in an early breakaway. Battery life was monitored remotely and UniSA trackers were periodically switched off to extend their life. While the UniSA trackers were off some of the GreenEDGE trackers were restarted to provide vehicle location. No trackers lasted to the end of the race and the swapping between trackers made race data confusing but vehicle location was useful information so the idea of tracking vehicles was continued in later races. Battery quality varied between trackers with periodic remote monitoring of battery condition revealing the trackers that were performing worst. The batteries in these trackers were replaced in post race handset servicing.
In Colemans Group Stage 2 stage we were fortunate to be tracking Will Clarke's heroic win. Hopefully Will's effort will help overcome the fear some riders express that carrying trackers will reduce their race speed.
Will Clarke preparing for the race start. The tracker can be clearly seen under the saddle.
Will Clarke approaches the finish line alone 1 min 2 secs ahead of the peloton. The tracker is just viewable under the saddle. Will Clarke on the podium celebrating his King of the Mountain and Stage 2 win at Stirling.
Will was tracked from part way through the race for about 2 hours until his tracker battery expired 20 minutes before the finish. The online display has errors in the replay but the ride displays without errors by downloading the GPX file and viewing it in Google Earth. Suspension of other trackers was cycled to preserve battery life but juggling varying battery lives, trying to focus tracking on breakaways and interesting parts of the race while aiming to finish the race without unused battery life was challenging. Part of the course lacked mobile coverage so in addition to controlled suspension of tracking, viewers saw bicycles remaining stationary for a period followed by fast travel as buffered data is uploaded when the tracker re-establishes communication. Viewers reported that suspensions, pauses and rapid travel was confusing so a method of communicating data age to viewers is required. Will Clarke dominated the race highlights which provided many views of the tracker on the bike.
The tracker on Will Clarke's bike is first seen at 50 secs with quite a long view at 1 min 56 secs. There are further views at 2 mins 34 secs, 2 mins 42 secs, the end of the Jayco sprint at 2 min 55 secs , a glimpse at 4 min 2 secs and finally at 4 mins 22 secs after crossing the finish line.
The longer battery life of the two Xperia Active handsets we possessed made for better tracking than with the Xperia X10 mini pros so we had ordered more. They hadn't arrived in time but FedEX tracking showed they would be delivered in Canberra on Tuesday. Umran flew back to Canberra Monday night and commenced preparing the new handsets as soon as they were delivered. Dave Martin picked them up Tuesday evening and drove the 14 hours to Adelaide on Wednesday while Umran tweaked the software. I got the handsets from a ragged Dave in Adelaide at 9 pm, uploaded the software tweaks and completed the preparation, packaging and charging by 2.30 am so that trackers could be delivered to the bike compound by 8.15 am for tracking of Stage 3 to Victor Harbour. Intermittent tracking had been confusing to viewers and we now had a full field of the longer life Xperia Active handsets so we started tracking half an hour after the race start so as to be confident of maintaining tracking, once started, until race end without suspension. This was a good strategy, so for the following races we estimated battery life then started tracking that period prior to the end of the race. The race replay starts from the scheduled race start so it should be advanced manually until tracking is commenced to see the action, which is confusing.
I travelled to Victor Harbour to catch the finish, which combined with some catch up work meant I didn't get to monitor most of that stage. The race replay looks good but the live experience was less satisfactory showing only a few riders in the race view due to an unforeseen combination of circumstances that was corrected for subsequent events. Also much of the race was through areas without mobile coverage which meant loss of live updates for part of the race.
In BUPA stage 4, 7000 people also rode the same course as the Tour starting at any of 4 locations several hours prior to the pro riders. This is a great feature of the Tour Down Under leading to one reporter writing "Heaven on wheels: is this Australia's perfect tourist event?" The CSIRO CEO, Megan Clark was riding so we tracked her as well and included her ride in the event.
Tracking CSIRO CEO, Megan Clark in the BUPA challenge with colleague Ian Blanchonette . The shadows show the early morning start. Demonstrating the technology.
A nice enhancement next year would be to promote tracking for public riders who own either Android or IPhone smart phones from a downloadable app that records their effort and allows them to compare their ride to others and the pros in the sprint and hill climb sections.
Live tracking of bikes was smooth and reliable and remained that way for the rest of the Tour. Vehicle tracking of the GreenEDGE vehicle was lost as the tracker was carried within the vehicle in a location where it could not get a good fix on the GPS satellites. Tracking of the GreenEDGE support vehicle remained intermittent in the following races for the same reason.
Jay McCarthy had an interesting ride in a breakaway of four. He led them over Smith's Hill to win the first of two King of the Mountain sections.
Smith's Hill from bottom to top highlighted in red. The profile shows any two of a variety of parameters, in this case power and elevation, using KML data downloaded from MapMyTracks.
Plotting only the power trace for Smith's Hill shows the effort expended to win the climb. Jay is leading a small breakaway, he eases off in preparation for the sprint finish then goes for it.
The zero power point corresponds to a small dip in the road and Jay eases off a little before the final surge.
Jay's easy win can be seen at 1 minute 35 seconds in the race summary video followed by what seems a similarly easy win for Ruben Perez and a second for Blel Kadri over Jay at the following sprint finish. Jay leads the group into the sprint in both cases and the speed over the line is similar, 35 km/h for the hill climb and 43km/h for the sprint. Jay follows the same pattern in both finishes but sprints harder and longer in the losing sprint. Overlaying the power trace for the first finish on the on the second allows a comparison.
Jay is just beginning his 15 second sprint at the start of the video scene. A second later he is passed at speed. At 100 metres to go Jay is closing the gap but it's too late. Jay had eased off more before the second sprint than the first and it looks like that's when Perez and Kadri commenced their effort. We don't have power data for Perez and Kadri but the speed differential as they passed Jay suggests they were applying the power while Jay was easing off.
I monitored part of the race from a coffee shop along the route and had a surreal experience where a BUPA Challenge rider drinking coffee on a neighbouring table was proudly telling his colleagues of a project his company was working on that was going to revolutionise cycling by tracking riders. They didn't yet have a deployable solution but they were building an end to end system from scratch, with industrial mobile phones. Most of the functionality he described existed in the configuration streaming data as he spoke. We use a slightly modified version of Google's open source MyTracks app, consumer hardware, the MapMyTracks API, the Tasker app for remote controlling our Avocado MyTracks Bridge app and Google Earth for investigating new ways of viewing the data. The BUPA rider's company will be competing against all of the existing sports tracking app providers, specialist organisations like SRM with existing solutions and large organisations like Garmin who are building systems that allow Garmin components to be mixed and matched in other systems. Many people I have talked to about health and sports tracking applications similarly aim to dominate the field but I believe the immediate opportunities require cooperation, open systems that interact and narrow specialisation. An emerging trend is a three layer model with a data capture layer, an on-line data store and a data presentation layer with components in different layers from different providers.
Stage 5 is the most watched in the Tour as it is broadcast live in Australia and around the world. The crowds were estimated to be 120,000 on Willunga hill and with many roads closed moving around the course was impractical. The mobile phone network was barely usable. Calls out were intermittent, outgoing SMS mostly failed to send and I couldn't call other mobiles at the race all day. At all of the races I have attended, on site monitoring of tracking was poor as the crowd always overloads the telco network during a race and it lacks sufficient bandwidth. This makes it difficult to use tracking information in a race environment. Tracking itself however, requires only low bandwidth and I didn't notice tracking delays, despite the heavily overloaded network.
I was privileged to spend the day at the UniSA pavilion where Patrick Jonker was providing the race commentary. There was a wired internet connection, until it failed half way through the day, after which further monitoring became impossible using wireless. Tracking information was used to support the commentary and for a short period the live tracking page replaced the broadcast television displayed on screens throughout the pavilion . I formed the view more work is needed to improve the supply of timely statistics from which a commentator can pick and choose and there have been a range of suggestions provided.
the SA chief of police was attending. With Patrick Jonker who provided the commentary at this event and on ABC radio on other days.
We introduced tracking of the UniSA team vehicle in stage 5.
Stage 6 was a short course that would decide the overall winner. A handset screen was broken during the race but it didn't interrupt tracking which ran smoothly.
The packaging had been sufficient to cushion the trackers through six previous days of hard racing but this failure demonstrated the harsh environment of an unsprung bicycle frame and that more thought is needed on packaging.
Tracker packaging used in the Tour Down Under 2012. The tracker was in a double layer bubble wrap pouch inside the saddlebag.
Luke Durbridge, who we had been tracking all week, played a dominant role in the race but in the confusion at the race start we'd failed to get a tracker on his bike. Andre Greipel won the sprint and led the peloton to win stage 6 in addition to wins in the Down Under Classic (no points) Stage 1, Stage 3 and several stage sprints. He was probably the most flamboyant rider in the Tour but finishing nearly 8 minutes behind Oscar Freire in Stage 4 put him out of contention for the overall win. The GC was between Simon Gerrans and Alejandro Valverde who were on equal time coming into Stage 6. Valverde finished 25th and Gerrans 27th in the leading group and they were separated by Robbie McEwen. This was probably the most interesting part of the race but being submerged in the peloton, the battle was mostly invisible to the race audience. Tracking could have revealed more of this drama.
Dave Martin, working with Lars Teutenberg, managed the tracking for the National championships. Dave was new to Android and the tracking app which combined with the pre race confusion made app configuration difficult. This provided further incentive to introduce remote control of the tracking app in future races.
Trackers were carried in jersey back pockets. In this location they have a good view of satellites but compete for space with food and supplies. Amanda Spratt mentioned that the tracker interfered with her elaborate packing strategy and Luke Durbridge said we were lucky not to get the tracker back with a bite out of it as he kept mistaking it for a power bar. The tracker can be seen as a bulge in Luke Durbridge's back pocket in this SBS news report.
The tracker can be seen as a bulge in Luke Durbridge's back pocket in this SBS news report at 1minute 14 secs. This is late in the race so that Luke has already consumed the rest of his pocket contents.
In the Elite Men's Road Race we tracked Luke Durbridge with a long life tracker. The tracker lasted 4 hours 14 minutes before the battery expired and the race lasted 4 hours 7 minutes but we missed the end of the race as the last chance to manually start the tracker was 20 minutes before race start. Luke was in the thick of the action for much of the race. We also tracked Mitch Docker who wore a heart rate sensor and Michael Hepburn for a short period until his tracker failed.
Mitch Dockers heart rate is around 170 - 180 bpm during the climb and drops back on the descent to a bit over 100 bpm.
Lap 10, when Cameron Meyer opened up a gap, was a slow lap for the peloton with Luke Durbridge being 1 minute 34 secs slower than his race average to that point. I noticed it in the tracking but I didn't hear it mentioned in the race commentary. Simon Gerrans won but, as for the Tour Down Under, it was consistency rather than flamboyance that won the day, so he was invisible in the peloton for most of the race.
In the Women's Time Trial time trial the following day we tracked Amanda Spratt, Gracie Elvin and the winner Shara Gillow. In the Elite Men's Time Trial we tracked Michael Hepburn, Cameron Meyer who came second and Luke Durbridge who won. I tweeted a couple of splits and was able to tweet the outcome 3 minutes before any other tweets.
Spectators on course weren't aware of the split for most of the event.
The Bay Criteriums was my introduction to tracking bicycle racing. Every event was tracked with assistance from Ian Blanchonette and Sue Horne in the first few days and Lars Teutenberg managed the final day on his own. We also tracked cycling commentator Phil Ligget's respectable effort in Amy's ride.
Follow links from the hubs to view individual rides.
The surprise to me was the complexity of the logistics and criteriums are the simplest races from a logistics perspective. Every start is somewhere new and therefore different. Riders look after clothing and food but not the bikes. Mechanics prepare the bikes before every event and place them in a convenient location for the riders. This is the last time when all the bikes are accessible in the one place but it can sometimes be a long time before race start. Riders individually prepare themselves mentally and physically for the race and appear as late as practically possible to pick up their bike and get to the start. SRM head units form part of the personal gear for some riders but are part of the bike for others. Those head units that remain with the rider are not available for configuration until the rider appears at which time it is inconvenient for the rider. Ideally a head unit would be configured with an ANT + address, perhaps the riders team number, at the start of a season and never be changed so that a tracker can be configured and fitted to the bike or handed to the rider as they collect their bike. In later events, some riders e.g. Amanda Spratt carried trackers without ever having seen them before which emphasises the requirement for an absolute minimum of rider involvement. In the Bay Criteriums the tracking app was started manually on the device so many of the races show long periods of tracking before race start. As the riders carried the tracker in their jersey pocket it was necessary to spend a couple of minutes with each rider as close as possible to race start which is inconvenient. This provided motivation for the introduction of timed tracking starts and remote control of the tracking app for later events. Once implemented, remote control allowed most tracker management to be done in a timely manner without disturbing the rider and reduced servicing between races. Ideally a handset should be entirely managed remotely which could could be done best with Android Cloud to Device Messaging, but this is not available in Android 2.1, the operating system on the Xperia X10 mini pro handsets used in this event. It is available, however, for the Xperia Active which we sometimes used in later events.
I'm not sure. We learned a lot about how to track races and got better at it as we progressed but there is undoubtedly many improvements to come in data presentation and analysis. There is a tremendous opportunity, using tracking, to improve current race coverage and post race analysis, particularly if all riders in a race can be tracked. It is so obviously useful I'm confident race tracking will grow and perhaps the appropriate question is why isn't it ubiquitous already? Garmin has an obvious interest in sports tracking but it's rumoured that the commercial side of Garmin's cycling team have been overruled by the sporting side which prefers to minimise availability of rider data. So that might be part of the answer.


text:
date: '2017-05-17 10:58 +0100'
thumbnail-image: /img/BYCS-thumbnail.png
layout: post
published: true
title: Farzana felt supported throughout her journey to employment
---

![Employability workshop at BYCS]({{site.baseurl}}/img/BYCS-fullsize-web.png)

After graduating from University, Farzana felt lost; she did not know what direction she wanted her life to go and the university was not providing any support.

She started applying for paid work but due to her lack of work experience she was not getting job interviews, so was looking for work experience opportunities.

Farzana was aware of the services offered at BYCS as it has been a community organisation for many years.  She met with the YES Project Officer who suggested she carry out voluntary work to gain experience.

She completed 4 months' voluntary work as a classroom assistant and says it helped improve her self-confidence and motivation.

Farzana, age 22, comments about BYSC and YES Project:

> "BYCS helped me to undertake one to one job search. I found the advert for my job and the YES Project Advisor encouraged me to consider and apply for this role. I was given practical interview technique sessions to help me improve my skills. I felt reassured that someone was there for me throughout my journey to employment. "

Farzana now works as a Health Trainer.

### About BYCS

Bangladeshi Youth & Cultural Shomiti (BYCS) is a community learning provider that will enable you to achieve qualifications and develop skills to progress on to futher education or work. It provides a learning environment that is culturally sensitive.

Learn more or contact [ebrahim@bycs.org.uk](mailto:ebrahim@bycs.org.uk)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Bill Merritt
Full Name: William Edward Merritt
Born: 18 August 1908 in Sumner, Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand
Died: 9 June 1977 in Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand
Bowling: Leg-break and googly
Test Debut: New Zealand v England at Lancaster Park, Christchurch - 10, 11, 13 January 1930 (three-day match)
Last Test: England v New Zealand at Kennington Oval, London - 29, 30, 31 July 1931 (three-day match)
TEST BATTING
Mat Inns NO Runs Avg HS 50s 100s 0s 4s 6s ct st
6 8 1 73 10.42 19 0 0 1 0 0 2 0
Test Bowling
Balls Runs Wkts BB Avg Econ SR 4 W 5 W 10 W
936 617 12 4/104 51.41 3.95 78.00 1 0 0
Test Other Analysis
Recent scores: 8, 4, 17, 5, 18*, 0, 19, 2
Modes of dismissal: bowled (3), lbw (2), caught (2)
Dismissed most by: Maurice Allom 2, Ian Peebles 1, Wally Hammond 1, Hedley Verity 1, Stan Worthington 1, Maurice Tate 1,
Innings by Innings - Home
Batting Average by Year
Batting 1st Innings
Batting 2nd Innings
Bowling Average by Year
Wickets by Year

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Microsoft Project Online and Microsoft VSTS Integration.
FluentPro Integration Hub is a leading cloud-based integration platform for connecting Microsoft VSTS with Microsoft Project Online.
Microsoft Visual Studio Team Services is an all-in-one platform from Microsoft for developers that provides access to functionality starting source control to team collaboration and agile project management. From project management view, Microsoft Visual Studio Team Services enables teams to work and collaborate on their projects and tasks using intuitive UI, modern Agile and Kanban boards.
Microsoft Project Online is an advanced platform for Enterprise Project Management, Program and Portfolio Management with functionality for intake of the project, execution of projects, portfolio analysis and prioritization and advanced resource management.
The FluentPro Integration Hub is a result of about a decade of experience in the market collaborating with hundreds of FluentPro customers on their PPM integration requirements. Microsoft Project Online and Microsoft Visual Studio Team Services integration scenario supported by FluentPro Integration Hub allows organizations to connect projects in Microsoft Project Online with projects in Microsoft Visual Studio Team Services to automate the flow of updates between systems and improve visibility.
Why Connect Visual Studio Team Services with Microsoft Project Online?
By connecting Project Online and Visual Studio Team Services, you are instantly delivering value for Executives, PMO, and your Teams.
Team members use the tool of their choice for their development-related activities and to collaborate on tasks and report progress.
PMO and Management immediately benefit from all Enterprise Portfolio Management capabilities, Portfolio Visibility, multiple reports and dashboards in Project Online and receive updates from teams frequently and automatically.
Define high-level tasks or features in Microsoft Project Online and sync them to Visual Studio Team Services for detailing and working out by the team. Progress updates/time spent for "summary" tasks flows back to Project Online schedules.
New tasks from Project Visual Studio Team Services projects and progress reported on existing ones synchronized back to Project Online schedules to provide management and PMOs with the actual state of projects.
Project Managers define high-level tasks and features in Microsoft Project Online and sync them to Visual Studio Team Services; All new tasks from Visual Studio Team Services and progress reported synchronized back to Project Online schedules to provide management and PMOs with the actual state of projects.
Each project is an EPIC. PMO creates projects in Project Online, performs prioritization and then approved ones automatically result in creatin Visual Studio Team Services projects.
We will present a short overview on Integration Hub capabilities and later drill down to the VSTS and Project Online connection items and synchronization to cover these in more detail.


Air-conditioned room with a flat-screen TV, Sky channels, and free WiFi. The private bathroom includes a shower, slippers, and hairdryer. This room features a window overlooking the backyard or offering partial views of the garden and lake.


Mikel Arteta is closing in on the Arsenal manager's job, with senior sources at Manchester City now increasingly expecting him to leave and Arsene Wenger also offering public endorsement for his former captain.
Although not directly involved in the recruitment process, Wenger's opinion still carries huge weight at the Emirates and it is understood that Arteta held further talks with the club's hierarchy today.
City sources are now becoming increasingly resigned to Arteta's departure, although he has not yet agreed terms with Arsenal or formally handed in his notice as Pep Guardiola's assistant.


Our Weekly Activities Timetables have more information on regular groups and activities at the centres.
All three Children's Centres are located within the heart of their communities you can access them on foot, by car and they are on the local bus routes, direct from Macclesfield town centre.
Each centre has a team of friendly and experienced staff who work across the Macclesfield collaborative that offer many activities to children and their families within our community.
We provide a one stop shop for the community where they can access services such as: midwifery, health visiting, family support, speech and language therapy, play events and more.
As you visit and engage with your local children's centre in the coming weeks,you will asked to complete a new membership form. We are using a new secure data system and need to re-register families so we can ensure we hold your most recent information that you provide to us. If you wish to receive updates going forward, you must ensure you complete your email address on the new membership form.
Delivered by children's centre staff and Health Visitors, Parenting Journey consists of 12 stops from pregnancy until your child starts school and provides advice and support around health, your child's development and their readiness for school.
Hurdsfield Family Centre has re located it's services to Macclesfield Town Hall. Please note that all services delivered from Hurdsfield children's centre remain unchanged.
To gain access to Broken Cross services and groups, please ensure you press the correct room buzzer.
Due to health and safety concerns about the increased volumes of traffic using the School and Children's Centre car park, a decision has been taken that as of Monday 25th March 2019 there will be no parking facilities available to the general public on the Children Centre and the School car park.
We would kindly request that you park on the surrounding roads and support us in keeping the children and the public safe. The School and Children's Centre can be accessed via the pedestrian entrance into School.


text:
Microsoft heeds its competitors' lessons with its Windows RT tablet
By James Stables, Dan Grabham 2013-09-27T14:30:00.269Z Tablets
1. Introduction and features
2. Interface, performance
3. Browser
4. Media (movies, music, games, books etc)
5. Apps and games
6. Camera
7. Battery life and benchmarks
8. Hands on gallery
9. Official gallery
10. Verdict
Our in-depth review of the Microsoft Surface tablet
Surface represents a great value tablet that will get stronger with time, so if you're looking for a superb all-round Windows tablet which can double as a work machine, with bags of potential and head-turning appeal, then Surface should be high on your list.
Excellent keyboards
Useful kick-stand
Great for Windows RT
Stylish look and premium feel
Poor selection of apps
Standard display
Heavier than iPad
Sluggish graphical performance
NOTE: This is a review of the 2012 Surface RT - the new Windows 8.1 RT-powered, Nvidia Tegra 4-based Surface 2 is about to replace it. Also check out what we think about the full-fat Surface Pro 2 as well as Windows 8.1.
Microsoft Surface RT was released late in 2012 and was the poster boy for Windows RT, the version of Windows 8 designed for ARM-powered systems. This is a cut-down version of the full Windows 8 operating system.
That means you can only use new Windows apps from the Windows Store. There is NO support for desktop apps such as iTunes, Photoshop, VLC, Filezilla and more, although the desktop is still there for use with the integrated Microsoft Office 2013 apps.
If you need full desktop app support but like the Surface design, there's also an Intel version of Surface running Windows 8 Pro and called Surface Pro.
Other Windows RT tablets and hybrids have been available, including the Asus Vivo Tab RT, Lenovo Ideapad Yoga 11 (though that was replaced with the Intel-powered Yoga 11S), and Dell XPS 10.
Buy the Microsoft Surface direct from the Microsoft Store
But Windows RT has struggled. Sales have been problematic with most companies withdrawing from the market and Microsoft having to take a $900 million USD write down on unsold Surface RT tablets.
That has led to a price reduction amounting to $150 per model (equal to £98, AU$163) - meaning that providing you want one there's actually never been a better time to buy it. Price reductions also abound because the Surface 2 is coming soon. Microsoft says it is still fully committed to RT, and has even announced a version of the forthcoming Windows 8.1 for RT tablets - check out our Hands on: Windows RT 8.1 review.
Find out: Windows 8 vs Windows RT: what's the difference?
The Surface RT boasts a distinctive design, helped by those unmistakable keyboard covers, enjoys a 10.6-inch widescreen display, and runs a version of the most popular operating system on the planet. But there's a crippling caveat which might be its undoing.
Windows RT won't run old PC programs, so any trip to the internet to download legacy programs such as VLC Player, or even big-name offerings like Photoshop Elements, just won't work. For that you need Surface Pro, or any Windows 8 device featuring an Intel processor.
It has the potential to cause mass confusion and the power to sink Microsoft's figurehead before it's even taken off.
On picking up the Surface one single sentiment falls from the mouth of every man, woman or child without fail: "It's thicker than I thought."
That is factually nonsense. At 9.4mm thick, it's exactly the same thickness as the iPad 4, except that instead of masking its true girth with tapered edges, Surface's design looks as if it's been chiseled from a slab of slate.
It's square and boxy, but fresh looking and the magnesium 'VaporMg' coating gives it a cool finish.
At 690g Microsoft Surface is noticeably heavier than its rivals. The iPad 4 weighs 650g due to shedding an inch of screen, but Surface feels richer for the extra space.
The 16:9 screen is suited to Windows, it enables you to multitask apps and 'snap' them literally side by side. It feels like you're using a laptop and that's a big leap towards a genuine hybrid experience.
Of course, the rear kickstand is an iconic part of Surface. It's also made of metal, and does a good job of propping up your tablet - to an angle of 22 degrees - even when on your lap.
However, we'd have liked it to be more adjustable – at the moment it has just one position – and a button release would also be handy as you need nimble fingers to pull out the stand.
It's also larger than the iPad - the screen is a 10.6-inch 1366x768 IPS panel, which falls short of the full HD displays of the Sony VAIO Duo 11 and Asus Taichi, but still looks clear and crisp.
It's not going to win any awards for screen vibrancy, and certainly never going to challenge Retina, but it's good enough - and helps Microsoft keep the price down to a reasonable level.
A keyboard-less 32GB Surface costs £399, the same as an iPad 4 with half the storage.
Under the hood is an Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, with the ARM technology that drives this new Windows RT operating system. It's the same you'll find in high flying Android tablets such as the Asus Transformer Prime and Google Nexus 7. There's also 2GB of RAM.
We'd love to say that it walked through every task that we threw at it, but in all honesty, we feel that Tegra struggles in Windows.
The system felt responsive to navigate but apps lingered on their splash screens for uncomfortable periods, seconds longer than they should.
There was no jerkiness or hangs, just a lethargy that frustrates when you're in a hurry.
We tested the 64GB Microsoft Surface, which offers plenty of storage, and even a Micro SDSX port hidden under the kickstand, which enables you to boost storage by another 64GB.
That makes Surface a great deal when you consider that you can get nearly 100GB of storage for the same price as the 16GB iPad. That's also not including the USB port for connecting USB storage, as well as traditional Windows peripherals.
Being able to plug in a memory stick in is especially refreshing, and makes Surface a genuine alternative to the iPad.
There's currently no 3G option for Surface, and with no dongles compatible with Windows RT at present, that's not an option right now.
Of course, one of the headline features is the Touch Cover, the clip-on keyboard that enables you to use your Surface as either a tablet or laptop. It feels shockingly light, as if it's made of cardboard.
Typing takes some getting used to, and the click sound that's used to denote a successful key press is essential to effective typing, as the lack of tactile feedback can be disorientating.
However, the keys are sensitive and speed typing is certainly possible with a few hours of practice.
What's more, despite the flat keyboard feeling like it's been hewn from old egg boxes, it features a multi-touch trackpad, should you want to use a mouse while in the traditional Windows interface.
The Touch Cover maybe a triumph of design but we would heartily recommend investing in the Type Cover for comfortable typing.
This offers a much more natural typing experience, and is one of the most spacious tablet keyboard accessories we've used.
It's much more comfortable and can easily be used for longer periods, but it does have an annoying flex in the middle, so the keys tend to bounce if you're a heavy typist.
We'd still recommend it, but it will cost you: the Type Cover costs an extra £110, rather than £80 for the Touch Cover.
Current page: Introduction and features
Next Page Interface, performance


text:
Tenure Track Associate or Full Professor in Teacher and Technology Education with Social Studies
Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies (Environmental Justice)
Clinton, New York
Compliance Officer and Title IX Coordinator
Saint Mary's College of California
Moraga, California
Mission Dolores Academy
Professor of Urban Policy and City Governance
Adjunct Faculty for Environmental and Sustainability Science
Lecturer in Comparative Politics
Executive Director Academic Innovation - 518663
University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
Ebb and Teena Haycock Artist in Residence
Executive Director Office of Accessibility and Learning Supports
Academic Advisor I - 518065
History Teacher: Jan to May 2023
Reporting to: Academic Dean/Principal/Head of School FLSA: exempt/contract Schedule: Monday through Friday (plus scheduled events) Hours: FT (7:50 – 3:20) Subjects include: both U.S. History and Economics or all U.S. History Note: the individual who completes this assignment will also have an opportunity to interview for the position for the 2023-2024 academic year position when the position is opened. Mission: Rooted in the Catholic, Dominican tradition, St. Agnes Academy challenges young women through exceptional academic preparation and transformational experiences to lead with i


text:
import { act, RenderResult } from '@testing-library/react-hooks';
import { addMonths, startOfMonth, subMonths } from 'date-fns';

import { customRenderHook } from 'test/render/customRenderHook';
import { freezeBeforeAll } from 'test/utils';

import { DayPickerBase } from 'types/DayPickerBase';

import { NavigationContextValue, useNavigation } from './NavigationContext';

const today = new Date(2021, 11, 8);
const todaysMonth = startOfMonth(today);
freezeBeforeAll(today);

let result: RenderResult<NavigationContextValue>;

function setup(dayPickerProps?: DayPickerBase) {
  const view = customRenderHook(() => useNavigation(), dayPickerProps);
  result = view.result;
  return result;
}

describe('when rendered', () => {
  beforeEach(() => {
    setup();
  });
  test('the current month should be the today`s month', () => {
    expect(result.current.currentMonth).toEqual(todaysMonth);
  });
  test('the display months should be the today`s month', () => {
    expect(result.current.displayMonths).toEqual([todaysMonth]);
  });
  test('the previous month should be the month before today`s month', () => {
    expect(result.current.previousMonth).toEqual(subMonths(todaysMonth, 1));
  });
  test('the next month should be the month after today`s month', () => {
    expect(result.current.nextMonth).toEqual(addMonths(todaysMonth, 1));
  });
  describe('when goToMonth is called', () => {
    const newMonth = addMonths(todaysMonth, 10);
    beforeEach(() => {
      act(() => {
        result.current.goToMonth(newMonth);
      });
    });
    test('should go to the specified month', () => {
      expect(result.current.currentMonth).toEqual(newMonth);
    });
    test('the display months should be the today`s month', () => {
      expect(result.current.displayMonths).toEqual([newMonth]);
    });
    test('the previous month should be the month before today`s month', () => {
      expect(result.current.previousMonth).toEqual(subMonths(newMonth, 1));
    });
    test('the next month should be the month after today`s month', () => {
      expect(result.current.nextMonth).toEqual(addMonths(newMonth, 1));
    });
  });
  describe('when goToDate is called with a date from another month', () => {
    const newDate = addMonths(today, 10);
    const onMonthChange = jest.fn();
    beforeEach(() => {
      setup({ onMonthChange });
      act(() => result.current.goToDate(newDate));
    });
    test('should go to the specified month', () => {
      const date = startOfMonth(newDate);
      expect(result.current.currentMonth).toEqual(date);
      expect(onMonthChange).toHaveBeenCalledWith(date);
    });
  });
  describe('when isDateDisplayed is called', () => {
    describe('with a date in the calendar', () => {
      test('should return true', () => {
        expect(result.current.isDateDisplayed(today)).toBe(true);
      });
    });
    describe('with a date not in the calendar', () => {
      test('should return false', () => {
        expect(result.current.isDateDisplayed(addMonths(today, 1))).toBe(false);
      });
    });
  });
});

const numberOfMonths = 2;
describe('when the number of months is ${numberOfMonths}', () => {
  beforeEach(() => {
    setup({ numberOfMonths: 2 });
  });
  test('the current month should be the today`s month', () => {
    expect(result.current.currentMonth).toEqual(todaysMonth);
  });
  test('the display months should be the today`s and next month', () => {
    expect(result.current.displayMonths).toEqual([
      todaysMonth,
      addMonths(todaysMonth, 1)
    ]);
  });
  test('the previous month should be the month before today`s month', () => {
    expect(result.current.previousMonth).toEqual(subMonths(todaysMonth, 1));
  });
  test('the next month should be the month after today`s month', () => {
    expect(result.current.nextMonth).toEqual(addMonths(todaysMonth, 1));
  });
});

describe(`when the number of months is ${numberOfMonths} and the navigation is paged`, () => {
  beforeEach(() => {
    setup({ numberOfMonths, pagedNavigation: true });
  });
  test('the current month should be the today`s month', () => {
    expect(result.current.currentMonth).toEqual(todaysMonth);
  });
  test('the display months should be the today`s and next month', () => {
    expect(result.current.displayMonths).toEqual([
      todaysMonth,
      addMonths(todaysMonth, 1)
    ]);
  });
  test(`the previous month should be the ${numberOfMonths} months before today's month`, () => {
    expect(result.current.previousMonth).toEqual(
      subMonths(todaysMonth, numberOfMonths)
    );
  });
  test(`the next month should be ${numberOfMonths} months after today's month`, () => {
    expect(result.current.nextMonth).toEqual(
      addMonths(todaysMonth, numberOfMonths)
    );
  });
});


The current financial benefit received by the individual must be transferred to the Epilepsy Center to become their Representative Payee. This is usually their Social Security or Veteran's benefits. After processing the appropriate paperwork, that agency will name the Epilepsy Center as payee and the financial benefit will come directly to us. We provide the service to make this payee transition, if needed. A checking account is opened in the client's name and all financial obligations can be redirected to our Center via regular mail or fax for payment. Each client can have a monthly financial recap available for review, if so desired.
*Please note, the Epilepsy Center Payee Services will not pay any financial obligations unless cleared funds are available in the client's account. The client must be responsible for any delay or late charges because liquid funds were not available.


Heavy Duty Ladder - Made only in thicker grades of stainless steel to with stand heavier usage.
Heavy Duty with Cross Brace - Recommended for heavy duty commercial use at pools. Reinforced with cross brace for extra strength and rigidity.
Florida Style - Designed to clear 6 in. curb required on Florida Pools.
Florida Style with Cross Brace - Same as Florida Style but with Cross Brace.
Deluxe - For right commercial or residential pools.


text:
Q: Can I declare a function inside a flutter_bloc builder? I am using table_calendar flutter package to add a calendar with events. I need to declare a function that uses state from bloc. Is there any problem with his approach? Right now it's working but I feel like there is a better solution that I can't think of.
class TableView extends StatelessWidget {
  const TableView({super.key});

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return BlocBuilder<CalendarBloc, CalendarState>(
      builder: (context, state) {
        List<Schedule> _getEventsForDay(DateTime day) {
          final calendar = state.days.firstWhereOrNull(
            (calendar) => day.isOnCalendar(calendar),
          );

          return calendar == null ? [] : calendar.schedules ?? [];
        }

        return TableCalendar<Schedule>(
          focusedDay: state.focusedDay ?? DateTime.now(),
          firstDay: kFirstDay,
          lastDay: kLastDay,
          selectedDayPredicate: (day) => isSameDay(state.selectedDay, day),
          onDaySelected: (selectedDay, focusedDay) {
            context.read<CalendarBloc>().add(
                  DaySelected(
                    selectedDay: selectedDay,
                    focusedDay: focusedDay,
                  ),
                );
          },
          eventLoader: _getEventsForDay,
          // calendarFormat: CalendarFormat.month,
        );
      },
    );
  }
}

A: Moving the _getEventsForDay function into the CalendarBloc is a good idea as it will make the code easier to test and maintain. The function can be a private method inside the CalendarBloc class. This way, the business logic can be tested in isolation, which will make the tests more reliable and easier to write.
In addition, this also makes the code more modular and separates the presentation logic (the UI) from the business logic (the bloc).

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Home World Did Chelsea Clinton Just Admit She Practices Satanism, Worships The Devil?
Did Chelsea Clinton Just Admit She Practices Satanism, Worships The Devil?
In November 2016, WikiLeaks leaked emails between Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta and his brother Tony Podesta in which an invitation by performance artist Marina Abramović to a "Spirit Cooking dinner" [spirit cooking is satanic ritual that involves using pig's blood as a way of connecting with the spiritual world, to cook up thoughts rather than food] was revealed.
The leak sparked rumors connecting Hillary and John to Satanism or devil worship.
But a furious Abramović claimed it was just a normal dinner, saying: "It was actually just a normal menu, which I call spirit cooking. There was no blood, no anything else. We just call things funny names, that's all".
Later, snopes.com argued the claims of Hillary or John practicing satanic rituals were grossly exaggerated noting: "Hillary was not a recipient in the e-mail chain, and John did not respond to either of the e-mails".
The Clinton-Satanism 'scandal' found no takers and was vehemently trashed.
However, Chelsea Clinton, Bill and Hillary Clinton's 37-year-old daughter, churned the rumor mill again after she exchanged pleasantries with The Church of Satan on Twitter on January 3:
It's been so long! Happy New Year!
— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) January 2, 2018
The exchange began when Chelsea tagged The Church of Satan in a Twitter thread with model Chrissy Teigen and Hooters restaurants:
In 2017, @ChurchofSatan & I were put on a few threads together. In 2018, it's…@Hooters. What a time to be alive Chrissy!
When The Church of Satan saw Chelsea's tweet, the organization wished her a happy new year. Far-right activist Jack Posobiec shared a photo of the exchange:
Happy New Year pic.twitter.com/dZRNaDgVyc
— Jack Posobiec  (@JackPosobiec) January 3, 2018
The exchange prompted Twitter user Rhonda Kazmierski, who interpreted the interaction to mean that Clinton was aligned with the Church's views, to appreciate Chelsea's openness about worshiping Satan. Kazmierski commented in a since-deleted tweet: "If only @HillaryClinton could be as honest."
In her reply, Chelsea compared Satanism to her own religion, Methodist Christianity, and her husband's Jewish faith to argue that her verbal exchanges with The Church of Satan merely amounted to being respectful of others religious views:
Oh goodness gracious. We can be civil, cheerful, respectful to & friends with people who don't share our religious beliefs. Sometimes, we even marry them. I'm a Methodist & my husband is Jewish, thank you for asking. A very happy New Year to you Rhonda! https://t.co/8UH9SP8EWO
Several Twitter users were quick to question Chelsea's relationship with the organization, accusing the former first daughter of worshiping Satan and indicating that Satanists and devil-worshipers deserve civility and respect.
Whether Chelsea worships the devil or practices Satanism is debatable, but the very fact that she attempted to normalize Satanism by telling her followers that The Church of Satan is a religion [FYI: it openly worships the Beast and claims that Evil is a state of being worth striving for] that deserves respect, is more than simple liberal politically correct hogwash. It is subversive evil.
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