Indiana farmers so far have received more than $1 billion in crop insurance payments from losses last year when drought ravaged crops throughout the state. The payouts are double the previous record.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that as of Monday (March 11), insurance payouts for 2012 corn, soybeans and wheat losses had reached $1.04 billion. The dollar amount will likely grow somewhat in coming weeks as final claims are filed, said Chris Hurt, Purdue Extension agricultural economist.
"These crop insurance indemnities are the primary reason the state's farm sector income has not collapsed under drought losses," Hurt said. "The income-stabilizing impact of crop insurance has helped keep rural communities economically healthy."
The previous record amount of insurance indemnity payments to Indiana farmers for the three crops was $522 million in 2008.
Of the total amount of 2012 insurance indemnities, $900 million in payments have been for corn losses. Indiana corn yields averaged 99 bushels per acre, nearly 40 percent below normal. The previous high for corn was $269 million for the 2008 crop.
Corn sales from the limited crop are generating about $700 million less across the state than had been expected before the drought.
"So an infusion of an additional $900 million in insurance claims will bring total receipts to somewhat more than pre-drought estimates," Hurt said.
Because of the large losses in 2012, Indiana corn farmers on average received $3.47 of insurance indemnity for each $1 they paid for crop insurance premiums.
Losses in soybeans accounted for the second-largest insurance payouts - $138 million. Soybean yields were not affected as much as corn last year because of more abundant late-summer rains. Final yields in Indiana were 43.5 bushels per acre, down about 10 percent from normal.
Final soybean marketing revenues for the state are expected to be about $275 million less than had been expected before the drought, Hurt said. Crop insurance, therefore, might not fully cover reduced returns from soybean losses across Indiana. Statewide, farmers received $1.09 of crop insurance indemnities for each $1 they paid for soybean insurance premiums.
While corn insurance indemnities were more than the losses, soybean indemnities were somewhat less than the losses. But the combination means that insurance payouts covered the losses for both crops, Hurt noted. Most farmers plant both corn and soybeans.
"With Indiana farm income expected to be in the range of $3 billion to $4 billion a year, it is clear that the recovery of more than $1 billion from crop insurance due to the 2012 drought is a significant part of that income," Hurt said. "Unfortunately, some producers did not elect crop insurance in 2012."
About 75 percent of Indiana crop acres were insured in 2012. Farmers wanting insurance for this year's crop must sign up for it by Friday (March 15).


On 29th November 2018 Baroness Ilora Finlay gave a talk at Bristol University titled "As the light fades: Do law and ethics collide?". Baroness Finlay is a professor of palliative medicine at Cardiff University and a long-standing prominent opponent of assisted dying. Her talk gave a full account of the problems and dangers she sees with assisted dying legislation as it exists in various countries around the world. MDMD is sympathetic to at least some of her concerns, but reaches different conclusions. In Baroness Finlay's view no change in the law is necessary or desirable, in part because one option people already have is to refuse life sustaining medication.
In the Q&A section MDMD Coordinator, Phil Cheatle, asked a question regarding dementia, an illness where sufferers do not require life sustaining medication which can be refused. Dementia is particularly important as it is feared by many people and is increasingly common. The discussion about how assisted dying can safely be made available to dementia sufferers is something which is actively being discussed and reviewed around the world. In Switzerland medical assisted suicide is permitted for those with early stage dementia provided the person still has the mental capacity to make a life ending decision at the time of the assisted death. In the Netherlands and Belgium euthanasia is permitted for those with dementia who lack mental capacity provided they have written an advance decision requesting euthanasia in those circumstances. In USA and Canada there is public debate about possibly broadening their assisted dying laws to include people suffering with dementia.
Baroness Finlay started by saying that with dementia a patient doesn't have mental capacity. Phil clarified that he was thinking of early stage dementia before mental capacity was lost. Baroness Finlay then suggested that people could use the internet to find suitable methods for ending their lives themselves and could procure life ending drugs illegally. Phil followed up by pointing out that this was highly risky, and that you can't be sure what you are buying. Surely there must be a safer way to ensure people have a good death?
Baroness Finlay then explained that if society were to decide that lethal medication was to be legally obtainable within the UK, then there would need to be a body which brought a set of different skills together to ensure safeguards were followed. She mentioned clinical psychologists, for example, to assess the person's mental state. In her view assisted dying should not be a medical matter.
The post MDMD Coordinator asks Baroness Finlay how to avoid late stage dementia appeared first on My Death, My Decision.
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Flute players young and old, ranging in ability from newbies to masters, filed into Ordway Concert Hall on Saturday morning for an unusual rehearsal. Superstar flutist Claire Chase, standing at center above, will lead this "flute force" Wednesday night in a performance with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.
Some were band directors, some students. Many performed regularly, a few hadn't played in years. They ranged in age from 13 to 80 years old.
But the dozens of people who gathered Saturday morning at Ordway Concert Hall in St. Paul each carried the same small instrument — the flute.
Not a violin or French horn in the bunch. This piece calls for 100 flutists to roam the concert hall during a St. Paul Chamber Orchestra performance Wednesday. Despite the grand setting, amateurs were welcome, the nonprofit orchestra assured those interested. So women and men, teens and retirees came to rehearse.
"I want you to forget everything you ever learned about flute playing," superstar flutist Claire Chase told the group. "We are trying precisely not to make a tone.
At first, Chase's biography had sounded a little intimidating: The Brooklyn-based soloist, curator and founder of the International Contemporary Ensemble was named a MacArthur Fellow, better known as the "genius" grant.
But by Saturday morning, many of the Minnesotan flutists felt like they knew Chase, the project's director. They had met online, through selfie videos Chase filmed in a dressing room, on a train, standing in the Swiss Alps. In them, she demonstrated how to make the soft, dramatic air sounds for the piece. No pure tones allowed.
Wearing thick glasses and a beanie, Chase waved her flute in the air in one video as she described "Cerchio Tagliato dei Suoni," or "Cutting the Circle of Sounds." The hourlong work, by avant-garde Italian composer Salvatore Sciarrino, calls for four soloists, a "flute force" of 100 and not a single string instrument. It's rarely performed — and never before with so many flutists.
During a performance in Los Angeles in 2015, the fire marshal got involved, according to an account in the L.A. Times, at first restricting the community flutists to 40, then letting in a few dozen more. In the Ordway, the hall's second tier will be closed for the performance, to offset the nearly 200 flutists, with other seats closed along their route.
Nor does the music. The four soloists, stationed in different corners of the hall, trade passages back and forth. (It's like "listening to a two-way pingpong match," Chase said.) Meanwhile, the roving flutists play soft air sounds, filling the hall with rhythmic, scattered breath.
The hall is sensitive to soft sounds, he added, making it the perfect venue.
The SPCO connected with Chase in 2013, Kim said, at an artistic brainstorming retreat in New York. They began discussing Sciarrino's piece, growing excited about Chase's ability to "pull together a whole community of flutists." The chamber orchestra nabbed a $50,000 Knight Arts Challenge grant from the Knight Foundation to stage the piece, along with about $33,000 from the Minnesota State Arts Board.
During a weekend of rehearsals and workshops, flutists as young as 10 years old worked with Chase, who bounces and moves as she plays and speaks. "Awesome," she often told the players. "Fantastic, fantastic." She demonstrated, dipping the end of her flute with her entire body.
"Just play it like it's the most expressive, beautiful thing you've ever played," she said.
The score is fully notated, but Chase translated it for musicians who can't read music. Then, in a rehearsal Friday with the youngest flutists, the children came up with their own nicknames for the sounds: haunted house, sighs of a ghost, Hufflepuff.
Halfway through Saturday's rehearsal, Chase sent the flutists into the aisles of the tiered hall, its undulating ceiling made of mohogany-stained oak dowels.
As the musicians played, slowly walking down the aisles, Chase encouraged them to move, rotate and pause. She told them to play into the ear of a concertgoer, to make eye contact with another. She asked them to resist forming a single-file line — praising a few flutists for getting momentarily lost in a corner of the hall.
Playing flute in a band, the goal was always to "mesh, almost make yourself one," said Amy Goebel, of Woodbury. "You didn't want to stand out unless you're doing a solo.
But on Saturday, she brought a "special" flute her husband gave her 15 years ago, with open holes and a richer tone. Wednesday, she said, would be its concert debut.


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Alibaba Cloud SSL Certificates Service
What is Certificate Service
New purchase upon expiration
Step 1: Select a certificate
Step 2: Enter the information
View and manage purchased SSL certificates
Deploy to other cloud products
Select and purchase certificates
Apply for and validate certificates
Deploy issued certificates to Alibaba Cloud products
Deploy SSL certificate on Ubuntu Apache2
List of SSL Certificate FAQs
What is a public key and a private key
Last Updated: Jun 19, 2018 Edit in Github
What is a public key and a private key?
The public key and private key are also known as asymmetric encryption. This encryption is mathematically configured to create a public and private key. The public key is known and can be disclosed to many while the private key is known only to the key owner. The public key is usually used to encrypt session keys, verify digital signatures, or encrypt data that can be decrypted with the matching private key.
Both the keys are used relatively, which means if you use the public key for encryption, you must use the matching private key for decryption as well (and the opposite). The decryption fails if this process is not followed.
How does a digital certificate work?
A digital certificate uses a public key encryption system (a matching key pair for encryption and decryption). Each user creates a private key (which is highly secured and not disclosed to anyone) for decryption. The user digitally signs it, and creates a public key, and discloses it with the user group to complete the encryption and signature verification process.
A digital signature is produced on a document that is verified by the key owners, and cannot be generated by anyone else.
A digital certificate is a document digitally signed by a certificate authority (CA) that contains information about a public key and information about the identity of its owner. The simplest certificate includes a public key, name, and digital signature of the certificate authority. The digital certificates are valid for a specific time period.
How can I create a private key?
Alibaba Cloud Certificates Service has the following restrictions when generating the encryption algorithm and length of a private key:
The algorithm must be RSA.
The length must be at least 2,048 bits.
We recommend that you use 2,048 bits, and the SHA256 digest algorithm.
You can use either of the following methods to create your private key:
Use OpenSSL to generate the private key
OpenSSL is a powerful and widely used library tool for secure communication. You can download the latest OpenSSL installation package from http://www.openssl.org/source/.
OpenSSL version 1.0.1g or later is required.
After OpenSSL is installed, run openssl genrsa -out myprivate.pem 2048 in command line mode to generate your private key.
myprivate.pem is your private key.
2,048 indicates the encryption length.
Use Keytool to export the private key
Keytool is a key management tool installed with JDK. It creates certificates based on the Keystore (JKS) format. You can obtain Keytool when you download JDK from Java SE Downloads.
By default, the public key and private key created by using Keytool are not exported. Therefore, you have to export the private key from a .keystore file that has already been created. see Mainstream formats used in digital certificates.
In the exported file, the private key is visible if a section of the file looks similar to either of the following examples:
-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----
-----END PRIVATE KEY-----
You must maintain the privacy and security of the private key at all costs. Because, if the private key is lost or becomes corrupt, you cannot use the corresponding public key and digital certificate that you have requested.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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New Ford Focus to be driven by Simon Dallow
Tuesday, 22 October 2002, 2:07 pm
Press Release: Rally New Zealand
Ford's fresh out of the blocks new Focus will be driven in the EnergyWise Rally 2002 by TV1 news presenter Simon Dallow. The Focus, which has been released to the media but doesn't officially go on sale until the new year, is expected to provide a strong challenge to the Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic in the class for small-medium cars from 1601-2500cc.
Dallow will drive the Focus for the first two days of the event – who will be behind the wheel for the second half of the rally has yet to be announced.
The Ford Focus is the world's best selling car. Hugely popular in both Europe and the USA for its style, performance and driving qualities, it also has an enviable reputation for low fuel consumption. The EnergyWise Rally 2002 will be the perfect opportunity for the Focus and its rivals to demonstrate the remarkable fuel economy of today's new cars.
Ford's other entry is a Mondeo Zetec, driven by Ford Advanced Driving School instructor Mark Cooper, who will be out to demonstrate that a high level of driver skill has just as much relevance to saving fuel as it does to high-performance driving. The Mondeo will be competing against the just-released Toyota Camry and Mazda6 in the class for medium-large cars 1601-2500cc.
Find more from Rally New Zealand on InfoPages.


anthology. National Medalist poets are considered for the National Student Poets Program, the nation's highest honor for young poets presenting original work. Warren County Public Schools will be covering the travel costs for Greenwood High School's Halle Rudloff, a Gold Medal and American Visions recipient in Film and Animation. Halle Rudloff will represent the south central Kentucky region at the ceremony.
City Department of Cultural Affairs, and Amazon Literary Partnership; numerous other individual, foundation, and corporate funders; and, for the National Student Poets Program, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Poetry Foundation, and the Academy of American Poets.


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Who Are We Writing For? recap*
Maybe it's ironic that a writing symposium has left me hardly able to write a word, to literally render my writing invisible, as I attempt to make myself as the writer visible. What I mean is that this inability to profusely write has been the best thing to happen to me in my nine year span as a freelance writer. Endlessly producing words and tailored copy for everyone and anyone, my value as a writer varied drastically depending on whom my labour was for. I can churn out words as if my words fell off of some assembly line, with little thought or control to where they would end up and how this mass manufacturing of words has become detrimental to the craft of my writing as practice.
Image: Roman Signer (left) and symposium guests, Vera Tollmann, Claire Barliant, Matthew Stock, Ross Sinclair, Moira Jeffrey, Charlotte Young, Jennifer Melville
Who Are We Writing For? is a symposium I conceived and then co-produced during my time as Deveron Art's inaugural arts writer in residence, a residency that began as a very murky writing and curating fellowship. Bringing together twenty writers, artists, curators, educators, and consultants from across the UK , Western Europe, and North America into the town of Huntly for a 24 hour programme of viewings, discussions, presentations, and writing, WAWWF approaches the practice and process of writing from an understanding that this will be a perpetual question.
The aim of designing a symposium by invite only, that was not open to the public, and not recorded, was done so with the intention to not perform, posture, or proliferate a certain style of discourse. All too often conferences and symposiums bring together an electric group of minds with shared values, but performative lectures and show boating are exchanged rather than any genuine expressions. The primary aim of this invite-only format was to engage in directed writing exercises and peer-led group discussions about the state of contemporary art discourse, and I am still shocked and overwhelmed by the generosity of each participant in sharing their vulnerabilities.
What I learned from the writing exercises was that the joy of writing has been constrained by formulas and word count, and I am not alone in enabling this downward spiral of writing as supplementary descriptions, because I haven't been able to stop treading in this precarious position as a hustler.
But if we look at writing as a creative practice, have I not completely sold out already? And at the same time, be completely disrespected and misunderstood? Writing copy for ads and editing funding proposals for me is on par with asking an artist to paint your house, and of course artists do paint houses, but there is less of a differentiation between their paid labour and their creative practice. Writing, and I am referring to really good writing, exists in and of itself as a creative form, loaded with historical and social significance in meaning and in its very production, but it is also the singular voice of the writer that carries forward the essence and construction of writing, a voice that is often expected to be as invisible as the labour of writing itself.
And if we really can never get out of language, then we will need to reposition ourselves to not be at the mercy of it. Rather than perpetuate a closed circuit of references that has become the dominant discourse of any specialized topic, including contemporary art, not to mention engineering and molecular biology, where writing is little more than technical writing, my work as a writer is to write with and through language, rather than always bend to its will for professionalized purposes and other forms of systematized frameworks of understanding.
Last week's by invite symposium brought the obvious question to the forefront, and for me, personally, this question of who are we writing for is stronger than ever intertwined with WHO is paying me to write?
WHO pays me is no less simple than whom I write for, as those who issue me a payment for my precarity are doing so on behalf of an even more amorphous shade than the mythical broad public audience. In this nexus of shape shifters in the form of funders, publishers, and readers, I have had to discover who I am again as the writer: the labourer who remains an integral link in this chain of supply and demand. In terms of arts writing, the writer is always in the supporting role, with the catalogue to be the first on the chopping block if funds are low while reviews are solicited, with little care of the actual words expressed, as it is only preferable that an image accompanies. The idea of a primary text to accompany art exhibitions is neither new nor outrageous, but when stuck on how such a change can ever come about in the state of contemporary art discourse, my response is: set some standards!
And this is why I am paralyzed, as without hustling, I am left to write only for myself, who remains my biggest fan and critic. Disgusted and tired from the regurgitation of language that satisfies box checking and professional affirmations, I will no longer write what people expect me to write, which namely, is name dropping with adjectives. These are the people who pay me, and by a process of negation, I will sort out who I am no longer writing for.
*First published on The Huntly Review
Labels: freelance writing, precarity
Real Life in Huntly, Interview with Ross Sinclair*
Image credit: Ross Sinclair, Real Life Huntly (surveyed from the Clashmach), 2011 (courtesy of the artist and Deveron arts; photograph: Anna Vermehren)
Glasgow-based Ross Sinclair has been the Artist in Residence at Deveron Arts for the summer of 2011 researching the history of The Gordon Clan of Huntly and its relationship to present day Real Life in Huntly. From writing songs encapsulating the history of The Gordon Family to marching up and down The Clashmach carrying painted portraits of past dukes and Robert the Bruce, Sinclair has been negotiating the boundaries between being a research-driven studio artist to working in a socially engaged practice through Deveron Art's "the town is the venue" methodology.
Canada-based Amy Fung is Deveron Art's Visiting Arts Writer in Residence for 2011.
This is an excerpt from an interview, which took place on September 6, 2011, Huntly, Aberdeenshire.
Amy Fung: Let's go back to the beginning: what have you been doing in the town of Huntly?
Ross Sinclair: Thinking about it now, it's turned out like a 3 months research residency where I've spent a lot of time reflecting on the subject of the Gordons of Huntly, while at the same time constantly questioning myself, thinking about the process and context … a lot of the ideas have woven in quite well into a whole strain of my work, ideas about living in a small damp northern European nation sometimes known as Scotland that touches upon notions of identity, location, history, geography, and what we're all made up of. Part of that is just where I am myself at the moment, as a lot of that has been a reflection of what does it mean to come to a place like Deveron Arts to be an artist in residence working in a socially engaged method with a maxim of the town is the venue. I think it's very challenging for all concerned.
For me, to explore the situation where there's still quite a big constituency is really interesting. We did this event down by Huntly Castle where we called up all the Gordons in the phone book and we invited them to have lunch together. I set up this carnival style tableau facade with a doorway at the bottom and we invited them to all bring mementos of their Gordon heritage. It was a really lovely day where everyone met each other as they didn't all know another, and I did this performance of songs that charts 12,000 count 'em - muthafuckin years of history and we did a photo of all the present day Gordon's in Huntly with their illustrious forebears in the background and the castle as the backdrop.
It was this very simple way to present the Gordon Family here in 2011 and the castle bearing their family name and here's me as the artist in residence bringing it all together and Deveron arts hosting; looking back it's interesting to articulate as it was just a really human moment of a really simple exchange and sitting down across the table like this and talking. It really only lives in the memory, but it was quite a rich and dynamic moment. Though at the same time I'm thinking about a meta view of the event where I'm considering whether the Gordons are part of the work, or participants, or viewers as the piece is documented as an artwork.
AF: Do you think that's the focus of these residencies, that if the town is the people as you say, can you imprint something on people as one could with a venue?
RS: Well this thing in the Mart last weekend where Huntly hosted its farmers' market on Saturday and then the livestock mart on Sunday hosted all of Huntly life from the bouncy castle to the tractor show to the rare breeds, sheep shearing and rabbit skinning amongst the Guides and Brownies and people selling landscape photos and all sorts of other things, and then in the middle of the livestock mart, there's this artist in residence too. I brought all the stuff I had been working from the "studio" into the pen, and I was sitting there in the back painting and making music with my back to the audience and for me I really did feel like I was just one of the other exotic zoo animals. But the question after all is whether this idea of culture and art is just another aspect that goes on in the town? I did a project a few years ago called "Studio Real Life" at de Appel in Amsterdam and that was riffing on similar ideas. I had set up this symbolic studio where I was there every day being an artist for 3 months in the public gaze, but as much as anything it was for me - trying to answer: What the fuck goes on in there? What's my job? What's my role?
For the full interview, please download the pdf here
Labels: Huntly, Interviews, real life, Ross Sinclair, Scotland, socially engaged art
Roman Signer, Now and Then*
I first remembering seeing this photo back in the fall of 2007. I had just given notice to the last office job I thought I could ever hold (still true to date) as unforeseen events made me realize I needed to give freelance writing another full-time go. Naturally, I was going to run away first to Berlin for a bit of fun and inspiration, and doing a bit of homework first, this image popped out at me from a Canadian art magazine previewing Roman Signer's solo exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. I was completely unfamiliar with his work, but something about this photograph, its inherent dynamism, the glean of this uncanny cherry red, the double take it made me do, led me to least circle the preview for later inspection.
Image credit: Roman Signer Kajak (Aarau) 1998-99. SMB, FRIEDRICH CHRISTIAN FLICK COLLECTION IM HAMBURGER BAHNHOF PHOTO STEFAN ROHNER © ROMAN SIGNER
I would be in Berlin by December, and the friends I was staying with recommended the Signer show too, and their opinions held more weight than any 20 word preview ever could. Wandering through the Bahnhof should take a full day, but I needed two to watch all of Signer's videos and documentations.
As a comprehensive exhibition of performance documentations, most of the work existed on screens and monitors, but several of the works after-motion had been left or placed in the gallery halls. I can only recall a sensation that made me realize why keeping fireworks under your bed was about as exciting as lighting them later. The dormant motion of objects against gravity, the visual and aural residue of explosions, and the generalcapsulation of propulsion was all readily palpable in each work, with something inherently human as the trigger. One work that continues to stand out in my memory is a hand held video work following the path of wayward balloon, leading to a chase as the wind picks up, and the inevitable inability to continue the chase as we, through the seemingly dejected camera, watches the balloon drift far and away. It was as devastating a work as I ever saw, and it is only now looking back that the description of Signer's works as "time sculptures" finally begins to make sense. His interest in working with the uncontrollable elements of water and fire, earth and air, yet in his attempts to control some element against them, are absurdist in humour, humanist in conceit,and ultimately a gesture of self-destruction.
Next week, Signer arrives in Huntly to make a new work along the River Bogie called Transmissions from the River (Übertragungen aus dem Fluss). I have no clue as to what to expect, as the river is constantly changing and transmitting as is, but inspired by the attempts to discuss his work again, I am organizing this event which will also wrap up my time here in Huntly, which it turns out, has been the first time in these past four years I have not had to hustle for work as a full time freelance writer. I wouldn't say it's serendipitous in the least that Signer should bookend this moment in my memory, but I can't deny it's a nice way to remember the unpredictable and inconceivable changing of the tides again and again.
Labels: freelance writing, Huntly, Roman Signer, Scotland, transmissions, Who Are We Writing For? Hamburger Bahnhof
Convergence at Timespan, Helmsdale, Scotland*
Helmsdale is an even smaller and more remote community than Huntly. Nestled way up in the North of Scotland with a population in the high hundreds and a history dating back to the early AD years, Helmsdale has a heritage focus on genealogy and geology, and the past is undeniable in this region of the Sutherland.
As it goes, a museum and art gallery was built in the mid 80s and in 2009, Timespan began shifting towards bridging the past with the present. Commissioning GSA's Jenny Brownrigg along with Deveron Art's Claudia Zieske to write a research report for the 2010 - 2013 period, the first set of artists in residence commissioned included Julia Douglas and Jo Roberts, working in contemporary modes of knitting and commentariographing, respectively.
Currently under guest curator Kirsteen Macdonald's stewardship, the artists from this past weekend of events included artists in residence Graham Fagen and Corin Sworn, along with screenings and performances by Luke Fowler and Wounded Knee (Drew Wright). Notably more high profile in terms of art world credibility, the programme certainly brought in members of Scotland's art community up for a packed weekend, with many visiting Helmsdale for the first time.
Still from Graham Fagen's Baile An Or, 2011
The main exhibition was Fagen's new work, Baile An Or, and the short film certainly captured his first impressions of the place by its focus on time spanning (excuse the pun) through a series of still shots capturing the fall and rise of the tides along the bonnie river. Moving from morning light to moon light while offering meditations on the legacies of war, the film is controlled by its mood editing, which received a short reprieve from its subdued pace for an almost spirited focus on the motions of gold panning. The HD work was crisp and clean, showing no betrayal of a trained eye, but it also exists very much on the surface of Helmsdale's purported identity that left nothing complicated to unravel. In comparison to The Summer Walkers (1977) ( a documentary about the life and culture of travellers by Hamish Henderson and Timothy Neat which was also shown as part of the arts weekend), Baile An Or clearly balked at going any deeper or closer to the subject of human history as any sense of personality was stripped from the land. While The Summer Walkers was complicated by various ethical and formal issues in its anthropological narrative of the travellers, that work as a whole left a far greater impression of a story being spun and told about a people and the places they inhabited, while Baile An Or read more as a postcard snapshot.
Not surprisingly, while the weekend audience roamed the town like a pack, the number of locals in attendance were few and far between. The void of local engagement in this particular exhibition drags up the persistent question of whether showing contemporary art in remote locations is actually for those living there or if these exercises are simply a field trip for the art hounds?
I visited Helmsdale during my first week in Scotland, and I was appalled by the Ed Ruscha exhibition that was touring through as there was not an iota of connection to the place it was being shown. The Fagen exhibition and accompanying short works by community members was of course far better by comparison, and I don't know if these type of issues ever get resolved or even reach a consensus, but it's refreshing to see Timespan juggling these conundrums through an ongoing experiment of trying out different strategies and formulas in connecting contemporary art everywhere and anywhere.
Labels: art field trips, art hounds, Corin Sworn, Ed Ruscha, Graham Fagan, Hamish Henderson, Helmsdale, Luke Fowler, Scotland, Summer Walkers, Timespan, Timothy Neat
Framework: Maria Fusco writing workshop*
Coming to the end of this inaugural arts writing gig at Deveron Arts, I am more unsure than ever as to what it is I am actually writing. I know I write, but I know little else. I have no idea what it is I am writing, just that I am definitely writing it. Working on the border of cultural commentaries and creative non-fiction, I am tired of looking, if not legitimating what it is I write, rather, I continue to read the writings that have influenced me as a reader and inevitably as a writer. A small handful of these voices appear on my current reading selection for the Art Reader Network including Gertrude Stein, Deleuze and Guattari, and Serge Deney, all of whom were spectres to my experience of Maria Fusco's writing workshop yesterday.
Reconfiguring the value and limitations of arts writing as a creative practice that runs alongside, across, in and through the works of visual art our words accompany, Fusco's approach to arts writing meets at the nexus of experimental poetics, post-structuralist theory, and the sculpting of subjectivity. Shifting art objects, and the history of art itself, as bricks, rather than the keystone, in the arch of understanding and rendering, Fusco pushes us into a minefield of subjective interpretations starting from the first person position of (art) objects.
Encouraging us basically to "re-caress the art object" -- to write and read the object simultaneously --Fusco's series of writing exercises led us further down the constructive path of subjective reimaginings, and hopefully hit home that writing is a practice that employs creative skill. A quiet, but nevertheless startling realization came during the collaborative exercises, when we had to do pronoun hurdles in small groups, and I was reminded for the first time in a very long time that writing and editing are acquired skills that not many people have grasped. As somebody who compulsively writes and edits, I unfortunately forget before eventually remembering that writing remains one of the most undervalued skills in terms of appreciation and labour value.
Concerns disguised as questions were raised early on as to why one writes if nobody is going to read it? This commonly held position reveals the underlying attitude that writing is supposedly a servant to communicate knowledge, and that knowledge is presupposed, rather than created. Would anyone ask if a musician would play and sing if there is no audience to hear it? Or if a thought is going to be explored if nobody is ever going to understand it? Eventually somebody comes across the work in some incarnation or another, but the work must begin somewhere.
Having been given an option between production or discussion, I am thrilled the majority voted on production, as that's at least a positive sign towards a better direction.
*First written for Framework and published on The Huntly Review
Labels: Deleuze and Guattari, Framework, Gertrude Stein, Maria Fusco, Serge Deney, writing workshops
Akimblog update on Scotland*
Edinburgh Art Festival | British Art Show 7 | Ruth Ewan at Dundee Contemporary Art | Helen Cho at Glenfiddich | Graham Fagen at Timespan | Deveron Arts | Who Are We Writing For?
I was told early on in my six-month arts fellowship in wee, bonnie Scotland that Glasgow is where you make art and Edinburgh is where you see it. Being situated outside of the Central Belt entirely, I have had the privilege of holding no allegiance to either of these truisms. Instead, I've been able to discern for myself the scope of Scotland's radically diverse and undervalued contemporary art scene.
Much like Canadian artists who have to jump ship to "make it", Scottish artists also look south and beyond for recognition. Like the rest of the art world, the majority has moved to Berlin, but that leaves the homeland as an isolated testing ground. Left alone to wrestle with their own formalist art legacies are new formalist artists such as Glasgow's own Martin Boyce and Karla Black, two of four Turner Prize 2011 finalists, both of whom have also represented their country independently of Britain at the Venice Biennial in the past five years. A unique sense of Scottish identity has long been alive and strong, but even then, I am still not sure what constitutes Scottish art.
Martin Creed, Work No. 1059, 2011 (courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth; photograph: Gautier Deblonde)
Edinburgh remains best known for its flurry of festivals each summer, and every gallery lines up to be included in the madness by bringing in big international names like Anish Kapoor (at the University of Edinburgh), Hans Schabus (at Collective Gallery), Robert Rauschenberg (at Inverleith House), etc. The highlights remained outside of the festivals, however, from esteemed private gallery Ingleby Gallery's consistently impressive group exhibition to Martin Creed's Work No. 1059. Albeit, Creed's reimagining of The Scotsman Steps was originally commissioned by Fruitmarket Gallery to open in time for the 2010 festival, but was delayed until early this summer. Coming upon them one day without the festival hype was a fantastic surprise and delight. Consisting of one hundred and four marble slabs, each different in colour and originating from all over the globe, that coat the long dilapidated Scotsman Steps (an important historical thoroughfare for Edinburgh's markets that remains in constant use,), the work is the best public artwork I have seen anywhere . . .
*To read the entire entry please visit Akimblog
Labels: Akimblog, Scotland
Real Life in Huntly, Interview with Ross Sinclair*...


Is this the worst product roll-out you have ever seen?
Between the horrid lack of pricing/release dates/carrier information and these Nokia "exclusivity" announcements, this whole thing is beginning to feel like a slow motion train wreck.
Is it too early to call this a fiasco? New Coke, anyone???
It's not the worst yet. Kin is even worse, not to mention the L900 when it made a bang at CES, only to be released a full 3 months later in US and in other countries even later.
txaggies07, Xsever, cedarlog and 12 others like this.
In terms of a product announcement, it's pretty dreadful.
And "better than the Kin" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement either.
And trust me, if you were a developer, carrier executive or Microsoft/Nokia stakeholder with a strong stake in the success of the Lumia range in the USA, you WOULD be losing sleep over the phone's unveiling.
1jaxstate1, Nurgling, aubreyq and 2 others like this.
And it's still better than BB10 or WebOS. No ringing endorsement there either, but there you go.
I just need this bloody phone out. Now. Then we can all complain about how heavy the thing is.
mmacleodbrown, snowmutt and aubreyq like this.
I'm actually kind of liking the way things are going. Come October 26th through the first week of November, they'll unveil a whole product line that should work extremely well together. I'll be able to upgrade to Windows 8 on my laptop, buy a Windows RT tablet, and then get a Windows Phone 8 device. Yeah, it's not fun to wait, but in the end I think it'll all be worth it.
To me it's been fun. It's very easy to guess and be very close to what the price will be and when it will be released. At least here in the US. I've enjoyed reading all the information about the new phones and the little info on WP8. The hardest thing is trying to avoid all the whining and crying from so many people on here.
Seeing a lot of crying here but no suggestions. If you think you could do better send NOK / MSTF a resume. My opinion is you have no idea of the complexities, and COSTS associated with such a task.
theefman, txaggies07, cedarlog and 1 others like this.
"If you can do it better, you'd be working at Nokia" is a lame argument.
Chances are, if one can do it better, he's probably at Apple, Samsung, HTC or LG, all of whom have gotten things done faster and better than Nokia. And that's ultimately what counts -- Nokia isn't playing "be the expert versus the WP users," it's competing with companies who don't screw up half as often as they have.
diaspar, steve_w_7, doublebullout and 2 others like this.
Duke Nukem forever has that title buy a long shot.
HeyCori, Diamondx_8, Mitlov and 2 others like this.
Villain, txaggies07, HeyCori and 7 others like this.
It is pretty bad, rumors of a new nexus are floating around, lets see how long that takes to hit the shelves after an announcement.
Surely it would be far worse if Nokia had said nothing up until now, and waited for the wp8 launch.
Whine all you like, but the fact everyone is soo annoyed at Nokia proves they've done an awful lot right, and most of the stuff they've got wrong is due to Microsoft or the carriers.
theefman and cckgz4 like this.
Quite honestly the only people I have seen complaining about this launch are people on Windows Phone forums with a "NOW NOW NOW!" attitude.
If it was a real problem tech sites would have been dragging MS and Nokia through the mud about this launch, but the fact that everyone has high hopes for the 920 says otherwise.
cckgz4 and aubreyq like this.
It is Nokia's product and ultimately they are responsible for it.... That said, we haven't seen the full picture yet but it seems messy.
It seems that certain colours won't be available on some carriers or retailers. Nokia Italy for example seems to be only offering it online in Black and white (see blog post) no grey on AT+T and only black on Rogers. So everywhere you turn someone is disappointed somewhere.
Maybe things will change later on.
If you've paid attention to any Nokia launches in the past 3-4 years they've all been like this. I wouldn't even call the 920 launch the worst of them.
EDIT: Although I'm really really annoyed about my choice of colours being black, black, or black. Thanks Nokia, thanks Rogers.
I agree it's bad I have been waiting as well and it's not Nokia that's the issue Microsoft is running this show and roll out so let's put the blame on the right company.
They haven't got my money though. I'm not touching the black 920.
In 3 months when we get yellow and red we'll see about that, as seems to be the case with Nokia. I'm more inclined to believe that they just don't make enough of every colour to service every market at launch.


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Home > Business & Economy > Spaces to open co-working hub for Edinburgh's booming entrepreneur economy
Old Town, Edinburgh. f11photo/Shutterstock.com
Spaces to open co-working hub for Edinburgh's booming entrepreneur economy
Edinburgh's reputation for building one of the UK's most vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystems will receive a further boost with the opening of a new co-working hub in the city centre later this year. Spaces, the co-working brand that originated in Amsterdam, has let 29,707 sq ft of office space at the recently refurbished development One Lochrin Square, in Edinburgh's Exchange District.
Founded in 2006, Spaces is already home to businesses in several locations across the UK, including London, Liverpool, Brighton and Glasgow, with plans to announce more locations in the coming months. Outside of the UK, Spaces' global footprint now spans more than 25 countries, including the USA, Brazil, Australia, Japan and Spain.
The deal will see the company occupy three floors of the building, representing 46% of the total floor area. The building's other tenant, Ctrip, the Chinese owner of Edinburgh-based Skyscanner, took 12,000 sq ft on the first floor late last year.
One Lochrin Square, which comprises 64,000 sq ft of grade A office space over five floors, was re-launched by UBS Asset Management on behalf of investors in March 2017 following refurbishment.
"UBS took a bold decision to include some 'de-furbished' space on the ground floor – a property trend which accentuates a building's existing features by offering stripped back, loft-style office accommodation," said Ben Reed, office Agency Director at JLL.
"This was a factor in attracting Spaces to the building as well as the benefit of securing bright open plan upper floors with access to a large roof terrace, which will be accessible by their clients. The building is now 65% let, however there is still an opportunity to secure one of the largest single floors available in the market on Level 2 totalling 15,000 sq ft."
Richard Morris, Spaces' UK chief executive, said: "[Our] emphasis on networking and community allows users to meet others who share a belief in the power of collaborative working. Edinburgh is an important business location for our expansion plans. Our new hub will provide a flexible environment for businesses to grow in a key, strategic business location."
Toby Withall, office agency partner at Knight Frank, said: "2018 will begin to see a steady flow of collaborative, co-working facilities coming to Edinburgh and Glasgow. The Spaces concept is just one of a few operators looking at the city. It's very good news for One Lochrin Square, which has generated strong occupier interest since its recent refurbishment and we are confident the remaining second floor will be fully let soon."
At the time of its launch in spring last year, One Lochrin Square was Edinburgh's largest single office building available for let. Following the deal with Spaces, two thirds of the building is now let, leaving a single floor of c15,000 sq ft available – one of the largest open plan floor plates available in Edinburgh.
Located in the heart of Edinburgh's Exchange District and beside National Cycle Route 75, the redevelopment has placed a major emphasis on the provision for cyclists with secure storage and extensive new showers. UBS Asset Management was represented by JLL and Knight Frank. Spaces was represented by niche specialists, CuthbertWhite.
www.onelochrinsquare.com
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When your child starts a ketogenic diet you might have a variety of questions that range from the topics of weighing food to using hand sanitizer. Here are answers to questions that other parents and caregivers have asked about the diet.
Q. Are dental check-ups allowed when my child's on a ketogenic diet? Should we ask the dentist about alternatives for cleaning and fluoride treatments?
A. Yes, dental check-ups and fluoride treatments are allowed. Some dental cleaning solutions might contain carbohydrates, so you should ask your dentist about the solutions he or she uses. Some dentists will just use water if you ask.
Q. What should I do if my child vomits after a gastric tube feeding?
A. You need to ask your doctor or registered dietician about this. Vomit often looks like more food or formula than it really is because it's mixed with stomach juices. In general, we advise you to wait to refeed until your child's next feeding.
Q. What is a good way to transport food/water when traveling? What do we do if we are traveling and forgot the food, or don't have enough?
Buy a large cooler to store foods.
Bring easy-to-take foods such as homemade peanut butter cookies.
Make meals ahead of time and store them in small, sealable containers.
Take food with you whenever you can—especially heavy whipping cream that might vary greatly in carbohydrate content.
If you've forgotten any food, you'll have to purchase what you need at a nearby grocery store.
Q. Is hand sanitizer OK to use on hands?
A. Yes, fragrance-free sanitizers such as regular Purell are best.
Q. Is there any variation in how much fluid my child can have?
A. Yes. Discuss how much you can vary your child's fluid amount with the dietician.
Q. What if we forget to measure urine ketones one week?
A. This is generally fine. We like to monitor the level of urine ketones over periods of time to see if and how they affect seizures. This won't have much impact in a child whose seizures are well controlled with few or no seizures.
However, strict ketone testing is crucial during the initiation of the ketogenic diet, and when seizures increase or seizure activity differs from a child's baseline seizure activity.
Q. Is it a major problem if the food weight (oral eater) is over or under by 1 to 2 grams?
A. When your child starts the ketogenic diet, we need you to be as precise as possible. That said, if you are inaccurate in measurements, it's better to be under than over weight. For example, if you're supposed to weigh 50 grams of cream and you end up only giving 49 grams, that doesn't have as much of an impact as if you were supposed to give 5 grams of blueberries and gave 6 grams instead.
Q. Should we bring a food scale when our child is admitted for initiation of the ketogenic diet?
A. We suggest you buy a food scale before your child is admitted for initiation of the ketogenic diet. Right now, we do not sell food scales.
Q. How often will my child need to have tests?
Ketogenic lab tests are done about two weeks before your clinic appointment.
Electrocardiogram tests (EKGs) are done once a year. Renal ultrasounds and bone age tests are done every six months.
These tests might be done more frequently if your health care provider requests them.


Mother's Day is always hard for me.
I forget that sometimes and so do the people around me. Including the multi level marketing companies who send me incessant emails asking me if I've picked up the perfect gift or remembered to send a card or flowers.
And no I won't be spending the day with my mum, thanks for asking.
My mum is constantly in my thoughts and there are so many moments where I just want her to be here so that I can tell her about the paper I'm writing, or the part I'm auditioning for or the boy I have a crush on. There are moments I just want her to be here to tell me that she's proud of me and everything that I'm doing. I know that I have amazing friends and other people in my life that serve that function, but sometimes they just aren't enough somehow.
Deep in my heart I know that she would tell me that the paper was good, that I am right for the role and giggle with me about boys. I know that she would be proud of me and all that I have accomplished in my life, but knowing that doesn't make it less hard sometimes when I know that she's not here.
While I may not get to hear her voice, her death has given me strength I didn't realize possible. I know that with everything I do in this life, her life is in the back of my mind, pushing me forward, giving me courage to push my limits, shoot for the stars and just be myself.
I know that I am my mother's daughter and that I am who I am today, not only because of her but also because of her passing. Her life has made me incredibly strong, her death even stronger and as a result, I am living my life for the two of us. And what an amazing life it is.
What a beautiful testament to the wonderful woman your mother was and the one you have become.
Beautiful post, your Mom would be proud of you.
To this day I think of you when I hear that song - not just because of the Grade 6 memories, or the mother lyrics, but because you always seem to have your feet on ground, heart in hand, facing forward - being yourself.
Awe Ashley, I'm sorry your time was cut so short with your mom. I think she would be so proud of you, and so proud to be your mom.
You're so inspiring my dear. A true testament to turning a bad situation around and coming out stronger for it. We bend, not break.
What a beautiful and loving tribute to your mom.
Thank you for writing this for all of us who find ourselves in this situation.
I lost my mom just over 5 years ago and as you know it never gets easier. But I am so grateful for the time I had with her and everything she taught me.