text:
How do you 'like' that?
Social Networking Threatens the World Wide Web on its 20th Birthday
Posted on May 7, 2013 by Alfredo Lopez
This Summer, a team at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) has undertaken a remarkable project: to recreate the first web site and the computer on which it was first seen.
It's a kind of birthday celebration. Twenty years ago, software developers at the University of Illinois released a web browser called Mosaic in response to work being done at CERN. There, a group led by Tim Berners-Lee had developed a protocol (a set of rules governing communications between computers) that meshed two basic concepts: the ability to upload and store data files on the Internet and the ability of computers to do "hyper-text" which converts specific words or groups of words into links to other files.
They called this new development the "World Wide Web".
The Original Web Pages
When you read Berners-Lee's original proposal you get a feeling for the enthusiasm and optimism that drove this work and, since it's all very recent, the people who did it are still around to explain why. In interviews, Sir Tim (Berners-Lee is now a Knight) insists he could not foresee how powerful his new project would be but he knew it would make a difference. For the first time in history, people could communicate as much as they want with whomever they want wherever they want. That, as he argued in a recent article, is the reason why it's so critical to keep the Web neutral, uncontrolled and devoid of corporate or government interference.
In our convoluted world of constantly flowing disinformation, governments tell us the Web is a "privilege" to be paid for and lost if we misbehave, corporations tell us they invented it, and most of us use it without really thinking much about its intent. Very few people view the World Wide Web as the revolutionary creation it actually is.
Whether its "creators" or the vast numbers of techies who continue to develop the Web think about it politically or not, there is an underlying understanding that unifies their efforts: The human race is capable of constructive exchange of information which will bring us knowledge all humans want and benefit from and in collaborating on that knowledge, we can search for the truth. There is nothing more revolutionary than that because the discovered truth is the firing pin of all revolution.
Twenty years later, it's painfully ironic that, when they hear the word "Internet", most people probably think of Social Networking programs like Facebook and Twitter. As ubiquitous and popular as Social Networking is, it represents a contradiction to the Internet that created it and to the World Wide Web on which it lives. It is the cyber version of a "laboratory controlled" microbe: it can be and frequently is productive but, if used unchecked and unconsiously, it can unleash enormous destruction, reversing the gains we've made with technology and divorcing us from its control.
That's a harsh picture so some explanation is called for.
You may think the World Wide Web and the Internet are the same thing. They're not. The Web is to the Internet what a city is to human existence. The first can't live without the second; the second is extended by the first. But they are not, and never can be, the same.
The Internet is a system of communications comprised of billions of computers that connect to each other through telecommunications lines. It allows people to interact in different ways like email, file upload, chat and, of course, the good old Web.
The Web is a function of the Internet, a kind of subset through which data files stored on a computer (called a server) can be accessed and viewed by people using a special piece of software called a browser. You're reading this with a browser and your browser is reading this as a file on a server and translating it into what you see. To do that, it uses a protocol called "Hyper Text Transfer Protocol" or "http". That is what makes the Web special because it produces "hot links" that you can click on to go to any site or page the link creator wants you to. In the links in this article, you go to other web pages and those pages have links of their own. You can keep clicking and deepen your knowledge, broaden your understanding, investigate other connected ideas and get other perspectives on those ideas.
The World Wide Web puts the knowledge and experience of the entire human race at your disposal. With the Web, the human race has finally experienced world-wide collaboration. That, essentially, is the power unleashed by the event that took place 20 years ago.
We can debate the Internet's contribution to social struggle but there is no question that the era of the Web has seen, among other things: the democratization of the previously dictator-dominated Latin America, the democratic struggles in Northern Africa, the ascendancy of Asian countries as world powers and the resulting democratic struggles those developments feed and, of course, the intense social struggles in the United States that have led to scores of movements, the massive Occupy movement and a black President (probably impossible before the Web).
Compare that to the year 1968 when every continent in the World was awash with resistance and mass movements — fearing a revoutionary over-throw, the government of France actually moved its offices to Germany — and when the culture and social norms of the United States were radically shifted by left-wing activism. Because much going on in the rest of the world was hidden by our corporate-controlled media, most of us in this country didn't realize it was happening. And so we thought we were all alone and, in that perceived isolation, we were not able to envision the next steps in a struggle to create a just world.
That will never happen again because we now have the Internet. We can envision the next step and we are taking it all the time. The difference is that forty-five years ago, "we" were the people of the United States (or some other individual society). In today's Web era, "we" are the entire world.
"At the heart of the original web is technology to decentralise control and make access to information freely available to all," writes the BBC's superb technology and science writer Pallab Ghosh, "It is this architecture that seems to imbue those that work with the web with a culture of free expression, a belief in universal access and a tendency toward decentralising information. It is the early technology's innate ability to subvert that makes re-creation of the first website especially interesting."
How does "Social Networking" jibe with that original intent? To a large extent, it doesn't.
Social Networking is a marketing term. It isn't a protocol. It uses nothing new, has added no new technological concepts. It is entirely based on the very same programming the Web has functioned on for two decades. In fact, Social Networking is nothing more than lots of people using some very large websites. But technology's importance isn't how it's built; it's how people use and perceive it.
People use it…a lot. Last year, over a billion people had Facebook accounts. Twitter routinely logs similar numbers. In short, each of these "services" draw half of all estimated Internet users. There is no question that, in terms of numbers and speed of development, Social Networking is the most successful project in Internet history.
Ironically, the key to Social Networking's success is a central part of the danger it poses.
Facebook — a group of linked pages on a giant website — is constraining and not very powerful. In order to use it, you have to use it the way they want you to and that's not a whole lot of "using". But there is a comfort in having one's options limited, being able to use something without learning anything about it or making many choices about how you use it. That alluring convenience is a poisoned apple, however. You may not have to learn much about Facebook to use it but the people who own Facebook sure learn a lot about you when you do.
Social Networking is, by its nature, a capture environment. The companies that offer the services, particularly Facebook, host your site and control all the information on it. When you think about what that information says about you, the control is disturbing. CNN writer Julianne Pepitone called Facebook, "one of the most valuable data sets in existence: The social graph. It's a map of the connections between you and everyone you interact with."
Not only is your personal data on Facebook but the personal data of all the people you designate as "friends". In many cases, their photos are displayed (as are yours) showing their faces, the faces of those they come into contact with and the places where the contact took place. There are also long strings of thoughts, comments, reports on what you're planning to do or what you did and who you did it with. A single web page offers a profile of your life, your activities and your thinking. What's more, because others "comment" on your facebook pages in an informal gathering of like minds (or social contacts), those connections are condensed.
This amalgamation of information isn't evil in and of itself. In fact, it could be remarkably empowering. But the problem is that all of it is in the hands of one large company and that company owns it. It will use it in marketing studies and advertising profiles and it will turn that information over to any government agency that asks for it. You have no control over that. It's in the user agreement. It's published and it's no longer yours. It belongs to Facebook and anybody Facebook wants to share it with.
If you want to try to alter what's presented and how, you can't. One of the charms and strengths of the Web is your abilility to design and organize your presentations on a website that can easily be unique — showing what you want to show and hiding what you don't, protecting contact with others through easily created web forms and discussion boards that let people "hide" their real identities, controlling what you share with the world. That can't happen with Facebook.
Social Networking displays information about you as an individual while restraining your ability to contribute information and thinking about the rest of the world. In fact, its structure often makes that contribution more difficult.
With Twitter, for example, you have 140 characters to make your statement. How much thinking can you communicate in 140 characters? Twitter feels like a room in which a large number of people are shouting single sentences — a lot of noise, even a few ideas but mainly just individualized statements bereft of context, knowledge or the need to exchange perspectives with anyone. Facebook carries so many one-sentence statements that writing anything longer seems strange and even rude.
The incremental "take-over" of the Internet by these programs has one other, even more serious, impact: it's oppressing people, particularly young people, by repressing their thinking and communication, the very benefits the Web has given us.
The World Wide Web is a classroom without walls, a library in which a library card isn't needed. Its power of access to so much information is expanded by the Web's inclusion of you, and every other human being, as a source of information. We not only learn what others think and know from the Web, we are free and even encouraged to add our own viewpoint, knowledge and experiences to that massive mix of information. By adding the hyper-link to this system, its developers have erased national boundaries, combatted cultural exclusivism, battered racism and sexism, smashed into human isolation, gone a long way toward combatting ignorance and expanded our ability to effectively write and communicate.
The seed in the struggle for freedom is the belief that you, as an individual, have value and that your life, as you live it, is of interest and importance to others. That's a message that is repressed in this oppressive society and keeping that truth hidden is the key to continued oppression. There is nothing more liberating that realizing that your thinking and your experience can be shared with others and that others actually can benefit from it. The Web is the intellectual champion of individual human worth.
But that's not Facebook and it's not Twitter. There is simply no way one can share the complexity of one's thinking or the analysis of one's life in a one-paragraph Facebook message or a 140 character Tweet. For many young people, the encouraged reliance on these tools of communication, often to the exclusion of the Web's more abundant capabilities, reverse the impact the Web has had. Used alone, it makes communications shallow, a series of "references" to what the writer hopes others will understand. It is to real discussion what a wink of the eye and poke in the ribs is to honest and revealing communication.
Does Social Networking have a purpose? Absolutely. Some use it to refer to Web pages; it's an effective means of announcement. Some use it to "stay in touch" or tell others about something happening — as Arab Spring activists used it. It is unquestionably useful.
But those who profit from it push the idea that, rather than a support for the rest of Internet Communications, Social Networking is a substitute for those communications. That is proving very attractive to hundreds of millions of young people and it is increasingly damaging the potential of the World Wide Web for, among other things, real social change.
The debate over its use and impact will continue and my own opinion is certainly not the last word but I know one thing. The people who first developed this marvel we call the World Wide Web didn't have Social Networking in mind. In fact, what they envisioned (a vision that has come to fruition) is fundamentally different from Social Networking and people who want to change this world need to actively and vigilantly protect and preserve that difference.
Previous PostPrevious The Ongoing Scandal Called the Veterans Administration
Next PostNext Liberating Women With Bombs and Bags of Cash


text:
Tunes on the move
Looking for a new pair of headphones to stand the rigors of an active life? We pit two of the best against each other
Listen up people! If you're still using the crappy headphones that were bundled with your phone, you're doing your ears some serious injustice, not to mention significantly degrading your music listening and phone calling experience. About time you considered some serious pampering of the aural kind, eh? We take the Plantronics BackBeat FIT and the Bose FreeStyle for a spin to see which one is worthy of your ears...and your cash.
Plantronics BackBeat FIT
Bluetooth headphones are, by and large, a letdown for mostly anyone who's serious about their music: if it isn't a tradeoff between battery life and weight, you end up dealing with issues with Bluetooth's often inferior sound quality. Plantronic's BackBeat FIT is certainly a step in the right direction - to begin with, these headphones are impossibly light. At 24 grams weight, they're unobtrusive to the point that you tend to forget you're wearing them. They're perfect for running or workouts - they stay put even during a brisk jog (we tried!) and are sweat- and rain-proof to boot. How Plantronics has managed to pack into this diminutive headset an 8-hour battery (listening, about 6 hours of talking) - around a week of tunes and talking - is baffling, and it's quick to charge via microUSB when the juice runs out. There's even a DeepSleep hibernation mode when the headset is in standby, which prevents the battery from draining if you don't use the headphones for a while. And we really liked the reflective line on the flexible band connecting the earpieces, good for those of you who prefer early morning jogs and don't want to be a traffic statistic. Also handy is the included neoprene armband, which can secures your smartphone (not phablets, though) during the workout and can be used to store the FITs when not in use. Using a headset while driving or walking generally has us concerned, quite simply because Bluetooth headphones pack in more controls than your hand can discern while in use. Plantronics has avoided that temptation and given the FIT big central buttons on the left to control music, and one on the right for taking calls, all very intuitive and we didn't need to check which button we were pressing after the initial hour of using them. Now, while in-call audio quality is passable, the music experience is pretty decent, more so if you consider the FITs target market of sports headphones. Sound is fairly detailed and there's a decent amount of bass, although that's something that takes a hit in noisier environments due to the open earbud design. Of course, the same open design lets you hear ambient noise (like traffic), so it's a fair tradeoff. If you're after running headphones and need a wireless set, you can't go wrong with these - they're lightweight, offer good battery life and very decent audio quality.
Bose FreeStyle
Bose is an old hand in the world of personal audio, leading several segments despite their premium pricing. But it's hardly the company to push out adventurous design. Bose products tend to be compact, yet always veer towards the classy, two-tone, mature business look instead of something hip and youthful. Naturally, color us surprised when we opened the FreeStyle earbuds box and saw, what is for Bose, quite the breath of fresh air - two very quirky styles of earbuds... a refreshing white and blue splattered Ice Blue Design and a mint-purple Indigo, along with a zippered case to match. It's squarely targeted towards the hipsters, so depending on which side of 25 you consider yourself, you'll either really like them or won't be able to stand the sight of them. The snazzy look doesn't come at the cost of stuff that Bose is known for (and quite honestly should be, given the price) - the headphones are durably designed, with a tangle-free main cord and robust connections at both the plug and the joints that can take some rough use. Like the FIT, the FreeStyle earbuds are also sweat- and weather-resistant. We particularly like what Bose does with those perfectly shaped StayHear ear tips that are comfortable and light for extended wear. You have to bear in mind that this set doesn't feature noise-cancelling capabilities - in fact, there's very little sound isolation since the earphones don't create a tight seal with the ear, so you're going to have to strain a bit to hear softer music if the ambient noise goes up. Another way of looking at it is that you'll be able to hear everything around you as if you weren't wearing headphones at all. You can quite literally pick up your phone and talk without having to remove the FreeStyle, and this will either be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your personal preference. Plugging these earbuds into your phone is a bit of a hit-and-miss affair, in the sense that like previous Bose wired earbuds, the media controls on these work best with the iPhone... and a few Android phones, so your mileage may vary. Fortunately, the core functions - listening to music and making calls via the in-line microphone - are unaffected. It's a mixed blessing that Bose hasn't done much to change the core design of the earphones or the way these headphones fit in the ear from the previous generations, with the exception of the weather-resistant capabilities. With their open design, the FreeStyle earphones give you an 'airy open sound' compared to most earbuds, and you get the feeling of encompassing sound rather than the music playing inside your head. The result is clean and clear highs, a decent midrange and an accurate bass response, though it's not something we'd recommend to picky bass lovers out there. It's a likeable overall sound signature though, and the depth/spatial capabilities give the FreeStyle an open audio quality experience that's rare to find. Slightly pricey, but a good all-round choice for everyday portable headphones that are equally at home in the car as they are on the treadmill. Plantronics BackBeat FIT What we liked: Good design, intuitive controls, lightweight, perfect for sports and workouts What we didn't: Average call quality, mediocre bass Killer Feature: Throw-a-marathon-at-it levels of battery life and durability Price: Rs 7,490 Bose FreeStyle What we liked: Fitness friendly fit, durable design What we didn't: Colors may not appeal to everyone, Android compatibility is hit-and-miss, better sound quality can be had at this price point Killer Feature: Clean open audio experience Price: Rs 8,550
KeywordsBOSECARIndigoPHONE

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Ancora Finance Group and Wellington Partners invest in Koa Health
ICT Life Sciences
The company that grew out of Telefónica obtained 14.1 million euros to revolutionize mental health treatment
Koa Health, one of the companies that was founded under the shelter of Telefónica Alpha, has become independent and is now growing in the mental health treatment market. It offers a range of digital solutions that have attracted international investors that have participated in financing this young company that has attracted 14.1 million euros in investment.
The Ancora Finance Group from the United Kingdom and Wellington Partners have played a prominent role in this investment, possibly by guarantee offered by Telefónica Alpha, a "laboratory of innovative projects", as it has been described by the parent company. Both of the funds are also committed to increasing this investment to as much as 30 million euros in the future. Telefónica will remain as a shareholder and the two new investors will have seats on the board of directors.
Scientific backing
Koa Health has earned its independence after four years of research and tests that have resulted in a number of different personalized solutions for mental health care. Scientific backing, the soundness of the proposals and the creation of a feasible roadmap convinced Telefónica Alpha that the company should become independent. In fact, its first product was designed for employees of major companies, health service providers and insurance companies and now has over 250,000 users.
One of the objectives of Koa Health is to globalize, starting with Europe, United States and Asia, to try and reach the almost one billion people that, according to the World Health Organization, suffer some kind of mental disorder worldwide. And it will achieve this by providing digital solutions, a format that is increasingly in demand because of its capacity for attending to patients' requirements.
Investment in R&D
Another of the objectives that this investment will help them to reach is to increase the budget for clinical trials, and to increase investment in R&D to continue progressing in the personalization of its products. With this in mind, it will continue to collaborate with institutions such as the Massachusetts General Hospital, the most important in the United States in the specialties of psychiatry and psychology, and with the Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust in the United Kingdom.
Oliver Harrison, CEO of Koa Health, explained: "Koa Health will expand internationally, increase investment in clinical trials and continue to develop personalized products that meet people's mental health requirements. Our objective is to enable easy access to a range of digital mental health solutions that contribute to people's well-being in such a challenging, changing world".
A clear opportunity
Speaking on behalf of the investors, Rainer Strohmenger, a partner-director of Wellington Partners, stated: The demand for digital mental health services will increase considerably as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. We see there is a clear opportunity for Koa Health to take advantage of this increase and to substantially improve people's access to high-quality care".
Thomas Putter, the Chairman and CEO of Ancora Finance Group, concluded: "We have reached a tipping point in digital health care. We believe that Koa Health's unique outlook and the work they are putting in to broaden the range of scientifically based personalized services will change the situation for millions of people who increasingly need help".
The Swiss company Ypsomed is seeking between 30 and 40 software developers for ...
Call announcing Rising UP in Spain
ICEX-Invest in Spain allocates two million euros to attracting innovative project ...


text:
BRAINTICKET
Cottonwoodhill (Clear Vinyl)
LR 313C-LP LR 313C-LP
2021 repress. Clear vinyl reissue of Brainticket's Cottonwoodhill, originally released in 1971. Cottonwoodhill -- their debut album -- immediately ran into controversy for its association with psychedelic drugs. The album came with a warning label that insisted you should "only listen once a day to this record. Your brain might be destroyed," which led to the album being banned in several countries including the USA.
Other releases on LILITH
Other releases by BRAINTICKET


Located in the heart of DC.
Just steps from the White House, National Mall, and Dupont Circle, the Golden Triangle is home to historic museums, live comedy, fine art exhibits, and other well-known attractions. Experience all the Golden Triangle has to offer, while exploring nearby Smithsonian museums, national parks, and DC memorials and monuments.
The Golden Triangle is just a quick walk up 16th Street from the most well-known residence in the United States. The White House is the epicenter for tourism and politics in Washington, DC. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the White House is steps away from Golden Triangle restaurants, hotels, and shops. The more-than-100-year-old home has hosted world leaders, state dinners, and other important events.
The White House is a must-see for any visitor traveling to the nation's capital. Adjacent to the White House is the White House Visitor Center, which offers visitors a window view into the iconic home. The National Mall and DC monuments are all within walking distance of the White House.
The National Mall is a two-mile swath of land bound by the U.S. Capitol to the east and the Washington Monument to the west. It is only a short walk down 17th Street from the Golden Triangle. The National Mall welcomes millions of visitors every year and hosts many history-making events. Visitors to "the Mall" will find a wide, pedestrian-friendly, tree-lined boulevard with monuments and memorials, world-famous museums, and impressive federal buildings along Constitution Avenue.
The National Mall is home to many well-known memorials, including those that remember Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The National Mall is a short walk from the Golden Triangle, and a direct ride on the Blue and Orange lines of Metrorail.
The Renwick Gallery is a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and is located steps from the White House in an incredible historic building. With a focus on American craft and decorative arts from the 19th to the 21st century, the unique exhibitions are worth the trip.
In 2015, the Renwick reopened after a two year renovation that upgraded and repaired some of the building's original infrastructure. The opening exhibition was a museum-wide takeover titled Wonder. With the popularity of Wonder, visitors to the Renwick have almost doubled.
Currently, the Renwick is hosting another full takeover with No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man, bringing the art from the famed desert festival to the nation's capital. In addition, the museum partnered with the Golden Triangle BID for a groundbreaking, first-of-its-kind outdoor extension of the exhibition. No Spectators: Beyond the Renwick brings six large-scale public artworks to the streets of the Golden Triangle until December 2018, with the indoor exhibition running through January 2019.
Open 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
At National Geographic, past and current expeditions, adventures, and scientific research come to life. From lively concerts to thought-provoking presentations, captivating films, and engaging family events, National Geographic's live programming brings you the world and all that's in it. At the museum, enjoy a wide variety of changing exhibitions as well as permanent and interactive displays that reflect the richness and diversity of our world. Be sure to check out what's for sale at the museum store while you're there.
Farragut Park is a U.S. National Park that acts as the town square of the Golden Triangle's bustling commercial and business district. The Golden Triangle BID provides free Wi-Fi access in the park, which encourages people in this tech-savvy neighborhood to spend time working outdoors. Each spring and summer, the park is brought to life with numerous BID-hosted events like exercise classes, movies, lunchtime activities, and more. Farragut Park is bordered by K Street and Connecticut Avenue, and is surrounded by high-traffic Metrobus stops and two of the area's busiest Metro Rail stations: Farragut West & Farragut North.
The DC Improv Comedy Club is DC's #1 venue for all your comedy needs, featuring national touring headliners, local celebrities, a comedy school, two showrooms, plus a full restaurant and bar. The DC Improv first launched in 1992 showcasing newcomers Ellen DeGeneres, Dave Chappelle, and Brian Regan. Today, The DC Improv continues to house the best comedic talent in the business.
Step back in time in this uniquely intact late-Victorian home of German-American beer baron Christian Heurich. The Heurich House is a local landmark on the National Register of Historic Places and one of the most intact late Victorian homes in the country. Heurich was the city's most successful brewer, and he ran the Christian Heurich Brewing Company until his death in 1945 at the age 102. His residence (1892-1894) still contains its original intricately hand carved woodwork, gas, and electric light fixtures, gilt furniture, musician's balcony, marble & onyx staircase, bierstube ("beer room") and more.
Dupont Circle is an iconic DC neighborhood that is situated north of the Golden Triangle (the heart of DC's central business district). It is the residential area west of 16th Street between Swann Street and Florida Avenue. The Golden Triangle restaurants, retailers, and attractions are within a short walking distance for these residents.
Dupont Circle is served by the Dupont Circle Metro Station on the Red line. The Dupont Circle Park is one of the most popular meeting places in the area. On any given day, local area visitors and residents enjoy sitting on benches and playing chess. The park, which features a beautiful, historic fountain, is maintained by the National Park Service.
Discover The Wilderness Society's tribute to renowned photographer and dedicated preservationist, Ansel Adams, and the natural world he cherished. During his final year of life Adams donated several of his most important landscape photographs to The Wilderness Society, showcasing the natural beauty of the American West and its majestic national parks. Now housed in a modern and elegant gallery space, the pictures are permanently displayed to the public free of charge. Explore the untamed wilderness through Adams' lens in this unique and inspiring exhibition.
Discover local art and history in this landmark 1872 school building, which graduated the first high school class for African Americans in 1877. The Sumner School was named for US Senator Charles Sumner, an outspoken advocate for integration, especially in education. The Charles Sumner School also houses the DC Public School archives. Permanent exhibits include extensive DC public school memorabilia and sculptural vignettes that capture the life and times of Frederick Douglass.


DeMar DeRozan has led the way for the San Antonio Spurs recently with 23.8 points, 5.5 assist and 5.0 rebounds per game over the past seven days.
Just when you start getting concerned about the Golden State Warriors, they remind you to relax.
The Warriors had dropped six of 10 and had to play at Houston and Oklahoma City without Kevin Durant. It wasn't a problem, though, as they brought their 'A' game and cleaned out both teams. Now that they seemingly have their swagger back, they'll head to San Antonio on Monday night in what could very well be a preview of a first-round playoff series.
The Warriors enter Monday night with a 23-11 record on the road so far this season. Golden State is 8-3 against the spread in its last 11 road games versus teams with a home winning percentage greater than .600. The Warriors are also 23-9-1 ATS in their last 33 Monday night games.
San Antonio has been one of the best home teams in the NBA this season with a 28-7 record at AT&T Center. The Spurs have covered five straight following a straight up win and are 17-4 ATS in its last 21 home games versus teams with winning road records.
Golden State won the last meeting between these teams 141-102 on February 6th. However, it will be a much tougher task this time around with the Spurs on a winning streak and playing on their home floor on Monday night. The good news for the Warriors is that the Splash Brothers are on fire right now. Klay Thompson has averaged a team-high 27.0 points per game over the past week. Meanwhile, Steph Curry has averaged 25.0 points over that same time span.
It also helps that DeMarcus Cousins is enjoying his best month as a Warrior. As maligned as he's been (for some reason), he's averaging 16.7 points, 7.3 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.8 blocks and 1.5 steals per game. When things go wrong for the Warriors, they now have an option to dump it down inside to a player who can get them easy, high-percentage baskets.
The Warriors lost their first meeting with San Antonio on the road, so they will be motivated to avenge that defeat and prove they can beat the Spurs on their home turf in this final meeting.
The Spurs have been on fire of late as they enter riding a league-high eight-game winning streak. Defence has been the key to their success as they're allowing just 100.9 points per game in that span. They've beat some good teams in that stretch too, including a red-hot Detroit Pistons team, the Denver Nuggets, Oklahoma City Thunder and Milwaukee Bucks.
LaMarcus Aldridge and Rudy Gay have provided the secondary scoring San Antonio has needed throughout its current win streak.
San Antonio will be looking to repeat one of its best performances of the season after beating up on Golden State in the first meeting between these teams. They beat them 104-92 in San Antonio but keep in mind Curry and Cousins didn't play in that game. When they met at Golden State, though, the Warriors crushed the Spurs 141-102 as all of the key Warriors played but the Spurs were without Aldridge and DeRozan. Now both teams will be at full strength.


Here is a Blessing of the Backpacks you can do in church at the start of the school year to remind students that God blesses them each day of their lives as they reach out in faith as a blessing to others.
This kit includes instructions on coordinating and presenting this 10-minute event, a script to use to bless the backpacks, a children's sermon and tear-off notes for parents to put in their children's backpacks, and 10 luggage tags for the children to attach to their backpacks that celebrate Jesus' presence with those gathered in his name: Matthew 18:20.
Click here for a sample preview.


Prepare monthly and quarterly credit risk reporting of key metrics for management reporting as well as regulatory and SEC filings. Reporting includes research and analysis of key consumer and commercial data comprised of loans, delinquencies, nonperforming, net credit losses and criticized balances.
Prepare and accumulate quarterly documentation that supports Allowance for Credit Losses and documents contemporaneosly managements' decisions and judgments.
Research and conclude on accounting issues related to ACL, loans and disclosures.
Assist with coordination with Accounting Policy, SEC Reporting, other CCR&A teams and business partners in Consumer Real Estate, Card, and Commercial to ensure compliance with accounting principles and disclosure requirements.
Assist in identifying and addressing accounting (US GAAP and Regulatory interpretations thereof), business, market, environmental, and regulatory changes that impact the Allowance methodology.
Additional opportunity to collaborate and build skill on Allowance projects utilizing various quantitative methodologies (SAS, SQL, Monte Carlo simulations and other statistical tools).
Collaborate with business and risk organizations to leverage analytics already produced to support ACL.
Coordinate with the BASEL III team to analyze the ACL and the Expected Credit Loss.
Prepare proper documentation of methodology changes.
Respond to Auditor and Regulator requests, providing necessary support.
Responsible for more complex finance activities involving implementation of strategic plans, profitability analysis, forecasting and financial reporting for a business unit or associate area. Supports achievement of business goals by working on more complex activities or projects with others within the unit and with partners. Leads projects and coordinates resources. May provide supervision to a small staff. Can manage partner relationships.


text:
Finance Videos & Webinars
How Can Digital Solutions Unlock New Opportunities for Financial Inclusion at Scale? (2016)
Jointly hosted by the UN Global Compact, Accenture and CARE International UK, this webinar provides an overview of financial inclusion and the digital opportunities available for serving a large untapped market, it offers guidance on how to leverage digital solutions to be more financially inclusive and raises awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals, including encouraging action in support of Goal 1 on ending poverty and Goal 10 on reducing inequality.
SDG Topics: No Poverty / Gender Equality / Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure / Reduced Inequalities.
TEDTalks: 'How to Make a Profit While Making a Difference', Audrey Choi, 2015
Can global capital markets become catalysts for social change? According to investment expert Audrey Choi, individuals own almost half of all global capital, giving them (us!) the power to make a difference by investing in companies that champion social values and sustainability. "We have more opportunity today than ever before to make choices," she says. "So change your perspective. Invest in the change you want to see in the world."
SDG Topics: Decent Work & Economic Growth / Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure / Responsible Consumption & Production / Partnerships for the Goals.
TEDTalks: 'A Provocative Way to Finance the Fight Against Climate Change' Michael Metcalfe, 2015
Will we do whatever it takes to fight climate change? Back in 2008, following the global financial crisis, governments across the world adopted a "whatever it takes" commitment to monetary recovery, issuing $250 billion worth of international currency to stem the collapse of the economy. In this delightfully wonky talk, financial expert Michael Metcalfe suggests we can use that very same unconventional monetary tool to fund a global commitment to a green future.
SDG Topics: Good Health & Welbeing / Clean Water & Sanitation / Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure / Sustainable Cities & Communities / Climate Action / Life On Land / Partnerships for the Goals.
Investing the Rights Way: A Guide for Investors on Business and Human Rights (2013)
Internationally-accepted frameworks now exist that define the responsibility of all companies with respect to human rights. This also extends to investors, who increasingly are looking to integrate human rights effectively and consistently into investment decision–making and corporate engagement. The webinar focuses on a new report, Investing the Rights Way: A Guide for Investors on Business and Human Rights, which aims to assist investors in evaluating human rights–related issues across their portfolios.
SDG Topics: Decent Work & Economic Growth / Reduced Inequalities / Partnerships for the Goals.
TEDxTalks: 'Sustainable and Scalable Access to Finance for All', Kshama Fernandes, 2016
Kshama Fernandes is the CEO of IFMR Capital, an Indian company with a mission to create inclusive access to finance for all. They found a solution that bridges the gap between the formal and the informal world in a manner that creates value for both. Kshama is a CEO of a financial company in India. She is well recognized for her achievements, views and leadership on inclusive finance.. She was recently presented as a cover story of Forbes India.
SDG Topics: No Poverty / Decent Work & Economic Growth / Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure / Reduced Inequalities.
<< Previous: Pedagogical Research
Next: Other Resources >>


The key to the success of any exam is preparation and this is especially true with Police Examinations. And the preparation does not start days before the examination. It starts the minute you decide to enroll in the police academy.
So preparing for your police exams should be done way ahead of time. You cannot expect to pass the exams if you just let the days go by without really studying and reviewing your lessons.
But that is not all. Knowing and practicing the right skills and strategies in exam taking also play a great part in successfully acing your exams.
Knowing what to expect is an effective strategy that you can use. It puts you in an advantageous position over those who have no clue on what's coming ahead. This is the reason why you should take all the opportunities you can get in taking every police practice test that you can get hold of. By constantly taking practice police exam at every opportunity, you will get a clue on the types of questions normally given. Thus during your class sessions, you can ask directed questions to your instructors.
If you will visit this website, you will find actual questions similar to the questions you will find in police exams. Their website address is at http://passthepolicetest.com/police-written-exam/police-officer-exam-sample-test-questions-and-answers.
You will be given the opportunity to answer these questions based on your knowledge. The good thing here is that after every question, you will be given the right answers, and the reasons why that particular answer is the right one.
You can find this website at http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/wordpolice/sample.htm. In this website, you will also be given several questions (similar to those asked in police exams) which you are required to answer. The correct answers are also provided and the reasons why they are the correct ones.
Of course, it will defeat your purpose if you will look at the answers before answering the questions. In order to continue answering the sets of questions, you need to get at least four of the answers of the current set.
You can find their website and their practice exams at http://www.policeprep.com/Public/SamplePoliceExams_Can.aspx. The host of this website has the belief that passing police exams involve correct anticipation of the questions on the exam, and correct time management.
This is the reason why they have designed time-online police exam practice test, which you can try at their website. Their exams are designed to help you pass the Canadian Police Exams.
You need to pay for their exams. And since you can't access the practice questions without paying, they must be the right questions asked in actual police exams.
Their website is found at http://www.petersons.com/college-search/law-enforcement-test-practice.aspx. They have categorized their exam questions and you can choose to answer any of these questions. One example is the Correction Officer exams. Another one is the Parole Officer questions. They also offer Court Office exams. The price for each type of exam is $19.95.
Not every practice exam is applicable to the type of exam that you are preparing for. Therefore you must choose carefully the type of practice exams you are going to take, especially if you need to pay for it. You will just waste precious preparation time if you will not do this.
You also need to see if the questions are clear enough so that you can answer them correctly. Lastly, check the answers that they are giving. Are they clear and complete and according to what you have studied in school?
In choosing the websites where you are going to use for paid practice tests, be sure of how your questions will be delivered, and how the answers will be provided. In addition, check if their questions and answers are really worth paying for.
It will be nice if there is a real person on the other side of the fence which you can contact should you have some concerns about your dealings with them. If these attractive service features are not present, be wary. You would be better off going to another site that provides 24/7 customer service.
Based on the survey of the sample tests available on the internet, the website of Pass The Police Exam is probably the best police exam prep. Their website address is at http://PassThePoliceExam.com. One of the reasons this website is number one in police written exam practice is that it is hosted by an actual police officer – Officer Forestal. This police officer aced his exams with flying colors. He has been in the service for almost a decade now.
How to study for the exam in a focused way.
Key topics that will ensure you get all the knowledge and information that will help you pass.
Tips to avoid test traps that can hinder your chances of passing.
Tips on guessing the right answer when you really have no clue about the right one.
If you would like to have an edge over other applicants when taking the police exam, consider the police sample tests you can find at Pass The Police Exam. It will be worth your money.


text:
Q: EJB 3.1 @LocalBean vs no annotation I understand the difference between local view, remote view and no-interface view. I just don't understand what is the difference between "no view" (no annotation) and no-interface view. And also why should I annotate my interface with @Local? What if I don't annotate the interface in at all, is there a difference?

A: I think that the confusion you/we are feeling is a result of history / backwards compitability (so to speak). I can't dicern any difference (except that the spec. requires implementations to create an interface if we use local-view)

The no-interface view has the same behavior as the EJB 3.0 local view,
  for example, it supports features such as pass-by-reference calling
  semantics and transaction and security propagation. However, a
  no-interface view does not require a separate interface, that is, all
  public methods of the bean class are automatically exposed to the
  caller. By default, any session bean that has an empty implements
  clause and does not define any other local or remote client views,
  exposes a no-interface client view.

Oracle Blog before release of EJB 3.1

A: *

*Remote EJBs: can be accessed from remote clients (clients running on a different JVM such as Swing or JavaFX clients which run on the user machine)

*Local EJBs: can only be access from other "components" running on the same JVM, e.g. Web Front-ends, other EJBs

*No-interface view: same as Local but without specifing the business interface

*No annotation: a simple POJO but not an EJB

Local/ No-interface views are more efficient than remote EJBs, since objects references can be passed around.

A: The rules are (from memory):

*

*Bean has a @LocalBean annotation -> bean has a no-interface view

*Bean has a @Local annotation -> bean has a local view

*Bean has a @Remote annotation -> bean has a remote view

*Bean has no view annotations, but directly implements an interface which has a @Local annotation -> bean has a local view

*Bean has no view annotations, but directly implements an interface which has a @Remote annotation -> bean has a remote view

*Bean has no view annotations, but directly implements an interface which has no view annotations -> bean has a local view

*Bean has no view annotations, and implements no interfaces -> bean has a no-interface view

So, using @LocalBean and using no annotation at all are both ways of getting a no-interface view. If you just want a no-interface view, then the simplest thing is not to annotate. Provided you're not also implementing any interfaces.
Part of the reason @LocalBean exists to add a no-interface view to a bean which also has an interface view. I imagine the scenario uppermost in the spec authors' minds was one where you have a bean like:
@Stateless
public class UserPreferences {
    public String getPreference(String preferenceName);
    public Map<String, String> getPreferences();
}

Where you would want to expose both methods locally, but only the coarser-grained getPreferences() remotely. You can do that by declaring a remote interface with just that method, then just slapping @LocalBean on the bean class. Without it, you'd have to write a pointless local interface just to expose both methods locally.
Or, to look at it another way, the @LocalBean exists because there is such a thing as a no-interface view, and the no-annotation option exists as a handy shortcut.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Workflow automation has taken many professional industries by storm, helping many workplaces reduce the number of tasks they have to perform, along with a substantial amount of workload.
Workflow automation has been shown to reduce many time-consuming administrative tasks like creating an automated admissions process, permission forms, finding and recording teacher substitions and even progress reports.
With a 25% increase in the number of private schools over the last 25 years, competition for enrollment is increasing, and administrators and teachers must become smarter about how resources are being used.
Automating even a simple paper process can save thousands of hours each month, significantly reducing payroll expenses as well as associated costs related to paper waste.
This includes paper-heavy processes like creating class schedules, keeping student attendance, managing the admissions process, as well as sending invoices.
Yet many administrators or teachers are hesitant to start automating those processes, especially since many automated solutions might seem like added expenses.
Hubbli Workflows, for instance, allows you to turn any form into a PDF automatically using the PDF Generator.
Other types of requests, like vacation requests, incident reports, and field trip permissions, can also be automated quickly and easily, without using a single piece of paper.
Other common time wasters for many administrators include things like interruptions from other staff, whether from the in person visits, or via emailed notes.
As on school director recently tole me, "Interruptions may not seem like a huge deal as it only takes a few seconds or a minute, but seconds [and] minutes add up over time. When you have 100 plates in the air, trying to keep everything organized, and parents happy, every second counts.
While not every single interruption can be eliminated with automation (emergencies will still happen), certain types of notifications can be automated to save time and reduce the burden on staff.
You can also trigger notifications to alert users when an enrollment form has been submitted, when reports are due or any number of student specific tasks.
Using Hubbli Workflows, you can even include one-click approvals in emails.
This means fewer interruptions for teachers so they can focus on the children instead of avoiding interruptions.
Or office staff could create quick and easy approval forms for parents requesting information about their child's progress. Keeping the parent more easily engaged with a frictionless process.
Parents (and teachers) may not worry as much about accuracies in schedules, attendance records, and other forms that are automated rather than kept manually.
Even more so, because it eliminates much of the tedious paperwork and tasks for which teachers are responsible, automation allows for more direct and sustained contact between students and educators.
Automation is designed to make life easier for teachers, staff and parents.
The fewer interruptions, the more time that teachers and staff have to engage with students and parents, which is, after all, the whole point of education anyway.


Over the last two centuries, we've proven again and again that we have what it takes to change the world for the better.
Health has been at the center of research and teaching at Indiana University as long as there has been an Indiana University.
Now, the Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington is reimagining public health through a comprehensive approach that enhances and expands disease prevention and is reshaping how parks, tourism, sports, leisure activities, physical activity, and nutrition impact and enhance wellness. Unique in the nation, our school's multidisciplinary approach, history of community engagement, and emerging strengths in epidemiology, biostatistics, and environmental health bring new vigor and energy to the traditional concept of a school of public health.
With nearly 3,000 students in an array of undergraduate and advanced degree programs and more than 140 faculty in five academic departments, our faculty and students conduct research, learn, teach and engage with communities across a broad spectrum of health, wellness, and disease-prevention topics. Each department offers numerous majors, minors, and opportunities for graduate and undergraduate studies.
While the field of public health has always focused on creating the conditions for health and wellness, the 21st century brings a particular set of challenges. Addressing these issues at a population level requires a pioneering vision. Public health must be reimagined as a holistic model that considers individual, social, environmental, and policy factors.
Learn more about our efforts by downloading and reading our signature publication "Public Health Reimagined."
We know our faculty and programs are outstanding, and give our students the tools and knowledge they need to build a successful career in public health. This level of excellence is demonstrated through our accreditation by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH), the nationally recognized accrediting body for both schools of public health and public health programs.
Graduating from an accredited school better positions students to complete successfully for the best career opportunities, and assists us in recruiting top faculty and staff to our school.
The CEPH seal ensures School of Public Health-Bloomington students have received quality training and education, and are capable of undertaking a broad range of professional responsibilities.
We see accreditation as a monumental achievement, not and ed in itself. It's a license to have even more profound and more visible impact on public health.


AWS first! is one of our consulting principles. Using a managed service provided by AWS is usually offering the most bang for the buck. But there are pitfalls and downsides hidden behind shiny marketing promises of these managed services as well.
But that's only one part of the story. There are downsides when using the Amazon Elasticsearch Service as well. I will highlight common challenges when using the managed service in real-world scenarios as well as illustrate workarounds in this article.
Placing a database into a VPC is possible with the Relational Database Service (SQL database) and ElastiCache (in-memory database). The Amazon Elasticsearch Service does not support the Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). Accessing the service is only possible with a connection via the Internet.
All traffic from EC2 instances running in a private subnet to the Elasticsearch database running outside the VPC flows through a NAT gateway. The additional traffic is causing costs and consuming a limited resource.
Using a service outside the VPC is a no go because of compliance requirements in some scenarios as well.
Being able to restore your data is an important aspect of a managed service. Amazon Elasticsearch Service is creating snapshots of your data daily. Unfortunately, you are not able to restore a snapshot yourself. Only the AWS support team can restore a snapshot. Therefore, you need to create a support ticket if you want to restore your data. Wich increases the RTO (recovery time objective) and reduces your control over the restore process.
There is a workaround for this problem. Elasticsearch has built-in support for snapshots stored on S3. As illustrated in the following figure you can use AWS Lambda to trigger snapshots based on a schedule as well as cleaning up snapshots automatically.
The Identity and Access Management (IAM) service is used to authenticate and authorize requests to the Amazon Elasticsearch Service. Almost every part of AWS offers integrations with IAM. As you can reuse IAM users, groups, and roles it is very easy to control access to your data stored within your Elasticsearch database.
But there some downsides caused by IAM as well. It is not possible to use the standard security mechanism provided by X-Pack (formerly Shield) with Amazon Elasticsearch Service.
A lot of tools from the Elasticsearch ecosystem do not support authentication with IAM out of the box. If you want to use logstash to ingest log data into your Elasticsearch database, an additional plugin is needed to handle the IAM-based authentication.
Amazon Elasticsearch Service offers Kibana out-of-the-box. But it is not possible to access Kibana when using IAM for authentication because your browser is not able to use IAM-based authentication. Using an IAM proxy as shown in the following figure allows you to work around this limitation.
AWS is offering encryption integrated with KMS (Key Management Service) for almost all services storing data (RDS, EBS, S3, …). In contrast, the Amazon Elasticsearch Service does not provide server-side encryption for data-at-rest. Storing data unencrypted could be a no go if you must encrypt all data because of regulations.
The Amazon Elasticsearch Service does not support all instance types. For example, I3 instances would perfectly fit for a distributed database such as Elasticsearch but are not an option when using the Amazon Elasticsearch Service.
Some Elasticsearch operations are not available when using the Amazon Elasticsearch Service. For example, it is not possible to open and close indices. A process that is required to make changes to analyzers.
I'd recommend using a managed service provided by AWS whenever possible. AWS is doing a great job at offering services fulfilling the needs of the majority of their customers. The Amazon Elasticsearch Service is taking away the burden of managing a distributed system. But if you are planning to use Amazon Elasticsearch Service you should consider the downsides I have experienced in real-world projects and documented in this article as well.
I'm planning to add a template to our collection of CloudFormation templates including workarounds for accessing Kibana (IAM Proxy) as well as Elasticsearch snapshots triggered by Lambda. Please let me know, if you'd be interested in such a template.
Thanks to Moritz Onken for providing his feedback regarding the Amazon Elasticsearch Service.


Posted January 31st, 2017 by Sarah Barton.
Michael Prestage of Roegreave Road, Oswaldtwistle died suddenly at home on Thursday 26th January 2017, aged 56 years.
Mick as he was known to his friends was a time served plasterer and was a well-known face around Oswaldtwistle having managed his own plastering business for the last 25 years.
In his spare time Mick loved nothing better than spending time with his family. He also took time out by going on holiday and has visited Disney World, America and also been on the occasional cruise around the Mediterranean. Mick loved listening to music, especially House, Northern Soul, Reggae and Rap and was also a keen Blackburn Rovers fan.
Mick was the dearly loved son of Nora and the late Roland, a devoted dad of Courtney and Kayleigh, a much loved brother of Noel, Kate and Madeline, a dear brother in law of Shirley, Stephen and Barry, a cherished uncle of Noel, Charlotte, Kirsty, Danny and Lauren.
Mick will be very sadly missed and fondly remembered by all his loving family and friends.
Family flowers only please but donations are welcomed in memory of Mick for TOGETHER (Mental Health Charity), further enquires please to Paul Barton at Barton & Hallworth Funeral Service, The Old Foxhill, 136 Union Road, Oswaldtwistle. Tel: 01254 390542.


text:
In a heavy metal wasteland littered with cookie cutter snooze-button doom bands rocking $10,000 rigs and $1 riffs, its a huff of fresh air straight out of the glue bottle to hear R.I.P. – four cretins from the Pacific Northwest who play knuckle dragging death obsessed metal at the speed of the streets. After several years of hammering the west coast with the blunt scythe of street-doom, they finally committed to tape an introductory will and testament for the rest of the world to tremble to. "In the Wind" closes the casket on the trends and exhumes the notion that doom isn't about how slow and de-tuned you can play, but about fear, death, leather and playing as heavy as possible. A full US tour in the spring follows this Totem Cat Records release, where the band plans to drag the rest of the country down with them.
Doom is dead. R.I.P. doom.
R.I.P. LINKS


text:
Home Thought Leaders Intelligence for Growth INTELLIGENCE FOR GROWTH: How Wealth Managers Can Jumpstart Their Business By Marketing...
INTELLIGENCE FOR GROWTH: How Wealth Managers Can Jumpstart Their Business By Marketing to Niche Personas
DWN Staff
AJ Boury, chief marketing officer for Clout by TIFIN
Most advisors want to grow—and realize that if they want to grow, they have to get personal. Or hyper-personal.
According to the January 2022 Advisor Outlook Study by Charles Schwab, 93% of firms expect to grow over the next five years, and 63% expect to grow by acquiring new clients. In order to achieve this growth, the study found that most advisors are targeting more personalization.
"We see precision and personalization increasing in importance for advisors," said A.J. Boury of TIFIN Clout. "Many of them are looking to stand out, and one of the ways they are doing that is by focusing on niche client types and personas. For example, in the Bay Area, advisors are focusing on the tech community. We've seen other advisors come through who are faith-based and are focused on church communities, while others are focused on specific professions like doctors."
Clout is designed to help wealth management firms get the right content in front of the right clients and prospects using artificial intelligence to make sure the content is hyper-personalized to both the advisor and more importantly the interests of specific clients or prospects.
While some level of evergreen and baseline content, like talking about tax planning and rolling over retirement plans, can apply to a broad swath of clients and prospects, drilling down to a hyper-personalized content marketing approach allows advisors to target the best clients for their practice.
"If their firm or their book of business is focused on a specific persona or a handful of personas, it gives advisors the ability to develop expertise tailored to a specific mindset," said Boury. "Many advisors we work with have a good idea of what their best clients look like. So we help them engage with content that speaks to the unique needs of that persona and establish thought leadership in that area."
While large, diversified financial firms don't typically go into niches as a business, individuals and groups of practitioners within those firms often do, said Boury.
But advisors who develop a niche are also able to create repeated processes to serve their specific clients, leading to a more efficient firm and a higher return-on-investment from their marketing efforts.
Catalyzing Webinar Content
Take Nathan Brown of MyPersonalCFO as an example.
"He wanted to take a webinar-specific approach," said Boury. "Our team helped with the promotion of the webinars and custom messaging that targeted two groups of clients specifically at target firms with complex yet valuable employee benefits."
Brown's webinars were intended to help directors, management and executives avoid mistakes when selecting employee benefits.
Brown approached Clout with lists of the clients he wanted to target, Clout automatically trimmed the email lists for relevance and tested for deliverability, and spaced out email campaigns to allow for proper notice, to create urgency and to help Brown stay top-of-mind with prospects. The technology sent three emails prior to the webinars, and then automatically followed up for Brown helping to create multiple touch points with prospects.
"We saw strong performance, both in engagement with emails and in the conversion rate, and most importantly ROI fromoverall attracting new clients," said Boury. "There were over 200 webinar attendees which ended up as 50 meeting requests and 10 new clients for Nathan. We also helped him with the post-webinar roundup, sending the recorded webinar to prospects who couldn't attend live, and wrapping up any additional emails that had to go out to prospects who wanted to set up more meetings with him."
Crafting Targeted Messaging
Another advisor began using Clout's technology in the second quarter of 2021 to target employees of pre-IPO technology firms in California.
Clout helped the advisor develop a tailored prospect list and generate email campaigns with relevant content to reach those clients with content discussing markets, products and strategies relevant to them.
"Once an advisor has established a footing or at least a perception of what the persona of their next-best client they want to target, we are able to use content tailored to a specific mindset," said Boury. "We were able to provide and send that kind of content out, allowing this advisor to connect with prospects whilst creating and maintaining a presence in the target audience."
Clout created a consistent social media voice by helping this advisor push out at least one social post and one email per week. The campaign helped attract a response from the founder and CEO of a fast-growing Bay Area startup, who was converted to a client in September of 2021.
Instead of putting the onus on firms to source content and find the right prospects to target, Clout does most of the heavy lifting to make sure the most effective pieces are being placed into newsletters and social media posts on behalf of advisors.
"I think technologies like Clout—we're able to help advisors from a content query perspective—save a lot of time and effort for advisors in finding the right content to share," said Boury. "Once we know thematically what they want to speak towards, Clout can scan across millions of pieces of content and find the right content relevant to their target clients with precision."
Clout screens content not just for relevance, but also for quality. It does not suggest generic news stories, describes Boury, and won't send daily reports about the movements of stock indexes to clients and prospects. Instead, it focuses on content that it deems most relevant to a financial services audience and their clients.
Clout also helps identify the most promising prospects, said Boury.
"The Clout score is a mechanism to identify the most engaged clients and prospects you have," said Boury. "It scores at an individual level how many times these people are clicking, engaging and commenting. It records if they fill out requests for more information and pushes them to the top of the list of prospects that an advisor should reach out to." The Clout score helps advisors segment their audience and hone their tactics to continually move prospects closer to becoming clients.
Making the Most of Clout
But advisors need to develop a well-defined editorial calendar and their own credible, responsive voice in the marketplace, said Boury. With those in hand, Clout can handle the work of reaching a broad network of prospects and clients and creating a digital presence for advisors.
Clout allows for marketing campaigns to come together quickly with testing and experimentation at the ready to optimize campaigns. As the advisors become more comfortable, they can expand beyond their native niche audience into other types of potential prospects to see if they can create engagement, said Boury.
"I think Clout can be a catalyst for the network effect," said Boury. "Once you drive engagement within your audience, the way these social platforms work, if you engage with something, your friends see that as well. You can scale to reach thousands of people, friends of friends, in your audience that share common interests or lifecycle stages.""
To learn more about Clout's fintech marketing solutions, visit https://tifinwealth.com/clout/ or schedule a demo here.
Previous articleWill Artificial Intelligence Make You a Better Prospector?
Next article4 Benefits of Workflow Automation
INTELLIGENCE FOR GROWTH: How Microplans Can Help Financial Advisors Convert More Effectively
INTELLIGENCE FOR GROWTH: Charitable Giving to Jump Amid Recession Fears?
INTELLIGENCE FOR GROWTH: How to Optimize Headlines to Get More Clicks


A new dining experience in Ringwood!
Greyfriars' Hilary Christy room was transformed into a beautiful French bistro last night at new monthly event hosted by Teresa Sillars and her team at South Coast Parties!
The new pop up restaurant was so successful that tables sold very quickly and the next event, an Italian evening, is selling very fast.
Restaurant goers were treated to a delicious menu that included French favourites such as French Onion Soup, Chicken Liver Parfait, Slow Braised Beef Shin and Cointreau Creme Brulee!


text:
Women's empowerment in Agbalo
By Gal Kamarski
HAF Inter, Graduate Student
Last week, our staff, including our trainer Ibtisam, manager Fatima-Zahra, and myself, conducted a four-day workshop with twenty women from Agbalo (اغبالو) in the Ourika valley. Women varied in ages from 21 to over 50 years old (most of them in their twenties, or forties) from three different villages. They took part in our workshop, which was very emotional while full of laughter and joy.
"We will be going on a journey"…
"The next four days will look like a journey". With these words, Ibtisam opened the first day of the workshop. She then continued with introducing the "Imagine" program, and the outlines of the workshop we are about to start, including the seven core areas of the Imagine program: emotions, relationships, sexuality, body, money, work, and spirituality. Following that, each of the participants, (including me! Though in Classical Arabic, since for now I cannot speak the local dialect), introduced herself, her personal background and her beliefs. Some of the participants were family-related, young women came with their mothers, and some other participants came with their toddlers and babies.
Adding the Moudawana, the Family Code Law, to our journey
For the first time, we tried integrating into the existing Imagine program, the local law that sets women rights, the Moudawana, which is the Moroccan family code law that is based on the Islamic sharia and the Maliki School.
Except for one young lady that mentioned she had heard the name "Moudawana" in the news, none of the other twenty women sitting in the room, ever heard about the Moudawana in her life. Ibtisam introduced the women the Moudawana, by saying that each of the seven areas presented earlier is driven/can be found also in the Moudawana family code law. At first, we discussed the issue of rights in general, and throughout the workshop, we examined women's role and place regarding these rights. The first day was more of trying to get to know one another, ourselves, and create a "warm" environment in which everyone feels comfortable to share.
Besides the lack of awareness of the Moudawana, we discovered there were several obstacles regarding the Moudawana, for instance, the fact that some of the articles force you to come in front of a judge, which might sometimes be an impossible mission.
Emotions, not only one of the seven Imagine areas
The next day, we continued our journey, and it felt as if we were all more open to sharing. Many issues that may seem obvious to me (or us, people which were not raised in the rural area), were not very clear during the workshop. For example, it took us quite a time to explain the word vision, because some women heard this word that day, for the first time in their life. Trying to deliver what was a vision, we asked the participants to discuss their dreams, and one girl in her early 20s', shared with us her dream to become a doctor. For many of the women, discussing these kinds of issues were very difficult, since many of them are not used to put themselves in the center of the discussion. For some, mainly the older participants, it was the first time they thought about these kinds of questions. At that time, it became very emotional.
The personal journey emphasized the fact that each of us is a human being, and that gives us the right to ask ourselves these questions. We discussed the importance of finding different rooms in our hearts for emotions, relationships, love, appreciation, support, sources of personal power, lightness, and inner guidance. Following the guided imagination practice, and drawing out our emotions, some women even started crying, as an expression of their emotions. The following activity, in couples, which was aimed to strengthen the trust between them, was also very emotional, up to a point that it was almost too difficult to continue after it.
However, for the good, at that point, the women were much more open with the group, and some of them even shared their personal stories, they indicated that speaking it out was a great relief. Next activity was dancing. I think that dancing freely together, allowed us all to feel that we are not alone in this world and that there can be also times of happiness if, and when we allow them to ourselves.
Not only about rights, but also about feelings
Although issues such as divorce, for example, are mentioned in the Moudawana, sometimes it takes more than just knowing or following a law. As some of the women mentioned, they would feel comfortable asking their husbands for a divorce, with the support of the existing law, however, they would feel ashamed to do so in the society they live in. Discussing rights, some women said that though Islam opposes violence, many Muslims do not follow Islam, rather they follow the common traditions, in which women are yet oppressed.
Most of the women who participated in the workshop are homemakers; some indicated that their husbands and family do not appreciate their hard work within the household. For them, this situation led to a point where they do not appreciate themselves while undermining themselves not only within the household but also in society.
The next day focused mainly on the relationships, sexuality and sexual relations. Even though one girl asked not to participate, because she did not feel comfortable with her mother being there, most of the women were very open and felt comfortable to share. The younger generation shared their frustration with their parents, saying that today people want to interact sexually even if not for having children.
We concluded the workshop by thanking one another and appreciating the power that was created among us.
As for myself, spending these four days with the women of Ourika was a unique experience that taught me a lot about different aspects of women's lives in Morocco. My personal impression (also based on the feedback we received) was that the workshop had much influence on the women, and inspired them to create a change.
What a Palestinian can Learn from Morocco
Marwa Natsheh Through her internship in Morocco, the writer has been inspired to think differently about interfaith relationships. This article presents this experience and highlights the lack of…
Presenting Tororde, a village of challenges and possibilities
Jan Thibaut HAF Intern, graduate student Another pretty productive and successful day today. In the early afternoon I had a meeting with the teachers I had met yesterday…


text:
Home » News and Trends » CAR-T Wannabe? Immuno-oncology Start-up snowballs $102M for Series A Fund
CAR-T Wannabe? Immuno-oncology Start-up snowballs $102M for Series A Fund
By Dani Bancroft
Gritstone Pharmaceuticals is a US start-up which will focus on R&D of its new CAR-T cancer therapy technique: tumor-specific neo-antigen (TSNA). An impressive financial syndicate is backing its launch this month, having achieved a £102M series A pot for their lung cancer research.
This cash is a clear indication that this start-up has the 3 major components to a successful Biotech under its belt; a novel-platform, tenure + biotech expertise from the field (i.e. as it is led by a co-founder of the US biotech Clovis) and research excellence from King's College London (UK) and Institute Gustave-Roussy (France).
Tumor-specific neo-antigen (TSNA) field is a personalized immuno-oncology technique akin to CAR-T (which you can read about in our Oncology overview here). This is a type of checkpoint inhibition therapy which works in almost the exact same way as CAR-T, but instead it targets tumoric antigens which are unique to cancerous cells (considered entirely foreign to the body's immune system). Gritstone therefore aims to research novel therapies targeting TSNAs for different cancer types, first focusing on non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
(a) T cell receptors (TCRs) can be cloned from patients with good anti-tumor responses and inserted into retroviruses or lentiviruses, which are then used to infect autologous T cells from the patient to be treated. TSNA is meant to work in a similar manner to CAR-T (b) but will target mutating tumor antigen types unique to cancer cells (Source: Restifo et al. 2012 Nature Reviews Immunology 12, 269-281)
Lung cancer is the focus of various EU biotechs including OSE Pharma (France), MSD's KEYTRUDA (a PD-L1 inhibitor using Abcam's rabit monoclonal antibodies) and also Clovis, who partnered with Roche on their anti-PD-L1 drug rociletinib (which entered phase its phase Ib/II trial back in April this year).
European co-founders of Gritstone include Jean-Charles Soria, professor at the Institute Gustave-Roussy in Paris, and Graham Lord of King's College London (KCL), who is a clinician well-known for his research in lymphocyte biology. Soria and Lord carry a great deal of Oncology tenure into the Gritstone pot, which is sure to have helped attract such large VCs.
Jean-Charles Soria (Credit: Emmanuel Bonnet)
Indeed, Soria has had prior post-doc training at the MD Anderson Center in Texas (US), which has made some serious EU connections in the Oncology field as of late, and now is tied to the committee of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO).
This series A financing is remarkably high for a biotech only founded this month (which is seen far more in the US industry as opposed to the EU…)! The financing round was led by biotech investors Versant Ventures, The Column Group and Clarus Ventures.
So whilst it is still very early days, this development could mean serious business for the Oncology field, and investors are evidently of the same opinion.
I look forward to hearing more of Gritstone's progress (which will perhaps be easier to understand when they get round to launching a website…).
Cancer CAR-T France King's College London United Kingdom


text:
Roberts-Miller, Patricia. "Democracy, Demagoguery, and Critical Rhetoric." Rhetoric and Public Affairs 8 (2005): 459-76.
Reviewed by Sarah Meinen Jedd, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Patricia Roberts-Miller tackles the twin problems of restricting deliberative democracy so as to exclude demagoguery and rehabilitating the notion of a critical rhetoric that enables social criticism. Attempting to reintroduce the idea of demagoguery to a field of rhetoricians she claims have abandoned both the term and its dangerous implications, Roberts-Miller answers the poignant call issued by Kenneth Burke in his essay "The Rhetoric of Hitler's Battle." Burke begins his analysis of Hitler's techniques of scapegoating and unification by urging scholars to pay close attention to the rhetoric of demagogues, advising, "Let us try also to discover what kind of 'medicine' this medicine man has concocted, that we may know, with greater accuracy, exactly what to guard against, if we are to forestall the concocting of similar medicine in America" (Burke 191). Ending her own essay with this same quotation, Roberts-Miller issues a similar call, bridging the gap between rhetorical criticism and critical rhetoric to "revivify scholarship on demagoguery" in the hopes of facilitating more robust democratic deliberation (474).
Arguing that rhetoricians, unable to agree upon a definition of demagoguery that did not endorse positivism or brand charismatic social movement leaders as demagogues, abandoned scholarly interest in the term by the late 1980s, Roberts-Miller contends that political scientists, historians, and scholars of religious studies have all turned their theoretical and critical attention to the term. To rekindle rhetorical interest in demagoguery, she proposes the following definition: "Demagoguery is polarizing propaganda that motivates members of an ingroup to hate and scapegoat some outgroup(s), largely by promising certainty, stability, and what Erich Fromm famously called 'an escape from freedom'" (462). From this definition, Roberts-Miller discusses several key theories of argumentation, demonstrating how the demagogue's use of oversimplified identification and division violates not only these rules but also the ethical precepts of deliberative democracy.
Noting that demagoguery can be "unemotional, elite, and intellectual," Roberts-Miller makes a significant contribution to rhetorical theory by revitalizing the term and offering a definition of demagoguery that refuses to "demonize emotionalism, populism, or anti-intellectualism" (471). In so doing, she issues an important invitation for further theorizing about demagoguery and its implications for social movement criticism, as well as for the development of a critical rhetoric that allows the critic to stage an intervention in public deliberation. Moreover, Roberts-Miller reminds rhetorical critics of their unique opportunity to both scrutinize and influence public discourse. Spending the last third of her essay raising potential weaknesses with her definition and asking provocative questions like "Is [demagoguery] always harmful?" and "Does humor change the consequences of the demagoguery?"(474), Roberts-Miller points fellow scholars in specific directions, opening a new (or at least reclaimed) field of rhetorical inquiry.
Throughout her essay, Roberts-Miller refers in passing to famous demagogues Adolph Hitler, Theodore Bilbo, Joseph McCarthy, and John C. Calhoun. She uses these historical figures to illustrate on a very general level how rhetors construct ingroups and outgroups, how they manipulate the curative powers of scapegoating, and how they lend the illusion of stable certainty to volatile rhetorical situations. Roberts-Miller does not, however, quote any of these rhetors at length, nor does she provide a specific discussion of their disparate rhetorical contexts. Perhaps this vague treatment of their rhetoric is part of the invitation for future research that Roberts-Millers extends to her readers. A more specific analysis of the words of actual demagogues, however, would better illustrate Roberts-Miller's definition and her implicit tenets of social criticism. Although Roberts-Miller refers at great length to Burke's "Rhetoric of Hitler's Battle" throughout her article, using his essay to talk about Hitler in more specific terms and to provide a very basic analysis of scapegoating, she is reluctant to delve deeper into Burke's notion of tragedy and mortification. Instead, Roberts-Miller relies on other scholars' definition of key terms and explanations of the scapegoating process. While "The Rhetoric of Hitler's Battle" is an excellent example of Burke's social criticism in action, it may not be a sufficient explanation of his theoretical understanding of scapegoating, victimage, and mortification. Perhaps Roberts-Miller could have delved deeper into Burke's corpus to provide a more sophisticated theoretical account of demagoguery.
In an essay in the same issue of Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Mari Boor Tonn takes up one of Roberts-Miller's key contentions. In "Taking Conversation, Dialogue, and Therapy Public," Tonn seems to consider demagoguery without demagogues, a concept that Roberts-Miller alludes to near the end of her article, when she notes that demagogues manipulate stereotypes and insecurities that already exist in the discourse economy. Tonn investigates the ways in which framing democratic deliberation as an open-ended, non-confrontational conversation harms democratic ideals and impedes public policy creation. Examining staged political conversations of the Clinton Whitehouse and the Blair administration, Tonn mines the appendix of Burke's Philosophy of Literary Form to argue that democracy leads to democratic conversation, not the other way around. Tonn's discussion of deliberative democracy in a conversational frame relates to Roberts-Miller's discussion of demagoguery because Tonn describes a political process whereby "debate" is repeatedly scapegoated and replaced with "dialogue." This substitution leads to the further formation of ingroups (those who dialogue) and outgroups (those who prefer divisive debate and thus attempt to exclude the nonelite from the democratic process). As Tonn's analysis illustrates, the process of dialogue seems even more favorable to a tyrannical minority, allowing their voices to overwhelm the majority. Terms that seem to promise inclusion, like dialogue, obfuscate this exclusion.
Not only does Tonn's essay help to explain the concept of demagoguery without demagogues, it also lends credence to Roberts-Miller's claim that demagoguery is a term that has fallen out of critical favor. By providing a new definition for the term and interrogating the ethical requirements for deliberative democracy, Roberts-Miller articulates a significant form of critical rhetoric. Attempting to renew scholarly interest in demagogues and their rhetoric, Roberts-Miller's essay provides both theorists and critics with a call to action that is hard to ignore.
Burke, Kenneth. The Philosophy of Literary Form: Studies in Symbolic Action. 1941. 3rd ed. Berkeley: U of California P, 1973.
Tonn, Mari Boor. "Taking Conversation, Dialogue, and Therapy Public." Rhetoric and Public Affairs 8 (2005): 405-30.
‹ "Dell Hymes, Kenneth Burke's 'Identification,' and the Birth of Sociolinguistics," by Jay Jordan up "Formal Propriety as Rhetorical Norm," by Beth Innocenti Manolescu ›


Solenoids allow you to: push, pull, maneuver, lock, steer, move and attract.
Holding magnets are used to: hold, immobilize, secure or lock a steel part placed in contact.
Our vibrators vibrate, shake or propel a machine element or a set of mechanical parts.
A brake makes it possible to brake a rotating axle and a clutch, to connect two rotating shafts.
Our permanent magnets "high energy" in rare earth allow the realization of new technical solutions.


The charity auction organized by CSKA volleyball club as a part of the campaign "100 hearts for CSKA " had enormous success in the ballroom of the Central Military Club. Objects donated by CSKA legends in various sports were sold at the auction.
The highest bid was for the boxing gloves and the juming rope of the famous boxer Kubrat Pulev. Valentin Mihov won the bidding by paying 6,000 levs. The T-shirt of the CSKA captain Ivailo Stefanov from the times when he used to play for the national team was bought for 5,000 levs. Among the other objects sold at the auction were the T-shirts of the volleyball players Antonina Zetova, Teodor Salparov, Matey Kaziyski, Plamen Konstantinov, the soccer player Dimitar Berbatov, the sports equipment of Stefka Kostadinova and Jordan Jovtchev, some personal belongings of Dimitar Karov and Michail Takov, the ball from the victory of CSKA vs Zenit (Kazan) in the Champions League, and the ice-axe of Doichin Boyanov with which he climbed Mount Everest and Mount Nanga Parbat.
The attorney Radostin Vassilev bid for prize earned by the legendary football player and coach of CSKA Asparuh Nikodimov for his participation in the world championship in Germany in 1974. Another award donated by Paro, a cup from the traditional tournament in Barcelona "Joan Gamper" from 1991 was bought by the owner of www.Severozapazena.bg Todor Buzinski.
At the end of the evening, the football fans of CSKA from "Offensive" club made their bidding and won the "Bulgarian Champion Cup" earned by the men's volleyball team in 2010.
The precious award was handed by the executive director of CSKA Alexander Popov and by the former player Nikolai Ivanov. The culmination came minutes later when the fans announced they would donate the cup back to the club. "Let's pay our respect to Alexander Popov and the rest of the CSKA volleyball club for what they have done". The cup should be in the club, the members of "Offensive" club said.
"That's an exceptional gesture. At such moments we realize that everything we've fought for was worthwhile. And we're given the courage to go on fighting. The love and support of all these people is invaluable. Now we see that with the campaign "100 hearts for CSKA" we have achieved our main goal – to be united in one big red family as in one community", Popov said.A total of 47 700 euro is the amount collected for the repair of the sports halls used by the club, as well as to support the children's sports school.
Friends of Belogradchik and region beautiful nature will take a meeting in Sofia.


text:
Ez a szócikk a katalóniai településről szól. Ha a gitárművészre vagy kíváncsi, lásd a Francisco Tárrega című lapot.

Tàrrega (kiejtése [ˈtarrəɣə]; spanyolul Tárrega) város a spanyolországi Katalóniában, 11 344 lakossal. Urgell járási székhelye. 100 km-re Barcelonától, a Léridai-síkságon, az Ondara folyó völgyében fekszik.

Ma már hozzátartozó, de korábban önálló települések: Altet, Claravalls, Figuerosa, Talladell, Riudovelles és Santa Maria de Montmagastrell.

Története
A várost a rómaiak alapították. I. Rajmund Berengár ajándékozta feleségének, így lett a katalán uralkodók asszonyainak városává.

Népesség

A település lakosságának változását az alábbi diagram mutatja:

Látnivalói

A város központja a Plaza Mayor, melynek két említésre méltó épülete akad:
 A Városháza (kat. Ajuntament, sp. Ayuntamiento) XVII. századi épület, 1674-ből származik. Homlokzatán a település címere tekinthető meg, melyet V. Károly adományaként tartanak számon.
 A Szűz Mária-templom (kat. Església de Santa Maria de l'Alba, sp. Iglesia de Santa Maria) XVII. századi épület, melynek tervezője Josep de la Concepció barát volt.
 A tér közepén egy gótikus feszület másolata magasodik.

Másik központi elhelyezkedésű, szépen kiképzett tere a Plaza de Sant Antoni, melynek környékén ismét több építmény hívja fel magára a figyelmet:
 A Sobies-kastély (Casa Sobies) a XVI. században született, ablakai gótikus stílusjegyeket viselnek.
 A Floresta-palota (kat.Palau Floresta, sp. Palacio Floresta) homlokzata román stílusban jött létre.
 A Szent Antal-templom (kat.Església de Sant Antoni) büszkesége egy román kori ötvösmű, illetve egy (állítólagos) darab Krisztus töviskoszorújából.

További látnivalói:
 A Katalán Föld Emlékműve (kat.Monument als Paisos Catalans),
 Call Perelló a Városi Múzeummal,
 Kórház (Hospital) (1740).

Kultúra

Gazdaság

Közlekedés

Források
 Bede Béla - Lempert Márta: Katalónia, Panoráma, Medicina Kiadó 1991., 129. old.

Külső hivatkozások

 Ajuntament de Tàrrega, Hivatalos honlap
 Fira de Teatre de Tàrrega
 Notícies de Tàrrega
 Información del Instituto de Estadística de Cataluña (katalán)

Lleida tartomány települései

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia