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What beach can you camp at in southern California? ( with maps )
Written by Abi Newhouse in Regular Camping
Generally, California is beautiful all year round–it is really not fair for those of us who don't live there. So, if you want to camp, you are in luck at pretty much any time of the year. But this is true especially in Southern California, where you are closer to the sun, the surf, and actual beaches made for camping.
So, what beaches can you camp in southern California? There are 21 beaches that you can camp on in southern California and they are, Gaviota State Park, Santa Rosa Island, Catalina Island Camping, Dockweiler State Beach RV Park, Leo Carrillo State Park Campground, Sycamore Cove Beach Campground, Thornhill Broome Beach Campground, San Onofre State Beach–Bluffs Campground, San Onofre State Beach–San Mateo Campground, San Clemente State Beach Campground, Doheny State Beach Campground, Crystal Cove State Park, Bolsa Chica State Beach RV Campground, Waterfront RV Park in Huntington, Silver Strand State Beach Campground, Campland on Mission Bay, San Elijo State Beach Campground, South Carlsbad State Beach Campground andChula Vista RV Resort.
To find out more about each campground be sure to read about it below.
All the campgrounds listed below are wheelchair accessible, and there are usually annual passes available for purchase. Even though I'll provide specific information below, you can always find super specific information by calling the campground or visiting its website.
In general, prices range from about $10-$30 depending on if you are tent camping or RV camping, but again, call for specifics. So, let's get started:
Camping Beaches in Santa Barbara
Gaviota State Park
This is the farthest north campground in this list of southern California campgrounds, so we'll start here and work our way south. Gaviota hosts family campsites, hike or bike campsites, and also has RV access.
Activities include boating, fishing, scuba diving, snorkeling, beaches, viewpoints, windsurfing, surfing, and picnic areas. You can also hike and horseback ride on the trails around the campground.
You will also find a camp store on the premises, parking, and drinking water. For comfort station options, you have restrooms and showers combined, separate restrooms, and outdoor showers. The park hours are 7am to sunset
Camping on Islands
Santa Rosa Island
At Santa Rosa Island, every season is peak season. The campground on the island, Water Canyon Campground, is nestled in a canyon to avoid the strong wind. You will find interesting animals and archeological finds.
There are trails for hiking, anywhere from flat scenic trails, to rough mountain trails to Black Mountain. Activities like swimming, snorkeling, diving, and kayaking are available but depend on the weather. You can always access the beach, though! It's just up to you to decide if you want to brave the wind or not.
You will find drinking water, picnic areas, seasonal flush toilets, and wind shelters. Overall, there is a lot to do on this island–definitely worth the trip.
Catalina Island Camping
There are quite a few campgrounds on Catalina Island. The campgrounds on the West End and called Avalon and Two Harbors. You can also stay at Inland Camping if you want to explore the interior of the island as well as the beach.
Tents and cabins are available, and you can rent either one. You can also bring your own camping gear, of course. There are also boat-in camping sites available.
Camping on Catalina is a whole different, high class experience. At Avalon, you will find opportunities for ocean expeditions, the glass bottom boat, and the flying fish voyage. You will also find scenic drives and golf.
At Two Harbors, you can go diving, hiking, mountain biking, kayaking, boating, fishing, snorkeling, and scuba diving. You can also just relax at numerous different restaurants. Getting back and forth between Avalon and Two Harbors is quite easy with either bus or boat options.
Camping Beaches in Los Angeles
Dockweiler State Beach RV Park
Dockweiler, while a state beach, is reserved through their own private system. The campground is a three-mile-long shoreline close to the Los Angeles International Airport between Marina Del Rey and Manhattan Beach.
The campground hosts RV access to en route campsites, family campsites, and RV hookups and pump-out stations. Parking is available, as well as restrooms, outdoor showers, laundry, and drinking water.
As for activities, boating is allowed. You can also scuba dive, snorkel, swim, windsurf, surf, and enjoy the beach. There are also volleyball courts nearby, and you are allowed to make a fire on the beach.
Park hours are Monday to Friday, from 9-5.
Leo Carrillo State Park Campground
One of the busier campgrounds, at Leo Carrillo, you have a lot of options. You have 140 spots with en route campsites, family campsites, group campsites, hike or bike campsites, primitive camping options, RV access and dump stations.
You are allowed to boat, fish, scuba dive, snorkel, swim, windsurf, surf, and geocache. The campground also has environmental learning, a visitor's center, exhibits and programs, interpretive exhibits, picnic areas, and family programs.
The campground also has a camp store, parking, combined restrooms and showers, separate restrooms, separate showers, and drinking water.
There is a lot offered here, but there are parking fees and the trailers and RVs are limited to 31 feet. So, while it is perfect for almost anything camping, make sure it's perfect for you!
Sycamore Cove Beach Campground
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Inside Point Mugu State Beach, you will find Sycamore Cove Beach. The biggest draw to this campground is its hiking trail network. You can find a lot of trailheads along Sycamore Canyon Road, which starts across the street from the beach parking area.
The beach itself has tide pools, lifeguards, and picnic tables. Across the street by the hiking areas is the campground with 56 campsites for tents and RVs (up to 31 feet), a nature center, and maps for your convenience. There are restrooms, showers, barbeque areas, and dogs are allowed! You can also fish in this area. And for your information, there is a fee for parking.
Sycamore's gates open at 8am and close at 10pm. No entry after 10pm.
Thornhill Broome Beach Campground
Another campground inside Mugu State Park, Thornhill Broome offers 62 primitive campsites for tents or RV's (up to 31 feet). The campsites include en route, family, group, hike or bike, and primitive. There is also RV access and dump stations.
There are bike trails and hiking trails and horseback riding is allowed. As for activities, fishing is allowed, and you can also scuba dive, snorkel, swim, windsurf, and surf. There is environmental learning, interpretive exhibits, family programs, and nature and wildlife viewing.
Parking is available as well as restrooms and showers, separate restrooms, and the campsite is wheelchair accessible. Thornhill also opens at 8am and close at 10pm. No entry after 10pm.
Camping Beaches in Orange County
San Onofre State Beach–Bluffs Campground
With about 157 campsites, Bluffs Campground hosts tents, vans, trailers, or RVs. And for RVs, the campground has sewage hookups. There are several hikes that lead straight to the beach, and other trails leading onto the bluffs.
You will have access to picnic tables, fire pits, restrooms, showers, and the beautiful ocean views. This campground is known to fill up rather quickly, which says a lot about its quality. From reviews, it seems that the campsites are quite close to one another, so keep that in mind when booking.
San Onofre State Beach is great for biking, surfing, swimming, and wildlife watching. The campground comes highly recommended from almost everyone who visits.
San Onofre State Beach–San Mateo Campground
San Mateo Campground, while quite similar to Bluffs Campground, has a couple details that differ the two enough that you'd want to pick one over the other. Here you will find a trail that leads to the smaller Trestles Beach, which is a world class surfing site.
The San Mateo Creek moves through the campground, so you have a couple different bodies of water to play in. All the campsites should have a fire pit and picnic table, and there are hookups for RVers. As for comfort stations, you can expect hot indoor showers and flushable toilets.
San Clemente State Beach Campground
With 160 campsites–and 72 with full RV hookups, and two group campsites that host 50 people per site–San Clemente Campground sits right on a bluff that looks over the ocean.
Generally, the RV campsites accommodate RVs and trailers up to 42 feet long, though some are limited to 32 feet. There are some RV sites that don't have hookups, so make sure you check before booking.
The campground has an amphitheater, flushable toilets, hot showers, a dump station, and a picnic area. There is a direct trail to the ocean, and the campground sells firewood as well.
As for the beach, you can camp there, as well as swim, surf, snorkel, hike, surf fish, and bike. There is a cute town nearby that you could also visit if you were in the mood. And best of all, pets are okay!
Doheny State Beach Campground
Doheny was the first state beach in California, so you can expect some historical and cultural sites here. The campground offers family and group campsites, as well as RV access and dump stations. For RVs, the max length is 35 feet for both trailers and motorhomes.
On the southern end of the beach, you will find the campgrounds, where some of the sites are only steps from the beach. There are tide pools and aquariums and on the northern end, picnic facilities and volleyball courts.
At Doheny, fishing, swimming, and surfing is allowed. There is food service available, as well as parking, restrooms and showers combined, separate restrooms, separate showers, and drinking water.
With 3.2 miles of beach and 2,400 acres of backcountry, Crystal Cove attracts a lot of different camping styles. Whether you mountain bike or scuba dive, Crystal allows for it all. But since it has such a large amount of land, you feel like you're really far away, even though you're really in a great, bustling location.
You can rent beach cottages here, but there are also classic camping options. You've got environmental, family, and primitive campsites, as well as RV sites with hookups, and an RV dump station. There are restrooms, showers, food service, and drinking water available.
The town is working to get more cottages ready and to restore the town, so you'll see historic and cultural sites, as well as environmental learning, exhibits, group tours, and family programs. You can also fish and surf.
Bolsa Chica State Beach RV Campground
Here, you will find 50 RV sites with hookups and a dump station. RVs and trailers must by 40 feet or below. The beach is known for its perfectly curled waves. You will see people surfing, sunbathing, playing volleyball, and enjoying water sports.
It's also a great place for surf fishing. The beach allows for some hand fishing on new and full moons during the summer, but you must have a fishing permit for this activity. This beach is also great for wildlife and bird watching.
You will also be able to look at interactive displays and exhibits. There are picnic tables, outdoor showers, and restrooms. You can have fires from 6am to 10pm only. And at this beach, no alcohol is allowed!
Waterfront RV Park in Huntington
Check in anytime from 1pm to 10pm, and you will find RV sites that accommodate up to 45 feet RVs and trailers. Sites include full hookups, Wi-Fi, and Dish TV.
The RV park has a pool and a spa, and you can also walk to the beach. There are laundry facilities and a clubhouse with billiards. The RV Park is close to Huntington Beach Main Street, so you are close to dining, shopping, and entertainment options.
With so much to offer, this RV park works for any kind of camper.
Camping Beaches in San Diego
Silver Strand State Beach Campground
At this RV park, you have views of the Pacific Ocean and the San Diego Bay. You can camp, swim, surf, boat, water-ski, play volleyball, angler-fish, and picnic in this area. There are parking lots, cold showers, and restrooms available.
As an RV specific park, there is a dump station and hookups. The RVs must be 40 feet or less, though occasionally oversized vehicles are allowed for an extra fee. You would just have to ask.
At this RV campground, check in is at 2pm, no exceptions! Make sure to call ahead to snag your spot.
Campland on Mission Bay
This campground is known for its "staycation" qualities–it's near Sea World, Legoland, and the San Diego Zoo. There is a 124-slip marina, Wi-Fi, and laundry available for campers. Tents and RVs are welcome, as well as your furry friends!
There are swimming pools and hot tubs, bicycle rentals, a game room, a skatepark, a basketball court, watercraft rentals, and campfires on the bay. You are also close to dining, shopping, and entertainment.
Often, there are live shows nearby, and the campground allows for group camping for these special events. There is also boat storage if you are bringing your own.
With so much to do, this campground works for different types of camping, but you should expect quite a bit of traffic!
San Elijo State Beach Campground
An RV park that hosts RVs and trailers 35 feet or less, you will find a more private camping experience. There are hookups and a dump station.
On this narrow beach, you will find a nearby reef that's popular to snorkelers and divers. The campground has a camp store and a snack bar and has supplies you might want, like boogie boards and firewood.
There are exhibits and programs for your entertainment, as well as picnic areas, fishing, surfing, and swimming. You will also find parking, restrooms, showers, and drinking water available to you. The beach is beautiful and quiet.
South Carlsbad State Beach Campground
With a staircase that leads straight to the beach, you will find a bluff-top campground that is very popular, especially in the summer. This beach allows camping, swimming, surfing, diving, fishing and picnicking.
There are RV sites with hookups and a dump station. The max length is 35 feet for RVs and trailers. Parking is available, as well as restrooms, showers, and a camp store. Check in is 2pm each day, no exceptions.
There are inland campsites and premium bluff sites to choose from. Campsites are limited to three vehicles, which includes your trailer or RV.
Chula Vista RV Resort
With 17 acres of beautiful land, you have access to the Chula Vista Marina and Bayside Park. As this is an RV park, you will find hookups and a dump station. The max length for RVs is 60 feet. The park also has a swimming pool and spa, clubhouse, and picnic areas.
You can go boating, swimming, fishing, kayaking, and paddle boarding in the ocean, and as for the land, you can bike and attend live music and concert events that occur pretty regularly.
At the campground, there is also access to cable TV, a fitness center, laundry facilities, a hot tub, an on-site store, and camping games like horseshoes.
As with the other San Diego campgrounds, you have access to the attractions the city has to offer–SeaWorld, the San Diego Zoo, and more.
With All These Options…
You are sure to have a wonderful time at any of the campgrounds listed. They say it's all about location, and if that's true, southern California is what it's all about.
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Abi Newhouse
Abi is an absolute joy and has a massive amount of knowledge on every type of camping. One of her favorite things to do is research and share everything she learns with our Glampingorcamping readers and we find her articles valuable and informative. Be sure to read all of Abi's articles on GOC, we are sure you will love them all.
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Generally, California is beautiful all year round--it is really not fair for those of us who don't live there. So, if you want to camp, you are in luck at pretty much any time of the year. But this is true especially…
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My name is Rick Arms and I love camping with my 6 kids
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Mudgee's car and bike enthusiasts won't want to miss the upcoming Mudgee Motorfest to be held at the Mudgee Showgrounds on Saturday, November 1.
The Mudgee Motorfest is presented by Cudgegong Cruisers Inc. and is now in its 6th year.
The event sees all kinds of vintage, classic and very cool cars rocking around town, with people coming from far and wide to bring their machines to Mudgee and compete for awards in the Motorfest's Show 'n' Shine.
Other highlights of this year's event will include grass driving, engine building and dyno competitions, displays, kids activities, live entertainment and much more.
If you have a car you want to enter into the Show 'n' Shine you can pick up an entry form on the day. Camping will be available on-site.
If you want to find out more information about the 2014 Mudgee Motorfest then head to www.cudgegongcruisers.org.au.
Will you be heading to this year's Motorfest?
This entry was posted in Mudgee News and tagged living in mudgee, Mudgee Events, Mudgee MotorFest, Mudgee Showgrounds on October 27, 2014 by I Love Mudgee.
Can Assist is a network of people that help cancer patients and their families go through the trials and tribulations of living with cancer. The Mudgee branch of Can Assist is holding an event on the 14th of April that everyone's invited to!
Mudgee's Can Assist With Music is an afternoon event full of music, food, stalls, entertainment, and of course more music. View the flier below to see the line-up of musicians, including Ash Grunwald and other local performers.
Mudgee's Can Assist With Music charity event is going to rock the Mudgee Showgrounds from 1pm on April 14th 2012, so make sure you've got your tickets, which are available now.
All proceeds go to helping out local people of Mudgee, who may even be your own family or friends, who need assistance with managing daily life living with cancer. Can Assist is an amazing charity organisation that relies on the dedication and support of local communities like ours. The network is available to anyone receiving cancer treatment and who may be finding it hard to manage (e.g. financially). It's easy to make contact and get much needed assistance whether it's fuel vouchers or doctors bills, so if you know someone going through cancer treatment who may be in need of assistance, put them in touch with Can Assist, and make sure you do your part by going to the Can Assist With Music event on the 14th of April.
Get tickets online or call Langswear on 6372 1219 or drop into their shop on Church Street.
We're promised that it'll be a wonderful afternoon of entertainment, but most importantly you'll be helping make someone's life a little easier.
This entry was posted in Mudgee News and tagged Can Assist, Can Assist With Music, Events, Events in Mudgee, I Love Mudgee, Live Music, Mudgee Events, Mudgee Showgrounds, Things to do, Things to do in Mudgee, We Love Mudgee on April 11, 2012 by adamwoods.
If you haven't marked it on your calendar yet, make sure you do because Mudgee's Carols In The Park event is coming up on Sunday December 11th 2011, and it's an event that the family will surely enjoy!
This is a fun event that is being held at the Mudgee Showgrounds thanks to the community work of the Rotary Club of Mudgee Sunrise and local church groups. We're yet to meet a person that doesn't like a good old Christmas carol so pack up a rug, chair, some snacks and drinks (sorry no alcohol) for the family, and get yourself and your family to this year's Carols In The Park.
There will be food and drinks available on site from 4:00pm, and there'll be plenty to keep everyone entertained. Santa will be arriving by helicopter at 5.30pm and everyone's invited to join in the singing of carols from 7:00pm. The event concludes at 9.30pm.
Even though Mudgee's Carols In The Park is a free family event, we do encourage the people of the Mudgee community to give their support by donating to the Rotary Club on the night. In return your family will receive a carols songbook and glow sticks for the kids.
This entry was posted in Mudgee News and tagged Carols in the Park, Christmas, Christmas Holiday Activities Mudgee, Mudgee Christmas, Mudgee Christmas Carols, Mudgee Community Funding, Mudgee Events, Mudgee Rotary Club, Mudgee Showgrounds, Things to do in Mudgee on December 8, 2011 by adamwoods.


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Home » » "La Mora" Detained in Nuevo Leon, Being Extradited to the US
"La Mora" Detained in Nuevo Leon, Being Extradited to the US
By Yaqui 12/23/2018 09:16:00 AM 14 comments
Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: Proceso
Falls in NL :"La Mora", required in the US for homicide and criminal association
MEXICO CITY: Luis Lauro Ramírez Bautista, alias "La Mora" or "La China" and designated as operator of the Beltrán Leyva Cartel, was detained by the Federal Police in Nuevo León on Dec 14th.
The ministerial elements completed an arrest warrant for the purpose of extradition to the United States against "La Mora", who is required by the Federal Court for the Northern District of Texas, to be prosecuted for his probable responsibility in the crimes of murder and criminal association.
Ramírez Bautista is credited with participating, along with other people, in the killing of Juan Jesús Guerrero-Chapa, lawyer of the ex-leader of the Gulf Cartel, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, registered on May 22, 2013, in Southlake, Texas.
Ramírez Bautista was arrested by state authorities when leaving a bar in Monterrey, NL. He was carrying a gun at the time . He tried to flee through a checkpoint in the Barrio Antiguo neighborhood; but authorities chased him down, at which point he resisted arrest and pointed his gun at the arresting offices.
The defendant was detained in the Cadereyta Prison, Nuevo León, for his probable responsibility in the commission of the crime of carrying a firearm, however, he was released after an abbreviated procedure and at that time the court order was executed with detention for extradition purposes.
He was moved under tight security operations to Altiplano Prison on or about Dec 13th while he faces the extradition process. ''La Mora" was recently named as one of the most wanted targets by an international program for fugitives. It is called "Se Busca" in Mexico; and is used by Mexican and US federal authorities for tracking down key cartel bosses.
Lauro Ramírez was admitted to the Federal Social Rehabilitation Center number one, where he was available to the District Judge Specialized in the Accusatory Criminal System of the Federal Criminal Justice Center in the State of Mexico.
I thought AMLO was gonna get rid of extradition?
He said many promises, riddles, phrases. I am still waiting...
Extradition equals game over. The Americans prison system will break even the most cold-blooded ruthless killer.
Actually American prisons are like hotels, compared to Mexico's prisons
@2:04 nah American prisons are either equally as bad as Mexican prisons or worse
Yes they will get 3 meals a day, One hour at the gym. But being locked will really make them go crazy.
Well said! They actually are. At least you have a few rights in the US prison system.
Serious question
Are checkpoints unconstitutional in Mexico?
What does the alliance between BLO and Z consist of?
Please update ?
No alliance anymore; at least not in the sense of the national alliance that existed in 2011-14. The Beltran Leyva operators in NL these days have no connection to BLO—in fact they are former BL operators who went independent. BLO these days only exists in Sinaloa and Nayarit.
When the 08 war started a lot of direct family members of the BEltran leyva brothers left to the US LA area also to AZ. Only middle tier operators are in San Pedro that did go independent.
Bro still have an alliance with La Linea tho
Sigue el gato de san pedro..
Ese es el bueno
That guy is already dead he comitted suicide in jail . Theres a corrido from los dos carnales its called "La Mora"

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Q: Loop vars with loop_control and loop_var Ansible I would need to loop some vars inside an include_task.
What is currently working:
- include_tasks: example.yml
  loop: "{{ flowers|flatten(levels=1) }}"
  loop_control:
    loop_var: flower

I would like to achieve something like this:
- include_tasks: example.yml
  loop: - "{{ flowers|flatten(levels=1) }}"
        - "{{ cars|flatten(levels=1) }}"
  loop_control:
    loop_var:
     - flower
     - car

In the example.yml, I will have 2 sections: "flowers" and "cars". In "flowers" I should trigger just "flower" var and in "cars" I should trigger just "car" var.
Is any way to achieve this using loop and loop_var?
Thank you in advance.

A: You can have one loop_var only. But this loop_var may be any data-structure that fits your problem. You can for example loop combined flowers and cars, and select the elements in the included tasks.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


In May, with one swift stroke, 6,000 employees of Malaysian Airlines (MAS) were axed from their jobs. MAS' new CEO, Christoph Mueller, whose profile on Wikipedia is listed as the 'Terminator', declared that the airline is "technically bankrupt". Applying the typical playbook of business management, he announced that the solution is cutting costs to focus on turning profitable in three years. Market analysts were not surprised at the move but have said that this is just the first steps. But, to cut is straightforward. The tougher question is: How do you restore confidence, generate conviction and revive growth?
Consider another high profile company nearly went bust – Apple – and how it turned the corner. In 1997, Steve Jobs returned to the company he founded but was later ousted from. Jobs made peace with his nemesis Bill Gates in order to secure an investment. He reviewed the organisation to identify the talents that he could count on; told all staff that their best days were still ahead, then focused all their resources on a single, winning product. The candy-themed iMac was launched in 1998 to resounding success, providing the fuel to rebuild Apple.
That Apple is now a powerful company is beyond anyone's doubt; it is after all the world's largest company by market capitalisation today and is heading towards the unprecedented valuation of a trillion dollars. Yet, what was incredible was, Jobs did not just revive one but two companies; before Apple, there was Pixar. When the small crew at Pixar approached Jobs, they too were also on the brink of bankruptcy. But Jobs saw value, backed the creative team and signed a deal with Disney. Pixar began to produce one animated blockbuster after the other. Soon, Disney acquired the company for USD$7.4 billion.
How did a man like Jobs, who had little education – the only credit Jobs cited for his education was a typography course at Reed College – create more wealth than any of his peers ever did within 20 years?
Understanding and defining the impact of design when it is not used as a tool for expression, but rather as a tool for growth, has been our life's work. Applying design comprehensively in strategy, organisation and experience, we have helped many companies in their growth strategies in over 18 cities throughout the Asia Pacific. One might ask, what is the difference between a design-led strategy versus the typical business management approach?
The typical business management approach has an almost fanatical belief in looking at business in a clear-cut manner: the company is not growing because costs are high, so focus on trimming the fat and you will naturally see growth and a return to profit.
For anyone who has run an enterprise with hundreds of staff in different configurations, this is easier said than done. I call this clear-cut approach by traditional management folks, bloodletting. In medieval Europe, if you were sick, doctors would bleed you in the hope of getting rid of the 'bad blood' so that you could recover. This 'bloodletting' approach – of simply cutting costs and hoping for growth – is dangerous. Since many companies eventually get cut to the core, they are unable to recover since they have lost critical talent who can generate growth.
Conversely, in the design-led approach, the task is to find who the existing creative persons or units that are creating value are, and how best to retain them. One of Steve Jobs' immediate objective upon his return was to identify the key talents that he needed to retain so that the company will have a chance to thrive again, quickly. This was one of the primary purposes of the investment that Steve obtained from Bill Gates – to pay those people.
In our work, we often spend a lot of time identifying critical talent, the creative engine in an organisation, and focus on repositioning them so that they can be more effective in their work. We identify them in three ways; how many mentions they receive from superiors and subordinates in order to assess their influence; what key areas they are driving and their impact in the value chain of the business so as to assess their value; the depth and quality of their thinking process so as to assess creative thinking.
Whenever we design our strategy around these talents, our chances of success are much higher. It is time-consuming but effective. From our point of view, any approach which does not seek to understand who and what creates value in the company should be guarded against. A wrong move or cut will damage the creative engines for future growth and set the company on an irreversible course to ruin.
The typical management thinking has a rather limited view on business and tends to look at issues from just the finance or human resource point of view. It is seldom appreciative or even tolerant of other disciplines like marketing, communication and design. This is somewhat like driving a car without rearview or side mirrors.
The design-led approach demands that we respect the problem by looking at every aspect of the business. When we reviewed a national bank so as to transform it, we looked at how bank was organised, the belief systems, revenue generation according to product and services, relationships with customers, how financial products were developed, regulatory limits, how the products were presented and communicated, and how the retail experience was designed to shape the perception of the customer. From this comprehensive view, we understood that the bank was not designed to be close to the customers; they did not have an emotional bond beyond convenience, and this was limiting the bank's growth. This was because the bank's staff did not know the cause they were fighting for, nor understand the value they brought to customers.
Unfortunately, this low-value-creation mindset plagues many employees across industries in Asia, and it is usually as a result of the lack of a strategic approach towards highlighting the value of their impact. To do so requires identifying a meaningful purpose for the employees. To overcome this issue and switch on the high-value-creation mindset, we developed sessions to help staff question and discuss their role and purpose within the organisation. We developed a whole new belief system with examples that they can relate; since they too desire to own homes or are parents, they will be able to relate to the thoughts and concerns of customers.
This strategy paved the way for us to introduce a new retail banking experience with an emphasis on staff coming across as the customers' extended family members. Staff roles were redesigned for employees to act more as advisors rather than just customer service providers. We then designed more spacious advisory cabins for longer conversations, introduced comfortable sofas and roving advisors offering assistance. Wherever the bank introduced this new banking experience, revenue doubled. This is what happens when you respect the problem by not taking anything for granted, by reviewing every relationship and element. A design-led approach requires humility because it is a far more complex world than assuming things will change with just a few adjustments.
As the saying goes, the devil is in the details. For a design-led approach to work, it requires a comprehensive approach in terms of implementation. In the business management approach, they will likely spend a lot of time looking at the finances and organisation, then rush the soft aspects like branding and service.
Unfortunately, this seems to be happening in the case of Malaysian Airlines. For a business that relies heavily on experience and service, one would think that they would pay more attention to the softer aspects to really get it right. But while detailed plans were being made for finance and organisational structure, it appears they rushed the branding aspect by calling for a pitch with little time for agencies to think deeper about possible solutions. When this happens, it is like assuming that surgery alone is enough for the patient's recovery, without considering the other important aspects such as mental well-being and home care. Any doctor will tell you that these other aspects matter to ensure a full recovery.
Contrast this to the care and attention to detail that Apple took to launch the Apple Watch. From reorganising internally, hiring the right talent such as the former CEO of Burberry, Angela Ahrendts, to even considering having dedicated Apple Watch shops in high profile places such as Ginza in Tokyo and Galeries Lafayette in Paris, Apple left nothing to chance. It seems, too often, we tend to have the tendency to rush into things and the results are often poor because we are not geared up for maximum success. A design-led approach is like adopting the Yin-Yang philosophy for implementation, both the soft and hard elements matter on an equal basis. You cannot just have a good product, you must know how to create desire and influence in order to shape outcomes.
Plans: The extent and sophistication of plans in place that will enable the idea to succeed.
Persons: The quality, competency and rank of the person driving the idea.
Processes: The depth and wholesomeness of the workflow ecosystem that surrounds it.
In many organisations, they may have the plans but they lack the ability to follow-through properly in a holistic manner. In other words, many people have ideas but few ideas are designed to succeed because organisations have either no patience or have taken a one-dimension approach, hoping for success.
Apple used to have this tagline: Think different. Our world is shaped rapidly by advances in technology, and the increasing speed of information exchange that at times suggest that different schools of thoughts are colliding. But one thing is clear, it can no longer be business as usual.
Today, a company such as Uber does not own any taxis but is one of the world's largest manager of private drivers; a social network like Facebook has a reach greater than a singular religious faith. And Apple, which was dismissed by many in 1997, is now the biggest company in the world, exceeding even the oil companies. The question that leaders have to confront is this: can our traditional lenses provide us the vision we need for the future?
An edited version of this article, available here in English and Chinese, appeared in the August Issue of Prestige Magazine, Singapore.
Simply serving or serving magical moments?


text:
MALT Welcomes New Staff
In the last three months, MALT has been immensely fortunate to welcome three new staff members to the team. Please join us in welcoming Lexi Fujii, Brady Moss and Lana Richards! Each brings tremendous skill, passion and a wealth of experience to MALT.
We invite you to get to know Lexi, Brady and Lana by reading on!
Lexi Fujii
DEVELOPMENT & COMMUNICATIONS COORDINATOR
Lexi will support MALT's fundraising, communications and events teams through digital communications. Before joining the team at MALT, Lexi worked for a variety of farm, garden and education organizations, and ran her own wedding events business. She holds a Bachelor of Science in sustainable agriculture and food systems from the University of California, Davis, where she developed a deep passion for and interest in sustainability, food and farming.
Grandma's go-to dish: Jook — rice porridge with chicken, mushrooms and a lot of soy sauce. Lexi would eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner when she stayed with her.
Pantry staples: Coconut milk, soy sauce, sesame oil, yams, onions, cumin, curry powder, sea salt, beans, garlic, Sola Bee Farms wildflower honey and Annie's organic macaroni and cheese.
Latest hobbies: Lexi has picked up a myriad of activities lately —drawing, baking paleo treats, food photography and collaging — but her newest love is backpacking. From coastal mountains, to the top of Mt. Shasta and down into the Grand Canyon, Lexi feels lucky to have found something that makes her soul sing.
BRADY MOSS
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF CONSERVATION
Brady joined MALT to manage our easement acquisition and conservation program. Prior to MALT, Brady served in Governor Brown's administration as assistant secretary for policy at the California Natural Resources Agency, focusing on the state's conservation and environmental challenges. He also spent 11 years at the Trust for Public Land in San Francisco, managing land conservation transactions to create parks and open space. Brady holds a bachelor's degree in comparative religious studies from University of California, Santa Cruz, and a master's degree in regional and environmental planning from Cornell University. Brady grew up in Shasta County, with a family legacy in the timber industry, and he enjoys leaping into swimming holes.
Favorite-family dish: When Brady was a child his mom made something called "John Wayne Casserole." Brady remembers it contained chiles, cheese, black olives and tortillas.
Pantry (& refrigerator) staples: Extra sharp cheddar cheese, crackers, carrots, hummus, Straus Family Creamery whole greek yogurt, apples, black tea, half and half and eggs.
Holiday tradition: Not a tradition exactly, but one Thanksgiving Brady gathered more than 10 pounds of acorns, repeatedly rinsed them to leach the tannins out and then processed into acorn meal/flour. He then substituted corn meal for acorn meal in a corn bread recipe. The brown acorn bread was delicious and had scent slightly similar to areas around oak trees where acorns are rotting on the ground.
LANA RICHARDS
Lana joined MALT as a member of the development team. Her passion for both theater and land conservation led her to Connecticut College where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in theater with a certificate in environmental studies from the Goodwin-Niering Center for the Environment. She has worked with the Avalonia Land Trust in New England and the Big Sur Land Trust in Monterey, and has been a member of fundraising and customer service teams at a variety of theater companies.
Yesterday's lunch: Roasted chickpeas and sweet potatoes with pesto made with Little Wing Farm purple basil!
Favorite winter comfort food: A cauliflower bake from Amy Chaplain's Whole Food Cooking Everyday (sautéed legumes and veggies topped with a whipped cauliflower cashew sauce and baked in the oven). So. Good.
Why are you passionate about agriculture? Agriculture is essential to life! For Lana, food is important for so many reasons: survival, identity, community, comfort. She wants to create a more just and sustainable society, and land management and food production are essential components of that.
You can get to know the full MALT staff, here!
Interested in joining the team? We're hiring! Learn more, here.


Razer's new Diamondback takes a step down on design and a step up on price, making it a poor value.
Razer, inarguably the most popular company in the specialized arena of PC gaming accessories, is now 17 years old. The company now has enough history that it can grab the diamonds of its back catalog, and it's now re-introduced one of its most brilliant gems.
The original Diamondback was a gaming mouse designed to be pleasingly ambidextrous, and it was hugely influential. Its finger-friendly primary buttons and high arched body have made their way into the standard design of almost every gaming mouse since. For the big comeback, Razer has subtly altered the styling and materials and grafted on the company's best laser sensor, but kept the basic shape the same. Is that enough to warrant its $90 price tag?
The Diamondback is an ambidextrous mouse, with its dimensions mirrored right down the middle. Huge primary left and right buttons straddle a relatively large scroll wheel with a comfy rubbery texture, like a tiny four-by-four tire with lighting effects on either side. Unlike Razer's more recent designs, such as the Deathadder, the buttons are completely separated from the body. On both the left and right sides you'll find two thumb buttons that are right at home, with melee and grenade designations for most shooters, no matter which thumb you happen to be using. These have been slightly altered from the original Diamondback, making them longer and thinner.
The most striking change from the old mouse is the difference in materials. Razer has swapped out the smooth and soft-touch plastics for a grippy alternative, which makes it easier to hold the mouse in a variety of grip styles. That's a welcome change, but trading the admittedly ugly "bumpers" on the side of the old Diamondback for a slimmer, less obtrusive LED strip is not, for reasons I'll touch on later.
Underneath both thumb buttons is a strip of textured rubber, the better to grip with either pinky. The mouse is topped off with Razer's triple snake logo on the palm area, which glows with the same Chroma lighting as the mouse wheel, and the LED strip running around the side.
Notably, the new Diamondback omits dedicated DPI buttons, making it more like the Deathadder and less like the wired Mamba Tournament Edition (which costs an identical $90). You can program two of the side buttons to be DPI switches, but that presents some serious ergonomic issues.
I have fond memories of playing Team Fortress 2 with the 2007 edition of the Diamondback, and I have to say — the more modern interpretation is a step backward. The mouse feels skinny and flimsy, lacking the meaty curves of the Deathadder and Mamba models, leaving small bits of thumb and pinky to drag along the mousepad. The new LED strip is probably to blame. While the older Diamondback had a big spongy bumper of soft plastic around everything except the top area, the new one has nothing substantial to hold on to.
Quality materials and construction freshen up the old design.
As a result, I had to modify my usual grip to a sort of half-hearted claw, bringing down my speed and accuracy in both shooters and more forgiving third-person action games. I found my pinky often grazed the opposite thumb buttons, often causing an unwanted grenade toss (or a "back" command in the browser). I would have preferred to map these buttons to DPI up and down to make for some on-the-fly sniping, but ended up disabling both of them in Razer's Synapse software.
As I've mentioned in my reviews of the Mamba 2015 and Mamba Tournament Edition, Razer's 16,000 DPI sensor is impressive but mostly useless. I never found any situation where setting the sensor above 9,000 felt sensible.
Like most recent Razer designs, the Diamondback manages to avoid total over-the-top garishness, instead looking like a stealth fighter that's been inexplicably equipped with a lighting kit. In Synapse you can make the mouse wheel, Razer logo, and edge lighting strip as fanciful or as stoic as you like, choosing between a handful of effects or creating your own in the Chroma section. Other Razer gear can be synced up for most effects, and if you're like me and prefer that your desktop not look like a rave, you can turn it off.
Oddly, the multiple multi-color LEDs on the Diamondback have much smoother transitions than some of Razer's other Chroma-equipped mice. Despite its heritage, the current Diamondback is a newer design than the Chroma-equipped Deathadder and Mamba. Perhaps Razer is refining its manufacturing.
Synapse hasn't changed much in recent years. While I still abhor the removal of the ability to save button layouts to device memory, and the unavoidable requirement of a Razer login, I do appreciate the ability to program nearly endless commands and macros.
If you're a right-handed gamer, the Tartarus is an excellent alternative to a full-sized gaming keyboard.
Southpaws will love the superior ergonomics of Razer's more modern mouse, and this modified model is just for them.
If you'd like to try out a standing desk without skipping on the gaming features, this one's worth a look.
$90 is a lot to ask for a mouse, and it's even more to ask if your company offers similar mice with an identical price tag and more features. That's the case with the Diamondback, which compares poorly to Razer's own Mamba Tournament Edition. The Mamba has an identical sensor and Chroma lighting, but ditches the ambidextrous design and moves the secondary thumb buttons on top of the case to function as dedicated DPI switches. If you're right-handed, or simply use your computer that way, the Mamba is an obvious choice.
And if you prefer to game as a southpaw? Then I'd recommend picking up the old Deathadder left-handed edition for just $60. You'll lose the multi-colored lighting and the extra thumb buttons, but as I mentioned above, they're not all that useful anyway. That's without mentioning admirable ambidextrous options from SteelSeries, Roccat, and Logitech, all of which can be had for considerably less money. Between the altered ergonomics and high price, the new Diamondback just can't stand up to its own legacy.


text:
For Earth Day, Banner Launched Via Balloons At Washington Square Arch to Protest Use of Rainforest Wood In New Park Benches
Environmental activists took to Washington Square Park on Friday, Earth Day, with a flamboyant action in which large, colorful, helium-filled balloons ascended to the top of the Arch with a banner proclaiming, "Mayor Bloomberg: Why was the Amazon logged for Wash. Square Park Benches?" The new benches at Washington Square, installed as part of the Park's "multi-million renovation," are harvested from Ipe wood, a tropical hardwood logged from the Amazon rainforest. This usage goes against pledges made, according to organizer of the event, Rainforest Relief, over 3 years ago by the NYC Parks Department and Mayor Michael Bloomberg to stop its use in city construction.
From Rainforest Relief and NY Climate Action Group:
This ongoing use of ipê contradicts the pledge that Mayor Bloomberg made to United Nations General Assembly on February 11, 2008: "Our City's agencies will immediately reduce their use of tropical hardwoods by 20%. They will do that by specifying domestic wood, recycled plastic lumber, and other materials in the design of park benches and other construction projects." He was following the lead of the Parks Department, which had declared an end to the use of tropical hardwoods for bench construction in late 2007.
The ipê wood can be found in new construction at the High Line Park, Union Square, Hudson River Park, & Brooklyn Bridge Park.
The organizations made a statement about the impacts of privatization of our public space:
[These parks] are also part of a larger trend occurring throughout the city: duties and responsibilities concerning public space are largely being transferred from public agencies to private entities such as business improvement districts and public benefit corporations. These entities are assemblages of private investors and stakeholders who operate without public oversight.
The Village Alliance, a business improvement district, had substantial sway concerning both the redesign of Washington Square Park as well as its maintenance.
"The privatization of NYC's public space is allowing the city's destruction of the Amazon to continue unchallenged," stated Tim Doody, the New York City campaign coordinator for Rainforest Relief.
Photo of old Washington Square benches here.
Stacy Walsh Rosenstock commented at the time of that post: Isn't the 1934 World's Fair Bench, designed by Robert Moses and Kenneth Lynch, a New York City classic? Why would we ever choose to use some earth-hostile imitation?
As for the new benches, I hear repeatedly from people that the new benches are uncomfortable and they liked the old ones just fine. Perhaps promises could have been kept and that rainforest could have been left alone after all?
** More on the action which took place yesterday (Friday, April 22nd) around noon here. **
Photos: http://rfny.net
L.A. "Ready to Roll" for Earthquake. Is NYC? Seismometer To Be Placed Under Washington Square Park to Measure "Potential Damage"
Hawks' Nest Across from the Park: Violet & Bobby Update
3 thoughts on "For Earth Day, Banner Launched Via Balloons At Washington Square Arch to Protest Use of Rainforest Wood In New Park Benches"
redballoonbooks
"Our City's agencies will immediately reduce their use of tropical hardwoods by 20%. "
Are the new benches in Washington Sq. Park 20 percent smaller than the old ones? Is that what makes them so uncomfortable?
Or are there simply 20 percent fewer benches?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Eppie
Where are the original benches now?
Good one, Red Balloon books! Clever. 20% isn't very much as far as actual reduction of rainforest wood (but it would make a bench less comfortable!).
Eppie, also a good question. I'd imagine they get reused or recycled (I wrote a post 'where do old benches go to die?' awhile back.). I'll try to find out.
More on the benches to come —
Cathryn.


text:
Q: TIMESTAMP format issue in HIVE I have Hive table created from JSON file.
CREATE external TABLE logan_test.t1 (
   name string,
   start_time timestamp
   )
ROW FORMAT SERDE 'org.apache.hive.hcatalog.data.JsonSerDe'
WITH SERDEPROPERTIES (
  "timestamp.formats" = "yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSSSS"
)
LOCATION 's3://t1/';

My timestamp data is in the format of yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSSSS.
I specified SERDEPROPERTIES for timestamp format as given in the page.
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/Hive/LanguageManual+Types#LanguageManualTypes-TimestampstimestampTimestamps
Create statement executed successfully But select * failed with following error.

HIVE_BAD_DATA: Error parsing field value '2017-06-01T17:51:15.180400'
  for field 1: Timestamp format must be yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss[.fffffffff]

A: Jira HIVE-9298 in which timestamp.formats was introduced, says in the description that it is for LazySimpleSerDe. I did not find any other mention in the documentation that it was done for other SerDe.
The solution is to define timestamp as STRING and transform in the select.
Example for yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSSSS format:
select timestamp(regexp_replace(start_time, '^(.+?)T(.+?)','$1 $2'))

And this will work both for yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSSSS and yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSSSSS (normal timestamp) if there are both formats in data files.
timestamp(regexp_replace(start_time, '^(.+?)[T ](.+?)','$1 $2'))

Regex is powerful and you can parse different string formats using the same pattern.


text:
Local NewsNational
What's the future of abortion rights after Monday's ruling?
SCOTUS handed a victory to abortion rights advocates
The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court gather for a formal group portrait to include new Associate Justice, top row, far right, at the Supreme Court Building in Washington, Friday, Nov. 30, 2018. Seated from left: Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts, Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Associate Justice Samuel Alito Jr. Standing behind from left: Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Elena Kagan and Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
By: Joe St. George
For the first time since President Donald Trump appointed two justices to the United States Supreme Court, the Highest Court in the land ruled on abortion.
It did not go the way conservatives and faith leaders had hoped.
THE RULING
Medical Services LLC v. Russo, the case before the court, was whether a 2014 Louisiana law, which said abortion providers must have admitting privileges in nearby hospitals, could stand.
The law would have left, for instance, only one abortion provider in New Orleans.
Chief Justice John Roberts joined the four more liberal justices in declaring the law unconstitutional.
"The Louisiana law imposes a burden on access to abortion.." Justice Stephen Breyer wrote on behalf of the majority.
On paper, conservative and faith leaders have enough justices to make significant changes to abortion rights in this country.
When President Trump appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the court, conservatives had a 5-4 edge with Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito, and Justice Clarence Thomas.
However, with Chief Justice Roberts siding with the liberal wing of the court today, it shows conservatives may be further away than they thought from any significant changes to Roe v Wade.


text:
Still Bourne: Paul Greengrass' Jason Bourne
Matt Damon in Jason Bourne.
Jason Bourne is the fifth installment of the espionage franchise and the third in which Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass have teamed up (the fourth, a spin-off, saw Jeremy Renner in the lead). It's been an exhilarating partnership so far, producing the most taut chase scenes, desperate hand-to-hand struggles, and precision minimalist acting from an ever-expanding cast of characters. I'm happy to report that the latest film retains these features. Greengrass' action direction is uncanny, with several bravura sequences that will leave you slack-jawed. In one, Bourne races through the streets of Athens on a motorcycle in the middle of a full-scale popular uprising, replete with Molotov cocktails, tear gas, fire hoses, and pitched battles between rioters and armored police. It is a staggering, visceral piece of direction. Your sensory apparatus can hardly register the kinetic movement. The only thing I've ever seen that surpasses it is the final minutes of Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men and perhaps Joe Wright's Dunkirk sequence in Atonement. Damon continues his disciplined approach to the role; Tommy Lee Jones effortlessly steps into the shoes of the villain, nefarious CIA chief Robert Dewey; and Alicia Vikander gets the acting style of the franchise just right in the role of Heather Lee, Dewey's protege.
But despite this craftsmanship and professionalism, Jason Bourne lacks the human conflict that lay at the core of the previous Damon films, a struggle that connected all of the movies' elements into a tightly congealed ball. If you recall, the first movies trace the story of how Bourne--suffering from amnesia--comes to remember his past life as a CIA assassin even as he evades the Agency's desperate attempts to eliminate him. His identity crisis was a moral crisis--he wanted to know the truth of his life so as to atone for the murders he committed. The problem was, he couldn't escape being an assassin--he kept being forced to use his deadly abilities on the various black ops agents that came after him. Despite his desire to lead a quiet life, he had to keep killing, for the those agents would never have arisen if it weren't for Bourne himself. He was the prototype, the first experiment in Dick Cheney's 'dark side' operations. And so killing those agents and exposing their superiors was the only way to undo his painful legacy. That it fit in with his identity quest is what made the movies deeply compelling. This emotional weight lent a further urgency and excitement to the action sequences: the stakes were high.
In the new film, the arc of that storyline has finished--Jason knows that he volunteered to become an assassin and, with the help of Joan Allen's character, he exposed the black ops program the CIA started with him. Greengrass and company try to revive the story by connecting it to the Edward Snowden saga: Dewey has struck a partnership with company named Deep Dream (a fictional Google or Facebook) and its CEO, Aaron Kalloor (Riz Ahmed). Dewey wants access to the data from Deep Dream's users so as to cast a vast blanket of surveillance on the world. Meanwhile, he sends an assassin after Bourne who was captured and tortured in Syria after Bourne exposed the Agency's previous black ops programs, Treadstone and Black Briar. This Asset (Vincent Cassel) seeks vengeance on Bourne, who turns up in Greece making a living as a bare-knuckle brawler. His old love interest, Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), draws him out of hiding when she hacks the CIA and download documents that hold two surprises: first, that Bourne's father was involved with the formation of the black ops program. Second, unbeknownst to Bourne, that with the right psychological pressure, Jason could come back into the fold of the Agency and kill for them once more. His memory jogged once again, Bourne dashes across Europe to discover the truth about his father.
The problem with this setup is that lacks the moral and personal stakes of the previous films. Bourne directly helped create the black ops program--so it was imperative for him to stop it. But he's had nothing to do with Dewey's surveillance system, and thus there's not as much of an investment on our part as an audience to see him take it down. It artificially connects Bourne to current affairs. Greengrass is one of the few directors who has the ambition to make movies about what's going on in the real world, including the mediocre Green Zone and the superlative United 93. Usually he pulls it off, but here it feels tenuous. It's as if he's using Bourne as an inconsequential excuse to make a movie about Snowden and Syria. Sometimes it even feels contrived: would a CIA officer really plan to assassinate the CEO of a major company while he's onstage before hundreds of people?
Alicia Vikander as Heather Lee in Jason Bourne.
The moral code of the movie also shifts away from its predecessors. Up until now, Bourne's always been the reluctant killer. It's what made Damon's performance so powerful: the revulsion in his eyes after he dispatched his attackers. And those attackers were always anonymous, mindless drones who unquestioningly obeyed the orders of their handlers--the very creatures that Bourne was made to be and gave rise to. So he had to kill them, even as he wanted to renounce his identity. Killing them was the very means by which to renounce that identity, for by killing them, he could finally end the madness he started. Yet even then, he tried to avoid it if at all possible. In The Bourne Ultimatum, he spares the life of the asset who's hounded him the entire movie. Later, when the man has a chance to eliminate Bourne, he asks why he didn't take the shot when he had the chance. "Look at what they make you give," Bourne calmly replies. His opponent lowers his weapon, his conscience waking up again.
It's hard to find that conscience in Jason Bourne, in which both the title character and Vincent Cassel's character descend into vengeance. Jason doesn't have to kill this man, but he find a personal vendetta for doing so, just as the Asset has personal beef with Bourne for blowing his cover. But crude vengeance has never seemed Bourne's style. It was his attraction-repulsion relationship with violence that always compelled us, his need to employ it even as he hated doing so. There's no such moral struggle here, and it makes the character differ from his previous incarnations in a significant way. There's also no mystery at work here, no dark secret propelling Bourne onward. His final reckoning with Dewey is thus impersonal, while his showdown with the Asset is all too personal.
The movie could have made up for these deficiencies through a fuller script, but Greengrass and Christopher Rouse, who wrote it, leave things rather thin. They don't explore Bourne's past relationship with Parsons, of which the third film gave us only a tantalizing glimpse. Nor do they really delve into the idea of Heather Lee turning Bourne back into working for the CIA, a potentially fascinating possibility. Allen always provided a smart foil to the crusty old chiefs who wanted Bourne dead, and her ambiguous relationship with Jason--first hunting him, then aiding him--helped drive the intrigue forward. But Greengrass doesn't take this approach with Lee; her changes in allegiance come off as contrived and self-serving. The lightness of the material thus makes the action sequences feel heavier than usual. You can see Greengrass trying to outdo himself, which, given the bar he set in his previous two Bourne movies, is quite the challenge. His decisions--like having a SWAT tank explode through a dozen cars on the highway--are at once mind boggling and too much. It starts to veer into the crude territory of The Fast and the Furious. The Bourne franchise has always distinguished itself by staying a cut above, smarter and sleeker than all other thrillers. In this film, Jason's hand-to-hand duel with his nemesis pales in comparison to previous encounters.
That's not to say Jason Bourne fails its sister films. You're still not going to find action espionage movies of this quality and caliber anywhere else (save the occasional Skyfall). Greengrass retains his status as the king of docudrama realism and a virtuoso at narrative directing and editing. His attempt to speak to ongoing issues of national security and government power is well placed, and the movie delivers no shortage of cinematic coups. It's thoroughly worth your time and money, leaving the characters in decent condition. But if the filmmakers want to keep the franchise in that state, they're going to have to find a way to reconnect it to what always made Jason Bourne the most complicated spy on screen.
– Nick Coccoma is a film, theatre, and culture critic. He blogs regularly at The Similitude and contributes to Full-Stop Magazine. His articles and postings on movies, religion, and drama have been featured on Andrew Sullivan's The Dish, The Rumpus, 3 Quarks Daily, and Catholic How. A native of Cooperstown, NY, he studied theatre, philosophy, and theology at the College of the Holy Cross and Boston College. He lives in Boston, where he's worked as an actor, teacher, and chaplain.
Labels: Film, Nick Coccoma
Play It Again: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
A Feeling of Magic: Pete's Dragon
Palpable Poetry: The Works of Pierre Coupey at the...
The Deal with Art in The Art of the Deal: Funny or...
Issues: And No More Shall We Part and Wild
MOR: Showtime's Roadies


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I really appreciated the thorough diagnosis of the issue. What I liked, even more, was how you helped me save money on labor and parts. That's some really good service!
As always...5 Star. They stand by their work and they work till it's good to go.
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Máel Dúin mac Máele Fithrich (died 681) was a King of Ailech and head of the Cenél nEógain branch of the northern Uí Néill. He had married Cacht ingen Cellaig, daughter of the high king Cellach mac Máele Coba (died 658) of the Cenél Conaill and their son Fergal mac Máele Dúin (died 722) was high king of Ireland.
He was the son of Máel Fithrich mac Áedo (died 630) and grandson of the high king Áed Uaridnach (died 612). He ruled as King of Ailech from circa 668-681. The annals record the destruction of Ailech in 676 by the high king Fínsnechta Fledach (died 695) of the southern Uí Néill who appears to have asserted his authority in the north.
Máel Dúin was active increasing the power of the Cenél nEógain. In 677 he slew Dúnchad son of Ultán, king of Airgialla -of the Uí mac Carthainn, near Lough Foyle, Tirkeeran in modern County Londonderry- in Dún Forgo.  In the summer of 681 he was successful over Dúngal Eilni mac Scandail of Dal nAraide and Cenn Faelad mac Suibni of the Cianachta Glenn Geimin (Keenaght, County Londonderry) at what was called the burning of the kings at Dún Ceithirn (in barony of Coleraine, in modern County Londonderry).
Máel Dúin mac Máele Fithrich is recorded as the ancestor of the Ó Dálaigh bardic family in the O'Clery Book of Genealogies.
^ Analecta Hibernica #18 R.I.A. MS. 23 D 17 589, Genelach Muintire Dalaigh.
This page was last edited on 24 September 2017, at 10:24 (UTC).


text:
<!DOCTYPE html>

    <title>WalletAwesome</title>
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" charset="UTF-8">

    <link href="css/btn.css" rel="stylesheet">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Ubuntu:700italic">

                awesome

                Install first the WalletAwesome
browser extension from

the Chrome Web Store

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Double Exposure #2 - Anne Collier
Her Double Exposure photograph steers clear of narcissism but is full of compelling contradictions
Anne Collier's deadpan photographs draw on the traditions of West Coast conceptual and minimal art. By appropriating images from the mass media - including iconic film posters, album covers, magazine pages, photographic test plates, and simple notebooks - and re-photographing them, Collier creates her own personal lexicon of popular culture.
Our Vitamin PH book focuses on her photographic work, examining how "her practice reconsiders the messy world of affective expression, paying particular attention to the way photographs act as transitional objects and repostitries of displaced feeling."
Indeed, Collier's photography is full of compelling contradictions. It feels cooked and raw, forged and authentic, sad and droll. For all her use of herself in her work, her practice is not egocentric. On the contrary, her restrained photographs stay well clear of the obsessive nightmares of narcissism.
Buying art from Artspace is easy
The subject of critical reviews in the New Yorker, The New York Times, and other publications, Collier has worked on curatorial projects at non-profit institutions, such as The New Langton Arts Center in San Francisco. Additionally, she is included among the portfolio of the Brooklyn Academy of Music and has been a participant in Insider Shows Greater New Yok at MoMA PS1.
Double Exposure #2 is a c-print on Kodak matte paper. It measures 11.00 x 14.00 inches (27.9 x 35.6 cms) and is part of an edition of 100. The work is signed and numbered on the verso and can be yours for £517, $750, or €653. Check it out at Artspace and read more about Anne Collier in Vitamin PH.
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4 arrested in investigation that led to Ohio drug …
Big 12 Football
Big brother may put an end to speeding in New York
by: Viknesh Vijayenthiran
Posted: Sep 7, 2022 / 08:27 PM EDT
Updated: Sep 7, 2022 / 08:27 PM EDT
(Motor Authority) — Officials in New York are mulling a bill that would mandate speed limiters in new vehicles that would be set to the local maximum allowable limit. The system would use GPS and traffic sign recognition technology to determine the speed limit.
The system has an appropriately benign and Orwellian name: Active Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA).
Senate Bill S9528 was introduced by Manhattan State Senator Brad Hoylman on Aug. 12 and, if passed, would require any vehicle manufactured or registered in the state of New York to be fitted with the ISA system, starting from Jan. 1, 2024. It cites the results of a study that show such a system could reduce traffic fatalities by 20%.
The bill also calls for existing active safety systems like automatic emergency braking, active lane control, blind-spot monitors with pedestrian detection, driver drowsiness detection, and even a data event recorder to be mandated from the same date.
If you're thinking this sounds like a bad science fiction movie, New York City is already running a trial with 50 vehicles from the city's fleet fitted with an ISA system. The trial will run for six months.
"Speeding ruins lives, so we must take action to prevent it, and New York City is leading by example by implementing new technology to reduce speeds on city fleet vehicles," Eric Adams, New York City's mayor, said in a statement.
Critics of the system argue that in certain circumstances it's vital to be able to go past the limit, such as during merging. A solution here could be to introduce the limit in stages. For example, first, there could be a warning bell if the speed limit is exceeded. Then there could be a second, more serious warning, which if still ignored would then see the vehicle's speed automatically reduced.
Of course, it's not hard to imagine officials also using the system to constantly monitor a driver's speed and automatically issue fines should the speed limit be exceeded.
A saving grace, as Jalopnik notes, is that safety standards for new vehicles, unlike emissions standards, are set at the federal level, which brings into question whether New York officials will be able to implement the bill even if passed.
The bill is currently In Committee, which means it's under consideration. It has not passed the New York State Senate or State Assembly, and if it passes both it would have to be signed into law or vetoed by the governor.
Woman arrested for DUI and kicking deputy in face


The tax on gas has to go up 75% and the tax on electricity should be cut, to encourage more people to give up gas, according to one of the groups looking at ways to reach new climate change targets in the Netherlands.
By pushing up gas prices and cutting the cost of electricity, more people will be likely to install expensive heat pumps to keep their homes warm, which need to use electricity on cold days, the working party said.
There are five groups of experts looking at ways to reduce the Netherlands' dependence on fossil fuels in different sectors. The group looking at the built environment, led by former Labour leader Diederik Samsom, has recommended the gas tax hikes. Others are focusing on transport, industry, electricity generation and agriculture.
The plans by Samsom's group, published in the Volkskrant on Thursday, are to be finalised by mid-July. The negotiators include green groups, local authorities, housing corporations, home owners, unions, and the building sector.
The government has already decided that no new homes built after July should be connected to the gas grid.
Households currently pay a tax of 26 cents per cubic metre of gas and 10.5 cents for a kilowatt of electricity. Samsom proposes increasing that to 46 cents on gas and cutting it to 6.5 cents on electricity over the next 12 years.
Companies currently pay one to six cents in tax per cubic metre of gas, but that should be brought into line with private households, the working party says.
The government is set to introduce a new target of reducing carbon-dioxide emissions by 49% by 2030 after seven of the biggest parties in parliament agreed to set new limits.
The government has also set a target of ensuring one in four Dutch homes no longer relies on gas for heating or cooking by 2030.


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Browse: Home / Villages / Sodus / 1900s / Village of Sodus Incorporation – 1918
Sodus Village Incorporates – 1918
The Record of March 1, 1918, notified the local citizens that Gilbert J. Sergeant, Supervisor of the Town of Sodus, had received a proposition to incorporate the Village of Sodus was. The notice informed people that the proposition would be open for inspection at the office of Henry O. Button on the morning of March 13th, 1918. When Supervisor Sergeant presented the proposition, there was no objection. On March 15, 1918 another notice in The Record announced that the town clerk ordered a vote for incorporation by "Freeholders, both men and women, whose names are on the assessment roll…" In this same notice, Sodus was described as "…one of the finest and most progressive villages in this section…."
As with any change, there was opposition and conflict. On March 22, 1918, The Record ran a two-column article entitled "Should Sodus Incorporate? We Must Settle the Question Soon". Residents were concerned that taxes would be raised. In the article, the writer pointed out that several improvements that might precede incorporation had already taken place. These included the high school building which had been erected, the street lighting system that had already been installed, and the vote had taken place on the water system. In addition, improvements had been made on Main Street. Since these improvements had taken place, supporters of incorporation stated that taxes probably would not be raised. On the other hand, it was understandable why the citizens were concerned since the district taxes were $17.51 per thousand and did not include our share of the highway tax compared to the rate of Webster village tax which was $9.95 per thousand. Another local concern that citizens expressed was that firms or individuals would profit from the incorporation. But as the writer of the article pointed out, all village expenses would be reported, and the elected officials would deal with grafters. The following warning was included in the article: "IF THERE IS ANY DANGER OF GRAFT, WE SHOULD BY ALL MEANS INCORPORATE. IT FURNISHES THE BEST POSSIBLE MACHINERY FOR BRINGING VILLAGE GRAFTERS TO PUNISHMENT." In the last line of the article, voters were encouraged to vote for incorporation as the next step forward for this community. The Record of April 5, 1918 notified readers that a mass meeting would be held in the New Opera House to discuss all matters of concern. A special invitation to the meeting was extended to the almost one hundred women in the proposed village district. During the meeting, the issues of concern were addressed to the satisfaction of the audience. Each concern was shown to be "either far fetched or made up by opponents of incorporation."
The vote was held shortly after the April 5th meeting. Two hundred seventy-eight people voted: two hundred thirteen (one hundred of which were women) in favor, sixty-four against incorporation, and one vote was voided. It was reported in the April 12, 1918 issue of The Record that "…the women can be counted on in progressive movements, if the matter is conducted 'above the board' as the recent campaign was in every instance."
The next step after incorporation took place on May 21,1918 in an election that was held to elect village officials. It was again noted in The Record that many women exercised their right to vote. H.O. Button became the President; Dr. L.G. Tuttle and Fred T. Hopkins were elected as trustees; L. H. Clark became the treasurer; and Jennie E. Sentell was elected as the collector. According to the article, "These citizens will not mix village affairs with politics and they are honest and capable. Sodus is starting out well in the matter of incorporation."
And so that's how our village came into existence. Today our village officials and our village crews continue to work to improve our village which the citizens in the early 20th Century worked so hard to create.
To read more about our Village of Sodus Incorporation and other events in local history, go to the digital archives at the Sodus Community Library at
http://sodus.advantage-preservation.com.
Join us in the festivities during the Sodus Village Incorporation Centennial Celebration on Saturday, August 11th, 2018 on Main Street in Sodus.
Sandra Hamilton


AMI hosts an event on the last Monday of every month in Melbourne as well as other events from time to time elsewhere.
Venue Building 12. Level 13, Room 2, RMIT University, 360 Swanston Street, Melbourne.
Venue Deakin Downtown, Level 12, Tower 2, 727 Collins St, Melbourne.
Venue Building 80, Level 3, Room 15, RMIT University, Swanston Street, Melbourne.
Venue Room 6, Level 7, Building 8, RMIT University, Swanston Street, Melbourne, 3000.
The State Library of Victoria, Latrobe Street (between Swanston and Russell) Melbourne.
Venue : The University of Melbourne, the Graduate School of Education, the Kwong Lee Dow Building, Room – Q 227, Level 2, 234 Queensberry St, Melbourne, VIC 3010.
Venue : Deakin Downtown – Tower 2, Level 12, 727 Collins St, Melbourne.
Discount copies of the book will be available for sale.
It will be a self-funded event.
Please rsvp to May Kyel Winn (admin@aummi.edu.au) as soon as possible – places will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis.
Venue : Madame Brussels, 59 Bourke Street, Melbourne 3000.


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Q: Database value as "selected" item in html select dropdown list When adding a new record to my database I use an html select dropdown list to limit the user's choices for a particular field to: New, Good, Fair and Poor.  One of these four values will always get stored in that field.
On another page I give the user a chance to edit the content of that field.  There, I will also limit the user's choices to the same four values using the same html select dropdown list.
In order to maintain the current value as the default, I need it to be the "selected" value in my dropdown list.  How can I force the current value in the database to be the "selected" value in my dropdown list?  Thank you!

A: Try this (Keep in mind I don't know how you're getting the value from the database, so adjust accordingly):
<?php $rating = value_from_db; ?> // However it is being passed.

<select name="rating">
  <option value=""></option>
  <option value="new" <?php ($rating == "new" ? "selected":"") ?> >New</option>
  <option value="good" <?php ($rating == "good" ? "selected":"") ?> >Good</option>
  <option value="fair" <?php ($rating == "fair" ? "selected":"") ?> >Fair</option>
  <option value="poor" <?php ($rating == "poor" ? "selected":"") ?> >Poor</option>
</select>

This uses the Ternary Operation ? for in-line If/Else statements to set the property to checked if the value from the DB matches the value from the option.
Note Also assuming you're using Php. No tags or indications otherwise, but I am doing a lot of assuming for this question...
Hope that helps!

A: For anyone who may be interested, here is the final solution which works great!
<select name="condition">
  <option value="good" ${"good" == usedEquipListItem.condition ? "selected" : "" }>Good</option>
  <option value="fair" ${"fair" == usedEquipListItem.condition ? "selected" : "" }>Fair</option>
  <option value="poor" ${"poor" == usedEquipListItem.condition ? "selected" : "" }>Poor</option>
</select>

The variable usedEquipListItem.condition hold the current value from the database.


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Vietnamese food company affirms trademark in Germany
A Vietnamese-owned company operating in food and restaurant services has received a certificate of merit by the Ministry of Industry and Trade for efforts to affirm its trademark in Germany and Europe in general over the past two decades.
Friday, December 26, 2014 20:39
At a ceremony in Berlin on December 25 to mark the 20-year development of the Thang Long Company, Ambassador to Germany Nguyen Thi Hoang Anh stated that the company has provided jobs for not only Vietnamese but also Germans, contributing to strengthening the attachment and solidarity between the two peoples.
The company boasts more than 30 shops across Germany and in some countries in eastern and western Europe, employing over 400 people.
Through its services, the company has helped promote the gastronomy of Vietnam and Asia to international friends.-VNA
☕ Afternoon briefing on February 1
The following is a brief review of the day's events as reported by the Vietnam News Agency.
A national conference on the socio-economic development of the northcentral and central coastal region will be held on February 5, focusing on seeking measures to boost maritime economic growth for fast and sustainable development of the regions, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Tran Huy Dong said at a press briefing in Hanoi on February 1.
Coal companies announce strong profit results in Q4
Coal companies announced strong growth results in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Garment, footwear exports aim to reach 80 bln USD by 2025
Vietnam's textile, garment and footwear sectors aim to achieve a total export value of 77-80 billion USD in 2025 and 106-108 billion USD in 2030, according to the strategy for the development of Vietnam's textile and footwear industry.


If you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second-to-least of your concerns. The least should be polite society and what it expects. If you intend to write as truthfully as you can your days as a member of polite society are numbered, anyway.


The 27-year-old "Fire Emblem" series' latest entry was released earlier in February on iOS —AppleInsider fights the forces of evil in "Fire Emblem Heroes."
Nintendo has a mixed track record on iOS. "Pokemon Go" is finally solid, but isn't completely Nintendo's. "Super Mario Run" arguably showed up too many years too late but has decent reviews, and the release of "Pokemon Duel" met with immense criticism of a steep pay-wall and excessive use of time-lock mechanics that the game employed, to say nothing of being mostly unplayable.
Let's cut through the presumptions, though. "Fire Emblem Heroes" is worth a spot on the iPhone if you dig turn-based strategy games. That being said, there's a few things that still need to be discussed about the game.
"Fire Emblem Heroes" is classified a tactical role-playing game, much like the other games in the series. The title is pared down quite a bit for the mobile experience, but doesn't feel crippled, or short on actual content.
Moving characters, referred to as "Heroes" in the game, is as simple as tapping and sliding them over an enemy on a square grid.
The Hero's weapon, is branded as a red, blue, or green. These weapons act as an element of rock-paper scissors, with red having an advantage over green, green having an advantage over blue, and blue having an advantage over red.
A great deal of the game is figuring out where to position which Hero, a task not always made easy as the map itself is designed to make that a bit trickier with terrain that can prevent easy positioning.
A couple different modes are available to to explore as players progress through the main story. The arena allows fights against other players around the world, and surprisingly enough given history, the multiplayer works right out of the box in this title.
Hero Battles are limited edition battles that allow you to take down an computer-controlled Hero in an attempt to get them to join your team. If you want some quick play, the Training Tower provides randomly generated maps geared at helping level up characters as well as get in some single-player practice.
If you're a fan of coherent plot, this game isn't going check off the "great storyline" box for you. The game's plot is inconsequential, and is geared at being a quicker, less-involved tactics game to fit within what people expect out of a mobile game —and given the franchise, that's a problem.
In trying to make the perfect pocket game, they've taken the time to cut what seems to be every corner possible when it comes to story. Keep in mind, they're also trying to create a cohesive story using multiple characters from multiple games in the series, so it wasn't exactly something that was set up for success, either.
Unsurprisingly, this is another Nintendo title that requires you to have a persistent internet connection, on wi-fi or LTE. The game warns against playing on cell service, expecting players to hit a data cap without much effort. So, it's not a perfectly portable game, as you still have to be tethered to wi-fi, but seeing as an increasing amount of public spaces now offer free wi-fi, it's less of a problem than it would have been a few years ago.
"Fire Emblem Heroes" is a free to play title, so there are ample opportunities to spend cash. The game has in-game currency, or "orbs," earned by completing in-game activities —or dropping some money.
Orbs are consumed to get new heroes, restore stamina, heal the party, and permanently increase experience gained by party members. The game isn't "pay-to-win", but the spectre of in-app purchases lurk.
If you want to partake, you can, but it's not required. If a game is free to play, with in-app purchases available, this is certainly one of the less annoying ways to do it.
We think that "Fire Emblem Heroes" is a strong showing for another good title from Nintendo, and with a promise to keep the game updated, there's hope that the game will only expand and improve over time.
The learning curve is easy, multiplayer and tower modes offer replayability, and there's not much bad to be said about the game other than the threadbare plot. If you're interested in "Fire Emblem Heroes," it's free to play, and the plague of in-app purchases is only really a mild cold in this case.
"Fire Emblem Heroes" is free, requires any device that can run iOS 8, and initially needs only 82.5MB of storage space, but this rapidly expands.
AirPods vs. Powerbeats3: Which Apple W1 headphones are better for working out and exercising?


text:
By Magdalena Thiele
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Daniel Stammler and Janosch Sadowksi came to Berlin by way of Karlsruhe, the city in southwest Germany where they founded Kolibri, their gaming startup. Stammler and Sadowski see the town as having been an ideal springboard for their business, especially thanks to its proximity to the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (KIT) and all the creative minds studying there. "However, in order to take things to the next level, we had to move to Berlin," says Sadowksi. "For one thing, a large part of the German games industry is at home in Berlin; and then after the move, it was much easier to fill our job vacancies with great international talent. Berlin has a completely unique pull on people."
As has been the case for several other startups, Germany's capital city provided Kolibri its stomping grounds. The company's turnover is now roughly €100,000 per day, half of which is generated through advertising. "Our move to Berlin was one of the best decisions we ever made," says Stammler.
Berlin is still a magnet for young companies and, above all, for young talent. This fact was proved once again in the latest Berlin Startup Monitor (BSM), an annual study published by the German Startups Association in cooperation with Google for Entrepreneurs. The findings of the study are based on the German Startup Monitor, which surveys 1,550 startups and their 3,763 founders and 18,000 employees.
The latest figures show that Berlin remains Germany's startup hotspot. At 15.8 percent, Berlin is home to more than twice as many startups as Hamburg, the number two among startup cities in Germany, at 7.2 percent. Berlin also leads the nation in terms of the percentage of women employed at startups, although 16.2 percent is still far too low. The typical Berlin founder is male, in his mid-30s and holds a university degree in business or economics.
Although the formerly divided city of Berlin is often described as "unfinished," it continues to attract people for a number of reasons, two of which are its sheer diversity and openness to newcomers. This is also reflected in the overall employee structure at startups. As the BSM notes, "A glance at the origins of employees at young companies in the capital shows that almost 50 percent are foreign-born, which makes Berlin considerably more internationally oriented than most other regions in Germany."
Kolibri co-founders Stammler and Sadowski have no doubt that Berlin will continue its reign as Germany's startup capital. The many networks and institutions created there to support founders and young companies will further consolidate this status, they argue. However, young founders throughout Germany – and in Berlin, too – are quick to complain about the complicated nature of local bureaucracy, in particular when it comes to hiring foreign workers. According to the BSM, for roughly two-thirds of all founders, acquiring visas is a particularly difficult challenge, and many lose whatever remaining patience they may have when confronted with all the social security conditions and provisions.
And yet, Berlin continues to draw large numbers of people. What does the city have that others don't? "International flair and a big-city atmosphere on the one hand, and the familiarity of each distinct urban neighborhood on the other," explains Stammler. He also notes that Berlin's large pool of employees – particularly in the tech scene – makes the city "entirely unique on both a personal and an entrepreneurial level." All of this in spite of the fact that Berlin weather is often gray and Berliners themselves quite gruff, says Sadowski, with a grin. What matters to him much more: "We've been able to triple the size of our team since we moved here."
Yet another factor that should not be overlooked is the fact that there's good beer to be had in Berlin. "We were astonished to discover that people in Berlin like to drink Rothaus, which is a beer from our home town. Rothaus will always have a special place in our fridge at Kolibri Games." And it's true – even when it comes to food, Berlin is better known for its international cuisine than for its local dishes.
"Berlin's got a buzz," says Jan-Niklas Schroers, associate director and team leader office agency at property consultant Savills in Berlin. Schroers backs up his claim by noting that the capital city has a pleasant business climate and a myriad of opportunities, plus the cost of living is not nearly as high as that seen in other European cities. He also explains that while the German capital is not yet a tech hub, it is most definitely a talent hub, a trend that fuels the city's rapid ongoing development – in Berlin, a new company is founded every 20 minutes.
Berlin can already claim to be Germany's strongest FinTech location. All the big players, including the online banks Solaris and N26, the company builder Finleap and the FinTech ventures Lendico and Fundingcircle, are based in Berlin. Even Rocket Internet, the company considered to be the pioneer among startup launchers, grew out of Berlin.
It is fascinating that even 30 years after the fall of the Wall, the German capital is still "unfinished" and "unorganized." But it appears to be precisely this state of affairs that makes Berlin so interesting. "In general, I think it's very good – even exciting – to be 'unfinished' as a city and economic space," argues Schroers. "It opens up so many more opportunities for young and aspiring individuals than an established and less permeable structure would. Right now in Berlin, anything is possible."
But these things alone will not be enough for Berlin to maintain its leading status in the long run amid competition from other international cities, notes Schroers. He argues that Berlin is going to have to expand its infrastructure, particularly by means of a major international airport – or even two international airports, if necessary (and if the local business community has its say). At the same time, however, Berlin will have to maintain that inimitable "unfinished" charm. As Schroers puts it: "Become a new Bay Area but still keep that Kreuzberg spirit. That's the challenge in a nutshell."
is a freelance economics journalist based in Berlin.
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By timesmedia
By Susanna Glitscher and Eva-Maria Hilker
By Horst Schneider