Mobile cranes have become an essential part of most large construction projects, and because of their enormous versatility and possible configurations, they encounter more variables than any other type of material handling equipment. Central Tech recognized the industry's need for training to comply with the new OSHA standards and gathered resources and expertise to construct an industry-leading training facility.
Because of Central Tech's expertise and facilities, in less than a week you can be certified to work in a high-demand, high-paying industry, and be eligible to work anywhere in the US as a credentialed mobile crane rigger or signal person. In five days you can be on your way to a career in the high-demand construction industry.
FCentral Tech's training facility is the only one in the state with a bridge crane installed, ready to provide training and assessment, along with a nationally recognized certification process. Small class sizes ensure each person receives individualized instruction to meet their needs.
"This is a great training program for individuals looking to change careers and enter a new high-demand, high-paying industry," said Mark Cotner, Central Tech Industrial Coordinator.
Training equipment includes a three-ton bridge crane set up with the latest technology, including variable drive motors in six directions and built-in wireless controls. Training for mobile cranes can be customized for rough-terrain, all-terrain, boom truck, industrial all purpose, truck mounted, and crawler mounted, along with hydraulic and conventional booms.
Individual credentials are granted by NCCER and are valid in all 50 states for five years, giving individuals the flexibility to move where needed without the worry of credentials not transferring.
According to the Construction Craft Salary Survey conducted by NCCER, salaries for mobile crane operators average more than $64,500 and rigger salaries average more than $57,000, with some individuals earning much more.
Companies who have employees needing instruction in mobile crane operation can also receive training at Central Tech. All training is customized to the specific needs of the individual or company, and can be provided in Central Tech's facility or on-site.
In addition to rigger and crane operator training, Central Tech offers safety training on a wide variety of topics including forklift, OSHA, HAZMAT, CPR, and more. For more information about training available through Business & Industry Services, please call 918-224-9300.


text:
» Divine Revelation
Biblical revelation
Fri, 29 Jul 2011 | Divine Revelation
My starting point is the conviction that divine revelation is given above all (though certainly not exclusively) in modes that are addressed to the human imagination, rather than to any other faculty (such as the analytical reason or the moral conscience). But let no one accuse me of reducing divine revelation to mere human religious consciousness or projection. There is admirable precedent for my claim. As St Augustine saw, God is a poet and speaks to the world in metaphors, symbols and parables. The supreme revelation is the 'form' (as Von Balthasar would say) of Jesus Christ—the whole pattern of divine truth embodied in an historical person and shining out through him into human history. Blake said that 'the Whole Bible is fill'd with Imagination and Visions' (Ackroyd, 1995, p.27).
Austin Farrer, in his outstanding Bampton Lectures The Glass of Vision (1948), claimed that the revelatory character of the Bible resided in certain dominant images which lay at the centre of the teaching of Jesus: kingdom of God, Son of Man, restored Israel, suffering servant, sacrifice, covenant and so on. For Farrer, revelation was conveyed through the imagination of the Apostles and the Bible was the product of inspired imagining similar to poetic inspiration. 'Divine truth is supernaturally communicated to men in an act of inspired thinking which falls into the shape of certain images' (Farrer, 1948, p.57). It is the images that lend vitality and dynamism to the Bible, and determine its form and content. The inspired mind of the Apostles, Farrer claims, 'is a process of images which live as it were by their own life and impose themselves with authority' (ibid., p. 113). Farrer's theory, in the form in which he states it at least, has not found acceptance, but it has the heart of the matter in it. If—as I hope to show—all insight is given through metaphorical perception, if the deepest truths are conveyed in symbols and if those symbols drive the narrative identity of the community when they are constellated in myth, it would be astounding if this were not true of biblical metaphors, symbols and myths, handed on by the biblical community—Israel and the Church.
That is not how the majority of Christians today—especially Bible-loving conservative evangelicals—see the scriptures: they tend to view them as a system of factual, descriptive propositions, bearing divine authority, to be taken at face value and as literally as possible. Conservative evangelicals remain uneasy about approaches to biblical interpretation that play down the imperative of factual accuracy and dwell on the import of such figurative genres as metaphor, symbol and myth. Like the true fundamentalist, the conservative evangelical believes that the Bible makes explicit claims for itself and sets forth divine revelation accordingly in factual statements or propositions. He is uncomfortable with the notion that scripture reveals the truth of God indirectly, obliquely, through images and similitudes, and in a manner constrained by its historical and cultural context. Augustine's hint that God communicates with us in a poetic mode and Blake's tenet that Jesus and the Apostles were artists would seem to conservative evangelicals to make divine revelation rest on the shifting sands of subjective, arrogant human subjectivity. A recent major study concludes that an obsession with factual accuracy, a penchant for literal interpretation and a predictable tendency to arrive at maximally conservative conclusions—whatever arguments are considered along the way—mark (and mar) the conservative evangelical approach to biblical interpretation and serve to stake out common ground with fundamentalism (Harris, 1998).
Literal interpretations of the most patently figurative parts of scripture are relinquished by conservative evangelicals long after they have ceased to be tenable and not without a violent struggle. For conservative evangelicals, Genesis 1 was first history, then a sequence of geological epochs, before being reluctantly accepted as myth. Mark Noll's The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (1994) traces the sorry tale of the corruption of sober, scholarly evangelical thinking in the nineteenth century by fundamentalism, resistance to evolution, distortions of geology and ultimately full-blown creationism. The virginal conception of Jesus in Matthew and Luke is interpreted as literal biology by some evangelical theologians, even when it is admitted that that stance creates insuperable problems from the point of view of genetics and is in any case not helpful in defending the doctrine of the incarnation, namely the assumption of complete humanity by the Logos. The conflicting presentation of the resurrection appearances in the Gospels (exacerbated by the lack of any resurrection appearances at all in the original ending of Mark) still gives scope for the ingenuity of the harmonisers.
This literalistic approach is defensive and impossible to sustain indefinitely. Perhaps that is why there are so many 'post-conservative evangelicals'; possibly it accounts for the fact that a number of prominent liberal theologians originally came from the conservative evangelical stable. The deeper study of biblical images, parables and symbolic narrative, at which the early Fathers excelled and which Barth and Von Balthasar have revived, is more commensurate with the character of divine revelation. Blake's dictum that the whole Bible is filled with imagination and visions needs only to be thought about in order to carry conviction. The question of the metaphorical, symbolic and mythic complexion of the biblical revelation will be taken up in Chapter 5.
Cosmic Transcendence
Complete English Grammar Rules

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Geoff Whiting has carved out a fantastic reputation at performing at private and company events and is asked for by name for corporate work on a weekly basis.
He has performed at over 150 corporate events to date ranging from bespoke audiences of company upper management (15 people around a large table at a restaurant on London) to hosting the Bank of Valetta annual awards in front of 280 Maltese business owners and managers at a black tie evening in St Julian, Malta (2013) and being flown out to Brussels for DHL's annual awards event a few years back where he handled and audience of 250, none of whom spoke English as their first language.
He has performed at 14 Weddings to date, this requires a highly specialised skill set which he has crafted over the past ten years, he has also performed at Birthday Party events and at private events for organisations such as the Harpenden Round Table January (2015) for example.
He is a specialist host for Award Ceremonies and is able to work in this capacity at company awards evenings very effectively as well as write bespoke material for the occasion on request, he is also very comfortable doing after dinner speaking and has done this for major international corporations on many occasions too.
He is also adept at working at Charity Events and running raffles and competitions to raise money with clients on such projects.
See 'Testimonials' for feed back from some of his previous corporate clients.


A milestone for 20th century Western art music.
After successful Ligeti and Messiaen CD's now comes a new album dedicated to orchestral works of an Italian modernist Luciano Berio (1925-2003). The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra performs Hannu Lintu conducting.
The recording begins with Berio's orchestral adaptation of Luigi Boccherini's popular Ritirata Notturna di Madrid. An attractive piece of music, as is Calmo for mezzo-soprano and 22 instruments. The work is sung with true dedication by mezzo-soprano Virpi Räisänen.
A highlight of the disc, and the very good reason to buy it, is Berio's most well-known work, the iconic 5-movement Sinfonia (written for the New York Philharmonic and dedicated to Leonard Bernstein). Bringing together collage technique and modernism, the symphony is one of the master pieces of the 1960s.
This disc is what I believe Ondine should do more: release music, symphonic and other, that is not mainstream but forms a milestone for 20th century Western art music.


April 16, 2015 – Boston – The Open Networking User Group (ONUG) today announced speakers and topics for its popular Great Debate and Town Hall Meeting, scheduled to take place at the upcoming ONUG Spring 2015 conference at Columbia University, May 12-14 in New York.
Ernest Lefner, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman at ONUG, will moderate this spring's ONUG Great Debate, which will take place on the afternoon of May 13. The topic of the debate will focus on whether open source initiatives are delivering on their promises or if closed source, with its proven service and support, is still leading the way. Taking the pro-closed stance is Charles Giancarlo, Technology Entrepreneur and Advisor at Silver Lake Partners, while Lew Tucker, Open Stack board member and Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Cloud Computing at Cisco Systems, will represent the pro-open position.
Tim Gerla, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Ansible, Inc.
This panel will provide a forum for open and frank discussion between IT business and industry leaders as they explore issues associated with operationalizing open infrastructure technologies, and whether DevOps has a role in enterprise networking.


Kerman, CaliforniaPhotos, maps and news from Kerman, California.Updated January 1, 2018.
Kerman, California - Wikipedia. .
Kerman, CA : kerman sign photo, picture, image (California) at .... Kerman, CA: kerman sign.
Clown spotted around city of Kerman | abc30.com. Clown spotted around city of Kerman.
City Of Kerman - Public Services & Government - Kerman, CA - Yelp. Photo of City Of Kerman - Kerman, CA, United States. suburban potential in.
Kerman Stock Photos & Kerman Stock Images - Alamy. The town of Kerman California USA - Stock Image.
Kerman realty. The City of Kerman Almond Festival.
Community Teen Center Rental | City of Kerman. Community Teen Center Rental.
Kerman, California REO homes, foreclosures in Kerman, California .... Foreclosure Home For Sale - 14528 W F St, Kerman, California 93630.
149 best Fresno County (California) images on Pinterest | Fresno .... about-usa: Kerman - California - USA (by Rich Johnstone).
Fresno And California And Downtown Stock Photos & Fresno And .... Downtown Kerman California with a community Christmas tree for the Holiday season. - Stock Image.
Kerman, California (CA 93630) profile: population, maps, real .... Kerman, California map.
Sunset Apartments | Kerman, CA Apartments For Rent. Photo of Sunset Apartments in Kerman, California.
Kerman Real Estate | 18465 W Nielsen Ave, Kerman, California 93630 .... Kerman Real Estate | 18465 W Nielsen Ave, Kerman, California 93630.
Kerman - Sarah Hedrick. Kerman California.
Kerman Stock Photos & Kerman Stock Images - Alamy. Iran, Kerman, garden in town - Stock Image.
Kerman, California (CA 93630) profile: population, maps, real .... Kerman, CA map.
Schools | City of Kerman. Schools.
Pebble Brook Village Apartments | Kerman, CA Apartments For Rent. Building Photo - Pebble Brook Village Apartments in Kerman, California.
Kerman, California REO homes, foreclosures in Kerman, California .... Foreclosure Home For Sale - 15920 W Stanislaus Ave, Kerman, CA 93630.
Kerman, California REO homes, foreclosures in Kerman, California .... Foreclosure Home For Sale - 15385 W Sunset Ave, Kerman, California 93630.
The City of Kerman Almond Festival - YouTube. The City of Kerman Almond Festival.
Sunset Apartments | Kerman, CA Apartments For Rent. Building Photo - Sunset Apartments in Kerman, California.


text:
What does a facelift consist of, doctor?
It's the surgical operation we use to reduce creases and wrinkles in the face to rejuvenate the patient's appearance. The result is achieved by tensing the muscles of the face, eliminating excess fat and redistributing the skin of the face and neck. We said earlier that as we age the effects of gravity, exposure to sunlight and the stress of everyday life manifest themselves in our faces. Deep creases form between the nose and the mouth, the cheeks fall, and fat and wrinkles appear around the neck. With a facelift we can improve the most visible signs of this ageing.
Are there different types of facelifts?
Yes. We can talk about frontotemporal lifting (of the upper one-third), to correct fallen eyebrows and wrinkles in the forehead and between the eyebrows. Lifting the middle one-third rectifies the flaccidity of the cheeks, reduces the nasogenian folds and reverses the descent of fat from the cheekbone. And lifting the lower one-third reaffirms the mandibular oval and the neck. Finally, cervicofacial or total lifting includes all of these, and therefore is the most complete.
Is lifting effective for small wrinkles?
No, to treat small wrinkles there are other methods. Lifting is very effective for large folds and creases, but for small wrinkles it produces very little improvement.
Is hospitalisation necessary?
It depends on the zones to be treated. If it's only a question of partial lifting, it's done with local anaesthesia and sedation. In the case of cervicofacial lifting, general anaesthesia is advised, and therefore admission into the clinic.
What about the dreaded scars?
Most of the scars remain hidden in the scalp above the temples, towards the nape of the neck and behind the ears.How long do the bruises last?They tend to disappear after seven to ten days, and all of the sutures are also removed in the same period.
When can the total results of this operation be seen?
Total lifting requires rather more time. After two weeks the swelling has not yet gone down and the face is still rather numb. The real result of the operation can be seen in one or two months, or at the most three months, when the inflammation has gone down completely. That's when the face will be totally settled, fully in its place.
When can the patient go back to normal life?
Most patients who undergo a facelift feel all right after two days, but their sick leave can last until the stitches are removed. This operation tends to cause little discomfort: some sensation of stretching of the skin or a certain insensitivity in some areas (this will disappear in a few weeks). As medical recommendations, we advise avoiding steam baths or saunas for several weeks and limiting exposure to sunlight for a few months, or using very high sunscreen protection.
What are the possible complications?
On rare occasions hypertrophic scars remain, but they can be solved with treatment, and there may also be transitory effects on the facial nerve, but these disappear after a few weeks.
Is it true that the patients who ask for facelifts are getting younger and younger?
Yes, it's true. Ten years ago, the average age was sixty years and up. Now many women are coming in for facelifts between the ages of forty-five and fifty; and this means that the results are better, because the skin is smoother and more elastic.
Has plastic surgery been able to overcome the after-effects of facelifts that were known in this country as 'motorcyclist's face'?
That expression was used years ago, when we didn't have such advanced facelift techniques as we do now, to refer to the effects of excessive stretching of the face tissue. Now, with the advances we've made in cosmetic surgery techniques, this effect is no longer produced: on the contrary, the results are very favourable now.
How long does a facelift tend to last?
A normal facelift tends to last from ten to fifteen years, if there's no specific pathological problem. For instance, there are people who, because of a strange disease, a pathology called cutis laxa (which consists in extreme flaccidity of the skin due to a lack of elastic fibres), have to subject themselves to an annual facelift every year. I remember a case that's documented in the medical literature of a girl who suffers from this disease: since the age of twelve she's been undergoing a facelift every year, and even so, now that she's just twenty, she appears to be forty-five or fifty. Apart from cases like this, how long a facelift will last depends on the elasticity of the patient's skin.
What is endoscopic lifting?
It consists in lifting the upper third (forehead and eyebrows) by means of small incisions in the scalp; in one of the incisions we insert an endoscope that has a camera connected to a television monitor. In this way the surgeon can see on the monitor everything there is underneath the skin, and can perform the operation without needing the incision to be as large as in a classic facelift. This technique is very effective, especially in men, as it barely leaves any scars (since in men it's more difficult to conceal the incisions in the scalp). This type of procedure, like all endoscopic surgery, is minimally invasive: the thing is, it's still at an early stage and its effects are not very long-lasting. But before long endoscopic lifting will replace classic coronal lifting.
Is there any auxiliary treatment that is performed simultaneously with lifting?
There are patients who have accumulations of fat in certain zones of the face (such as the chin and cheeks): in these cases we do liposuction on those areas in addition to the facelift.


text:
Q: What to use in Production environment instead of UserSecrets I have a console app in dotnet core. I use appsettings.Development.josn and appsettings.Staging.json for dev and staging environment but for the production environment i use the UserSecrets. I have two problem when the app is running on production env it does not create UserSecrets in the %Appdata%/Microsoft so I have to make it manually and then it starts to work.
Another part of my question is this:
today I  found out that microsoft wrote here

The Secret Manager tool is used only in development. You can safeguard Azure test and production secrets with the Microsoft Azure Key Vault configuration provider. See Azure Key Vault configuration provider for more information.

I dont have Azure. What can I use in production if I am not supposed to use the UserSecrets.

A: While environment variables are one of the most used options in web development and  The Twelve Factor App documents states: "Store config in the environment" there are some reasons why this may not be the best approach:

*

*the environment is implicitly available to the process and it's hard to track access. As a result, for example, you may face with situation when your error report will contain your secrets

*The whole environment is passed down to child processes (if not explicitly filtered). So your secret keys are implicitly made available to any 3rd-party tools that may be used.
All this are one of the reasons why products like Vault become popular nowadays.

So, yes, you may use environment variables, but be aware)

A: For storing secure data in your app, if you're using Azure, So Azure KeyValut is your answer, you can see Azure Microsoft Azure Key Valut,
In case you're using K8S, you can store it on CSI driver
Or system OS environment variables

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
#region S# License

#endregion S# License
namespace StockSharp.Messages
{
	using System;
	using System.ComponentModel;
	using System.Runtime.Serialization;
	using System.Xml.Serialization;

	using Ecng.Common;

	using StockSharp.Localization;

	/// <summary>
	/// The types of data that contain information in <see cref="ExecutionMessage"/>.
	/// </summary>
	[DataContract]
	[Serializable]
	public enum ExecutionTypes
	{
		/// <summary>
		/// Tick trade.
		/// </summary>
		[EnumMember]
		Tick,

		/// <summary>
		/// Transaction.
		/// </summary>
		[EnumMember]
		Transaction,

		/// <summary>
		/// Obsolete.
		/// </summary>
		[EnumMember]
		[Obsolete]
		Obsolete,

		/// <summary>
		/// Order log.
		/// </summary>
		[EnumMember]
		OrderLog,
	}

	/// <summary>
	/// The message contains information about the execution.
	/// </summary>
	[Serializable]
	[DataContract]
	public class ExecutionMessage : BaseSubscriptionIdMessage<ExecutionMessage>,
		ITransactionIdMessage, IServerTimeMessage, ISecurityIdMessage, ISeqNumMessage,
		IPortfolioNameMessage, IErrorMessage, IStrategyIdMessage, IGeneratedMessage
	{
		/// <inheritdoc />
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.SecurityIdKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.SecurityIdKey, true)]
		[MainCategory]
		public SecurityId SecurityId { get; set; }

		/// <inheritdoc />
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.PortfolioKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.PortfolioNameKey)]
		[MainCategory]
		public string PortfolioName { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Client code assigned by the broker.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[MainCategory]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.ClientCodeKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.ClientCodeDescKey)]
		public string ClientCode { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Broker firm code.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[MainCategory]
		[CategoryLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str2593Key)]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.BrokerKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str2619Key)]
		public string BrokerCode { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// The depositary where the physical security.
		/// </summary>
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.DepoKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.DepoNameKey)]
		[MainCategory]
		public string DepoName { get; set; }

		/// <inheritdoc />
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.ServerTimeKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.ServerTimeKey, true)]
		[MainCategory]
		public DateTimeOffset ServerTime { get; set; }

		/// <inheritdoc />
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.TransactionKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.TransactionIdKey, true)]
		[MainCategory]
		public long TransactionId { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Data type, information about which is contained in the <see cref="ExecutionMessage"/>.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.DataTypeKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str110Key)]
		[MainCategory]
		//[Nullable]
		[Obsolete("Use DataTypeEx property.")]
		public ExecutionTypes? ExecutionType
		{
			get => DataTypeEx.ToExecutionType();
			set => DataTypeEx = value?.ToDataType();
		}

		/// <summary>
		/// Is the action an order cancellation.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.CancelKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.IsActionOrderCancellationKey)]
		[MainCategory]
		public bool IsCancellation { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Order ID.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.OrderIdKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.OrderIdKey, true)]
		[MainCategory]
		//[Nullable]
		public long? OrderId { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Order ID (as string, if electronic board does not use numeric order ID representation).
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.OrderIdStringKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.OrderIdStringDescKey)]
		[MainCategory]
		public string OrderStringId { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Board order id. Uses in case of <see cref="ExecutionMessage.OrderId"/> and <see cref="ExecutionMessage.OrderStringId"/> is a brokerage system ids.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str117Key)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str118Key)]
		[MainCategory]
		public string OrderBoardId { get; set; }

		///// <summary>
		///// Derived order ID (e.g., conditional order generated a real exchange order).
		///// </summary>
		//[DataMember]
		//[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.DerivedKey)]
		//[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.DerivedOrderIdKey)]
		//[MainCategory]
		//[Nullable]
		//public long? DerivedOrderId { get; set; }

		///// <summary>
		///// Derived order ID (e.g., conditional order generated a real exchange order).
		///// </summary>
		//[DataMember]
		//[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.DerivedStringKey)]
		//[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.DerivedStringDescKey)]
		//[MainCategory]
		//public string DerivedOrderStringId { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Is the message contains order info.
		/// </summary>
		public bool HasOrderInfo { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Is the message contains trade info.
		/// </summary>
		public bool HasTradeInfo { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Order price.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.PriceKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.OrderPriceKey)]
		[MainCategory]
		public decimal OrderPrice { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Number of contracts in the order.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.VolumeOrderKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.OrderVolumeKey)]
		[MainCategory]
		//[Nullable]
		public decimal? OrderVolume { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Number of contracts in the trade.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.VolumeTradeKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.TradeVolumeKey)]
		[MainCategory]
		//[Nullable]
		public decimal? TradeVolume { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Visible quantity of contracts in order.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.VisibleVolumeKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str127Key)]
		[MainCategory]
		//[Nullable]
		public decimal? VisibleVolume { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Order side (buy or sell).
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str128Key)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str129Key)]
		[MainCategory]
		public Sides Side { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Order contracts balance.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str130Key)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str131Key)]
		[MainCategory]
		//[Nullable]
		public decimal? Balance { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Order type.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str132Key)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str133Key)]
		[MainCategory]
		public OrderTypes? OrderType { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// System order status.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[Browsable(false)]
		//[Nullable]
		public long? OrderStatus { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Order state.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.StateKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str134Key)]
		[MainCategory]
		//[Nullable]
		public OrderStates? OrderState { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Placed order comment.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str135Key)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str136Key)]
		[MainCategory]
		public string Comment { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Message for order (created by the trading system when registered, changed or cancelled).
		/// </summary>
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str137Key)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str138Key)]
		[MainCategory]
		public string SystemComment { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Is a system trade.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str139Key)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str140Key)]
		[MainCategory]
		//[Nullable]
		public bool? IsSystem { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Order expiry time. The default is <see langword="null" />, which mean (GTC).
		/// </summary>
		/// <remarks>
		/// If the value is equal <see langword="null" />, order will be GTC (good til cancel). Or uses exact date.
		/// </remarks>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str141Key)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str142Key)]
		[MainCategory]
		public DateTimeOffset? ExpiryDate { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Limit order execution condition.
		/// </summary>
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str143Key)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str144Key)]
		[MainCategory]
		//[Nullable]
		public TimeInForce? TimeInForce { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Trade ID.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.OrderIdKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str145Key)]
		[MainCategory]
		//[Nullable]
		public long? TradeId { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Trade ID (as string, if electronic board does not use numeric order ID representation).
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.OrderIdStringKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str146Key)]
		[MainCategory]
		public string TradeStringId { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Trade price.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.PriceKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str147Key)]
		[MainCategory]
		//[Nullable]
		public decimal? TradePrice { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// System trade status.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[Browsable(false)]
		//[Nullable]
		public int? TradeStatus { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Deal initiator (seller or buyer).
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.InitiatorKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str149Key)]
		[MainCategory]
		//[Nullable]
		public Sides? OriginSide { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Number of open positions (open interest).
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str150Key)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str151Key)]
		[MainCategory]
		//[Nullable]
		public decimal? OpenInterest { get; set; }

		/// <inheritdoc />
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str152Key)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str153Key, true)]
		[MainCategory]
		[XmlIgnore]
		public Exception Error { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Order condition (e.g., stop- and algo- orders parameters).
		/// </summary>
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str154Key)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str155Key)]
		[CategoryLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str156Key)]
		[XmlIgnore]
		public OrderCondition Condition { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Is tick uptrend or downtrend in price. Uses only <see cref="DataType"/> for <see cref="DataType.Ticks"/>.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str157Key)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str158Key)]
		[MainCategory]
		//[Nullable]
		public bool? IsUpTick { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Commission (broker, exchange etc.). Uses when <see cref="DataType"/> set to <see cref="DataType.Transactions"/>.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str159Key)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str160Key)]
		[MainCategory]
		//[Nullable]
		public decimal? Commission { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Commission currency. Can be <see lnagword="null"/>.
		/// </summary>
		public string CommissionCurrency { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Network latency. Uses when <see cref="DataType"/> set to <see cref="DataType.Transactions"/>.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str161Key)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str162Key)]
		[MainCategory]
		//[Nullable]
		public TimeSpan? Latency { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Slippage in trade price. Uses when <see cref="DataType"/> set to <see cref="DataType.Transactions"/>.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str163Key)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str164Key)]
		[MainCategory]
		//[Nullable]
		public decimal? Slippage { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// User order id. Uses when <see cref="DataType"/> set to <see cref="DataType.Transactions"/>.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str165Key)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str166Key)]
		[MainCategory]
		public string UserOrderId { get; set; }

		/// <inheritdoc />
		[DataMember]
		public string StrategyId { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Trading security currency.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.CurrencyKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str382Key)]
		[MainCategory]
		//[Nullable]
		public CurrencyTypes? Currency { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// The profit, realized by trade.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.PnLKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.PnLKey, true)]
		[MainCategory]
		//[Nullable]
		public decimal? PnL { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// The position, generated by order or trade.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str862Key)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.Str862Key, true)]
		[MainCategory]
		//[Nullable]
		public decimal? Position { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Is the order of market-maker.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.MarketMakerKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.MarketMakerOrderKey, true)]
		public bool? IsMarketMaker { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Is margin enabled.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.MarginKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.IsMarginKey)]
		public bool? IsMargin { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Is order manual.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		[DisplayNameLoc(LocalizedStrings.ManualKey)]
		[DescriptionLoc(LocalizedStrings.IsOrderManualKey)]
		public bool? IsManual { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Average execution price.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		public decimal? AveragePrice { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Yield.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		public decimal? Yield { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Minimum quantity of an order to be executed.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		public decimal? MinVolume { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Position effect.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		public OrderPositionEffects? PositionEffect { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Post-only order.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		public bool? PostOnly { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Used to identify whether the order initiator is an aggressor or not in the trade.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		public bool? Initiator { get; set; }

		/// <inheritdoc />
		[DataMember]
		public long SeqNum { get; set; }

		/// <inheritdoc />
		[DataMember]
		public DataType BuildFrom { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Margin leverage.
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		public int? Leverage { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Order id (buy).
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		public long? OrderBuyId { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Order id (sell).
		/// </summary>
		[DataMember]
		public long? OrderSellId { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="ExecutionMessage"/>.
		/// </summary>
		public ExecutionMessage()
			: base(MessageTypes.Execution)
		{
		}

		/// <inheritdoc />
		public override DataType DataType => DataTypeEx;

		/// <inheritdoc />
		public DataType DataTypeEx { get; set; }

		/// <inheritdoc />
		public override string ToString()
		{
			var str = base.ToString() + $",T(S)={ServerTime:yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss.fff},({DataType}),Sec={SecurityId},O/T={HasOrderInfo}/{HasTradeInfo},Ord={OrderId}/{OrderStringId}/{TransactionId}/{OriginalTransactionId},Fail={Error},Price={OrderPrice},OrdVol={OrderVolume},TrVol={TradeVolume},Bal={Balance},TId={TradeId},Pf={PortfolioName},TPrice={TradePrice},UId={UserOrderId},Type={OrderType},State={OrderState},Cond={Condition}";

			if (!StrategyId.IsEmpty())
				str += $",Strategy={StrategyId}";

			if (PositionEffect != null)
				str += $",PosEffect={PositionEffect.Value}";

			if (PostOnly != null)
				str += $",PostOnly={PostOnly.Value}";

			if (Initiator != null)
				str += $",Initiator={Initiator.Value}";

			if (SeqNum != default)
				str += $",SeqNum={SeqNum}";

			if (Leverage != null)
				str += $",Leverage={Leverage.Value}";

			if (OrderBuyId != null)
				str += $",buy (id)={OrderBuyId.Value}";

			if (OrderSellId != null)
				str += $",sell (id)={OrderSellId.Value}";

			return str;
		}

		/// <inheritdoc />
		public override void CopyTo(ExecutionMessage destination)
		{
			base.CopyTo(destination);

			destination.Balance = Balance;
			destination.Comment = Comment;
			destination.Condition = Condition?.Clone();
			destination.ClientCode = ClientCode;
			destination.BrokerCode = BrokerCode;
			destination.Currency = Currency;
			destination.ServerTime = ServerTime;
			destination.DepoName = DepoName;
			destination.Error = Error;
			destination.ExpiryDate = ExpiryDate;
			destination.IsSystem = IsSystem;
			destination.OpenInterest = OpenInterest;
			destination.OrderId = OrderId;
			destination.OrderStringId = OrderStringId;
			destination.OrderBoardId = OrderBoardId;
			destination.DataTypeEx = DataTypeEx;
			destination.IsCancellation = IsCancellation;
			//destination.Action = Action;
			destination.OrderState = OrderState;
			destination.OrderStatus = OrderStatus;
			destination.OrderType = OrderType;
			destination.OriginSide = OriginSide;
			destination.PortfolioName = PortfolioName;
			destination.OrderPrice = OrderPrice;
			destination.SecurityId = SecurityId;
			destination.Side = Side;
			destination.SystemComment = SystemComment;
			destination.TimeInForce = TimeInForce;
			destination.TradeId = TradeId;
			destination.TradeStringId = TradeStringId;
			destination.TradePrice = TradePrice;
			destination.TradeStatus = TradeStatus;
			destination.TransactionId = TransactionId;
			destination.OrderVolume = OrderVolume;
			destination.TradeVolume = TradeVolume;
			//destination.IsFinished = IsFinished;
			destination.VisibleVolume = VisibleVolume;
			destination.IsUpTick = IsUpTick;
			destination.Commission = Commission;
			destination.Latency = Latency;
			destination.Slippage = Slippage;
			destination.UserOrderId = UserOrderId;
			destination.StrategyId = StrategyId;

			//destination.DerivedOrderId = DerivedOrderId;
			//destination.DerivedOrderStringId = DerivedOrderStringId;

			destination.PnL = PnL;
			destination.Position = Position;

			destination.HasTradeInfo = HasTradeInfo;
			destination.HasOrderInfo = HasOrderInfo;

			destination.IsMarketMaker = IsMarketMaker;
			destination.IsMargin = IsMargin;
			destination.IsManual = IsManual;

			destination.CommissionCurrency = CommissionCurrency;

			destination.AveragePrice = AveragePrice;
			destination.Yield = Yield;
			destination.MinVolume = MinVolume;
			destination.PositionEffect = PositionEffect;
			destination.PostOnly = PostOnly;
			destination.Initiator = Initiator;
			destination.SeqNum = SeqNum;
			destination.BuildFrom = BuildFrom;
			destination.Leverage = Leverage;
			destination.OrderBuyId = OrderBuyId;
			destination.OrderSellId = OrderSellId;
		}
	}
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Els tres fragments de pedra trobats al jaciment ibèric de Ca n'Oliver, situat en un turó de la Serralada Litoral Catalana del complex de Collserola, van ser recuperats rere les obres de l'eixamplament del carrer de València al barri de Montflorit de Cerdanyola del Vallès (Vallès Occidental). Aquestes peces corresponen, segurament, a dues escultures zoomorfes de lleó diferents, en què dues de les quals (la núm. 1 i la núm. 3) formen part d'una mateixa figura i la núm. 2, d'una altra. Les seves datacions s'han atribuït al període de fase 1 d'ocupació de l'assentament laietà, el qual comprèn els anys 525-425 aC (segles VI i V aC), i es dedueix pel seu caràcter simbòlic d'animal protector de tombes que l'emplaçament original podria haver estat la necròpolis del poblat.

Dels ibers s'han trobat nombroses representacions escultòriques d'animals, les més abundants de les quals són: els cànids (gossos i llops), els bòvids, les feres, els èquids, els animals fantàstics, les aus i els ovicaprins. El lleó, que se situaria dins del grup de les feres, és una bèstia que no es troba enlloc de la península ibèrica i per això es creu que la població de llavors va tenir influències del món fenici i grec, els quals van introduir-lo durant l'etapa en què van estar en aquesta zona.

Descripció

La primera peça es tracta d'un fragment constituït per una part de l'abdomen i de les extremitats posteriors d'un lleó. La cua passa entre les potes separades, creua el ventre de l'animal, descriu una corba a la dreta i reposa damunt el llom, però hi manca el final. La peça està escapçada transversalment, just al límit que marca la cua respecte al cos. Les potes, trencades per sota dels genolls, estan inclinades, com si l'animal estigués assegut. També s'ha observat que l'escultura es va buidar per sota el ventre.

La segona peça és el fragment més rodat i, per tant, el més mal conservat. La seva forma és pràcticament idèntica a la primera; així i tot, s'hi observa un trenc que sembla correspondre a un nexe que devia unir l'escultura a algun altre element, característica que permet diferenciar aquesta resta de la primera.

La tercera peça es tracta de la part de les potes davanteres d'un lleó i de la base que devia sustentar l'escultura (podi). El trenc ens indica que les potes davanteres (molt gràcils) devien estar estirades, en posició de repòs, i que el cos de l'animal devia descansar directament sobre el podi.

Vegeu també
 Poblat ibèric de Ca n'Oliver
 Museu Ibèric de Ca n'Oliver

Referències

Escultures iberes
Escultures
Cerdanyola del Vallès
Objectes arqueològics

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
// Copyright 2011 Google Inc. All Rights Reserved.
//
// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
// You may obtain a copy of the License at
//
//      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
//
// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
// limitations under the License.

package com.google.enterprise.adaptor.examples;

import com.google.enterprise.adaptor.AbstractAdaptor;
import com.google.enterprise.adaptor.Acl;
import com.google.enterprise.adaptor.DocId;
import com.google.enterprise.adaptor.DocIdPusher;
import com.google.enterprise.adaptor.Request;
import com.google.enterprise.adaptor.Response;
import com.google.enterprise.adaptor.UserPrincipal;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.OutputStream;
import java.nio.charset.Charset;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.logging.Logger;

/** Example with depth three ACL chain. */
public class AdaptorWithTwoParentOverrides extends AbstractAdaptor {
  private static final Logger log
      = Logger.getLogger(AdaptorWithTwoParentOverrides.class.getName());
  private Charset encoding = Charset.forName("UTF-8");

  /** Gives list of document ids that you'd like on the GSA. */
  @Override
  public void getDocIds(DocIdPusher pusher) throws InterruptedException {
    ArrayList<DocId> mockDocIds = new ArrayList<DocId>();
    mockDocIds.add(new DocId("website"));
    mockDocIds.add(new DocId("website/subsite"));
    mockDocIds.add(new DocId("website/subsite/file"));
    pusher.pushDocIds(mockDocIds);
  }

  /** Gives the bytes of a document referenced with id. */
  @Override
  public void getDocContent(Request req, Response resp) throws IOException {
    DocId id = req.getDocId();
    if ("website".equals(id.getUniqueId())) {
      resp.setAcl(makeWebsiteAcl());
    } else if ("website/subsite".equals(id.getUniqueId())) {
      resp.setAcl(makeSubsiteAcl());
    } else if ("website/subsite/file".equals(id.getUniqueId())) {
      resp.setAcl(makeFileAcl());
    } else {
      resp.respondNotFound();
      return;
    }
    resp.setContentType("text/plain; charset=utf-8");
    OutputStream os = resp.getOutputStream();
    String str = "this file doc id is: " + id;
    os.write(str.getBytes(encoding));
  }

  private Acl makeWebsiteAcl() {
    List<UserPrincipal> deniedUsers = Arrays.asList(
        new UserPrincipal("vin")
    );
    return new Acl.Builder()
        .setInheritanceType(Acl.InheritanceType.PARENT_OVERRIDES)
        .setDenyUsers(deniedUsers)
        .setEverythingCaseInsensitive()
        .build();
  }

  private Acl makeSubsiteAcl() {
    List<UserPrincipal> permitUsers = Arrays.asList(
        new UserPrincipal("vin")
    );
    return new Acl.Builder()
        .setInheritanceType(Acl.InheritanceType.PARENT_OVERRIDES)
        .setPermitUsers(permitUsers)
        .setInheritFrom(new DocId("website"))
        .setEverythingCaseInsensitive()
        .build();
  }

  private Acl makeFileAcl() {
    return new Acl.Builder()
        .setInheritFrom(new DocId("website/subsite"))
        .setEverythingCaseInsensitive()
        .build();
  }

  /** Call default main for adaptors.
   *  @param args argv
   */
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    AbstractAdaptor.main(new AdaptorWithTwoParentOverrides(), args);
  }
}


text:
6 Awesome Repurposed Silos From Around the World
Design Architecture
under Architecture
by Lidija Grozdanic
Some of the most beautiful designs we've seen over the years include stunning renovations of decommissioned industrial buildings. The most successful among these manage to keep the patina and grungy feel of the buildings' former functions while infusing them with up-to-date design trends. The practice of repurposing silos, whose verticality offers architects a chance to create unique, otherworldly spaces, breathes new life into these aging behemoths and gives designers the opportunity to be playful. Hit the jump to see six of our favorite repurposed silos around the world.
Our Featured Videos
The two dilapidating silos of the former Guangdong Float Glass Factory in Shekou industrial district in Shenzhen were converted into a venue for the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture in 2013. The 90 foot high complex was transformed into an exhibition space with beautiful spiraling ramps and glass floors, and was used as a venue for the event. In charge of the renovation project was O-Office Architecture-Chinese practice, experienced in repurposing industrial buildings all across the country. In fact, their own studio is located in one of these buildings-an old beer factory in Guangzhou built in the 1960s.
V&A Waterfront Museum, Cape Town
At this year's Design Indaba conference, London-based architecture firmThomas Heatherwick released images of their V&A Waterfront Museum in Cape Town. It is a cluster of 42 huge grain silos converted into a massive luxury development comprised of 80 galleries, art conservation facilities, a rooftop sculpture garden, bookshops, cafes and other amenities.
Another project in Helsinki, Finland designed by Madrid-basedLighting Design Collective involved punching exactly 1280 holes into a steel façade of a silo and then filling them with LED lights. The resulting building looks like a modern, freshly built lighthouse. Designed to honor the city's selection as the 2012 World Design Capital, the project is a permanent wind-controlled light art installation that creates a new public space on the water in the Kruunuvuorenranta District. The building is open to the public right before sunset and for a short period afterwards. Its lights remain on until 2:05 in the morning, creating a mesmerizing effect as the prevailing winds trigger unique light patterns.
NL Architects transformed an abandoned silo outside of Amsterdam into a world class climbing and mountaineering facility. The proposal was initially rejected by the developer, but after the architects performed a feasibility study for an adaptive reuse of the third silo, Silo O was granted another chance. The original smooth volume of the facilities was transformed into a triangulated and faceted structure with climbing routes added to their sunny southern sides. The interior is converted into a vertical gym, with a space for a bar, a library, an information center, a travel center, a store and several meeting rooms.
There aren't too many places to go ice climbing in the corn fields of Iowa, so avid climbers in the area have to get a little bit creative. Don Briggs took a staple of the landscape — a grain silo — and converted it into an ice climbing wall. The eight-story structure is covered with ice curtains that run along a large wall and opens every winter, provided that the temperatures are consistently below 26 degrees. The silo, which is located just outside Cedar Falls, Iowa, has become a climbing mecca in the middle of the Great Plains.
One of the most surprising examples is located in upstate New York, where an old storage facility built for storing Atlas-F missiles during the Cold War was transformed into a luxury living space. Scattered all over the U.S., these underground spaces were built for $18 million, while today, a renovated underground silo in upstate New York can be bought for $3 million. Included in the price is a log cabin and an airstrip. Can it get more luxurious than that?
Images of the O-Office-Architects renovation via Maurer United/ArchDaily, Tuomas Uusheimo
Renovation Project
London's Battersea Power Station To Get Major Eco-Renovation
St. Louis is Building a Lush Public Park Over the Interstate 70 Freeway
Ambitious Eiffel Tower Renovation Turns the Aging Icon's 1st Floor into a Green Energy Powerhouse
Decrepit commercial building converted into a gorgeous contemporary home
Fashion designer's stylish tiny apartment in Paris has its own vertical herb garden
This couple ditched their tech jobs for life and work on the road in a converted school bus
Former convent in Valencia is reborn as an ornate entertainment hub
Transformed caravan's mobile music studio to help refugees
Live Space
Sosoljip is a Self-Sufficient Net Zero Energy House in South Korea
Signup with Inhabitat
O-Office Architects Silo
Thomas Heatherwick V&A Waterfront museum
Lighting Design Collective Silo
Siloo-O NL Architects
Silo Ice Climbing Wall
Cold War Missile Silo Home


text:
ESOP marketplace, the only ESOP community specialized in matching business owners with the best ESOP advisors.
Visitor - Help - Live Help - Blog
What is an ESOP?
ESOP History
ESOP Communities
ESOP Articles
ESOP Videos
Take Our ESOP Quiz
Create an ESOP
View your current ESOPs
Buy/Sell a Company
View your Buy/Sell listings
For ESOPs
Our ESOP Advisors
Interview with Dennis Long
Dennis Long
The beginning of BCI Group
BCI originally stood for "Benefit Consultants Inc.," later DBA (doing business as) "BCI Group" in all 50 states. The company began in Appleton, WI, in 1978 as a consulting and administration firm. From those beginnings, we grew it into the largest ESOP administration firm in the country, with offices in 14 cities and 120 employees at the time of its sale t to Principal Financial Group in 2003, after owning the company for 25 years.
I was the only original founder – I was literally a one-person entrepreneur back in 1978. I grew the company organically, one person at a time, except for a couple of small acquisitions. One of my key hires was in 1980, a gentleman by the name of Pete Prodoehl. 32 years later, Pete is still at Principal Financial Group, still doing many good things in the ESOP world.
He was literally a year out of school when I hired him; he came in as an administrator with a finance background. He was a quick learner, so sometime around '83 he became a consultant, and is considered today one of the top consultants in the business.
What makes Pete stand out among the crowd as a consultant is his capacity to learn and to remember like few others. I remember he's had 3-4 back surgeries in his career, and after his first surgery, the doctor told him that he would be out of work for one or two weeks at minimum, and he was in the office two days later, lying down on a conference table reading the Internal Revenue Code on his back. That's dedication and tenacity. You could ask him a question about something he dealt with in 1981 and hasn't looked at in fifteen years, and he would tell you – he has a really good memory.
He's dedicated, tenacious, he's smart, and he has empathy – he can look at things from a client's perspective, which a good consultant needs to do.
Your early career and becoming an ESOP advisor
When I started out, I moved to Appleton, Wisconsin from Palm Springs, CA. It was my home town, but I hadn't lived there since grade school and didn't know anybody. I moved back, incorporated, hung a shingle out, and knew that I didn't have any clients. I had a new baby son, and that was my motivation. For me, the opportunity to start a new business has to be viewed in the context of the industry in the '70s.
At that point, insurance companies dominated the retirement landscape, controlling about 70% of the business, and banks held another 15%. 401(k) plans hadn't been invented yet, there were only about 100 mutual funds, and not the 10,000 there are today. The bull market of the '80s hadn't occurred yet, and there were no indexed mutual funds. It was a different time, and the small-company market was very underserved, primarily through bundled group annuities contracts and such with insurance companies.
I started this company in 1978 based on 4 1/2 years' experience working in California with high-income individuals. I had more of a tax-shelter orientation, worked on a fee-for-service basis, did complete customization and plan design for high-income individuals. I would create retirement plans that would benefit wealthy people who could invest large amounts of money in tax-deductible contributions. I did no ESOP work in those early years.
Tax laws started to change in the early 1980s, and I had less ability to do what I did in the early years. I had, by then, built a pretty good network of lawyers and accountants who would refer clients to me, and a pretty good track record for local service and fee for service. But with these changing tax laws, we came upon a second opportunity, and that was ESOPs.
Unlike any other retirement plan, ESOPs primarily don't involve liquid assets – just company stock. All other financial institutions that were in the bull market which was starting to take off in the early '80s weren't too interested in ESOPs – they were more interested in asset-based fees, mutual funds, 401(k) plans (which were created in 1981).
Banks, insurance companies and mutual funds had their full attention focused on those asset based plans. I built my practice on high customization and fee for service models, like a law firm, so ESOPs were perfect – they were complicated, they sat at the cross between employee benefit law and corporate finance. There were fewer than a thousand in existence in the nation at the time, and there wasn't a lot of competition.
The problem was that I was in Appleton, Wisconsin. If you got every ESOP that was going to be created in the state of Wisconsin, it wouldn't have made for a great business model, so we were committed in those early years to building a national practice, growing and traveling. You spend a hundred nights a year in hotel rooms, constantly on airplanes – that's the price you have to pay.
We did expand into a national practice and ended up with 14 offices. In the early '80s, a lot of the law was being created – ERISA was already passed, but a lot of the case law and regulations that we now deal with were being developed. Those of us in the early days, on one hand, had little guidance, and on the other hand, had the opportunity to create the landscape and influence regulation and case law.
It was a good time. I guess, any time you're on the ground floor of a movement or industry is a good time.
ESOP transitions
One of the early ESOPs we were involved with, in about '82-'83, was a local company in Wisconsin called Badger Northland. They were a subsidiary of British Tire & Rubber – they had made some acquisitions, and Badger Northland was a Christmas present under the tree. They didn't really want the company, but ended up with it when they bought its parent.
The company employed about 265 people in a little town of 14,000 called Kaukauna. I read that the employees were going on strike against British Tire & Rubber. By then, we had done about half a dozen ESOPs already, so I called the local union guy leading the strike, whose name appeared in the paper, and asked him if he'd ever thought about buying the company. He thought I was nuts. Then I called the top management guy at the local office and asked him if they'd ever through about buying the company, and he thought I was nuts.
We ended up getting together the union employees and the management team, and talking about a way they might be able to buy the company with an ESOP from this foreign owner that didn't want them anymore. The company was in need of capital reinvestment, and the new owners didn't want to put in the money – they were willing to just close the plant and get nothing for it. 13 months later, with a lot of participation from people in the community, we had a successful ESOP. For example, 13 local business owners each put up 50,000 dollars – the guy who owned the feed store, the guy who owned the grocery store, the guy who owned the local bank... They put together a down payment to get the state of Wisconsin, which had a block grant program, to make a loan to the city and provide some bridge financing.
Then, we got senior financing from what was then First Wisconsin, and are now U.S. Bank. 13 months after the initial discussion, they closed the ESOP transaction and purchased 100% of the company from British Tire & Rubber. The union employees were participants, in fact we negotiated with U.S. Steelworkers a requirement that the ESOP allocate 57% of its stock to union employees. I was proud of this because it was complicated, it took a long time, and we preserved some of jobs. At the same time, I was disappointed, because 10 years later the company still succumbed to its demise.
It simply couldn't stand on its own two legs. The ESOP put it on life support, but it never had what it took to withstand and survive in the long term. I don't consider that transaction to be a failure – employees kept their jobs for 10 years; they had pension benefits in addition to their 401(k)s, which we also ended up creating under the ESOP.
What was difficult, and which added to its demise, is the way the union employees viewed ownership. They owned 57% of the company, but they went on strike against themselves three times. This isn't common in ESOPs, but they really shot themselves in the foot. There's a reason unions exist, and there's a reason to look at unions as a group that could participate in an ESOP, but they were still trying to negotiate against the "bad guys" - and there were no bad guys, British Tire & Rubber was already gone, and they owned the company themselves.
It was a bizarre life after the ESOP... ESOP is not a panacea, it's not going to make a troubled company healthy, and it's not going to put a healthy company in trouble. It's just a capital structure that can really help employees accumulate significant wealth and participate not just as a wage earner, but as a capital owner. But it requires a lot of work on the culture, and not just the corporate finance side of the structure.
If you want to see successful ESOPs, they are the ones that worked really hard and for a long time on getting employees to think and act as owners.
What I learned as an ESOP Advisor
I sold BCI in 2003, I agreed to stay on for 3 years and lead the integration effort. Principal Financial Group bought us, they were the nation's leader in 401(k) and defined benefits plans, with 40,000 corporate retirement clients – but they had done about 10 ESOPs, so they were trying to buy competency in ESOPs when they bought our group.
Our job was to integrate that competency in the fabric of the rest of the retirement plan offerings that Principal made for employers. It didn't take 3 years – we pretty much accomplished instant integration, and I took over another part of Principal's non-qualified executive deferred compensation group in Raleigh, North Carolina, about a year and a half later. At the same time, I continued to manage the ESOP business, and then took over consulting practice within the company for non-ESOP 401(k) defined benefits, as well.
I was still having fun, because I had answered a question about myself. Having worked for small boutique firms and having then started my own, I didn't know if I could work for a Fortune 250 with a founder/entrepreneur attitude, survive and actually succeed. I was still having fun after three years, as I found that it was not that much different from small business – just a lot more committees, a lot more deliberate decision making, a little less nimble, but the opportunity for individuals to exert influence still exists.
One thing I learned is that when I owned a company – and I owned a majority but there were 33 other BCI employee owners – when I make a decision, I can execute it. But clearly, you don't want to be sailing in the face of all your other colleagues, so there is a lot of collaboration and agreement on direction – but in a big company, there is no majority shareholder, no one can make a decision and execute it. The only common currency that anyone has in this situation is influence. One thing that a founder has to do when he sells his company, is exchange power for influence, and I encouraged everyone else who was with me on the BCI team and was now on the Principal team. We had a lot of influence – everyone has a printing press of influence on their desk, and I encouraged them to print as much as possible, exert as much as possible, and make Principal a better company after their acquisition of our team, and I think we did that.
People tend to think in big companies, "Why fight City Hall," "I'm just one of 15,000 employees," "What can I do, I'm the low man on the totem pole, I've never even seen the president," blah blah blah. Well, 15,000 people all have the opportunity to work beyond the scope of their job description, to think broadly, to act in an influential and positive way. That's what I'm talking about – you print your currency, and your currency is influence. You go to any meeting, don't sit in a committee meeting to reach consensus – you go there the best prepared, the best read, you've looked at everything 15 ways, and you're going to go to any meeting, any interaction with any person, and exert influence in a positive way, just by living every day in a productive way. Creating consensus rather than joining one.
There are examples where know I exerted some influence. From the moment I sold BCI Group, I spoke like I was Principal, buying BCI Group – there was never a "we" - "they" in my vocabulary. When I made the announcement to my employees on Day 1 of the acquisition, I spoke as a long-term Principal employee, not as a long-term BCI employee. I also happen to be Catholic and Irish, and I've been to a lot of good wakes – so we did have a wake for BCI Group, we talked about good old Uncle "BCI", and the nice parties we had, an all the good times.
But on Day 1, we traded in all of our logo materials for new materials, donated all of it, we took a couple of tons of rock that had our logo on it off the front of the building, ripped up hardwood floors that featured it as well. We did all this in one day, and changed our name immediately, and people asked us why we did it – we had been around for 25 years, and in the world of ESOPs, the name BCI meant something. I said yes, but I have 4 boys and 1 girl, and someday my daughter is going to get married. When she does, she's going to change her name, and I'll love her just the same. Life goes on – it's not about the name, it's about what we do.
We kept the cachet of BCI and effectively transferred it within 90 days to Principal. If you're a big company that's buying an add-on to your business and fail to integrate it, you're not doing yourself or your shareholders any favors.
I stayed for 3 more years after my agreement. When the "financial difficulty" began to arrive in spades in 2008-2009, it arrived for every company in the financial services industry, and Principal was no exception. We collectively laid off about 1500 employees. I figured that if I retired, I would probably save three or four jobs for people on my team, and it was my game plan to retire around that point anyway, so that is what I did. I was very pleased to have done it that way.
Some of my associates
Of the people that started at BCI, only one didn't stay on at Principal, and that was Tim Regnitz. He left within a few weeks of the effective date of the sale and went to work for Crowe Chizek [now known as Crowe Horwath], a CPA firm, in their Chicago office that does ESOP administration. He and I had a great personal relationship, he was a shareholder; he didn't, however, have the same faith in a big company that I did, and made up his own mind. He's changed his job once since then, but he's still in the ESOP community.
Tony Matthews is someone I recruited in 1998. He was the president of one of my biggest competitors, a company called BSI in Los Angeles. After a failed attempt to purchase the firm we ended up hiring Tony. Tony worked for us from 1998 until about 2006.
Two guys that were key players in the company are still there – Pete Prodoeh, who I mentioned earlier is still there as is Kim Blaugher with 17 years of service after joining us from Mercer where he ran the ESOP practice out of their Kansas City office. So we ended up with an office in Kansas for a while before Kim relocated to Appleton, and now in Boise, Idaho.
One of the things about office locations was my philosophy of hiring talent. I didn't care where the individual consultant lived; I certainly didn't want everyone to be in Appleton – that would have been a financial disaster when it came to visiting clients, since it's always two flights to get anywhere. I let people live where they wanted to live, where they would be happy and engaged, knowing that they would have to get on a plane and travel anyway, since our clients are spread all over the 50 states. When Kim suggested Boise, which is not on my list of the top 50 best locations for an office, I said to him, "Kim, I'd rather have you on my team in Boise, than on someone else's team anywhere."
How Technology has changed the ESOP Industry
It would have been so much easier if we had, back then, the technology that we do now – iPhones, and video conferencing, and such. We're all wired to everybody now, and everything is instant, but that has its own negatives – we're all on our Blackberries and smart phones all the time, to an obnoxious level, I would suggest. Back when I still worked, I would look at my Blackberry on the way to church, and on the way back from church, and in bed... you never turn it off. It was a lot easier to have some lights-out time back in the day, but it was also a lot more difficult in a way, because you had to work much harder to be as productive.
Today, with technology, you can do things so much faster... you also can't hide today. Clients are with you all the time electronically, you can give them progress reports, access to your chart and show them where things are as the process continues. Back in the day, when the fax machine was introduced, I thought it was a great invention. Now, you can't even sell it as an anchor. You do still need a good scanner, though.
A tool like ESOP Marketplace has the opportunity to make the community more accessible, connect companies and advisors, and connect companies with each other. The difficulty is having the data speak to all the relevant issues that you might want to have when making a decision. When we grew our company, we got a lot of requests for proposals, and we basically didn't complete any of them. I don't like them; I would ask these people, if I complete a request for proposal, will you invite me in for an interview if I'm the most expensive one on the list? We didn't want to be the low-price leader; we wanted to be the quality leader. Our services were more expensive than many other firms, but they would be worth it, and pay for themselves in the long run.
But the problem with spreadsheets is that they don't give you the benefit of a good discussion. This is why, in many respects, I'm kind of old fashioned with eyeball-to-eyeball stuff, and even as our company grew, and technology improved, we physically traveled to a single location every couple of months and got everyone together, so we could have a nice dinner, productive face to face meetings, good arguments and agreement on strategy.
When you have small offices, you can get isolated. With the growth of technology, you have a lot of virtual offices, and you lose the benefit of fellowship and camaraderie and being a single team. I think that one of the reasons we had very low turnover as a company was that we didn't take face-to-face contact for granted. Flying everybody in for a meeting may cost 50,000 dollars out of pocket on air fare and hotels, as well as taking everybody out of production, but it was worth it. It's an easy thing to cut if you're just thinking about cutting expenses, but I firmly believe that it was more of an investment than an expense.
Stories from the ESOP sector
I was not involved with the start up of The ESOP Association but have been a long time member and supporter. Bob Smiley was really the guy who formed it. He's in Nevada, and his company is called Benefit Capital.
In 1997, the law was passed that would permit S-Corporations to have ESOPs. The first one of those was a Minnesota company called Liberty Check Printers. They filed their ESOP documents with the IRS shortly after midnight on January 1, 1998, in order to be the first.
In 1997, Bill Clinton had just been reelected and he introduced a budget bill that put a target on ESOPs. While ESOPs were being expanded in 1998 to S-Corporations, no one anticipated the growth of S-Corp ESOPs at that time. People just thought, let small companies that are incorporated as S-Corps get ESOPs – it wasn't viewed as a big revenue loss. But Clinton, in his budget bill, started to look for ways to raise revenue, and there was a shot across the bow to ESOPs, and S-Corporation ESOPs in particular as a revenue loss.
However, this was such a great benefit to companies, that many corporations thought they could just become S-Corps and not pay taxes, this was almost too good to be true. Several years earlier, we had started a group at BCI called the Employee Ownership Institute. This was a non-profit organization that did employee education, and it existed so we could run programs for our clients. To encourage our larger clients that were converting to S-Corps, we encouraged them that if they wanted to preserve the tax benefits that were recently created, they should become a little more aggressive in protecting this, since this won't be the last time that a budget is going to take aim at ESOPs as some kind of loophole.
This was the beginning of the early discussions that led to the creation of ESCA – Employee-Owned S Corporations of America. At that time, there was an S-Corp Association, and there was a group of people involved with this association that met with me and a small group of others to talk what this offense/defense strategy should be, and we actually considered a name that was different than the one we settled on, something like "Committee to Preserve and Protect Employee Ownership." At the Chicago Hilton in 1998, we held the initial meeting that could be considered the birth of what is now ESCA, and one of the ladies you should talk to who is now the president and executive director of ESCA is Stephanie Silverman, she owns a political strategy firm in Washington D.C. called VENN Strategies, and she was very instrumental in the growth of ESCA.
ESCA is controlled by company members, not by professional staff or advisory members like me. The early members were mostly BCI clients, with 90% of the advisory boards and 65% of the membership. Now, membership is much more diverse and widespread but the BCI Group/PFG support is still strong and I believe our influence still important. ESCA is, in my opinion, the strongest lobbying and advocacy voice for ESOPs. We have the ESOP Association that sponsors really good communication and education programs and has a broad-based membership and holds a wonderful technical conference in Las Vegas every fall. The National Center for Employee Ownership in Oakland, California, is also an excellent educational resource on ESOPs and other forms of employee ownership. ESCA, in contrast, is a high-cost organization, with companies paying $50-60,000 in membership dues, with different classifications of membership. They are smaller, more nimble and highly effective in their efforts to influence and protect the tax benefits associated with S Corp ESOPs. It is where serious ESOP companies put their money where their mouth is, and mount a very focused lobbying effort, not just in Washington, but also in the home districts of just about all congressional districts.
The creation of Repurchase Liability Software
At BCI, we created the first repurchase liability software in 1988. The way an ESOP company calculated the repurchase liability before that would be by hiring us or, Mercer or Wyatt or some other consultant. We would forecast the year by year cash outlay to pay off ESOP participants when they retire, die, terminate or become disabled. In order to do those calculations, we would ask for a hundred assumptions that would go into our "what if" scenarios.
I always thought that, while this was worthy of a $30,000 fee, it seemed kind of backward – you, as the employee-owned company, had all the data that would go into this calculation, and all we had was the computer program that would do the actuarial calculations and come up with the right projections. It seemed to me that if we took the actuarial science part of it, made it into a computer program, and let our client enter all the required data t to make assumptions, and incorporate this into the company's strategic planning would be a much more effective process. Instead of doing one repurchase liability study for 30 grand under one scenario, and having to pay another 4 grand to investigate a different scenario, a company could run 150 "what ifs" and do it pretty quickly.
We created this software and sold it at the initial price $5,700. It was called PERLS (Professional ESOP Repurchase Liability Software). I hired a guy named Mark Collings for, I think, the world's worst job, to put a bunch of these programs in the trunk of his car and drive around the country selling them. There could have been an easier way to distribute it, but in 1988 there weren't that many ways to sell software.
This didn't produce enough revenue to make much of an impact on us, but every once in a while, a firm does something where the impact isn't measured directly in terms of profit, and for us, PERLS was one of those. It created an image of us in terms of leadership that I couldn't have bought. In some ways, the name of PERLS became better known than BCI group – many people knew our software, but had never heard of us.
We sold the software directly to CFOs of ESOP companies, and it was designed specifically for their use. It required only that the CFO have a good understanding of the sponsor's own ESOP. We also sold a number of programs to about 30 of our competitors, who used the software to do studies in the old-fashioned way for their clients.
Some people in our office asked why we're selling this software to our competitors, and I said that we did it because it was a commodity product. I would sell it to anybody who would write us a check for $5,700. It doesn't distinguish us as a consultant - it was just a commodity but an important tool for the ESOP community.
When we sold to Principal, I started formulating another strategy - how to give away the software for free. Anybody who becomes our client for administration just gets it, but instead of a stand-alone software package that you install on your own computer, you just get an access code, and you can draw on all the data that we have on our mainframe for all the ESOP records enabling a client to do what-if scenario planning online. As soon as you're no longer our client, you don't have access.
This, I thought, was recognizing that the program was just a commodity on one hand, but it's also a service that we could use to enhance the overall product offering administration and consulting. This way, the cost went from $5,700 to $0, as the service was included in the cost of our plan administration fees. The result was that it created another differentiator for us in the market.
We became widely known for our expertise in repurchase liability consulting. In the early days, if you went to an ESOP Association meeting, I might be giving the presentation on repurchase liability studies, and there would be 12 people in the room. Now, there is an entire conference just on repurchase liability. As the ESOP concept matured, the fact that companies have huge and growing emerging liabilities for rebuying stock from terminated employees became something that everyone paid much more attention to.
I've been gone for a few years now, so it's hard for me to even venture a guess, but it would be north of 500 million dollars a year that is distributed from ESOP accounts to terminated employees just from our old block of clients. That's a big enough number to keep track of and predict with some accuracy.
On the Future of ESOPs
The future looks bright for ESOPs, because we are going to look at a fairly significant wealth transfer in the United States over the next 10-15 years, as 10,000 people a day reach the age of 65. That includes a lot of business owners, and the tool that ESOP represents in business succession planning is pretty special. There is a lot of room for growth. ESOPs are still under the radar screen. I know of a company that created their ESOP three weeks ago, and they never heard about the concept from their accountant or attorneys. The owner is a pretty sophisticated guy, but he just hadn't heard of the ESOP concept.
The way he was introduced to the ESOP idea was by being the client of a small boutique investment banking firm in Chicago called Verit Advisors, where I am proud to be an investor and on the board since my retirement.
The majority owner of Verit, is a lady by the name of Mary Josephs. I have known her for 25 years - she was the leading lender to ESOP companies when she managed and grew the ESOP lending group at Lasalle Bank in Chicago. They were then bought up by Bank of America, where she led the ESOP group until she left to start Verit. Verit is in its third year and growing quickly in size and reputation. It is unique from other Investment banking firms because of its deep ESOP expertise. Even though I'm retired, I'm on the boards of Verit and a few other ESOP companies - it's my way of still being able to be engaged and staying in the game.
Now, with this wealth transfer and the tax benefits associated with ESOPs, as well as the non-tax benefits associated with employees having something at stake in the company besides a paycheck - when you look at the pressure on 401(k) plans, since companies don't offer anything aside from them these days, and there are no new defined benefits plans being created, we're on a self-serve basis in this country when it comes to saving, and people are grossly unprepared for retirement, financially as well as mentally.
We have one client – a former Principal/BCI client – who has produced close to a thousand millionaires so far, with their ESOP. I think there is going to be continued growth in ESOPs for these reasons; and when you look at short-term economics, at the present, we are coming out of the years of 2009-2011 when business valuations were depressed and corporate earnings were down. Now, valuations are up, earnings are up, multiples are up, banks that in 2009-10 couldn't lend and had a frozen credit market are now able to lend; there are other sources of capital, like insurance companies and private equity firms.
I think ESOPs will continue to grow, but I would also say that some people get kind of religious about ESOPs, like employee ownership is everything, it's the end-all. I'm not on the "religious end of the spectrum" - I think it's a good corporate finance tool, but at the end of the day, capital is capital. I get a little defensive when people say, "well, that company was in an ESOP for 15 years and they sold out, that's another example of an ESOP failure." Well, wait a minute – when the newspaper Peoria Journal Star sold to Copley of L.A., and the Chicago Truibune said that the ESOP failed, I think the employees that were paid something like 600 million dollars would beg to differ. They got four times more than what the ESOP originally paid for it.
Ownership changes hands every generation. That's what happens. That's why there's going to be a future for ESOPs, but that's why it doesn't mean that every ESOP that's created should stay as one. ESOPs offer a tool to facilitate transition, but not necessarily the final corporate structure. However, both the tax and the non-tax benefits are significant, and you can use ESOPs to grow and to enrich the lives of the employees, and you can create a wonderful environment for customers and employees. But like anything good in life, it takes hard work and effort, and everything is always subject to change.
©2021 ESOP Marketplace All Rights Reserved.
ESOP Advisor Blog Terms of Use Privacy Policy Contact Us


text:
Published On: Wed, May 7th, 2014
Music Reviews | By Christa Alexis
Lykke Li: I Never Learn
I Never Learn
(Atlantic Records)
Lykke Li's third album, I Never Learn, is as emotional as its title sounds. Twenty-eight-year-old Swedish singer Li was "gunshot" to the heart by an ex-lover. Grab a box of tissues for nine melancholy low-key tracks for a slice of indie pop gone lonely. Her voice is memsmerizing with hypntoic sparkles over piano progressions and light guitar strumming that gives off the vibe that she will "never love again." The album bares her entire soul with cliches everywhere.
Bringin' indie pop back, Li adds too much 'emo' to I Never Learn. She sinks into her bad mood further and further in each track. To think that the track "I Never Learn" is the least painstaking compared to the others; it almost hinders the beauty of the acoustic symphony. For a short poem, skip to "No Rest For The Wicked." Its brutally honest lyrics, "I let my good one down/I let my true love die. I had his heart, but I broke it every time."
Ironically enough, Li is stunned by her damaged heart in "Just Like A Dream" a metaphor for her fog-like dream that's now lost. "Love Me Like I'm Not Made of Stone" says "Love me deep until you can't/Even though it hurts/Even though it scars." It has references to stones, dreams, and steel hearts. By the end of I Never Learn, it's like a hangover in a vicious depressant cycle. Warning: it drastically effects moods.
Christa Alexis -


text:
Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS8 review: Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS8
April 10, 2011 8:35 p.m. PT
Panasonic Lumix ZS8 (Black)
(Part #: DMC-ZS8K)
Where to Buy See All
$99.95 Amazon
CNET may get a commission from these offers.
Sony Alpha A6000
The Good The Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS8 is a basic compact megazoom with very good photo quality and shooting performance for its class, as well as long battery life.
The Bad The ZS8 is somewhat expensive for what it's offering.
The Bottom Line The Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS8 is a fine compact megazoom, if not the best value.
Image quality 7
Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS8
If you walked into a store and saw Panasonic's Lumix DMC-ZS8 and its Lumix DMC-ZS10 next to each other, you might not immediately see the differences, let alone $100 worth of them. Even after picking them up, you might notice only that the ZS10 has a GPS receiver and a touch screen. And a stereo mic. Oh, and look, it records full HD video in AVCHD with a one-touch record button.
But if none of that matters to you, then maybe the more-hidden differences will, like the fact that the ZS10's screen is twice the resolution of the ZS8's and that it uses a high-speed sensor and better processor for faster shooting performance or, more specifically, faster full-resolution burst shooting and 3D photos.
So, though the ZS8 might not look like it is missing $100 in features, it is. Potentially more, depending on how much you value any of the ZS10's extra features or faster continuous shooting. However, if all you're after is a speedy camera with a long lens in a pocketable body, one that takes good pictures and decent 720p HD movie clips and has semimanual and manual shooting modes, then, yes, save yourself $100 and get the ZS8.
Price (MSRP) $299.99
Dimensions (WHD) 4.1x2.3x1.3 inches
Weight (with battery and media) 7.4 ounces
Megapixels, image sensor size, type 14 megapixels, 1/2.3-inch CCD
LCD size, resolution/viewfinder 3-inch LCD, 230K dots/None
Lens (zoom, aperture, focal length) 16x, f3.3-5.9, 24-384mm (35mm equivalent)
File format (still/video) JPEG/Motion JPEG (.MOV)
Highest resolution size (still/video) 4,320x3,240 pixels/1,280x720 at 30fps
Image stabilization type Optical and digital
Battery type, CIPA rated life Lithium ion rechargeable, 340 shots
Battery charged in camera No; external charger supplied
Storage media SD/SDHC/SDXC cards
Bundled software Photofunstudio 6.0 Edition (Windows), Super LoiLoScope (trial version; Windows)
The thing is, the ZS8's photo quality is just as good as, if not slightly better than, the ZS10's. If you were concerned that getting the less expensive model would mean sacrificing image quality, don't be. With plenty of light, the ZS8 can turn out very good photos, if a little soft. The color noise that I'm used to seeing from Panasonic's cameras isn't as prevalent in the ZS8's images. Don't get me wrong, it's still there and certainly visible at its highest full-resolution sensitivity, ISO 1,600, but it's just not as bad with this camera. Regardless, the ZS8 is best suited for daylight outdoor use or brightly lit indoor use. Photos at or below ISO 200 can stand up to some cropping or larger prints, but low-light/high-ISO photos are best left for small prints and Web use.
Sample photos:
Color and exposure are very good from the ZS8 up to ISO 400. Subjects appear natural, bright, and pretty accurate. Above that sensitivity, colors start to look washed out. And, like most compact cameras, the ZS8 has a tendency to blow out highlights. White-balance presets are good for the most part; however, the auto white balance is not good indoors. Unfortunately, you're stuck with that setting if you're using Intelligent Auto. Whenever possible, use the presets or take a manual reading, which is really easy to do.
Video quality is good, on par with an HD pocket video camera. However, with the ZS8 you get the zoom lens. Panning the camera will create judder that's typical of the video from most compact cameras. Compared with the ZS10's AVCHD movies, the ZS8's Motion JPEGs are softer, and the file sizes are larger. If capturing movies is more of a nice feature than a must-have for you, then the ZS8 should suffice.
General shooting options
ISO sensitivity (full resolution) Auto, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1,600
White balance Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Shade, Incandescent, Manual
Recording modes Intelligent Auto, Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, Manual, Custom, SCN, My SCN 1, My SCN 2, Movie
Focus modes Face Detection AF, 1-point AF, 23-point AF, Spot AF, AF Tracking
Macro 1.2 inches (Wide); 3.3 feet (Tele)
Metering modes Multi, Center-weighted average, Spot
Color effects Standard, Natural, Vivid, Black & White, Sepia, Cool, Warm, Happy (only in iA Mode)
Burst mode shot limit (full resolution) 5 photos (Standard mode), 3 photos (Fine mode)
The ZS8 gives you shooting options for fully automatic snapshots as well as manual and semimanual exposure modes. The Exposure button on the back lets you easily change shutter and aperture settings with the directional buttons. Apertures are f3.3-6.3 wide and 5.9-6.3 telephoto. Shutter speeds go from 60 seconds to 1/4,000 second. You also get Panasonic's Intelligent ISO, which adjusts sensitivity based on subject movement and scene brightness, and you can set a minimum shutter speed from 1 second to 1/250. If you come up with a group of settings you like, there is a Custom spot on the mode dial for creating three custom setting configurations. There's no manual focus option, so you'll have to live with the multiple AF options. Lastly, there's a Program mode, should you want to adjust things like ISO, white balance, and exposure compensation (not done with the Exposure button, mind you, but the directional pad), without worrying about shutter speed and aperture settings.
For automatic shooting there is the company's Intelligent Auto, which combines an ever-growing number of technologies to get the best results. Overall, it works very well, but photos can end up appearing overprocessed when viewed at full size. There are 29 scene modes for those times when you want to get specific with your auto shooting, and you can store two favorites assigned to MySCN spots on the mode dial. For the most part they are the ones you'd find on any point-and-shoot, but there are a few artistic modes like High Dynamic and Pinhole. There is an Underwater mode as well, but you'll need a casing if you want to get the ZS8 wet, as it's not waterproof.
Continue to next page
Best Digital Cameras for 2020
All best cameras
With a new sensor, better autofocus system and more streamlined design, the X100 line...
It's a lot like its predecessor, but for the most part, that's okay.
Fast and flexible, the Nikon D500 is one of the best dSLRs you can buy for under $2,000.
Sony's follow-up to its NEX-6 laps the field with its 11fps burst and comfortable design.
This compact interchangeable-lens model is a great step-up from APS-C models, as long...
Discuss Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS8
Discuss: Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS8 review: Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS8


A year ago, it was the Japanese island of Kyushu's turn to feel the wrath of the hot heart of the Earth, as a series of quakes devastated Kumamoto and Oita Prefectures in Southern Japan. The main shock of the "earthquake swarm" was 7.0 magnitude, there were 44 fatalities and 3,000 injuries. 180,000 people were displaced. A large foreshock and 140 aftershocks were recorded.


text:
Entertainment Hallyu Buzz
Super Junior's Eunhyuk won't allow Donghae to stay in Taiwan
Donghae thinks he has the potential to become a Mandarin-Korean interpreter
By Tammi Tan
Posted:24 Jun 2019 15:15
Super Junior's Donghae and Eunhyuk, who form the subunit Super Junior D&E, held a concert in Taipei on June 23 for 11,000 fans. The duo delighted the audience with energetic song and dance performances, proving that they've still got it after so many years in the biz.
Donghae and Eunhyuk also took the opportunity to show off their Mandarin-speaking skills at the event, calling fans "my dear babies" and "good wives" respectively. Donghae, who has a particularly impressive command of the language, praised himself as a potential candidate to become an interpreter in Taiwan, but Eunhyuk protested, "No! You have to go home with me."
During their performance of 'Can You Feel It?', Donghae and Eunhyuk sent fans into a frenzy when they stripped to exchange clothes on stage. Eunhyuk quipped, "No matter where we go in Asia, fans are so perverted. I'm so tired of it!"
In an interview before the showcase, it was revealed that Donghae was the one who had helped to come up with Eunhyuk's new styling. When asked how he would style Donghae in return, Eunhyuk said, "He should grow out his hair to his waist and have a medium-length beard, then he can come to Taiwan to film a period drama."
Photos: TPG
IZ*ONE charm fans at first solo concert in Hong Kong
TWICE gives rare glimpse of insecurities at Singapore concert
Celeb splits that people can't stop talking about
Insta-buzz: What the stars were up to this week
No rest for "workaholic" Ma Dong Seok
MAMAMOO go crazy with Taipei fans
Yoo In Na shares her daily beauty tips


Jamie Greenwell commissioned Nichoals to paint his wife's horse, Shannondale Inca, for her 60th Birthday. Jamie wrote - "I would like to get my wife's event horse (named Shannondale Inca) painted by way of a 60th birthday present. My initial thoughts are a head only oil portrait. I understand that you will need plenty of photographs, which I am sure I can get done. Would you need to see/visit the horse in question or are photographs more than sufficient? Many thanks. James Greenwell"
We do indeed require lots of photos to work with, we always say 'the more the merrier'! Nicholas and myself will always use one photo for the main pose for our portraits. The photo really needs to have lots of detail in, with the photo being taken on a good quality camera. Similar to the photo on the left of Inca, the subjects head needs to be close in the frame. If you would like any tips and guidance we have a full page all about how to get a good photo of your horse on our horse portraits photogrpahy tips page. Don't forget if you would like to have the tack painted, keep them on your horse when photographing. If you would like to see them painted or drawn without tack, take the photos in a field or yard without any tack, headcollar or coat.
Finally got home and Serena has just unwrapped the picture of Inca and is delighted with it. Thank you and Nicholas very, very much. It was very well wrapped up, which is ideal to ensure no damage in transit. Serena now says we must get you to do a painting of our daughter Davina's horse (Dirk). Maybe one with horse AND rider – so watch this space.
Jamie asked if we would be able to frame the oil portrait for him, so that when it arrived he could wrap it and give to his wife. Jamie chose to have the portrait framed using our Hampstead frame which is absolutely one of our favourite frames. Our framers are just incredible. They make all of our frames to order and each one is bespoke, they are a piece of art within themselves. You can take a look at more of our frames on our Horse Portraits Framing page. You can also see form the photos below how the frames back and sides are created, the sides are bevelled which adds to the quality and also the back is finished beautifully. Even though this side is never on show, it is stunning. The overall quality of this frame is superb and you wont be disappointed if you decide to have it for your portrait too.
We hope that you have enjoyed reading about Inca and the commission. If you would like to commission a horse portrait for a birthday surprise, you can email us at any time. Let us know the size of portrait and if you would like us to have your portrait framed too. Contact us at any time from our Horse portraits contact page.