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Mark Jozef Albert baron Waer (Leuven, 10 maart 1951) is een Vlaams hoogleraar immunologie. Van 1 augustus 2009 tot 31 juli 2013 was hij rector van de Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

Academische carrière
Waer studeerde in 1976 Magna cum laude af als dokter in de geneeskunde, specialiseerde zich in de interne geneeskunde, met name in de nefrologie, en behaalde in 1983 een doctoraat aan de Katholieke Universiteit Leuven over Immunological effects of fractionated total lymphoid irradiation on the induction of transplantation tolerance and in the treatment of autoimmune disorders. Van 1983 tot 1985 was hij een fellow aan de Stanford-universiteit in Californië.

In 1992 werd hij benoemd tot hoogleraar immunologie aan de faculteit Geneeskunde. Van 1998 tot 2005 was hij hoofdgeneesheer van het Universitair Ziekenhuis Leuven, een positie die hij ook combineerde met een adviesopdracht bij de federale minister van Volksgezondheid. In 2005 werd hij vicerector Biomedische Wetenschappen in de ploeg van rector Marc Vervenne. In 2006 nam hij tot 2007 ad-interim de functie op van algemeen directeur van de Universitaire Ziekenhuizen KU Leuven. Sinds 2006 was hij ook voorzitter van de raad van bestuur van deze ziekenhuizen.

Zijn onderzoek spitst zich toe op de domeinen van transplantatie immunologie waaronder inductie van transplantatietolerantie, beenmergchimerisme, nieuwe immunosuppressiva, xenotransplantatie, tumorimmunologie waaronder immunologische afweermechanismes tegen kanker, graft versus leukemia effect en autoimmuniteit, meer specifiek het immuun mechanisme in experimentele modellen voor multiple sclerose, diabetes, ziekte van Crohn en artritis.

Waer is lid van de Koninklijke Academie voor Geneeskunde, ondervoorzitter van de Francqui-Stichting en mede-uitgever van het tijdschrift Transplantation. In juli 2017 werd hij voorgedragen voor de verlening van de persoonlijke titel van baron.

Hij is gehuwd en heeft vier kinderen.

Rector
Op 8 mei 2009 werd Waer na een tweede stemronde door de universitaire gemeenschap van de KU Leuven met 54% van de stemmen verkozen tot rector. De tweede stemronde had volgende resultaat:
 aantal stemgerechtigden: 1.549
 aantal uitgebrachte stemmen: 1.258
 Koen Geens behaalde 573 stemmen en Mark Waer 682 stemmen.

De verkiezing van vicerector Waer tot rector werd beschouwd als een keuze voor continuïteit. Door zijn leeftijd kwam hij oorspronkelijk niet meer in aanmerking voor een tweede ambtstermijn, maar door een wijziging in 2012 mocht dit bij de rectorsverkiezingen van 2013 wel. Toch besliste Waer zich niet meer beschikbaar te stellen voor een herverkiezing. Hij werd opgevolgd door kerkjurist Rik Torfs.

Verkiezingsprogramma
Ter ondersteuning van zijn kandidatuur voor de functie van rector aan de KU Leuven publiceerde Waer op zijn website zijn programma onder de vorm van vijftien doelen voor een dynamisch beleid en bestuur met als thema's:
 De kerntaak: multi- en interdisciplinariteit
 Bestuur: bestuur is geen doel op zich maar staat ten dienste van onderzoek, onderwijs en dienstbetoon
 Zuivere afspraken maken binnen de bestaande beslissingsstructuren
 Interne democratie versterken door de verscheidenheid in de organisaties een stem laten krijgen
 Rectorverkiezing niet herleiden tot een technisch managementsvraagstuk
 Onderwijsinspanningen beter belonen via de ontwikkelde professionele instrumenten
 Vertrouwen geven aan alle personeelsgeledingen
 De rijkdom van de diversiteit ten volle benutten (genderbeleid en allochtonen)
 Wetenschappelijk onderzoek een brede basis geven en hoge toppen laten scheren
 In het onderwijs flexibilisering ondersteunen en kwaliteit waarderen
 De universiteit een vrijplaats bieden voor de studenten
 Het maatschappelijk gelaat van de universiteit versterken door een stem te laten horen in de maatschappelijke discussies
 Participeren in gestructureerde internationale netwerken
 Nationale netwerking en de associatie uitbouwen
 Administratieve vereenvoudiging nastreven

Onderscheidingen
 1983 - Fulbright Hays Prijs voor Geneeskundig Onderzoek
 1983 - NATO Prijs voor Geneeskundig Onderzoek
 1986 - Prijs van de Belgische Immunologische Vereniging voor de beste presentatie op het Internationaal Congres van Immunologie in Toronto
 1989 - Prijs van "Levenslijn" voor antikanker behandeling gebruik makend van beenmerg transplantatie
 1992 - Prijs van Vereniging voor Kankerbestrijding voor studies handelend over leukemie herstel na beenmergtransplantatie
 1995 - Prijs van de Europese Vereniging van Orgaan Transplantatie voor de beste orale presentatie tijdens het Congres in Wenen
 1996 - Prijs van Levenslijn voor studies handelend over Xenotransplantatie voor pancreas eilandjes
 2004-2005 - Binnenlandse Francqui-leerstoel aan de Universiteit Antwerpen voor immunobiologie en immunotherapie

Belgisch immunoloog
Belgisch medicus
Rector van de Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Belgische adel

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Limited Edition Cassette with Download Card of "Mean End of the Sun"
Includes unlimited streaming of Mean End of the Sun via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Mastered by Alex DeTurk at Strange Weather, Brooklyn.
with James Ratcliffe- bass on" Lemon Boats," " Eastside Polars, "ketamine" and" Wild and Giddy."
Ella Buckley- vocals on "Wolves.
Matt Cowan- tenor sax on "ketamine"
and Lloyd Debonis- trumpet on "ketamine"


text:
cd ..

echo "cleaning..."
echo
gmake clean
echo
echo "done cleaning"

echo "building... "
echo
gmake all
echo
echo "done building"

echo "Test Case 1... "
./bin/td_driver testcases/td_tests/test1.td > testcases/td_tests/td_test1.out
diff -Bw testcases/td_tests/td_test1.out testcases/td_tests_expected/test1.td.out
echo "done Test Case 1"
echo

#echo "Test Case 2... "
#echo
#./bin/td_driver testcases/td_tests/test2.td > testcases/td_tests/td_test2.out
#diff -Bw testcases/td_tests/td_test2.out testcases/td_tests_expected/test2.td.out
#echo
#echo "done Test Case 2"

#echo "Test Case 2_1... "
#echo
#./bin/td_driver testcases/td_tests/test2_1.td > testcases/td_tests/td_test2_1.out
#diff -Bw testcases/td_tests/td_test2_1.out testcases/td_tests_expected/test2_1.td.out
#echo
#echo "done Test Case 2_1"

#echo "Test Case 2_2... "
#echo
#./bin/td_driver testcases/td_tests/test2_2.td > testcases/td_tests/td_test2_2.out
#diff -Bw testcases/td_tests/td_test2_2.out testcases/td_tests_expected/test2_2.td.out
#echo
#echo "done Test Case 2_2"

echo
echo "Test Case 3... "
./bin/td_driver testcases/td_tests/test3.td > testcases/td_tests/td_test3.out
diff -Bw testcases/td_tests/td_test3.out testcases/td_tests_expected/test3.td.out
echo "done Test Case 3"
echo

echo
echo "Test Case 4... "
./bin/td_driver testcases/td_tests/test4.td > testcases/td_tests/td_test4.out
diff -Bw testcases/td_tests/td_test4.out testcases/td_tests_expected/test4.td.out
echo "done Test Case 4"
echo

echo
echo "Test Case 6... "
./bin/td_driver testcases/td_tests/test6.td > testcases/td_tests/td_test6.out
diff -Bw testcases/td_tests/td_test6.out testcases/td_tests_expected/test6.td.out
echo "done Test Case 6"
echo

echo "Test Case 7... "
echo
./bin/td_driver testcases/td_tests/test7.td > testcases/td_tests/td_test7.out
diff -Bw testcases/td_tests/td_test7.out testcases/td_tests_expected/test7.td.out
echo
echo "done Test Case 7"

echo "Test Case 8... "
echo
./bin/td_driver testcases/td_tests/test8.td > testcases/td_tests/td_test8.out
diff -Bw testcases/td_tests/td_test8.out testcases/td_tests_expected/test8.td.out
echo
echo "done Test Case 8"

#echo "Test Case 10a... "
#echo
#bin/td_driver testcases/td_tests/test10a.td > testcases/td_tests/td_test10a.out
#diff -Bw testcases/td_tests/td_test10a.out testcases/td_tests_expected/test10a.td.out
#echo
#echo "done Test Case 10a"

rm -rf testcases/td_tests/*.out

#done

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Home / Knives sharpened for AR crescendo
Knives sharpened for AR crescendo
The Affirmative Repositioning (AR) movement is at a crossroads, with its 2022 elective congress being the defining moment for the self-styled leftist entity that experienced turmoil in recent times and is struggling for relevance.
In November, about 400 AR activists will converge under one roof to adopt its constitution, elect leaders into various portfolios and also map out the future.
The assembly is slated for 4 to 6 November 2022 in the Erongo region. The movement will decide there whether it will transform into a fully-fledged political formation or not.
Dubbed the national assembly, the congress was confirmed by the AR's leader and chief activist Job Amupanda on
Sunday following the Interim National Activists Council (INAC)'s meeting held in Opuwo over the weekend. There was, however, a notable absentee in the form
of Dimbulukeni Nauyoma, one of
AR's founders. Nauyoma, New Era understands, informed the movement in May about his unavailability to serve in any structure. He headed the political education and mass mobilisation department.
"Dee had written in May that he is not available to serve in any structure, but remains an activist of the AR movement," Amupanda said. Saturday's meeting reviewed AR regional reports and assessed their preparedness for congress. Last week, Nauyoma reaffirmed his position. "As stated in my email communication of Thursday, 4 May 2022 at about 14h19 [my position] remains
intact and has not changed…I wish the leadership fruitful discussions as we plan towards the hosting of the first national activists' conference," reads a letter dated 20 September 2022 addressed to AR's top administrator, Tuhafeni Hangula.
In recent times, AR's top brass have engaged in public spats, with former spokesperson Simon Amunime and erstwhile head of elections Paulus Kathanga teaming up to pen a scathing letter in which they accused Amupanda of maleficence.
They also demanded for a rotation of AR's Windhoek municipal councillors to allow unemployed activists a chance to make a living from the city's lucrative perks.
The two were later removed from their positions. Kathanga has since left the movement.
"I am not part of AR. I don't even have a comment on it," he said yesterday.
On his part, Amunime could not say with certainty if the congress would take place, as not much has happened in terms of formalising structures from where
delegates would be drafted.
"Branches are the most important
thing. But if it is going to take place, I am looking forward to it. I am going to contest for the position of activist-in-chief", he stated. Meanwhile, in the public space, the relationship between Nauyoma and Amupanda appears to be at an all-time
low. The duo has denied their purported strained relationship.
Regroup, rebuild
What is clear, however, is that November presents an opportunity for AR to regroup, rebuild and return to the former glory days which saw it mobilise Namibians to apply for land en masse in 2015, or the successful demonstration that blocked the construction of a N$3 billion new parliament, or continue limping into deterioration before disappearing into political thin air.
The above analysis is deduced from political commentator Ndumba Kamwanyah. He is not surprised that AR could register as a political party with the electoral commission.
"It is not a coincidence. That is why they participated in the local authority elections in Windhoek. They also supported several independent candidates.
They were testing the political ground and to see their ability and relevance to transform into a fully-fledged political party.
They do have evidence now. Their leader was even a mayor at some point," Kamwanyah said. He, however, hastened to point out some shortcomings. "We have not seen much from Amupanda on the ground, apart from exposing corrupt activities. But we have seen some of his people, including Nauyoma, on the ground.
"They are becoming more vocal on workers' issues. All of those are issues
where they can gauge their viability as a political party," he added.
Moreover, Kamwanyah poked holes in AR's relevance.
"They will have to reflect on that, and if people still believe in their relevance and ability to solve the issues. What has been achieved? The issues of land and housing
on which AR was founded are still
lingering," he added.
At present, AR, the Landless People's Movement, the National Unity Democratic Organisation, the Popular Democratic Movement and Swapo run the City of Windhoek council.
Kamwanyah took issue with this marriage of convenience.
"On policy and philosophical levels, AR
and Swapo are diametrically opposed. But we have seen them working together in the City of Windhoek. For me, it is good that they are able to strategise and form an alliance. But they have to answer to the people, because many followed them because of the ideological differences and approach of doing things," he observed.
He added: "In 2024, they could perform well at the polls, like the Economic
Freedom Fighters in South Africa, because the issues they stand for such as unemployment, land and housing are
still relevant. They also appeal to young people, most of whom will be voters then."
– emumbuu@nepc.com

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
400th anniversary of Dirk Hartog's landing in Western Australia in 2016
The Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Australia and the Consulate General in Sydney are proud to support a range of projects and activities that will take place in 2016 to highlight the 400th anniversary of Dirk Hartog's landing in Western Australia. On 25 October 1616, Dutch captain Dirk Hartog made landfall with his ship the Eendracht at Dirk Hartog Island in the Shark Bay area; and consequently became the first European to set foot on Western Australian soil. Recently, the first four Dirk Hartog 2016 initiatives to receive a Shared Cultural Heritage contribution from the Dutch missions in Australia were announced.
Commemorating Dirk Hartog | A publication by The Royal Western Australian Historical Society Inc.
The Royal Western Australian Historical Society Inc. (RWAHS) will publish a small book about the life and times, maritime voyages and explorations of Dirk Hartog. The publication is a joint initiative by researchers of the RWAHS and the Nationaal Archief (National Archives) of the Netherlands. The book, expected to be launched in August 2016, will be available for purchase at the RWAHS' bookshop in Perth and can be ordered online through the RWAHS website.
Digital Dirk Hartog projection | Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney
The Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM) will present a large scale projection featuring visual representations about Dirk Hartog, the journey to Western Australia with his ship 'Eendracht', and the pewter plate Hartog left on the shore of Dirk Hartog Island. The projection will light up the external façade of the museum in Sydney's Darling Harbour after dark to raise awareness of the anniversary. The projection will also be featured on the ANMM website and the Embassy's Dirk Hartog 2016 website, and social media channels to reach a national and international audience.
Archives relating to the Dutch discovery and exploration of Australia | Western Australian Museum
Starting 1 January 2016, the Western Australian Museum will over a period of two years digitize VOC journals, documents and several single pages from the Nationaal Archief (National Archives) in the Netherlands. These documents relate to the four Dutch VOC shipwrecks that occurred in the 17th and 18th century and documents relating to the discovery and exploration of Australia. The documents will be transcribed into modern Dutch, translated into English and made available on a website, showing the original document with sliding panels in Dutch and English so that the texts can be compared in both languages.
2016 Shell Prom Picnic Concert | Canberra Symphony Orchestra
On Saturday 20 February 2016 the grounds of Government House in Yarralumla, Canberra, will be open to the general public for the annual Shell Prom Picnic Concert. The 2016 edition will celebrate the 400th anniversary of Dirk Hartog's landing with an eclectic program including Australian and Dutch composers.
For details on picnic hampers, please visit cso.org.au closer to the date of the concert.
www.dirkhartog2016.nl | Tw @DirkHartog2016 | #DirkHartog2016 | #DH2016
Posted in Dutch Australian, Nederlanders in Australie4 Comments
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4 thoughts on "400th anniversary of Dirk Hartog's landing in Western Australia in 2016"
Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands says:
Thank you for sharing! Femke Withag, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands | Canberra
Renee Veldman-Tentori says:
You are most welcome Femke, appreciate you keeping us up to date and for this great initiative. -Renee
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text:
Hamirpur is one of the 68 assembly constituencies of  Himachal Pradesh a northern state of India. Hamirpur is also part of Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh Lok Sabha constituency.

Members of Legislative Assembly

Election candidates

2022

Election results

2017

See also
 List of constituencies of Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly
 Hamirpur district, Himachal Pradesh

References

External links
HP official website of the Chief Electoral Officer

External links

Assembly constituencies of Himachal Pradesh
Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh
Hamirpur district, Himachal Pradesh


Check out this site for a live shot from a Boston area aquarium. I could watch for hours.
Everybody to the limit. Annoy everyone around you with your speaker's cranked.
Sit on this. Just what I need right now after a filling lunch at Alexander's. Mmmm… chicken fingers and fries with dipping sauce….
To go or not to go, that's not a quote from either of these plays: Mark recommends you go to Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan. He's seen Hamlet and loved it and we're planning on seeing the Alchemist sometime as well.


Tap The Thumbnail Bellow to See Related Gallery of "Oval Dining Chairs White Extending Table Pertaining To Ideas 7"
Image Title: Oval Dining Chairs White Extending Table Pertaining To Ideas 7. Filename: oval-dining-chairs-white-extending-table-pertaining-to-ideas-7.jpg. Image Dimension: 1000 x 562 pixels. Images Format: jpg/jpeg. Publisher/Author: Enrique Treutel. Uploaded Date: Sunday - February 18th. 2018 21:26:15 PM. Category: Architecture. Image Source: houseandgarden.co.uk.


allows you to travel with discretion.
One-third of all strokes after age 60 are caused by Afib.
Acording to the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation Atrial fibrillation (Afib or AF) is a type of irregular heart rhythm (arrhythmia). Arrhythmias are due to electrical signal disturbances of the heart. Afib is the most common arrhythmia, affecting approximately 350,000 Canadians. The risk of developing atrial fibrillation increases with age and with other risk factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure and underlying heart disease. The main complications of atrial fibrillation are stroke and heart failure.
The BIOS Diagnostics Precision 10.0 is the only home blood pressure monitor equipped with Atrial Fibrillation screening technology. Patented MAM averaging and advanced blood pressure PC software ensure precise readings and detailed heart health analysis.
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text:
Specs:
- [x] Using Ruby on Rails for the project - I used rails to build this project.
- [x] Include at least one has_many relationship (x has_many y e.g. User has_many Recipes) - My users have many Recipes.
- [x] Include at least one belongs_to relationship (x belongs_to y e.g. Post belongs_to User) - I have a few relationships with this.
- [x] Include at least one has_many through relationship (x has_many y through z e.g. Recipe has_many Items through Ingredients) - My recipes_ingredients table is the has_many :through.
- [x] The "through" part of the has_many through includes at least one user submittable attribute (attribute_name e.g. ingredients.quantity) - quantity
- [x] Include reasonable validations for simple model objects (list of model objects with validations e.g. User, Recipe, Ingredient, Item)
- [x] Include a class level ActiveRecord scope method (model object & class method name and URL to see the working feature e.g. User.most_recipes URL: /users/most_recipes)
- [x] Include a nested form writing to an associated model using a custom attribute writer (form URL, model name e.g. /recipe/new, Item)
- [x] Include signup (how e.g. Devise) - used devise
- [x] Include login (how e.g. Devise) - used devise
- [x] Include logout (how e.g. Devise) - used devise
- [x] Include third party signup/login (how e.g. Devise/OmniAuth) - used devise and omniauth
- [x] Include nested resource show or index (URL e.g. users/2/recipes) - mine is recipes/1/recipe_ingredients
- [x] Include nested resource "new" form (URL e.g. recipes/1/ingredients)
- [x] Include form display of validation errors (form URL e.g. /recipes/new)

Confirm:
- [x] The application is pretty DRY
- [x] Limited logic in controllers
- [x] Views use helper methods if appropriate
- [x] Views use partials if appropriate


When it comes to storing your items, there are many things to consider before you commit and start putting your goods in storage.
Make sure to first take apart your tables, beds, chairs, etc.
Bubble wrap the furniture legs.
Wrap and cover your furniture as a whole.
Make sure to keep all small components (screws and bolts) together and stored in a bag.
Make sure they are wrapped in a plastic covering (We have this for sale on our site).
Then have them wrapped in a blanket. This will add to the protection of them.
Store loose photos between pieces of clean cardboard and consider taping them together to avoid covers.
Wrap mirrors and pictures in protective covers.
They should be packed in their original boxes whenever possible.
If using other boxes, choose ones that are as close in size to the original as possible, and fill all gaps with paper.
When storing a vacuum cleaner, clean put the bag or canister first to avoid bacteria and mold accumulation.
Drain fluids from any blowers, lawnmowers, and other equipment. Make sure not to store any hazardous or combustible materials.
When storing kitchen appliances with an open back area, protect this area to avoid attracting vermin.
Avoid using plastic bags. Boxes are sturdier and stack well, and will therefore take up less space. Plastic bags can also trap humidity, this will lead to mildew damaging your items.
The Xtra Storage Companies of South Florida have been providing the best value in air-conditioned self-storage spaces for over 30 years. We pride ourselves on every-day low prices, no extra fees, and are friendly to our clients! We're a self-storage company but look at ourselves as an extension of your home. Come by for a cup of coffee and a tour — if you would like to learn more about our rates or the sizes of our units, please give us a call today at (305) 677-1483. We offer small storage spaces that would be perfect for a few boxes if you'd like to clear out some dinnerware etc.!


text:
How to successfully manage teams to maximise their potential
10 February 2021 - 3:08 PM
Managing teams and balancing the 'we' versus 'me' is the responsibility of every leader. Get the balance right and it could lead to one of the best business decisions ever made, according to workplace expert Michelle Gibbings.
Would you prefer to work alone or as part of a team? It's a question often asked in a job interview.
The answer to that question can't just be determined by whether a person is an introvert or an extrovert, and for many people, the answer will vary. Some days they want to be alone; other days they want to work collectively – as part of a team.
Why we crave teams
We have evolved as tribal creatures through the years, genetically wired to live and work in group settings. Humans have learned that to survive, they must cooperate, and that belonging and being part of a team feels good. It can also motivate people to go beyond what they think is possible.
Professor of Psychology at Boston's Northeastern University, David DeSteno, recounts in his book Emotional Success: The Power of Gratitude, Compassion, and Pride that being part of a team – even a team comprising strangers – can lead people to persevere for more prolonged periods than in situations where they are not part of a team. He explained the results from a study by Stanford psychologists Gregory Walton and Geoffrey Cohen, who examined how being part of a team impacted students' levels of perseverance.
"Knowing they were part of something – having a goal that they knew was shared by a group and to which they could contribute and be valued – pushed people to work hard and resist immediate pleasures," DeSteno wrote.
Innovation and progress are often created and secured when individuals join together. I've frequently seen how ideas by one person are improved by another, and how it is in a group setting that the best ideas are generated, debated and ultimately achieved.
The potential problem with teams
Curiously though, organisations typically reward people as individuals, and reward and recognition schemes often focus on rewarding the individual over the collective team.
On one side is the argument about fairness if people don't contribute equally to the results. On the other is the argument that reward and recognition schemes are subjective and consequently, they can negatively impact team dynamics, cooperation and collegiality, particularly if the reward seems unfairly allocated.
If a person believes they work harder than someone else and are rewarded less, they'll be unhappy. While we would commonly see this as fairness, it is also known as equity theory.
Adrian Furnham and John Taylor, in their book Bad Apples: Identify, Prevent & Manage Negative Behavior at Work, write: "Equity theory is concerned with outcomes and inputs as they are perceived by the people involved, not as they actually are."
What happens in practice is that the greater the perceived inequity, the greater the motivation for that person to try to find a way to restore the balance. How they do this will vary, but it can lead the employee to be less productive, take more sick leave or at the extreme end, commit fraud as they seek ways to fix what they view as inequity.
A true leader's resolve
As a leader, you play a crucial role in treating your team members fairly by balancing your focus on rewarding and recognising the 'we' and the 'me'.
Sure, different people like to be recognised in various ways, but what's consistent is that employees want to be valued and appreciated for their efforts and in a way which is genuine and fair. Frequently, the gestures that have the most significant impact are often the most simple to deliver. For example, a personalised 'thank you' note or phone call can go a long way – both individually and collectively.
Take the time to understand how your team wants to celebrate and recognise success. Focus on efforts that bond the group, rather than divide the team, because what your team can achieve together is so much greater than what they can achieve alone.
It's worth remembering the words of NBA legend Michael Jordan: "Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships."
Michelle Gibbings is a workplace expert and the author of three books including her latest, Bad Boss: What to do if you work for one manage one or are one.
Read next: Reasonable doubt is the leadership tactic you've never heard of
By Michelle GibbingsFull Bio
Michelle Gibbings is a workplace expert, and the author of three books; Bad Boss, Career Leap and Step Up. She is a global keynote speaker and facilitator and is on a mission to help leaders, teams and organisations create successful workplaces – where people thrive and progress is accelerated.
Financial adviser explains the real risks of investing in sustainability
By Helen Baker
How to maximise your returns from investing in commercial property
By Scott O'Neill
Hidden costs of choosing your perfect business name
How to redefine workplace productivity to ensure long-term success
By Elana Robertson


Most fighting game tournaments do very little to curate tournament matchups. Sure, the biggest events will do some seeding to ensure that big names and regional rivals don't play against each other right out of the gate, but for the most part, competitors need to be ready for whoever is thrown at them. Tsuyoshi, a 9-year-old Dragon Ball FighterZ player, crashed head first into this unique challenge when he had to face his own father in a recent tournament.
Tsuyoshi is a regular at the weekly Dragon Ball FighterZ tournaments hosted by the Fighting Tuesday event series in Tokyo, Japan. His skill has grown steadily with every competition, and he's become quite formidable despite his young age. Tsuyoshi won his very first match back in December 2018, and has faced his fair share of high-level players, including two matches against Evo finalist Naoki "moke" Nakayama in as many months. And although he isn't always successful, Tsuyoshi has continued to show up to Fighting Tuesday week after week, receiving encouragement from his father no matter how his matches turn out.
This week's Fighting Tuesday was a little different. In order to help newcomers get more tournament experience, the organizers limited competition to beginner and intermediate players. Tsuyoshi obviously made the cut, but so did a surprise challenger: his father, who goes by the name Wasa. While he usually sticks to supporting his son, Wasa is also a competitor himself, so he entered the same Dragon Ball FighterZ bracket with his eye on the prize. It was always possible the father and son would end up playing each other in tournament at some point, but the luck of the draw made them opponents in the very first round.
What followed was a pretty standard Dragon Ball FighterZ match, with both Tsuyoshi and Wasa showing off what they had learned in their training sessions and tournament matches. The skill level wasn't exactly Evo-level, of course, but the added tension of watching a young kid take on his own dad in competition made it just as exciting. The commentators, Andrew "jiyuna" Fidelis and the always hype Majin Obama, were quick to make jokes about the situation, highlighting the rare sight with moments of endearing levity. Tsuyoshi ended up with a 2-1 victory over Wasa, and the father-son pair shared a brief, heart-warming moment before walking off-camera.
Like Dominique "SonicFox" McLean (who also started competing at a young age) before him, Tsuyoshi now represents the next generation of fighting game competition. Fidelis, who has watched Tsuyoshi compete at Fighting Tuesday since last year, has also compared Tsuyoshi's ability to have fun, no matter the outcome of his matches, to the qualities that have made SonicFox such an amazing player across multiple fighting games. There's no telling whether or not Tsuyoshi will stick with Dragon Ball FighterZ—kids can be notoriously fickle, after all—but his presence in the fighting game community proves that there is space for everyone to learn, grow, and perhaps even surpass older peers… including your own Dad. Damn.


It's no secret Alo Yoga is one of the leading brands in the world of leggings, from major celebrities always wearing the latest styles to the first to debut cult trends like the "naked" look and all-white ensembles. So it's no surprise we find ourselves browsing the brand's new arrivals section on the regular to stay ahead of what celebs and yoga-goers will be wearing, which brings us to our latest discovery. Meet Alo Yoga's "epic" leggings.
The high-rise pants are "the perfect intersection of fashion and function, the modern High-Waist Epic Legging is an ultra-luxe way to work out. Contoured seams keep things sleek, while matte and glossy details offer up major eye candy. Innovative elements like a hidden waistband pocket and lined gusset tie it all together," the brand describes on their site. With mesh inserts and incredible stretch material, the "epic" leggings are available in seven different colors. Intrigued?


What am I doing wrong? Followed instructions to the letter, now 4 times, on taking a 4.1 install with 700 posts from a single to a multisite configuration. I SEE the original site and can get into the admin panel. When I create a NEW site the options provided 'visit site' or 'dashboard' produce 404 errors.
.htaccess validated with the sub directory settings from multiple "how to" blogs.
AWS EC2 instance with RDS for the DB. Worked for the original site and works for the multisite.
But the issue remains. Would there need to be changes to httpd.conf made?
So I spun up another fresh EC2 and RDS instance and went from scratch with multisite installation again. And, it worked this time - go figure.
I went back and found the following as I "diffed" files in an attempt to determine where I went astray.
It was probably a cut/past thing when inserting the .htaccess code after the restart of the admin panel with multisite set to true.
Glad to hear that you found the issue.
Yes, in htaccess every "statement" should be in single line as there is no indication of end of statement like semi-colon in php.


text:
Justia › US Law › US Codes and Statutes › New York Laws › 2019 New York Laws › GOB - General Obligations › Article 5 - Creation, Definition and Enforcement of Contractual Obligations › Title 15 - Statutory Short Form and Other Powers of Attorney for Financial and Estate Planning › 5-1501B - Creation of a Valid Power of Attorney; When Effective.
Go to previous versions of the New York Laws
2019 New York Laws
GOB - General Obligations
Article 5 - Creation, Definition and Enforcement of Contractual Obligations
Title 15 - Statutory Short Form and Other Powers of Attorney for Financial and Estate Planning
5-1501B - Creation of a Valid Power of Attorney; When Effective.
Universal Citation: NY Gen Oblig L § 5-1501B (2019)
§  5-1501B.  Creation of a valid power of attorney; when effective. 1.
To be valid, except as otherwise provided  in  section  5-1512  of  this
title,  a  statutory  short  form  power of attorney, or a non-statutory
power of attorney, executed in this state by a principal, must:
(a) Be typed or printed using letters which are legible  or  of  clear
type  no less than twelve point in size, or, if in writing, a reasonable
equivalent thereof.
(b) Be signed and  dated  by  a  principal  with  capacity,  with  the
signature  of  the  principal duly acknowledged in the manner prescribed
for the acknowledgment of a conveyance of real property.
(c) Be signed and dated by any agent acting on behalf of the principal
with the  signature  of  the  agent  duly  acknowledged  in  the  manner
prescribed  for  the  acknowledgment of a conveyance of real property. A
power of attorney executed pursuant  to  this  section  is  not  invalid
solely  because  there  has  been  a  lapse  of time between the date of
acknowledgment of the signature of the principal and the date  or  dates
of  acknowledgment of the signature or signatures of any agent or agents
or successor agent or successor agents authorized to act  on  behalf  of
the  principal  or because the principal became incapacitated during any
such lapse of time.
(d) Contain the exact wording of the:
(1) "Caution to the Principal" in paragraph (a) of subdivision one  of
section 5-1513 of this title; and
(2)  "Important  Information  for  the  Agent"  in  paragraph  (n)  of
subdivision one of section 5-1513 of this title.
2.   In addition to  the  requirements  of  subdivision  one  of  this
section,  to  be  valid for the purpose of authorizing the agent to make
certain gift transactions described in section 5-1514 of this title:
(a) a  statutory  short  form  power  of  attorney  must  contain  the
authority (SGR) initialed by the principal and be accompanied by a valid
statutory gifts rider; and
(b) a non-statutory power of attorney must be executed pursuant to the
requirements  of  paragraph (b) of subdivision nine of section 5-1514 of
this title.
3. (a) The date on which an agent's signature is acknowledged  is  the
effective  date  of  the  power  of attorney as to that agent; provided,
however, that if two or more agents are designated to act together,  the
power  of  attorney  takes effect when all the agents so designated have
signed such power of attorney with their signatures acknowledged.
(b) If the power of attorney states that  it  takes  effect  upon  the
occurrence  of  a  date or a contingency specified in the document, then
the power of attorney takes effect only when  the  date  or  contingency
identified  in the document has occurred, and the signature of the agent
acting on behalf of the principal has been acknowledged. If the document
requires that a person or persons named or otherwise identified  therein
declare,  in writing, that the identified contingency has occurred, such
a declaration satisfies the requirement of this paragraph without regard
to whether the specified contingency has occurred.
4. Nothing of this title shall be construed to bar the use or validity
of any other or different form of power of attorney desired by a  person
other  than  a  principal  as  the  term principal is defined in section
5-1501 of this title.
Disclaimer: These codes may not be the most recent version. New York may have more current or accurate information. We make no warranties or guarantees about the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of the information contained on this site or the information linked to on the state site. Please check official sources.


The bitcoin price started Monday with a small recovery to compensate for Sunday's massive losses, but crypto investors shouldn't get their hopes up.
Bitcoin (BTC/USD) established its intraday high at $3,861, up around 1 percent for the 24-hour period. On Sunday, the pair dropped approximately 10 percent in just 9 hours – a dump, precisely. It started consolidating upwards after finding a new low at $3,721. At the same time, the bitcoin market reported lower intraday volume and volatility, indicating that the bearish action was still far from over.
In late November 2018, the bitcoin price had broken below its so-called bottom area at $6,000. The cryptocurrency attempted its first strong upside correction on November 23 when it recovered from $3,453 to $4,419. However, it failed to extend its bullish momentum every time it came near a specific resistance area. Have a look at the daily chart below for illustration.
Since the first upside attempt, BTC/USD has attempted to cross above the resistance area on five separate occasions. At the same time, we can see how the 50-period moving average (depicted in the blue curve above) has also capped bullish attempts. Recently, bitcoin broke above that moving average to establish an interim bullish bias. Nevertheless, the pair met the "resistance area" that prevented the rally from extending any further.
Upon the bearish divergence action from the area, bitcoin moved back towards the 50-period EMA. Surprisingly, the blue curve switched from being resistance to being support. We can see the two daily candles in the end in the chart above supported by the 50-period EMA. We can expect it to hold the downside action for a while.
At the same time, if bitcoin breaks below the 50-period EMA, then the cryptocurrency could target $3,551 as the next potential support.
Bitcoin is now in the first wave of a potential downside move, as evidenced by the formation of a bear flag. While there is a possibility that the price will reverse back towards the "resistance area" – as mentioned in the section above – the overall sentiment and the price action in recent months indicate that bitcoin is due for an extended bear run.
A breakdown action from where bitcoin is right now would be confirmed once the price tests the so-called flag support. At the same time, traders would see a rise in volume. It could pose as an excellent opportunity for short traders, with a potential initial downside target towards $3,551. Adventurous traders could also be eyeing the support trendline of medium-term triangle formation (depicted via a rising red trendline).
We are not yet sure about how we would like to play the market. There is a clear bias conflict concerning the direction of the next price action. Consequently, our priority should be to wait and confirm a breakout/breakdown to understand the extent of our positions. Overall, going by the look of bitcoin performance in the past 24 hours, we don't expect the ongoing bullish correction to continue.


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All women at RIPE 72 invited to join the net-grrls for lunch at RIPE 72. Join us to make new friends and expand your professional network!
The purpose of this meeting is to stimulate informal discussion on topics of mutual interest between academics, NRENs and the RIPE NCC Executive Board.


Game Booster works by temporarily shutting down background processes, cleaning RAM, and intensifying processor performance. That means you can keep all the features of your operating system ready for when you need them, but turn them off when you are ready to get down to serious business – gaming.
· Game Booster can easily and fast close background processes and unnecessary Windows services, to speed up you game playing and avoid possible conflicts and incompatibility. Its intuitive interface makes Game Booster the perfect tool for complete computer beginner. With the innovative "Enhanced 3rd parties' services detection" technology, Game Booster can automatically detect and close more unnecessary background services.
· PC gamers know how important to install new drivers for modern PC games. Now Game Booster can do the job for you easily and free.
· Game Booster helps you download or update necessary game tools, like Directs or Steam, to enjoy better gaming experience.
· With the improved defragment engine, Game Booster can quickly defragment game directories and files, to make your games load and run faster than ever.
· Game Booster can tweak your PC for the ultimate system and Internet speed with a single click.


I am a global lead for FleishmanHillard's Social & Innovation practice group. I have nearly 20 years of agency experience, with a focus on integrated marketing, social strategy and social business, executive social media, content marketing, community management, employee advocacy and issues/crisis management.
In my role, I collaborate with other leaders in the firm to develop social media solutions for clients while helping to further the agency's thought leadership efforts. I also serve as social media advisor for FleishmanHillard's global Ethics Committee, helping to address ethics-related issues and ensure best practices across the firm.
I am a founding member and co-chair of the PR Council's Digital and Social Media Community. I am also an active board member with Launch St. Louis, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping St. Louis non-profits develop "young friends" boards. I'm also a founding member of the University of Missouri St. Louis (UMSL) Digital Media Marketing Advisory Board and currently chairs the UMSL Digital Board Curriculum Committee.


Technoform Bautec's insulating profiles and Technoform Glass Insulation's warm edge spacer systems for insulating glass units (IGUs) have been awarded Material Health Certificates by the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute.
At the Platinum level, TGI®-Spacer Wave, TGI®-Spacer M and TGI®-Spacer M with wire products are listed in the Cradle to Cradle online material health certificate registry. At the Gold level, Technoform Bautec insulating profiles (PA 66 GF 25) in different sizes are listed. Currently, each product is one of fewer than 30 listed in their categories.
All products earning a Gold or Platinum Material Health Certificate do not contain X assessed (highly problematic) chemicals. The Gold and Platinum levels also meet all lower level requirements including Banned List compliance.
Technoform Bautec, TGI and their material health certificates support building teams pursuing sustainable and wellness project goals, such as the energy-efficiency, daylighting and material health ingredient criteria detailed in the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED v4.
Technoform Bautec's high-precision, extruded polyamide, insulating profiles and TGI's hybrid spacer systems enhance the thermal performance and condensation resistance of building envelopes as part of aluminum windows, doors and façades. Third-party simulations and independent laboratory testing confirm the products' high performance, meeting or exceeding energy code requirements.
To learn more about Technoform Group North America, and Technoform Bautec's and TGI's Material Health Certificates, please visit http://www.technoform.com.


Hello and welcome to exampundit. Here are the important Current Affairs update of 14 and 15 June, 2017. These are important for the upcoming SBI Clerk 2017, Dena Bank PGDBF, NICL AO Mains and other exams in 2017 July and August.
according to a UN report.
credits to support priority sectors investments.
has allocated a sum of Rs. 20339 crore for the purpose.
anti-competitive behaviour in its local unit in India.
Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182).
eligible for immediate reference for bankruptcy proceedings.
euro 80 million grant to the Indian government's Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA).
to reduce child deaths due to diarrhoea.
2017 sailed into Fremantle to participate in a week-long naval exercise, AUSINDEX–17, off the Western Australian coast.
economy and build critical infrastructure.
theme of the 2017 World Blood Donor Day is Give Blood. Give Now. Give Often.
country surpassing China, according to a UN report.
their families, helping to lift millions out of poverty.
2007 to $445 billion in 2016.
China, the Philippines, Mexico and Pakistan.
($ 61 billion), the Philippines ($30 billion) and Pakistan ($20 billion).
billion in remittances as compared to $ 38.4 billion for China.
33 per cent in comparison.
and other sectors," Exim Bank said in a note.
Fifth India-Korea finance ministers meet.
services from India and Korea as part of projects in third countries.
(GST) proposition for large and mid-sized corporations in India.
and filing of returns under the new tax regime.
validation services for the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) segment.
Managing Director & CEO, NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure Ltd.
Scheme (ISS) for farmers for the year 2017-18.
will continue for one year and it will be implemented by NABARD and RBI.
NABARD for refinance to RRBs and Cooperative Banks.
2 per cent as against 5 per cent.
loans up to 6 months.
Korean automaker of anti-competitive behaviour in its local unit in India.
proposal to introduce a Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance Bill, 2017.
financial service providers in financial distress.
1973 (No 138) and the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182).
of coherence between public policies and services.
occupation with the exception of light work and artistic performances.
activities such as drug trafficking and hazardous work.
non-performing by banks as of 31 March 2016.
banks should be required to file for insolvency proceedings under the IBC.
for insolvency proceedings under the IBC in respect of the identified accounts.
nearly all children in the primary school years.
under District Primary Education Programme in 1994.
Fortnight (IDCF) to intensify efforts to reduce child deaths due to diarrhoea.
stakeholders to prioritize investment in control of diarrhoea.
of Oral Rehydration Salt (ORS) solution and Zinc tablets.
Zinc therapy will be conducted at state, district and village levels.
will be covered during the program across the country.
this programme are Agni, Akash, Trishul and Prithvi.
generation "fire and forget" anti-tank missile.
battle tanks and other heavily armoured targets.
AUSINDEX-17, off the Western Australian coast.
represented by HMA Ships Newcastle, Waller and Clearance Diving Team Four.
existing bonds between India and Australia.
(Commercial Vehicles) Ravindra Pisharody has resigned due to personal reasons.
Afghanistan's economy and build critical infrastructure.
Afghan refugees sent back from Pakistan.
institutions and businesses in selected areas of Herat Province.
more should be done to tackle the terrorist threat online.
that leads to much harm.
his home in University Park, Maryland. He was 76.
Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Blood. Give Now. Give Often.


text:
If you're looking for brainless fun, Dolly Ki Doli is the movie for you!
By Shafiq Ul Hasan Published: February 3, 2015
You will have to put your intellect away to enjoy it when watching the movie. PHOTO: PUBLICITY
Dolly Ki Doli is a cinematic venture that has been hyped up beyond understanding. One reason that comes to my mind, surrounding this hype, is the fact that this is the first time Arbaaz Khan, Salman Khan's baby brother, has chosen a lead who is not his own brother.
Dolly Ki Doli revolves around a con artist named Dolly (Sonam Kapoor) who marries young men from different backgrounds and religions, and then steals their money. To help her complete such feats, she has a gang of con artists who act as her family members. Zeeshan Ayub (one of the 'family members') extracts information about rich, gullible families who are then approached by Dolly's 'family' to get the wedding bells ringing. The movie is primarily about Dolly and the cons she undertakes with Sonu Sarawat (Rajkumar Rao), Manjot Singh (Varun Sharma) and Robin Singh (Pulkit Samrat).
Performance wise, the actors who stood out in the movie include Rajkumar, Zeeshan, Pulkit and even Varun. Sonam, in my opinion, does not manage to 'shine' in this movie like she did in Khoobsurat. While she carries the role well, there are not many performance-oriented scenes for her to show her merit. Besides, working with three different actors so closely and trying to match chemistry with each of them is not an easy task.
Photo: Dolly Ki Doli Official Facebook Page
Rajkumar, however, is a treat to watch from the very first scene. He is a volcano of talent and his Haryanavi diction is free from any flaw. He is a first rate actor and should consider doing comedies more often. His romantic and emotional scenes captivated the audience completely – nothing at that point could distract these viewers. And for good reason.
Zeeshan, who also gave a riveting performance, should be given more credit for his work. From his debut role to acting in films like Mere Brother Ki Dulhan, Jannat 2 and Raanjhanaa, he has always managed to impress his audience. Yet he remains in the shadows. His outburst of emotions is amazing; if given a stronger role I am sure he will easily acquire a standing in the same league as Boman Irani and Paresh Rawal.
Pulkit is like a gush of fresh air and he looks great! In his Robin Singh avatar, you will see glimpses of a younger Chullbul Pandey from the Dabangg series. In my opinion, the testimony to his talent is the scene in which he shouts at Sonam on the highway – keep an eye out for it!
Varun was… cute and gave a calculated performance. This performance could easily be considered one of his most prominent works.
Alongside these, Manoj Joshi, Rajesh Sharma and Brijendra Kala (Inspector Khan) also performed very well. Archana Puran Singh is, as usual, loud. With regards to the music, the ones that stuck with me were, the item song Fashion Khattam by Malaika, Naina Kafir Hogaye by Rahat Fateh Ali and Phattay Tak Nachna by Sunidhi Chauhan.
The one positive about Dolly Ki Doli was its length– Abhishek Dogra keeps it nice and crispy. Thank God.
With a weak script that was predictable and not engaging at all, Dolly Ki Doli is the perfect example of how good performances still have a chance at saving a movie. The best way to describe this film, in my opinion, is 'brainless fun'.
Based on the performances and comedy, I'll give it a 2.5 out of five.
3 Comments Print Email
The author is an avid movie lover and reviews films and dramas regularly. He is a professional digital inbound marketer. He has worked with a silicon valley-based social network as a content analyst. He blogs at www.shafiqsiddiqui.com and tweets as @shafiqulhasan81 (twitter.com/shafiqulhasan81)
Chhalawa: Don't waste your eidi or your time
As long as we keep producing films like Junoon-e-Ishq, Pakistani cinema will never get anywhere
Project Ghazi: A missed opportunity
Sherdil can talk the patriotic talk but doesn't know where or how to walk
Golnath Agarwal
Seems like a Bollywood masala film. The kind that are good entertainment.Recommend
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8559594100366660134#allposts Supriya Arcot
Will surely pick this up . Am a big fan of such unapologetic logic less brain dead movies . Am not a huge fan of "intelligent" cinema . My life teaches me many lessons . U go to movies to relax and unwind , not to " learn lessons". Recommend
Maximus Decimus Meridius
well sometimes we do need fun sans logic. Tbh movies like this should be made more. For isn't it one of the basic purposes of movies to take the audience on a fantasy trip?Recommend


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The Digital Butterfly Effect: What It Means For Digital Marketers
5 Ways ML And SME Collaboration Can Accelerate Innovation
The Customer Journey Versus The Service Blueprint: How To Play Nice
Social Media Is Key To The Job Search For Both Employers And Employees
Philanthropy Trends To Watch In 2023
Three Ways To Bring Joy Back Into The Workplace
Today's Tech Job Market: Perhaps More Boom Than Gloom
4 Tips For Building Culture In A Hybrid Workplace
Why The U-Shaped Profit Curve Generally Rules
George Bradt
Mar 21, 2018, 09:30am EDT |
Whitney Bromberg Hawkings
FLOWERBX
There are some immutable laws of nature. Fighting time, tides, taxes and u-shaped profit curves is futile. Accept their existence and focus on battles you can win your way. This is true from fashion to freight carriers to flowers. Those selling smaller quantities at higher margins make money. Those selling larger quantities at lower margins make money. Everyone else gets caught in the middle and loses. Witness Flowerbx, supermarket flowers and Hallmark Flowers.
As described earlier in this publication, Whitney Bromberg Hawkings' Flowerbx is "rooted in luxury." I recently heard her talk about her business and was struck by her singular vision.
Whitney says flowers "convey love." She's committed to delivering "the freshest flowers you can buy" with "no compromises." For her, it's personal. She knows she's got her name, her investors' money and her customers' feelings on the line every day.
She said, "I am my customer." She thinks about her customers as different versions of herself – a younger her, a richer her, different hers. This allows her to put herself in their shoes (generally with heels) and strip everything back to what she would want in their situation focusing on "the pure flower" with no compromises.
This is not surprising given her passion for fashion. She was Tom Ford's personal assistant and rose to become his right hand woman and then SVP of communications over 18 years as he progressed from being creative director of Gucci and Yves St. Laurent to having his own fashion label. Whitney told Chris Floyd that dressing for a fashion icon like Tom was "like being ready for your first date every day of your life — everything has to be perfect."
The back end of Flowerbx is logistics and freight. Flowerbx doesn't make flowers. They focus on delivering the best flowers from Holland's flower markets faster, fresher and "perfect" every day.
Supermarkets play at the other end of the U-Shaped profit curve. They make a wide range of flowers and bouquets available at the lowest possible prices. Where Flowerbx won't take anything but "A" quality flowers for its relatively price-indifferent customers. Supermarkets provide acceptable flowers at the right price. Even so, their margins on flowers are far greater than their margins on everyday groceries, making flowers a good business for supermarkets.
Hallmark tried to find a middle way and sell flowers in their gift stores. They used the same supply chain that supplies flowers to supermarkets and routed them through their stores. Their logic was that it was the same shopping occasion in that people in their stores were looking for ways to brighten someone else's day.
But their business depended on their customers being willing to pay more for an inferior product in a less convenient location. Flowerbx delivers the freshest flowers possible on demand. Supermarket flowers are acceptable because of relatively fast inventory turns. Hallmark's slower inventory turns made their flowers inferior even to those in supermarkets. Marry that with Hallmark's higher prices and customers' need for a special trip and that business would have worked only if their customers were stupid. That's a bad bet.
Implications of the u-shaped profit curve for you
Flowerbx wins at the high end, making higher margins or relatively lower volumes. Supermarkets win at the low end, making smaller margins on relatively higher volumes. Everyone in the middle loses.
Pick one.
If you're going to play at the high end, make it personal. Design, produce, deliver or support your product or service in the way you would ideally want it to be if you could afford it. Invest in delighting your customers.
If you're going to play at the low end, be brutal about inefficiencies. Simplify or outsource everything you can to design, produce, deliver or support your product or service at the lowest possible cost.
If you're thinking about playing in the middle, quit now. You're inevitably doomed to failure. Far better to pick up your pieces and play somewhere else where you can win your way.
Follow me on Twitter. Check out my website.


Pin-up There are 3 products.
The pin-up spirit will once again be on the spotlight with this unique statue based on a design created by Olivier Vatine. Limited edition to 99 copies + Catalog and estimated value from the website cote-a-cas. 2016 Version, 478 pages. A5 size: 210mm x 145mm.
The pin-up spirit will once again be on the spotlight with this unique statue based on a design created by Olivier Vatine. Limited edition to 599 copies.
The pin-up spirit will once again be on the spotlight with this unique statue based on a design created by Olivier Vatine. Limited edition to 150 copies.


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text:
Socialdemocratism
April 4th, 2021 Asger Trier Engberg Leave a comment Go to comments
Guys, we are in trouble, again, if I may be so bold.
Ok, let me be absolutely honest with you, where did this strand of "Change" come from, and where does it lead.
Well, it comes from a European Socialdemocratic tradition that has developed under the yoke of different fascist enemies.
My first political mentor Per alias "Tom", was a freedom fighter in the second world war. He was a part of the tradition that gave us the freedom fighters of Spain and he himself had fought vigorously against the nazis.
Pretty cool guy.
I met him at university where I studied history at that time.
His version of Socialdemocratism let him to fight, and risk his life in the organisation BOPA, Borgerlige partisaner.
What he fought for, was a world, where people are free from opression, living in a democratic world.
So, when I initiated my own career or whatever you call it, I tried to look into the problems we have had with socialism as well as liberalism.
My conclusion was quite clear, when Stalin abandoned the democratic cause in the Spanish civil war, socialism fell. It is the component of democracy, the "republic", that needs to be in there, to make it work.
And, another thing. Marx abandoned faith to make "dialectic materialism", that is a communist idea without faith.
That takes out g-d out of the equation. Another fault to my mind.
Without G-d there will be no drive towards goodness in life.
So I wanted to fix these two problems of Socialdemocratism.
That is the basis of Change.
G-d bless America, remember. We fought islamic fascism, remember?
This has given Socialdemocratism a breather, and it is rebounding in Europe. Denmark where I live, it is all healthy and sound.
France as well, it is finding its way as well. A new fascist enemy, the rebirth of Democracy and so on.
I fixed the problems.
But in US, due to Trump, not to be mean to Trump, but just to state the pretty obvious, Change is somehow seen as a Trump thing. And the Socialdemocrats there are rapidly going down the old, sucking, corrupt hole that were sucking the life out of Socialdemocratism before Obama.
The Change that I and Obama did is rapidly evaporating.
Now, I cant do anything about it, it seems to me, that you guys have gone pretty far down the rabbit hole, and that is understandable due to all the trouble of the Trump presidency.
But seriously, taking all the good things of Change and ditching that as well. That is a problem, and it seems to me, it is actually accelerating into an even more destructive version of Socialdemocratism.
Guys, a sound society is a society based on healthy families living in healthy cities. All based on a small but efficient state, to help those in need.
A good, hardworking population that shares the same ideals and dreams.
The unity that heals is yet to be seen, and it is getting further and further away.
What will happen in four years, I will tell you what will happen, destruction, mayhem, revolution, animosity and lack of cohesion.
What did we dream about in the Spanish civil war? We dreamt of a society that was sound and healthy, a society with amble room for everybody and peace within the republic.
That and a sound faith in spirit.
Raise that ancient motheaten banner that Stalin took down, and you will have a good society, where people are truly happy to be in, because that is what it is all about. The happiness of the people, right?
Not your own satisfaction of winning the game, but he people, remember?
G-d bless the will to be a unifier and not a someone who makes chasms of disunity between people.
Strategy Islamic State


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No category of digital content has attracted payments from more than 33% of American Net users
Pew Internet reports that 65% of American Net users (75% of the people they contacted) have paid for online, digital content. Ever. And there's no category of goods in which more than one third of the respondents have ever paid for content.
The content could include articles, music, software, or anything else in digital form. Here are the results for the fifteen different types of content Pew asked about:
33% of internet users have paid for digital music online
33% have paid for software
21% have paid for apps for their cell phones or tablet computers
19% have paid for digital games
18% have paid for digital newspaper, magazine, or journal articles or reports
16% have paid for videos, movies, or TV shows
15% have paid for ringtones
12% have paid for digital photos
11% have paid for members-only premium content from a website that has other free material on it
10% have paid for e-books
7% have paid for podcasts
5% have paid for tools or materials to use in video or computer games
5% have paid for "cheats or codes" to help them in video games
5% have paid to access particular websites such as online dating sites or services
2% have paid for adult content
The first three are way lower than I would have expected. That 15% have paid for ringtones I find bewildering and just a little depressing. That 2% report having paid for "adult content" I take as meaning 2% actually responded, "Yeah, I pay for porn. You gotta problem with that?"
Overall, there are a number of different conclusions we could draw:
1. The survey was flawed. (The survey questions are here [pdf]). But Pew is a reputable group, and not in service of some other group with an agenda.
2. There is such a wealth of goodness on the Net that in no single category do a majority of people have to use money to get what they want.
3. This a sign of disease: So few people are paying for anything that entire categories of goods-provisioning are going to die, taking the abundances with them.
4. This is a sign of health: New business models based on minority participation are and will emerge that will keep the categories alive, and, indeed, flourishing.
5. Most of what's available on the Net sucks so much that we won't pay for it.
6. We are just so over paying for things, dude.
FWIW, I find I'm willing to pay for more content these days, in part out of a sense of responsibility, in part because the payment mechanisms have gotten easier, and always if I can sense the human behind the transaction. (This is a self-report, not a principled stand.)
Categories: business, copyright, culture, journalism Tagged with: business • commerce • ecommerce • pew Date: December 30th, 2010 dw
[berkman] Doc Searls
Doc Searls is giving a Berkman lunch called "The Intention Economy." [Note: I'm live-blogging, missing points, paraphrasing badly, making spellping errors, etc.
He begins by talking about some problems. E.g., "the people vs. Comcast." Customers are unhappy. "Comcast can't fix itself alone." Or, customer loyalty cards that are the Green Stamps of our time. "They leverage something that's broken about e-commerce." E.g., the Harvard Co-op gives a 10% "discount" if you join. But they make you enter a ton of personal data, the same data you enter at every other e-comm site. Or public radio: Everyone in the room listens, but only about half give. Doc would like to be able to give to support particular programs.
The problem in all these cases is Customer Relationship Management (CRM). CRM is not about relating. "The problem is that most big businesses think that the best customer is a captive one." "That's why the free market is still your choice of captor." But "we're now about three minutes into the Big Bang" when it comes to the Net. The challenge is to "prove that a free customer is more valuable than a captive one."
So, Doc has started Project VRM (vendor relationship management) to provide ways for customers to drive relationships with vendors. "With VRM, the individual is the point of integration for his or her own data" and is also the "point of origination of what's done with" that data. There have been VRM meetups across Europe and North America.
VRM is an open source project (although there are some commercial projects underway also). Doc talks briefly [too quickly for me to keep up] about some of the people involved. Likewise for projects: Personal health info. "Personal RFPs" where a customer sends a query to vendors for bids on things the customer wants to buy. The user wouldn't give away any unnecessary info. Also: Making terms of service readable and user-focused.
Doc spends a little more time on creating a new business model for free media that isn't advertising. Free media first means non-commercial media, but ultimately for blogs, etc. The model is temporarily named "PayChoice," and is based on letting individuals pay how much they want when they want for what they want. The Public Radio tuner is one result. 1.3M have downloaded it into their iPhones already. It turns your iPhone into a radio tuned into public radio. It enables listeners to hold up their end of relationship. The "R" button lets a user pay for what she wants. But it's not just for paying. It could also represent an intention to buy, and intention to sell, etc.
So, what happens when customers get real power?
– "Customers get their own pricing guns" [i.e., the "guns" that print out price labels].
– "The intention economy" will get real because it's based on what customers really want, as opposed to the attention economy that's based on guesses.
– "The advertising bubble will burst." There will still be ads, but they won't be the "communications method of first resort."
– "Cluetrain will finally be right."
Q: What about eBay?
A: There are lots of sites that do this, but why should we only have sites? Your eBay reputation is only inside eBay. Why should it be stuck there? We want service portability.
Q: What will be the method conveying your desires to companies? A third party service? A non-profit?
A: On the public radio tuner, the "listen log" keeps track of what you've listened to. Ideally that would sit on our own computers in encrypted form. Some of that we're solving with Ian Henderson's personal data store, some with Lukas' The Mine. But let's say we have that solved. Right now, we use "third parties," which generally live on the vendor's side. We see a fourth party business, driven by users. E.g., with music, it'd be good to be able to set a price on the music you stream. Some fourth party business will pull that money together. We're working on a chapter-based association for user-driven services.
Q: So you create sort of a DNS service…?
A: One model is RSS. It'd be good to be able to advertise your needs, possibly through RSS. Maybe it's tag-based, maybe it's anonymous.
Q: What do you envision for traditional companies dealing with this?
A: Let's we have our own loyalty card. As customers inject more intelligence into the marketplace about what they're willing to say about themselves, we'll see things like fact-checking of vendors' claims against us; it'd be cool if the customer could as a data backup. I don't see a downside for traditional customers. More intelligence and more good will in the market will benefit everyone. It's a fallacy to think that people only shop on price. Starbucks proves the contrary
Q: [me] Situate this in micropayments and tipjars, and identity management.
A: We're doing micro-accounting, not micropayments. Small payments are accumulated. Micropayments haven't worked for anyone except the phone company, and they abused it. WRT identity: I've been interested in that for a long time. Along the way, Andre Durand (of Jabber) once said that we have to get identity worked out. Identities are given to us by other corporations: what the DMV, the library, Visa (etc) tell us who we are. Andrew thought this was backwards. We have to reverse it. I now think that that's important, but it's separate from VRM. There are times when identity isn't used at all. My wife about 15 years ago asked why we can't take our shopping cart from one site to another. And when I was working with the ID management folks, my wife said she wants less identity, not more. Adriana Lukas' The Mine project is intended to work independent of any identity system. The whole identity movement is a separate thing that overlaps VRM somewhat. VRM isn't part of the identity space.
What happens on the aggregate level? A lot of CRM is about companies aggregating anonymized data and using it for recommendations, etc.
A: Companies will continue to gather intelligence about us. Companies can improve that. Amazon's recommendations are the best, but they're still broken. Your kids use your computers and your recos go off track. Or you buy one book and Amazon thinks you're interested in the category. Those recos are still guesswork. And they don't know what only you know, and what's outside their system.
Comcast is actively providing what I don't want because they want to sell more on-demand. Do you see VRM breaking down those monopolies?
A: Cable TV is really broken. We have Verizon FIOS. The TV is fantastic. But they only provide 20MB for Internet. For us that's backward. I tried canceling, and they came back with an offer that reflects their real costs. But we don't watch TV, so we still said no. I offered to pay a la carte, but nope.
Q: What are the enabling technologies for VRM? If companies still haven't figured out how to do this, what do you have to provide?
A: Money. If there's money left on the table…We're doing field of dreams here.
Q: Thinking about Linked Data/RDF for putting this data out in a much richer way? It's the rich, decentralized model you're looking for.
A: The short answer is no, but the longer answer is sure. We're in touch with those folks. It's a matter of who shows up.
Q: Is this more generational?
A: I don't know. It's whoever shows up. We need to make stuff that benefits everyone.
Q: What about characterizing the ecosystem you're trying to build with certification levels of VRM? Companies could advertise that they're at different levels of VRMitude.
A: We have a draft of this, on the wiki: ProjectVRM.org We also want a list of core principles.
Q: How do you balance the explicit data sharing in advertising intent ("I'm looking for a car") with the fact that sites are selling that data to vendors?
A: The whole VRM idea came out of one use case: car rental. The variables are never what they're offering. E.g., I want to be able to get a car that plays MP3 CDs. As more customers can advertise their needs, it will change those businesses, and probably discourage the profligate sharing of information.
Q: What about customized fabrication, i.e., making products in response to customer desires. What does this do to branding?
A: Some companies are going to succeed by giving people what they want. We're all different and want different things. That's what the Net will come down to eventually.
Q: Insurance companies and lendors have competitive vendors markets. Imagine that for car rentals…
A: That's an example of a personal RFP. It's an example of a substitutable service.
Q: Individuals will never be on an equal basis with, say, Verizon. What about collaboration?
A: I avoided that. We don't want to start with the collective and move to the personal. We want to start with the personal. We need lots of individuals doing VRM for it to work. We want this to be a victory for Verizon as well.
Q: It's going to be hard to get businesses out of the captive customer mindset. Is VRM a pipe dream? Will companies fail and VRM-ish ones arise?
A: All of the above. Some leopards won't change their stripes. They'll also have to wake up and smell the coffee.
Q: What about the cultural domain? NGOs?
A: Huge opportunities. Britt Blaser is working on Government Relationship Management. A lot of great opportunities came out of the Obama campaign. There's a great outfit in the UK with a site called fixmystreet.org: post photos of potholes and the local gov't patches them. Being able to express what you're looking for will work with any type of organization. Take Relationship Management and stick another letter in front of it. We want the demand side and supply side to get along. [Tags: doc_searls vrm ecommerce business public_radio ]
Categories: Uncategorized Tagged with: business • cluetrain • digital culture • ecommerce • marketing • vrm Date: March 24th, 2009 dw


Posted on March 11, 2013, in Dead Mech Podcast, Metal and Ash, The Americans Podcast, What's Up.... and tagged bible, dead mech, drabble, fiction, future, genre, horror, Jake Bible, mech, novel, podcasts, science, science fiction, scifi, undead, writing. Bookmark the permalink.	Comments Off on From Dead Mech To Dead Mic- Interview with the Dead Robots Society.


text:
Michael Lewis Webster (Tomahawk, Wisconsin, Estados Unidos; 18 de marzo de 1952-Pittsburgh, Pensilvania, Estados Unidos; 24 de septiembre de 2002), más conocido como Mike Webster, fue un jugador profesional de fútbol americano que jugaba en la posición de center.

Jugó a nivel universitario en Wisconsin antes de ser elegido por los Pittsburgh Steelers en la quinta ronda del Draft de la NFL de 1974. Permaneció quince temporadas en los Steelers, con los que ganó cuatro títulos de Super Bowl. Se retiró en 1990 tras disputar dos temporadas con los Kansas City Chiefs.

Webster está considerado como uno de los mejores centers de la historia.Fue incluido en el Salón de la Fama del Fútbol Americano Profesional en 1997 y fue elegido para los equipos ideales de la NFL de las décadas de 1970 y 1980, así como para los equipos del 75 y 100 aniversario de la liga.

Falleció el 24 de septiembre de 2002 a los 50 años de edad a causa de un ataque al corazón. Posteriormente fue diagnosticado con encefalopatía traumática crónica (CTE), una enfermedad neurodegenerativa causada por traumatismos craneales reiterados. Webster fue el primer jugador de fútbol americano en ser diagnosticado con esta enfermedad y desde entonces ha sido un símbolo de los daños en la cabeza en la NFL y del debate sobre la seguridad de los jugadores de fútbol americano.

Referencias

Jugadores de Kansas City Chiefs
Jugadores de Pittsburgh Steelers
Miembros del Salón de la Fama del Fútbol Americano Profesional
Nacidos en Wisconsin


text:
Home / Features / Pied Piper by Carys Davies
On writing 'Melting Point'
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On writing 'The Complex'
On Writing 'The Somnambulist Cookbook'
Finding the balance – Writing life post-publication
Pied Piper by Carys Davies
Ogmore-by-Sea © David Garry / iStock
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster, we're posting this short story by Carys Davies taken from her 2007 collection, Some New Ambush.
MARY OWEN FOUND the baby in the sand on the afternoon of her forty-sixth birthday, a Tuesday. She stepped off the bus in the usual place and walked slowly towards the dunes — very slowly, Mary Owen being by this time a vast and sluggish woman. She left her shoes where she always left them, in the shadow of the wooden turnstile, and continued down towards the beach beyond, the blue plastic bucket for the cockles swinging off the crook of her elbow.
She always came on Tuesdays to look for cockles. She'd developed a yen for them, dressed in vinegar and eaten with a spoon. (We used to say she was gobbling up her own bitterness with each sour bowl.) Sometimes, the local boys came up from Ogmore to watch the fat lady with her blue bucket, her cotton dress tucked up around her great thighs, bent over the wet sand in search of the little creatures. But today no one had come to watch. Even by Ogmore standards, the grey sea was uninviting. The occupants of a green car were already too far away to observe Mary, and in another moment, their car had disappeared altogether along the curving road to the east, in the direction of Southerndown. Which only left the gulls, and the sheep, nibbling the tarmac in the car park up above the big flat rocks. Mary walked unseen between the clumps of bloomless thistles, crunching the coarse grass under her soft, fat feet, until she came to the edge of the dunes and the beginning of the hard strand where the cockles would be. She was, in spite of the cool of the day, red-faced and perspiring. She stopped to fan herself with the lip of the blue plastic bucket, and there, almost at her feet, where the wind had blown a hollow in the sand, was the baby, waiting for her.
Waiting for her — that's how she thought of it. She'd always believed (in spite of everything her mother had told her) that life should be fair, and it hadn't been fair to her. She was sad and disappointed, and we all said it was disappointment that had made her fat. At twenty, she'd been a slip of a girl, but then she'd married Will, who loved her but couldn't seem to give her a baby, and slowly she began blowing up. Every year, thick new layers of herself settling around her resentful heart like the rings of an ageing tree. Her face hadn't changed so much — it was much the same face Will had fallen in love with twenty-six years before. It was recognisably the face of the girl in the photo on the gate-legged table in the Owens' front room. It was only, now, slightly overwhelmed by its surroundings, and there was a look of shock in the round blue eyes, shock at the way life had turned out. The look Mary had was not unlike the small face you see on a coconut, full of sadness and surprise.
Later, watching the Tuesday sun sink behind the mountain, Will would wonder how his wife could go off on the number 12 bus with only cockles on her mind and come back with a baby. But he was wrong, of course, about his wife's mind. Childlessness had ferried Mary into another world. She was ill, wasn't she? Ill with craving.
The baby, a boy, was still mucky from its birth and daubed all over with sand. His skin darkish under its redness, his hair fair in the places where it had been dried by the wind. He was quiet — only his arms flailed in the salted air, as if he thought he were falling and was trying to hold onto something. He was wrapped in a length of clean, white linen which the breeze from the distant water had blown into loose coils around him. More sand blew in gentle gusts off the sloping dune, and had begun to drift softly against him in the hollow. It occurred to Mary that with a little more wind, he might have been quite buried in the sand if she hadn't come. It occurred to her that she'd been guided to this place.
Even so, crouching uncomfortably over the infant, she hesitated. She caught the sour scent of her own anxiety in the air. Grains of sand clung to her warm cheeks. Smooth and unlined in spite of what she'd had to put up with, they had grown slick in the cool sunshine. It was a long time since she'd taken anything that didn't belong to her and tried to keep it as her own. As a girl, she'd taken things. She had a longing for the nice things other people had in their houses, like Ruth Pritchard's mum's jewellery (a jet necklace and a gold ring set with a huge, milky opal). The Pendelphin rabbits Mrs. Bessant had sitting on doilies in her front window. Daffodils from the Gaynors' garden. But Mary's mother had always discovered her daughter's crimes. She'd reminded Mary of the Commandments. Thou shalt not covet. Thou shalt not steal. Even the daffodils had to go back, laid on the flowerbed in the Gaynors' small garden with a note of apology tucked into the wet soil. The only stolen thing Mary had ever managed to keep was the chocolate she took once from the Co-op at the bottom of the hill, and that was because she ate it straightaway, wolfing it down in gulps behind her hand, right outside the shop on the pavement before anyone could come and make her take it back.
It plagued her now, the idea that she'd only be allowed to borrow the baby, that one day she'd have to give him back. While she continued to stoop, and to hesitate, a gust of wind tugged at the length of white linen around the baby and it unfurled like an escaping kite until only a corner remained secured beneath the boy's tiny, flat feet. Mary saw then that the piece of linen resembled a tablecloth, embroidered along one edge. Where it was hoisted high into the air by the wind, she saw there was a half-embroidered flower, one blue petal and the toothed edge of a leaf. A needle, and a length of blue silk thread, fluttering from the spot where a second petal had been begun next to the first. She'd rather this had not been the case. She would rather the linen had been a piece of rag, or an old sheet, because she was no fool. She knew, as she stood there in the cool sunshine, that there's a tendency among babies abandoned at birth — babies tucked into bull rushes, babies cast upon the barren flanks of mountains — to come swaddled in invisible complications. And the cloth, with its piece of interrupted sewing, struck her then as a possible complication.
But there was nothing in the whole world she'd ever wanted as much as she wanted this half-buried boy. In the chilly, rising wind, he pursed his blue-brown lips against the dry whipping of the sand. His wrinkled face, not much bigger than an orange, puckered and prepared to cry. He repeated the frantic flailing with his arms in the air. She couldn't help herself. Her hot, swollen heart was pushing up into her throat, telling her that this baby was a thing she was meant to find and to keep. Quickly, she gathered him into her large hands, and carried him, bound warmly now in the tablecloth, back up over the dunes. At the turnstile she slipped her shoes back on and walked carefully up the road to the bus stop.
It takes about an hour on the bus from the beach at Ogmore to our town in the valleys — one bus to Bridgend, then another to bring you the rest of the way. The bus still carries you in the same way it brought Mary that day — past the Co-op at the bottom of the hill, then up between the two matching rows of terraced houses that face each other along the steep slope of the narrow street. The bus comes slowly, it lolls and staggers between the changing of the gears, and looks as if it might start rolling backwards all the way down to the sea. The children said it went extra slowly on a Tuesday with Mary Owen inside it. God, they were noisy weren't they, our children? We had to clamp our hands over their mouths in case she heard.
Half way up, through a gap in the terrace, Mary could see over to the coal mine and, off to the side, the slag heap. The slag — the dark mound of coal waste spat out by the pit — rose up against the green and purple mountain behind our town. All her life, Mary had watched it get bigger every year, up there on the hillside above the school. By the summer of her forty-sixth birthday the slag had grown to be practically a mountain by itself, which some people said they could hear groaning and shifting in the night, as if it were trying to get comfortable. Our town hasn't changed much to look at since that day.
There is the Co-op, and the mine, and the bus stop still in the same place between the Blue Lady and Jerusalem chapel. Only the slag is gone, and the school is in a different place. There is a quiet too, which is new. It is quiet as Hamelin in our little town.
At the stop, between the pub and the chapel, Mary climbed slowly down onto the pavement. Her big hands shook as she walked, she hardly trusted herself to keep the baby safe now she'd got him almost to the maroon door of her own house. She'd been considering, on the bus, how one day she would tell her little boy the secret of his birth. Present him with the mysterious cloth, like a birth certificate. The thought was still there as she stood by the fire in the front room (they always had a fire, even in summer), the piece of linen with its half-done pattern of leaves and flowers lying across her open hands. It was still there when she mounted the narrow stairs to her bedroom, and when she lifted the big, bowing mattress of the old bed, and placed the folded cloth underneath. But by the time she'd gone back into the kitchen, the thought had slipped quietly away. He was hers now.
She stood for a while, looking at the boy where he lay in her own front room, warm and clean and wrapped in a fresh pillowcase and sleeping in the lap of Will's chair. His hair was very fair now she had washed him in the green Fairy soap. She walked back over to the sink where she'd bathed him, and pushed the sandy water down into the plug-hole with the palms of her hands. She wiped the deep sink all round with a dishcloth until there was no trace of the beach left. From the folds of her wrists and her elbows, and the moist spaces between her fingers, she picked away the last grains of sand. When it was all done, she took up the baby again in her arms and sat down in Will's chair by the fire, exhausted from her labours.
There were parties, that evening, when we were told that Mary Owen had given birth to a baby boy on the beach at Ogmore-by-Sea. In the lounge bar of the Blue Lady, the men began toasting the sudden baby before they even noticed Will was there, sitting quietly in the corner, sipping his pint. Talk of a new baby had drifted towards him from the bar, and he'd wondered whose it might be, and then they were dragging him up to the bar, ribbing him about the lead in his little pencil and calling him an old bugger. 'You dark horse. You old dog,' growled Frank Gaynor, the colliery manager, thumping Will's thin back inside its soft brown jacket. His eyes watered and the air seemed to catch inside his narrow throat so that he couldn't speak. When the others were too drunk to notice, he slipped back into his corner and sat there, pressed hard against the bench seat, like a folded shadow. He stared into his pint. He took small, ferrety sips of it, and blushed like a bridegroom. He knew his wife was lying. Poor Will, he thought he was the only one who knew, but the truth was, we all knew. Everyone knew all along that she must have made the story up but nobody said so. The men knew it when they wet the baby's head that night with seven hundred pints of Brains bitter. And the women — we knew when we went piling into Mary's front room with all our make-shift presents. Talcum powder and cotton sunhats, booties and blankets, all the stuff we had lying around at home. I gave her Huw's Christening frock and she gave me a kiss for it, sweetly scented with the sherry we were drinking out of tea cups, marzipan crumbs on her lips from the Battenberg someone had brought along for the celebration.
You could say there was a conspiracy from the very beginning. Nobody laid their hand on Mary's thick arm and said gently, 'Now, Mary . . .' We went further, said it was the pregnancy that had given her the yen for the sour cockles. Even young Dr. Clare, who surely should have known better, went along with it, arriving at Mary's house without his black bag, as if he'd already made up his mind not to look into things too closely. We all wanted her to be happy, you see, to have what she wanted, to have what the rest of us had. It was only fair. I remember leaving her house that night, looking back into the room, and seeing Mary by the fire, the baby looking so warm and peaceful on her huge pillowed chest you almost wanted to climb up there yourself and go to sleep.
Would she have tried to pull off such a preposterous lie if she hadn't been so enormous? Probably, yes, I think she would have. She began to forget she'd found a stranger's baby in the sand. She began to believe the story she told, how she'd lain down in the coarse grass and with three long and agonising pangs, pushed out the boy she hadn't even known was inside her.
She called him Thomas. Mr. Davies, our minister, baptised him in the chapel. Mary dressed him in Huw's frock.
Thomas Owen became part of our town. For a year he rode up and down the hill in a navy-blue Silver Cross pram. When he was three, Mary bought him his first pair of Startrite sandals, the red ones with the pattern of holes in the toe, the ones she'd lusted after, the ones she'd seen the other mothers buying, paying the extra because it was worth it, because you got the proper fitting. And there was the picture on the box she liked too, with the two Startrite Children, safe in their good shoes even though to Mary they looked as if they were heading off on their own into a dark wood.
Thomas had flat, narrow feet, like Will. 'Look,' Will said to Mary one evening when the boy was in the bath, 'he has my feet.' It always happened like that to Will — by the time the words in his head got out across his lips, they had knitted themselves into different shapes. He said the things Mary liked to hear and kept his worry to himself.
He pictured a fairground girl, a freckled creature with oily hair falling onto her blouse. A dull patterned skirt like the ones worn by the gypsies who used to camp under the lime trees by the river when his mother was alive. The girl had something of the look of the Blue Lady too, who had gold earrings and swung on the painted sign over the pub door. At night she wormed her way into his sleep, searching frantically through her pockets for the thing she had lost. Sometimes a hank of her hair blew against her mouth, and when Will woke, in the night, he felt the girl's matted hair on his own parched lips, dry and salty, and staggered out of bed to fetch a glass of water, past his sleeping wife and baby. When he climbed back into bed his thin body shifted itself about for hours before he finally fell asleep again. He knew nothing then of the folded length of linen with its half-embroidered flower lying buried beneath the mattress, but in the mornings he woke with all his bones aching, as if something hard had got into his dreams and turned him black and blue. He felt sure he would know her if she ever came looking.
When Thomas was four years old, Mary bought him a leather satchel from Howell's in Cardiff and he went to school with the rest of our children, a hundred and twenty-three of them in the low brick building under the slag. Another year passed, and a second, and Thomas Owen turned six.
It is strange to hear a sound and not know what it is or where it is coming from. It began softly, but seemed from the start to be very close — so close that at first, I looked for it in my kitchen. In his house next to the chapel, Mr. Davies, the minister, heard it too. He paused in his writing. There it was — a low grumbling, and a gentle shifting, which became a roar. A vast deep moan of protest that seemed to rise up from the bottom of the world and come shuddering through his soul.
Through the bedroom window, Mary saw the slag move. The whole mountain seemed to swell, and then to billow, and to burst open and pour down in a filthy deluge onto the school. She watched as all the men in the town came swarming up over the muck. She watched them digging for the children. She gaped at the women standing about in small groups, very still and quiet, as if they'd had their hearts plucked out.
She shrank from the window, trembling and sick. The water in the glass on the dressing table still quivered. In the narrow bed, less feverish than he'd been in the morning when she'd decided to keep him home from school, Thomas slept on.
Another minister had to come to help us with the funerals because Mr. Davies couldn't do it. On the first Sunday after it happened he stood up in our chapel in front of the whole town and held out his arms to us as if he had something to give us, but then he put them down again without speaking and gathered up his pages of foolscap paper and went out through the big chapel doors, leaving us with nothing but the echo of his polished shoes clicking across the stone floor.
He didn't come back into the chapel after that, and spent his days at home, coming out from time to time to fetch bread and milk from the Co-op.
I began to cook for him. I took him hot soup and a bit of pie a few times a week, though more often than not he wouldn't eat them, and we would just sit by the fire in his quiet front room while he ate his loaf from the bag and drank the cream off the milk when it was still in the bottle. Sometimes he said he was very sorry that he had nothing to say to me, but that when your faith has disappeared into the mountain with a hundred and twenty-two children, it is probably better to shut up and be quiet.
On Sundays in chapel, Thomas sat between his parents in a new black suit and you could see, in Mary's little coconut face, that all her peace had gone, and that she remembered now what she'd done. People couldn't help looking at Thomas. We all sat with our empty hands folded in our laps, and looked. Everyone seemed to be watching him all the time. It was like a hunger. Mary felt it, and began to hide her golden-haired boy away. One night, she went with Will to see Mr. Davies, and in front of both of them she poured out the details. How she'd found him and wrapped him up like a birthday present to herself and kept him. How in her mind the two things, her theft of the baby and what had happened to our town, had become connected. Thou shalt not covet. Thou shalt not steal. What was she after? Forgiveness? Whatever it was, she didn't find it in the minister's house because he had nothing to tell anybody anymore, he was lost for words.
The Owens have left our town. I saw them climb on the bus at the stop between the Blue Lady and the chapel. I could see Thomas's fair head, like a bright coin against the grey stone of the buildings. I watched the bus through the window until it disappeared.
Mr. Davies is gone now, too. I miss cooking for him. To pass the time, I come down to the beach at Ogmore and sit here in the prickly dune grass, looking out across the empty sand, the puckered water. I have been trying, these last few days, to dig a hole, but it's hard work, digging a hole in a sand dune, because the sand keeps running endlessly back through your empty fingers like dry salt. Sometimes, the local boys come up to the beach. When they pass close to the dunes, their high voices distract me briefly from my digging. Then they go running off up the beach and leave me to it again, calling to each other, and glancing back over their shoulders at the funny looking woman on the dune — the sad lady from the valleys, digging for babies in the sand.
Great books, all the time.
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