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Franz Inc. named to KMWorld Magazine's 2016 "100 Companies that Matter in Knowledge Management"
Leading Semantic Graph Database and Artificial Intelligence Provider Recognized for Delivering Business Value
OAKLAND, Calif. — March 23, 2016 — Franz Inc., an early innovator in Artificial Intelligence and leading supplier of Semantic Graph Database technology, today announced that is has been named to KMWorld's 2016 list of the '100 Companies That Matter in Knowledge Management'.
"Being named to our list of 100 Companies That Matter in Knowledge Management is a prestigious designation because it represents the best in innovation, creativity and functionality," says KMWorld Editor Sandra Haimila. "The 100 Companies offer solutions designed to help users and customers find what they need whenever and wherever they need it … and what they need is the ability to access, analyze and share crucial knowledge."
"KMWorld recognizes the knowledge economy's growth will be facilitated by easily combining disparate information enterprise wide," said Dr. Jans Aasman, CEO, Franz Inc. "With the semantic flexibility of AllegroGraph, integrating knowledge bases is virtually effortless, since the data can remain in its original databases and database designers do not have to create a schema up front. In today's data-driven environments, the ability to quickly analyze data from diverse sources, both public and private, is proving particularly useful to provide unique knowledge rich analytics."
"As more public datasets become available, knowledge focused organizations are looking to leverage this information to enrich their enterprise knowledge bases," said Ms. Haimila. "Franz's Semantic Graph database, AllegroGraph, provides the platform to unlock the value of fusing this heterogeneous knowledge to gain unique business value for the Enterprise."
"Information has always existed everywhere but has often been isolated, incomplete, unavailable or unintelligible," according to Gartner. "Advances in semantic tools such as graph databases as well as other emerging data classification and information analysis techniques will bring meaning to the often chaotic deluge of information." (Source: Gartner Identifies the Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2016.)
AllegroGraph has been widely recognized and endorsed within the industry as the popularity of Graph databases has skyrocketed – growing nearly 500% in the past two years. AllegroGraph was recently named a Leading Database Solution by CIOReview, awarded Best in Semantic Web Technology & Leader in Graph Database Products by Corporate America, PharmaTech Outlook has named Franz a Top Ten Solution Provider, and Bloor Research positioned AllegroGraph as a 'Champion'.
About KMWorld
KMWorld (www.kmworld.com) is the leading information provider serving the Knowledge Management systems market and covers the latest in Content, Document and Knowledge Management, informing more than 30,000 subscribers about the components and processes – and subsequent success stories – that together offer solutions for improving business performance. KMWorld is a publishing unit of Information Today, Inc. (www.infotoday.com)
About AllegroGraph
Unlike traditional relational databases or Property Graph Databases, AllegroGraph employs semantic graph technologies that process data with contextual and conceptual intelligence. AllegroGraph is able run queries of unprecedented complexity to support predictive analytics that help organizations make more informed, real-time decisions. AllegroGraph is the first Graph Database to support analysis across N-dimensions – any conceivable measurement of an object, property or operation. AllegroGraph can analyze temporal (time) and geospatial (location) dimensions relative to any 'event,' such as a disease, drug interaction, genetic combination, biomarkers, observations, image or physical sensors. AllegroGraph is utilized by dozens of the top F500 companies worldwide.
About Franz Inc.
Franz Inc. is an early innovator in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and leading supplier of Semantic Graph Database technology with expert knowledge in developing and deploying complex Big Data analytics solutions. AllegroGraph, Franz's flagship, high-performance, transactional, and scalable Semantic Graph Database, provides the solid storage layer for Enterprise grade NoSQL solutions. AllegroGraph's Activity Recognition capabilities provides a powerful means to aggregate and analyze data about individual and organizational behaviors, preferences, relationships, plus spatial and temporal linkages between individuals and groups. For additional Franz Inc. customer success stories, please visit:
AllegroGraph – http://allegrograph.com/allegrograph-at-work/
Allegro CL – http://franz.com/success/
Franz's Professional Service team is in the business of helping companies turn Data into Information and Information into Knowledge. We combine Data, Business Intelligence, and Analytics consulting services under one roof for our customers. Franz, an American owned company based in Oakland, California, is committed to market-driven product development, the highest levels of product quality and responsive customer support and service. Franz customers include dozens of Fortune 500 companies and span the healthcare, government, life sciences and telecommunications industries worldwide. Franz has demonstrated consistent growth and profitability since inception.
All trademarks and registered trademarks in this document are the properties of their respective owners.


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Q: What marketplace are App Installer ID (not set) downloads coming from? I'm still trying to get my free game app discovered, and notice that most of my new downloads are coming from '(not set)' according to Google Analytics/Aquisition/App Marketplace. And this despite a 'This report has been filtered to include only data where there are values for "App Installer ID" dimension' message on the page. According to the docs:
"A marketplace must support the App Installer ID to be recognized by Google Analytics. Not all marketplaces support the App Installer ID, which is what Google Analytics needs to recognize a marketplace. Traffic that comes from a marketplace that Google Analytics can't identify appears in the report as (not set)."
I've only submitted my app to Google Play. Should I be concerned about these apparent rogue downloads? What marketplace are they coming from?

A: Several sites offer direct APK file downloads, one of the biggest being 'Apkmonk' where I found my free game app posted. As reported from the updated Google Analytics 'Acquisition/App Marketplace' graph, I now get 50-350 new user downloads a day from unidentified markets, compared to about 1-5 a day from Google Play (com.android.vending). I had to adjust the support code provided in the docs and examples (i.e. Trivial Drive) for InApp purchases and Google Play Services (particularly the IabHelper file) to support players who had neither Google Play Services nor Google Play Store installed on their devices. They all appeared to get null pointer exceptions on starting the app before I adjusted the code. I experimented uninstalling Google Play Services and turning off Google Play Store on my test device to find null pointer and other crash points in the support code.

As far as app performance in non-Google acquistion markets, I get banner and interstitial ad serves, but that's it. No leaderboard or achievement posts, promo redemptions or InApp purchases, which makes sense. I only get .00-.02 cents per banner or interstitial ad click in these markets, with demographics mostly US and India.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Compact and cute, with a fluffy curled tail, squinty eyes, and a fox-like appearance, the Shiba Inu is one of Japan's national treasures—and with good reason.
The Shiba Inu is an ancient breed whose origins may date back as far as 7000 BC. "Modern" breeds have been so mixed that their deep genetic history is obscured, but the Shiba—along with 12 other breeds, including the Basenji, Shar-pei, Saluki, Akita, Finnish Spitz, and Eurasier—has been recognized as one of 13 basal or root breeds, meaning that their DNA is less mixed. Written records don't exist to tell us the full story, but we do know that the Shiba has been developing and enduring for thousands of years.
By the 7th century AD, the Shiba was still evolving into the dog we know today. Japan was so forward-thinking that a dog-keeper's office was established in this ancient era. Native breeds were registered to preserve Japanese culture, and, from these records, we know that the Shiba Inu was a hunting dog, used mainly in remote, mountainous regions to locate, flush, and drive small game back to hunters.
For many centuries, Japanese breeds were not individually named, but were simply categorized by size and coat colour, and the Shiba was known as the smallest breed. Over time, six distinct native breeds developed, including the small but mighty Shiba Inu.
Healthy and hearty, the breed flourished for centuries—right up until World War II, an era that almost led to the Shiba's extinction.
Countless dogs perished in those years. Many were victims of bombings; others died from the after-effects of war: starvation and disease. Precious few Shibas remained by the end of the war, and the breed's future was dire. In a concerted effort to revive the breed, Shibas were sought and found in remote regions of Japan, where they had escaped the ravages of war. Those dogs were bred with other survivors, and the Shiba began to thrive again. The Japanese Kennel Club was founded in 1948.
While an extremely popular breed in Japan, he's a relative newcomer to North America. The first Shiba was imported into the United States in 1954. Little other documentation exists pertaining to North American breed development up until roughly 1979, when the first US-born litter was documented. The Shiba Inu was recognized by the American Kennel Club (AKC) in 1992.
The AKC accepts the breed in red, red sesame, and black-and-tan coat colours. That glorious double coat of his is nothing short of a show-stopper. The outer coat is stiff and straight, while his undercoat is soft and thick. Weights range from 18-24 pounds for males and 15-20 pounds females.
So, good looks aside… what's he like?
Because this breed's personality can be as fiery as that red coat, socialization and obedience training are a must. The breed does have a reputation for a tendency toward aggression—to other dogs, over food, etc., so lots of early and ongoing socialization are advised. Positive-reinforcement training is the correct approach, because you cannot force a Shiba to do your bidding. Then again, why would you want to, when his independence is such a large part of what makes him so very special! Only work with a trainer who understands this breed and can help you help your dog using positive and creative strategies.
Basic training aside, what can you do with your Shiba? Since he's clever, agile, and quick-footed, in some ways he's a natural for many sporting activities. Whether he'll want to engage in those activities is another question. Obedience, agility, tracking, flyball… you can try it all with your Shiba. If he takes to the sport, odds are he'll excel at it.
This is a high-energy breed—compact, densely-muscled, and agile. Daily walks and play-time are a must, as is a fenced-in yard. The breed has strong hunting instincts and generally wants to be on the move. Keep him on-leash during walks and within safe boundaries if roaming freely.
While generally a healthy breed, the Shiba Inu can be prone to some health issues. If you're buying a puppy, always do your research and work with a responsible breeder who can provide health clearances on their dogs, and who is committed to the well-being and good temperament of their puppies.
Looking for a simple, biddable fur-child? The Shiba isn't for you. This breed is feisty, foxy, and full of energy. In short, the Shiba is a handful and can be a challenge. Sharing your home with a Shiba Inu isn't just a choice, it's a way of life. Headstrong, independent, and more than a little quirky… the Shiba Inu is a wild and spirited breed, and we wouldn't want it any other way.
*There are various theories about the name of this breed. The word "Shiba" means brushwood in Japanese, and some speculate that the breed was named after the intense red colour of brushwood leaves as they turn in the fall. Others interpret the name as a reference to the fact that these dogs hunted in brushwood. Either way, the Shiba Inu it is.


Among all necessary subjects, mathematics has the most important role to play from the beginning of any educational system. Almost in every subject it has natural applications. But what makes it more vital is its importance in any career a person tries to take on later in life. This is exactly why people shouldn't avoid this particular subject and study properly from the beginning. We are available always to help and guide you at our official website called myhomeworkhelp.com. Here you will get complete Combinatorics Assignment Help.
Count all those structures in the target space.
Making decisions on when to apply certain necessary elements to reach targeted result.
Analyzing those elements that were used to reach the result.
Search for different objects depending on their sizes and nature.
Finding all those structures that have characteristics to combine their elements using algebra and its techniques.
Solving all troubles with these methods.
The main confusion was always with its natural ability to isolate the mathematical problems and find solutions individually. This process was not so helpful. But as time moved to high potentials found with 20th century, strong theories were developed side by side to help students face the challenges with confidence. It has now gained an individual identity. The most common connection that anyone finds with it is the graph theory.
These are only some of those subdivisions that are found with more influences than some indirect approaches in some other subjects also. To understand it better it is always necessary to find a proper guidance from expert teachers. That is when we come to solve the problems. At our official website called myhomeworkhelp.com you will find a complete Combinatorics Homework Help very easily.
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The greatest time interval that can elapse between the occurrence of two or more consecutive signal pulses, in order that the measuring device processes them as a coincidence.
DOI of this term: https://doi.org/10.1351/goldbook.C01139.
Original PDF version: http://www.iupac.org/goldbook/C01139.pdf. The PDF version is out of date and is provided for reference purposes only. For some entries, the PDF version may be unavailable.


Bruschetta is a fantastic house party food. Top toasted sourdough with any number of toppings to please a range of guests with differing taste buds.
Sangria has become a popular item in fancy bars, elevating the humble drink to new heights of popularity. It's born-again celebrity is no surprise; it has all the hallmarks of a great tipple, in that it suits every situation – you can drink it chilled or warmed, is best drank with mates, and is affordable to make and is damned tasty!
This salad is a fantastic side for a BBQ or house party. It's a substantial side and it's tasty enough to please even the meatatarians among us. And best of all, most of it can be done in advance.


Quick link to photo analysis pages.
Most of the evidence given in support of a conspiracy are photographs taken (or allegedly taken) on the lunar surface. Conspiracists point to details of the photographs which do not meet their expectations. This, they say, proves that the photographs were falsified.
I don't agree with that line of reasoning. First, why should I believe that the conspiracist's expectation is reasonable or correct? Almost all of them are just asserted as if they were self-evident fact, with no argument or computation to support them. And a lot of them are based on an incomplete understanding of illumination, perspective, geometry, and photography. If the expectation is wrong, then violating the expectation isn't a big deal.
Second, the conspiracist argument presumes that only two possibilities exist: either NASA's story (as the conspiracist recounts it) must be perfectly consistent down to the smallest detail, or else there was a massive conspiracy and coverup including a falsification of the evidence. In logic this is called a false dichotomy. For most of the observed "anomalies" there are many possibilities, and showing cause to disbelieve one alternative doesn't automatically prove that some other alternative must be true.
Even if non-conspiracists can't satisfactorily explain some given anomaly, why should we all jump to the conclusion that some massive hoax had to produce it? Doing that requires us to believe in a lot of conjecture for which there is no direct proof. This is hardly parsimonious.
A lot of people just assume they have expert photo interpretation skills. And the serious professional conspiracists rely on this. Some conspiracists who have photographic expertise provide only enough background information to make their own theories sound plausible, not enough to give the reader a balanced view of the problem.
The world seen by the still camera is not the world we see with our eyes. The camera freezes an instant in time and lets us examine it in much greater detail than would otherwise be possible. In our visual world we see a continuous sequence of events, many of them so brief they escape our normal attention. A passing shadow, a glint of light -- these things do not bother us even if we should happen to notice them. Our brain is used to dealing with transitory events, but not when they're captured and our brain is allowed to focus on them.
A photograph is a two-dimensional projection of a three-dimensional scene upon the plane of the photographic film. This defeats some of our brain's methods of depth perception. Techniques of photography such as lighting and focal length can make the photograph suggest a different three-dimensional arrangement than what was there at the time.
Studio photographers retouch almost every photograph they take. They make a photograph look like what the viewer expects, not what the camera actually captures. It's rare to retouch photographs taken for historical documentation (such as the NASA lunar landing photos). My point is not to expect the NASA photographs to be retouched, but that photographs almost always have something in them that causes the viewer to scrunch up his face and wonder, "What's that?"
As long as we're talking about retouching NASA photographs, it's wise to mention that you'll probably run across some. Historians want the unaltered photos, but public relations people have the same goals as studio photographers: they want the images to look good. And so they airbrush out the lens flares and odd shadows. They crop the images and rotate them to orient the interesting features according to the viewer's expectations. It shouldn't bother anyone that altered photos exist and are available from NASA, so long as the unaltered photos are also available.
Here's what this chapter covers.
A primer for those unfamiliar with the basic principles of photographic exposure.
A mathematical model for the Zeiss Biogon 60mm lens.
Did the astronauts always take perfect photographs, or did they take the sorts of pictures you'd expect from amateurs?
Describes optical phenomena such as lens flare and notes their appearance in Apollo photographs.
Answers the many questions about the small crosshairs that appear in each Apollo photo.
Sample photos that show you can't always tell the true direction of a shadow by inspection of a photograph.
A photo-by-photo discussion of the anomalies that conspiracists have identified in NASA photographs.


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Angel of Salvation is the eighth studio album by the Japanese power metal/neo-classical metal band Galneryus, released on October 10, 2012. The 10-song album featured two songs from the single "Hunting For Your Dream": the titular song and "Temptation Through the Night", the latter which was featured as a "work in progress" version. The full album version of the title track "Angel of Salvation", which interpolates "Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35" by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, is Galneryus' longest song to date at 14 minutes and 42 seconds long; twice as long as the song's music video. The song is also the first to feature a guest vocalist in a studio album by Galneryus in Akane Liv from the band LIV MOON. For the album and tour, Syu switched from a Hughes and Kettner amplifier to a Diezel Hagen amplifier and cabinet. This was also shown in the "Angel of Salvation" music video. Syu reverted to his ESP Crying Star Rebel signature guitar for the "Under the Promised Flag Tour" with modifications to the humbuckers. "Hunting for Your Dream" was used as the second closing theme for the new Hunter × Hunter anime adaptation.

Track listing
All songs arranged by Galneryus and Yorimasa Hisatake.

Credits
Syu - Guitar
Masatoshi Ono "Sho" - (Vocals)
Taka - (Bass)
Yuhki - (Keyboards, Hammond Organ)
Junichi Satoh - (Drums)

Additional credits
Yasuyuki "Buddy" Hirahara - (Instrumental Technician)
AKANE LIV (LIV MOON) - (Female Vocals on Tr. 9)
Syu, Sho, Yuhki, Yorimasa Hisatake - (Additional Chorus)
Yutaka Kuwase (LOGGIA) - (Art Direction and Design)
Shinya Omachi - (Photographer)

Chart performance
The album reached #15 and #17 on the Billboard Japan Top Albums and Oricon album charts, respectively; the highest of any of their studio albums.

References

2012 albums
Galneryus albums

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Dublin in the 'Good Old Days!'
Henrietta Street, Dublin circa. 1900. Photo: National Library of Ireland.
By Cheryl Devaney
Henrietta Street, in Dublin's north inner city, dates from the 1720s and represents the best collection of early to mid eighteenth century aristocratic townhouses in Ireland. Number 14's first inhabitants were Lord Richard Molesworth, Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Irish Army, and his second wife, Mary Jenney Ussher.
After the Act of Union in 1800 when all political powers moved to London, many of the Anglo-Irish upper classes returned to England as Dublin had lost much of its significance. Number 14 was then occupied by lawyers, courts and even used as a barracks.
With nearby King's Inns, founded in 1541, and its Honorable Society controlling the entry of barristers-at-law in Ireland, Henrietta Street proved to be a popular site for the legal profession. In 1877, a landlord named Thomas Vance, purchased the property and divided the house into nineteen tenement flats.
So began Number 14's deterioration with structural timbers rotting and vandalism widespread until, in 2000, Dublin City Council acquired this empty shell of a once graceful house. After years of conservation and at a cost of €4.5 million, its doors were opened to the public in September 2018.
This restored palatial house is one of Dublin's newest museums so it will take time for its grand rooms to be filled with furniture of the period. However, it is fascinating to see the beautifully plastered ceilings of what would have been the principal rooms on the ground and first floors.
The music room's coving is embedded with plaster musical instruments. As the wealthy owners would not have spent the whole year there, many returned to England in the summer months. One of the rooms has a four-poster bed, which could have been dismantled and taken on their journeys.
When Thomas Vance acquired Number 14, he took advantage of Dublin's increasing population, which had risen by thirty-six thousand as a result of the Great Famine. The house had only one toilet that was outside in the rear yard but, because of this uncommon amenity, he was able to raise the rent. Henrietta Street, which had been home to generations of lawyers, now had its fifteen houses filled with eight hundred and thirty-five people, over one hundred of them being resident in Number 14. The street was filthy, overcrowded, disease-ridden and full of malnourished children.
The hall and staircases, which had been stripped of their artifacts, had the lower part of their walls painted with Raddle red. Instead of using rouge some women as they passed would touch the paint with their fingers and rub it on their cheeks. The higher parts of the walls were painted with Reckitt's blue, which was thought to ward off diseases. Many of the stairs' balusters are missing, as these were used for firewood. The front door was never closed, since people used to walk through the house as a shortcut to other properties. At night, the homeless would sleep on the hall's floors.
Timber-framed partitions subdivided the large rooms into many smaller rooms, each of which were used by one family. Into these tiny rooms extended family members and even lodgers were sometimes brought! Money for rent was scarce as unemployment was rife and families depended on finding intermittent casual labour.
During the conservation work, many of the partitions, which did not go right up to the high ceilings in order to let air circulate between the rooms, were removed. Today, red lines on the floors indicate the size of the tenement rooms.
People whose parents often lived in such homes guide the tours. Our guide pointed out graffiti on a wall: 'Ann persion who tampers with anny ting or who is not readint in this house will be prosacuhtead by law'! She also said that lit newspaper was flung over the staircase to help children find their way back from the outside toilet. This dangerous practice resulted in another tenement being burnt to the ground.
Down in the basement, you can really feel the gloom and grime of the place. One room had a single cast-iron bed with an overcoat thrown over it – known as 'a duvet with arms'! It also had white enamel bowls, a chair with shortened legs – the stumps had been used for firewood – and a rough looking range.
The tour's last room is a replica of a compact flat, partitioned into a miniscule kitchen, parlour and bedroom. Filled with bric-a-brac from the 1960s, these rooms have an upright piano with family photos on top of it, a dresser, china dogs, carbolic soap and other household items, all in their original wrappers.
The last tenement families were moved out by Dublin Corporation in 1979 to council estates in the Dublin suburbs. Many of them missed the close community spirit of Number 14 and, even though they were given spacious houses, some families still tended to cram themselves into a single room!
During the visit, archival videos of the life in the 1800s and 1900s were shown and these all helped to bring the past to life. The house certainly portrayed the social unfairness that characterized this period.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Euromillions has been working since 1994 to enable a large number of individuals to try their fortune and get maximum luck. The bureau of Euromillions lottery would be your biggest, tax-free lottery of Europe and the best feature is that players from several regions of the planet can play this lottery. In the first glance, Euromillions lottery appears to be a complex lotto but this is not the fact. One of the easiest and fastest ways to play with this lottery is connecting a trustworthy and well-managed syndicate of this lottery agency. The fast pick or blessed dip choice permits the users to play the lottery without the need to complete any play slip.
Since its commencement during 1994, Euromillions has become a very admired form of gambling throughout UK. In 2001, it's also been awarded as 2nd 7-year license for managing the lottery. Lotto was named as the major video game of national lottery in 2002. Today, more than 65 percent of people in UK play with this lottery regularly and roughly 28 percent of the earnings generated by this lottery are utilized for noble causes across the country.
Individuals that are less than 18 decades of age are illegal to play or buy the Euromillions lottery. All the winnings must be claimed within 180 days of the draw and the amount is paid as a lump sum free of taxation.
Lotto Extra, Thunderball, Lotto Hot Picks, Scratch cards and Euromillions are some games that are worked under the federal lottery brand. euromillions results uk takes place on the Friday evenings and when there are no jackpot winners, then the amount rolls over to draw, thus increasing the amount of lottery jackpot.
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The players may enter the e-lottery syndicate from any region of the planet so that the winnings are available in the world's strongest currencies. By becoming an affiliate, you may introduce other individuals also to play at the lottery syndicate. When your friends will probably pay the e-lottery, you'll earn a specific quantity of money every week, thus helping you to play the video game for free.


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Donna-Marie and Maruska, who are based in London, "challenge outdated notions of beauty with honest and empowering representations of people of colour."
Donna-Marie and Maruska Mason, AKA The Masons, are a creative duo in every sense of the phrase. Working with photography and filmmaking, the pair, who are a couple outside of work too, bring their distinct backgrounds together to create a unique style and narrative. Nature, relationships, the range of human emotions and also the beauty of diverse skin tones form the basis of all Donna-Marie and Maruska's work, leading to a portfolio that feels honest and raw, whether communicated through fine art, advertising, editorial, portraiture or beauty photography.
Raised in Tooting, London, by a Jamaican mother and Guyanan father, Donna-Marie found herself at London College of Fashion before pursuing a career in costume design for film and TV. Although it began amazingly, she "started to feel unfulfilled in that creative space and it was tough as a Black female costume designer to be taken seriously and get work." She also "wanted to be more in control of my creativity," which is what led her to turn her photographic hobby into a full-time job. Maruska, on the other hand, is from Slovenia and studied law at university. Despite this, she "always felt a more genuine connection with creativity and self-expression," and at a certain point, it seemed silly for the duo – who have been a couple for 14 years – to not pursue their creative interests together. "We wanted to start telling our own stories our own way and we decided to partner together in creativity and business as well," Maruska explains. "Our photography and directing work is a blend of two very different worlds that we come from but with a very unified message and visual approach."
The fact that Donna-Marie and Maruska share a vision is clear across their portfolio; their projects feel linked to one another and share multiple key themes. "We love projects that tell stories and also projects that challenge the norms and champion unconventional beauty," Donna-Marie says. This is particularly true when it comes to representation within photography. "As a Black woman," she adds, "I love to create images of love – the love of skin, the love of women, the love of men, the love of relationships between human beings. Showcasing Black skin, the beauty, the richness, the details." This focus on skin is what creates The Masons' visual language and concepts, one Maruska describes as "intimate, bold, some would say a bit dramatic but yet simple and timeless." Buoying Donna-Marie's point, she concurs that "skin is key" explaining how "this comes from our unapologetic engagement with dark skin, but also all different shades of skin. We love and celebrate the beauty of melanin – we see it as our responsibility to do justice and show the beauty of melanin and different skin tones." In turn, she points to a "relaxed sensitivity" across their imagery which is important to them. This approach is what, it seems, makes their work feel so authentic – as if we are viewing genuine moments and connections between couples, friends and family.
GalleryThe Masons: Eunoia (Copyright © The Masons, 2021)
A series titled Eunoia seems the perfect coalescence of all the intentions behind Donna-Marie and Maruska's endeavours. A personal project, it was shot by the River Thames on a sunny day and features a cast of young Black men, aiming to tell their story and speak to the beauty of vulnerability. "Young Black men are continually being labelled negatively, with constant stories of knife crime, drugs and causing trouble," they tell us. "We wanted to show a vulnerable, playful side, hanging out by the river, at the park enjoying their natural surroundings." The Masons created a safe space free of judgement on shoot day and the images prove just that – there's a carefree nature to the series in which their models are depicted smiling, having fun and laughing.
Another series titled The Orchard expresses similar sentiments but also exhibits the duo's love of collaborating with others. While much of their work stems from their own ideas, the concept behind The Orchard was creative director Rosie Bonnar's. The series is set on, as the name suggests, a fruit farm; it explores femininity among men, once again aiming to convey a sense of "openness" while "celebrating human connection, humour and fun, drenched in the energy of summer." It's safe to say they achieved these goals as the shoot, which took place as the UK emerged from its first lockdown, abounds with effervescence – that beginning of summer feeling where anything seems possible and excitement fills the air.
While The Masons strive to document human connection in all forms, what's also apparent through their imagery is the love both Donna-Marie and Maruska have for their mediums. Both speak enthusiastically about the entirety of the photographic and filmmaking processes, from ideation to collaboration and "the buzz of the whole shoot day." It's perhaps this passion that resonates most through their work as each frame is filled with passion and joy. Fittingly, then, the pair hints at several exciting projects on the horizon, starting with a trip: "Once a year we try to book a few weeks somewhere where we've never been before where we just focus on creating personal work, and that's the plan for the start of 2022," they say, finally adding: "We also have a solo exhibition coming up in London next year on a subject that's very close to us."
The Masons: The Orchard (Copyright © The Masons, 2021)
The Masons: Unspoken (Copyright © The Masons, 2021)
The Masons: Chuck & Elenie (Copyright © The Masons, 2020)
The Masons: Haruna (Copyright © The Masons, 2019)
Samuel Bradley transports us to the windy clifftops of the Scottish Isles
Jay Russell is an image-making polymath producing "half-video, half-stills"
Lydia Garnett tells stories about characters of all kinds, "especially fearless, fuck you types"
Skyler Dahan documents the unsettling glitz and glamour of Anaheim's Reptile Super Show
Photographer Ryan Hopkinson uses in-camera tricks to create surreal imagery
The Masons: Eunoia (Copyright © The Masons, 2021)
www.meetthemasons.co.uk
Ruby joined the It's Nice That team as an editorial assistant in September 2017 after graduating from the Graphic Communication Design course at Central Saint Martins. In April 2018, she became a staff writer and in August 2019, she was made associate editor. Get in contact with Ruby about ideas you may have for long-form stories on the site.
rbd@itsnicethat.com
A pay-what-you-can online design school for people of colour launches in the form of Useful School
"I want my work to be reflective of my generation": Samuel Rees Price's artful portraits merge the contemporary with the historical


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How Frankie Muniz's Cat Flooded His House
Home 2018 November 19 How Frankie Muniz's Cat Flooded His House
admin, November 19, 2018 November 19, 2018 , Entertainment, 0
Frankie Muniz is going through a devastating time right now. The former Malcolm in the Middle actor recently returned home from his uncle's funeral, only to discover that his whole residence was completely flooded. As it turns out, his cat accidentally turned the sink on while he was away with family, and it resulted in the entire house being soaked under three feet of water. Now everything Muniz owns is buried underwater and destroyed. He made the heartbreaking confession on social media, letting all of his followers know about his recent cruel twist of fate:
Frankie Muniz realizes the Twitter confession could seem too insane to possibly be true. But Muniz claims he is telling the absolute truth, despite the unusual manner through which his house was flooded. Through a true accident, and Muniz's travel plans to be with his family after the death of his uncle, he has found his whole house in three feet of water and all his property has been sunk.
While cats are usually a comfort for their owners, this time around, Frankie Muniz's feline was the source of major destruction, and he is heartbroken. It is a sad revelation, and it is only the latest tragedy to befall the former child actor.
In addition to these troubles, Frankie Muniz recently admitted that he doesn't remember a lot from his earlier years, including a good amount of his time playing the title character of Fox's long-running family sitcom Malcolm in the Middle, due to a series of concussions and ministrokes he's experienced throughout his life. It's apparent that Muniz has dealt with many difficulties in his life, and it's terrible to realize that his life is made sadder and more devastating by this recent discovery after grieving with his family.
Recently, Frankie Muniz appeared on Dancing with the Stars for its 25th season. He made it to the finale, but ultimately ended up in third place. Since then, the actor and Jordan Fisher have continued to work on the Dancing with the Stars set by appearing in the new kid-based series, Dancing with the Stars: Juniors, which premiered earlier this year.
Frankie Muniz also keeps himself busy as an actor. He recently appeared in AMC's Preacher, and he will soon be seen in the horror thriller The Black Sting, and heard in the animated film The Legend of the Secret Pass. Both films are expected to be released sometime next year. There's no word yet on how Muniz will try to move on past this recent devastating turn of events.
Meanwhile, for the latest news and developments in film, television, pop culture and more, be sure to check back in with CinemaBlend.
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REVOLT IMO | Illest songwriter in the game
// Mar 8, 2017
REVOLT TVMar 8, 2017
Some of today's biggest names in the game have something in common — the brilliant minds who wrote their biggest hits. Whether Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, Chris Brown or Usher, they've all had their fair share of help from these peeps behind the mighty pen.
Did you know 9x Grammy winner, Bryan-Michael Cox wrote Mary J. Blige's "Be Without You?" Or that Roc Nation fam James Fauntleroy helped pen Justin Timberlake's "Pusher Love Girl?" And it's no secret that The Dream's pen game is elite!
Below, discover some of the illest songwriters in the game and tweet us your favorite!
revolt imosongwriters
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Damn was hoping Charles would punch it in.
Let me guess--we should keep Keith Burns next year for the sake of continuity...pu-lease.
Need an overhaul on the staff. Mike's the only guy that needs to stay.
Yay! Haslet... good defensive call.
None of this staff will be here next year.
Mike doesn't need to stay. Mike needs to be held accountable for his godawful record as a HC here. But that's just my take.
RGIII still missing wide open receivers and the running game is getting very predictable. Has anyone else noticed that each run play, on each side of the field, basically goes to the same spot each time? It's so easy to stop this offense.
It is time. Enough is enough. Playing hard and executing well have nothing to do with draft picks and cap numbers.
Don't worry, your guys gets shellacked next year.
Wow. Kendrick Lewis made a play.
He is more than likely about to be 24-37, 9-13 in the division and 0-1 in the playoffs.
I really don't see why he needs to stay.
And wolf, after the Bears game you said the Skins wouldn't win again. I offered you a bet and you declined. YOUR LOSS evidently. LOL..
Time for some Kirk Cousins.
GO CHIEFS!! I love Derrick Johnson!
It's hilarious how bad we are, the Rams are looking like genius' right now.
It's amazing how Bob still stares down targets at this stage of his career. It's actually embarrassing.
Horrible tackling. This team has mailed it in.
Well…. That's what happen when you look at one receiver every time you drop back. Worst in the league amongst starting QBs at scanning the field. I don't wanna hear no excuses about his leg and recovery and all that other bs.
There you go Fantasy fans. Points! Points!
Still staring down receivers! Been doing it all year! When will he learn to not do that!


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HARVEST is an interdisciplinary research coordination network
Helping Agriculture Remain Vital
through Engineering Science and Technology
STEM Integration
Innovation Through Technology
Alexander Leonessa (PI)
Associate Professor - Mechanical Engineering, Virginia Tech
Dr. Alexander Leonessa has more than 15 years of experience working in the area of control systems with applications to autonomous systems. Particular applications include the design and control of mobile robots (ground, air, and water) as well as humanoid robots including self-balancing exoskeletons for providing mobility to patients with lower limbs paralysis. His expertise with the design, configurability, and control of robotic systems will bring a technology-inspired component to the RCN for the purpose of assessing and evaluating existing technology, as well as the need for future technology to the farming community.
Laboratory Page>>
McClymont Distinguished Professor - School of Science and Technology, University of New England, Australia
Dr. David Lamb is a physicist who has worked in the area of 'Precision Agriculture' (PA) for over 23 years. In 2002, he established the University of New England's Precision Agriculture Research Group (UNEPARG). David is also a Science Director with the Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information (CRCSI) and a member of the National Positioning Infrastructure Advisory Board.
University Profile>>
Daniel R. Ess
Associate Professor - Agricultural & Biological Engineering, Purdue University
Dr. Daniel Ess' past and current research includes projects in the energetics of low-input corn production, the effects of crop roots and residues on machine-soil interaction, low-ground-pressure in-field transport systems and precision land application of animal manure. He focuses on the development and evaluation of information-intensive, precision agricultural management systems.
Human Factors; Health and Safety
Divya Srinivasan (PI)
Assistant Professor - Industrial and Systems Engineering, Virginia Tech
Dr. Divya Srinivasan has been leading and conducting research in the topics of Human Factors, Occupational Biomechanics, and Health & Safety for more than 10 years. Her current work spans across several domains of work health and safety including basic biomechanical investigations of neck-shoulder, low-back and lower-limb osteo-arthritic impairments on movement control, muscle loading and performance, innovative design and evaluation of workplace interventions to improve health and safety of office workers, bio-behavioral monitoring of autistic children using wearable technology, and human factors assessments of flexible robotic suits for farmers with mobility impairments.
Personal Website>>
Maury Nussbaum
HG Prillaman Professor - Industrial and Systems Engineering, Virginia Tech
Dr. Maury Nussbaum's research covers a variety of areas within the fields of biomechanics, work physiology, and
ergonomics. He has led recent research projects that have sought to jointly optimize working conditions (in construction) in terms of worker performance and injury risks, assessed research needs in the local agricultural sector, examined health risks among migrant farmworkers, and quantified the potential benefits of industrial
exoskeletons.
Thomas A. Arcury
Professor of Family Medicine, Wake Forest University
Dr. Thomas A. Arcury's research has focused on the health and safety of farmers, migrant and seasonal farmworkers, and poultry processing workers, as well as numerous occupational safety education programs.
Sara Quandt
Professor of Epidemiology and Prevention, Wake Forest University
Dr. Sara Quandt's research has focused on the health and safety of farmers, migrant and seasonal farmworkers, and poultry processing workers, as well as numerous occupational safety education programs.
Catherine Trask
Associate Professor - Canadian Centre for Health and Safety in Agriculture, University of Saskatchewan, Canada
Dr. Catherine Trask's research spans ergonomics, musculoskeletal injury surveillance, exposure assessment and sampling strategies, as well as evaluation of workplace interventions. As Director of the National Agricultural Industrial Hygiene Laboratory's Ergonomics Lab, she leads injury prevention projects in several industries, with particular focus on agricultural environments such as grain farming and intensive animal production.
Farming Systems Community Development
Kim Niewolny (PI)
Associate Professor - Community Education and Development, Virginia Tech
Dr. Niewolny's scholarship broadly centers on the role of power and equity in community education and development with a focus on social justice and food systems. Her research and outreach expertise addresses the role of community-university partnerships, community-based participatory research, capacity building, systems-level network development, cultural community development, and participatory approaches to adult and community-based education from a food and farming systems perspective
William Crutchfield
Director - Small Farm Outreach and Technology Assistance Program, Virginia State University
Mr. William Crutchfield has over three decades of farmer outreach and development practice experience at the federal and statelevel, leading the region in scale-appropriate technology applications and farmer-based research-to-practice programming.
LinkedIn Profile>>
University Page>>
Systems Engineering Perspectives
Konstantinos (Kostas) Triantis
John Lawrence Professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, Virginia Tech
Dr. Triantis' research has focused on performance measurement and evaluation, fuzzy methods for data envelopment analysis, dynamic efficiency analysis, and affordability engineering, and performance evaluation of civil infrastructure systems, as well as social service and manufacturing enterprises. His current research interests focus on the integration of inductive methods and data (focus groups and surveys) into analytical models of performance measurement for the design of socio-technical systems.
Warren Vaneman
Professor of Practice - Systems Engineering, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey CA
Dr. Warren Vaneman's primary research interests are System of Systems Engineering and Integration, and Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE). During the last five years he has conducted the following research for the U.S. Navy: Defined the Information Technology Technical Authority concept; Developed the first integrated undersea architecture; and is continuing to develop a true MBSE environment for all systems engineering activities.
Donald Kerr
Associate Professor - Information Systems, University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia
Dr. Donald Kerr's research areas include intelligent decision support systems development, implementation and evaluation, primarily in the health informatics domain. He also has research interests in enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementations and is specifically interested in workarounds within the ERP environment and their effect on decision making.
STEM Integration in Agriculture
Hui Hui Wang
Assistant Professor - Youth Development and Agricultural Education, Purdue University
Dr. Hui Hui Wang's research focuses on STEM integration, inquiry-based instruction, and experiential learning
in science and agricultural education that across both formal and non-formal settings, with specific interest
in the cognitive bases of STEM learning and building a sustainable STEM learning model for both youth and adults that goes across schools, families and communities.
Sue Gregory
Associate Professor and Chair of Research - School of Education, University of New England, Australia
Dr. Sue Gregory lectures in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Education. She is a long-term adult educator and teaches pre-service and post-graduate education students how to incorporate technology into their teaching. Dr. Gregory is the lead of the SmartFarm Learning Hub project and will be a member of the STEM Education component of the RCN.
Hannah Scherer
Associate Professor and Extension Specialist - Agricultural Leadership and Community Education, Virginia Tech
Dr. Hannah Scherer has science teaching experience at both the secondary and postsecondary levels, and has research expertise in development of systems thinking abilities and assessment of learning outcomes in formal and non-formal STEM educational programs.
Sustainability Engineering
Nicholas M. Holden
Professor of Biosystems Engineering and Head of Agricultural Systems Technology, University College Dublin, Ireland
Dr. Nick Holden's research addresses the impact of agriculture and food systems using soil science, system modelling and life cycle assessment (LCA). His research is moving towards developing a holistic view of sustainability of the food chain and the associated bioeconomy having been initially focused on commodity production up to the farm gate.
Thomas Seager
Associate Professor - School of Sustainable Engineering & the Built Environment, Arizona State University
Dr. Thomas Seager leads cross-disciplinary teams at the Arizona State University, working at the boundaries of engineering and social science to understand resilient infrastructure systems, the life-cycle environmental consequences of emerging energy technologies, novel approaches to teamwork and communication in science, and engineering ethics education.
Ralph Hall
Associate Professor - School of Public and International Affairs, Virginia Tech
Dr. Ralph Hall has over a decade of academic and professional experience in applying the concept of sustainable
development to infrastructure systems with a specific emphasis on transportation, water supply, and
sanitation systems. He is currently undertaking new research in Malawi related to water innovations
at the nexus of food, energy, and water systems


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Gene Odom's Lynyrd Skynyrd book lacks literary grace and gory details
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT, NOV. 21, 2002
On their latest CD, Southern Rock Opera, alt-country reprobates the Drive-By Truckers combine sociology, history, and musicology to deliver a concept album about southern rock, and the band they focus on to get their ideas across is Lynyrd Skynyrd. For the uninitiated, Skynyrd was a gang of rough 'n' tumble partiers from Jacksonville, Florida—led by a gruff-voiced, good-ol'-boy vocalist named Ronnie Van Zant—who came to fame with a rowdy, triple-lead-guitar sound. Riffing out on the Lynyrd Skynyrd legend, the Truckers use tunes like "Ronnie and Neil" (about the misunderstood friendship between Van Zant and Neil Young) and "The Southern Thing" (which decries the widely held notion that the Confederate flag–waving group was racist) to get to the heart of what it means to be a hard-core Skynyrd fan.
Now, even though the sprawling Southern Rock Opera clocks in at over 90 minutes, you still won't glean as much inside information about Skynyrd from its two discs as you would from Lynyrd Skynyrd: Remembering the Free Birds of Southern Rock (Broadway Books, 218 pp, $34.95 hardcover), Gene Odom's new book about the scruffy septet. You'll just enjoy the experience a lot more.
While Odom's status as a childhood friend of Van Zant's, and later on Skynyrd's long-time security manager, leads to some interesting insights into the group's history, the bad news is that Odom also writes like a security guy. He lacks any literary grace, and his attempts to describe the music are downright feeble. You keep wishing that he'd just skip the critiquing and recount a few gory details involving his role as the band's protector. He goes on at length about how prone Van Zant was to fisticuffs—even to the point of slugging his guitarists if they got too pissed to practise—but doesn't mention what degree of violence was required to control Skynyrd's notoriously rowdy fans.
Where Odom does succeed is in his retelling of how a determined young Van Zant handpicked his players from the longhaired teenage delinquents in his neighbourhood and whipped them into shape, convinced that long hours of arduous practice and nonstop gigging would ultimately pay off. It did, of course, but the group's relentless drive to keep touring also led to the tragic 1977 accident that took Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, his backup-vocalist sister Cassie Gaines, and road manager Dean Kilpatrick at the peak of their success. Odom spends a lot of time revisiting the plane crash and pondering what could have caused it; most evidence points to the 1947 Convair 240 just running out of gas, if you can believe that. He also recalls how passengers had seen flames shooting out of the engine on the previous flight, and how the pilots had shrugged off the plane's obvious need for servicing.
Odom's examination of the self-destructive route that guitarist Allen Collins took after the plane crash makes the Lynyrd Skynyrd story a pretty depressing one. After drunk driving led to the death of a friend and Collins's paralysis from the waist down, the "Free Bird" creator eventually passed away from respiratory failure due to pneumonia at the age of 37. Then, just last year, 49-year-old bassist Leon Wilkeson, a heavy drinker and smoker, succumbed to chronic liver and lung disease. Other downers for the group include the 1992 arrest of 44-year-old drummer Artimus Pyle on charges of sexual abuse of a minor, and the desecration of Van Zant and Gaines's Florida gravesites in 2000.
The only really good news for Skynyrd diehards is that guitarist Gary Rossington and keyboardist Billy Powell are still keeping the spirit of the band alive, recording and touring with a lineup that includes Van Zant's younger brother Johnny on vocals. So, if the current Lynyrd Skynyrd ever comes to town, you'll still have that momentous opportunity to hold your Bic lighter on high and bellow "Free Bird"! at the top of your lungs.
Posted on February 1, 2015 February 8, 2015 by the newtPosted in rock legendsTagged 1977, book review, Broadway Books, childhood friend, Confederate flag, Drive-By Truckers, fisticuffs, Gene Odom, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Neil Young, plane crash, racism, Remembering the Free Birds, Ronnie Van Zant, security guy, Southern Rock Opera, Steve Gaines.
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3 thoughts on "Gene Odom's Lynyrd Skynyrd book lacks literary grace and gory details"
It's his story to tell. He told it his way, because he was there. You sound like a real dim wit.
The stocker boy that we pulled out of the plane his head was torn up leg was broken and he cuts all over him somebody was in there yelling it may have been Ronnie Van Zandt but by the time we got to him he suffocated he couldn't breathe it sounds like he was yelling so he wouldn't live so we couldn't get in because of the Tanglewood metalhead compress and I was too hard
Rescuer says:
What the hell you trying to say that boy was dead on impact they had a basal skull fracture Each one of the dead got $100,000 and the ones that survived got $50,000 there's only a 2 million Dollar insurance policy for the whole claim you get on that plane you bought that decision
Alice Cooper's youthful band breathes fire into the shock-rock king's classics in Vancouver


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author of The Prestige, The Separation and the story collection Episodes
Career Chronology
An American Story
The Gradual
Extract from The Gradual
Reviews of The Gradual
The Adjacent
Extract from The Adjacent
Reviews for The Adjacent
The Islanders
Reviews for The Islanders
The Dream Archipelago
Reviews for The Dream Archipelago
The Separation
Reading in a War: a bibliography for The Separation
I: Histories
II: Biographies
III: Memoirs of Important Participants
IV: Adventures of Unimportant Participants
V: Miscellaneous Books
VI: Reference Works
VII: Rudolf Hess
Reviews for The Separation
The Extremes
Reviews for The Extremes
Interview about The Prestige
Reviews for The Prestige
The Prestige (film)
The Book On The Edge Of Forever
Reviews for The Book On The Edge Of Forever
The Quiet Woman
Reviews for The Quiet Woman
Reviews for The Glamour
The Affirmation
Reviews for The Affirmation
An Infinite Summer
Reviews for An Infinite Summer
A Dream of Wessex
Reviews for A Dream of Wessex
The Space Machine
Reviews for The Space Machine
Reviews for Real-Time World
Inverted World
Reviews for Inverted World
Fugue for a Darkening Island
Reviews for Fugue for a Darkening Island
Indoctrinaire
Reviews for Indoctrinaire
Independent Cinemas
Pax Ortygia
The Scars of War
The State of Publishing: 1
Top Ten Slipstream Books
Contemporaries Portrayed
A Meeting with Richard Cowper
Bob Shaw
David Langford
John Wyndham & H G Wells
Keith Roberts
Kingsley Amis
Richard Cowper (John Middleton Murry)
The Prestige (it is done)
GrimGrin
Ersatz Wines
Real-Time World +2
The Magic: the story of a film
There were dozens of general books about WW2 littering my office throughout the writing of The Separation but I read only three of them all the way through.
57. Bomber Command by the Air Ministry ("text by The Cornwall Press Ltd", published by His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1941; first edition).
58. Front Line 1940-1941 by Ministry of Information, published by HMSO, 1942; first edition).
These two books are still relatively easy to find in good condition in secondhand shops. Thousands of them were printed in their day. They are large-size paperbacks, printed on semi-glossy stock, using what used to be called the photogravure process for the many photographs. In one of his books, John Keegan describes these government publications as exemplary propaganda. They are factually accurate throughout and contain not a single deliberate untruth, but they tell only one side of a complicated story. At the same time they contain nothing that would be of any strategic use to the enemy. Although they deliberately do not exploit the 'Blitz spirit' of those distant days, at the same time they contain nothing that might undermine morale. All those are past concerns, of course. From the point of view of a present-day literary researcher both books were mines of information and telling detail.
The Air Ministry's version of the air warThe book on Bomber Command was of particular interest to me, because it describes what was happening from the outbreak of war until the end of 1941, the period of The Separation. It was only from the beginning of 1942 that the 'legend' of Bomber Command began, after Arthur Harris took control. In these pre-Harris years, Bomber Command was a largely ineffectual force, using outdated and unsuitable aircraft, suffering terrible losses from the German defenders, and more often than not bombing so incompetently that they almost never hit their targets. In the autumn of 1941 the civil service carried out a survey of bombing results (using flash-lit photographs of the ground, taken by the crews considered to be the best). Even from this selective sample the investigators found that only one in four aircraft was within five miles of the chosen target, and on better-defended targets (like the Ruhr industrial area) only one in ten aircraft were able to hit within that range. In November 1941, the government called a halt to all but the most limited bombing operations. None of this is even hinted at in the Air Ministry book, which within the constraints of truth and by concentrating on a few of the more 'successful' raids, presents an image of gallantry, persistence and the wreaking of devastating damage on Germany.
59. If Britain Had Fallen by Norman Longmate (Arrow, 1975; first published by British Broadcasting Corporation and Hutchinson, 1972)
This non-fiction book, tied in with a long-forgotten TV programme about what would have happened if Germany 'won', was on my bookshelf for many years, long before I thought it might come in handy. Once The Separation was in progress I realized its theme was not dissimilar to Longmate's book, and so I felt I couldn't afford to skip it.
It's not a good book: it shows signs of sensationalism and speculation, painting a lurid picture Nazi hordes looting, pillaging and raping their way through South-East England in the autumn of 1940. Maybe those events would have been every bit as lurid as Longmate depicts them, but I felt there was a certain lip-smacking quality to his choice of images and words. At the same time, some of the facts he turned up were interesting and I hadn't seen them anywhere else, which justifies its entry in this bibliography. However, Peter Fleming's more responsible book of speculation (Invasion 1940; see no. 6 in this list) covered much the same ground. In addition, two other books that I referred to, but haven't listed here, taken in conjunction with the Fleming, give a much more chilling idea than Longmate's catchpenny book of what an invasion might have meant to this country: When Nazi Dreams Come True by Robert Edwin Herzstein (Abacus, 1982), an academic's survey of Nazi strategy, and (same title as Fleming's) Invasion 1940 by SS-General Walter Schellenberg (St Ermin's Press, 2000), the real plans drawn up by the Wehrmacht of what the Germans actually intended to do once they had landed. These plans include a long list of names and addresses of people for whom they would have been hunting. In all, more disturbing than television sensationalism. However, I did read Longmate's book, so here it is on the list.
The Life Awakes
A Hundred Books
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Epi-cycle
Google on Hello to All That
2019 Orwell Inspired – The Orwell Society on Before I forget
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The Spanish government walked back its cancellation on Thursday of the sale of 400 laser-guided bombs to Saudi Arabia, which has been devastating Yemen's infrastructure and killing civilians in an effort to oust the Houthi government.
Meanwhile, the US affirmed its support for the Saudi-led coalition on Wednesday within hours of a bombing that left more than a dozen dead.
But it appears that for every step taken forward, two are taken back. Spain's former government signed a contract to sell the bombs to Riyadh in 2015, but after years of the crisis in Yemen worsening and specifically after the bus attack, Spain halted the sale, although the Spanish Defense Ministry wouldn't explain why. Local media reported that the administration of socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez would pay back Saudi Arabia for the 9.2 million euros it had already fronted for the bombs.
Spanish journalist Helena Villar says the deal was just a drop in the bucket. According to Amnesty International, Spain is one of the biggest arms suppliers to Saudi Arabia in the world. "The fact is that it is a minimal decision if we consider that between just 2015 and 2017, Spain, according to Amnesty International, exported 932 million euros in war supplies to Saudi Arabia," Villar told Sputnik News.
"A suspension of arms sales that does not reach 10 million euros is only about 1 percent of the material sold to the Saudis between 2015 and 2017," she added.
Workers at a government shipyard in the south of Spain protested the halt of the bomb sale, arguing that Saudi Arabia may retaliate by cancelling its purchase of five warships at a price of 1.8 billion euros. Villar rejects that reasoning, telling Sputnik News that the halting of the bomb sales "did not affect" the sale of warships, which, she noted, "were also going to be used in the Yemen war."
"In addition to the controversy of selling arms to a country that violates human rights and is the author of massacres in Yemen," Villar said, the mayor of the town the shipyard sits in, Cádiz, who belongs to the leftist party Podemos, has also been heavily criticized for supporting the contracts in the name of job creation. "It should be noticed that one of the main problems in Spain is unemployment, but a huge leftist sector criticized him for putting the employment of workers in his city before human rights," she told Sputnik News.
Spain reversed its decision to halt the bomb sale to the Saudis on Thursday. Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell announced the cancelation, later telling a local radio station, "After an intense week's work by various ministries — including the Foreign Ministry — the decision is that these bombs will be delivered to honor a contract from 2015, which was made by the previous government and in which no irregularity has been detected that would bar it from happening."
The reversal came one day after a coalition bombing of a bus station in Hodeidah, a port city that serves as a lifeline for Yemen, as it is used to bring in essential supplies. Yemeni journalist Ahmad Algohbary reported the attack that left between 15 and 20 killed and more wounded, including children.
Borrell downplayed the potential for Spain's precision bombs to cause collateral damage or loss of civilian life and infrastructure, arguing, "You don't get the bombings that you get with less sophisticated weapons that are dropped rather randomly and which cause the kind of tragedy that we've all condemned."
"It must not be forgotten that the European Parliament requested the cessation of arms sales to Saudi Arabia in November 2017," Villar said. Nonetheless, "Saudi Arabia has always been a close ally of Spain. In fact, last April, King Felipe VI was received by Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman in his palace with all of the honors."
Within hours of the bus station bombing on Wednesday, UAE Ambassador to the United States Yousef al-Otaiba published an op-ed in the Washington Post declaring that "the UAE is absolutely clear about our vision of the region and the partners who share it."
Spain, however, is not the only country reassessing its support for the coalition in which Saudi Arabia and the UAE are the most overtly hostile actors.
The bomb used by Saudi Arabia on August 9 was supplied by the US State Department. Another bombing on August 23 of a transport vehicle carrying people fleeing violence in Hodeidah killed at least 22 children and four women, while another four children were killed the same day. The US has also been supplying the Saudis with targeting information and intelligence, helping to enforce the Saudi naval blockade of the country (and exacerbating the already widespread food insecurity and famine), and has even sent US soldiers to help the Saudis find and destroy Houthi weapons.
On Wednesday, United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo certified to Congress that Saudi Arabia and its coalition partner the United Arab Emirates are taking the necessary steps to reduce the risk of civilian casualties and destruction of civil infrastructure. That came after a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the US' defense spending bill, which required that the government assess the actions of its partners or curtail its support for them. "I endorse and fully support Secretary Pompeo's certification to the Congress that the governments of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates are making every effort to reduce the risk of civilian casualties and collateral damage to civilian infrastructure resulting from their military operations to end the civil war in Yemen," US Defense Secretary James Mattis said in a statement.


The Criminal Justice/Police Science Alignment was approved by the Kansas Board of Regents on December 15, 2011. Colleges are granted one year from the approval date to implement the alignment.
The committee requested that community colleges focus their curriculum on general education courses tailored to law enforcement. Specifically they highlighted the need for: reading comprehension, problem-solving, oral and written communication skills, interpersonal skills, leadership skills, critical thinking, ethics, constitutional law, keyboarding, and observational skills.


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Christina Aguilera Shows Support To Lady Gaga After Denouncing R. Kelly
January 11, 2019 Nick Markus Leave a comment
Amid a number of celebrities speaking out against R. Kelly, Lady Gaga stood out the most to Christina Aguilera who is now showing her support towards the fellow songstress. As you may be aware, yesterday, Gaga told her fans that she had decided to remove her song Do What U Want featuring R. Kelly, from all streaming services following the many sexual assault and misconduct accusations against him.
Today, Christina took to her platform of choice to praise Lady Gaga for her gesture and bravery.
R. Kelly has been denying all of the allegations!
The history between the two women and the song that was removed goes back to 2013 when they recorded a duet version and then performed it on The Voice!
It has to be noted that their version of Do What You Want can still be found on streaming services.
Cool to see the version of this song I did with @ladygaga on the charts again — this is a reminder of women sticking together— and not letting a man take ownership of a great song/ moment… And if anything the message of this song remains that although you may have had my body, you will never have my heart, my voice my life or my mind. Being a survivor of past predators myself, these lines spoke to me, which is why I did the song. I embrace all survivors of sexual and domestic violence and abuse holding a special place in my heart, and you @ladygaga, for doing the right thing!
A post shared by Christina Aguilera (@xtina) on Jan 11, 2019 at 9:17am PST
Aguilera posted some images from their performance and wrote: 'This is a reminder of women sticking together – and not letting a man take ownership of a great song and moment. And the message of this song still remains that you may have had my body, you'll never have my heart, voice my life or my mind.'
'Being a survivor of predators myself, these lines spoke to me, which is why I decided to do the song. I embrace all of the survivors of sexual and domestic violence and abuse, and you @ladygaga, for doing the right thing!' she added.
But while the fellow singer had only good things to say about Gaga's decision, R. Kelly's lawyer, Steven Greenberg slammed her, saying that Lady Gaga is suddenly ruining a talented person's career and claiming he is a terrible person only because she wants an Academy Award!
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U.S.-based Israeli author Miko Peled has appeared on New Zealand television discussing a one state solution….watch the interview on J-Wire.
There is no intellectual rigour to his propositions. He is entitled to his views – but his family's history does not per se support his arguments.


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NRDC: Appeals Court Should Finish its Work on Clean Power Plan
And Reject Trump Bid to Kill Clean Power Plan by Stealth
Jake Thompson, jthompson@nrdc.org, 202-289-2387;
Elizabeth Heyd, eheyd@nrdc.org, 202-289-2424
WASHINGTON – The Natural Resources Defense Council and allies filed a response today in the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit opposing a recent request by the Trump Administration to stop work on a case involving the Clean Power Plan. NRDC was joined by Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity and others supporting the plan to clean up dirty power plants that are contributing to climate change.
David Doniger, director of NRDC's climate and clean air program, issued this statement:
"The appeals court should reject Trump's bid to block a ruling on the Clean Power Plan, and to kill the plan by stealth. Ten members of the court heard the critical clean air and climate case six months ago. The court should be allowed to finish the job and rule on its merits. We're confident the Clean Power Plan rests on solid legal ground."
The Trump Administration's stealthy plan is this: If the court grants the motion for indefinite delay, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt will effectively be able to scrap the Clean Power Plan without justifying its actions – without holding public hearings, listening to millions of Americans who want climate action, and justifying its changes to the courts, NRDC and its allies contends.
Trump and Pruitt are flouting the Supreme Court's intent. The high court stayed the Clean Power Plan temporarily, only to allow time for the courts to review it. Trump and Pruitt are trying to stretch that indefinitely, allowing for continued unlimited carbon pollution from power plants, the nation's biggest source of pollution that drives dangerous climate change and kills thousands of Americans each year.
Former President Obama issued the Clean Power Plan in 2015, which was challenged in the courts by polluters and their allies.
On March 29, Trump issued an executive order calling for an open-ended "review" of the Clean Power Plan. Hours later, his administration asked the appeals court to suspend work—or hold in abeyance—pending litigation over the plan. The filing today by NRDC and others is in response to that move by Trump.
The link to the NRDC and others filing is here: https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/ngo-response-opposing-cpp-abeyance_20170405.pdf
A coalition of states also filed in support of the Clean Power Plan today: https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/attorney-general-schneiderman-leads-coalition-states-and-localities-opposing-trump
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 2 million members and online activists. Since 1970, our lawyers, scientists, and other environmental specialists have worked to protect the world's natural resources, public health, and the environment. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Bozeman, Montana, and Beijing. Visit us at www.nrdc.org and follow us on Twitter @NRDC.


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