In order to do great things, you must look toward those who came before you. Unfortunately, there were those who created crowdfunding campaigns before you that did not find success. Don't be afraid to research those failed campaigns, as well as the successful ones. You can gain a glimpse at how you could potentially avoid such failure.
There is no guarantee that you won't fail if you do not take the time and preparation necessary to make a good crowdfunding campaign. Even with the most amazing new invention, you could fail if you are not dedicated enough to your campaign. Don't risk failure, and pay attention to the mistakes of those who came before you.
Many inventors seeking funds tend to be under the impression that the majority of the work needed for a crowdfunding campaign, should be done during the launch of the campaign. This is not true, in fact, most of the work done should be completed prior to the campaign start date, but where does one begin? Those who do not seek the answer to this question end up failing to find funds through crowdfunding.
At least 6 months prior to your attempt at seeking small donations from a large audience, you will want to focus on the planning of various aspects of your campaign. This includes developing a video, establishing a social media presence, creating rewards, and getting your invention ready to prove to backers that your idea is worthy of their money. Do research online and even watch videos that will map out the best ways to work on your crowdfunding campaign.
The very first thing a potential backer sees when viewing your campaign site, is your video. A low-quality video, or even no video at all, turns people away from your campaign immediately. Think of your video as your best chance at an attention grabber. All of your efforts to draw individuals into your campaign could become pointless if once they make it to your site, there is nothing to keep them there.
Fortunately, a good campaign video could help your chances at holding the interest of those who have already made it to your page. Your video should be informative, but maintain elements such as quality images and sound, in order to keep backers watching your video for more than 10 seconds. An invention with a great campaign video is the Coolest Cooler, which was able to receive funds of $13,285,226. Their video briefly told the story of how the product came alive, explained what the cooler had to offer, and why it was worth a backer's money to give donations.
For any business or new product, establishing a presence on social media could be beneficial. The same rings true for your crowdfunding campaign. Those who do not make an effort to utilize the power of social media, might not reach their desired funds if things such as Facebook or Twitter are not used properly. This does not mean that simply creating a page for your campaign will lead to success, but it is a good place to begin.
Start by creating a presence on a social media platform such as Facebook. You can ask family and friends to like your page as well as share your page's content. Facebook also lets you pay money to "boost" your posts to those who have similar interests to what your invention has to offer. Once your campaign has begun, these posts can even lead those interested directly to your campaign site. Create a calendar to plan out when you will be posting things such as pre-campaign updates and other materials designed to grab the attention of potential backers. This includes, but is not limited to, blog posts and general product promotions.
Once you have put all of your effort into your pre-campaign, you must not give up when it comes time for your campaign to launch. You can't expect to raise funds if you do not do more than simply keeping an eye on your campaign every so often. It may seem tiring and time consuming to continue posting to social media and monitoring your campaign, but no one ever said crowdfunding was easy, but they did say it was worth it.
During your campaign, be sure to keep track of how well it is performing. If it seems to be falling behind, try posting content such as your campaign video to social media or asking friends and family to help spread the word. Don't give up just because you did not gain the funds you wanted within the first 24 hours. Instead, decide what more you could be doing to interest your backers.
Crowdfunding can be difficult, and even stressful at times. Luckily, with research and education, you can learn how to create a platform that could become successful with hard work and dedication before, during, and after your campaign.


text:
Q: FileNotFound Exception when run on docker I have an ASP.Net Core Web API application in which I am accessing a file which is in a folder called "Data" at the same level as "Controllers" folder. It works perfectly fine when I run the application without docker. But when I run application on docker it just throws an error.
Upon inspecting the logs with the help of docker logs <containerid> I found the following:
Microsoft.AspNetCore.Server.Kestrel[13]
      Connection id "0HMB6BABGSIF7", Request id "0HMB6BABGSIF7:00000001": An unhandled exception was thrown by the application.
System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not find file '/app/.\Data\petronas.xlsx'.
File name: '/app/.\Data\petronas.xlsx'
   at Interop.ThrowExceptionForIoErrno(ErrorInfo errorInfo, String path, Boolean isDirectory, Func`2 errorRewriter)

Following is my Docker file:
FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/core/sdk:3.1 AS build-env
WORKDIR /app

# Copy csproj and restore as distinct layers
COPY *.csproj ./
RUN dotnet restore

# Copy everything else and build
COPY ./ ./
RUN dotnet publish -c Release -o out

# Build runtime image
FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/core/sdk:3.1
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=build-env /app/out .
COPY Data ./Data
ENV ASPNETCORE_URLS=http://+:5000
ENTRYPOINT ["dotnet", "Validator.dll"]

Code to access the file:
var lineitems = ConvertExcelToDataTable(@".\Data\petronas.xlsx");

A: in linux path separator is / you can change you filePath to ./Data/pertonas.xlsx it will work on both linux and windwos. be aware paths are case sensitive in Linux

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


My name is Linda Lalchan and I am presently the Principal of Reader Rabbit Kindergarten # 2. I pursued my Early Childhood course at the University of the West Indies. I have been a preschool teacher for the past 16 years. I began teaching Sunday school at a very tender age where I developed a passion and love for little children because I know they are our most valuable resource. I am a loyal, talented and caring person who firmly believes that God has blessed with the gift of teaching to make a positive impact on the hearts of many children.


The debugger for Freescale S12 MCUs allows fast access to the BDM interface of the chip. The system supports C and C++ from different compiler manufactures. Flash programming is supported as well. All features of the onchip break module are supported. The Debugger can access the whole memory map (including registers of internal peripherals) while realtime execution.


text:
Conor Murphy MP travels to the Putumayo region of Colombia
25 July, 2014 - by Conor Murphy
Continuing his extensive visit to Colombia today Sinn Féin Newry/Armagh MP Conor Murphy travelled to the Putumayo region on the Ecuadorian border. This is a heavily militarised area which has witnessed displacement, extrajudicial killings, crop fumigation and environmental damage caused by oil exploration.
Conor said:
"We were met by David Florez of the Patriotic March organisation, who has addressed meetings in Stormont, the Dáil and Westminster. He took us on an eventful journey, involving bus, boat, jeep and motorbike, to the heart of the region to meet peasant farmers, Afro Colombians and indigenous people.
"This area has seen strike action by peasants and oil workers in recent years over the government policies of fumigation of crops and the displacement of families to facilitate oil exploration.
"There have also been mobilisations against the environmental damage being inflicted on the area and for better pay and conditions for the oil workers. The response of the military, confirmed by Human Rights Reports, has been to murder peasant leaders, including four in May this year.
"The delegation heard testimony from their families in relation to those and other killings. They all told a similar story of army units surrounding their homes, removing all mobile phones from family members and then sons or fathers being taken away and later found murdered.
"I also had the opportunity to visit La Picota prison where Huber Ballesteros, a trade union leader, and David Rabelo, a human rights activist, are being held. After a three hour wait, we finally got to meet the two men and hear of the dreadful conditions in Colombia's jails where overcrowding and non-existent healthcare are the norm.
"Colombia has around 10,000 political prisoners, about 60% of them combatants and the rest from trade unions, human rights groups and political opponents of the government.
"Huber himself is a well known national trade union leader who had negotiated with the government over 22 strikes in 20 years. In the days before his arrest he had met with Congress members and Senators but then found himself accused of rebellion and fund raising for the FARC while abroad on union activities.
"He has spent 11 months in terrible conditions, with no treatment for his diabetes, awaiting trial. Despite this his spirits are high and his determination to see political change and justice in Colombia remains strong. The government here is "a dictatorship with a democratic face" he said and asked us to help bring an international focus on the need for a genuine peace process."

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Posted by Darren Marchal - December 30, 2013
Americans on Wrong Side of Income Gap Run Out of Means to Cope
Rising income inequality is starting to hit home for many American households as they run short of places to reach for a few extra bucks.
As the gap between the rich and poor widened over the last three decades, families at the bottom found ways to deal with the squeeze on earnings. Housewives joined the workforce. Husbands took second jobs and labored longer hours. Homeowners tapped into the rising value of their properties to borrow money to spend.
Those strategies finally may have run their course as women's participation in the labor force has peaked and the bursting of the house-price bubble has left many Americans underwater on their mortgages.
"We've exhausted our coping mechanisms," said Alan Krueger, an economics professor at Princeton University in New Jersey and former chairman of President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers. "They weren't sustainable."
The result has been a downsizing of expectations. By almost two to one — 64 percent to 33 percent — Americans say the U.S. no longer offers everyone an equal chance to get ahead, according to the latest Bloomberg National Poll. The lack of faith is especially pronounced among those making less than $50,000 a year, with close to three-quarters in the Dec. 6-9 survey saying the economy is unfair.
"I've had good jobs and bad jobs. But it always seemed like something would come along and keep me from getting ahead," said Diana Kraft, 54, a homemaker in Denton, Texas.
Adding to challenges for lower-income individuals is the loss of unemployment benefits, which were supporting 1.3 million long-term jobless people in the U.S. before their expiration Dec. 28. While Congress failed to pass a renewal before adjourning earlier this month, Democratic lawmakers will press in early 2014 for an extension of the benefits, the Senate's second-ranking Democrat,Dick Durbin of Illinois, told reporters Dec. 17.
The diminished expectations have implications for the economy. Workers are clinging to their jobs as prospects fade for higher-paying employment. Households are socking away more money and charging less on credit cards. And young adults are living with their parents longer rather than venturing out on their own.
In the meantime, record-high stock prices are enriching wealthier Americans, exacerbating polarization and bringing income inequality to the political forefront. Even independent government agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve have been dragged into the debate.
'Defining Challenge'
"The basic bargain at the heart of our economy has frayed," Obama said in a Dec. 4 speech in Washington. "This is the defining challenge of our time: Making sure our economy works for every working American."
Democratic lawmakers also intend to press next year for a higher minimum wage to tackle the yawning gap between rich and poor, Durbin said.
Republicans aren't ceding the issue.
"The American dream is certainly more in doubt than in decades," House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio said in response to Obama's speech. "But after more than five years in office, the president has no one to blame but himself."
Income inequality has been rising more or less steadily since the mid-1970s. The Gini coefficient, a broad-based measure of inequality, stood at a record high last year, according to Census Bureau data dating back 46 years.
The recession actually interrupted the trend and temporarily narrowed the gap between rich and poor. Wealthy Americans were hurt by the bear market in stocks as the Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell more than 50 percent, while the poor benefited from increased payments from the Medicaid health program and other government programs.
The disparity has widened since the recovery began in mid-2009. The richest 10 percent of Americans earned a larger share of income last year than at any time since 1917, according toEmmanuel Saez, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley. Those in the top one-tenth of income distribution made at least $146,000 in 2012, almost 12 times what those in the bottom tenth made, Census Bureau data show.
Economists have posited a variety of explanations for the growing differences in incomes. Manufacturing companies moved once high-paying jobs abroad, to China and elsewhere. Technological advances led to the loss of clerical and office work, especially relating to routine tasks. The decline of unions — 11.3 percent of workers were represented in 2012 compared with 20.1 percent in 1983 — has advantaged bosses at the expense of their employees.
Middle Collapsed
"The middle has really collapsed," said Lawrence Katz, an economics professor at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a former chief economist at the Labor Department in Washington.
Even those with college degrees are having trouble keeping up, he said. While they earn more than those with less schooling, they've seen no real wage growth in recent years. The median income of men 25 years of age and older with a bachelor's degree was $56,656 last year, 10 percent less than in 2007 after taking account of inflation, according to Census data.
"It's very difficult for anyone middle-income and lower," said Ryan Sekac, 26, a mechanical engineer in Westerly, Rhode Island. "There was a time when it was easier."
Highest Skills
It's the richest of the rich who are reaping the most benefit as an increasingly interconnected and technologically sophisticated world puts a premium on those perceived to have the highest skills — a phenomenon dubbed "winner take all" by Cornell University Professor Robert Frank.
Government policies also play a role. The Treasury Department, for instance, taxes capital gains racked up by the wealthy on the sale of shares, bonds and other assets at about half the rate of ordinary income. The top 1 percent captured 95 percent of the gains in incomes in the first three years of the recovery, based on analysis of tax returns by Saez.
Those less well-off, meanwhile, are running out of ways to cope. The percentage of working-agewomen who are in the labor force steadily climbed from a post-World War II low of 32 percent to a peak of 60.3 percent in April 2000, fueling a jump in dual-income households and helping Americans deal with slow wage growth for a while. Since the recession ended, the workforce participation rate for women has been in decline, echoing a longer-running trend among men. November data showed 57 percent of women in the labor force and 69.4 percent of men.
Jobless Women
Women who became unemployed during the recession and its aftermath have been slower to find new positions. Among women losing jobs they'd held for at least three years between January 2009 and the end of 2011, 50 percent were re-employed by the start of 2012, while the share for men was 61 percent, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report released in February.
Households turned to stepped-up borrowing to help make ends meet, until that avenue was shut off by the collapse of house prices. About 10.8 million homeowners still owed more money on their mortgages than their properties were worth in the third quarter, according to Seattle-based Zillow Inc.
The fallout has made many Americans less inclined to take risks. The quits rate — the proportion of Americans in the workforce who voluntarily left their jobs — stood at 1.7 percent in October. While that's up from 1.5 percent a year earlier, it's below the 2.2 percent average for 2006, the year house prices started falling, government data show.
Read more: Americans on Wrong Side of Income Gap Run Out of Means to Cope
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Baffled as to how this metal on my iDrive knob got warped.
A few days ago, i felt a sharp edge on my iDrive knob while I was selecting music. I didn't think much of it since I was driving and just figured I ran my finger along the edge. I can't really see that side since its blocked by the knob itself from my position in the drivers' seat.
Today, I felt it again and took a closer look. At first I thought maybe it was just a clear plastic sticker that was coming loose after time in the sun (you know, like the ones that ship with metal products to keep them pristine which you sometimes don't realize is there so you don't take them off), but upon closer inspection, I found that the metal ring had a bunch or warps in it.
It looks like someone literally tried to pry it off with a skinny screwdriver in a few places. No one ever drives my car except for me. My passengers don't touch the iDrive (at least not that I'm aware of), and I can think of only 1 place I had to valet park it within the past few months so I have a hard time believing this was human-induced.
I'm struggling to figure out how the heck this could have happened though. Any ideas?


Kolkata, 14th March, 2018: India's most exciting, glamorous and sought after beauty pageant is underway and continues its talent hunt at Kolkata at fbb/Big Bazaar, Shakespeare Point, in Kolkata. With a new and improvised format, Miss India this year in its 55th edition will be touring to all 30 states of the nation and to crown 30 state representatives who will then compete at the National finale in Mumbai for the coveted Miss India crown. The top 3 of West Bengal and Sikkim will be given a golden ticket to the East zonal crowning ceremony to be held in Kolkata at Swissotel on22nd March. The most deserving candidate from each of the 13 states i.e. Miss India Arunachal Pradesh, Miss India Assam, Miss India Bihar, Miss India Chattisgarh, Miss India Jharkhand, Miss India Manipur, Miss India Meghalaya, Miss India Mizoram, Miss India Nagaland, Miss India Orissa, Miss India Sikkim, Miss India Tripura and Miss India West Bengal will represent their state at the grand finale which is going to be held in Mumbai in June.
The day-long audition is expected to witness an overwhelming response from the city as always, with the hope of local talent winning the prestigious title. For the very first time, the pageant will host mentors for each zone who will guide the contestants to merit. To take charge of the proceeding for the East Zone we have none other than the actress and winner of Miss India 2009, semi-finalist Miss World 2009 and winner of "Beauty with a Purpose" at Miss World for her charitable work "Nanhi Kali" Pooja Chopra who has made a mark in Bollywood.
About Miss India Organization: Miss India Organization is the most sought after glamorous beauty pageant in the country that turns dreams into reality. It is a property with a mass appeal as millions worldwide gear up to watch India's next representative at the global platform. It is the search of the perfect woman with beauty, poise, elegance, and intelligence to represent India at Miss World. It is a platform that has won many accolades for the country on the international arena and the past winners such as Aishwarya Rai, Sushmita Sen, Lara Dutta, Priyanka Chopra, Diya Mirza, etc have made India proud at international circles.


GUSSETTVILLE, TEXAS. Gussettville, also known as Fox's Nation or Fox Nation, was on Farm Road 799 six miles southeast of George West in central Live Oak County. The place was named for N. Gussett, an early local merchant. It was founded on land controlled by Patrick McGloin, who moved to Texas with a group of Irish immigrants in 1829. In 1831 McGloin received a grant for 5,240 acres, and with his help a settlement was formed on the tract and named Fox's Nation, in honor of the Fox family, the first settlers there. The community was one of the first settlements in what is now Live Oak County and as early as 1846 served as a stagecoach stop on the road between Corpus Christi and San Antonio. By the mid-1850s it had been renamed Gussettville. In 1856 the state legislature separated Live Oak County from San Patricio County. N. Gussett pushed to have Gussettville designated the county seat and offered to give land for a townsite, but Oakville, a new town, was chosen instead. In 1858 Gussettville became the third town in the county to be granted a post office. The community in 1884 comprised a church, a school, a general store, and thirty residents. The town lost its post office in 1886 and, after being bypassed by the San Antonio, Uvalde and Gulf Railroad in the second decade of the twentieth century, began to fade away. A 1936 map shows only a church, the school, and a few scattered dwellings at the site; in 1945 the school was consolidated with the George West Independent School District. St. Joseph's Catholic Church was still holding services there in 2001, and a number of people continued to live in the general vicinity.
Elizabeth Patience Patterson, Test Excavations along Interstate 37 at Oakville, Live Oak County, Texas (Publications in Archeology 35, Austin: Texas State Department of Highways and Public Transportation, 1987). Ervin L. Sparkman, The People's History of Live Oak County (Mesquite, Texas, 1981).
Handbook of Texas Online, John Leffler, "GUSSETTVILLE, TX," accessed April 20, 2019, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hvg64.


text:
Supertech S-M8 Factory Helmet Dark Bl...
Supertech S-M8 Factory Helmet Dark Blue/Orange Fluoro/Yellow Fluoro XL
ALPINESTARSSKU: AS-8302222-7445-XL
At the outset of the MX helmet project, Alpinestars product philosophy was applied and a set of specific objectives set: Create the most advanced, protective and performance enhancing helmet possible. Primary objective: protection – to create the most high-performance protection possible. Secondary objective: to give excellent ventilation, comfort and reduced weight.
Alpinestars approach to the creation of the advanced technology in the Supertech M8 draws on its depth of experience from over half a decade of world class innovation across the spectrum of motorsports and especially, its deep-rooted commitment to motocross. As with all other categories of technology that Alpinestars has mastered, bringing a new, highly complex, product to fruition requires specialist experience and know-how and a project plan led by the best brains in protection development.
Hence Alpinestars Helmet Development Department was created and given the brief to research and develop the most protective and most comfortable possible motocross helmet. The goal was to allow riders to push the limits of performance, benefiting from confidence inspiring safety technology, reduced weight distribution to minimise muscular effort in the neck, shoulders and back and improved physiological and cognitive performance with a supremely well-fitting and well ventilated construction, optimizing comfort while riding.
The S-M8 shell has been profiled with performance as a priority and with a design style that identifies the profile of the helmet and its sculpted surface as uniquely 'Alpinestars'.
• Shell construction utilizes a highly advanced moulding technology with a multi-composite combination: uni-directional carbon composite with aramid layer that gives significant radial strength around the shell, preventing compression but allowing controlled deflection for reducing transmitted impact energy, and providing critical penetration protection.
• This combination of layers is given even greater performance with an epoxy resin bonding that offers the best possible strength and energy management; limited outer shell deflection means the energy spreads wider and is better absorbed by the EPS liner.
• The result of the unique shell lay-up process employed in the S-M8 construction results in extremely effective impact protection. With a fully equipped helmet testing facility, within Alpinestars Racing Development Centre, an exhaustive impact research program has resulted in the Supertech M8 returning linear and oblique impact performance which far improves upon current helmet regulation standard limits. For direct, linear, impact by an average magnitude of 41% and for rotational acceleration, oblique, impact performance by an average of 48%.
• The Supertech M8 liner construction combines with the shell to offer highly efficient impact energy management.
• S-M8 in four anatomical shell sizes. The Supertech M8 shell construction is optimized to offer best fit across the range of four size options. Shell sizes are manufactured in small, medium, large and extra-large to ensure that riders have the correct fit which not only improves comfort but, most importantly, the effectiveness of the helmet in an impact.
• Formed with a multi-density EPS polymer, the energy absorbing layer gives an inner helmet profile which soaks up impact forces dissipated over the outer shell at the point of an impact and provides a shape offering a close and comfortable fit.
• The energy absorption performance of the S-M8 is substantially improved by a four-section construction that allows for specific densities of polymer to be prepared for different zones around the helmet lining. Not only is energy performance improved but also fit and comfort.
• Patented A-Head fitting height and angle adjustment system.
• The Supertech M8 incorporates a patented system to allow the helmet to be tuned exactly to the riders preference for the height and angle at which the helmet sits on the head. This unique technology allows for an ultra-specific set-up that can be adapted for the type of riding and the rider's preference.
• With a micro-adjustable pad that is connected to the helmet inner shell, it is possible to raise or lower the helmet fit and also, to tilt the helmet forward, or backwards.
• Unique, patented, visor release system is another key attribute incorporated into the design of the Supertech M8.
• Visor release is a key part of overall protection performance in the helmet and a major influence on the distinctive, flush, design of the outer shell profile.
• Alpinestars has developed a unique visor release system which, while ensuring the mounting is held securely in place for riding over the most extreme terrain and any track conditions, provides exactly the right level of resistance to ensure the visor detaches from the helmet shell if it is subjected to a significant impact – no matter what the angle.
• The S-M8 visor release mechanism is conceived to avoid the inherent weaknesses in other types of anchoring systems. Maintaining shell integrity is vital for safety and with the possibility of multi-directional forces impacting on the visor, separation at the critical point of loading reduces potentially damaging leverage and rotational accelerations that refer injury to the rider's neck and spine.
• Ventilation is a key feature of the Supertech M8.
• Heat mapping tests have resulted in specifically designed ducting which produces a positive flow into the helmet over and around the rider's head, improving comfort while riding and reducing the on-set of heat stress in extreme conditions.
• The visor design of the S-M8 is also an integral part of the ventilation system as it is profiled to direct airflow, acting as a channel to concentrate and smooth the flow into the shell. The Supertech M8 liner design is formed to optimize airflow channelling around the rider's head before being extracted from the S-M8 through rear exhaust vents to ensure positive pressure is maintained with constant airflow while riding.
• Hydration system compatibility.
• The Supertech M8 helmet lining design includes canals which allow a tube to be incorporated on either side of the shell. This is a feature extensively tested by Alpinestars rally raid and enduro riders enabling convenient fitting and connection to a hydration system.
• Interior lining comfort.
• Removable liner cover is washable and features a cool-max fabric interior and anti-bacterial talent yarn for long-lasting freshness and quick-dry performance between riding sessions.
• Helmet features TPE coating washable surfaces to improve maintenance and increase durability.
• Additional cheek pad set offering increased thickness of +5mm, for tighter fit adjustment – available separately.
• Collarbone protection is an important design feature of the Supertech M8 helmet shell base profile.
• The base of the S-M8 has been sculpted to give a relief section, where the bottom profile is raised to clear the collarbone (Clavicle). Also, incorporated into the area of the base pad, where it sits over the rider's collarbone, is an energy absorption pad; a more flexible compound rubber section which allows deflection when it contacts the Clavicle.
• The Supertech M8 chin-bar is formed with polypropylene which, by allowing for a degree of lateral deflection, further improves impact protection for the collarbones.
• Post-crash protection mechanisms are also a key feature of the Supertech M8 design, allowing rapid and safe intervention if the rider has suffered a major impact.
• Multi-Directional Impact Protection System: MIPS.
• MIPS is incorporated into the Supertech M8 to reduce rotational motion energies that impact the helmet causing damaging gyration force to be transmitted to the brain.
• A low friction 'slip' layer is incorporated into the Supertech M8 helmet, between the comfort padding layer and the multi-density polymer energy absorption shell. When energy is impacted upon the helmet, causing a rotation force, the MIPS layer allows for movement of the inner absorption layer to damp and re-direct the energy before causing significant acceleration stress to the brain. This mitigates the causes of brain injuries, such as concussion.
• Emergency Release System (ERS).
• The side cheek padding of the S-M8 can be extracted efficiently and safely, while the helmet is still on the rider's head, to allow ease of removal by trackside support and medical staff.
The Supertech M8 is also designed to allow a helmet 'Eject' inflation system to be fitted into the inside crown of the shell.
• Along with the ERS padding removal, 'Eject' allows for emergency removal of the helmet, without putting load on the rider's spine.
• Chin-strap: Wider than certification requirement: 26 mm for comfort and produced with a woven poly yarn to give a soft 'hand' feel that connects securely with a double D-ring.
• Weight: Reduced by design while allowing the Supertech M8 protection to be class leading.
• Weight is both a factor in riding performance and safety in a helmet and to ensure the S-M8 offers the ultimate in weight saving performance enhancement, the material selection, preparation and construction of the helmet has been rigorously analysed for weight to strength and energy absorption properties and a strict analysis of all the components used in the Supertech M8 finishing.
• Weight of S-M8 is 1300g for size Medium (ECE) - 1360g for size Medium (DOT)
• The Supertech M8 Certifications.
• The Supertech M8 helmet versions conform to both DOT certification and ECE homologation for use worldwide.
• The DOT 218 standard prescribes specific impact penetration protection over the crown of the helmet area and hence, for the US and Canada markets, the Supertech M8 will feature technology that substantially exceeds the minimum safety requirements.


text:
That's My JAM...stack: Post
6th October 2020 — 21 minute read
Quick show notes permalink
Our Guest: Brad Garropy
What he'd like for you to see: His Twitch Streams | His Discord Community
His JAMstack Jams: Netlify | FaunaDB | The "A" in the JAMstack
His Musical Jams: Kolby Cooper | Artists on his Daily Texas Country site
This week's sponsor: Auth0 permalink
This week, we've got Auth0 as a sponsor. While their prowess at authentication is important, they also just release a free online course for building a full-stack, Jamstack application with Next.js, Tailwind, Airtable, and Auth0.
Transcript permalink
Bryan Robinson 0:01 permalink
Welcome back, Jamstackers! It's been a bit of time since last we talked, but I'm so glad to be back with you. You're listening to That's My Jamstack the podcast where we asked a timeless, ageless and incomparable question. What is your jam in the Jamstack? I'm your host, Bryan Robinson. And this week on the show, we have Brad Garropy. Brad is a lead front end developer at Adobe by day and a live code streamer by night.
All right. Well, Brad, thanks for being on the show with us today. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Brad Garropy 0:50 permalink
Yeah, absolutely. I'm a recently promoted lead front end developer at Adobe. And the job description basically entails that I build SAS services for the Magento ecommerce platform, as you mean like Software as a Service things or another definition of SAS? Yeah, software as a service. So imagine things like product recommendations or search that can be kind of tacked on to the e commerce store. So what do you do for fun that if that's what you do for work? Yeah, well, definitely for fun, I do a lot of programming and side projects, but away from the computer, I really like to work out I'm into bodybuilding, powerlifting, running, all those types of things.
Awesome. So so what what kind of, is it like strength training? Is it are you doing like a Olympic league? Like overhead presses for your powerlifting? What what's that entail?
Yeah, like my training splits are typically like this, they start off with one of those powerlifting movements like your, like your bench press, or your squat, your deadlift. And then the rest of the training session kind of focuses around bodybuilding movements like to, to really stress out and tear down the muscles.
That sounds awful from somebody who doesn't do a whole lot working.
You know, it's funny, I found that a lot of developers actually take well to powerlifting. Because it's a it's usually a very structured program with progression and percentages and numbers. And I think developers just feel right at home when they have a lot of structure to training.
Yeah, that makes sense. It's kind of a logical, like I said, the progression is a logical thing. And that tends to play well with the way our brains work.
Nice. So so this is a Jamstack podcast, let's talk about the Jamstack. A little bit, what was your entry point into this idea of other static sites or Jamstack? As we can know it today?
Yeah, it was interesting. I, I started learning web development at a really volatile time, like create react app was just coming out. And this notion of front end frameworks was just really picking up and my entry point into Jamstack, was trying to make my first blog. And I had to think about, you know, how do I source data but still make hosting cheap and free and easy? Yeah. Right. So Gatsby was one of the first tools that I got to reach for I did run Jekyll for just a little bit there. But Ruby, Ruby is difficult to work with.
Yeah, definitely as a as if, especially if you're coming from like a front end development perspective. And you also often have to do Ruby work, like that just doesn't feel quite right.
Yeah, like my learning path was like HTML, CSS. What is this Jekyll thing? You know? Yeah. So eventually, I kind of switched over to Gatsby and kind of hopped on the train with everybody else about like, this is kind of how you source data and and pre generate pages, which made hosting, you know, easy, simple and free, which is I'm a big proponent of free
Free is definitelya nice thing, especially especially in like side projects like that. Like, if you got a budget at work, like, that's cool. You can use that budget, but when you just want to blog, like, I don't want to pay $10 a month in hosting for that blog.
Yeah, and, and Jamstack is really cool, especially with that philosophy, because there's so many services around the Jamstack, that the way they work is they offer free tiers and free tiers just good enough for my use case, you know, I haven't built anything that's kind of broken out of that free tier.
Yeah, I think it's one of those things where if a developer is using it on their personal projects, or their little side projects that like, they may then want to use that for bigger projects at work, and they may find more enterprise clients that way, something along those lines.
Exactly, yeah, they they, they can bait you in with some really good premium features, or just essentially just like scalability. Yeah, definitely like that. The scaling is always a always a fun challenge to not have to worry about yourself. Absolutely. I I see my back end team at work constantly like thinking about how do we use Kubernetes to scale our API infrastructure and what happens when, you know, we released this to the public and there's 100,000 requests in, you know, 30 minutes. And they have so much to worry about with with us front end folks and the Jamstack technologies, you kind of make your HTML pages, add in a little JavaScript for interactivity and API calls, and they just get cached and served as kind of works in the end. So you talked about building a blog. So obviously, you've you've used Jamstack, a little bit personally, but how are you using these philosophies? professionally now, but also a little bit more on the personal side, too? Yeah. So the blog, it's Brad garrett.com, it was my entry point into kind of building a site with real data and content. But I built many other like side projects that stemmed from there that kind of gave me my my base as a front end developer. So I built like, a little website for my wife's photography business that was done on the Jamstack. I built daily, Texas country.com, which is like a Texas country music focused blog and community website, and that sources data from all sorts of different places, and it uses Gatsby for that data sourcing. And I've even built things on the Jamstack. Not using like Gatsby and react, I built a svelte application that, in my opinion, still very much adheres to the Jamstack to track workouts.
Okay, cool. So so it's like when you say, it still adheres to the kind of Jamstack philosophy? What do you kind of see as that as that philosophy? Because a lot of people have different definitions of it.
They do. Yeah. So it folks listening to the show probably know, Jamstack stands for JavaScript API's and markup. And so this workout timer application is a single page application that I still believe falls into the realm of Jamstack. A single page application is still delivering HTML, which is your index dot HTML file just happens to be pretty blank, although you can kind of pre generate the shell of the application, and then populate data inside of there. So this application is just a timer that runs and you can go to a page, if you're logged in, where you can fetch your previous workouts, it saves it up to fauna, db.
Oh, nice. Very cool. So. So also, I'm kind of curious, you said that the daily Texas country it was a it was a Texas country music blog, but also a community. What's the community aspect? And how's that playing with the Jamstack?
Yeah, I suppose what I mean is like, I'm trying to bring the community together on that website. So I make a bunch of different types of content. So I'll source YouTube videos that I make I'll source blog articles, and all sorts of playlists to try to get folks to gather at that website. There. I see that confusion there. There was no like, notion of a user or a member where there's comments or anything, I kind of use the other platforms for that.
I gotcha. And you're sourcing those and pulling them in. You said via the Gatsby source stuff. Right. Right.
Unknown Speaker 8:13
Cool. Cool. So So we've talked a little bit about Gatsby, but what is kind of your jam in the Jamstack? What's your favorite service or philosophy framework, etc.
Man, I think this is the really cool part about the Jamstack. And this is where the A in the Jamstack kind of plays an important role. So like, first of all, hosting on the Jamstack is great. Netlify is a tool that's universally loved. And I am no exception. They they make posting your files easy integrating with GitHub easy. It makes hosting serverless functions easy. And even doing things like DNS management easy. If you opt into their DNS servers, you can do like redirects very easily or sub domains. Just easy is the word that comes to mind. That's on the hosting side. Another thing that I really like about the Jamstack is that there are so many services that support it. So this kind of brings me to like the A in Jamstack, where, if you're coming at it from a front end developer point of view, you can build a front end, but you're looking for like, what is it that might happen does? How do I connect it to services or databases, and that's where you kind of go searching for the A, the API's. And I think it leaves developers in an interesting, interesting place, they have to kind of choose what services to stitch together. And for some folks, that might be like, a good thing or a bad thing, because at the end of the day, if you're choosing to integrate a bunch of services together to create a product, you have to write a bunch of like Glue Code and you might reach more of like a fatigue and trying to determine what's the best service for CMS or a payment processor or a database?
Bryan Robinson 10:07 permalink
Yeah. And you haven't mentioned, like the fact that you've got, you have to string these services together, you have to figure out what is that string? How do I actually do the stringing of those services?
Brad Garropy 10:18 permalink
That's right, yeah. And this is where a lot of confusion can come into play. Or if if, for instance, one service isn't as flexible as you want. And now you have to like migrate to a new one, or if one service changes their pricing model, there's so much to consider. So I think a and Jamstack is fairly overloaded. When when all the services work well together, you just kind of you're picking apples from the tree, and life is dandy. But when you kind of run into problems, you really have to, like, interact with those services, support teams, or dev roles, and try to find answers.
So do you have any kind of like, best practices to like, try to avoid some of those those hiccups? Or are there any any kind of tips or tricks that you that you've had to implement as you've been building some of these things?
Yes. So one approach that I've started taking was, don't rely on CMS, if you don't have to, if you don't have somebody else, that's going to be modifying data on your website, I would opt not to use a CMS. First of all, that means you can generally bring your content right into the repository, where the front end code is hosted. And it's co located, which is a good thing, you own your content at that point. What that does is it kind of helps saves you from like, integration problems with your front end build tools. Like for instance, I was using contentful for a while, and I found that there, Gatsby source plugin was missing some fields that I really, really wanted. And after working with, like their, their dev rails and and submitting like some issues, it was clear that like, this stuff just wasn't going to be resolved. So that was one of the things that kind of forced me to move content into my repository. Another thing is like development environments, if you use Netlify, for hosting, every one of your GitHub branches, is actually turned into its own subdomain on Netlify. So that you can have like, immutable deploys two branches that have previews of content that's not actually published, which is so helpful. And sometimes getting a CMS to do that can be kind of difficult.
There's definitely some overhead that kind of comes into play when you have to do that from a CMS or from any kind of API layer at that point. For sure.
So like, I think mitigation wise is like, own as much code as you can without reinventing the wheel. And then if you have to use a service, find one that's fairly popular, or one that clicks with your mental model. And it just takes trying different services out to figure that out. I've recently worked with fauna DB as like a serverless first database. And I found that after understanding their query language, it really clicked with my mental model of like, this is how my Jamstack site is going to work with serverless. First database.
Yeah, well, and the interesting thing for me fun is actually was the first, like, no SQL like, schema list database that really clicked with me. Like, I'd used Firebase and some other stuff in the past, but never, never felt quite right. And then something about fauna just just hit me in the right spot. And I built a couple small apps with it now.
Yep, yep, I built my Murphy app with it. And I'm pretty happy with it. And actually chose not to go with their graph qL implementation, I'm doing just their, I guess, their JavaScript library implementation.
And there's a lot of interesting things that you can do kind of in the in the back how they work to where they've got their their SQL query language, their fun a query language, and you actually build out complex queries as functions that they have. And then you can actually just submit one like line of JavaScript, and it runs that function on their on their servers, which can be really, really handy.
Yeah, and I found it like, super helpful to build up a utility folder, or like a utility file with like a bunch of CRUD operations written out in SQL. So if you want to read all posts, or read a single post, or edit a post, and you just kind of build out those CRUD operations, then they're like building blocks you can use in your serverless functions, that, you know, you might have route handlers for each one, and then you just call out to that specific utility function. It just, it almost felt like I wrote kind of an express app without having to set up, like, all of the boilerplate, you know, and it was just really easy to deploy things to Netlify.
Yeah. And like the interesting thing to me too, is that like, honestly, the SQL language kind of broke my brain. In a little bit, it was, it was very difficult for me to get into. But there was a moment. And it was like two days into working with it. Were all of a sudden, like, it was like the matrix, I get all sudden, like, see my queries happening and like understand exactly where it was coming from. So there's definitely a hurdle there. It's it's a new language, but it's a, it can be very, very beneficial, I think,
yeah, I was very lucky in that I had the help of dev REL from fauna, I was actually streaming and tagging them and everything that I was doing. Next thing, you know, I got a dev REL sitting in chat. And then he joined up on a Discord server that I'm in. And he, he really worked with me side by side to like, improve my queries, discuss options, I even got invited to like a feedback call where I could, you know, talk to them about the decisions I made and how I use fauna and areas I see for improvement. And that's another thing about the Jamstack. I just feel like, all the companies are very much like developer experience first, and they're willing to engage and they, they hire Developer Relations people, and they do a really good job at reaching out.
I think I wonder if that has anything to do with kind of the, to your point on the A in the Jamstack, the API layer and how you really do kind of need developers on your team to be able to to utilize the Jamstack properly. And I wonder if that's, you know, the defining characteristic of a Jamstack company, is how well, they manage their developer community, because that's, that's who really buys in and makes all this work.
Yeah, like if A is truly kind of just a bunch of services that you have to go utilize. They have to know who their customers are, they have to know who they're delivering to.
Cool. So let's talk music. What's your actual jam right now? What's your favorite song or musician or I know you run a website about music. So hopefully, you've got some some hot takes here.
Yeah, so that daily, Texas country website is all based around a playlist that has like 1200, Texas country songs, and it's actually 1200 Texas country songs. Oh, yeah. This is only like a very select subset of the ones that are curated by me, you know, so it's a it's a big genre, because it's a big state. You know what I mean? Yeah, definitely. Anyways, there's a up and coming kind of artist, he's 21 years old, just turned 21. His name is Colby Cooper, and I love like, basically everything that he does,
so it was out of curiosity. So what is Texas country as compared to country with a capital C?
Yeah. Okay. So I think the main difference is a country that kind of comes out of Nashville, you kind of do like there's a natural epicenter of country music, and there's like a Texas epicenter of country music. And the difference is, the giant labels like Sony and Columbia are producing records out of Nashville, that that sound over produced, they use drum machines, they use snap tracks, all these different pop music elements in country music that Texas country music fans don't view as like traditional country music. Whereas in Texas, you're typically recording in like, a very modest studio. You expect to have like a fiddle in the band. That's definitely true. And there's like a steel guitar like more rich natural instrumentation, and then you typically just have like, Guys being very honest in lyrics just talking about everyday stuff.
Is Texas country that the hipster country of the country world.
So I think i think i think Nashville folks looking in would say that, but I think Texas people looking out would say no, this this is the original We are the one true country.
Gotcha. Mind you. I'm from Tennessee, so I don't actually like the Nashville the Nashville scene. But uh, but I guess I guess it's been it's flavored my my knowledge of the genre.
I think the coolest part about Texas country music is that like, you can go to a concert on any given Friday or Saturday night for like 15 bucks, you know, you're not going to have to pay $70 for an arena. See, you can go see your favorite artist right around the corner. You know, any given weekend.
Nice. Very cool. So is there anything that you would like to promote anything that you're doing that you really want out to the Jamstack community right now?
Yeah, I'm actually like, a much smaller content creator than the crowd I hang out with. And so I would love to like try to build up my my Twitch and my Twitter a little bit more. So I'm Brad Garrett at Twitch. tv slash Brad GaryVee. I stream like weeknights, like 10pm fairly late. So I'm a night owl and Twitter. It's twitter.com slash Brad Garrett up. I try to tweet out some tips every now and then and just keep you all informed about the projects that I'm working on.
So what are you what are you streaming most nights? What what kind of code Are you working on?
Yeah, I work on react. I work on feltz. But lately, it's been a lot of felt because of this Murphy app. I've been live streaming the entire development process of the Murphy app written in spelt on the front end and serverless functions and fauna DB on the back end.
Very cool. Well, I appreciate you coming on the show with us today. And I hope you keep doing some amazing things both at Adobe as well as in all these awesome side projects you got going on.
Thanks a lot for having me, Brian.
Thanks again to Brad for coming on the show this week. And thanks to you, our listeners for listening each and every week, week after a week. Now sponsor time and I'm really really excited to talk to you about a free course that our friends at auth zero have released. This course is going to cover building a full stack Jamstack application with next j s, air table off zero and tailwind CSS. Now next j s is going to be the front end framework. You'll learn all about designing with tailwind CSS air table is going to be for your database. And of course, for authentication, we're going to be using auth zero. So to watch this course, head on over to a zero to slash full stack Jamstack for all the details. And of course thank you for sticking around to the end, listening to our sponsors, visiting our sponsors, all that good stuff. Until next time, keep doing amazing things on the web and keep things jamming
Intro/outtro music by bensound.com
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HomeMajor EventsUn-Fair ground Conference 2018Keynote Speakers
Meet our Keynote Speakers
Peter Hutton
Director of the Future Schools Alliance, Peter Hutton has been a school leader in four state and independent schools for the last 25 years. His strength is transformational insight and HOW to implement change in schools. Additional areas of expertise include change management, student entrepreneurship, alternative tertiary pathways, supporting dyslexic students and futurism.
Peter was appointed Principal of Templestowe College (TC) in 2009. It was a "broken" school with just 286 local students and 23 Year 7s. Today, TC has over 1,150 students and has recently been recognised by Finland's HundrED organisation as one of the most innovative schools in the world.
As a person with dyslexia, Peter sees the world differently, and has spent his life challenging assumptions and conventions. Drawing on the latest research and proven methodologies, Peter is committed to working with other school leaders to significantly improve the lives of young people by transforming the education system to equip students for times of exponential change.
Lucy Thomas
Growing up, Lucy Thomas always figured that "someone should really do something about bullying." Then she realised: I am that someone. Now, with a background in psychology and more than a decade after launching PROJECT ROCKIT, Lucy has dedicated her whole life to the cause. Lucy has personally worked with hundreds of thousands of young people all over the world. Her work has been honoured by UNICEF, The University of Melbourne, The Foundation of Young Australians, the global Family Online Safety Institute and many more.
In 2015, Lucy was named among 12 Digital Champions for Children's Rights in the Digital Age around the world by UNICEF, and was announced as a Finalist for LGBTI Person of the Year in the GLOBE Australia Awards.
Lucy sits on the global safety advisory board for Facebook, and is the current Deputy Chair on the board at Minus18, Australia's largest youth-led LGBTI org. Most recently– alongside her sister and Co-founder, Rosie Thomas– they picked up the 2018 'Drivers of Change' award at the Instyle and Audi Women of Style awards.
Sharon Gough
Sharon moved into the homelessness sector five years ago in the role of Program Manager at Indigo Junction. She comes from a background in Youth Work with particular focus on promoting educational and participation pathways for young people with complex needs. All of her work has been committed to improving outcomes for disadvantaged and vulnerable young people. She has demonstrated experience in leading initiatives that have built the capacity of the community services sector to respond to at- risk young people at a local, state and national level.
Sharon recently travelled overseas as one of the 106 Australians chosen for a Churchill Fellowship. She has travelled to New Zealand and Canada in search of new ideas, innovation and excellence with regards young people leaving care, and better ways to prevent and respond to youth homelessness. Sharon is an energetic and impassioned public speaker.
Professor Harry Blagg
Harry Blagg is Professor of Criminology and Director of the Centre for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People and Community Justice at the University of WA. He has a national and international reputation as a leading criminologist specialising in Indigenous people and criminal justice, young people and crime, family and domestic violence, crime prevention, diversionary strategies, policing and restorative justice. He has over 20 years experience in conducting high level research with Aboriginal people across Australia (including urban, rural and remote locations) on justice related issues. He has developed a specific focus on remote communities – particularly in the Kimberly Region of WA and the Northern Territory – and has been involved in research, consultancy and policy development around community justice, FASD, night patrols, men and women's safe places, youth justice and family violence.


GO BUY "Love, Death, and Other Inconveniences: Supernatural and Psychological Horror Stories" by Tobias Wade (Author),? Rona Mae (Author),? David Maloney (Author),? Grant Hinton (Author),? Blair Daniels (Author),? S.H. Cooper (Author),? Hayong Bak (Author),? P. Oxford (Author),? J.P. Carver (Author),? J.D. McGregor (Author),? Jesse Clark (Author),? Kyle Alexander (Author),? J Speziale (Author),? Leo Bigio (Author),? Jack Healey (Author),? Tara A Devlin (Author) GO BUY THE BOOK HERE!


Unless you've been without internet access for the last day or so, you know that GW finally put 6th edition up for preorders. Being the lucky duck that I am who lives on EST, it was 7pm here when it was midnight GMT. Didn't have to wait up or anything!
I ordered my goodies and had them shipped to the Bowie Bunker in Bowie, MD because there are going to be some festivities. Hubs called and confirmed that they are doing a midnight release, but we don't know the specifics of what the festivities entail. We, along with Richard and Bart, are carpooling up there Friday night for some fun and to pick up the new rules.
If you live in the DC/Baltimore area and are heading to the Bunker for you shiny new toys as well, don't be shy and say hi!
*Update* GW has announced that they will be selling some release-day only goodies including lanyards, a beanie, and a belt at their Hobby Centers.


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Newsroom Press release
OSI and UNDP Announce New Fund to Support Governance Reform in Georgia
media@opensocietyfoundations.org
President-elect Saakashvili discusses program at World Economic Forum today with UNDP Administrator Mark Malloch Brown and OSI Chair George Soros
DAVOS, Switzerland—In a joint news conference with Georgian president-elect Mikheil Saakashvili at the World Economic Forum today, United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Administrator Mark Malloch Brown and philanthropist George Soros, founder of the Open Society Institute (OSI), announced the creation of a new Capacity Building Fund to support governance reforms in Georgia .
"We welcome this new fund and the support from UNDP and OSI, which should help sustain Georgia in this critical period of structural reforms," President-elect Saakashvili said.
This $2 million seed fund, provided by OSI and the UNDP, will be used to support key administrative and legal reforms in Georgia .
"Georgia seeks to build an open society—and for that, its civil servants need the skills to implement reforms and respond to public demands," George Soros said.
The Capacity Building Fund for Georgia will provide funding for the design of a thorough reform package. Reform of the public administration is one of the priorities of the country and will support the fight against corruption.
The Fund will allow the government to call on the services of local, international and expatriate experts who can assist in the planning and implementation of these key reforms.
"This fund will help Georgia harness the enormous political enthusiasm there now and, using appropriate expertise and effective programs, transform that energy into sound and lasting reforms," Malloch Brown said.
Working in collaboration, OSI and UNDP have been supporting similar programs in Serbia and Montenegro . As in the case of South East Europe, the new Georgian Capacity Building Fund will also seek to tap the expertise of the diaspora by giving incentives to those who choose to return home to work in public service. The fund is open to contributions from other donors and efforts are currently underway to bolster international support for Georgia 's ambitious reform program.
Experience in Georgia
UNDP has been on the ground in Georgia for the last 10 years, moving gradually away from relief assistance and into human development and economic growth. Over this period, managing a $40 million portfolio of development programs, UNDP has helped to establish local human rights institutions, improve access to information technology in government ministries, provide assistance to internally displaced persons, and helped address environmental challenges by focusing on conservation of natural resources.
OSI in 1994 established the Open Society Georgia Foundation, which is governed and managed by Georgian nationals who determine its strategic priorities. The foundation has spent some $40 million on a wide range of projects aimed at strengthening civil society, including the implementation of a far-reaching educational reform program, anti-corruption initiatives, legal reforms, development of the independent media, arts and culture, training of local government officials, electoral support, and aiding scientific research.
Experience in Serbia and Montenegro
The program in Georgia builds on the collaboration between UNDP and the Open Society Institute in establishing a Capacity Building Fund in Serbia in March 2001, with the ultimate goal of strengthening the ability of the new government to develop and implement its reform agenda. The Serbian program has become a $6 million, multi-donor initiative that has provided technical support and advisory services from national and international experts to more than twenty ministries and institutions engaged in reforming systems of public administration, social welfare, economic growth and privatization, rule of law, and addressing minority concerns.
For more information from UNDP, please contact Laura Ngo-Fontaine at laura.ngo-fontaine@undp.org , tel: +41-79-570-44-18, or Sandra Pralong at Sandra.Pralong@undp.org , tel. 421-908-729-846.
About the United Nations Development Program (UNDP)
The UNDP is the United Nation's global development network, focused on helping countries build and share solutions to the challenges of democratic governance, poverty reduction, crisis prevention and recovery, energy and environment, and information and communications technology. It is on the ground in 166 countries, working with them on their own solutions to global and national development challenges. [www.undp.org ]
About the Open Society Institute (OSI)
OSI is a private operating and grantmaking foundation based in New York City that serves as the hub of the Soros foundations network, a group of autonomous foundations and organizations in more than 50 countries. OSI and the network implement a range of initiatives that aim to promote open societies by shaping government policy and supporting education, media, public health, and human and women's rights, as well as social, legal, and economic reform. To diminish and prevent the negative consequences of globalization, OSI seeks to foster global open society by increasing collaboration with other nongovernmental organizations, governments, and international institutions.
OSI was founded in 1993 by investor and philanthropist George Soros to support his foundations in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Those foundations were established, starting in 1984, to help former communist countries in their transition to democracy. The Soros foundations network has expanded its geographic reach to include foundations and initiatives in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Mongolia, Southeast Asia, Turkey, and the United States. OSI also supports selective projects in other parts of the world.


The idea of making a Will and having to think that far ahead can seem like a hassle and a little unnecessary. In fact, the opposite is true; planning ahead can often save you thousands of dollars and weeks of extra stress in the event of an unforeseen occurrence.
Life is full of major events that can add new people in your life through births, adoptions and marriages, or people may no longer be in your life due to death or divorce. It's especially important that if you have children under the age of 18 that you review your Will and name a guardian or guardians in the event of something happening to you or your spouse.
It also pays to go through your list of heirs, representatives, guardians, trustees or executors and consider whether their circumstances have changed in some way. For example, are they still of sound mind and capable of serving in the assigned roles? Have they passed away? These are some reasons you may need to update your Will immediately.
If your estate has experienced a substantial increase or decrease in value, it is essential that you take another look at your Will. Perhaps you have bought or sold a major asset or started a business? In addition, you may have new insurance policies or pension plans for which you can name beneficiaries in your Will.
If you have moved out of the State or Territory where you executed your Will, you should consult a lawyer in your new location to determine whether it is still valid. State laws regarding Wills vary, and you shouldn't assume that your old will meets your new State's requirements.
Tax laws are constantly changing, so you need to be aware of any changes that may affect your estate plan. Staying informed and consulting a lawyer who specialises in Wills and estate planning will ensure you are kept up to date with any changes.
If you haven't looked at your Will in a year or more, right now is a good time to start your review. It's good practice to review your Will yearly. People often decide to review their Will at the end of the fiscal year, while also looking at tax planning. Remember, finances and estate planning go hand in hand, so it's the perfect time to review your Will and make sure all of your affairs are in order.


The spring sitting of the 4th session of the 61st General Assembly of the Nova Scotia Legislature began on March 29, 2012. As of April 13, 7 Government Bills and 14 Private Members Bills have been introduced during this sitting of the House of Assembly.
Below is a summary of those Bills introduced between April 6 and April 13, 2012.
This Bill declares the Nova Scotia Tartan to be the official tartan of Nova Scotia, sets out a technical description of the Tartan, sets out what the colours in the Tartan represent, and declares April 6th to be Tartan Day.
This Bill amends the Act to lower from eight to five the minimum number of members of a school board as determined by the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board.
This Bill reduces the small business corporate income tax rate from 4% to 3.5% effective January 1, 2013. The Bill also requires the Minister of Finance to take the necessary steps to lower the provincial portion of the harmonized sales tax from 10% to 9% on July 1, 2014, and from 9% to 8% on July 1, 2015, or on an earlier date in those years as directed by the Executive Council. Schedule A enacts the Nova Scotia Pension Services Corporation Act. Schedule B replaces the Public Service Superannuation Act.
This Bill amends the Public Trustee Act to authorize the Public Trustee, where an estate is valued at twenty-five thousand dollars or less, to elect to administer the estate by simplified process before the Probate Court.
This Bill requires the Minister of Education to undertake a comprehensive review of all provisions and aspects of the public schools program in the Province. The report is to be completed by September 29, 2012.
This Bill repeals the Petroleum Products Pricing Act, and would eliminate the regulation of gasoline prices.
provides that the non-unionized employer representative may be a member of a business organization nominated by the employer community.
This Bill allows a member of the House of Assembly's Public Accounts Committee to be a member of the House of Assembly Management Commission.
This Bill requires the Minister of Advanced Education to undertake a comprehensive review of all ancillary fees charged by post-secondary educational institutions to students in the Province. The review shall be completed by September 29, 2012.
This Bill amends the Agriculture and Marketing Act to require the advisory committee under the Act to advise the Minister of Agriculture on the development of policy respecting food purchases by Government of Nova Scotia entities. The Bill also requires the committee to advise the minister on the development of a policy to include a healthy-snack program in the classroom.
This Bill requires the Government to establish a Province-wide program to administer the Early Development Instrument (a program developed by McMaster University) to every student enrolled in Grade Primary under all school boards in the Province commencing in the 2012-13 academic year.
This Bill provides a Nova Scotia sound recording tax credit available to eligible sound recording companies for certain qualifying expenditures on eligible sound recordings by emerging Canadian artists or groups.
Commencement is the day on which the Act takes effect. Ordinarily, an Act takes effect when it is given Royal Assent. Sometimes, however, it provides that it will come into effect only when it is proclaimed to take effect by Order in Counsel to be made by the Cabinet.


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Looking for an interesting element that you can add to your next event? Consider having a number of food stations at your party. Food stations can add spice and foster interaction during your event. They represent a unique idea that will make guests remember your event for all the right reasons.
Food stations suit different kinds of functions. From weddings to corporate events and everything in between, you can entice your guests and make everyone get up their seats and move around. With a food station, you can easily encourage your guests to mingle and just relax. What's even better, you get to present different kinds of delicious foods which everyone will love.
When should you consider a food station?
If you are looking for budget-friendly options for party catering Toronto, we would recommend food stations. They offer a nice way to give people different varieties of food and avoid the extra cost of servers. With food stations, you can serve delicious and affordable foods that are beautifully presented. Additionally, people will not be forced to finish an entire plate and will only request for what they want to eat at the station.
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If you are planning an Asian themed event, why not have some Asian street food beautifully presented in a station? You can feature different dishes with a Chinese, Vietnamese or Korean origin. From the popular steamed baos commonly made in China to the banh mi and kimchi fries, there's a wide variety of Asian dishes that your guests would love. Find out if the event catering Toronto can help you to come up with a number of Asian flavors to choose from.
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This week's digital roundup includes a response from Gillette over their controversial new campaign, investment from Facebook to quash accusations of fake news, and the extraordinary rise of Netflix. If you're feeling the lingering effects of Blue Monday, just remember – it's all a cynical marketing ploy.
Gillette responds to the furor surrounding their recent campaign.
Facebook is planning to invest $300m in local news to help combat fake news, and despite a number of data scandals, it's revealed users remain largely unaware of how much Facebook knows about them.
It's been talked about for a while, and it's finally here – users on YouTube can now swipe through videos.
A study in the US reveals Instagram has replaced TV as the most important way to reach young people.
Smart speaker penetration grows to 10% in the US and UK.
Programmatic ad spending continues to look strong beyond 2020.
Netflix goes from strength to strength as it claims Fortnite is greater competition than HBO.
Nike has released impressive wearable tech, in the form of self-tying trainers which use data to adjust to your movement.
Video chatting app Houseparty has integrated the TV game Heads Up! into its platform.
The Pringles' Super Bowl ad teaser personifies the smart speaker.
Skateboarders could soon capture their stunts with an A.I.-powered camera, which follows their movement to create the ultimate selfie video.
Facebook's 10 year challenge – a funny meme or a way for Facebook to harvest data to improve facial recognition algorithms?
The curator of TED Talks gives his rundown of the best of 2018.
Twitter's director of product management discusses the new beta app, in a bid to remain 'valuable and relevant'.
If you have an old router hanging around your sitting room, you may want to dispose of it.


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text:
using NUnit.Framework;

namespace NodaTime.Test.TimeZones
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Tests within this class test the functionality within DateTimeZone, even though it
    /// tests it via concrete implementations.
    /// TODO: Fix all tests to use SingleTransitionZone.
    /// </summary>
    [TestFixture]
    public partial class DateTimeZoneTest
    {
        private static readonly DateTimeZone LosAngeles = DateTimeZone.ForId("America/Los_Angeles");
        private static readonly DateTimeZone NewZealand = DateTimeZone.ForId("Pacific/Auckland");
        private static readonly DateTimeZone Paris = DateTimeZone.ForId("Europe/Paris");

        private static void AssertImpossible(LocalDateTime localTime, DateTimeZone zone)
        {
            try
            {
                zone.AtExactly(localTime);
                Assert.Fail("Expected exception");
            }
            catch (SkippedTimeException e)
            {
                Assert.AreEqual(localTime, e.LocalDateTime);
                Assert.AreEqual(zone, e.Zone);
            }
        }

        private static void AssertAmbiguous(LocalDateTime localTime, DateTimeZone zone)
        {
            ZonedDateTime earlier = zone.AtEarlier(localTime);
            ZonedDateTime later = zone.AtLater(localTime);
            Assert.AreEqual(localTime, earlier.LocalDateTime);
            Assert.AreEqual(localTime, later.LocalDateTime);
            Assert.That(earlier.ToInstant(), Is.LessThan(later.ToInstant()));

            try
            {
                zone.AtExactly(localTime);
                Assert.Fail("Expected exception");
            }
            catch (AmbiguousTimeException e)
            {
                Assert.AreEqual(localTime, e.LocalDateTime);
                Assert.AreEqual(zone, e.Zone);
                Assert.AreEqual(earlier, e.EarlierMapping);
                Assert.AreEqual(later, e.LaterMapping);
            }
        }

        private static void AssertOffset(int expectedHours, LocalDateTime localTime, DateTimeZone zone)
        {
            var zoned = zone.AtExactly(localTime);
            int actualHours = zoned.Offset.TotalMilliseconds / NodaConstants.MillisecondsPerHour;
            Assert.AreEqual(expectedHours, actualHours);
        }

        // Paris goes from +1 to +2 on March 28th 2010 at 2am wall time

        // Los Angeles goes from -7 to -8 on November 7th 2010 at 2am wall time
        [Test]
        public void GetOffsetFromLocal_LosAngelesFallTransition()
        {
            var before = new LocalDateTime(2010, 11, 7, 0, 30);
            var atTransition = new LocalDateTime(2010, 11, 7, 1, 0);
            var ambiguous = new LocalDateTime(2010, 11, 7, 1, 30);
            var after = new LocalDateTime(2010, 11, 7, 2, 30);
            AssertOffset(-7, before, LosAngeles);
            AssertAmbiguous(atTransition, LosAngeles);
            AssertAmbiguous(ambiguous, LosAngeles);
            AssertOffset(-8, after, LosAngeles);
        }

        [Test]
        public void GetOffsetFromLocal_LosAngelesSpringTransition()
        {
            var before = new LocalDateTime(2010, 3, 14, 1, 30);
            var impossible = new LocalDateTime(2010, 3, 14, 2, 30);
            var atTransition = new LocalDateTime(2010, 3, 14, 3, 0);
            var after = new LocalDateTime(2010, 3, 14, 3, 30);
            AssertOffset(-8, before, LosAngeles);
            AssertImpossible(impossible, LosAngeles);
            AssertOffset(-7, atTransition, LosAngeles);
            AssertOffset(-7, after, LosAngeles);
        }

        // New Zealand goes from +13 to +12 on April 4th 2010 at 3am wall time
        [Test]
        public void GetOffsetFromLocal_NewZealandFallTransition()
        {
            var before = new LocalDateTime(2010, 4, 4, 1, 30);
            var atTransition = new LocalDateTime(2010, 4, 4, 2, 0);
            var ambiguous = new LocalDateTime(2010, 4, 4, 2, 30);
            var after = new LocalDateTime(2010, 4, 4, 3, 30);
            AssertOffset(+13, before, NewZealand);
            AssertAmbiguous(atTransition, NewZealand);
            AssertAmbiguous(ambiguous, NewZealand);
            AssertOffset(+12, after, NewZealand);
        }

        // New Zealand goes from +12 to +13 on September 26th 2010 at 2am wall time
        [Test]
        public void GetOffsetFromLocal_NewZealandSpringTransition()
        {
            var before = new LocalDateTime(2010, 9, 26, 1, 30);
            var impossible = new LocalDateTime(2010, 9, 26, 2, 30);
            var atTransition = new LocalDateTime(2010, 9, 26, 3, 0);
            var after = new LocalDateTime(2010, 9, 26, 3, 30);
            AssertOffset(+12, before, NewZealand);
            AssertImpossible(impossible, NewZealand);
            AssertOffset(+13, atTransition, NewZealand);
            AssertOffset(+13, after, NewZealand);
        }

        [Test]
        public void GetOffsetFromLocal_ParisFallTransition()
        {
            var before = new LocalDateTime(2010, 10, 31, 1, 30);
            var atTransition = new LocalDateTime(2010, 10, 31, 2, 0);
            var ambiguous = new LocalDateTime(2010, 10, 31, 2, 30);
            var after = new LocalDateTime(2010, 10, 31, 3, 30);
            AssertOffset(2, before, Paris);
            AssertAmbiguous(ambiguous, Paris);
            AssertAmbiguous(atTransition, Paris);
            AssertOffset(1, after, Paris);
        }

        [Test]
        public void GetOffsetFromLocal_ParisSpringTransition()
        {
            var before = new LocalDateTime(2010, 3, 28, 1, 30);
            var impossible = new LocalDateTime(2010, 3, 28, 2, 30);
            var atTransition = new LocalDateTime(2010, 3, 28, 3, 0);
            var after = new LocalDateTime(2010, 3, 28, 3, 30);
            AssertOffset(1, before, Paris);
            AssertImpossible(impossible, Paris);
            AssertOffset(2, atTransition, Paris);
            AssertOffset(2, after, Paris);
        }
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub