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Ивайло Герасков е български актьор.

Ранен живот и кариера
Роден е на 17 февруари 1954 г. във Варна. Завършва ВИТИЗ "Кръстьо Сарафов" със специалност актьорско майсторство за драматичен театър в класа на професор Елка Михайлова през 1979 г. След това започва да работи в Драматичен театър във Враца, а от 1982 г. е в трупата на Театър "София".

Роли в театъра
Герасков е играл в постановките "Доходно място", "Филоктет", "Ивона – принцеса Бургундска", "Соната на призраци", "Кралят Слънце", "Игра на Едип", "При закрити врати", "В полите на Витоша", "Самотата на памуковите полета", "Нощта на боговете", "Нора" и други.

Играе в пиесите "Покана за вечеря", "Нощта на 16-и януари" и "Вълните".

Награди
 Наградата за най-добра мъжка роля за филма "Вик за помощ" на фестивала във Варна.

Личен живот
Женен е за актрисата Милена Живкова, с която имат един син – Мартин Герасков, който също е актьор.

Театрални роли
 Нощта на шестнайсети януари (2016)
 Вълните (2011)
 Суматоха (2010)
 Господар и сянка (2005)
 Хайде да убием Матилда (2005)
 Кучката (2004)
 В полите на Витоша (2003)
 Нощта на Боговете (2002)
 Нора (2001)
 Ескориал (2001)
 Лов на малка моруна (1998)
 Соната на призраците (1998)
 Напразни усилия на любовта (1996)
 В самотата на памуковите полета (1995)
 Благословени души (1994)
 Отвъд хоризонта (1994)
 Италианката (1992)
 При закрити врати (1991)
 Ивона - Бургундската принцеса (1991)
 Ангели чудовища (1990)
 Реквием (1990)
 Новите приключения на Питър Пан (1990)
 Питър Пан (1989)
 Закуска с неизвестни лица (1988)
 Игра на Едип (1987)
 Нощ на изпитания (1987)
 Най-късно до шест (1986)
 Кладата (1985)
 Влюбените (1984)
 Танго (1984)
 Феерична комедия (1983)
 Хоро (1983)
 Филоктет (1982)
 Хамлет (1982)
 Светлината се губи в петата лампа (1982)
 Електра в черно
 Доходно място
 Вуйчо Ваньо – номин̀ация за "А.Аскеер" 2000

Телевизионен театър
 Старомодни бижута
 "Змейова сватба" (1984) (от П. Ю. Тодоров, реж. Вили Цанков)
 "Карола" (1979) (Миклош Дарваш)

Филмография
 Пътят на Честта (сезон 2, 2021) - Свилен
Откраднат живот (тв сериал, 2017) – психиатър
 Четвърта власт (тв сериал, 2013) – Стефан Хинов
 Главно представление (2009) Command performance – Леонид Гордов
 Забранена любов (тв сериал, 2008 – 2011)-Димитър Белев
 Shark in Venice (2008)
 The Roman Mysteries (тв сериал, 2008)
 The Shepherd:Border Patrol (2008)
 Gredndel (2007)
 Nuremberg: Nazis on Trial (тв, 2006)
 Dragon Dynasty (тв, 2006)
 Mercenary for Justice (2006) - Френски полковник
 Фаворитът 2 (2006) – Алексей
 The Mechanik (2005) - Лев
 Sacco et Vanzetti (2005)
 Принцът и просякът (2005)
 Darklight (2004)
 Филип (тв, 2004) – Филип
 Dragon Storm (тв, 2004)
 Deep Shock (2003)
 Едно дете в повече (тв сериал, 2003)
 In Hell (2003)
 Death Train (2003)
 Frogmen Operation Stormbringer (2002)
 Python 2 (2002)
 Derailed (2002)
 Papa Giovanni - Ioannes XXIII (тв, 2002)
 Air Strike (2002)
 Mindstorm (2000)
 Valkanizater (1997)
 Горски дух (1996)
 Всичко от нула (1996) – приятелят на фотографката
 Вълкадин говори с Бога (1995) – Иван Величкин
 Живот на колела (5-сериен тв, 1990) – журналистът Иван Троев
 Мъже без мустаци (6-сериен тв, 1989) – следователят Божан Митков
 Левакът (1987) – Мони
 Живот до поискване (1987) – Жоро
 Характеристика (1986) – Иван Палиев
 Вик за помощ (1984) – Георги Пеев (Чеп)
 Мечтатели (1986) – Паулин
 Гнездо за думи (тв новела, 1985)
 Front ohne Gnade - Der falsche Baron (1984)
 Прилив на нежност (1983)

Източници

Външни препратки
 Ивайло Герасков в IMDb

Български актьори и актриси
Български театрални актьори и актриси
Родени във Варна

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Labyrinth of The Four Winds
The Story: A band of brave adventurers for a variety of reasons all find themselves lost inside of the "Labyrinth of the Four Winds." It's a massive, intertwining puzzle filled with magic and mystery. Each section of the labyrinth is a miniature world unto itself with all kinds of creatures, peoples and treasures scattered throughout. Who can say what exactly lies at the center of the Labyrinth, but legend has it that anyone reaching the Inner Sanctum is granted any wish they desire. A valuable and worthy prize indeed! What's more, reaching the center is the only way to leave this treacherous and enchanted trap! Work together to navigate each section and reach the center or suffer the fate of so many who have failed before you!
Style of Play: This is an extended 10 session adventure with very simple rules that focus on d20 and d6 rolls and is based on a small number of core stats. It's a dungeon exploration adventure heavily inspired by the video game series The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy. The game features fun and fast-paced combat, lots of power-ups and unique weapons hidden within the maze. It harbors traps, puzzles, treasure, monsters and surprises around ever turn! There will be lots of opportunities for group storytelling and problem-solving as well as exploration and grid-based combat. Plenty of interactive maps, character tokens, and music rounds out the scenes.
Preparation: Minimal player preparation is needed. Players will first choose a class for their character: Healer, Mage, Warrior, Thief, or Ranger. They can also be human, elven or a dwarven. Players will begin with very little equipment and a simple set of skills determined by their class which Marc will send to each player once they've made their choices. Players will be able to customize their skills and choose between several options for each ability. Once the game begins, players will be able to level up and gain even more skills as well as upgrade and discover new equipment, further defining their characters through gameplay.
Game Master: Marc Berg (he)
suggested ages: 3rd, 4th & 5th grade
10 Sessions, 3:30-6pm
MON-FRI, April 20 - May 1
Simplified House Rules loosely baSEd on D&D
Hosted on ROll20
About the GM: Marc Berg is a seasoned Game Master with over a decade of experience running tabletop games such as Pathfinder and D&D. He's recently started running games for AiC this spring! He likes to run games that reward cooperation, creativity and curiosity.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
2/22/2016: Takeaways from Assistant Commandant for Prevention Policy from Container weight listening session
From the Desk of commandant for U.S. Coast Guard prevention policy, Rear Adm. Paul Thomas
I had the opportunity last week to attend a listening session sponsored by the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) on the amendments to SOLAS Regulation VI-2 that take effect on 1 July of this year. The so-called container weight regulation and the upcoming amendments have been the subject of much discussion in the business and maritime media, and have caused some concern and confusion in the industry. I thank the FMC for bringing key stakeholders together in an effort to reduce the confusion and establish a course toward resolution of the concern.
After listening to presentations from shippers, truckers and ocean carriers, it became clear to me that there is a lot of common ground amidst the concern and confusion. We all want to ensure the safety of vessels carrying U.S. exports, and we all want to ensure the continued efficient, productive and competitive operation of the supply chain that brings U.S. exports to market.
But it was also clear that there is a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding of the SOLAS requirements. Some asked how an international body, that does their work in London, could regulate U.S. domestic shippers operating out of our heartland. The simple answer is they cannot. Although SOLAS Regulation VI-2 is written in a manner that requires shippers to provide certain information to the vessel, there is no authority for the U.S. Coast Guard, or any other federal agency, to apply SOLAS to domestic shippers. In order to do so the Coast Guard would have to enact domestic regulations following the Administrative Procedure Act.
So does that mean the U.S. shippers are off the hook? Not exactly. U.S. shippers are part of a global supply chain and they work with international business partners around the world to bring their goods to the global market. When requirements are put on a business partner by that partner's government, U.S. shippers can be impacted. That is exactly the case with the container weight amendments. The ships that bring U.S. exports to market are required, by their flag states (foreign governments), to comply with the SOLAS regulations. That requirement may impact U.S. shippers.
There was also some discussion at the listening session about the U.S. unilaterally delaying implementation of the amendments. To do so would simply delay the implementation of the SOLAS requirements aboard ships flying the U.S. flag, not aboard the foreign flag ships that carry the vast majority of U.S. exports. In the face of a unilateral delay in implementation by the U.S., other nations – signatory to SOLAS- could not allow ships of their flag to load containers in the U.S. and still meet their treaty obligations. This would put U.S. cargo at a disadvantage.
We, in the U.S. Coast Guard, take our responsibility to ensure the safety of life at sea very seriously and will continue to ensure compliance with SOLAS as both a flag and a port state. As a result of the listening session, I'm confident U.S. shippers and their business partners will put the right processes in place to continue to ensure safe and efficient maritime trade.
This blog is not a replacement or substitute for the formal posting of regulations and updates or existing processes for receiving formal feedback of the same. Links provided on this blog will direct the reader to official source documents, such as the Federal Register, Homeport and the Code of Federal Regulations. These documents remain the official source for regulatory information published by the Coast Guard.
2/10/2016: Public meeting – Container weight listening session
In "Commercial Vessel Compliance"
4/28/2016: Additional information on Coast Guard determinations about container weight requirements, verified gross mass
3/2/2016: SOLAS amendments to container weight requirements – New FAQs published
Categories: Commercial Vessel Compliance, Design & Engineering Standards, Ports and Facilities
Tags: container weight, paul thomas


I have been studying at Kyunghee University as an exchange student for about a year, since February 2016. Before coming to Korea I studied Korean language for two years at my university but I felt that I could not reach the level I wanted. That is why I decided to come to Korea for my 3rd year of university. The first semester finished in the blink if an eye. I decided to join Asia Hope Camp organization during my second semester to gain some valuable experience that will help me in my future job search in Japan.
My work in Asia Hope Camp Organization is mainly divided into three. First, I support the Hiroba Korean classroom where students learn Korean language with private teachers. The classroom is operated by Korea Plaza Hiroba. My activities include: communications with the teachers, manage bookings and cancelations of classes, public relations of Hiroba, etc.
Second, I participate in a joined program between Asia Hope Camp Organization and the resident center in Yeonnam-dong, district of Seoul. As a volunteer, I give Japanese lessons to the people of Yeongnam Dong area. While studying Korean I encountered some difficulties and I feel I can use my experience as a student to help other people learn Japanese.


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By Stephen Farrand March 02, 2011 11:59pm
Updated: March 03, 2011 12:28am Race: Giro d'Italia
Could Vacansoleil miss out on a place at the Giro d'Italia?
RCS Sport to announce the 22 teams on Monday
The 2011 Giro d'Italia presentation in Turin
2011 Giro d'Italia race map
(RCS Sport)
An Italian fan waves the flag on as the peloton passes during what would be the first stage of the Giro d'Italia won by an Italian.
(Sirotti)
The director of the Giro d'Italia, Angelo Zomegnan has hinted there will be several surprises when he names the teams invited to this year's event but has refused to give further details before the formal announcement.
Contador expected to start Giro d'Italia
Cavendish to ride Giro d'Italia, Tour de France and Vuelta in 2011
Video: Zomegnan defends Giro d'Italia's stance on doping
Leukemans confident for Paris-Nice after strong ride at Le Samyn
Vacansoleil-DCM sees no problem with Giro d'Italia start
The 22 teams will be named on Monday, March 7, exactly two months before the race begins in Turin with a 21.5km team time trial.
Under a bilateral agreement between major organisers and the UCI, the 18 ProTeams registered for 2011 have been invited to ride all the races on the World Tour Calendar, with the race organisers allowed to award up to four other wild card invitations.
That should mean Ag2r-La Mondiale, Katusha, Lampre-ISD, Quick Step, Saxo Bank-SunGard, RadioShack, Garmin-Cervélo, Omega Pharma-Lotto, Rabobank, Team Sky, BMC, HTC-Highroad, Liquigas-Cannondale, Leopard Trek, Movistar, Astana, Vacansoleil-DCM and Euskaltel-Euskadi all receive invitations to the Giro d'Italia.
However, Cyclingnews understands that Vacansoleil's place could be at risk. The Dutch team has sacked Riccardo Riccò' and has opted not to race Ezequiel Mosquera until his positive for hydroxyethyl starch is resolved but its ProTeam status could be at risk.
Zomegnan could also decide to take a strong stance against Vacansoleil, despite the agreement with the UCI. Last year he refused to give Riccò's Ceramica Flaminia team an invitation to the Giro and is not afraid of confrontation.
Wild card invitations
If Vacansoleil misses out on an invitation to the Giro d'Italia, it would also ease the problem of deciding who is given the wild card invitation.
Zomegnan has confirmed that the Farnese Vini-Neri Sottoli team will have one of the wild card places thanks to team leader Giovanni Visconti being the current Italian national champion. The Tuscan team will also include sprinter Andrea Guardini.
That leaves several Professional Continental teams desperately hoping to secure one of three or four other places.
Androni Giocattoli topped the Italian team classification and so seems assured of an invitation under an agreement between the Italian Cycling Federation and RCS Sport.
Team manager Gianni Savio has lost Michele Scarponi to Lampre but recently added Jose Rujano to his team to boost his roster. He is rightly confident his team will be at the start in his home city of Turin on May 7.
The Geox-TMC was snubbed for Tirreno-Adriatico by RCS Sport but was invited to Milan-San Remo and seems likely to be invited to the Giro because their squad would include both Carlos Sastre and 2009 Giro winner, Denis Menchov. Both of the team's sponsors are Italian companies, with Geox a major name on the Italian high street and major advertiser in newspapers and magazines owned by RCS.
This leaves Colnago-CSF Inox, Acqua & Sapone, Team Type 1, Cofidis and possibly Europcar hoping for the final one or two wild card invitations.
All have valid reason for an invitation but someone will miss out when the teams are announced on Monday.
Zomegnan confirms deal struck in 2010
Manxman hopes for at least four sprint stages in Italy
Race director questioned by Paul Kimmage
Vacansoleil rider on the attack for 50km in Le Samyn
Dutch team dismisses rumours that it won't be invited to participate
Riccardo Riccò


Update: 11/30/2017. This article was originally titled "The Foxhole or the Dining Hall? Selecting a strategy for embedding analytics into your product." The title has been changed because, well, the old one was really bad.
It's a great time to be alive if you're a product owner looking to add analytics to your application. Just five years ago you had very limited options. Although there were many analytics or business intelligence platforms, few were truly suitable for creating analytical functionality that you could use to monetize your data. This certainly isn't the case today.
These days you've got options—many, many options for implementing what's generally termed "embedded analytics." It's a hot field right now and that brings its own set of problems. Specifically, as the embedded analytics space has exploded, the definition of "embedded" has morphed, twisted, and become so diluted that it's sometimes hard to know what vendors mean when they claim "embedded analytics".
As a result of this ambiguity, product owners are sometimes left wondering how they can use various business intelligence platforms to monetize their data. Can I use this for embedding? Can I use this other one as a standalone product? Where do I begin my search?
It used to be that the word "embedded" brought to mind an intrepid war reporter, bravely risking life and limb as they reported the news embedded alongside troops on the front lines of battle. Of course, even then the term could have different meanings. It could refer to a brave reporter hunkered down in a foxhole reporting alongside the troops under the most adverse of conditions... But it could also mean a reporter "embedded" with the dining hall staff, miles from the action with a very different perspective on the situation. The term "embedded" used in this case might have a wide range of meanings.
Do you log into a different application to get to the analytics?
Are your analytics inside your product and integrated into the workflow?
All of these are valid examples of embedding data in your product. A simple definition of embedded analytics isn't enough for your product team. You need to understand exactly how you will embed your analytics.
Here are three ways to go about embedding analytical capabilities within your product. Think of it like a "Maslow's Hierarchy" for your data: as you move up the hierarchy you gain in tightness of integration into your core product and in improved user experience but at the expense of a (potentially) more complicated project.
The user of the help desk application is working on closing out issue tickets and would like to see analytics describing their performance. They click a link within the help desk application and are taken out of the system to a dedicated analytics platform (the portal). Once they've completed their mission in the analytics tool, they then click back over to the help desk application to continue their workflow.
Analytics portals can run the gamut from very simple with no single sign-on and limited branding (they sometime aren't even branded with the logo of the core product they assist) to more tightly systems with single sign-on, cohesive branding between the core product and the portal, and links back to the core product.
Why might you choose this approach?
If you are planning on simply replicating existing reports for your users (e.g. taking your MS Excel reports and making them available on the web) without tailoring the experience to specific personas or missions, a portal works well.
It's a great choice if only a few customer need analytics capabilities and you don't want to have to support dashboards for every user.
It works well if the customer of the data isn't the same as the customer of your core product (e.g. you've got an application that provides help desk management workflow but the analytics would be for the hardware manufacturers who will never log into the actual help desk app).
You aren't concerned about usage or user engagement with the analytics. If people never click the link to visit the external analytics portal, it's not a concern.
Why wouldn't you choose a portal?
It's not the best choice if you want to show analytical information about a user's workflow. The user will have to switch between the application and the analytics portal.
It's not the optimal choice if you want a consistent user experience. Users will have to log in to the portal and navigate a completely different application. And although you can brand many analytics applications, it's often difficult to make the experience feel seamless for the user.
It's a poor choice if you want to compete on your analytical functionality. If your plan is to use analytics to reinforce your position as a "trusted advisor" to your users—the branded portal isn't ideal. Any "wow" factor resulting from gained insights is at risk of being conferred onto the analytics platform instead of your product as a whole.
The analytics portal, while it can be considered as "embedded analytics", is closer to the example of the reporter embedded over by the dessert section of the dining hall than that of the reporter up close to the action.
The user of the help desk application is again working on closing out issue tickets and would like to see analytics describing their performance. This time however, the simply click on the "analytics" tab of their application and can immediately start viewing their performance. Behind the scenes, the user's credentials were passed from the help desk application to the analytics platform which was then displayed in a frame inside the help desk app. The user likely wasn't aware of the distinction between systems and in most cases the branding (color schemes, naming conventions, logos, etc.) were consistent to further tighten the experience.
You want to use analytics to strengthen your product by showing insights as part of the main application—not a separate application.
You want control over the user experience and don't want users having to log into a separate system.
You want to make sure that users know the analytics are there and increase the probability of their regular use.
You've got an immature product and by showing the logo of the analytics provider within your application will lend a small degree of credibility in your capabilities.
The people who use the core product aren't the same as the people interested in the analytics (e.g. help desk employees want to use the workflow aspects of the product but not analytics while vendors wouldn't use the workflow, but need analytical insights).
You can't provide a consistent experience between the core application and the analytics tab or page. For example, your product has logic to convert prices to local currency but the analytics would be based only on U.S. dollars using confusion for users.
The analytics are most valuable if shown alongside the work being performed, not in a separate area.
With the "embedded but separate" approach we've move from the dining hall and a bit closer to the action. We're not exactly on the front-lines, but we can see them from here.
The top of the embedded analytics hierarchy is reserved for analytics embedded in context. In this model, the analytics are displayed alongside workflow elements performed by the core product. For example, our help desk user no longer has to log into an external portal or navigate to a separate tab to see performance. Instead, she sees analytics describing her open tickets, closure rate, and customer satisfaction score on the same page as her work queue.
You want to allow users to see performance as they work, potentially increasing engagement.
You need to reinforce the product's role as trusted advisor to the user ("see, we don't just show you what you need to do, we also help you understand your performance!).
You want to increase the overall utility of the analytics by combining them with other interactions such as commenting or root cause analytics. Users will be able to see the data and then take action based on what is displayed.
You plan to offer actions or remedies that the user can take based on the insights from the analytics (i.e. conversion rate is going down—we recommend that increase ad buys).
This method often takes longer to implement. You may need to re-architect sections of your product to accommodate the analytics alongside the workflow components.
You're now much more tightly coupled to the future of your analytics vendor. It's much more difficult to replace analytics embedded in this manner than those on a portal or separate tab if necessary.
Three different methods—all of which can be considered "embedded analytics" but which follow very different paths. In order to choose between these techniques, your product needs to ask itself: "what are we trying to accomplish with our analytics?"
If the answer is "give data to users outside of our normal product use case", "provide analytics to a subset of users", or "make our existing report available online" then the portal approach might be for you.
If you want to reinforce your product as provider of analytical insights, then you should consider tighter embedding like the "embedded but separate" method.
If you want a completely seamless experience where users see analytics alongside workflow and can take action based on what they see, the "embedded in context" direction is the one you need.
The important thing to keep in mind is that while each method outlined here is valid and can value for the user, what they will experience differs greatly across techniques. Do you want to be in the foxhole with your customers or is it fine to be a bit farther down the road? Understand your goals and which benefits your users need from the analytics and then pick the best approach for your situation.


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No artificial color or flavor, no sugar, no milk, no lactose, no soy, no gluten, no wheat, no yeast, no fish. Sodium free.
Tamper resistant: Do not use if outer seal is broken or missing.


text:
An American Reporter in Belfast: How a New Yorker Writer Got So Much Wrong in His Bestselling Book On The Troubles
by Ed Moloney
Photograph Source: Kenneth Allen – CC BY-SA 2.0
About two-thirds of the way through Say Nothing: A True Story Of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, Patrick Radden Keefe's much reviewed, much lauded account of the IRA's disappearance of Belfast housewife, widowed mother-of-ten and alleged British Army spy, Jean McConville, the author describes the day in 2011 that I learned that the US Department of Justice had served a subpoena on Boston College purportedly in a bid to find her killer.
The subpoena had been delivered on behalf of the British government and the police in Northern Ireland, and it sought access to an oral history archive that I had helped to create. Conceived in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement, the archive was devoted to collecting the memories of republican and loyalist paramilitary activists involved in the Troubles and it had been funded by, and was lodged at Boston College.
On a bright chilly (Spring) morning…Ed Moloney was at home in the Riverdale section of the Bronx when he received a phone call that filled him with alarm. Boston College had just received a subpoena.
Actually, I was not yet filled with alarm. I had beaten a Scotland Yard subpoena demanding my interview notes a few years before and if the same tactics were employed by Boston College to resist it – rallying public and political opinion behind the slogans of academic and media freedom, highlighting British hypocrisy and stressing society's need to know what had happened during the Troubles – I believed the subpoena could be seen off. Alas, thanks in large measure to Boston College's funk, that proved to be a pious hope.
Patrick Keefe does not write about what he did that day in May 2011. But if his normal routine was followed he would have driven to the Pentagon across the Potomac from Washington DC, probably around the same time as the subpoena arrived at Boston College, parked his car and made his way to his office in the depths of that unnerving building.
That was how his workday began in those days, as a special policy adviser to Defense Secretary and former CIA chief, Robert Gates, whose hire by Obama sent the message that employing one of George W Bush's most loyal aides was testament to the first Black president's loyalty to American values.
When Patrick Radden Keefe sought my assistance, first for a New Yorker article on Gerry Adams titled, 'Where The Bodies Are Buried' and then for his recently published book Say Nothing, he made no mention of his service at the Pentagon. I discovered this only recently when a friend pointed it out.
Let me lay my cards on the table. I don't believe that working in journalism one day and government the next is acceptable behaviour for any self-respecting journalist. I have spent most of my working life in a part of the world where most journalists kept a healthy professional distance from government, regarding officials and ministers almost as the enemy, the keepers of secrets, the peddlers of propaganda, the advocates of censorship and, too often, the tellers of lies. The idea of a reporter switching back and forth between government and journalism was foreign to me.
But I know that America is a different country and the values of journalism can vary from place to place. If Patrick Keefe had told me of his history at the Pentagon I would certainly have asked him some hard questions and I might have been slower to give him all the help he needed, not least the substantial assistance I gave in his writing of Say Nothing' But I would not necessarily have shown him the door.
But he didn't tell me. Moreover, he has kept that chapter of his past from the readers of Say Nothing. His potted biography on the dust jacket of Say Nothing, published in Ireland and the UK by William Collins and in the US by Doubleday, entirely omits this two-year long chapter in Keefe's career, denying the book's many readers a pertinent piece of information.
And what about his sources in Ireland?
Many of the people he spoke to in Ireland had spent large chunks of their lives resisting the British government's uniformed forces in Ireland; quite a few had spent many years in jail or internment camps. Some of those who had shared their life memories with Boston College now faced the prospect of going to jail thanks to the subpoena which the US government had served on behalf of their ally in the never-ending Global War On Terror.
Didn't the people Patrick Keefe sought out in Ireland have the right to know that the journalist who wished to dip his pen into the inkwell of their memories, had worked in the Pentagon when the subpoena was served? If he didn't tell me, I must assume he didn't tell them. And he didn't tell them, I suspect, because he knew full well that distrust and hostility to the security world, of any government stripe, ran so deep that they would not talk to him and his book would be stillborn.
The key question that arises from this excised chapter in his life story is whether it influenced his approach to the story of the disappearance of Jean McConville and the key, still hotly debated question: was she really a British Army spy?
Unlike myself, Patrick Keefe is nominally agnostic about whether Jean McConville was on the books of British military intelligence when women from the IRA's female wing, Cumann na mBan, invaded her home in west Belfast's Divis Flats, took her away and persuaded her to confess. He has said in more than one post-publication media interview that he does not know; but he advances more arguments against her being a spy than for.
He cites the lack of privacy and paper thin walls in the vast Divis Flats public housing project in west Belfast where she and her ten children lived, as casting doubt on the IRA's claim that a pocket radio found in her apartment could have been used to communicate with her military handlers.
Everything she would say on the radio could be heard by neighbors, he writes, apparently unaware of what life in public housing projects like Divis Flats is really like, where noise pollution ranks alongside broken elevators and defective garbage chutes as the residents' most persistent complaint. A whispered conversation over radio waves would be completely drowned in the cacophony of crying babies, the shouts and cries of adults and the blare from hundreds of television sets.
And he wonders how she could have seen anything of value to British military intelligence, perhaps not realising that in those early days the IRA operated quite openly in places like Divis Flats, sending out armed patrols to roam the corridors, their members vulnerable to a neighbour's prying glance.
Indeed, the now deceased IRA commander in the area, Brendan Hughes, told me way back in the late 1990's that this was how Jean McConville was discovered to be spying on his comrades. One of her children, he said, remarked in the earshot of one such IRA patrol that a pocket radio carried by one of its members looked the same as the one used by their mother. The IRA raided her apartment, he said, and it was found.
Hughes let her off with a stern warning on that occasion but, according to Dolours Price, a member of the IRA's 'Unknowns' unit which killed and buried her, she resumed her spying and was identified, hidden behind an army blanket in a police barracks adjacent to Divis, as IRA suspects were paraded before her.
Slits at eye level enabled her to give the thumbs up or down as the suspects passed by. But the blanket did not fully reach the floor and someone recognised her distinctive carpet slippers poking out the bottom. She was then abducted, allegedly confessed her activity, and was then transported by the Unknowns across the Border. The IRA in the border town of Dundalk could not bring themselves to do the deed, so the Unknowns were sent for again to kill and secretly bury her.
That is the version of Jean McConville's death as told to me by a number of former IRA activists who were involved one way or another in her demise; the formal IRA leadership has said nothing publicly other than to repeat the spying charge as justification for killing her.
The claim that a radio was found in Jean McConville's flat was central to the IRA accusation that the widowed mother was a British Army spy. So what independent evidence exists to support the claim? Were such radios available to the British security forces in 1972? And what did Patrick Keefe conclude about this matter?
The most likely radio available at that time was the Stornophone, a small hand-held device that was introduced for military use in Northern Ireland in early 1972. A researcher colleague was able to trace a photograph of a soldier in the Gloucester Regiment using a Stornophone in, of all places, Divis Flats in early 1972, several months before the IRA disappeared Jean McConville. I published it on my blog, thebrokenelbow.com.
Patrick Keefe acknowledges the existence and significance of the photo in 'Say Nothing' but immediately balances it with a denial from a RUC Special Branch, or intelligence officer called Trevor Campbell that such radios were in use at that time. So, he leaves the matter hanging in the air with a classic journalistic fudge.
Except that I gave him convincing evidence that the Special Branch man was wrong. In the report into the Bloody Sunday killings of January 1972, the Saville report – which convincingly condemned the British Army's behaviour in killing fourteen innocent civilians in Derry – disclosed that Stornophones were issued to troops in the city that day. The report said they were considered superior to the existing heavy and bulky radios carried by British troops.
I brought this important detail to Keefe's attention, sending him an email with the relevant paragraph number in the Saville report. But he ignored it.
In January 2018, nearly a year before 'Say Nothing' was published in Ireland and the UK, a former British soldier called Harry Beaves published his memoir of serving in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. He was stationed in Andersonstown, one of the strongest IRA areas in Belfast, in July 1972, just after the British Army had moved in strength into Catholic parts of Northern Ireland.
He had this to say about the radios available to British troops at the time:
'Military radios at the time were heavy and cumbersome. The A 42 standard man pack radio we used in Germany was about ten inches by nine inches by three, with a battery roughly the same size. The delight of Northern Ireland was that we were able to use Stornophone handsets similar to those used by the emergency services. The set was small enough to fit into the breast pocket of a combat jacket and had fixed frequencies that required no tuning….'
Beaves' account was available months before Patrick Keefe completed 'Say Nothing' but he missed this important piece of evidence.
When Patrick Keefe came to the Jean McConville story both Hughes and Price were dead; unlike myself he never was able to look into their eyes as they told of the part they played in this story. Nor has he ever spoken to Gerry Adams, the man whom both Hughes and Price insist gave the order to disappear Jean McConville.
If she was a spy, then there is an aspect of the story which has been widely ignored, not least by Patrick Keefe. Someone in the British Army must have recruited her, paid her, debriefed her and given her instructions. But would the military really have stooped so low as to endanger the life of a widowed mother-of-ten in such a way? And did the military continue to use her services knowing that the IRA had caught her but had let her off with a warning? The British Army, of all people, knew full well what fate awaited informers uncovered by the IRA.
When Patrick Keefe began his research I introduced him to James Kinchin White, a former British soldier who had made a hobby of trawling the shelves of the British government's archive at Kew in Surrey for historical nuggets from the Troubles. JKW, as I call him, had served in Belfast and knew his subject well.
I had interviewed him for the prize-winning documentary for Irish television based partly on Hughes' interviews with Boston College, which had also formed the basis for my book 'Voices From The Grave'.
James had served in the Royal Green Jackets regiment, in the same area of Belfast where Hughes operated. One day, on patrol, he spotted the IRA leader aiming his revolver at other soldiers; he placed Hughes in his gun sights and was about to pull the trigger when an old lady got in his way. When he looked back, Hughes had gone. In such ways does fate work its magic.
After the Boston College subpoena was served I asked JKW to keep an eye out for material at Kew that might help solve, or shed light on the mystery of Jean McConville's disappearance, in particular could she really have been a spy?
He made a search and came up with a revealing item in a publication produced by his old unit, the Royal Green Jackets (RGJ) regiment, which had served in Divis between August and December 1973, nearly a year after Jean McConville had been killed and secretly buried by the IRA. The item, in the RGJ Chronicle, read:
One important aspect of our work in Divis was to be able to 'chat' up the occupants and thereby obtain useful information. Both Robin Gamble and subsequently Major Graham McKinley, to whom he handed over 'B' Company, monopolised all the pretty birds in the flats as their 'sources', but despite this, by the end of the tour, all sections had established a friendly contact here or there.
I made sure that Patrick Keefe was aware of this story; it was an important clue as it demonstrated that military intelligence targeted women as well as men in Divis and I expected him to use it. The item begged an obvious question: could Jean McConville have been recruited to spy on her neighbours in such a way? And if she was recruited didn't the military's willingness to expose a widowed mother of ten to the dangers inherent in informing on her neighbours place the British Army on a moral plane not far from the IRA?
Patrick Keefe did not use that story from the Green Jackets' Chronicle, nor did he ponder any of the moral questions arising from the British Army's possible role in her recruitment as a spy. That absence is a significant, glaring and perhaps revealing weakness in his book.
I met Patrick Keefe as he researched his New Yorker piece, 'Where The Bodies Are Buried', and I grew to like him. So when he came to ask my help in researching a book on the disappearance of Jean McConville, I gladly agreed.
I gave him an unredacted copy of Brendan Hughes' interviews with Boston College and, later on, a copy of two interviews I had conducted with the late Dolours Price, who had transported Jean McConville across the Border, and had fired the shots, along with two of her comrades, members of the so-called 'Unknowns' IRA unit, that hurled Jean McConville into eternity.
The Hughes' interviews formed the core of my book, 'Voices From The Grave', published in 2010 and the television documentary of the same name which I co-produced the following year. Dolours Price's remarkable interviews were at the center of the recently released documentary, 'I, Dolours' which I co-produced with Nuala Cunningham of New Decade in Dublin. 'I, Dolours' was released last year.
It is now widely accepted that Gerry Adams, as the military commander of the IRA in Belfast in 1972, gave the order to 'disappear' Jean McConville and, unsurprisingly, Adams would play a central role in Keefe's story.
As most followers of the Troubles story know, Gerry Adams has consistently denied being in the IRA, although few believe him. I explained to Patrick Keefe that it had not always been so, and told him the following story, set in 1980, when I was still a freelance reporter working for Vincent Browne's Magill magazine in Dublin.
Vincent had commissioned me to write a piece on the recent takeover of the IRA by Gerry Adams and his radical allies from the North, people like Martin McGuinness and Ivor Bell. So I had asked to meet and talk to the organisation's leadership.
Eventually I got a positive response and I suggested we should meet at an hotel in north Dublin where I was staying. That evening the IRA arrived in the form of Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and a third figure, a leading Belfast Provo, the three most powerful men in the organisation.
The four of us sat and talked about the IRA, Adams included, for several hours and Adams was at times quite frank about his military role. I was able to work out that he was probably the organisation's Northern commander at or around that time.
Time moved on until it got so late the three men decided they should stay rather than risk being spotted walking into town where they might be harassed by the Irish police. I got spare blankets and pillows/cushions for them and they settled down to sleep on armchairs or the floor. I retired to my bed, which I was not going to give up for anyone. When I awoke the trio had decamped.
In 'Say Nothing', this story became:
'Once, when Adams was on the run, the two men sat up chatting in an hotel room, and, because it was unsafe for anybody to leave, Moloney spent the night sleeping on the floor'.
He also bungled the genesis of what became the Boston College archive. The archive was an idea conceived and developed by myself and former IRA prisoner, Anthony McIntyre not, as he writes, by Paul Bew, McIntyre's PhD supervisor. Bew arrived at our door from a sabbatical year at Boston College not, as Patrick Keefe claims, to head-hunt for the proposed archive but seeking project ideas for the college's librarian, Bob O'Neill. We suggested the archive and Boston College went for it.
He claims Brendan Hughes told both myself and McIntyre that he wanted his interviews with Boston College turned into a book after his death; not true, I learned of this promise only after Hughes had died, and I had told Keefe that.
He omits entirely the reason for myself interviewing Dolours Price, which was to stop her from talking herself into serious trouble by opening her door to any reporter who came knocking, something she seemed intent on doing after a disastrous interview she gave to the Belfast daily, The Irish News.
I felt a personal responsibility for her plight, since persuading her to give an interview to Boston College in the first place had arguably set her on this path. This is important detail told to Patrick Keefe which he completely ignored.
The media reaction to Say Nothing in the United States was a writer's dream. The New York Times reviewed it twice; Irish novelist, Roddy Doyle provided one of the reviews, calling the book 'excellent', in particular praising Keefe's use as metaphor, the discovery on Jean McConville's remains of a nappy pin she carried around with her for infant emergencies. Doyle apparently was unaware that Susan McKay first wrote about the nappy pin in December 2013 in the London Review of Books where presumably Patrick Keefe had first spotted it.
The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic and more than a dozen other media outlets followed, each pouring praise on the book. 'Say Nothing' rose to seventh place in the Times' non-fiction bestsellers list and at the time of writing was enjoying its fourth week amid the publishing world's elite. Audible hired him to tape the book, Hollywood pitched in with a option to make a TV series and he has become the go-to guy on, of all things, Brexit and the Irish Border.
The reaction in Ireland to his book was more low key since most of what was described in Keefe's book was well known in Ireland. Former BBC journalist, Martin Dillon had first revealed the IRA practice of 'disappearing' alleged spies in his 1988 book, 'Dirty War' which was based in no small measure on 'off-the-record' interviews with Brendan Hughes.
In 2003, I revealed in my book, A Secret History of the IRA, that Jean McConville had been 'disappeared' by a secret IRA unit called the Unknowns and that the order had been given by Gerry Adams. Seven years later I published Voices From The Grave (VFTG), and co-produced a documentary of the same name for the Irish TV channel RTE.
Brendan Hughes, the IRA voice in VFTG, was featured in both book and film, speaking at length about the Jean McConville disappearance. His extracts were taken from Boston College interviews conducted by Anthony McIntyre. In between and for long afterwards, the McConville story had figured constantly in Irish print and electronic media.
Last year, interviews I had conducted with Dolours Price back in 2010 formed the basis of the documentary film 'I, Dolours', produced, in accordance with a promise made to her before her 2013 death. In the interview she describes in harrowing detail the killing of Jean McConville and three other people she helped to disappear.
In America, 'Say Nothing' was a new story; in Ireland it was old hat.
So, how did Patrick Keefe dish up this ageing material in Say Nothing?
The Chicago Style Guide has, for as long as anyone can remember, been the standard in the publishing business for handling footnotes in books. When citing a reference in a book to another source – published, broadcast or otherwise – the author gives it a number and at the end of the chapter or book, the same number tells the reader in more detail what the source was for that particular piece of information.
One advantage of this system is that the reader or researcher is immediately aware that a piece of information appearing on a page has a source, that it is not the original work of the author.
Patrick Keefe does not use the Chicago Style Guide on footnotes for 'Say Nothing'. The system he uses is, as far as I can ascertain, unnamed and used by publishers who, as one industry source put it, 'want to convey a more commercial narrative'.
There are no numbered footnotes in Keefe's chapters, nothing to distinguish information that he has excavated from another writer's work. And he is spare with quote marks; the bulk of the writing is in reported speech. The reader could plough through his book and not know there are footnotes until the very end and even then linking the footnotes to the text is a laborious business which many readers could be forgiven for avoiding. (In the Kindle edition of 'Say Nothing', there are no footnotes at all and the average reader could be forgiven for thinking that all of the book's contents were the products of Keefe's labor.)
The writing thus flows uninterrupted, appearing to the untutored reader – or reviewer – as being the work of the author when it may not be. It takes hard work and determination to discover how much of this book is truly original reporting and how much is taken from other people's work. A 'more commercial narrative' indeed.
And so, for instance, it is less than immediately apparent where 'Dirty War', Martin Dillon's 1988 revelation that the IRA had consigned spies in its ranks to unmarked graves, ends and where Keefe's own research begins.
My book and film, 'Voices From The Grave' are all but written out of chapters that tell Brendan Hughes' dramatic story, Keefe preferring to cite Brendan Hughes' interviews with Boston College, which I gave him, as his source.
He acknowledges that I gave him the Hughes' interviews in 'a note on sources' at the very end of his book but the problem is that the same interviews were the source for the book and film, Voices From The Grave, which saw the light of day nearly a decade before Say Nothing. This is not new material but Patrick Keefe does not make that clear to his readers.
The book, Voices From The Grave, does not get a mention until page 321 (of a 399 page book) and then mostly in the context of the genesis of the Boston College subpoena.
The untutored reader – or reviewer – could be forgiven then for assuming Patrick Keefe's account of Brendan Hughes' interviews with Boston College is the first to be published. But it is not.
The climax of Say Nothing comes appropriately at the very end when he claims to have discovered the identity of the third, allegedly still living member of the Unknowns who, he writes, fired the first and probably fatal shot at Jean McConville.
When Dolours Price agreed to speak on the record about the McConville killing, she imposed a condition that was in effect stricter than that granted to Boston College interviewees; I must not name nor otherwise identify any of her comrades who were still alive. I agreed.
Of the other two members of the Unknowns unit, we thought Pat McClure had emigrated to Canada; he had actually decamped to Connecticut where he became a prison officer, of all things. When making I, Dolours, we confirmed a rumour that he had died of cancer not long after he arrived in America.
That left the third, still living member whose name I had promised I would never reveal, nor any detail that could lead to identification. In my mind that included narrowing the field of candidates by denying inaccurate names or descriptions that might be bandied about. The Unknowns were a very small, elite group and excluding one candidate inevitably narrowed the field.
At a meeting in the Bronx last year Patrick Keefe asked me about a redaction in the transcript of Dolours Price's interview, actually a very small one, that I had made, in agreement with 'I, Dolours' co-producer Nuala Cunningham, and out of an abundance of caution, before making the text of the interview available to him. I answered as honestly as I could, which was that it was done, in accordance with my promise to Dolours Price, to protect the third person who was still alive. And that is all I said.
It was at this stage of his book that Patrick Keefe made a leap in the dark.
For several years I made periodic trips to the Bronx, to meet Ed Moloney. Eventually he shared with me an unpublished transcript of one of the two long interviews he conducted with Dolours Price. The document consisted of thirty dense, single-spaced pages. Before entrusting it to me, Moloney had made one key redaction – he removed the name of the third executioner who was at McConville's grave.
He was wrong. There was no name to remove.
Ed Moloney is the former Northern Editor, The Irish Times; former Northern Editor, The Sunday Tribune; author of A Secret History of the IRA (Penguin/WW Norton); Voices From the Grave (Faber & Faber/Public Affairs); Paisley: From Demagogue to Democrat? (Poolbeg Press, Dublin); Co-producer of 'Voices From the Grave', IFTA documentary of the year, 2011; Co-producer of 'I, Dolours', screened on Hulu, iTunes, Amazon and Netflix UK; Irish Journalist of the Year, 1999.


Bollywood and Cricket are undoubtedly the two most favourite partners. When the news erupts that stars that belong to these two fields are dating, they will become the hot topic for sure. After Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma's marriage, the news that caught the attention is nothing but Hardik Pandya dating Elli Avram.
Elli Avram is a Swedish Greek actress who appeared in a Hindi film 'Mickey Virus'. She became popular as the ex-contestant of reality show Bigg Boss. Rumors took birth when Elli was spotted at Hardik's brother Krunal Pandya's wedding. The picture of Hardik, Elli, Krunal and his wife went viral on the internet at that time.
Later, Elli attended the birthday bash thrown by Shikar Dhawan and his wife Ayesha as well. That added fuel to the rumours of her dating with Pandya. But talking with a leading daily, Elli broke the silence and responded on this. "Let people be curious in life. Why do I need to clarify anything? Talking about these rumours would just be like giving more fodder for material. Anyway, so many wrong things have been written over the years but I've never clarified any of them" she said.
Also, she added, "If I respond about Hardik, they will be like, 'Oh, she is lying. We know the truth' etc". Is the Sweden beauty hinting that they are a couple and nothing could stop them? Let's see.
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Hodge, Jr., Samuel D. & Callahan, J. "The Digital Conversion of Medical Records." The Practical Lawyer. June 2018.
Samuel D. Hodge, Jr. and Joanne Callahan (2017) "Understanding Medical Records in the Twenty-First Century," Barry Law Review: Vol. 22 : Iss. 2 , Article 4.
With a discussion about the challenges involved in obtaining and analyzing electronic medical records, this article gives information about what elements should be present in the medical records that are produced in discovery and what special demands for production attorneys may need to make to obtain a complete medical record.
Presentation – Preparing Your Client for the Defense Medical Examination; Cross-Examination of the Defense Medical Examiner. Delaware County Trial Lawyers Association, October 2015.
Presentation – Electronic Medical Records – A Practical Survival Guide. Delaware County Trial Lawyers Association, November 2017.


I just finished reading the book, Bringing Up Bebe, by Pamela Druckerman. It was great! Obviously, I don't believe that EVERY french parent instills impeccable manners in their children, or that EVERY American parent lets their kid eat chicken fingers for every meal, but overall the book was entertaining. It made me think about what traits I really want Soren to have, and which ones are nice, but not a necessity.
The part of french parenting that I most agree with is the idea that parents have their own lives, separate from their roles as parents. French women put time and effort into the people they were pre-baby, which is difficult to do sometimes. It's nice for me that a lot of my friends don't have kids yet, because when I go out with them we typically don't spend all our time talking about babies. That said, I love hanging out with my 'mom' friends, whom I can discuss sleeping patterns and breastfeeding issues with. Everything in moderation, I suppose. It's interesting to note all of the differences between the two cultures, regardless of which end of the spectrum you fall on.
Soren had his first day of daycare yesterday! It went really, really well. He was the only baby there (only one other little girl goes there now), and the daycare woman told us over and over again how sweet he was. He slept, ate, played, and went to the park. When Tyler picked him up at the end of the day, he cried! I don't think we could have hoped for anything better. I still feel a little badly about not spending every day with him, but if I can't be there with him at least I know he's having a good time.
Thanks Amanda! I love reading books that make me think a little. It's so interesting to see things from someone else's perspective. Also - this totally makes me want to move to France for a year or two!


text:
Alone in a Room è un singolo del gruppo musicale britannico Asking Alexandria, pubblicato il 24 aprile 2018 come secondo estratto dal quinto album in studio Asking Alexandria.

Descrizione
Alone in a Room è il brano d'apertura dell'album e, a detta del frontman Danny Worsnop, riflette il processo di scrittura del suo album solista The Long Road Home, uscito l'anno prima. Lo stesso Worsnop, in occasione di un'intervista concessa alla rivista Alternative Press ha inoltre aggiunto:

Video musicale
Il video, diretto da Steven Contreras e girato in bianco e nero, è stato pubblicato il 25 maggio 2018 attraverso il canale della Sumerian Records e funge da prequel a quello del precedente singolo Into the Fire.

Tracce
CD promozionale (Stati Uniti)

Download digitale

Download digitale – remix

Formazione
Gruppo
 Danny Worsnop – voce
 Ben Bruce – chitarra, voce
 Cameron Liddell – chitarra
 Sam Bettley – basso
 James Cassells – batteria

Produzione
 Matthew Good – produzione, ingegneria del suono
 Ryan Daminson – ingegneria del suono
 Taylor Larson – missaggio
 Ted Jensen – mastering

Classifiche

Note

Collegamenti esterni


text:
U.S., Montenegro conduct groundbreaking cyber defense cooperation
By DoD News, Defense Media Activity | Oct. 2, 2018
A U.S. Cyber Command Airman reviews simulated cyber threat information during Cyber Defensive Cooperation at Podgorica, Montenegro, Sept. 28, 2018. Defensive cyber cooperation is part of U.S. Cyber Command and U.S. European Command efforts to support NATO allies and European partners by helping build their cyber defense capabilities. This collaboration also enables the teams to learn from one another, and demonstrates that we will not tolerate foreign malign influence on the democratic processes of our allies and partners or in the U.S. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Craig Jensen) (Photo by Spc. Craig Jensen)
A U.S. Cyber Command Airman and a member of the Ministry of Defense of Montenegro review simulated cyber threat information during Defensive Cooperation at Podgorica, Montenegro, Sept. 28, 2018. Defensive cyber cooperation is part of U.S. Cyber Command and U.S. European Command effort to support NATO allies and European partners by helping build their cyber defense capabilities. This collaboration also enables the teams to learn from one another, and demonstrates that we will not tolerate foreign malign influence on the democratic processes of our allies and partners or in the U.S. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Craig Jensen) (Photo by Spc. Craig Jensen)
A member of the Ministry of Defense of Montenegro and a U.S. Cyber Command Airman, pose for a photo during Defensive Cooperation at Podgorica, Montenegro, Sept. 28, 2018. The U.S. and NATO Allies and partners are working together to provide agile forces to respond to 21st century security challenges – including cyber, hybrid and unconventional threats. Defensive Cyber cooperation is part of U.S. Cyber Command and U.S. European Command effort to support NATO allies and European partners by helping build their cyber defense capabilities. This collaboration also enables the teams to learn from one another, and demonstrates that we will not tolerate foreign malign influence on the democratic processes of our allies and partners or in the U.S (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Craig Jensen) (Photo by Spc. Craig Jensen)
U.S. Defense Cyberspace Operators, assigned to U.S. Cyber Command and members of the Ministry of Defense of Montenegro, pose for a photo during Cyber Defensive Cooperation at Podgorica, Montenegro, Sept. 28, 2018. Defensive Cyber cooperation is part of U.S. Cyber Command and U.S. European Command effort to support NATO allies and European partners by helping build their cyber defense capabilities. This collaboration also enables the teams to learn from one another, and demonstrates that we will not tolerate foreign malign influence on the democratic processes of our allies and partners or in the U.S. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Craig Jensen) (Photo by Spc. Craig Jensen)
PODGORICA, Montenegro — U.S. service members worked alongside cyber defenders within the Government of Montenegro over the past few weeks to build cyber defense capabilities.
U.S. Cyber Command Airmen, in cooperation with U.S. European Command, have worked closely with NATO ally Montenegro conducting Cyber Defense Security Cooperation to increase interoperability, build partner capability, and deter malign influence on the democratic processes of our allies, partners and the U.S.
"Such efforts are important in terms of identifying new risks and better understanding of threats," said a spokesperson from the Ministry of Defence of Montenegro. "Building trust and transferring knowledge is of great importance to all the allied countries. In this way, we strengthen sovereignty and contribute to the overall cyber defense efforts of the Alliance."
This defensive cooperative effort is directly in line with U.S. DoD Cyber Strategy to work with allies and partners to increase information sharing, grow shared capabilities and expand operations within the newest domain of operations.
"We understand the importance of cyber defense, and we've become increasingly reliant on that network of information, so partnering with foreign nations to protect democracy and learn from one another helps not only the U.S. but our allies as well," said the U.S. Cyber Command team lead. "This work with the Montenegrins is a perfect example of how we can do that."
Montenegro joined NATO on June 5, 2017, and understands the importance of a combined approach to cyber defense.
"As one of the most developed countries, the U.S. makes big investments in cyber security and [Information, Communication and Technology] in general," a MOD of Montenegro spokesperson said. "Cooperation with such a country, which has a large pool of experts, is extremely important for a small country, which is the newest member of NATO. "It is good to know that we can always count on concrete mutual support, which gives us reassurance in national and global cyber defense. Concrete benefits are significant, especially knowing that this cooperation will continue and help us achieve desired goals in this domain."
Throughout the activities, U.S. cyberspace defenders have been operating shoulder to shoulder with military and civilian subject matter experts to improve cybersecurity of key national networks and to build the capacity of our partners and learn from one another.
"We walk through the process of identifying what happened and how we can remediate it," said the U.S. team lead. "We've been able to work with the local defenders to figure out how we can distinguish what is malicious and what isn't, and then how to go about addressing the root cause."
The Montenegrins believe that continued partnership with the U.S. will pave the way for a stronger cyber defense in the future.
"We are confident we will have close cooperation and mutual trust. The plan is to develop a schedule for long-term cooperation in the field of [communication Information Systems] and cyber with a focus on concrete actions that give benefits to both sides," said a MOD spokesperson. "We are confident that through cooperation with the United States we can achieve optimal capacities for cyber defense, and therefore, contribute to the protection of both national cyber space and within the Alliance."
USEUCOM works daily to maintain strategic partnerships like the one held with Montenegro, and this defensive cyber security cooperation represents the latest step in a sustained effort to support European partners and NATO allies across all domains.
Cyber Strategy
EUCOM
Security Cooperation
USCYBERCOM


Connect2Edmonton > C2E Features > Great Ideas for A Greater Edmonton > Several ideas for our city full of potential.
View Full Version : Several ideas for our city full of potential.
Edmonton needs to grow up as a major, Canadian, urban centre and as the capital of prosperous Alberta. Our young city is somewhat immature culturally but rich in potential. Here are examples of what I would like to see happen in Edmonton during its second century of life.
1) Edmonton Hockey Central: Canada's spiffiest, signature hockey arena with attached "world's best" ice hockey museum, right in the heart of Hockey Heartland.
2) Edmonton Energy Museum: the best energy museum in Canada, all about oil sands and other forms of fossil and renewable energy in Alberta and Canada, two energy superpowers.
3) Gateway to the North Park: the world's largest collection of innukshuks, to celebrate our intricate connections to the Arctic, built with the help of the Inuit.
4) Edmontosaurus Discovery Centre: exhibits on our unique, urban palaeontological heritage, built with the help of the U. of A.
5) Riverfront First Nations Village: an arts and craft centre, wild-food restaurant and First Nations Interpretive Centre, built with local Native groups.
6) Fort Edmonton National Historic Site: invite Parks Canada to develop this site with maps and models of all Edmonton forts, and staffed with professional historians. Open daily, year-round; a perfect complement to seasonal Fort Edmonton Park.
7) The Riverwall: a wide, paved, multi-use trail on the north shore of the river, between Riverdale and Government Park (below Provincial Museum), with a few edgy, riverfront bistros and bicycle service stations.
8 ) Riverview Bistros: a few, glass-walled bistros on bluffs (e.g. Ezzio Faraone Park, Victoria Promenade or Grant Notley Park) overlooking the valley, where I can sip wine, eat bison shish kebabs and listen to Tommy Bank's music.
9) Double bike trail network with serious trails to city centre, St. Albert, Fort Saskatchewan and Devon, and yes, with connections to a bike trail to Calgary, Alberta Beach/Lac Ste. Anne and Jasper.
11) Maintain and possibly expand our green and wild river valley as much as possible. The valley must remain our main asset. Allow only smart and beautiful infrastructure (e.g. riverwall and bistros, no more bloody parking lots…) that enhances rather than destroys its natural beauty.
Great ideas! I can see a common points across many many ideas.
Those do sound like great ideas. Would an energy museum work at the Epcor site in the river valley?
And again rapid transit, LRT is a big big big must.
Another museum that is going to happen eventually, hopefully sooner than later is the Ukranian cultural museum on jasper ave over looking the river valley.
A hockey museum would be great but I think the hockey hall of fame might take issue if we tried to be the number on museum. I'd say we should simply focus on sports in general from Edmonton as we have a rich sporting history here. But it could still be located at the arena.
Also for the river valley parks, once Louise McKinney park is totally complete it would be great if they could continue the walkway they're building further west to eventually come to the Walterdale bridge which of course is right where the native memorial is being built if I'm not mistaken.
It has been mentioned that when we build a new ice arena we should put a hockey museum, but also someone mentoned a sports hall of fame slash Museum. That is a really good idea as most stuff for sports the city has collected is in City Hall, where people dont see it as far as I remember. A hockey museum would compete with the Hockey Hall in TO, it is true. I am so surprised that with all the sports talk shows around, it doesnt get talked about.
1) Central Farmer's Market: a centrally-located, serious market open daily, year-round. Edmonton is surrounded by a very substantial agricultural community and deserves a market open more than a few hours on Saturday. Huge numbers of workers in the city centre would likely make it a very successful facility.
It is beyond me why we do not have already a substantial market open daily in our large city.
2) Downtown John Janzen Nature and River Centre: relocate this underused and poorly-located (not immediately on the river's edge) facility on the downtown riverfront to tell the whole story of the North Saskatchewan River, from the Rockies to Husdon Bay; with serious aquariums displaying most of the fish species (sturgeon and all) and other aquatic wildlife that thrives in our beloved and important river. Without the river, Edmonton is basically very ordinary… or nothing.
John janzen relocation, that is a good idea. That place is a good idea, but so poorly situated and underutilized it will never grow into anything of substance.


text:
namespace Server.Admin.Extensions
{
    using Server.Admin.Models;
    using System.Collections.Generic;
    using System.Linq;
    using System.Web.Mvc;

    ///
    /// Extension methods for use in views.
    ///
    public static class HtmlExtensions
    {
        ///
        /// Displays any alerts.
        ///
        /// <param name="html">Extends the HtmlHelper for use in the view.</param>
        /// <returns>A formatted collection of alerts.</returns>
        public static MvcHtmlString DisplayAlerts(this HtmlHelper html)
        {
            Guard.NotNull(() => html);

            List<AlertModel> alerts = new List<AlertModel>();

            if (html.ViewBag.Alerts != null)
            {
                alerts.AddRange(html.ViewBag.Alerts);
            }

            if (html.ViewContext.TempData["Alerts"] != null)
            {
                alerts.AddRange(html.ViewContext.TempData["Alerts"] as List<AlertModel>);
            }

            var shortText = new Dictionary<AlertType, string>
            {
                { AlertType.Success, "Success!" },
                { AlertType.Info, "Heads up!" },
                { AlertType.Warning, "Warning!" },
                { AlertType.Danger, "Oh snap!" }
            };

            if (alerts.Count > 0)
            {
                string format = "
{1} {2}";

                format += "<button type=\"button\" class=\"close\" data-dismiss=\"alert\">×Close</button>
";

                string result = alerts.Select(a => string.Format(format, a.Type.ToString().ToLower(), shortText[a.Type], a.Message)).Aggregate((a, b) => a + b);

                return MvcHtmlString.Create(result);
            }

            return null;
        }
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Brain On a Chip
by · Published April 7, 2009 · Updated January 18, 2010
Are we humans – with our carbon-based neural net "wetware" brains – at a point in history when we might be able to imprint the circuitry of the human brain using transistors on a silicon chip?
A well-covered recent article in MIT's Technology Review reports that a team of European scientists may have taken the first steps in creating a silicon chip designed to function like a human brain.
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What's involved in this seemingly Herculean task? The brain is a parallel processor. The colorful blue jay I see flitting from tree to tree in my garden appears as a single image. But the brain divides what it sees into four components: color, motion, shape, and depth. These are individually processed – at the same time – and compared to my stored memories (blue things, things with feathers, things that fly, other blue jays that I've seen).
My brain then combines all of these processes into one image that I see and comprehend. And that's just vision aspect of a multiplexed moment of perception. At the same time, I smell the fragrant flowers in my garden, hear the neighbors talking about a party, feel my muscles relax as I sit in my lounge chair, and daydream about the beaches of Fiji while I answer my cell phone.
The MacBook Pro Intel core duo that I'm using to type this article is also doing several things at once. At the highest level, its world consists of programs with multiple computational threads running at the same time. Parallel processing makes programs run faster because there are more CPUs or cores running them.
Today's most powerful supercomputers are all massively parallel processing systems with names like Earth Simulator, Blue Gene, ASCI White, ASCI Red, ASCI Purple, and ASCI Thor's Hammer. Through Moore's Law – which states that the number of transistors on a chip double every eighteen months – single chips that function as parallel processor arrays are becoming cost effective. Examples include chips from Ambric, picoChip, and Tilera.
The brain is also massively parallel, but currently on a different scale than the most powerful supercomputers. The human cortex has about 22 billion neurons and 220 trillion synapses. A supercomputer capable of running a software simulation of the human brain doesn't yet exist. Researchers estimate that it would require at least a machine with a computational capacity of 36.8 petaflops (a petaflop is a thousand trillion floating point operations per second) and a memory capacity of 3.2 petabytes – a scale that supercomputer technology isn't expected to hit for at least three years.
Enter the team of scientists in Europe that has created a silicon chip designed to function like a human brain. With 200,000 neurons linked up by 50 million synaptic connections, the chip is still orders of magnitude from a human brain. Yet, the chip can "mimic the brain's ability to learn more closely than any other machine" – thus far.
"The chip has a fraction of the number of neurons or connections found in a brain, but its design allows it to be scaled up." So says Karlheinz Meier, a physicist at Heidelberg University in Germany, and the coordinator of the Fast Analog Computing with Emergent Transient States project, or FACETS.
Henry Markram, head of the Blue Brain project at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, uses the same databases of neurological data as FACETS. Among the challenges he faces is "recreating the three-dimensional structure of the brain in a 2-D piece of silicon."
Markram admits that the simulations of biological brain functions using a silicon chip are still crude. "It's not a brain. It's more of a computer processor that has some of the accelerated parallel computing that the brain has," he says.
Markram doubts that the FACETS hardware approach will ultimately offer much insight into how the brain works. For example, unlike the Blue Brain project, researchers aren't able to perform drug testing – simulating the effects of drugs on the brain using silicon. "It's more a platform for artificial intelligence than understanding biology," he says.
Markram's Blue Brain project is the first comprehensive attempt to reverse-engineer the mammalian brain. The brain processes information by sending electrical signals from neuron-to-neuron using the "wiring" of dendrites and axons. In the cortex, neurons are organized into basic functional units – cylindrical volumes – each containing about 10,000 neurons that are connected in an intricate but consistent way. These units operate much like microcircuits in a computer. This microcircuit, known as the neocortical column, is repeated millions of times across the cortex.
The first step of the project is to re-create this fundamental microcircuit, down to the level of biologically accurate individual neurons. The microcircuit can then be used in simulations such as a genetic variation in particular neurotransmitters, mimicking what happens when the molecular environment is altered using drugs.
Brains In Silicon, an interdisciplinary program at Stanford, also combines neurobiological research with electrical engineering. The program has two complementary objectives: to use the existing knowledge of brain function to design an affordable supercomputer that can then itself serve as a tool to investigate brain function, "feeding back and contributing to a fundamental, biological understanding of how the brain works."
Kwabena Boahen, Brains In Silicon principal investigator and an associate professor of bioengineering at Stanford, has been working on implementing neural architectures in silicon. One of the main challenges to building this system in hardware, explains Boahen, is that each neuron connects to others through 8,000 synapses. It takes about 20 transistors to implement a synapse. Clearly, building the silicon equivalent of 220 trillion synapses is not an easy problem to solve.
The quest to reverse-engineer the human brain is described in detail in Jeff Hawkins' well-known book On Intelligence. Hawkins believes computer scientists have focused too much on the end product of artificial intelligence. Like B.F. Skinner, who held that psychologists should study stimuli and responses and essentially ignore the cognitive processes that go on in the brain, he holds that scientists working in AI and neural networks have focused too much on inputs and outputs rather than the neurological system that connects them.
Hawkins' company, Numenta, is creating a new type of computing technology modeled on the structure and operation of the neocortex. The technology is called Hierarchical Temporal Memory, or HTM, and is applicable to a broad class of problems from machine vision, to fraud detection, to semantic analysis of text. HTM is based on the theory of the neocortex first described in Hawkins' book.
In The Singularity Is Near, Ray Kurzweil comments that, "…hardware computational capacity is necessary but not sufficient. Understanding the organization and content of these resources – the software of intelligence – is even more critical and is the objective of the brain reverse-engineering undertaking." He goes on to famously say that once a computer achieves a human level of intelligence, it will necessarily soar past it.
h+ contributor Ben Goertzel (like Kurzweil) has stated that – given the problems facing humanity – we may not be able to wait on advances in hardware and the reverse-engineering of the brain to achieve the AI vision of human-like intelligence (or greater). His Novamente Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) software is not dependent on a specific hardware architecture, although it will obviously benefit from massively parallel supercomputer architectures. Key cognitive mechanisms of the system include a probabilistic reasoning engine based on a variant of probabilistic logic and an evolutionary learning engine that is based on a synthesis of probabilistic modeling and evolutionary programming. It's a different approach than reverse-engineering the brain, but one that may yield results more quickly.
With research and development converging on all fronts – hardware and software – it would seem to be only a matter of time until a brain with human-level complexity is available using a massively parallel architecture on silicon chip. Karlheinz Meier's FACETS group now plans to further scale up their chips, connecting a number of wafers to create a superchip with a total of a billion neurons and 1013 (10 trillion) synapses, well on the way to the 22 billion neurons and 220 trillion synapses of the human brain.
If Ray Kurzweil is right, superchip development won't stop at 22 billion neurons, even if Moore's law is no longer applicable and it becomes impossible to get additional transistors on a piece of silicon. Physicist Freeman Dyson at Princeton University has visualized spheres extracting usable stellar energy. Currently the stuff of SciFi, a "Class B stellar engine" would consist of a series of nested Dyson spheres – a Matryoshka brain like a series of Russian dolls enclosed inside each other – and composed of nanoscale computers powered by a star.
Cyborg says:
FPGAs are the best hardware we have now, for the future of AI. In fact they might even be more accurate, as "AI" means just that: artificial intelligence, not human-mind simulation. FPGAs learn, remember, and apply their memory. They are the only computer hardware that doesn't necessarily go out of date.
TweetDeckTV says:
Make photonic fiber of erbium doped silica sponge spicules packed so voids and dopant align to create cellular automata for emergent computation. 3-D navigation through a crystal structure would enable adequate synapse. Spicules could be grown or replicated to include dopant, which would provide 3-D circuitry.
Raw Power | Desirable Apps
[…] seen for the amount of computation power required to create a silicon version of the human brain is 36 Petaflops, backed by 3 Petabytes of memory. Don't worry, I also had to look up the meaning of the word Petaflop – it works out at […]
Apps which Recognise Images and Sounds Desirable Apps
Atom-Photon 'Switch' Heralds Quantum Networking Advances - Many Pieces One PIcture
[…] crunch an unfathomable 33.86 petaflops, putting it somewhere in the vicinity of what researchers reportedly estimated just a few years ago would be necessary to simulate the human […]
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What's odd to me is that Ubisoft decided to remaster this as opposed to the Ezio trilogy. Wouldn't those games sell better than this? Apart from the prologue, ACIII was a snooze that I've always regretted buying; even if it had been on sale.
No separate release? This is whatsitsname Call of Duty all over again.
The Ezio Collection came out about three years ago already.


My live in landlord/roommate buys these and lays them. He leaves them by the edge of walls by the kitchen and dining room but not totally against the walls where mice run. But sometimes they do catch mice. Matt usually oils them and frees them outside. I gets the heebie jeebies. I love mice but wild mice are dirty. I get mad at them bc they also are in our room. (Last week we found a half eaten strawberry massage bar ) And I get REAL mad when they gets into my dog food. I don't mind scaring them to heck to get them away from our bed and window and such but once I see them stuck in glue I dies. I lost my appetite trying to free one I found today. Since I was home alone I had to get the oil and do it myself. Unless I'm seriously out of the loop, I think it was a baby. I know wild mice are way smaller than domestic ones but this one was TINY!
Anyway, I think I have to have another talk with my roommate. He bought this house which predates 1900 and apparantly survived the Great Fire in 1892. So there's no way mice will be banished for good. My neighbors have chickens right outside and the walls are a chewed out maze (most likely)... So there's no getting rid of them. But glue traps are the worst kind of punishment. We can't have a cat bc Matt and I really cannot afford another pet and our roommate doesn't want to take care of one. He lets the street cats inside but Coco freaked her out a little so she wanted to leave.
Unfortunately the no-kill traps don't always work.
I wish I could tell you...but I have been struggling with wild mice since I moved in. However since my apartment was renovated I have not seen/heard or there have not been any signs of mice around...I guess they don't like the new place!
I am not against the live/humane traps,but they are not the best from the research I have done. They can be more cruel sometimes,because if a mouse goes in and nobody checks the trap for days,the mouse will starve to death. But if you do get to the trap in time,you have to release the mouse far away from the house,or it will just come back.
The sonic systems apparently only work for a bit,but the mouse grow immune to them or something,because people have told me after a little while the mice just come back.
So the only suggestion I have is snap traps. They are quick/instant. You can get plastic ones which are washable and reusable,but then you have to remove the mouse...or you can get the wooden ones which you just throw away.
I love mice and rats,as you know...but wild ones are NOT welcome in this house.
D-con has a no view no touch Mouse trap.
I have bad memories from no-view no-touch trap when my retarded "ex" had used traps on his KITCHEN counter with fur and tails and stuff in them (which "he" couldn't see) *epic eye roll* If I used them I would check them. With the weather getting nice now I don't feel so bad releasing mice down at the park at the end of the road.
We have sonic things emitting sound in the kitchen. Next to the dishwasher, and mice thrive there. It does not bother them anymore, if it ever did -_- Ugh, if Matt would agree to take care of snap traps, Dominion has 2-packs marked down. :/ I don't wanna see it though.
Well I used (I have not had to set them since the apartment was renovated) snap traps,I never heard a "death whisper". I have heard the snap once. But it was so quick,the mouse don't feel nothing I am sure.
Yeah,those sonic things don't work as well as they claim because they either don't bother the mice or they just get accustomed to it.
Ugh, I have a hollywood version in my head of guts an gore with snap traps :/ Anyway, there's 2 set downstairs now. I hope to jesus I'm not around to hear them snap !!
He had plastic ones but the mice weren't completely inside when they died and pieces were left over. YUK!!!
But my landlord Tim said he's going to gt a kitten!
That is gross. I never ever had that issue fortunately! I would probably be scarred for life. The ones in my traps just had their necks broken.
Yay for a kitten. Has he looked at ads yet?
You should get rats...hehe...mice don't like rats and even when I had mice,they NEVER went in the rat room.
No and according to Matt my imagination of hearing them die is quelled. I still havent seen any on the snap traps but Matt has disposed of 3 so far and one more on the glue trap. He threw out all the glur traps and we're going to pick up more snap traps. Seeing in my hands how they work I can appreciate how quick and sudden death comes. That is a relief.
Oh I wanna see a free Buy & Sell.
WOW...so you been catching a lot of mice then? Sounds like your mouse problem is a lot worse then mine was. I caught ONE mouse maybe every 2 weeks or so.
Good luck on kitteh search though.
Well, the glue traps didn't have bait so we weren't catching as many. Now that there's peanut butter bread down there the mice are just going boners for it!! Matt said the bait is always gone when he removes the mice... That means a dead comrade is not stopping the little turds from stepping over their brethren and finishing the treat!
Haha,mice are stupid compared to rats.
There have been documented cases of rats who would see their friends in a snap trap or glue trap and would learn from the other rat's mistakes and then avoid said traps. Poison too. That is why companies usually have to try making poisons stronger and changing formulas,because rats can outsmart humans.
That's what I remembered from your book I read I'm SO glad our problem is only mice. I'd be pretty mad if rats were involved, not that I don't like them but they seem to be a worse problem than mice.
I used a glue trap once when I had a mouse. My hand accidentally touched the glue, and I felt creeped out by it. The reason why nothing wants to live with me is that I'm really noisey, because I watch TV and am constantly walking around. Using bleach on your counters and floors might irritate the mice enough for them to leave.
No, leaving bleach around will harm myself, my roommates and possibly my dog. I refuse to leave that around. It does have a potent odor but until we get a cat the snap traps will be at work.


text:
Renovation Week
NYC Interior Design
Father and Son Architects Transform a Century-Old Park Slope Brownstone
Over the course of a year they transformed a townhouse into a modern rental
By Tanay Warerkar@TanayWarerkar May 6, 2016, 6:15pm EDT
One of the renovated units at the brownstone in Park Slope.
All after photos by Brian Tisza
For architect Zachary Lewis, the renovation of a three-story brownstone in Park Slope was a family project. For one, he was collaborating with his dad, Richard Lewis, as part of their architecture firm, Richard H. Lewis Architecture. On another level, Richard imagines the now rental building could one day be used by Zachary and his brother as their home.
And so it began that Zachary started looking for properties that he could renovate — a long term investment for the family. Zachary settled on an over 100-year-old house located in the Park Slope Historic District Extension just about a year ago, and his family was on board as well.
"We were looking for townhouses anywhere in Brooklyn," Zachary told Curbed. "I happened to see it on StreetEasy, and the price was right."
That wasn't the only thing going for the house. Built in 1902, the three-story house had a spotless record — no complaints, no DOB violations, nothing. The last owner of the building had owned the property since the 1970s, and the building had only exchanged hands a couple of times before that, according to Zachary. The former owner was looking to sell, and by the time Zachary came upon the property, the tenants in the building had already cleared out (the owner decided not to renew their leases since she wanted to sell), and that made it all the easier for Zachary and his team.
The townhouse was always designed to have three separate units, so when they decided to renovate, they wanted to keep it that way, and create a three-unit rental building. Being in a historic district made the process slightly challenging — getting the requisite permits and approvals, but once that was taken care of, it was mostly smooth sailing, Zachary said.
"This was both a typical and atypical project for us," he said. "We do a lot of townhouse renovations in New York City but it's mostly multi-family homes being converted into single family homes. It was atypical in the sense that we were our own clients."
And so the team set about making some changes. They changed the orientation of some of the rooms in the apartments like the kitchen, and moved them to the center in all the units, some of the interior walls were demolished, all the bathrooms were remodeled, and the second and third floors got additional bathrooms as well. On the ground floor, the team turned a window into a door to provide access to the backyard.
But many elements of the original building were kept intact. The entry vestibule was virtually untouched as was the stairway. Some of the moldings and crown were also maintained.
The original staircase that was preserved during the renovation efforts.
The renovation allowed Zachary and his team to really get to the roots of the building, revealing originals knobs, tube wiring, plumbing work, and several layers of ceilings or as Zachary describes it as "seeing history through the floors."
Renovation work wrapped up in February, and by March the building had its first tenant — Zachary's brother. Another tenant followed suit in April, and the most recent tenant moved in just a couple of weeks ago meaning the building is now fully occupied.
"The most fun part was brining it back out of its decrepitude," Zachary said. "It was a diamond in the rough. It was exciting and thrilling to see the transformation — to maintain the brownstone charm while also appealing to a modern tenant."
All the Renovation Week Coverage [Curbed]
Next Up In Renovation Week
from Curbed 8 tips for renovating a small space
from Curbed 15 renovation apps to know for your next project
Renovation Week Recap: What You May Have Missed This Week
from Curbed A Progressive Synagogue Finds a Home in a Historic NYC Building
from Curbed 6 Stellar Renovation Stories from Curbed Readers
from Curbed LA Inside the Beautifully Restored Highland Park Bowl


NYC's Original Firestore has been issuing commmemorative T-Shirts ever since the 9/11 attacks. Sales of our original Memorial Shirt helped us donate over $250,000 since 2001. This shirt marks the 14th Anniversary of the attacks, and helps keep the memory alive. The lower rocker on the front image pays tribute to the thousands who suffer from post 9/11 illness and the hundreds who have since died.


When you face risk, one way to go forward is to work to get more data that will let you reduce the risk in your mind and gain comfort.
Another way to look at a risky situation is that, in an uncertain terrain, more and more data will be coming at you. You can't stop it from coming. You CAN watch for it, take it in, reject nothing, compile it, assemble it, deduce from it, learn from it. Risk = more data inbound. Always. If you're watching.
What If The Risk Is Still Too High?
If the risk remains intolerably high, it might mean you don't have enough data. You may be at the point of needing the last data, and they're hard to come by. Your competitors probably don't have the last data either. What will you do to win the project?
When you're smart enough to isolate the last data you need and obtain it, your risk falls. But your competitors' risk stays the same, and they may decide not to play.
If they play, they will make untenable claims in the proposal because they don't know how else to address the risk. Your client might see through their claims. Use your meeting time with the client before the decision is made to point out the "risky" areas in the scope of work, point out how you solved the problem in your proposal, and how others might not have. In the end, you win because you knew that risk is just data.
Does this help how you think about risk? How can you make your next proposal easier and make it more likely to win? Please join the discussion.
What Are The Two Things Everyone Wants?
My coaching client is a creative, energetic, intelligent, hard-working self-starter and entrepreneur. Like so many people, he has more directions to go and things to try than he has time for, so he called me in.
We used to ask clients what they wanted to have accomplished five years from now. Forget that – that's way too long. I asked him what he and his five employees are working hard on every day two years from now, and he started talking. After a minute, his voice got faster, a little higher and louder, he leaned forward, and was smiling. When he was done, he plopped back in the chair, smiling, and quiet.
Do you agree? Is that a good method to choose your objective, maybe even your mission? Please join the discussion.
Is there something that has you distracted, preoccupied, or anxious at work? Consider this technique to get around it.
Are you a Magnum, P.I. fan on Amazon? Magnum was a pretty good private investigator and he knew how to pick locks. Getting away from the bad guys often depended on Magnum being able to pick a lock at the end of a hallway with the bad guys bearing down on him.
It's human nature to keep watching where the bad guys are coming from. But what Magnum had to do was focus on the lock. He had all the skill and tools to pick the lock and get through the door to safety. All he had to do was work the lock. His skills would get him through if he would focus on the lock.
Sometimes we see only the danger or feel only the fear. Or worse, spend our time looking for it, watching for it, anticipating it… When what we should do – all we have to do – is focus on the lock.
Don't watch the bad guys.
I have watched this technique work in intense situations. Do you think it would work for you? Please click "Comment" and join in.
Do you know the surest way to get to know your client better? It's not as hard as it sounds.
But Rick did say it, and it changed my career. My new client was a Navy base, five hours away. A 10-hour round-trip drive would stretch to a 13- or 14-hour day if I actually got a meeting with anyone, and I didn't want to make the drive. Not unless I could guarantee some sale or revenue out of it! I had a few ideas for projects but not enough, so I didn't think I was ready for meetings at the base.
I had reasons and excuses but I also didn't have any sales. When Rick said, "What are you doing here?", it shook me. I didn't want to lose his confidence or support. Within the hour I'd made appointments for meetings and rented a car. I drove to the base the next day, using the five-hour commute to get my thoughts together, assemble what I knew about the client, and assemble the questions I'd ask to get to know my clients and their needs.
I practiced what I'd been taught: I asked a question and shut up. I sold a project that day, because I did make the drive, because I had good questions, and because I shut up.
Months later it dawned on me that making a sales call only requires spending time with your client, having good questions, and being interested in the answers. Your questions are no good without their answers.
My sales career took off. Thanks, Rick. Thanks, Bob.
Who knew?? They did. And now, so do you.
What do you think? Does this way of looking at it, "be interested in the answers", make your sales job easier? Please click "Comment" and join in.