text:
The Features That More Cameras Should Have
It's easy to look at the impressive slate of cameras today and wonder what more they could possibly do. But there's always room for improvement, which is why I'd like to go through some of the most useful features found on some – but not enough – cameras today.
All the features I'm listing below exist at least somewhere on the market. In other words, the technology is there. But I think there's a big gap on the market if a company wants to stand out with their feature set, since no camera comes anywhere close to having all of these.
Note that when I've listed the features below, I've also mentioned some of the prominent cameras today with each feature. It's not an exhaustive list and I'm sure I missed plenty, especially on brands that I'm not as familiar with like Pentax and Panasonic. If you let me know in the comments, I'll add any missing cameras to the appropriate sections.
Without further ado, here are the features I think should be found on more cameras today:
1. Back-in-Time Buffer
One of the key skills of sports and wildlife photography is anticipating the moment. There's always some shutter lag – and lag in our own perception – to deal with. But even with top-tier anticipation skills, you'll occasionally end up pressing the shutter button a hair too late and missing the moment. One feature that can save the day is what I like to call a "back-in-time buffer." It's found on some Olympus cameras and a few smartphones, as well as a more limited implementation on the discontinued Nikon 1 line of cameras.
Here's how it works. Any time you hold down the shutter button halfway, the camera captures a constant burst of photos with the electronic shutter. (It discards them rather than saving them to the memory card.) Once you fully press the shutter button, the camera saves the backlog of images from the past half-second or so. As a result, you'll capture a moment that you otherwise would have photographed too late. (On the late Nikon 1 cameras, the camera automatically chooses which "back in time" frames to keep, and only keeps 5 frames total.)
Of course, this feature takes up more card space – and some pros may tell you just to learn anticipation skills instead – but you can always turn it off if you don't want it.
Currently Found On: Many of the newest Olympus cameras (where it's called "Pro Capture"), including the OM-D E-M5 Mark III and all OM-D E-M1 cameras from Mark II and beyond; more limited implementation on Nikon 1 cameras (called "Smart Photo Selector")
Helps With: Sports and wildlife photography
Lucky timing! But that won't always be the case.
2. Sensor Dust Protector Curtain
I've found when shooting mirrorless that my sensor gets dirty more often compared to using a DSLR. It's not a big pain to clean it, but I'd rather worry about other things when I'm out in the field.
I'm sure someone will correct me on this, but as far as I know, the first camera with a dust-protection curtain was the Canon EOS R. When you remove the lens on the EOS R, the shutter curtain closes in order to protect the sensor from the outside world, including dust.
Other cameras have added this feature in the meantime, including the Nikon Z9 (which doesn't even have a mechanical shutter and instead uses a dedicated dust protection curtain for the job). I hope it becomes standard issue on all mirrorless cameras, and frankly, even on DSLRs.
Currently Found On: Sony A9 II and A1; Nikon Z9; Canon full-frame mirrorless cameras other than the EOS RP
Helps With: Any genre of photography where you're using narrow apertures, especially landscapes, macro, and architecture
3. Voice Memos
Practically every camera these days has a microphone and a storage device. So why has it taken so long for voice memos to find their way to the masses?
High-end professional cameras have had voice memo options for ages. A quick Google search tells me it existed on the Canon EOS-1D Mark II in 2007 and the Nikon D2X in 2004, and maybe even on some earlier cameras.
Voice memos aren't something everyone would use, but for documentary photographers, wedding photographers, and a few others, they can be a big help.
I'm glad to see Nikon adding voice memos to some of their less expensive cameras via a firmware update, including the Nikon Z6 that was released a few years ago. Hopefully more camera companies follow suit.
Currently Found On: Most flagship sports cameras; Nikon Z6 and Z6 II (not the Z7 or Z7 II for some reason); Canon 5D IV for $100 service fee; Fuji X-Pro2, X-Pro3, X-T2, X-T3, and Fuji medium format cameras
Helps With: Any sort of documentary photography
4. GPS
A lot of cameras are compatible with external GPS units that can tag your photos as you take them, but there's no reason for the extra expense and annoyance of a dongle. To me, the proof is in point-and-shoot cameras. So many of them have built-in GPS, even cameras from more than a decade ago. If companies could add it to such basic cameras for so long, why isn't everyone adding it to higher-end cameras today? (Maybe this next part is asking too much, but I'd also like to see the GPS sync your current location with the camera's clock, so you don't need to change the time in the menu each time you go to a different time zone.)
At least GPS is found on more cameras than some of the other features on this list. But it should be as common as WiFi and bluetooth – and it shouldn't require you to sync your camera to your smartphone in order to piggyback on the phone's GPS.
Currently Found On: Nikon Z9, D6, D5300; Olympus E-M1X; Canon EOS R3, 1DX II, 5D IV, 6D II; Pentax K-1 series and K-3 II; several point-and-shoot cameras; almost all smartphones and drones
Helps With: Documentary photography, landscape photography, or any time that you want to remember a location
I like that drones almost always tag GPS coordinates to an image, so I can revisit a promising location more easily in the future
5. Illuminated Buttons
I'll be the first to say that you should learn how to use your camera with your eyes closed. You should instinctively know the location of every button and dial, or you'll miss some shots in fast-moving conditions. However, for Milky Way photography or other shoots in pitch-black environments, backlit illuminated buttons can still be very useful. It certainly beats a bright headlamp that can shine into your photo or just ruin your night vision.
A few cameras have illuminated buttons, and the Pentax K-1 series even has a small light that illuminates the camera lens mount! For changing lenses at night, this makes things a lot easier. I'd like to see both these features on landscape-oriented cameras in the future.
Currently Found On: Canon EOS 1DX III; Nikon D850, D4-D6, D500, Z9; Pentax K-1 series (separate light, not backlit buttons); Panasonic S1 series
Helps With: Astrophotography and other times when you're taking pictures in the dark.
6. Bulb Mode Preview
Some cameras show a live preview of how your exposure is building up during a Bulb or Time exposure. This is a helpful way to tell when to end an ultra-long exposure rather than spending lots of time with trial and error. This is a big win for Olympus including such a feature when most camera companies don't!
Currently Found On: Most recent Olympus cameras; some smartphones
Helps With: Long exposure landscape photography
7. Vibration Detection Shutter Firing
Imagine if your camera could measure external sources of camera shake – for example, a gust of wind when you're shooting on a tripod – and only fire the shutter once it detects the image will be stable?
I'd find that to be a huge help as a landscape photographer, even if it's not a feature I'd always keep turned on. Sometimes, I think a photo is perfectly sharp, only to realize at home (once it's too late to fix it) that there's a bit of low-lying blur thanks to the wind.
Very few cameras have this feature today, but a couple Phase One medium format cameras do. They call it "Seismographic vibration delay." Hopefully the other companies are taking notes.
Currently Found On: Phase One XF IQ4 cameras
Helps With: Landscape photography
8. Native Image Averaging
I'm a big fan of image averaging as a way to dramatically improve your image quality and dynamic range. So too, it seems, is Phase One.
On a few Phase One and Olympus cameras, there's built-in image averaging to simulate ultra-long exposures without an ND filter, as well as improving shadow noise significantly. Image averaging is basically a way to simulate arbitrarily low ISO values, and it would be a great addition for a lot of landscape photographers.
Currently Found On: Phase One XF IQ4 cameras; Olympus E-M1 III and E-M1 X
Helps With: Landscape photography and any application that requires high dynamic range
9. Sensor Shift High Resolution
One feature that's gotten a lot of attention recently, and is found in increasingly more cameras, is a pixel-shift high resolution mode on cameras with in-body image stabilization. This mode takes multiple photos in a row with slightly different sensor positions, then merges them together to increase resolution substantially. On most cameras with pixel-shift, you can quadruple the sensor's native resolution.
Currently Found On: Lots of cameras, but still not enough! A majority of recent high-end cameras have this, aside from Nikon and Canon cameras, which still don't
Helps With: High resolution needs, especially landscape and architectural photography
DC-S1R + LUMIX S 24-105/F4 @ 105mm, ISO 200, 1 second, f/5.0; High resolution sensor shift for 180 megapixels
10. Focus Stacking
Landscape and macro photographers often have a difficult time capturing enough depth of field without resorting to tilt-shift lenses or narrow, diffraction-prone apertures like f/16. Some cameras have a built-in focus stacking mode that can help you get around that problem. I'd like to see focus stacking expand to more cameras. I'd also like to see it output a single, stacked raw file rather than making you assemble the final stack yourself on your computer.
Currently Found On: Most new Olympus, Nikon, and Fuji cameras
Helps With: Landscape and macro photography
NIKON D7000 + 105mm f/2.8 @ 105mm, ISO 400, 1/320, f/13.0, Seven-image focus stack
11. Photographer's-Eye-Sensing Autofocus
Canon caused a stir when the EOS R3 was confirmed to track your eye – specifically, where in the frame you look when you're using the viewfinder – to figure out where to focus. It's still not a fully-featured operation that lets you track the subject (it's just used for initial acquisition), but it's still an amazing sight. I'd love to see this in more cameras, especially as the technology keeps improving.
Currently Found On: Canon EOS R3
12. Multi-Axis Tilting Camera Screen
As a landscape photographer, I've found tilting camera screens to be a huge ergonomic improvement in recent cameras. And while almost every camera these days has at least a single-axis tilt, not enough of them can tilt sideways. For vertical photography, this sideways tilt is a big help. I'd like to see multi-axis tilting screens (or fully articulating screens) find their way to more cameras in the future. Although a lot more cameras have it these days, a few companies still lack it in some of their most important cameras (like the Nikon Z7 II and Sony A7R IV).
Currently Found On: Nikon Z9, Zfc, D5600 series; Panasonic S1 series; Pentax K-1 series; Fuji medium format and X-T4 series; Sony A7S III; most Micro Four-Thirds cameras
Helps With: Composing vertical images from a tripod
13. Shutter Speeds Beyond 30 Seconds
Nikon was early to the game with extended shutter speeds beyond 30 seconds, and I really thought that other camera companies would copy them. But so far, it's not really happening. I'd love to see more cameras on the market capable of taking multi-minute exposures without the need for a cable release.
Currently Found On: Most new Nikon cameras; Panasonic S1 cameras (up to 60 seconds); most Olympus cameras (a "time" exposure mode where you press the shutter once to start the exposure and once to end it)
Helps With: Landscape and astrophotography
NIKON D780 + VR 100-400mm f/4.5-6.3E @ 380mm, ISO 100, 60 seconds, f/8.0
14. Raw Histograms
It's almost comical how long the "every ounce of image quality" club (which includes me) has been asking for raw histograms on a modern camera. The response from camera companies? Crickets. There's are only a few cameras on the market with a raw histogram. One of them is a Leica that only shoots black and white, and the others are Phase One medium format backs.
Currently Found On: First generation of Leica M Monochrome; Phase One XF IQ4 cameras
Helps With: Maximizing image quality through proper ETTR
15. 16-Bit Raw
Although I just admitted that I'm part of the "every ounce of image quality" club, even I don't care too much about getting 16-bit raw on a camera. 14-bit raw is already excellent. But at the same time, I also know that if my camera had a 16-bit raw option, I'd be using it for my landscape photography. Some medium format cameras already have it, and it's a contributing factor to their excellent range of colors and tones.
Currently Found On: Most medium format Hasselblad and Phase One cameras
Helps With: Landscape photography, studio photography, and other situations requiring utmost image quality
16. Animal-Eye-AF
Most new cameras have eye-AF capabilities that can track the eye of the person you're photographing. Animal-eye-AF, though, is rarer.
I admit that this feature may not be necessary once you master the standard tracking capabilities of your camera, but it's still something I'd like to see more often. Not all photographers are pros who have hundreds of hours to spend learning their camera's tracking capabilities inside and out, so a bit of a head start like this can be nice.
Currently Found On: All recent Sony cameras, even some aps-c; Canon EOS R3, R5, R6; Nikon Z9, and limited implementation (cat and dog only) on other Nikon Z cameras
Helps With: Wildlife photography
NIKON D800E + 70-200mm f/4 @ 175mm, ISO 100, 1/250, f/4.0
17. Brighter Light Compositing
This next feature is a bit difficult to describe, but I'll do my best.
The idea is that you're taking a long exposure that doesn't get overly bright over time. Instead, it only composites particularly bright lights into the exposure over time.
It's easier to describe by example. If you're photographing lightning, you can use a 10-minute exposure, and the foreground doesn't get drastically brighter during that time. But the moment a lightning strike flashes, it shows up in the photo because it's a bright light.
This mode would be useful for photographing fireworks or even star trails to avoid getting an overexposed foreground. It's only found on Olympus cameras these days (where it's called "live composite"), but I'd like to see it on more.
Currently Found On: Most Olympus cameras
Helps With: Photographing lightning and a few other long exposure subjects
I took this with my camera on a time-lapse and ended up capturing hundreds of nearly identical photos that evening. Only a few were keepers. Live Composite would have made things a lot easier if my camera had it.
18. Base ISO Below 100
With camera sensors improving so much in terms of noise and dynamic range, they've almost hit a ceiling. One way around that, at least in terms of dynamic range, is to implement a lower base ISO.
We've seen it work with the Nikon D850, Z7, and Z7 II. These cameras have class-leading dynamic range that's about 2/3 stop better than any base ISO camera on the market. I hope more camera companies follow suit, and maybe even try to go down to ISO 50, 32, and so on. (Though implementing the built-in image averaging feature I discussed a moment ago can serve a similar purpose.)
Currently Found On: Nikon D810, D850, Z7, Z7 II, Z9
Helps With: Landscape photography and any situations requiring extreme dynamic range.
NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 24-70mm f/4 S @ 70mm, ISO 64, 1/100, f/7.1
19. Built-in Flash Commander
Almost all new cameras have gotten rid of the pop-up flash, and I've never heard anyone complain about the loss of the weird, harsh light they used to give. But I have heard a lot of people complain that removing the pop-up flash also removed the commander mode for firing external flashes! I wish that a company would add this back, even if they only add a commander mode to fire external lights and not the full pop-up flash.
Currently Found On: Most cameras that have a pop-up flash
Helps With: Portraiture, studio photography, and other situations where you're using an external flash
20. Star Tracking Sensor Shift
A lot of clever things can be done with a moving camera sensor. In-body image stabilization is only the beginning. One of the most interesting is the ability to track stars for Milky Way photography, a feature found on a couple Pentax DSLRs at the moment. It's a bit of a niche feature, but considering that the baseline IBIS technology is already built into most new mirrorless cameras these days, it's a niche feature that more cameras should have.
Currently Found On: Pentax K-1 series
Helps With: Astrophotography
Taken with an external star tracker instead of one that's built-in, because the Nikon Z7 doesn't have one built-in! It sure would have been nice to save the weight.
One thing that impressed me while working on this article is that the unique features I've listed here are spread out among camera brands pretty evenly (although Olympus gets the nod for having the most). To me, this shows that every camera company has something good to offer and they can still learn from one another when making new cameras. Now it's just time to put that into practice! Let's see a camera that has all these features and more. I'm sure there are many possible features that I can't even begin to guess, which aren't on any camera today.
Are there any that I missed, or some feature you're especially hoping reaches your next camera? For my landscape photography, I'd personally love to see a camera with raw histograms and vibration detection when firing the shutter, unlikely though it may be. But I'd frankly be excited if any of these features become more widespread. After all, as I said at the start of the article, the technology is already here – all we need is for today's camera companies to bring it all together.
This article was originally published by Photographylife.com. Read the original article here.
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It's been an incredible year, and the best word to describe this year would be 'freedom.' I loved how Robyn from the Real Life RD described her year as 'rich', and that made me think of this year.
I thought I would incorporate this into the Week in Review with Meghan and the Sunday Thoughts with Jamie with this 'Year in Review' post for 2017.
This year I've felt freer than I have in 10 years. For 10 years I've struggled with seeing my body as a gift from God, the way I was made as a precious gift. I struggled with eating food and loving the food as a blessing from the Lord, not an enemy.
It reminded me that although I don't understand everything, I know that God is doing what He wants to be done, and that it will work out for my good. There will be bruises, and there will be hurt along the way, but I can 100% trust that there is beauty from the ashes, and glory and goodness that is going to come out of even the mountains I am facing right now.
I over-think all the wrong things. Of course, I don't think you could ever over think or even reach the capacity of over thinking who God is and what God does to sinners that need His mercy. I don't think you could even reach the capacity of over thinking about God's love and forgiveness. But I over think the other things, the little things that don't matter in the big scheme. I over think whether or not I'll die tomorrow or in 80 years instead of just trusting God's perfect plan for me. I over think my own faults instead of resting in God's promise of forgiveness in Jesus Christ.
And I don't like that about myself. I don't like being an over thinker. I want to be more like Peter and walk out on the water. But I also understand that I'm also going to have that human weakness of seeing the winds and the waves around me like Peter did and start to sink.


However, it was not the British accent we think about today! During the Revolutionary Era, there were many "British" accents depending upon what part of Britain you emigrated from to America. Once in America, the accents began to quickly diverge. However, the British accent we know today with the nasal soft R like "yahd" did not come into existence until after the Revolutionary Period.
For a discussion of how the Founders sounded, listen to John McWhorter's podcast. John H. McWhorter teaches linguistics, philosophy, and music at Columbia University. His latest book is The Language Hoax.
For a written analysis of the diverging accents, see Mental Floss post by Matt Soniak.
Did Charles Lee and Horatio Gates have better reputations going into the conflict as they were recent immigrants and their English was closer to "British" English?
Did Israel Putnam receive lower esteem from his colleagues as he had a rough, rural accent which was further removed from the British sounds?
Did city generals such as Benjamin Lincoln and Samuel Holden Parsons have advantages over rural generals such as John Stark and Daniel Morgan?
There was considerable internal squabbles between northern and southern Continental Army officers. Was his rivalry enhanced by accent differences?
We may not know how these generals sounded, but just as today, ones accent does influence how we are perceived by colleagues and acquaintances.
Next Next post: Read through the Quirkiness!
Intriguing questions about regionality and class.


text:
Radomir Kovačević (20 March 1954 in Drvar — 14 June 2006 in Belgrade) was a Yugoslav Olympic judoka and coach. He participated in three Olympics (Montreal, Moscow, and Los Angeles) and was an Olympic medalist. He was well known in judo circles and was close friends with world-famous Japanese judo champion Yasuhiro Yamashita. He was a member of the NYC 2012 Olympic Bid Committee.

Biography

Radomir Kovačević was born in Drvar, Bosnia on 20 March 1954. His father was a World War II veteran. Kovačević grew up in and began practicing sports in Drvar. He started Track and Field in 1967, at the age of thirteen. By age fifteen he tried basketball, but said "I was very angry because regardless of how good I was, my opponent always scored."

The very next year Kovačević became a wrestler in the Greco-Roman style in which one is only allowed to use the upper half of his body. In one year, he became champion of Yugoslavia, which was quite an accomplishment, considering that Yugoslavia was a world powerhouse in wrestling, at the time.

In the summer of 1971, after wrestling practice, Kovačević had decided to change sports yet again, when he saw small Japanese man "throwing people like paper airplanes", as he put it, at a local Judo club. The same day he resigned from his wrestling club and joined the judo club. After training for six months at that club he managed to throw the Japanese on one knee. On the spot, the Japanese offered to send him to Japan to study judo.

Two days later, he was flown off to Japan, where he enrolled in Tokai University and continued to practice Judo. He competed for the college and on his fourth year became captain of the judo team. He was one of the few foreigners to become captain of a Japanese judo team. During his time in Japan he also gained interest in Eastern religion and philosophy.

In 1980, he became a bronze-medalist at the Moscow Olympics. He was a coach at The Dwight School in Manhattan and trained many champions in various sports including wrestling, tennis, basketball, and sailing, among others.

Starting in the late 1990s, Kovačević held a three-to-four-hour-long Judo class on Saturdays at the Spartak Judo Club, in Forest Hills. Despite the fact that the classes were usually between three and seven people full they were effective in building and attracting champion judo players.

Death

On 15 June 2006, after eighteen months of fighting cancer, Kovačević died in Belgrade. He was cremated and his ashes were divided into two urns. One stayed in Belgrade while the other one was taken to Tōkai University in Tokyo.

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2006 deaths
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Olympic bronze medalists for Yugoslavia
Judoka at the 1976 Summer Olympics
Judoka at the 1980 Summer Olympics
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Will changes to trucking industry regulation endanger NC drivers?
A regulation requiring trucker rest periods to include set amounts of overnight rest has been suspended; this could lead to more fatigued driving crashes.
As most people in Raleigh know, it's not uncommon for truck drivers to work long and irregular hours. This can lead to fatigue and a greater likelihood of accidents. Sadly, these accidents often have devastating consequences for other motorists, including serious injuries and even fatalities.
Given this substantial risk, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has enacted regulations that mandate rest periods for truckers and limit the total hours that truckers can work. Unfortunately, the recent suspension of one of these regulations may leave innocent drivers in greater danger of truck accidents.
Rest periods under study
Most of the FMCSA regulations on breaks and weekly work limits are still in place. However, according to the Marshfield News Herald, recent legislation has suspended one important requirement for the weekly "reset" periods that drivers are required to complete before beginning a new workweek.
Previously, truckers had to complete a 34-hour restart period that included two rest periods lasting from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. Now, drivers only need to take 34 hours off from driving. The regulation is suspended until September 2015, pending an FMCSA-funded study into the effectiveness of requiring overnight rest periods during reset periods.
Proponents of the rule suspension believe it could reduce trucking accidents, since the overnight rests resulted in more truckers driving during the day, causing more congestion and a potentially greater risk of accidents. However, critics believe mandatory overnight rests play a critical role in limiting driving hours and reducing driver fatigue. If this is the case, the suspension of this requirement could lead to an increase in accidents involving fatigued truckers.
A significant accident risk factor
Fatigued driving plays a role in many North Carolina accidents. According to WSOC-TV, in Charlotte alone, drowsy drivers caused over 530 crashes during a three-year period. Statewide, drowsy driving caused a known 417 accidents in 2012, 392 crashes in 2013 and 334 accidents in 2014. The number of crashes that truly involved driver fatigue may be even greater, since fatigue can be difficult to identify or establish after an accident.
Fatigued driving accidents can be especially severe when the drowsy drivers are operating large commercial vehicles. WSOC-TV relates the story of one fatal Hendersonville accident that occurred when a truck driver fell asleep at the wheel. The truck driver plowed into a passenger vehicle, which was stopped in traffic due to a crash on the road ahead. Tragically, none of the vehicle's five occupants survived.
Statistics show that many people in North Carolina may fall victim to large truck accidents this year. Data from the state Department of Transportation indicates that there were more than 9,000 reported accidents involving single unit or heavy trucks in 2012 alone. Sadly, lives were lost in more than 130 of these truck accidents. Unfortunately, the suspension of the overnight rest rule may lead to an increase in similar accidents.
Recourse for negligent accidents
Anyone who has been harmed or lost a loved one in an accident that a truck driver caused should think about meeting with an attorney. An attorney may be able to provide advice on the available legal remedies or guidance during the claim process.
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text:
Q: bootstrap-slider change max value I am currently using the Twitter bootstrap-slider library, and have been trying to figure out how to change the max value after the slider has been initialized. This question on how to retrieve the value was of some help, but I still cannot find the exact method to call. Here's what I have been trying so far:
JS:
$('#slider').slider({
    max: 100
});
$('#slider').slider({
    max: 200
});
console.log($('#slider').data('slider').max)

Console:
100

Setting the $('#slider').data('slider').max value directly also does not change the range of the slider itself, even thought the value has changed. Any help on setting the max value or re-initializing the slider would be much appreciated!!

A: I had the same problem and the best solution I found was to destroy the slider and recreate it whenever I needed to change the range values.  It's a little tricky because: 1) removing the slider also removes the original anchor tag; and 2) you need to save the css width of the old slider and use it for the new one.
Here's a simplified version of the code I used. If you have more than one slider on your page, then you'll need to be careful and only delete the one you need to update.
HTML:
<div id="sliderDiv">
    <input id="mySlider" type="text" data-slider-tooltip="show"/>
</div>

Javascript:
//Call this function to create the slider for the first time

function createSlider(minRange, maxRange){

   $('#mySlider').slider({
        min: minRange,
        max: maxRange,
    value: defaultValue
    }).on('slideStop', handleSliderInput);

}

//Call this function to destroy the old slider and recreate with new range values

function changeSliderRange(newMin, newMax){

    //Save old slider's css width
    var oldSliderWidth = $("#mySlider").css("width");

   //remove the old slider
   $(".slider").remove();

   //Recreate slider anchor tag with saved width value
   $("#sliderDiv").after("<input id='mySlider' type='text' style='display: none; width: "+ oldSliderWidth + ";'/>");

   //Now recreate the slider
   createSlider(newMin, newMax);
}

A: I struggled getting this to work with various examples and eventually sorted it with this syntax, which I added into my function where needed.
strMin=3;
strMax=5;

$("#myslider").data('slider').min=strMin;

$("#myslider").data('slider').max=strMax;

$("#myslider").data('slider').value="[" + strMin + "," + strMax + "]";

$("#myslider").data('slider').setValue([strMin,strMax],true);

A: You just need to apply setValue after you'v changed $('#slider').data('slider').max
$slider = $('#slider');

// Get current value
var value = $slider.data('slider').getValue();
// should be:
// var value = $slider.slider('getValue');
// but it doesn't work

// Change max
$slider.data('slider').max = 13;

// Apply setValue to redraw slider
$slider.slider('setValue', value);

http://jsfiddle.net/23aPK/

A: You need to call the refresh method. The following code does the trick:
   $("#slider").slider('setAttribute', 'max', maxVal);
   $("#slider").slider('setAttribute', 'min', minVal);
   $("#slider").slider('refresh');

A: $slider = $('#slider');

// Apply max to redraw slider
$slider.slider({ max: value });

A: The best you can do is set the min and max and re-apply the value. You can do this in a few ways. But what I did was to create a setMax and setMin extension method that sets the min and max. The only problem with this was I needed to change the plugin to extend $this instead of this, because my setMin and setMax extension methods wasn't available.
So change this...
$this.data('slider', (data = new Slider(this, $.extend({}, $.fn.slider.defaults,options))));

...to this...
$this.data('slider', (data = new Slider($this, $.extend({}, $.fn.slider.defaults,options))));

...in the library. If you want to add on your own extension methods. But then you still have to do setValue either in the library in your extension method or outside. (setValue does the calculation for the position of the slider handles and the layout of the slider)
So you can do something like this...
$('#sldOne').on('slideStop', function (ev) {
                $('#sldTwo').slider('setMin', 0);
                $('#sldTwo').slider('setMax', 4);
                $('#sldTwo').slider('setValue', new Number($('#sldTwo').val()));
            });

i.e. On the first slider's slideStop event set the min and max of the second slider. And then call setValue again to re-do the layout.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


• Coordinate with the Creative Director, Studio Manager, Senior Producers and and other team leads to define the game vision and execute on that vision with excellence.
• Collaborate with gameplay designers to ensure that game designs meet quality requirements and documentation standards. Set clear creative goals and deliverables; lead and focus efforts across the design team to ensure a cohesive experience across the game and service.
• Anticipate threats to quality and innovation and work effectively with the team leads to mitigate.
• Build and maintain a collaborative relationship with Art, Technology, Audio and Production that ensures a best-in-industry production process.
• Coordinate and direct level design teams, to ensure the perfect synergy between mechanics and progression through the game.
• Allocate, coordinate and plan resources in collaboration with managers and producers. Anticipate recruitment needs of game designers and participate in the recruitment process.
• Proficient in all aspects of game design such as gameplay, balancing, and reward system, etc.
• University degree in Computer Engineering or Computer Science.


Cupid: Well, we won't get very far with this conversation then will we?
mine!!! please do not steal... new series?
Me: Are you calling me gay?
Cupid: Can I ask YOU something?
No wonder you're alone talking to me instead of with some hottie.


Aim: To introduce the developmental embryology of both the face and ear, and their associated abnormalities.
To understand the formation and contribution of the pharyngeal arches to face and neck development.
To know the main structures derived from components of the pharyngeal arches (groove, pouch and arch connective tissue).
To know the 3 major parts (external, middle and inner) of hearing development and their embryonic origins.
To briefly understand some abnormalities associated with face and hearing development.
This animation shows a ventral view of development of the human face from approximately week 5 through to neonate.
This page was last modified on 9 May 2017, at 16:46.


Finn River Basin is a seven-party, seven-person, multi-issue negotiation game involving a dispute over inter-provincial water allocations. It explores issues of prediction and monitoring, water sharing, and the environmental adequacy of water flows. The game introduces a mutual-gains approach (MGA) to negotiation and highlights the benefits of a more collaborative, non-zero- sum approach to managing boundary waters.


Do you have questions, comments or suggestions for the Co-op's Board of Directors? Send us an e-mail, leave a note, or come to a board meeting. Owners are always welcome. Please notify the Board President in advance if you would like a topic to be added to the agenda.


Good Afternoon, I am a long-term Thames Ditton Resident who has recently discovered this forum. This is my first post here.
I just wanted to let everyone know that I spoke to one of the top bods of South West Trains when I attended a 'meet the staff' event. I enquired as to why Thames Ditton station only had one ticket machine, as I have allowed 15-20 minutes to buy my ticket at the station in the morning yet sometimes I still can't get a ticket due to the queues. As I said, I explained that the station only has one ticket machine and one staffed booth, the latter of which is only in operation from about 6AM-12AM. I also asked as to the likelihood of another ticket machine being installed or even considered.
The response I got was that South West Trains occasionally review this sort of thing, and that the demand for a new ticket machine was not high enough as it would only be needed for about two hours in the morning, five days a week, as the rest of the time the station is relatively quiet, therefore the cost of installing an additional ticket machine was not financially viable, apparently. I just thought I'd post it on here as I imagine a lot of the forum members are commuters.
I agree, a second machine would be great.
Im finding it difficult to park near the station, I don't understand the yellow lines on the station road, I would be happy to cycle but there is not bike rack either. Im new to this area, but there is a green bit of shrubland next the station which would be perfect for surface parking, the area could enhanced with trees. If the councils worried about loss of green space, there are some woods alongside the trackside which could be smartened to replace the amenity area lost.
I don't know what that green area is called next the train-line but I would not say its fairly useless at the moment and very wet today/during the winter.
The greenland next to the 'down' platform at Thames Ditton I believe is designated common land, so it's unlikely any surface parking would be introduced (plus the area is a thoroughfare to Ash Path).
The yellow lines down Station Road are quite recent, and I would imagine they are to maintain constant access as there is a school at the end of Basingfield Road and there is a roundabout and road islands just outside the station.
Agreed - a second ticket machine would be excellent - I've seen many people either miss trains or just get on anyway. The annoying thing is the guards on the cr4ppy red trains (that we have at Thames Ditton) do not walk through and issue tickets (unlike the blue trains) so you can't buy on-board. Despressingly, I don't think SWT give a damn about spending any money on our line or a new ticket machine.
In all honesty I think there are better things / improvements for sw trains to focus on than another ticket machine. This as we have oyster.
If I allow 5/10 minutes extra I have never struggled to get one in time and the one time I did I asked the guard if I could get on and buy at Surbiton. He didn't quite give the ok but didn't say no and they were fine at Surbiton.
Now I always have my oyster as back up and you can set up oyster for auto top up.
For the above posters who have struggled you do have other options - with oyster you can buy online the day before and 'pick up' your ticket as you tap in, and the newsagents on summer road also sell tickets.
I have to confess it was a pain for me to buy a ticket from Hampton court to London terminals but I couldn't do that with the machine either.
So all in all I think it would be wasted breath and probably not really necessary to get another machine.


This week's summer rerun originally appeared on June 21, 2013, was reposted and edited in 2015, and edited again in 2016.
During each pregnancy I tend to lie awake at 3 a.m. fretting over something. With that pregnancy, it was princesses.
Somehow, the subject of princesses became, for me, a quicksand of pink tulle and glitter that swallows preschool-aged little girls up whole and spits them out, looking not like the quirky, unique creations they are but like carbon copies of some advertiser's vision of The American Little Girl. I obsessed over this a bit.
When they reached the right age, I wondered, would our daughters develop a Princess Fixation? Would they want only princess-themed underwear, snack foods and books? Would they insist on wearing tiaras to the store, or answer only to "Your Royal Highness"? Would they swoon over an imaginary Prince Charming?
Looking back, I think I can safely say that though our girls have worn their share of tutus to the store and have spent hours playing dress up in, yes, princess dresses, we seem to have dodged the Fixation. They enjoy playing "Little House" and "Narnia" far more than they enjoy being royalty. And we're glad: we don't want our daughters to settle for the brief pleasure of being treated "like a princess." They are daughters of the King, and we want them to live like it. A life lived in his family calls for confidence and grace, sacrifice and courage—not fluffy gowns and flimsy love interests.
There were a number of reasons for this decision, but the initial one was almost purely practical: both of our older daughters are very sensitive to scary movies, and those movies all have at least one scene that terrified me as a child (which tells you whose sensitivity they inherited).
Another reason that we have elected not to watch these movies with our kids is more, well, moral. Many of the Disney movies, like The Little Mermaid, discard the moral lesson of the original fairy tale in favor of a "happily ever after" ending. The Little Mermaid of Hans Christian Andersen's version abandons her family for a foolish love, sells her voice for legs, tries and fails to woo the Prince and ultimately sacrifices her life for his. Disney's Little Mermaid makes the same series of selfish choices, but still gets everything she wanted in the end.
But I am not permanently and forever anti-Disney. Our daughters have seen Frozen, and will probably watch the some of the other princess movies at some point. My hope, though, is that they will know the original fairy tales well enough by then to recognize what has been changed and to wonder why the filmmakers made those changes. We will talk about the stories together. But we have decided not to incorporate them into the culture of our home as something that we accept without question.
You know, ladies who have better things to do than fall head over heels for some dude that they met once, who know the responsibility that comes with their high office and who are willing to set aside their own desires for the sake of others. Who am I talking about?
Princess Irene of The Princess of the Goblin. The Queens Susan and Lucy, of The Chronicles of Narnia. Queen Esther of Persia. Belle, of the original "Beauty and the Beast" (my favorite retelling is in William Bennett's The Book of Virtues). (I compiled a list of our favorite princesses, and you can find it here.) Also, the little girl in this book, I'd Be Your Princess.
This story is told simply, through the dialogue of a young girl and her father. "If you were a king, I'd be your princess," she begins. And her father responds, using each comment to draw his daughter out and show her that what is required of a princess (or a little girl, for that matter) is not an outward beauty, but a beauty that begins deep within.
This is a simple story and a very moral one, so I wouldn't blame folks who find it preachy. I did, at first, but I am thankful now for any arrow in my quiver that will help my daughters navigate the very mixed messages about femininity already encroaching upon their childhood. Wisdom matters; your dad values what you think. The Bible is the first place we look for instruction. Those are important lessons and ones that I'm glad to teach my daughters through this simple story about a girl and her dad and a shared daydream.
For those of you with little boys, O'Brien has a companion book to this one titled If I Were Your Hero, and it's equally charming. In fact, I might pick up a copy for my girls (who love the story), because it's important for girls to know what to expect from boys, right?
. . . and one that cannot be stressed enough: as parents we all draw the lines in different places. You might be comfortable with your kids watching Disney movies, and I'd like to say emphatically that this isn't an issue of Good and Bad Parenting, with Disney movies serving as some hallmark of Bad Parenting.
For our family, this was an important issue and so I feel strongly about it. I might try to persuade you to look at your stance again, but I will not criticize you for choosing differently. This entire post has to do with our family and the places where our lines fall.


New collaboration with Ateliers Mommen's team, La Vidéothèque Nomade invites you in the recently renewed Salon Mommen.
This sunday, our catalogue of singular films La Vidéothèque Nomade is at your disposal "à la carte" and in screening with a focus around the project BUP of the french artist NIcolas Boone.
Films are available for consultation, alone or in small group, on TV sets equipped with headphones.
Members of the asbl will be present to guide you in this most eclectic cinematic universe amongst around 200 films collected since 2008.
From 7 pm, we propose you a season soup with its toast for the moderate price of €3. All the products come from the organic farming.
BUP is the hyper trademark which governs the world and exhausts all which can damage its power. BUP acts by invasion of slogans and advertising actions.
Tonight we present Nicolas Boone's full lenght film TransBUP and as a starter one episod of BUP's serial : MégaBUP.
Following the screening, we have a talk with the artist.
During the afternoon DVD TOTAL BUP, published by Écart Porduction is also available in consultation on a TV set.


Have you ever wondered what comes out the back of cars, or even what harm it's doing to your environment? Join Chris for a day at school as he learns about air quality.
You'll have to make some tough choices along the way…good luck my friend!! If you complete all 3 games, you can print off a JorAir certificate for your wall!
You'll need the Flash plugin to play these games. Ask a grown up if they're not working properly. Oh, and remember to turn on your speakers!
Launch Game 1 – Help Chris monitor air quality by collecting diffusion tubes on the way to school!
Launch Game 2 – Help Chris complete a jigsaw showing where air quality needs to improved in York!
Launch Game 3 – Help Chris make the right decisions about his travel choices!
Once you've completed all three games you can print a certificate below!


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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Ethical AI
Telefónica Builds a Better World With Ethical AI
Dr. Richard Benjamins, Telefónica's Data & AI Ambassador, explains how his company is promoting ethical use of AI to create a better world. | April 2019
You're listening to New Horizons, the podcast channel for ICT Insights Magazine. Please join us as we talk to innovators and thought leaders from around the world.
New Horizons: Well, hi, everyone. Today, we're here with Dr. Richard Benjamins, who is the Data and AI Ambassador at Telefónica. So, thank you, Richard, for joining us today.
Richard Benjamins: Yeah. Thank you very much. You're welcome.
New Horizons: I know Telefónica is based in Spain and is one of the world's leading telecommunications companies, but you also operate in many different countries. Can you tell us a little bit more about Telefónica and what makes it different from other telecommunication providers?
Richard Benjamins: So, Telefónica is a company already existing for almost 100 years. We have like three operations in Europe. It's fixed and mobile. We have another maybe 20 operations in South and Central America, like Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Mexico, et cetera. I think if there is one thing that I like from Telefónica, that it is in a constant changing environment and, so far, always ready to prepare for change and to do that.
New Horizons: And your focus is on big data and AI, machine learning. How does that fit into your current role as data and AI ambassador for Telefónica?
Richard Benjamins: Since the beginning of my career, I've been always working in the area of, let's say, intelligent information processing. It has changed names over the years. A few years ago it was called semantic technology or semantic web. My background is actually very good for what I'm doing.
New Horizons: And why should people be excited about big data? How can it add more value to businesses?
Richard Benjamins: I think big data has become important because many organizations have realized over time that taking decisions is hard, (and) decisions were taken based on intuition and experience. But recently, with big data, people are looking towards more data-driven decisions. If you have big data available, you can take much quicker decisions with better insights.
New Horizons: What are some of the most common misconceptions or fears about AI, and how does Telefónica approach addressing people's concerns about AI being more pervasive as we move forward?
Richard Benjamins: Ok, so, I think there are two major confusions and a number of fears. I think one of the misconceptions that machine learning is the only thing there is in artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is a much wider field than just machine learning. It also includes natural language processing, knowledge representation, and reasoning, planning, like we do planning; long-term planning of a business or a holiday, et cetera. AI systems currently are very good at looking at data and extracting patterns and then suggesting decisions, but they have no understanding of what they are talking about.
Another misconception is that people often confuse the AI we have today, which we call weak or narrow artificial intelligence, with what we see in science fiction movies, what they call artificial general intelligence, like we humans have. So current AI is very successful at very specific, very narrow tasks. If you bring the system one millimeter outside the scope of expertise, it completely fails, abruptly. Whereas we, we can reason, we have common sense, we can find our way. We are good at a few things but then we can do reasonably well on a very huge amount of variety of tasks, and AI currently is not doing that. So, people tend to confuse that and that leads to all kinds of speculations about the future which, in turn, leads to fears, yeah?
So a few fears are, for instance, that humanity will lose control to robots, like we see in the movies. Well, nobody knows whether that will happen. And if it will happen, then it will take a long time for it to happen. So, I would not be afraid of that at the moment. The second fear is that all those machines will take over our jobs by automating not only physical tasks but also intellectual tasks. And, to some extent, that is a fear that is justified. But, as in any technical revolution that we've seen in the past, many jobs are disappearing but a lot of new jobs are appearing. And usually, you can't even predict what jobs will appear.
What will be very important in the short term is the interaction and the collaboration between people and machines. That's something that will take a big leap moving forward. And there might be a risk in this revolution because it's going much quicker than the previous revolutions. Usually, we have time to adapt to new jobs, new work but, in this case, there might be a number of people who will be displaced because they're unable to catch up. Meaning up-skilling is very important in this respect.
There is also a fear that if your data is biased against certain, let's say protected groups, and you apply that algorithm to a wider group, then the algorithm might discriminate. And that is true, and there are many examples where this has happened. The systems discriminate because they've learned from the data, the data is coming from the real world, and the real world is not fair. So, if you don't intervene, then actually you can automate this undesired decision making, and that leads to undesired, though unintended, results.
New Horizons: Well, and I think those are all good things to be thinking about and talking about. And I think that's a perfect segue into talking about Telefónica's Big Data for Social Good department. What kind of collaboration are you working on with different organizations, such as the UN and other companies that would like to follow your lead?
Richard Benjamins: Actually, I founded that department I think about three years ago, because we had a lot of corporate responsibility areas, CSR areas in the company, and they were looking for some hands-on experience with these humanitarian organizations like UNICEF, United Nations, FAO, World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, et cetera, to give it some more substance. So, let's say we set up this area. And, since then, we've been working on several difficult problems for the planet. So we worked on natural disasters, because big events are always reflected in a mobile network as a deviation of a normal day. So, if there is an earthquake or landslide or flooding with heavy rains, you see the patterns change in our mobile network and those are kinds of proxies that we share them with, in this case, UNICEF, to help them understand better what is happening, planning the relief, and also understanding better the disaster preparedness of those areas.
We also worked on disease propagation like contagious diseases. Based on our data, we can build mobility matrixes, which tell origin and destination of populations. And we can, because this is very stable, if we know that disease breakout is in some area, based on those models, we can help humanitarian organizations and governments to help them predict where the disease will propagate faster than other regions.
A thing that we are doing recently with the Food and Agriculture Organization. In Colombia, there are many people who fled from Venezuela. But also within Colombia, there are lots of people because of climate change have lost their livelihood, and they are forced to migrate to other areas. And governments have a hard time in finding out where those people go because usually it's happening in an unofficial way. But we can see in our network where groups of people are moving and then we can help them to estimate the amount and where those groups are such that the government can send help to those people and take care of them in terms of education, health care, food, et cetera.
And the last thing we've started recently is about child poverty, and that's actually what we're doing here in Spain. We have to cross our data with data from the government, with open data, and other kinds of data, but it seems to work. So, we have lots of projects where we work with those organizations. And there is also a lot of commercial projects with governments where we especially help them with understanding tourism and transport.
New Horizons: Can you give us some other examples of how Telefónica is leveraging AI and machine learning?
Richard Benjamins: We leverage it in three big areas. One is internally, to optimize our business. So, that's about customer retention, churn prediction, marketing campaigns, how we plan our deployment of our mobile networks, how we manage and man our fleet of cars who go to customer premises to install routers or set-top boxes, et cetera. So, there's a lot of things. Any process within the company that is managed by a system, and they are all today, leaves a trail and you can analyze the data and try to optimize it. So we have a range of many use cases that we do, and then we try to replicate the successful ones in other countries.
Then we have a second block, is what we call the changing the customer relationship and changing the interaction with the customer where we use artificial intelligence like natural language processing and dialogues, where we let the customer talk directly to an artificial intelligence system to solve particular problems they have. It's not generic questions like the frequently asked questions like what should I do to cancel my contract, but it's really the person is interacting directly with his personal data or her personal data in our systems. So, changing the customer interaction to be much quicker, more accurate, and also more scalable.
And the last part, we use AI and machine learning is what I just mentioned, the external monetization. So, that is B2B customers, where we give them access to mobility insights or to footfall insights. And this is also the part that is happening with the organizations like the United Nations, but there usually we have a special rate.
New Horizons: And that leads me into my next question is that Telefónica is one of the first companies to establish an AI principles and ethical guidelines. What does that mean? What are ethical guidelines for artificial intelligence and how are you looking to implement those?
Richard Benjamins: If you go back to the fears that we just talked about, then some of those things are within the realm of an organization, a company like Telefónica. Some of those issues are outside. To avoid those problems, we defined some principles of AI. We don't call them ethical guidelines, because that is too broad for an organization. The principles are that the use and design of artificial intelligence should be fair. It means that it should not discriminate between protected groups like we said before. And also that the impact of the errors of the machine learning model, in terms of false positives and false negatives, should be taken into account when you optimize the algorithm for accuracy. That's something that is not done as a standard procedure, so that's what we understand by fair artificial intelligence.
The next principle is it should be transparent and explainable. Transparent in the sense that, if our customers talk to a machine, they should know that it's a machine. We should not try to trick them in a conversation, thinking that it's human but actually it's a machine. So, that is transparent, that's complete openness, it's also compliant with the GDPR. And then also explainable, which means that if an algorithm takes a decision or recommends a person a certain decision that has an impact on people's lives, then we want to understand how this decision came about. We want to understand how it works to some extent.
The third principle is it should be human-centric, which means that it should not go against the international human rights, and should not go against the sustainable development goals of the United Nations. Of course, that's a very broad category but, in general, we do want to comply with those things. And this is also captured in our business principles, which are much broader than only artificial intelligence.
Then the fourth principle is privacy and security. It's not specific to artificial intelligence, because any digital service that has to do with data is about privacy, and security is also important, so we kind of inherit this from our other principles we already have. We have a methodology for privacy by design and security by design.
New Horizons: Based on your years of experience, what does the future of AI look like to you, let's say, 5, 10 years from now? What would you expect to be commonplace, and what would you expect to be groundbreaking?
Richard Benjamins: I think the implications of machine learning will increase significantly in other areas as well. It's now still mostly in the realm of large companies. I think it will move to a lot more small and medium businesses, not because they hire clever people, but because many of those things become out of the box. There are already platforms where you're not a data scientist, you upload your data and you can do a training of your algorithm, you can do deep learning, you can do predictions, clustering, national language processing, et cetera. So, a very interesting platform is BigML or Big Machine Learning, where you just go and you don't have to do anything, you can upload your dataset and you can play around. If you want to use more space, then you have to pay, but you can start just to play around. So, that will happen a lot in machine learning.
The success of AI today is about supervised machine learning. There is a lot of non-supervised machine learning, which is still in its infancy. Think about a small baby, just born, doesn't know a lot of things. And after a few months, just by observing the world, it understands many things. So, I think it's this kind of unsupervised or mixed supervised, unsupervised learning that will probably be investigated a lot at the best universities and the big companies to understand how can you build more knowledgeable artificial intelligence rather than just an artificial intelligence that learns patterns from data without actually understanding what it learns. So, I think that's a big breakthrough on the research side.
New Horizons: One final question. Beyond your own work, what innovations do you think are poised to impact society in a beneficial way and what challenges do we still need to overcome?
Richard Benjamins: Well, first of all, what I've been talking about is not only my work, it's the work of a lot of people across the company and even outside the company. I think what still needs to be developed much more is data sharing between private companies and the governments.
New Horizons: Um-hum.
Richard Benjamins: So governments, in principle, they publish most of their data as open data in a portal where people can take it and do things with it. But only a few businesses share their data like Telefónica. If you look at, across the board, how many companies are actually sharing privately-held data with governments to improve governmental decision making, to improve the examples I gave — acute disasters in the world or even to solve the big problems in the world like climate change, like poverty, clean water, education. If they had a lot of more data available, I think governments could do a much better job in the end and turn this world in a better place and working around the big challenges we have.
New Horizons: Thanks again for your time. We know it's valuable and we really appreciate your insights.
Richard Benjamins: Yes, of course. It was a pleasure being here to share the ideas I am passionate about, and anything that can help to turn this into something that is good for everybody is very welcome.
New Horizons: Again, we've been talking with Dr. Richard Benjamins, Data and AI Ambassador at Telefónica.
Richard Benjamins: Thank you for having me.
Thanks for listening to this episode of New Horizons. Please be sure to click on the link below to read a full transcript of this interview. For more information on Huawei's products and solutions, please visit e.huawei.com. Be sure to tune in again soon for more great guest interviews and stories. And as always, thanks for listening.
Dr. Richard Benjamins is Data & AI Ambassador at Telefónica, LUCA where he is responsible for making Data & AI sustainable from a societal and ethical perspective. He is among the 100 most-influential people in data-driven business (DataIQ 100, 2018). He was Group Chief Data Officer at AXA (Insurance) and has worked for 10 years at Telefónica occupying several management positions related to big data and analytics, touching all areas of the value chain. His passion lies in creating value from data — business value, but also value for society: he is the founder of Telefónica's Big Data for Social Good department. He currently works on how to make Data & AI sustainable from a business, societal, and ethical perspective. He is member of the B2G data-sharing Expert Group of the EC, and a frequent speaker on Data and Artificial Intelligence events. He is also a strategic advisor to BigML — "Machine Learning made easy". He was co-founder and director at iSOCO (1999–2007) and has held positions at universities/research institutes in Madrid, Amsterdam, Sao Paulo, Paris, and Barcelona. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Science/Artificial Intelligence from the University of Amsterdam.
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Ayman Al-Harbi
IT/Smart City Director, Royal Commission for Yanbu & Jazan City
Richard Benjamins
Data and AI Ambassador at Telefónica
Federica Bordelot
Policy Advisor for EUROCITIES
Edwin Diender
Blue ocean strategist, thought leader and frequent speaker
A Top Global Venture Capitalist
Angel investor and partner at FOUNDERS.VC
Founder and CEO of Lumican Corporation, an innovator of ecologically friendly lighting
Joann O'Brien
Vice President of APIs & Ecosystems for TM Forum
Gao Chun Ping
Managing Director of the Built Environment Research and Innovation Institute for the Singapore Building & Construction Authority
Ron Raffensperger
CTO of Huawei Enterprise Storage Solutions
Joe So
Chief Technology Officer of CTO of Huawei Industry Solutions
Manfred vom Sondern
Chief Digital Officer for the City of Gelsenkirchen
Hank Stokbroekx
VP of Huawei Enterprise Services
Dima Tokar
Co-founder and Head of Research at MachNation
Ma Yue
Vice President of the Huawei Enterprise Business Group


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#include <AVSCommon/Utils/Threading/Executor.h>
#include <AVSCommon/SDKInterfaces/Storage/MiscStorageInterface.h>

#include <RegistrationManager/CustomerDataHandler.h>

namespace alexaClientSDK {
namespace sampleApplications {
namespace ipcServerSampleApp {

class CachingDownloadManager : public registrationManager::CustomerDataHandler {
public:
    class Observer {
    public:
        Observer() = default;
        virtual ~Observer() = default;

        /**
         * Called at the start of a download, when a resource is not found in the cache.
         */
        virtual void onDownloadStarted(){};

        /**
         * Called when a resource was not found in the cache and has successfully been downloaded.
         */
        virtual void onDownloadComplete(){};

        /**
         * Called when a resource was not found in the cache and the attempt to download it has failed.
         */
        virtual void onDownloadFailed(){};

        /**
         * Called when a resource was found in the cache and downloading is not attempted.
         */
        virtual void onCacheHit(){};

        /**
         * Called during the download of a resource. Observers should expect multiple calls
         * to this method for a single download.
         *
         * @param numberOfBytes The number of bytes that have been downloaded.
         */
        virtual void onBytesRead(uint64_t numberOfBytes){};
    };

    /**
     * Constructor.
     *
     * @param httpContentFetcherFactory Pointer to a http content fetcher factory for making download requests
     * @param cachePeriodInSeconds Number of seconds to reuse cache for downloaded packages
     * @param maxCacheSize Maximum cache size for caching downloaded packages
     * @param miscStorage Wrapper to read and write to misc stor=age database
     */
    CachingDownloadManager(
        std::shared_ptr<avsCommon::sdkInterfaces::HTTPContentFetcherInterfaceFactoryInterface>
            httpContentFetcherInterfaceFactoryInterface,
        unsigned long cachePeriodInSeconds,
        unsigned long maxCacheSize,
        std::shared_ptr<avsCommon::sdkInterfaces::storage::MiscStorageInterface> miscStorage,
        const std::shared_ptr<registrationManager::CustomerDataManagerInterface> customerDataManager);

    /**
     * Method that should be called when requesting content
     *
     * @param source URL
     * @param observer An observer to notify of the download, or @c nullptr to disable notifications.
     * @return content - either from cache or from source
     */
    std::string retrieveContent(const std::string& source, std::shared_ptr<Observer> observer = nullptr);

    /**
     * Class to define a cached content item
     */
    class CachedContent {
    public:
        /**
         * Time when the content was put into cache
         */
        std::chrono::system_clock::time_point importTime;
        /**
         * Content of the item
         */
        std::string content;

        CachedContent() = default;

        /**
         * Constructor
         *
         * @param importTime Time when the item was inserted into cache
         * @param content The content of the item
         */
        CachedContent(std::chrono::system_clock::time_point importTime, const std::string& content);
    };

private:
    /**
     * Downloads content requested by import from provided URL from source.
     * @param source URL
     * @param observer An observer to notify of the download, or @c nullptr to disable notifications.
     * @return content from source
     */
    std::string downloadFromSource(const std::string& source, std::shared_ptr<Observer> observer);
    /**
     * Scans the cache to remove all expired entries, and evict the oldest entry if cache is full
     */
    void cleanUpCache();
    /**
     * Write the downloaded content to storage.
     * @param source URL.
     * @param content CachedContent object.
     */
    void writeToStorage(std::string source, CachedContent content);

    /// @name CustomerDataHandler Function
    /// @{
    void clearData() override;
    /// @}

    /**
     * Remove the downloaded content from storage.
     * @param source  source URL.
     */
    void removeFromStorage(std::string source);
    /**
     * Used to create objects that can fetch remote HTTP content.
     */
    std::shared_ptr<avsCommon::sdkInterfaces::HTTPContentFetcherInterfaceFactoryInterface> m_contentFetcherFactory;
    /**
     * Reuse time for caching of downloaded content
     */
    std::chrono::duration<double> m_cachePeriod;
    /**
     * Max numbers of entries in cache for downloaded content
     */
    unsigned long m_maxCacheSize;
    /**
     * The hashmap that maps the source url to a CachedContent
     */
    std::unordered_map<std::string, CachingDownloadManager::CachedContent> cachedContentMap;
    /**
     * The mutex for cachedContentMap
     */
    std::mutex cachedContentMapMutex;
    /**
     * The wrapper to read and write to local misc storage.
     */
    std::shared_ptr<avsCommon::sdkInterfaces::storage::MiscStorageInterface> m_miscStorage;
    /**
     * An internal executor that performs execution of callable objects passed to it sequentially but asynchronously.
     */
    avsCommon::utils::threading::Executor m_executor;
};

/**
 * This is a function to convert the @c CachedContent to a string.
 */
inline std::string cachedContentToString(CachingDownloadManager::CachedContent content, std::string delimiter) {
    auto time = std::chrono::duration_cast<std::chrono::seconds>(content.importTime.time_since_epoch()).count();
    return std::to_string(time) + delimiter + content.content;
}

}  // namespace ipcServerSampleApp
}  // namespace sampleApplications
}  // namespace alexaClientSDK

#endif  // ALEXA_CLIENT_SDK_LIBIPCSERVERSAMPLEAPP_INCLUDE_IPCSERVERSAMPLEAPP_CACHINGDOWNLOADMANAGER_H_


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text:
Imports LiteDB
Partial Class EditGig
    Inherits LoggedInUsersOnly

    Public Overrides Sub Page_Load(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
        MyBase.Page_Load(sender, e)
        If Request.HttpMethod = "POST" Then
            Return
        End If

        Using db = New LiteDatabase(Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/Database.accdb"))
            Dim gigTbl = db.GetCollection(Of JobProposal)("Proposals")
            Dim usrTbl = db.GetCollection(Of User)("Users")

            Dim gigId As Integer
            If Request.QueryString("gig") Is Nothing OrElse Not Integer.TryParse(Request.QueryString("gig"), gigId) Then
                Response.Redirect("/GigPage.aspx?")
                Return
            End If
            Dim gig = gigTbl.FindById(gigId)
            If gig Is Nothing Then
                Response.Redirect("/GigPage.aspx?gig=" & gigId)
                Return
            End If

            Dim userId As Integer
            If Session("UserID") Is Nothing Or Not Integer.TryParse(Session("UserID"), userId) Then
                Response.Redirect("/GigPage.aspx?")
            End If
            Dim usr = usrTbl.FindById(userId)
            If usr Is Nothing OrElse (usr.Id <> gig.Offerer AndAlso usr.UserLevel < UserType.Moderator) Then
                Response.Redirect("/GigPage.aspx?")
            End If

            txtDescription.Text = gig.Description
            txtImages.Text = String.Join("\n", gig.ImageURLs)
            txtPrice.Text = gig.Price
            txtShortDescription.Text = gig.ShortDescription
            txtTitle.Text = gig.Title
            txtVideo.Text = gig.VideoURL
        End Using

    End Sub

    Public Sub Update(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles btnRegister.Click
        Using db = New LiteDatabase(Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/Database.accdb"))
            Try
                Dim gigTbl = db.GetCollection(Of JobProposal)("Proposals")
                Dim gig = gigTbl.FindById(Integer.Parse(Request.QueryString("gig")))
                gig.Description = txtDescription.Text
                gig.ImageURLs = txtImages.Text.Split(Environment.NewLine)
                IO.File.WriteAllText(Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/Log.txt"), txtImages.Text)
                gig.Price = Integer.Parse(txtPrice.Text)
                gig.ShortDescription = txtShortDescription.Text
                gig.VideoURL = txtVideo.Text
                gig.Title = txtTitle.Text
                gigTbl.Update(gig)
                Response.Redirect("/GigPage.aspx?gig=" & Request.QueryString("gig"))
            Catch ex As Exception
                Utils.Alert("Error while performing action: " & ex.Message)
                Return
            End Try
        End Using
    End Sub

End Class