text:
Sarah Friend is one of two developers working on Circles UBI. Circles is a
basic income project that seeks to build local economic communities.
Links:CirclesUBI
Links: Sarah Friend
Hashing It Out # 97- CirclesUBI- Sarah Friend
Hey, what's up? So Avalanche, let's talk about it. What's an avalanche? Snow comes down real fast, fierce gains momentum. But I'm not talking about the natural disaster. Orif it's not a really disaster, I guess it no one's around. Butanyways, avalanche. What is it? You've heard about it, not,you're gonna hear some more. It's an open source platform for launching decentralized financeapplications. Right, defy. That's what you want. Developers who build onavalance can easily create powerful, reliable, secure applications and custom blockchain networks withcomplex rule sets, or build an existing private or public subnet right. Ithink what you should do right now is stop what you're doing, even ifit's listening to this podcast. Stop, pull over, go to the gasstation. If you need to go to a subway, there's a subway,like everywhere. There's always a subway, all right, all right, there'salways a kroger. Just stopping a parking lot somewhere. Go to Alva LAV, Alva labs dot org, to learn more. All right, stop,go to Alva lab. That's a va labs labs dot org. Now enteringforecast work. Welcome to hashing it out, a podcast where we talked to thetech innovators behind blockchain infrastructure and decentralized networks. We dive into the weedsto get at why and how people build this technology the problems they face alongthe way. Come listen and learn from the best in the business so youcan join our ranks. Welcome back to hashing everybody. I'm your coes fortoday John Martlin, with also co host Jay Harrold. Say Hi everybody.J Hi Everyone. It's a lovely morning and we have with us today Sarah, friend from the circle's UBI project. Say HIVERYWAYS are Hi'm a buddy.Thanks. Yeah, so get to have you here. So why don't westart with the standard bio question? Did you get into bit crypto and whatare you doing here? Yeah, for sure. So I'm here to talkto you today because I am one of two developers, yes, only tosomehow a project called Circle Tbi that launched on October sixteen and too much moreattention than be expected, happily, but I'll so with a fair bit ofsuffering on our parts. Yeah, I got into Crypto two thousand and sixteen. I used to work with John Actually in transparency at consensus for a coupleyears. It's true. We did a talk together that we did and Iwe did and it was it was a really good talk, I think,or like I learned a ton putting it together. Like I'll never forget whathappened to Rhythm D. Yeah, maybe we'll think only to this, tothe like, when recordings of the slides in the show notes. So yeah, why don't you tell us what circles you buy? Ubi Is? Yeah, for sure. So circles is a alternative version of what a universal basicincome could look like. So normally when people say universal basic income they meanthe state redistributing Fiat money, but circles is more like an alternative currency.So it has more in common with historical alternative currencies like the Brixton pound orif the good dollars. But it is an alternative currency that contains wealth redistribution inside its mechanisms. Or maybe a better way to put that is itd incentivizes hoarding. So yeah, it's a it's a community he community currencyproject that is built on right now, the XTI blockchain. So I thinkwe should probably get into the XTI blockchain. At some point too, but maybeyou can just say so. It's a community currency. How does it? How does it work? Yeah, well, I've explained circle so manytimes the last two weeks that I'm just like, what comes next? Youknow, my brain is scrambling around, but it is. So everyone assignsup for circles actually gets their own token,...
...which is a standard arc twenty token, as y'all probably familiar with, and they're also entered into a trustgraph of all of the other circles users. So we when you said their owntoken. It's like a personal token, right, it is. Yeah,okay, it's their own token contract, it's can it stays contained an attachedto their identity even as it flows through the system. So, yeah, the the sort of personal tokens have been a bit of a like fator mean lately. Like circles is a network of personal tokens. Okay,it makes sense. Yeah, and on these, I'm sorry, aren't thesenetwork tokens in the in this trust network, then interoperable? Yep, exactly.When when you're in a trustrework wet, you are embedded in a trust network, but when you trust someone, what you're like really doing materially iscommitting to exchange their token, the person you're trusting, at a one toone rate with your own token, and this is kind of how we dothe civil defense for circles. It's easy to make an account, but theidea or argument is that it's much harder to get actual other people who havereal things to exchange to trust your account. So that's what so this commitment issignifying that you're an individual. I believe so, for example, agive if I have a friend Alice, and I Trust Alice, I willaccept her token, but if she creates another account, I will probably notbe willing to trust that account and presumably also less willing to trust her riginalaccount. I would, I would, I would suggest on trusting Alice inthat situation, because it means that alice is collecting to two basic incomes.The argument is that it's actually quite difficult to maintain sort of parallel identities overa duration of time and there are is research about the threshold at which it'slike almost impossible to maintain, though I can't cite it. So yeah,this is a it kind of like it's a bit like an immune system.You might imagine of like these fake accounts. We find them out and then westart sort of walling them off and they end up being there a littlepocket of the network that's all fake accounts. And and by the way, thereis already one. It's kind of funny, like people have definitely writtenbots against circles. They've done it within the first like week and a halfand, yeah, stampoles samples of accounts. So it's like a little I meanlike if you picture, because this is a graph essentially, right,so there's almost like a fork of or not even a fork. I guessit's an isolated graph, but as long as I'm not trusting it, that'snot a problem for me in using circles. Yeah, so saftly it's a formof reputation networks in a way then. So if you're operating same multiple accounts, whether maliciously or not, ultimately the one that you're most public with, your public trust graph, I guess, which is really between people, twopeople, is incorporated into that that one profile. Yeah, yeah,OK, so we're the trust graph is all on chain and it is allpublic. Okay, so right, that's a good point. So you are, I mean with any typical blockchain, like all this is publicly visible,including your relationships and who you trust. Yeah, exactly. If you don'ttrust your friends back, not only do they know, but the world knows. But I think this is something that blocked. Like people on the blockchaincommunity are very familiar with that. Their transactions are visible on the blockchain,though maybe it's not as understood as as clearly as it could be in allquarters, but it's definitely something that is unfamiliar when you're talking with non cryptomativefolks. So I like to try to make it clear. Yeah, okay, yeah, so so what under what circumstances, or what are the factorsthat someone should take into account when deciding whether or not to trust someone?There being a lot of people posting their links on twitter, pinging people directly, saying Hey, can you trust me? What do you need to to toconsider and what are the implications of...
...extending your trust to someone in circles? Yeah, the the Heuristic, we say, is if you know someonein real life, and I don't necessarily mean in person, because I thinkthat real life can be online as well, but if you if you know someone, my personal heroistic has been like if I would accept a lun shouldmeet with you, I will trust you, which is actually very wide criteria,but I think probably everyone has their own. Martin Copeleman, thunder initiatorof the circle's project, still really active with it, likes to say it'swould you pay someone's universal basic income? So, because you're accepting the tokensof the people you trusted one to one ratio, you could frame it asyou know, you're sort of paying them or floating their their tokens sung ability, with your own. So what is what's a human language? Way?If they if I so, if I trust someone, am I making assumptionsabout their like that the trust that they're willing to extend to other people,or perhaps like their, you know, ability to to discern who's trustworthy aswell. Let's see, it's if someone had if you trust someone who hasno other trust connections. Tokens are spent transitively. It's pretty important concept forthe circle's system. So say I trust Alice and Alice Trust Bob, butI've never met Bob. Bob Doesn't trust me, I don't trust him,but Bob Wants to buy my sofa. Bob Can send his coins to Aliceand Alice can send her coins to me so we can pass them through thetrust network and went. So if we did that, BOB would effectively payme for the SOFA, but he do it through Alice and that would meanthat every person in the path of that transaction only ends up with tokens thatthey trust. So from that, if I trust someone and nobody trust themand I accept their tokens, I might have a hard time spending them becauseI can't pass them on from any future trust pass. So you do sortof want to think about you want to, I think strategically, I would aimto trust people who you foresee being active, both in building a trustgraph and in using circles, but especially in the early days. You know, it's very difficult to predict that. I've been I've been trusting people justwho I want to see join and I hope will be excited about it.Yeah, absolutely, but it dies. You can't like get hurt necessarily likelike like, if someone has trusted someone else is trusted, a fake accountthat you trust, you're not going to end up with those fake coins.Right. It could be that if this person maybe is bad at discerning whothey should or should not trust, then their own tokens will become somewhat lesstrusted because they're ending up with money that's not with other people's money that's notworthwhile or work or valuable. But generally it's not a huge risk. Itsounds like it's like a one hook risk really, so one hok risk anotherpops out is less less concerning. Yeah, there was. There was some debate. I saw, you know. That's so Damn Finley for MED andmask was arguing for a very high bar. Neuron from the Pan valid project wassaying maybe in the future you should be really careful. But, andI think I like this argument, just it's just getting off the ground.Circles, we had nobody as any idea with circles are worth right now.Why not just like? I'd rather just see the network flourish and just trustwhoever and and you can prune that back if circles become really valuable and youwant to be more careful about it in the future, but let's boot strapit for the time being. Yeah, that's it's kind of interesting debate andI really like neurons point too, because it kind of takes into account themonetary system and of circles, which is minting coins to every every every tokenmince itself as a function of time, and the rate of which is mintedactually inflates annually. So the amount that...
...you can have stolen from you islike less now than it ever will be. It's really quite low if you takea long term view of the circle's monetary system. Yeah, great,Jay, I guess you know jumping off on that point. What ECO economicmodel do you consider the circle's UPI to fall under? Are there any sortof parallels that people kind of can draw from? HMM, the closest projectto circles the closest. So I'm not expert on on monetary systems or MONTERYtheory. First off, disclaimer. The closest parallel system that's functional is calledUNITOR. It's based in France. It's also a blockchain project and it hasvery, very similar parameters, so it's issue to every account that's sort ofwithin a strong set. It also uses a web of trust for identifying accountsand it is also inflating every year. Another example that I think is mayberelated is called the miracle of warble colloquially. So it's a project or an outsort of currency that existed in, I think, Germany or Austria duringthe Great Depression, and it was a demoage currency. So currency that wasissued today had its value had, say next week. And it's interesting andinteresting sort of historical moment because the town that implemented this town currency experienced fewereconomic hardships during the depression. So those are those are two like fairly similarones, but they're both a bit small. I can't think of an example ata state level that has has happened. I would say circles borrows from morefrom the world of modern monetary theory than sort of commodity money or,you know money monetary systems which are tied to a specific resource. Yeah,I mean in in the case of modern monetary theory. I mean not assumingthat you're an expert on economic models. Do you feel this? This nicelyfits in with that, because I feel that a lot of different people havedifferent perspectives on what that would look like. Personally, I don't know that currentKeynesian thinking really bodes well for MMT, just because there isn't an incentive todrive up of wages. HMM. I I think that you are moreexperienced in the world of monetary theory than me based on the question. Thereason I pulled in the reference of modern monetary theory is my understanding that itdoesn't hold that money and the quantity of money being printed or issued has tobe tied to some our art of outstart are outside limited resource in circles.Actually, you could argue that it is. It's tied to identities and it's tiedto human time, but it's not tied to GDP or, you know, gold or a resource that way. Yeah, does that? Does thatadd the clarification in terms of what circles will do? Two wages to speakto that? I have no idea in the world of I see circles asan experiment. It's a monetary system that is, as far as I know, quite unique and it deserves to get tried. We deserve as a civilization, to collect some data about it this. So I think of like the historyof universal basic income pilots. There and and in the universal basic incomecommunity there's a ton of to speak about.
What will happen to wages. Ithink actually there's a good chance that they might go down. If youcan imagine maybe if everyone is receiving a basic income, they might not bemotivated to take jobs. But also, in order to provide benefit, jobsmight not need to pay as much per hour. So I think it's it'snot. It's not clear to me. I will be very curious and Ithink that it's not. Circles rolling out to enough people where we can reallyanswer a question like that is also, you know, speculative. That's fair. I mean I think you know a bunch of things that maybe fall intowhat could be an mt net is good. And yet decoupling, I mean Ithink part of the problem is GDP is so tied with with people's ownearnings and their ability to churn, and thus wage stagnation is just natural.It sounds like this. More D couples from wage in a way that it'smore based on individual participation and ultimate growth of these network graphs also then tieto overall I guess, the parallel being GDP in this case. Yeah,it's tied to embeddedness within communities. I think just you know, maybe thisis not maybe a normal monetary conversation reference, but sometimes I also explain circles asbeing an attempt to scale up a premodern gift economy actually. So youknow, I receive, by virtue of my embeddedness in a community, mythe that people know me as an individual. But we now live in such largecommunities where it's you can't manage that and one human brain. So insome ways I feel like that that might be the most analogous historical example.I think maybe one way of Putty is just to me it feels like it'sit's monetizing trust and the the ties between people, and so there's a night. A Nice Story to tell is that it incentivizes people to trust each orto identify people they can trust more and and develop relationships that that they thatthey can put stock in and to value the currency that tries to tie themtogether. Yes, no, yeah, definitely. And you know, wetalked a lot about in circles team like types of labor that aren't wealth seenin our current economic system, and I think definitely like the work of maintainingsocial ties is one of them. It's so, so important, this workof caring for others, but it's only in some cases monetizable and sometimes invisible. So that's something that we're curious about. I think it also maybe they're saying, when we talk about circles and the sort of broader economy it mightexist within like a state, that I don't know if I see circles likelyto be the only monetary system in any place. I think that it maybewill serve best. Is a pet theory because of course in practice none ofthis has happened, but I think I see it working best is sort ofan alternative or a coexisting with the Fiat currencies were all more familiar with andthe other cryptocurrencies. HMM, complimentary. So I didn't city of monetary systems. Yes, yeah, that makes sense. It's seems like a more resilient approachthan then a monoculture of currencies. Why don't you tell us about thelaunch a little bit and how it's gone so far? I think it's maybebeen two weeks since started hearing about it on twitter. Yeah, coming upjust over two weeks. Well, it was crazy within and I want kindof apologies to anyone hearing this who was unable to use circles for some periodof time. Within like six or seven hours, it was our servers weretotally down and we had we had launched...
...on like a geothermally powered server inIceland, which has like no tools for scaling whatsoever. So we, youknow, we're really had to. We had to set up a new andbigger or server like manually from top to bottom, and I think we likewe managed to as fast as we can, but we're actually still working on likea proper transition that we envission to an environment that can scale as itneeds to with demand. So we're still dealing with the just from time totime. It was, it was. What do I keep saying to people? I keep saying I'm sure will be really happy about the launch. Bunchof stopped being stressed out by it. So what does that look like interms of like user activity? And Yeah, pulled it up just just as wegot on, before we started recording, and we have just over US sixtytwo thousand five hundred deployed accounts. Wow, so I'm a presumably manymore who are still waiting to successfully deploy. For those supermer of sign up forcircles you through our interface. You need three tress connections before you canenter the system. If you are inclined to interact with this more contracts directly, you can, of course sign up immediately. So there's there's probably somepool of people still waiting to be verified through the UI. So yeah,that's that's that's the current state of it. Probably about Tenzero of those where evenin the first forty eight hours. Luckily, growth has tapered off andwe all now sleep through the night. That's nice. Yeah, it feelsto me like I think I was so excited about because it felt really refreshing. I mean, I my sense is that there was some of the momentumwas like people recognizing another kind of like almost like a yield farming opportunity andthe sense of that if you get in earlier, you'll start printing your owntokens a bit earlier. This doesn't really make that much of a difference,though, does it? Like like what, when I join and I start trustingpeople and trusting other people, how many sort of how many tokens amI getting and how is the minting function? Yeah, so everyone right now isgetting eight per day, about a two hundred and forty per month,and so it at eight per day. The advantage of getting it early isvery small, but the community of people from crypto twitter, for example,are familiar with very different get in early mechanics and I think that spurred partof it. It's like waiting a couple days with the surfers to come backup. Is Really not, you know, a barrier. And even still,I think there's another misunderstanding, has been that circles is a speculative asset, because I really suspect it never will be, because it's tied to individualidentities. So there's no point in the purchasing circles without knowing whose circles I'mpurchasing. But I think that's a lot of misunderstanding. So it's both speculativeand inflation happens, sort of accelerates later, kind of thing. Yeah, inflationis happening at seven percent per year and it's compounding. So you saideight per day. Does that? Does that change or is that consistent forever? It'll change. Next year it'll be eight times one point zero seven.Okay, yeah, and and then the next year that will compound again.So so yeah, it's sounds it's really a system where the circles you getnow will be dwarfed by the circles you are getting at a later date.And the the the that that mechanism has, the property that I've kind of talkedabout when I said it de disincentivizes boarding and it does something likely distributingwealth in a way. So you can imagine, you know, to usetotally fake numbers. If you sign up today, John, and the circlesare issued at five, five a day. So you know, the day goesby, you have five circles and say there's a hundred percent inflation everyday, just to make it really obvious.
So I sign up the next day. So you have five and I have zero, but another day goesby and it inflates, so you get ten, you have fifteen and Ihave ten, and then you know, it's just continues. At first,though, the difference between our accounts will stay at five. The relative differencebetween how much you have and how much I have is going to go downover time, the longer we stay in the system. So that's the the, the the the universal basic income, the most universal basic can come likeproperty of circles, and it's really it's the opposite of get in early.Is pays off. Yeah, fun fact circles has been a fake circles tokenhas been listed on you to swap with selling at eighty dollars. Hopefully notto too many people. So that's the extent of the like like fervor thatdoesn't really understand circles. Yeah, it'd be interesting to see what the volumeis on the Oh we posted. We posted like please don't buy it.I hope people saw. Yeah, so, so this is all running on onx die. It'd be really may be great to hear about like howyou chose x, what what Xi is for people and and also why youchose that chain, or layer two to for your project. Yeah, forsure. So, yeah, x day is a etherium side chain that usesdie Xti as its native token. It also has this really nice property.It's POAA, mind, proof of authority mind, and the people who aredoing the mining have agreed to keep the gas prices at one goy. Whoknows? This is, of course, a human agreement. It might fallapart, but for now they are and we was really important for circles tobe accessible to non crypto native users, and for us one of the requirementswas there for that was that we relay transactions. So we are paying people'stransactions these and it would be nice to launch on mainet etherium, but givenwhat's happened with gas, keyes, especially over the last year. We don'tthink it's financially sustainable for our team. It's the biggest reason we're on xdie of the various side chains and lear too slowly. The infrastructure for Extiseemed pretty stable. You know, public nodes, the graph is compatible withit. Bunch of you know block. It doesn't block as well. Allof the things were sort of in place to use it, whereas some ofthe other side chains that be considered were a lot earlier and we weren't assure about how the support would be. And this being good Jate, I'lljust record the overtalk at that point. Sorry. So you mentioned UX beinga little bit easier for, I guess, non crypto enthusiasts. I like whenpeople consider that design in mind. So I imagine it's less dependent on, say, a wallet first and then it's sort of a kind of awalled out. I'm not sure I understand the in terms of in terms ofthe UX of it. Is it you need to make sure that you havea metamask installed first, or is it something that it's inheriting the Ux andthen when you're looking, when you're ready to leave the system, then itprovides a way to do that exactly. Think it's exactly. I think it'syou're describing. There's no Meta mask, there's no wallet. It uses whatis this is kind of it's one of the interesting things about the the UXchoices that circles made is that actually, people who are deeply integrated into cryptocommunitiesoften don't like it because to them it feels really insecure and unsafe. So, yeah, it uses a fairly disposable burner key and that key is anowner of the notice is safe. So if someone, as someone might becomemore cryptnative, they can add a p created otherwise to be an owner.If they're safe. I think I actually might be already compatible. But theSAFE UI is compatible the circles so that...
I can that is alternative, analternate way to interact. But are APP you know you don't. It doesn'teven tell you you're using a blockchain. Honestly, you don't see an addressanywhere except in your profile link. And Yeah, all of these things arevery pushed, pushed away. I think for most users that's the better wayto go, to be honest. For a lot of especially for a lotof users. Yeah, a lot of video games use that. I thinkit makes it easier for people. So I guess if it's more if there'ssort of less, you wax barriers for people than how does it avoid thehow does a user avoid the social dilemma of the so called Myspace top eight? I have all the people I trust, but people still want to connect thepeople I connect do not think I trust them enough. I may nothave enough of their tokens yet. And going from there. Yeah, well, this is then a hotly debated subject in this team. Actually like whatwe visualize and how, because it is all public and this is an exposedin the Ui right now. But Trust is weighted, so you know ifyou don't trust someone back. Is it visualized? Is it you know?Will someone make a viewer someday where we get all see everybody's follower accounts oncircles? I don't really know. But we've taken the strategy of not makingit super visible. You can see who trusts you and who trust you back. The weights are well of upcoming feature. But yeah, so, so rightnow, when you log in you do see a list of people whoare in your immediate trusts are but it's not the people who's tokens you holdmost or the people you trust the most. It's just the people who you've interactedwith most recently. Yeah, but but whether the I think I'd beimpossible for those, those tough questions to not come into play at some point. They were there. We're already so familiar with them, with social media. So so, just so I understand, is that is just like almost likethe negative side being popular that we're talking about, where I just Ifeel pressure to to accept everybody's request to trust them and sort of yet notfeeling comfortable turning them down. I think that's part of it and I thinkthere's this is like a known sort of issue with web of trust primitives andthe the PDP protocol. If you're like fully following the key signing protocol,I think you're supposed to collect all the proofs and then go home and dothe trusting so that no one you're not like confronting anyone when you're refusing totrust them. You could just like ghost basically. So with circles, maybethese things will have to come up at some point. They're not unfamiliar questions, though. Like you know, I got follow by someone I worked within high school, but I didn't follow them back. I'm familiar with navigatingthat guilt, as I'm sure most are. So in a way it sort ofdisincentivizes trying to get so many friends, whereas traditional social media does the opposite, for reasons we are all well too familiar with. Yeah, Iwould say that definitely trust in circles is a riskier operation than what we're familiarwith, from what we've been trained in, really from social media use. That'sinteresting because I almost see that as a downward pressure on overall potential supply, which is a good thing. So kind of limits over supply because itit dilutes your did it died, it delight, dilutes your tokens. Essentially, you can definitely end up with a system where you have tokens that areexpendable because the amount of people who trust you is fewer than the supply ofTokens that you have. So, yeah,...
...exactly possible. Yeah, it's ait's also one of the things that I would really like to see.The way to trust get surfaced in the Ui because, especially in these earlydays of circles, there is it'd be really nice to be able to helppeople join by giving them a lower rate. I'm not sure we've talked at weightedtrust yet. Maybe we have and I missed it, but I thinkwe didn't. You and I DM each other about it, okay, butit's so we've transitive transactions. You can imagine that they're the people all inthe middle of the transitive chain are aware that they're going on. So youcould wake up one night and find that one has happened. So trust limitsare way to limit the amount of your coins that can be spent transitively and, as I said, I'm on twitter. You know, a direct on DM, the a direct a direct transfer like we're familiar with in the arctwenty world, is always possible, but these transitive ones are are limited.And so if I trust you right now, the default is fifty percent. Itmeans I'm willing to exchange fifty percent of my coins. I don't wantto one rate with yours, but you could imagine if I wanted to helpyou get on boarded but I wasn't sure I trust you, I could setthat at ten and then the likelihood the amount of your coins I might wakeup with tomorrow is going to be a lot less but you know, ifwe were very close, I might also set it to a hundred, whichyou know. So that's saying if I have, if I have a hundredJohn Tokens, and somebody wants to buy a couch from somebody who trust me, a friend of yours lay like I, it could be that if I trustyou one hundred percent, then I might end up with a hundred SarahTokens in this transaction and but then my hundred John Tokens have been forwarded onto the then the seller of this couch. It's that correct? Yep, exactly. But currently, you're saying, did you say that? That thetrust? Because in the Ui it's a binary right. I trust you orI do not trust you, and you don't really get to set the waitingit's currently the UI is setting it to fifty percent. Is that correct?Yeah, exactly. Hmm, I see right now there are a number offeatures that the contracts enable that are not rolled out in the Ui for reasonsof limiting scope so that you actually watch some day. But I think thosethings, that those will the plan is to roll those things out over time. I think it makes so much sense. Like if, even if just havingto. I think people are already certainly to navigate the WHO do Itrust? What are the implications of trust? Have adding the friction of and howmuch do I you know, what score do I give this person?I think would really have pampered the uptake, but it'd be awesome to hear aboutwhat some of those like, what some of the things that are inthe contracts that aren't currently in the in the Ui itself are, as wellas maybe some things that could have been in the contracts but would have beeninteresting functionality for a UBI system it's itself. Yeah, oh well, we wehave. Maybe our most hotly debated feature that did not get in therewas limiting the amount of trust you can give to like really make trust scarce. So like you can only trust a maximum of like a hundred people.Dounit or a project that's very, very similar to circles. If you're afan of circles, you should also investigate donor, don or, don itor, yeah, Du iteer. Okay, so yeah, it's they live atrust to a hundred people. We eventually did not do it, butI had a really crazy moment like three days for we're supposed to latch thecontracts, which is like maybe I should just add it but turn it off. But if someone wants to like fork circles someday, the code'll already bethere. And I was like no, stock Togor the contract, you're supposedto shift them. So yeah, that's that didn't make it in. Featuresthat are upcoming, though, are adding and managing owners of your nurse safe, which I think is a really important one. It's a better pattern forusing circles on two devices than entering your mnemonic on the seecond device, whichis the only way to do it now.
We people are definitely going to wantcircles on mobiles, of point of payment. So that and then alsoyou can imagine adding like your more secure wallet as well. We have afeature for organizations to sign up or businesses to sign up, which is toenter an account into the trust graph that doesn't receive a token because, youknow, your local coffee shop doesn't meet the universal basic income like actually,like in a more correct world of the trust graph, you shouldn't trust peoplethat aren't people, and the people add the coffee stop should just be gettingthe UBI through circles themselves, not this conglomoration of people. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then, especially for a business, managing the the thepeople who have keys for it. Again, those two are tied. And then, I guess, the final thing. Oh, two other things that aren'tenabled, just to listen all all the things we didn't do. WayTo trust, which, like you said, I agree with be refusing for theaverage user circles, but I think, you know, somewhere in the likeadvanced settings it should I think it would be really good to have.And also, I think, an ability to override the transitive and send directlyin a onetime payment case. So that would be like I see something ona circle's version of craigslist that I want to buy, but there's some actuallyno trust path between me and this person. But they look at my account,they meet me, they talk to me, the Google me and theyfind me on some other website. They're like, I'm pretty sure you're realand I can see, I can I can see that you're embedded in atrust graph that is not too far away from mine. I'll accept your coinsthis one time. So I think that would also be a really nice featuredroll out. Nice. Okay, Jay, do you have any any questions rightnow? I think pretty much covered all the things. It's seems likea really interesting project. I saw it a little bit on crypto twitter.I hadn't not a chance to really take a look into it, but I'mcertainly going to now. So very, very interesting. Yeah, thanks.I'm happy to, you know, ramble about it to Y'all and I thinkit's you know, one of the things that we've talked about for circles,let's see if it happens, because it has a longer timeline, is tosort of publish what happens, you know, how how this project goes, whatwe hear from our users, how we see it used in different placesafter, you know, it's been out for a while. So I thinkthat maybe viewers, you listeners of this podcast can may be chicken with usin the years. So also to have some of the answers to the questionsthat I just can't answer yet with anything but speculation. Yeah, they'd begreat. I'll put on the calendar. Oh Man, Oh man, holdme to it. Yeah, I'll just you know, just roup I'll.I just want to say like it is one of the first projects that Ifelt I could tell my normal friends about that was like relative into them andand that they could fairly easily understand and wasn't totally Eso chaeric and didn't havelike seven layers of dependencies that I would have to explain to them before theycould see the utility of it. So I'm very I'm very excited about andbullishit about it. I feel like I can you be saying Polish, thisis not the context. But but if not circles, perhaps somebody else,like something will, will take the lessons from circles and make something really specialhappens. So that's always been my hope and if that person is listening,the first thing I would say is get us over this like six times biggerthan you think you need. But yeah, I agree. Like you know,circles may not live, but maybe the things that are container than itcan beat you some day by another project, though I of course hope that ourproject does live and it is adopted by both crypto familiar people and peoplewho have no idea what crypto is. That would be a real circle successfor me for sure. Okay, Sarah Strap Up, where can people findout more about circles and follow you if...
...they'd like to yeah, so theproject is circles UBI. That's the twitter handle as well, circles CBI orcircle Zoobi, and then the the website right now is join circles dot met, which has a bit of a quick overview of the project. And Iam Sarah Friend and that is is this an art on twitter? Excellent.Okay, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much.Yeah, thank go for chatting and have a good that's a good day.


text:
Battle Against Risk-Benefits Continues
Weight Loss Ingredient
CRN Calls on FDA to Respect the Spirit of DSHEA
Now Foods Honored by Emord & Associates
Political Disruption Presents Opportunity for Industry
ABC Endorses Supplement OWL Product Registry
Challenges to the risk-benefit analysis FDA applied in banning the use of ephedra will continue following the Supreme Court's May 14 refusal to hear Nutraceutical Corp.'s appeal, according to the firm's attorney and to industry trade groups…The firm appealed FDA's application of a risk-benefit standard in banning the use of ephedra because such a standard is not included in the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, which created FDA's regulatory scheme for supplements.
Because a risk-benefit approach is primarily used in the evaluation of pharmaceuticals and not for supplement products, it may become a key area for challenges on possible future FDA regulatory action regarding supplements, [Nutraceutical's attorney Jonathan] Emord [of Emord & Associates] said…Council for Responsible Nutrition president Steve Mister said applying this standard in a decision on another ingredient could set the stage for more challenges, but FDA is unlikely to apply it.
"I can't rule out that they would never do it, but the margin for safety of our products for the most part is quite large. Ephedra is sort of a unique issue," Mister said…The Natural Product Association (NPA) had filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court to support Nutraceutical's argument against FDA's use of a risk-benefit standard, but pointed out it did not contest the agency's ban of ephedra. The association continues to oppose FDA's use of a risk-benefit standard in the ephedra ruling and is concerned the agency will apply the standard when considering the safety of other dietary supplement products.
—Robert Mitchell, The Tan Sheet, 5/21/07
Understanding FTC Standards for Claims Substantiation
Transforming Health with Nature's Sunshine
TREHA Trehalose Available As 'Natural Flavor'
ConsumerLab.com Tests Popular Vitamin D Supplements
Gottlieb Confirmed to Lead FDA
Supplement OWL Goes Live
UNPA Offering New GMP Training Course June 27-28
Natural Products Association Applauds Launch of Supplement OWL
CHPA Encourages Members to Participate in Supplement OWL
Related Consumer Trends
Dietary Supplements | Minerals | Vitamins
According to a Datamonitor report, thanks to health conscious baby boomers, nutraceuticals have seen a sharp rise in demand. Recent market research indicates there have been as many as 204 new nutraceutical products launched in the past 18 months. Th…
Kansas University Athletics Pulls Vitaminwater Flavors
The Kansas University Athletics Department has removed six flavors of Vitaminwater from vending machines in the athletics department because they allegedly contain "banned or impermissible substances" that have the potential to affect a s…
Vitaminwater A-OK, According to NCAA
In response to what it called "inaccurate" media coverage that fueled student-athlete concern, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) issued a statement emphasizing that normal consumption of Vitaminwater is safe. "An a…
Drug Industry Likes Idea Of Splitting FDA
Advocates of the drug industry are quietly allying with some of their longtime critics, pushing to split FDA into two agencies, one for food safety and one for medical products, hoping such reorganization will lead to faster approval for new medicine…
Miracle Fruit' Turns Sour Things Sweet
Synsepalum dulcificum, is being referred to as a "miracle fruit" for its ability to alter the taste buds, turning everything sour to sweet for about 15 to 30 minutes. This small berry has inspired "taste tripping" parties, whe…
Tropicana Discovers Some Buyers Are Passionate
PepsiCo Americas Beverages is bowing to public demand and scrapping the changes made to a flagship product, Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice. Redesigned packaging that was introduced in early January is being discontinued in favor of the longtime…
Weight-Loss Plans Seeing Lean Times
Jenny Craig diet plans are being cast aside by Americans more concerned about losing their job than shedding pounds. Jenny Craig, which was one of Nestle SA's fastest-growing brands in the first months of 2008, slowed in the second half of the…
'Eat Your Vegetables': For Kids, it Means Fries
Kids aren't eating enough fruits and vegetables, and when they do consume produce, they are more likely to eat French fries than nutrient-rich dark green or orange vegetables, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the American…
Bad Times Are Good for Herbal Medicines
Climbing sales of herbal medicines have paralleled the tanking economy, according to an Associated Press review of recent data from market-watchers and retailers. Use of alternative treatments is on the rise as many Americans confront the high cost o…
Rapper 50 Cent to Launch Male Cosmetics Line
U.S. hip-hop artist, 50 Cent, (Curtis Jackson) is reportedly planning to launch his own range of beauty products. The rapper, who already owns a record label, G-Unit Records, and G-Unit Clothing Company, will be introducing a line of beauty products…
Firm Rises As Gluten-Free Foods Thrive
The gluten-free market is getting competitive, as a growing number of businesses are selling products aimed at celiacs—people who have difficulty digesting gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye and barley. In March, Italy-based Dr. Schar Srl, E…
As It Grows In Popularity,
With recent reports trumpeting the health benefits of vitamin D, a growing number of consumers are looking for high-dosage supplements. But scientific uncertainty has generated debate over the virtues and dangers of vitamin D. The most promising stud…
Engineering Edible Bacteria
Probiotics, a field that seeks to use edible bacteria to improve human health, may soon undergo a metamorphosis. Students at MIT and Caltech are using the techniques of synthetic biology to create bacteria that fight cavities, produce vitamins, and t…
College Students Making Anti-Cancer Beer
U.S. college students say they are using genetic engineering to create beer with resveratrol, a substance in grapes shown to reduce cancer and heart disease. A group of Rice University students say Rice's "BioBeer" will be entere…
Antioxidants | Vitamins
Seed Companies Boosting Nutrition in Plants
Orange tomatoes. Purple broccoli. Heeding dieticians' message that a rainbow of colors offers balanced nutrition, plant breeders have begun bulking up some traditional fruit and vegetable selections with still more nutrients. "Before,…

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Complete Pot/Container Growing Kit A great all in one container kit. Comprises 2x27cm containers in a light and reusable plastic plus enough compost for both. The compost contains added feed and water absorbing gel granules which will last all season. A nice kit for easy gardening.
This useful and versatile Growing Pack contains 2x27cm containers which are specially created to be light but strong. The compost kit contains Fertiliser and Gel granules for reduced watering. Feed and Gel will last the season.


text:
French banks say 'non' to short-term working
by David Rothnie 09 July 2020
The French government's new short-term working scheme kicked off on July 1 but the country's investment banks wont be joining it.
The new program emulates the emergency one put in place during the pandemic lockdown and is modelled on the 'Kurzarbeit' programme in Germany, where unions and businesses agree on a reduction of working time in exchange for job security.
In return French President Emmanuel Macron said the state will pay 85% of furlough costs for as long as two years, and is encouraging companies to strike deals with workers on a case-by-case basis. The state subsidy will reduce for deals struck after October 1.
France's biggest banks are adamant they will not take advantage of the scheme. When the Covid 19 pandemic began in March, France's banks pledged not to furlough any of their staff because they didn't to be seen to be taking state aid, and the strings attached to it.
Société Générale said it will not move from the position it laid out on April 1 when it committed to avoid using the emergency partial unemployment scheme as well as the measures allowing companies to defer social and tax charges. "The objective is not to be a burden on the national budget and allow the French state to focus its help on those enterprises that need it most," the bank said. BNP Paribas, Natixis and Credit Agricole have adopted a similar stance.
By avoiding use of the scheme, French banks have flexibility to manage their businesses how they want. In the wake of the crisis, they instigated hiring freezes and halted redundancy programmes, but job cuts could come later in the year. Société Générale's board has pushed for a review of parts of its equities trading business following a bruising first quarter.
Boutiques are also keen to avoid the schemes where necessary. Big independent firms like Lazard and Rothschild have seen an increase in debt advisory and restructuring work to compensate for a likely slump in M&A revenues. Last month boutique Perella Weinberg cut around 7% of its staff amid the coronavirus outbreak, including posts in Paris, and it wont be using the short-time working scheme in Paris, a source said.
One of the conditions of pledging to maintain all of their on the payroll full time has been that French banks have been able to force workers to take annual leave during lockdown. While this proved challenging where teams were busy on deals and were effectively told to down tools, it's probably a fair exchange at a time when more than 13 million French workers have been furloughed and unemployment has risen in a number of sectors.
On July 1 French aeroplane manufacturer Airbus announced around 5,000 redundancies in France. The latest unemployment figures showed the number of claimants registered as fully unemployed declined 3.3% in May as the economy re-opened, following surges of 7.1% in March and 22.6% in April.
Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you'd like to share? Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com in the first instance. Whatsapp/Signal/Telegram also available. Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: all our comments are moderated by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. Eventually it will – unless it's offensive or libelous (in which case it won't.)
Photo by Kai Pilger on Unsplash
Cyber Defense Manager
Sr Network Ops Engineer
QA Analyst - Contractor


text:
Prevalence & Stats
Related Diseases
Disease Profile
BK-virus nephropathy
Prevalence estimates on Rare Medical Network websites are calculated based on data available from numerous sources, including US and European government statistics, the NIH, Orphanet, and published epidemiologic studies. Rare disease population data is recognized to be highly variable, and based on a wide variety of source data and methodologies, so the prevalence data on this site should be assumed to be estimated and cannot be considered to be absolutely correct.
US Estimated
Europe Estimated
Age of onset
Autosomal dominant A pathogenic variant in only one gene copy in each cell is sufficient to cause an autosomal dominant disease.
Autosomal recessive Pathogenic variants in both copies of each gene of the chromosome are needed to cause an autosomal recessive disease and observe the mutant phenotype.
X-linked
dominant X-linked dominant inheritance, sometimes referred to as X-linked dominance, is a mode of genetic inheritance by which a dominant gene is carried on the X chromosome.
recessive Pathogenic variants in both copies of a gene on the X chromosome cause an X-linked recessive disorder.
Mitochondrial or multigenic Mitochondrial genetic disorders can be caused by changes (mutations) in either the mitochondrial DNA or nuclear DNA that lead to dysfunction of the mitochondria and inadequate production of energy.
Multigenic or multifactor Inheritance involving many factors, of which at least one is genetic but none is of overwhelming importance, as in the causation of a disease by multiple genetic and environmental factors.
Other names (AKA)
BKN; BK virus nephropathy; Nephropathy from BK virus;
Kidney and Urinary Diseases
These resources provide more information about this condition or associated symptoms. The in-depth resources contain medical and scientific language that may be hard to understand. You may want to review these resources with a medical professional.
In-Depth Information
PubMed is a searchable database of medical literature and lists journal articles that discuss BK-virus nephropathy. Click on the link to view a sample search on this topic.


text:
June 24, 2014 / 6:33 PM / 5 years ago
Federal judge rules U.S. no-fly list violates Constitution
Dan Whitcomb
(Reuters) - The U.S. government's no-fly list banning people accused of links to terrorism from commercial flights violates their constitutional rights because it gives them no meaningful way to contest that decision, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Anna Brown, ruling on a lawsuit filed in federal court in Oregon by 13 Muslim Americans who were branded with the no-fly status, ordered the government to come up with new procedures that allow people on the no-fly list to challenge that designation.
"The court concludes international travel is not a mere convenience or luxury in this modern world. Indeed, for many international travel is a necessary aspect of liberties sacred to members of a free society," Brown wrote in her 65-page ruling.
"Accordingly, on this record the court concludes plaintiffs inclusion on the no-fly list constitutes a significant deprivation of their liberty interests in international travel," Brown said.
The decision hands a major victory to the 13 plaintiffs - four of them veterans of the U.S. military - who deny they have links to terrorism and say they only learned of their no-fly status when they arrived at an airport and were blocked from boarding a flight.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought suit against the policy in 2010, argues that secrecy surrounding the list and lack of any reasonable opportunity for plaintiffs to fight their placement on it violates their clients' constitutional rights to due process.
"For years, in the name of national security the government has argued for blanket secrecy and judicial deference to its profoundly unfair no-fly list procedures and those arguments have now been resoundingly rejected by the court," Hina Shamsi, the ACLU's national security project director, said in a written statement.
"This excellent decision also benefits other people wrongly stuck on the no-fly list with the promise of a way out from a Kafkaesque bureaucracy causing them no end of grief and hardships," Shamsi said.
The government contends there is an adequate means of contesting the flight ban and that individuals listed under the policy may ultimately petition a U.S. appeals court directly for relief.
Attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice, which defended the lawsuit, declined to comment, other than to say they needed more time to read the ruling.
The no-fly list, established in 2003 in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, bars those on it from flying within the United States or to and from the country. As of last year, it included some 20,000 people deemed by the FBI as having, or reasonably suspected of having, ties to terrorism, an agency spokesman said at the time. About 500 of them were U.S. citizens.
Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Bill Trott


"Another semester begins, and I'm already exhausted. Here I am, a grown adult, and I can't even choose my own courses. I've been trying to get into this poetry class since I got here, but it's always full."
Recounting one's times at college varies greatly depending on who the narrator is. Some will say it was fantastic, others will say it was stressful. Just about every college student will tell you though that at one point or another they went through a time where they weren't really sure what they would do with their life after (or during college). It's a pretty deep topic that's tackled somewhat in How I Made the World. The book is broken into two stories and both "The Monster" and "Catman" are written by Liz Plourde and illustrated by Randy Michaels.
In "The Monster," Liz is a college sophomore trying to find her way in life, but not quite having the traditional epiphany that some students tend to have. She's committed to pursuing an English concentration, despite its popularity and frequently full classes. That pushes her to a ceramics class, where her art project becomes an obsession that spins her life out of control. "Catman" delves into a child believing a lie and doing so with a nod toward imagination.
"The Monster" gets the majority of the attention in How I Made the World and it's actually a pretty heady story. Liz's tale is one that most readers can pretty readily relate to, as she struggles to traverse the unfamiliar waters of being in college. There's a lot of uncertainty that comes with being in college, primarily owing to the societal pressure to "find oneself" in that time. Plourde really taps into that sentiment, presenting Liz as a character who really wants to do well, but struggles to focus simply because she's not really completely into the ceramics class. It's a pretty powerful story that's really well done, save for a lot of dialogue and narration which really slows the pacing down significantly. It doesn't hurt the story necessarily, but it is a very lengthy read. "Catman" is a lot shorter and lighthearted, presenting a child's amazement at a lie simply because she wants to believe it.
Michaels' art is all black and white, yet capable of telling Plourde's tale. The characters have a newspaper strip feel to them, as Michaels doesn't rely too heavily on an excess of detail in their expressions and looks. The simplicity still allows the characters to look unique though, so there's no issues with discerning one from the other. Blacks are used to pretty great effect as well, providing a stark contrast to the otherwise bright, white characters and scenes. There's also some varied panel layouts throughout that keep the reader's eyes moving well, enough so that they can successfully keep up with the story itself.
How I Made the World is a pretty serious tale that's masked by the otherwise enjoyable experience that is college. It could be argued that everyone's college experience is very similar, which is what makes the book so appealing and easily relatable. Plourde uses a very accessible story that is delivered with great ease thanks to the common sense dialogue, while Michaels' illustrations effectively reflects the tone of the book as it progresses. How I Made the World requires that the reader at least think back to a time in their life where they were uncertain about something and how they managed to work their way through it. Because of that, the book really offers a tale that anyone can read and relate to.
How I Made the World is a 32-page black and white comic, that will retail for $2.95 and will be listed in the April issue of Diamond Comics Distributors' Previews under Diamond order code is APR141257.


"As morale-boosters, he said, there were twice weekly rations of soap, towels, tobacco and sweets, and saki is drunk every Sunday.  Then there is the systematized service of camp followers, units of "comfort girls" attached to each division.
Twenty imported Japanese girls - the Japs don't trust or force Burmans in this extracurricular service - are provided for each regiment."
Note that these comfort women (as we now say) were Japanese, although the use of Korean comfort women is better known.


text:
How was the magnetosphere created?
Astronomy Our Solar System The Earth
Alexander W. Smith
The magnetosphere was created by solar wind's action on Earth's magnetic field.
The magnetosphere was created by solar wind's action on Earth's magnetic field. The image below shows an accurate representation in shape and size of Earth's magnetic field that constantly being buffeted by solar winds.
(https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/phenomena/earths-magnetosphere)
What's the Earth's "absolute" speed? i.e. in relation to the central Sun, the first-order star,...
How does density affect earth's layers?
How fast does the earth rotate? How does this compare to the rotation of other planets?
At what speed does the earth travel on its orbit around the sun?
What would happen if the earth's rotation was faster or slower?
How fast does earth rotate near the equator?
How fast does the earth rotate per second?
How fast is the earth traveling along its orbit?
How fast does the earth rotate on its axis?
How fast does the earth rotate in one minute? What is the formula to determine this?
See all questions in The Earth


While each attendee has their own, individual takeaways from the conference, there were some collective thoughts from each healthcare professional we spoke with. All of the conference reviews were extremely positive. The attendees raved about this year's keynote speaker, Dr. Jerry Teplitz, and value the networking opportunities and educational breakout sessions.
Senior Marketing Consultant | UW Health, Madison, Wis.
Director of Business Development | UW Health Rehab Hospital, Madison, Wis.
Marketing & Communications Specialist | Aspirus Riverview Hospital & Clinics, Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.
Director of Public Relations | Mile Bluff Medical Center, Mauston, Wis.
Director of Marketing & Communications | Agrace Hospice & Palliative Care, Madison, Wis.
Director of Public Relations | Spooner Health, Spooner, Wis.
Marketing & Communications Specialist | Memorial Medical Center, Ashland, Wis.


text:
Sheila the Australian Beauty Who Bewitched British Society
Author(s): Robert Wainwright
Sheila wedded earls and barons, befriended literary figures and movie stars, bedded a future king, was feted by London and New York society for forty years and when she died was a Russian princess. Vivacious, confident and striking, Sheila Chisholm met her first husband, Francis Edward Scudamore St Clair - Erskine, a first lieutenant and son of the 5th Earl of Rosslyn, when she went to Egypt during the Great War to nurse her brother. Arriving in London as a young married woman, the world was at her feet - and she enjoyed it immensely. Edward, Prince of Wales, called her 'a divine woman' and his brother, Bertie, the future George VI of England (Queen Elizabeth's father), was especially close to her. She subsequently became Lady Milbanke and ended her days as Princess Dimitri of Russia. Sheila had torrid love affairs with Rudolph Valentino and Prince Obolensky of Russia and among her friends were Evelyn Waugh, Lord Beaverbrook and Wallis Simpson. An extraordinary woman unknown to most Australians, Sheila is a spellbinding story of a unique time and a place and an utterly fascinating life.
Robert Wainwright has been a journalist for 25 years, rising from the grassroots of country journalism in Western Australia to a senior writer with the The Sydney Morning Herald. His career has ranged from politics to crime, always focussing on the people behind the major news of the day. He is the author of Rose: The unauthorised biography of Rose Hancock Porteous (2002), The Lost Boy (2004) and The Killing of Caroline Byrne (2009).
Availability date : April 2015
Author : Robert Wainwright


The root node is a special Page, whose sole purpose is to group Pages into a menu. The title of the root node is used to reference the menu when writing out the menu in your templates. The other properties of the root node (like URL) are ignored by Fiber.
Note: You can create multiple root nodes to create multiple, independent menus.
Using absolute URLs, you can specify the full URL path to the Page. Absolute URLs should start (and preferably also end) with a slash. You can also specify links to external sites by providing the full URL (starting with http:// or https://).
Relative URLs are like folders on your computer. The full absolute URL of the Page is determined by walking up the tree, while concatenating relative URLs until the root node is reached, or until an absolute URL is encountered. Relative URLs should not contain slashes.
Named URLs are looked up in the urls.py files of all registered apps. Currently only named URLs that don't have parameters are supported.
The menu name refers to a top-level node in the page tree.
As you can see, the sub pages of the currently active 'Products' page are automatically expanded.
The sub pages of the 'Product A' page are not shown, because they are outside of the specified minimum and maximum levels.
When the user is currently visiting the 'Home' page, this will show an empty menu, since it cannot be determined what level 3 pages are currently active.
Notice that all pages below the currently active 'Product A' page are expanded because of the 'all_descendants' parameter.


text:
Imprint: Peng. Mod. Classics
Political & legal thriller
A towering philosophical novel that is the summation of her Objectivist philosophy, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged is the saga of the enigmatic John Galt, and his ambitious plan to 'stop the motor of the world', published in Penguin Modern Classics.
Opening with the enigmatic question 'Who is John Galt?', Atlas Shrugged envisions a world where the 'men of talent' - the great innovators, producers and creators - have mysteriously disappeared. With the US economy now faltering, businesswoman Dagny Taggart is struggling to get the transcontinental railroad up and running. For her John Galt is the enemy, but as she will learn, nothing in this situation is quite as it seems. Hugely influential and grand in scope, this story of a man who stopped the motor of the world expounds Rand's controversial philosophy of Objectivism, which champions competition, creativity and human greatness.
Ayn Rand (1905-82), born Alisa Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg, Russia, emigrated to America with her family in January 1926, never to return to her native land. Her novel The Fountainhead was published in 1943 and eventually became a bestseller. Still occasionally working as a screenwriter, Rand moved to New York City in 1951 and published Atlas Shrugged in 1957. Her novels espoused what came to be called Objectivism, a philosophy that champions capitalism and the pre-eminence of the individual.
If you enjoyed Atlas Shrugged, you might like Rand's The Fountainhead, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.
A Life More Compelling Than Fiction' was the slogan of the 1997 Academy Award-nominated documentary Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life. The film poster describes Ayn Rand as 'The most original, uncompromising and controversial writer/philosopher of the twentieth century.' Born and raised in the mysticism and collectivism of Russia, she escaped to America in 1926 and became a champion of reason and individualism. To learn more about the woman who wrote inspiring, best-selling novels and created a new philosophy, choose from the related subjects to learn more.
Also by Ayn Rand
Fyodor Dostoyevsky


The Grouptronics GTMC-101 CD player HiFi in sleek grey looks good, sounds great and is incredibly easy to use. Enjoy your music from different sources, with audio CDs, FM radio, MP3, phone or tablet listening options at your fingertips. The wall mounting or table top, rear kick stand displaying options means it will fit perfectly into any room and the twin stereo speakers can be detached, depending on your preference. The front-loading CD player can be simply flipped open to play your favourite discs and the aux-in socket at the rear enables phone, tablet or MP3 connection, to extend your playing options further. Set the built-in alarm and wake-up or snooze to your chosen CD, radio or buzzer.
Fix the grey Grouptronics GTMC-101 safely to your wall or stand on a table, window sill, bedside table, kitchen top – the choice is yours! The GTMC-101 looks stylish on a feature wall with the twin stereo speakers flush on either side, detach them and place them at an angle on a surface, or leave connected to the unit on a table – the styling options are numerous.
Pop your MP3 tracks on a USB flash drive and listen to all your favourite MP3 music on the GTMC-101.


text:
Why Mauro Icardi sued Inter and rejected Juventus, according to his agent
Published: 12:57, 6 September 2019
Mauro Icardi's decision to sue Inter Milan wasn't about the money and that his loan move to Paris Saint-Germain was always on the cards after rejecting Juventus, according to the player's wife and agent.
The Argentinian joined PSG from Inter Milan on the final day of the European transfer window, having been excluded from training with the rest of the squad by new manager Antonio Conte.
Icardi's loan move to PSG: Five things to know…
Mauro Icardi had been linked with a move away from Inter Milan all summer.
Juventus, Napoli and Atletico Madrid among others were being attributed with interest .
Icardi eventually joined PSG on the final day of the European transfer window.
He signs on a season-long loan with an option to buy next summer.
And the player's agent, Wanda Nara, reveals it was a deal she kept close to her chest.
Icardi had been linked with a move away from Inter all summer, with the likes of Juventus, Napoli, Monaco and Atletico Madrid being attributed with interest.
But PSG were the ones to secure Icardi's services for the year ahead, with an option to buy at the end of the campaign. And Wanda Nara, the striker's wife and agent, reveals the deal was very close to her chest.
"If I waited until the last moment, it's because I had an ace up my sleeve," Nara told reporters. "Nobody knew, not even the kids. Mauro packed a small suitcase and left the rest to me.
"The kids go to school in Italy, so we'll live between Milan and Paris. Of the three options we had, PSG was the worst for me, because I have to go back to live in Milan with the kids.
"But I thought of what was best for him. There were many important Italian clubs who wanted him and it would've been easier."
Icardi's arrival at the Parc des Princes adds to PSG's vast wealth of attacking options, with the 26-year-old joining the likes of Neymar, Edinson Cavani, Angel Di Maria and Kylian Mbappe.
What went wrong for Icardi at Inter Milan?
Joining from Sampdoria in 2013, Icardi had a slow start to life at Inter Milan, with his debut season fractured by injury problems. But he came back with a bang the following year, playing himself into the hearts of the Inter faithful with 27 goals in 48 games across all competitions.
His performances were rewarded with the captaincy in 2015/16, before 24 goals in 34 league games the following season and 29 in 34 the year after – including a hat-trick against AC Milan saw the rest of Europe pay attention to Icardi.
🔴🔵🇫🇷 @PSG_inside pic.twitter.com/2aUirewHDu
— MauroIcardi (@MauroIcardi) September 4, 2019
But that was when things started to take a step in the wrong direction, with Icardi reportedly looking for a way out of Inter – a move to a Champions League side being the preference.
It came to a head last season as the goals dried up by Icardi's standards with 17 in 37 games across all competitions including just two in his final 13 Serie A matches. In that time, Icardi was stripped of the captaincy and replaced by Samir Handanovic and missed six games amid reports of refusing to train.
Conte's arrival in the summer further worsened Icardi's standing at Inter, with the new boss refusing to pick the striker in his squad, replacing him with Romelu Lukaku before giving Alexis Sanchez the no.7 shirt following Icardi's departure.
It remains to be seen whether Icardi's long-term future will be with the Nerazzurri who brought Romelu Lukaku and Alexis Sanchez (albeit on loan) from Man Utd this summer.
Current boss Conte, as touched upon, is clearly not high on the Argentine marksman which follows the club's stance towards him – laid down by CEO Giuseppe Marotta – as Wanda explains whilst explaining him suing the Milanese giants is more to do with how he's been treated and that he would never have joined Juventus out of loyalty.
"I think so," she told Corriere della Sera. "I talked to him, they'd assured him that they were strengthening the team regardless. Football is a business, Marotta makes the decisions and has to look after the accounts.
"We'll see who's done well in all this. I never had any doubts about Icardi: I received 15 offers. Marotta knew it too. If we got to the last day [of the transfer window], it's not because we are crazy: we know Icardi's value."
"Suing Inter wasn't about money, only the ignorant believe that. If it was for money, he would've left 3-4 years ago, when Inter weren't playing in the Champions League. He stayed out of love," she added.
"He wanted to be reinstated and train with Conte: who knows where he could've gone with him. Icardi was Inter's captain, he would never have gone to Juventus. I have a friendly relationship with Paratici. He was interested and relationship will continue.
"He likes playing in Italy, he knows the League well, he scored 135 goals. I think he'll come back. I don't know where and how, but his priority will always be Inter."
"Goalkeepers rarely excite me, but..." - Brad Friedel picks out...
La Liga reveal this season's 10 fastest players so far


JLBB, SLBB, JLSB & SLSB - Weekday games shall start at 5:30 PM. Weekend games shall start at 4:00 PM. Other starting times may be arranged with approval from both of the leagues, the umpires and the District. If lights are available at the host facility and both of the leagues, umpires and District are in agreement, games may be scheduled for 7:00 or 7:30 PM starts.
3) In the event of rain or unsatisfactory playing conditions, the host league shall notify the traveling team and the umpire consultant as soon as possible or two hours prior to the game. Umpire consultant(s) must be notified so that umpire crews if any were assigned may be rescheduled.
4) Practice Times: 9&10s, 11s, LLBB & LLSB - The traveling team shall have the use of the field from 5:20 to 5:40 PM. The host team must finish its practice prior to 5:20 PM. Notify the traveling team in advance if there is an auxiliary field available for additional practice.
JLBB, SLBB, JLSB & SLSB - The traveling team shall have use of the field from 4:50 to 5:20 PM. The host team must finish its practice prior to 4:50 PM. Notify the traveling team in advance if there is an auxiliary field available for additional practice.
*** ALL *** The Tournament Director may adjust the amount of practice time. If a team is a few minutes late they should be given time to practice. These times are based on the normal start times of games. If the game times are changed the practice times should be adjusted accordingly.
5) At all games where the District Administrator or Assistant District Administrator is unable to attend, the host league president or his assigned alternate shall act as Tournament Director. If there are multiple games in your league a Site Director should be named for each field. These people must be familiar with the tournament rules.
6) A flip of the coin shall establish the Home/Visiting team. The coin toss should be done as soon as the traveling team arrives. The traveling team will call the flip and the winner of the flip will have the choice of being the Home team or the Visitor. The other team will choose the dugout.
Baseball: Each team shall provide four (4) new, Little League approved, balls for each game. These should be Rawlings LLB balls or an equivalent. They should be marked as RS-T. This is the indication of as Regular Season – Tournament rated ball. Any balls needed in excess of this amount are to be provided by the host team. The teams shall divide any unused balls.
The host team furnishes all necessary balls after the 8 baseballs or 6 softballs run out. If the traveling team doesn't bring balls, the host league will provide all of the necessary balls and the traveling team will reimburse the host league.
8) The host League shall consider the need to provide police and medical assistance. There should be a phone readily available to call for such if needed.
9) The host league shall provide food and drink for teams, players, managers and coaches, and the umpires following the game. Profit from the concession stands stay with the host league.
10) The local tournament director is responsible for conducting a collection following the third inning of each game. This money is to be handled as follows: As of 2001 the district presidents have determined that the host league, to help defray the costs of feeding all participants, shall retain the hat pass donation.
12) Players must be in full uniform. Managers, coaches, and game officials should be dressed appropriately. Managers and coaches may wear shorts as long as they are a Coach's or Bermuda style short. They may not be jogging shorts, short shorts, spandex shorts, cut off sweat pants, cutoff jeans or cut off slacks. Shirts may not bear advertisement for cigarettes, beer or other alcoholic beverages. Polo or golf style shirts are acceptable. Umpires may not wear shorts. Umpires should wear the proper attire for a Little League Umpire.
13) Managers, coaches or players who are ejected from a game will not be allowed to participate/ play in their teams next scheduled tournament game. They are also not allowed to attend. This rule does not override a leagues right to impose a harsher penalty.
3) Highlights of the game. You must have first and last names of the players from both teams. Get the correct spelling.
6) Email results to: llresults@thesportsdept.com Teams should also notify any local papers with the same information.
15) Mandatory Play. This is covered in the Little League Rule Books. Please read the rule book and if there are any questions call me. Mandatory play is covered on page T-16 of the rule book.
16) Winners must report results of the games to the district. We will direct teams to their next opponent.
17) The Host League for each game should have an announcer, scorekeeper and for baseball a Pitch Count keeper.
18) The scorekeepers must keep accurate records of innings played and the scores. This information must be reported to the District Administrator.


text:
Q: After installing RVM either Rails Server or Git not working I broke it again and unfortunately I am not sure why...
Problem first
Using the .bash_profile that was created during RVM installation Git cannot be found. Adding back the old path exports from mac ports in the .profile breaks the rails server by reverting ruby back to 1.8.7
I think I identified
/opt/local/bin:
/opt/local/sbin:

to be the two directories in the .bash_profile that will make Git work but break the new RVM ruby verison.
Solution
So here the solution:
I am using a Mac Ports Git version. Thats why it won't run, unless the Mac Ports directories are part of the path. When the Mac Ports directories are sourced after RVM the Mac Ports Ruby Version seem to take precedence over the RVM version.
This will break:
[[ -s "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" ]] && . "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" # Load RVM function
export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH

This will work:
export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH
[[ -s "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" ]] && . "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" # Load RVM function

Thanks @three for pointing me in the right direction :)
How I broke it
Juggeling Ruby and Rails versions around to be in sync with the tutorials I am doing to learn the two, the name RVM kept popping up as a tool to manage those versions more conveniently.
I installed it and and got it to work
ruby -v
$ ruby 1.9.2p290 (2011-07-09 revision 32553) [x86_64-darwin10.8.0]

rails -v
$ Rails 3.1.3

In the process my .profile started failing, but I think that is because of the precedence of the .bash_profile that was created during the RVM installation. I was expecting trouble but all good so far and everything working, including the rails server.
rails s
=> Booting WEBrick
=> Rails 3.1.3 application starting in development on http://0.0.0.0:3000
=> Call with -d to detach
=> Ctrl-C to shutdown server
[2011-12-19 10:16:15] INFO  WEBrick 1.3.1
[2011-12-19 10:16:15] INFO  ruby 1.9.2 (2011-07-09) [x86_64-darwin10.8.0]
[2011-12-19 10:16:15] INFO  WEBrick::HTTPServer#start: pid=53018 port=3000

Then I wanted to commit to Git, but that all of a sudden doesn't work anymore
git
-bash: git: command not found

So I compared the .profile and .bash_profile found that Mac Ports added a line of code to the .profile when initially installing ruby, rails and git (sure 100% I used MacPorts for all three)
##
# Your previous /Users/username/.profile file was backed up as /Users/username/.profile.macports-saved_2011-10-19_at_08:48:41
##

# MacPorts Installer addition on 2011-10-19_at_08:48:41: adding an appropriate PATH variable for use with MacPorts.
export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH
# Finished adapting your PATH environment variable for use with MacPorts.

If I query the ruby version with this setting I get:
ruby -v
ruby 1.8.7 (2011-06-30 patchlevel 352) [i686-darwin10]

So my newbie guess is I broke the path variable in the process of installing RVM. If I add the line to the .bash_profile git works again, but the rails server doesn't. Notice the ruby version missmatch.:
rails s
/Users/username/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/sqlite3-1.3.5/lib/sqlite3/sqlite3_native.bundle: [BUG] Segmentation fault
ruby 1.8.7 (2011-06-30 patchlevel 352) [i686-darwin10]

Abort trap

The contents of my $PATH when using the Mac Ports PATH exports is:
echo $PATH
/opt/local/bin:
/opt/local/sbin:
/Users/username/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/bin:
/Users/username/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@global/bin:
/Users/username/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/bin:
/Users/username/.rvm/bin:
/usr/bin:
/bin:
/usr/sbin:
/sbin:
/usr/local/bin:
/usr/X11/bin:

On the other hand using the .bash_profile as is this is the $PATH contents:
echo $PATH
/Users/username/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/bin:
/Users/username/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@global/bin:
/Users/username/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/bin:
/Users/username/.rvm/bin:
/usr/bin:
/bin:
/usr/sbin:
/sbin:
/usr/local/bin:
/usr/X11/bin:

Looks pretty similar, except for those two directories:
/opt/local/bin:
/opt/local/sbin:

So my guess is, thats where it breaks... But I have no idea what to do about it.
I am still so new to all of this development, Apple Computers, Unix, Ruby, Rails Stuff :(
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks
TIM

A: put the RVM line after the export PATH for macports so that the rvm binaries for ruby will take precendence
export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH
[[ -s "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" ]] && . "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" # Load RVM function

Also consider using homebrew instead of macports which is the much slicker version of maintaining *nix tools.

A: insert this line to .bash_profile:
source "$HOME/.profile"

before RVM added contents.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation. When I was learning to cook my mother taught me that preparation was the key ingredient in cooking.
A tenuous link perhaps, but how many times have we gone into meetings, interviews or presentations where we are unprepared because we did not take the time to research, practice or prepare? It's like expecting to be able to cook a Michelin-starred recipe without the right ingredients, practice or equipment! When you think about how much time is put into creating those incredible dishes by famous chefs, the amount of hours spent practicing, adjusting and preparing is massive.
I am often asked by clients seeking a new role how to become more self-confident.
My answer is documenting achievements by writing them out. Remember the different situations, challenges and steps you took to resolve the problem and drive the required results. It may help to review your past appraisals or look at statements on your CV to help get you started.
It takes time, but the outcome is worth the preparation. Clients who take the time to systematically work through their achievements are always surprised by how much better they feel. Why? Because when we do a job we forget the process and the problems encountered along the way, so by going back and highlighting those achievements you feel more self-confident. You'll be more prepared the next time your manager asks you to 'think on your feet' and present to the team. You are one step ahead because you took the time to do the background work.
As we move into June, think about the last time you were fully prepared for that presentation, interview or introducing yourself at a networking workshop, and remember how confident it made you feel.
If you're looking to prepare better or increase your self-confidence, read my book Cooking Up Success, or get in touch.