text:
Torah Apologetics
Apologetics & Daily Life
Language & Word Studies
Literal English Version
How We Got Our Scriptures Part 2: The Early OT Translations
In Part 1, we examined the history of how the Tanakh, commonly called the "Old Testament" came down to us. In that article, we focused solely on the Hebrew Tanakh, because it is, after all, the original language of it. In this article we will examine the early translations of the Tanakh. In particular, we will focus on three primary version: The Greek Septuagint, the Syriac Peshitta, and the Latin Vulgate (with a brief discussion of the Old Latin). Throughout this article series I hope that you, the reader, will gain a better understanding of how the Bible in your hands came down to you through the ages.
The Greek Septuagint.
Now, if you've spent any great deal of time listening to teachings about the Tanakh (OT), you've probably heard the word Septuagint before. If you don't know what it is, then this article should be quite useful for you.
The word Septuagint comes not from Greek, but from the Latin word septuaginta, meaning "seventy" (70). The Greek title for the Septuagint is given as Η μετάφρασις των Εβδομήκοντα which means "The Translation of the Seventy." This is usually abbreviated to LXX, the Roman numerals for 70.
The LXX was completed in stages, and was not the work of any single person. The Torah was completed first, and given an approximate date of the 3rd century BCE. It gets its name from a legend. The legend states that Ptolemy II Philadelphus (the Greek-installed king of Egypt), somewhere around 260 B.C.E., commissioned a Greek translation of the Tanakh to be placed into the Library of Alexandria, and to be used by Alexandrian Jews {1}. The Letter of Aristeas, supposedly written shortly thereafter, gives the origin story of this legend, and the Alexandrian Jew Philo the Historian repeats it with some minor variants, as do Josephus and Augustine. One version of this legend is found in the Babylonian Talmud, which reads, "King Ptolemy once gathered 72 Elders. He placed them in 72 chambers, each of them in a separate one, without revealing to them why they were summoned. He entered each one's room and said, 'Write for me the Torah of Mosheh, your teacher.' Elohim put it in the heart of each one to translate identically as all the others did." {2}
Philo stated that 6 scholars were chosen from each of the 12 tribes of Israel, thus giving the number of 72 elders. This, however, has been disputed, given the wide dispersion of the tribes of the Northern Kingdom by this time.
Regardless of its name, however, the LXX has been utilized extensively in the process of textual criticism of the OT. {3} There were, in antiquity, other Greek versions of the OT, though few have survived, and those that have are quite fragmentary.{4} The most famous of these are the translations by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion. Most known readings from these versions are preserved in the few fragmentary pieces of Origen's Hexapla, which will be discussed further below.
In general, the most well-preserved versions in Greek are those of the LXX. In fact, some of the greatest, most important Greek manuscripts that we possess contain all or most of the Septuagint. Codex Sinaiticus, for instance, originally contained the entire OT, though portions of it were lost or destroyed over time. It also contains almost all of the NT, and is dated as the one of the earliest complete manuscripts, at about 350 C.E.
Among the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran, numerous fragments of the LXX were found. Some are also fragments of a Greek translation of the OT that predates the LXX. Some of these contain the Name of YHWH (יהוה) written in Paleo-Hebrew characters, rather than the substituted Greek word Κυριος. An example is shown below.
The LXX was used extensively in the first few centuries, when the Word began spreading throughout the communities of early believers. {5} This continued until Jerome's Latin Vulgate (discussed below), which then took precedence over the Greek.
The LXX has been very useful, as mentioned before, in the process of textual criticism. It preserves some readings that we know predate the Hebrew Masoretic Text. After the discovery of the Hebrew Dead Sea Scrolls, we discovered that some of the readings where the LXX disagrees with the Masoretic, the LXX actually preserves the original reading, as attested in the DSS. Thus the LXX and the Dead Sea Scrolls may very well have shared (in part, at least) a common ancestor. This is called a Vorlage, a manuscript which multiple versions and copies were made from. However, some scholars believe that the scribes that translated the LXX also purposely altered the text in places, to keep the Greeks form ever possessing the entire Word. This is debated, though there is no doubt that some readings are completely different. In some cases the order of a book is also disrupted, such as Jeremiah, whose chapters appear in a completely different order in the LXX. The pseudepigraphal Book of Jasher, a 16th Century compilation of various Jewish Midrashim, gives similar information regarding these changes. According to its editor's preface, the book [of Jasher] was written in Egypt for Ptolemy, who afterwards demanded a copy of the actual Torah. It claims that after his death the Jews went into his treasury and removed their copy of the Torah (presumably the LXX), but left Jasher behind. Though it mingles some details of the legendary account of the LXX, it nonetheless preserves the idea that there is a book that mirrors the Torah, yet does not contain the entire account. {6}
Many copies of the LXX also contain the apocryphal books, to a greater or lesser extent. These include Tobit, Judith, additions to Esther and Daniel, 1 – 4 Maccabees (in various ways), Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, and 1 Baruch. Many LXX manuscripts also include a 151st Psalm.
Lastly, we'll examine Origen's Hexapla for a moment. Hexapla means "six-fold" and referred to six different columns and versions. Think of a parallel Bible such as we have today, where one column is English and the other is Hebrew. Or, think of a parallel English Bible, which may have four columns: one for the KJV, one for the NIV, one for the NASB, and one for the NLT (for instance). This is essentially what the Hexapla of Origen was.
The columns of this work were:
1. Hebrew
2. Secunda (that is, Hebrew words transliterated with Greek characters. This was mostly used for learning pronunciation. Similar to writing "Shalom" or "Yom Teruah" in English.)
3. Aquila's Greek OT
4. Symmachus' Greek OT
5. A recension of the LXX
6. Theodotion's Greek OT
This book is said to have contained 6,000 pages and covered 15 volumes. Sadly, most of the work was destroyed around 640 C.E. during Muslim invasions.
The Syriac Peshitta
As much as the LXX was (and in many cases, still is) beloved by Greek-speaking peoples, the Syriac Peshitta was the same way for the Syriac-speaking peoples. This version was beloved by many Jews and Arameans, as Syriac became a very common liturgical language. After the split of Eastern Christianity from Western (Roman) Christianity in the Nestorian schism, the Eastern Churches shifted away from using the Greek and Latin, and rely on the Syriac. {7}
Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic, being a Semitic language, though not without being influenced by Greek and, in some cases, Latin. Though the exact date of the birth of the Peshitta is not known, it is generally believed that the OT was originally translated from Hebrew in the 2nd Century C.E. {8}
While the Peshitta OT was translated directly from the Hebrew text, the Peshitta NT is accepted by scholars as being a translation from an early Greek original. For a further in-depth look at the Peshitta New Testament, see article Aramaic Primacy of the NT.
The word "Peshitta" (פשיטתא) means "simple" or "common" in Syriac. This designation was given to mean that the "simple" man, or the commoner could understand the text. Not much else is known about the Peshitta's translation history, nor who completed or commissioned the work.
We do know that it, like the LXX, represents a Hebrew Vorlage in some places, where it agrees with the LXX and Dead Sea Scrolls, yet diverges from the Hebrew Masoretic. Thus it is also useful in establishing a critical text. Also like the LXX, many Peshitta texts also contain all or part of the apocrypha, including 5 additional Psalms. While Psalm 151 is found in Greek and Syriac, 152 – 155 are found only in the Peshitta and Dead Sea Scrolls.
While the LXX continued to spread over many years, the Peshitta was confined mostly to its Mid-Eastern home, centered around Antioch in Syria.
The Latin Vulgate & Old Latin
While the Latin Vulgate is by far the most well-known Latin version of the Bible, it is not the oldest. Indeed, very earlier on we find translations from Greek into Latin, especially of the NT. While the LXX had mostly been standardized, the Latin texts were far from that. The earliest forms of the Latin are usually referred to as Vetus Latina, or "Old Latin."
These texts appear to be mostly individual translations, as there was very little standardization of them. These texts were used from the late 2nd Century C.E. until the end of the 4th Century C.E., when Jerome was commissioned by Pope Damasus I to create a standardized version.
In 382 C.E., Pope Damasus I commissioned Jerome, a priest and historian, to revise and standardize the Vetus Latina texts to be used by the Catholic Church. Though it was met with opposition early on, it was eventually universally accepted, due mostly to the Church's force. The word Vulgate, or "Vulgata" in Latin, means "common" just as does Peshitta in Syriac.
When Damasus originally commissioned Jerome to create the Vulgate, he initially only wanted a revision of the four gospels, and he wanted them brought closer in line with the best Greek copies available. Two years later, at the time of Damasus' death, Jerome had not only completed the gospels, but had also finished a Latin revision of the Psalms for use in liturgy.
Prior to Jerome, most Latin translations of the OT were translations of the LXX. This carried its own problems, as it always does when dealing with a translation of a translation. Jerome, however, created the first known translation of the Tanakh straight from Hebrew into the Vulgate. He even moved to Jerusalem during this time in order to strengthen his knowledge of Hebrew. {9} This is why, in some places, the Vulgate is like the LXX and the Peshitta: it preserves the reading of the original, even when the Hebrew Masoretic does not. Jerome translated nearly his entire OT directly from Hebrew, save for the Psalms, which he revised from existing Latin and Greek versions. Some of the apocryphal books he translated from Greek, and others were revised from the Old Latin. For some, however, he had to rely on an Aramaic version (such as Tobit and Judith) which was then worked back into Hebrew.
The Vulgate, while praised as a great literary work and early translation, is still in many cases paraphrased. This was a problem that plagued the Old Latin, as well, as the Romans had a tendency to reword texts.
After it was completed, the Vulgate became the standard Bible of the Western (Roman) church for more than 1,000 years, and in the 1550s, during the Council of Trent, it was officially recognized as THE Bible of the Church. {10} This, of course, led to further problems and the eventually Protest, though those are beyond the scope of this article.
This should pretty much cover the three most important early translations of the Tanakh. In the next article, we'll look at the Targumim.
Be Berean. Shalom.
{1} Dines, Jennifer M. The Septuagint. Michael A. Knibb, Ed., London: T&T Clark, 2004.
{2} Babylonian Talmud. Tractate Megillah. 9a-9b.
{3} Brenton, Lancelot. Brenton's LXX Translation. Preface.
{4} Bible Translations – The Septuagint. JewishEncyclopedia.com. Retrieved 5 February 2016.
{5} ibid.
{6} Brown, J. A. Genesis Retold: A Restored Name, Critical Edition of 1 Enoch, Jasher, Jubilees, and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. CreateSpace. 2015 [NOTE: Editor's Hebrew preface is provided translated into English]
{7} Brock, Sebastian P. The Bible in the Syriac Tradition. St. Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute. 1988. P. 13.
{8} ibid. P. 17.
{9} Jerome (Eusebius Hieronymus Sophronimus). JewishEnyclopedia.com. Retrieved 5 February 2016.
{10} "Trent, Council of" in Cross, F. L. (ed.) The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Oxford University Press. 2005.
J. A. Brown


London-based design studio Barber Osgerby have scooped the Design of the Year award this year for their Olympic Torch.
Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby beat off a myriad off creative hopefuls for the prestigious prize, including NEWGEN designer Mary Katrantzou, Olympic Velodrome designers Hopkins Architects, Issey Miyake for his 132.5 collection and Zaha Hadid for her Guangzhou Opera House. Barber Osgerby's lightweight and functional design is cast from aluminum alloy, and includes a total of 8,000 laser holes to represent the number of people that will hold the torch during the Olympic ceremonies later this summer.


... yet proving that there is as they spew fundamentalist and dogmatic atheism?
Best Answer: They deny that atheism is a religion and think that the rules that they want to impose on others don't apply to them.
Same reason islamists claim Islam is a religion of "peace" ✌. They're liars!
Militant atheists are the new Jihadists!
Agreed. You often hear many of them say "Atheism is ONLY about the disbelief in God" but then they go on to say a ton of other things which they do not believe in. If it is only about the disbelief in God why do so many of them attack the Bible so much? Even before the Bible existed the vast majority of mankind was searching for God. So attacking the Bible or Christianity says absolutely nothing that defends their position.
How can there be fundamentalism in a belief system that has only one property?
With how zealous, fundamentalist and dogmatic many atheists are getting on the internet, is atheism at risk of becoming a religion?
Why do a lot of secular fundamentalists and atheist fundamentalists get so dogmatic and overzealous as they try to assert their world view?
Why do some atheists get so zealous for their atheism, preaching it online and in public, but not realizing how ridiculous their atheism is?
I disagree with Atheism; why do so many Atheists assume I'm a desperate Christian fundamentalist?
I saw an atheist saying many fundamentalist and dogmatic things for their atheism in a zealous way. When i pointed out how religious ..?


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"MAGA Maggots" and My Fifteen Minutes
Trump fans seem to be concerned that the shooter's right-wing political commitments might become part of the discussion, so they attack the survivors.
by Mark A. R. Kleiman
Max Goldberg/Wikimedia Commons
One of the more disgusting aspects of contemporary political and media culture is the practice of forming on-line hit squads to go after innocent victims when they dare to complain in ways that discomfit right-wing politicians or discredit right-wing causes.
The latest example is the concerted attacks on the student survivors of the Parkland massacre who are organizing – with admirable skill and self-restraint – to demand more effective gun control laws. I'm on record as a skeptic about how much good politically practicable gun control can actually do under U.S. conditions, but there's no doubt that making it harder for juveniles to access AR-15s and similar weapons could help moderate the carnage in schools. (That's a small part of the total gun-violence problem, but still worth addressing.)
In any case, it does my heart good to see these young folks stepping in to the public arena with so much energy and such a sharp eye for political efficacy. You don't have to entirely agree with them to unreservedly admire them. If it had been my friends who were killed, and if I'd spent hours hiding in a closet wondering whether I would survive, I doubt that I could master their self-possession.
So naturally they're under attack: from various Twitter randos, but also from CNN contributor and former Congressman Jack Kingston, who tried to tag them as "leftist" and even "antifa." (An interesting echo of the shooter himself, who identified "antifa" as one of the targets of his rage.) Equally naturally, Donald Trump, Jr. (aka Fredo) has joined the party, linking to various stories that try to make a scandal of the fact that one of the students is the son of an FBI agent. (Bet you didn't know that was a disgrace.)
Trump fans seem to be concerned that the shooter's right-wing political commitments (anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, anti-black, liberal-hating, gun-loving, wearing a MAGA cap) might become part of the discussion. In that they have largely succeeded: the massacre is being talked about in terms of gun policy rather than in terms of controlling right-wing terrorism.
I reacted to an early Tweet in this genre by labeling the attackers "MAGA maggots, feeding on the corpses of the dead." I wouldn't call that label polite, but I would defend its accuracy. Decent people don't mock, and tell lies about, survivors of a massacre, just because those survivors hold uncomfortable political opinions. And I think it's fair to say that the problem is not symmetric: at least, I haven't seen supporters of DACA, or of generous immigration policies in general, attacking the victims in the criminal cases the nativists have tried to use to stir up fear of immigrants.
Then the alt-right Daily Caller and the UK tabloid Daily Mail (no, I think I'll pass on giving them links) weighed in, attacking me for having applied the label to "Trump supporters" or "conservatives" generally, rather than to those who earned it by smearing the Parkland students. At least the Daily Caller guy took the trouble to ask me for comment, though he cheated by reporting the shooter's alt-right politics as merely my opinion rather than linking to the facts I'd supplied. The nameless, faceless scribe for the Daily Mail, which turns out in this case to be even a lower-quality outlet, didn't even bother to ask for comment. And of course they managed to find an old, and quite ugly-looking, photo, though my current one is on the NYU website.
I'm happy to report that I've received only five pieces of hate email and one nasty phone call, none containing actual threats; I wasn't even aware of the Daily Mail story until a friend clued me in. It's annoying – but no worse than that – that so many people know what they think I said, and so few know what I said. And of course I welcome any right-wing rage that gets deflected from the Parkway students to me. Still, the incident as a whole leaves rather a bad taste.
[Cross-posted at The Reality-Based Community]
Mark A. R. Kleiman
Gage Skidmore/Flickr
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Short Timer TBS v 1.6 update released with some pleasant graphical changes. The changes include Moving the New Project, Timer, and Export all buttons to the main screen. This allows you to create new projects quickly and get to work faster than ever. Short Timer TBS will receive even more graphical updates soon so keep an eye out. Let us know how we are doing and what we can do to make this awesome product even better for you! Thank you Short Timer users for all of your support!!
Read It Now Update v 1.1.1 is now available on the android market.
Need to export CSV files?
Reader for Twitter is an application that reads tweets to you. This application also allows you to post tweets using Google's Voice Recognition. Reader for Twitter never made it so easy to keep up with your tweets.
Refresh Rate so that you can receive tweets throughout your day.
You must have Text to Speech engine and voice search installed for this application to work properly.
The color nook has moved up in the world even further. I was reading a post at the xda-developers site on how Cyanogen was able to get the Bluetooth chip in the color nook to turn on but only for a little while and the connection would be very weak. I am currently running CM7RC2 on a 8gb class 4 micro sdcard. I have gone ahead and kept the changes that I have made for my nook strictly because it's much more stable plus this hack is so simple that it was almost disappointing. This hack has had a lot of issues with ClockWorkMod, I have yet to be able to use ROM manager. My Bluetooth is working so far with only small bugs. I have read post that people have been able to pair Wii remotes with the nook to play on their emulators, and some people have even been able to pair keyboards. I have yet to try either of these but as soon as I do I'll be sure and post which products are working for me and I'm hoping to get some feedback from other people on what products do work with the color nook.
CM7 RC2 update.zip <- go to xda-developers site for a download.
Put the generic sd card img onto your sd card. Make sure that there is nothing else on the card before hand.
DO NOT UNZIP the cm7 update.zip. When I first tried this hack I was very confused in this step. If you upzip the update.zip this will not work. Place the update.zip into your sd card.
Put the sd card into your color nook and start it up.
You now have CM7 with bluetooth!
If you have any issues with your bluetooth not turning on make sure you do a hard reboot with the color nook. You can accomplish this by holding down the power button for about 10 – 15 seconds. Do this instead up selecting reboot, or power off on the menu. Once you turn your color nook back on your bluetooth should work. The only problem I have had with this build is the video quality is not up to par, but it's much more stable than the nookhoney.
Much thanks goes to the developers of xda, thank you.
I am following up on my recent post to show you how to get the market on your new color nook. The process is fairly easy but slightly harder than the last post.
You will need to have adb set up already with android sdk.
Connect your nook with honeycomb running to your pc. hit the windows button and r to open the run menu. type cmd and press enter. you will see a screen pop up like below.
Before we go on to changing the directories copy the Vending.apk, and GoogleServicesFramework.apk into the tools folder of the android sdk. Next you want to change directories to your android sdk folder. type cd and the path to your tools folder in your android sdk folder.
Your next step is to see if the adb is communicating with your nook.
You should see your devices listed with an id number. If you do not make sure that the color nook is on and make sure you have the drivers set up for the nook.
You should see the terminal change to remount successful.
you should see something similar to the picture below.
You are going to want to change the permissions of the Vending.apk, and GoogleServicesFramework.apk.
just like the Vending.apk you should see a confirmation.
Your color nook will reboot and you now have the market. Enjoy!!
I had a few issues when i would be going from rom to rom on my nook. I would constantly get a GoogleServicesFramework.apk force close. I fixed this by going into the the settings of the device, click application, go into the manage application. Click the all tab and go to the GoogleServicesFramework and clear the data, do the same with your contact storage. ** This erase all of your contacts, create a back up! ** Reboot your devices and the force close should be fixed. I will post any other bugs that i find and hopefully fixes with them.
**all credit goes to the xda developers, they are awesome!!
Recently I purchased a Color Nook, and as soon as I got it I had to get Honeycomb on it. I loved it so much that I had to get the word out. Getting the nook to run honeycomb is a fairly easy task, but I thought that a lot of the webpages i visited to get the process done where scattered. I would like to write my own how to to help with the confusion.
micro sd card at least 4 gb or better. Also I think the card must also be a class 4 or better.
on XDA developer's site download the most recent nookHoney build, also download WinImage.
Insert your Sd card into your computer, and run winImage as administrator.
Click Disk and Select Restore Virtual Hard Disk image on physical drive..
Select your sd card from the list.
Once you have selected your sd card, winImage is going to ask you which file you would like to write to the card. Selected where you have saved the nookHoney.img file. Go to the folder to which the file is saved and select it. If you do not see your file listed make sure that you have the the all files option selected like below.
You are almost done:D, WinImage is now writing the file to your sd card. Once it has finished eject your sd card, power down the color nook and insert the card into the nook. Power on the Color nook and..
This weekend I was blessed to take a trip to fry's. I aquired a 16gb class 10 sd card that I wanted to use to put Honeycomb. I wanted to add on here that its a lot of trouble to use the nookhoneyV04 with the class 10 cards. You will boot your device and for some reason honeycomb will ask you for a password to decrypt your data. There was a little fix that I noticed on xda website that you copy from the sd card the uImage and delete the file in the card. Then copy the uImage from the desktop to the sd card. This may or may not fix this issue. You will need to use the nookhoneyV03 if you plan on using a high class card. I was so frustrated with the bugs that I removed honeycomb.I'm now rocking CM7-RC2 on my sd card. I will post a how to on that soon its so fast and bugs are minimum.
This android application was designed with contractor in mind, allowing the user to track time spent on multiple projects and clients. The user interface is easy to use and includes quick one click options to clock in and out. The app also includes the option to export a single project or all projects at once. The export supports gmail, and dropbox. Export format includes QuickBooks import file.


Ziggy's is St Andrews original themed restaurant, founded in 1983 at 131 South Street and moving to 6 Murray Place in 1985! We are proud to be one of the longest established, privately owned restaurants in town.
We like to think we are here on reputation and merit - something we never forget!
The owners take a day-to-day role in running the business and are happy to help with any enquiries or aspects of your visit. Over the years we have welcomed guests from all over the world, many returning to us on each trip back to St Andrews.


Christmas is one of the best times of the year, and there's nothing better to put you in the Christmas spirit than listening to or singing Christmas songs. But how much do you actually know about Christmas songs? The purpose of our site is to be the most complete resource on Christmas songs available. We've got a large and expanding list of lyrics, Christmas sheet music, interesting information about your favorite Christmas songs, CD's, genres, and much more!
If you have any comments or suggestions please feel free to contact us!.


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Celebrating our values
What sets SNC-Lavalin apart? Safety, integrity, collaboration and innovation. Our four values are behind everything we do and how we do it. We're friendly, welcoming people who thrive on our shared sense of achievement and team spirit.
As professionals from all over India and the world, we speak many languages and embrace different beliefs. It's this mix of exciting ideas, perspectives and experiences that gives us our leading edge.
We recognize that many of our people are starting out or mid-career – so we're actively supportive of your goals and life direction. It goes without saying that we are highly sociable, so there's always something fun happening: from annual Excellence Award Programmes, to Sports Carnivals, Family Days out, Women's Day Celebrations, and many colourful National Festivals.
At SNC-Lavalin you'll have a career with us, rather than a job. We're constantly evolving ways to stay ahead by keeping our people professionally in tune with the market. Some of our initiatives include Career Month, and Chartership Mentoring Programmes.
Join a team who is proud to be pushing innovation all around the world through intelligent technologies. We work in engineering design, digital tech, business or corporate teams, across all the major sectors.
You'll work with talented people who enjoy being better together – whether it's helping underprivileged schools gain access to digital education, or inspiring each other through internal Interest Groups.
Embracing the power of feedback
At Atkins, we are listening to you
Say hello to our 2020 graduates in India!
This year we are joined by 75 graduates from various prestigious institutes across India
Paving a way for our future women engineers
Three of our engineers talk about breaking stereotypes and moving forward in their careers
INWED
Women who redefined the engineering space with grit & perseverance
How our women engineers managed to change the outlook of our society
Options: 6281


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OMS integration for increased speed, consistency, and quality
Client profile: electronics retail company
Project: OMS integration
As a leading electronics retailer, the company has more than 1000 stores in 15 countries. These countries have different laws and regulations that require a further customisation of the system to make it compatible with the legal standards. Also, another challenge was the diversity of platforms (one for each country). Some of these platforms contained 80% of the solutions needed, while others had none.
In this case, undergoing the rollout of an integrated OMS, required complex tasks like infrastructure set up, initial data load, and data migration, all while making sure that the company's processes were not affected from a business point of view.
Different platforms for each country: these differences made the rollout execution difficult and prone to error.
Business, operational, and legal particularities for every country in which the company does transactions: these can differ in the actual FSP integration, fiscal documents that need to be provided upon purchase or payment methods.
Difficulty to extend functionalities and prepare roll-out at the same time: the owners struggled to balance functionalities and development to further extend the OMS and to maintain a "one platform approach". The alternative would've implied high cost on implementing and maintaining 3 different platforms with different technology stacks.
Create a model of development that can be done in-house starting from an already developed solution.
Extend business and technical functionalities: changing the existing software-as-a-service solution.
Reduced release time and become a release independent solution: be able to adapt to new legislation changes, business requirements. Also, this reduction would allow the business to send change into production quickly and without dependencies.
Being already a strategic partner for MediaMarktSaturn and understanding the existing landscape of applications, Accesa was directly involved in creating the system's architecture. In terms of architecture, we helped the company to define business flows, that would make possible a seamless integration of the new OMS, thus maximising the features that the OMS platform brings to each country.
With competences in Sterling development, integration, testing, and devops, our team managed to create a custom solution that would respond accordingly to the business needs.
Due to the complexity and the particularities of each country, in a consultative approach, our teams focused on the client's life cycle business flows (that includes Home Delivery's, Pick Up's, Returns, Modifications, Exchanges, and many more). This enabled us to focus on providing an end-to-end solution with a positive impact on the business flow. In a proactive endeavour, we have created a performance testing framework that identifies the current state of the implementation and highlights sensitive areas that could be negatively impacted by the high traffic. This allowed faster response to eventual critical situations that may have appeared during or after the implementation.
We used our know-how in areas like branching, improving code quality, CI/CD. Always focused on the need for high customisation, we have developed a new solution from scratch that responds to the company's specific needs.
Relying on the API architecture we enabled automation and performance to a framework that supports a fast and scalable release plan. Our teams used their knowledge both on enterprise service bus (ESB) and on API design, thus making the transition to the "API first" approach smother.
Also, to reduce time and complexity of new environment set-up, the application was containerised using Docker and Vagrant. For better performance, we implemented an automation process that undergoes the repeating and long-lasting manual configuration for new countries and eventual stores set-up in those countries.
The new OMS offers the ability to customise the order execution and enable more flexible business process definitions. The platform ensures adaptable fulfilment models that can respond to each country's particularities and legal needs. Also, implementing all the new country set-up can be done within 3 days. This enabled a decrease in time and costs, as sometimes such an implementation tool even more than a month.
In the current state, we can have monthly independent releases on multiple countries for the OMS and for the spin-off solutions. This approach enabled us to provide hotfixes in under 2 days or faster, instead of up to a month as it was previously happening. Having fixes faster, we were able to provide better stability of the system, with positive business and customer-experience impact.
The containerisation of the OMS, led to faster local set-up, enabling new developers to ramp-up and fix eventual problems in a timely manner. Improvements have been also seen regarding the testing duration. Testing on multiple instances is done using test automation, on scheduled time frames, thus reducing a lot of time, effort and errors. For example, regression testing was reduced from 2 weeks to 3 days.
During our early performance-testing, our specialists timely identified load problems which allowed the development team to fix them timely and proactively. This endeavour allowed the company to have the most successful Black Friday's in 3 consecutive years. By means of testing and continuous development, we made the platform to increase from 140 orders processed/sec to a top of 400 orders/sec without any problems.
The aggregated order capability collects orders from multiple order capture channels (online, call center and store) and provides a single source of order status information across these channels. This led to an increase in sales during Black Friday of an average of 194% from the previous year.
The financial gain for our partner comes from the design of the new ordering platform. Different from the previous solution that generated a cost per transaction, the new OMS has no such costs. While costs do exist with the new platform, these are not related to the number of orders. As the company increased the initial to up to 32.000 orders per day with a peak of 1.000.000 orders, this meant a significant reduction of costs.
Performance testing for continuous volume testing
Implementing and documenting a long-term, sustainable appr ...
API first integration for enhanced availability and reserv ...
Receiving notifications about any possible breaks in the ...
TIBCO integration for enhanced custom OMS continuity
Our specialists managed to build new integration component ...


I like to think of the earth as though I was in space. That thing that seemed so important now seems extremely not important. Just "zoom out" a bit. It's great.
I really have nothing important to post, but I thought you guys needed to see this cow and chicken dancing. I could seriously watch this all day and not get bored of it.


text: XPK – codice aeroportuale IATA dell'aeroporto civile di Pukatawagan (Manitoba) (Canada)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Forecasters predict the Beauty from the East to bring summer to Cornwall
The weather has retreated back this week to rain and colder temperatures but there is good news about next week
Philippa Jenkins
The weather this week across Cornwall has certainly been a notch down or two from last week and the weekend when we basked in wall-to-wall sunshine.
Temperatures soared up to 20C and the sunshine was a welcome sight after such a cold, wet and long winter.
The mercury actually reached highs of 23C across Cornwall before the hottest weekend of the year so far.
But, sadly, this week has already brought a mix of grey clouds, wet weather and strong winds.
Weather for Cornwall forecast for heavy rain and weekend washout
Thankfully, long-range forecasts are now showing signs of another spell of warm weather during the beginning of May.
The weather system heading towards the UK
The hot weather could see temperatures exceed 21C.
It is being branded the Beauty from the East, after the Beast from the East battered the country twice in March.
The temperatures are set to climb thanks to the high temperatures approaching from Eastern Europe.
By the middle of next week forecasters say warm weather could return as temperatures start to lift above average again.
According to some forecast models, the area of low pressure responsible for bringing in a cooler northerly flow to the UK this weekend will split and make way for warmer conditions during the first week of May.
A surfer walks out of the sea as the sun sets at Porthmeor Beach (Image: Matt Cardy/Getty Images)
Sarah Sammy, forecaster of The Weather Channel, said: "High pressure over central Europe will drift eastward and another area of high pressure will build over the North Atlantic.
"During this time, an area of low pressure in between will split, and the smaller low will stall for a while near the Bay of Biscay and pump up warmer air over the UK."
Weather could lead to shortage of broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower, warn Cornwall farmers
Current forecasts indicate that temperatures over London will be between 15.5 and 19.5 C on May 2, when conditions should become drier and brighter.
But she said that "as we near the time, we can narrow down that range."
The Met Office defines a heatwave as "a period when the daily maximum temperatures of more than five days exceeds the average maximum temperature by five degrees."
It's almost beach weather
Temperatures in the UK are set to fall back towards normal for the time of year this week, after soaring well above 20C in many parts of the country over the weekend.
However forecasters are growing in confidence that it won't be too long before sunny skies and spring-time heat will make a comeback.
According to computer models, the mercury could rise above average again by the middle of next week and potentially edge close to 20C in parts of the south-east.
But before then, the weather will to revert back towards more typical conditions for the time of year with rain forecast every day this week thanks to a wave of Atlantic low pressure systems.
Temperatures are also expected to drop below average by midweek, with forecasters warning of the risk of snow, sleet and frost in places.
A39 Truro to Falmouth road has average speed cameras installed after six-year campaign
It was felt that one 30mph stretch in particular was widely ignored, with one biker caught clocking 80mph
King Charles IIIQueen Consort Camilla 'mimics' King Charles III out of 'anxiety', body language expert claimsThe royal couple were joined by genocide survivors on Friday, January 27, to light a candle at Buckingham Palace
Speed cameras installed on Cornish 'death road'


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Honeywell Forge Applauded by Frost & Sullivan for Driving Operational Best Practices with Industrial Customers
Honeywell Forge delivers real-time data and visual intelligence that allows industrial customers to make informed decisions based on their key performance indicators
SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 10, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Based on its recent analysis of the global market for industrial enterprise performance management, Frost & Sullivan recognizes Honeywell with the 2020 Global Technology Innovation Leadership Award. Honeywell addresses the industry challenges around siloed operating systems, enterprise complexity and the demand for increased automation with its enterprise performance management offering, Honeywell Forge.
Click here to view the full multimedia release: https://best-practices.frost.com/honeywell-2/
"Honeywell offers customers visibility into their operations and allows them to derive meaningful insights from disparate data through business intelligence," said Chirag Rathi, Consulting Director at Frost & Sullivan. "Unlike competing technologies, Honeywell Forge enables industrial companies to convert massive amounts of data from equipment, processes and people into intuitive, actionable insights that aid enterprise operations monitoring from a single screen. It also applies visual analytics at the enterprise, plant, and unit levels to compare actual process and asset performance against digital twins."
On the process side, the highly extensible and scalable Honeywell Forge provides several class-leading solutions such as advanced process control, process simulation and control, and corrosion control. On the operations management side, it delivers a wide portfolio of integrated solutions that help in production and enterprise data management, alarm management and overall operations management. The offering is organized into multiple modules that leverage automation controls, cybersecurity, workflow management, application programming interfaces, and monitoring tools to manage all functions, from process control to alarm management.
Significantly, Honeywell Forge is vendor-agnostic, both at the hardware and software levels. It does not require customers to be locked into its platform to adopt its services, making it highly extensible and configurable. Honeywell Forge adapts and evolves with customer requirements and does not require replacement every three or four years to accommodate technology developments. The company aggressively innovates on its SaaS offering with emerging and advanced technologies that can increase operational efficiency and drive optimal performance.
"Honeywell focuses on offering a simplified adoption path to customers so they can easily transform their process, operation, assets and people," noted Jeffrey Castilla, Best Practices Research Team Leader at Frost & Sullivan. "Honeywell Forge has also partnered with SAP to unify financial and operational data, providing insights across enterprises by combining IT and OT analytics with the cloud. Such strategic partnerships, technology prowess and customer focus are helping Honeywell stay at the top of the leader board in the industrial enterprise performance management market."
Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents the Technology Leadership Award to the company that demonstrates uniqueness in developing and leveraging new technologies that deliver significant customer value.
Frost & Sullivan Best Practices awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analyses and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry.
For six decades, Frost & Sullivan has been world-renowned for its role in helping investors, corporate leaders, and governments navigate economic changes and identify disruptive technologies, Mega Trends, new business models, and companies to action, resulting in a continuous flow of growth opportunities to drive future success. Contact us: Start the discussion. Contact us: Start the discussion.
Claudia Toscano
About Honeywell
Honeywell (www.honeywell.com) is a Fortune 100 technology company that delivers industry specific solutions that include aerospace products and services; control technologies for buildings and industry; and performance materials globally. Our technologies help aircraft, buildings, manufacturing plants, supply chains, and workers become more connected to make our world smarter, safer, and more sustainable. For more news and information on Honeywell, please visit www.honeywell.com/newsroom.
View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/honeywell-forge-applauded-by-frost–sullivan-for-driving-operational-best-practices-with-industrial-customers-301244241.html
SOURCE Frost & Sullivan
Department of the Navy to host virtual HACKtheMACHINE competition
Police Target Criminal Users of Sky ECC Cryptophone Service


University of Sto. Tomas inched closer to a Final Four return, but graduating hitter Sisi Rondina wants the Tigresses to guard against complacency heading into their last two games in the UAAP Season 81 women's volleyball tournament.
The Tigresses moved a win away from clinching a semifinals spot after crushing University of the Philippines, 25-21, 25-12, 26-24, Wednesday at the FilOil Flying V Centre in San Juan.
"Sa opinyon ko, 'pag nandun ang complacency namin anytime pwedeng mawala sa amin yun eh," said Rondina, who scored 20 points with 17 coming off attacks.
The Espana-based squad holds an 8-4 win-loss record tied with Far Eastern University at third to fourth spot behind three-time defending champion De La Salle University (8-3) and semis-bound Ateneo de Manila University (10-1). UST secured at least a playoff for a semifinals berth.
The Tigresses missed the Final Four last year.
Rookie Eya Laure also vows to go all-out in the Tigresses' last two games against FEU on Sunday and also-ran National University on April 27.
"Ayokong bigyan si Ate Sisi na, 'Ah hanggang elims na lang 'to'. 'Yun talaga kasi entering this UAAP season yun ang sinabi ko sa kanya," said Laure, who got 11 points and seven excellent receptions.
"Gusto ko kung ano ang deserve niya maibigay namin. Hindi yung ako lang, pero naming lahat," she added.


HENCEFORTH our journey was free from danger of any kind. We traveled by rail over Damascus and Aleppo through Asia Minor to Constantinople. At two points on our journey we had to leave the railroad and travel by wagon, or afoot, as the railroad had not been completed at these places.
Everywhere we were entertained most cordially and hospitably by our German countrymen and by the Turkish authorities. At the railway stations large crowds were always assembled to greet us. There were bands playing and flags flying to welcome us, and roses with which to decorate ourselves. Gifts were showered upon us as we sat in our carriages. New clothing was provided for us, and we shed no tears when we parted from our old rags and their numerous inhabitants.
My men enjoyed the unprecedented distinction of dining with great dignitaries and men high in authority. Costly presents were bestowed upon us, and our baggage car, that at one time had held nothing but rags and our munitions, now filled up more and more. At some of the way stations at which our train stopped only on our account, large numbers of Bedouins had gathered to see us. They raced along beside our train, and when it stopped, they gave us an exhibition of fancy riding. Many a social glass was drained in the company of our German compatriots.
At last, in Aleppo, we received news from home, the first in ten months. Letters from loved ones and the Iron Cross! What more could the heart desire? There were two large mail bags full, and we devoted the next few days to our mail from home, to reading the many letters and verses that had been sent us, to writing autographs, and to making away with the cigars, chocolates, and other good things that had been given us.
During the afternoon of Whitsunday our train pulled into the station at Haider Pasha, the Asiatic terminus of the railway. Here my men received their long-wished-for German uniforms, which had been forwarded to them. The officers also had succeeded in procuring for themselves an outfit conforming, in a measure at least, to the demands made by the European civilization to which we were returning.
"I report the landing squad from the 'Emden,' five officers, seven petty officers, and thirty men strong."


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Home » Posts Tagged "Film"
Award Winning Filmmaker, Kemi Adetiba Announces Engagement on IG
By fadila yunusa
The award-winning filmmaker took to her Instagram page on Wednesday, February 8, 2022, where she shared photos from her engagement with a lengthy post. "We've taken some time to privately...
Mercy Aigbe Confirms Relationship with Popular Yoruba Film Maker
Yoruba movie star, Mercy Aigbe, has finally confirmed her relationship with a popular Yoruba filmmaker and movie marketer, Kazim Adeoti. She unveiled him on his birthday eve, Sunday evening on her...
Spiderman: No Way Home' Hits $1bn
The latest installment of the Spider-Man franchise, Spider-Man: No Way Home has become the first pandemic-era movie to make more than $1bn (£750m) at the global box office. The film also took...
Production Firm Sues Kannywood Actress, Hafsat Idris
In a suit before a Kano High Court 14 sitting at Ungogo Local Government, the actress was accused of collecting N1.3 million to feature in a TV series but ended up not fulfiling the terms of the agreement...
George Clooney Writes Open Letter To Media
Actor George Clooney has issued an open letter asking media outlets not to publish photos that show his children's faces. The star says such images put his two children in danger, particularly...
Indiana Jones Crew Member Dies 'On Location'
Another tragedy has occurred with the death of Nic Cupac, a crew member in the upcoming Indiana Jones film, who flew out to Morocco to assist with a tricky stunt. The 54-year-old was discovered...
The Passport Of Mallam Illia: Company Backs Africa's First 2D Animated Film
The feature-length animated film is based on Cyprian Ekwensi's 1960 novel of the same title. A Production company has confirmed a new partnership with Studios on the production of 'The...


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Startups Others
How Tencent, the world's largest gaming firm, is rebuilding its India biz
Binu Paul	7 Mar, 2018
Chinese internet conglomerate Tencent Holdings Ltd is looking to step up its India presence by betting on its biggest global money-spinner: gaming.
Tencent is planning to invest up to $200 million (Rs 1,300 crore) in the first year with an ambitious target of owning at least a third of India's gaming user base in two years, two people familiar with the development told TechCircle.
Tencent's gaming division, Tencent Games, is the largest videogame company in the world by revenue.
The Chinese firm has started building a core India team which will revolve around gaming. The three-member unit which will spearhead Tencent's India operations currently consists of Srinath Ramanujan, general manager-operations; Aneesh Aravind Mandalaparambil, general manager-product and operations; and HR director Tina Balachandran.
Tencent plans to build a sizeable India team by the end of 2018.
"There is an internal understanding to invest up to $200 million in the first year, which could be used for game developments, publishing, promotions, hiring and acquisitions," said one of the persons TechCircle spoke to, who wished to remain anonymous.
The person added that the investment could significantly rise based on how the operation fares.
"If the team manages to do exceptionally well in terms of the market share, Tencent may invest up to $1 billion in the long term to capitalise on that positive momentum it may gain the first couple of years," the person added.
A second shot
This is not Tencent's first shot at gaming in India. Naspers-controlled MIH Group had a joint venture with Tencent for running two set of businesses—e-commerce and social media business, including gaming in India through ibibo Gaming. The status of that operation is unclear.
But the development suggests that Tencent now appears to have some clarity about its India strategy after making several investments in the country — most recently in music streaming service in Gaana.
According to one of the above-mentioned persons, the Chinese company now wants to create "Tencent India" rather have than a "Tencent in India" approach.
And gaming appears to be the gateway.
"The core of the Tencent India initiative is going to be focused around gaming because that's something picking up at a quick pace in India," Ramanujan said. "When you have a strong market share in the gaming sector, you could slowly expand into other connected segments such as payments and social media."
WeChat, Tencent's flagship social media app, has amassed 1 billion users. The WeChat ecosystem serves as an all-in-one platform for a string of services including payments and money transfer, social media, food delivery, online shopping, ride hailing and more. Tencent's instant messaging service QQ is also hugely popular in China.
The gaming industry is still in a nascent stage in India. The country accounted for just 0.55% of the global gaming industry as of 2016.
Tencent will be looking to make a mark in a space which has seen the emergence of several companies in recent years.
Nazara Technologies, among the most prominent of these firms, is preparing itself for a Rs 1,000 crore initial public offering (IPO).
Other players include JetSynthesys, Dhruva Interactive (acquired by Swedish art production company Starbreeze Studios), Mech Mocha, 99Games, Cobx and GamingMonk.
Acquisitions and partnerships
According to the second person TechCircle spoke to, Tencent held talks with two leading Indian gaming firms - Octro and MoonFrog Labs - for potential acquisitions.
However, the hefty valuations sought by the homegrown companies proved to be a dampener.
Email queries sent to MoonFrog and Octro did not elicit a response till the time of publishing this report.
Ramanujan declined to comment on Tencent's investment goals and rumoured negotiations with acquisition targets, but said the firm would not acquire for the sake of getting users.
"We might do that [acquisitions] to get a great team or an amazing product which we think can become great if we invest further," he said.
Ramanujan reasoned that it doesn not make sense to spend heavily on acquiring Indian gaming companies as it will not yield significant market share in terms of users.
"Spending that money on promotions and game development can still get you similar results," he added.
While outright acquisitions are not on the cards to begin with, Ramanujan said Tencent is open to business partnerships that could lead to acquisitions.
Gaming strategy
The company is looking at a combination of original games developed by its upcoming India unit, successful Chinese mid- and hardcore ones fine-tuned for the India market, and games by Indian developers which Tencent would publish, said Ramanujan.
"We are looking at various options, to see how we [Tencent and Indian developer studios] can work together…. can they work with us on a service model or on a developer-publisher model?" he said.
Tencent's initial games for the Indian market will be developed at its Chinese headquarters. The India strategy is mostly focused on casual mobile games.
"For the casual section, we are looking at locally popular themes," said Ramanujan. "We wouldn't want to spend time having people learn new concepts, those experiments will be done in the mid-core and hard-core segments because the audience is new there and it's sensible to invest in educating/capturing them."
But for now, the focus is on hiring aggressively, including possible acqui-hires of smaller teams, to set up its India unit.
One of the persons familiar with the developments said that Ramanujan, a former executive at gaming firms Zynga and Moonfrog Labs, will lead casual games at Tencent while Mandalaparambil, a former group product manager at Zynga, will lead mid-core and hard-core segments.
Balachandran, who previously worked at Chinese firm LeEco, will handle Tencent's hiring activities in India.
Tencent will also spend significantly on promotions in India.
"We are going to build a lot of communities around our games. We are going to have a lot of events, tournaments and marketing initiatives to popularise our games," Ramanujan said.
Tencent's gaming empire
Tencent's gaming and game-related services account for more than 40% of the revenues of the company, which is valued at $510 billion.
It owns Honour of Kings, China's most popular mobile game and the most profitable game in the world.
The firm owns significant stakes in US game developers such as Riot Games Inc., the creator of the League of Legends franchise, and Epic Games. the company behind the Unreal engine.
Tencent also has a stake in Activision Blizzard Inc, the developer-publisher behind games such as World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Destiny and the Call of Duty series.
Tencent had acquired a majority stake in Finnish mobile game creator Supercell, which makes Clash of Clans, for $8.6 billion in 2016 and bought a 15% stake in Glu Mobile for $126 million in 2015.
In addition, the firm also has an online gaming platform called WeGame.
"Tencent has been trying to get into the global market for quite a while," said one of the persons TechCircle spoke to. "They have tried Europe and US where acquisitions have really worked well for them. They have never been able to set up and grow their own operations anywhere outside China, except the Southeast Asian markets. That's partially because a lot of their products and games are very China-heavy."
Tencent Gaming Nazara Technologies
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Schoch Edelstahl carries seamless and welded tubes, square tubes and rectangular tubes.
All tubes and bar steels are delivered sawn in production lengths or on customer request, including inspection certificate DIN 50049 / 3.1 B and z.T. AD leaflet W2.
Further information can also be found in our special brochure for welding fittings, pipes and steel bars.


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Wednesday, December 15, 2021 Staff
YSU Lands $2.3M Research Grant for Hybrid Manufacturing Consortium
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The Air Force Research Lab in Dayton has awarded Youngstown State University $2.3 million to create a consortium related to hybrid manufacturing.
The consortium, which includes the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (the managing organization for America Makes) and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, would focus on advancing work to fabricate, inspect and repair metallic machine parts, molds, dies and components for the defense industry.
"This award is yet another reflection of YSU's continued national leadership in advanced manufacturing," said Pedro Cortes, YSU associate professor of Chemical Engineering. "This project will address real world, industrially relevant applications by transforming the manner in which new metal structures are fabricated and repaired."
The project includes the purchase and installation of a 3D printing laser hot wire cladding Direct Energy Deposition Mazak system at the new Excellence Training Center. YSU is one of just three institutions nationwide using the Mazak system, added Jackie Ruller, YSU's director of advanced manufacturing research and commercial products.
The Direct Energy Deposition Mazak system combines additive and subtractive manufacturing.
Cortes, Ruller, and faculty members Brian Vuksanovich, Holly Martin and Kyosung Choo will head the YSU project.
The system provides hybrid technology that combines additive and subtractive manufacturing, Cortes said. The technology uses dramatically less energy than conventional processing, allowing it to create geometrically complex and lightweight products, he said.
This project will leverage multiple hybrid systems at Oak Ridge and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Also supporting the project is the University of Texas El Paso and the Youngstown Business Incubator.
Dozens Rally to Support YSU Jewish Studies Professor, Center
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — Roughly two dozen Youngstown State University students, faculty and other supporters of assistant professor Jacob Labendz turned out for a media event Wednesday morning to urge the university to reverse course on its plans to not renew…
Supporters to Rally to Save Judaic Studies Program
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Students, faculty, and community supporters will gather at the steps of Youngstown State University's Tod Hall Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. to deliver a petition and letters of support to retain Professor Jacob Labendz and save the Center for…
YCSD to Hold Four Days of Remote Instruction
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — The Youngstown City School District will hold classes remotely January 11 through January 14. Students will return to in-person learning on the 18th, as Monday the 17th is a school holiday in observance of Martin Luther King…


I've just passed my C and C+E tests using your company and uncharacteristically thought I'd drop you a quick line to air my thoughts.
Kev helped me through my rigid course an due to a small driving fault on my part, I managed to crack it on the second attempt. Kev was a great instructor and seemed genuinely keen to see me pass.
Will trained me for my C+E. To say i was impressed with his knowledge and commitment would be an understatement. I struggle to retain information on the best of days but Will had a way of not only telling me when I was going wrong, but explaining why and then telling me how to put it right. He remained patient and during each day constantly advised me on every hazard I encountered. Having only just entered into the HGV world (and my new employers throwing me in to the deep end!) I had many questions- from how to navigate the procedure of using a 'drop box' to how to use a digi tacho properly. Will seemed genuinely happy to see me succeed in my new career path and went well out of his way to help me. The information I got from him will stay with me. I can't speak highly enough of him.
If I encounter anyone looking to take their HGV course I will sing Surrey and Hampshire's praises and send them to you.


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Less than 20% of those diagnosed with a brain tumour survive beyond five years
Press Release Item
Sisters get hatty for starring role in Brain Tumour Research campaign
The sisters who lost their dad to a brain tumour are starring in a marketing campaign which will raise funds to help find a cure for the disease.
Charlie and Jess Leatherbarrow are featuring in this year's national Wear A Hat Day campaign by the Brain Tumour Research charity in memory of their dad Dave. The Walton siblings are among a handful of children who were invited to take part and their images will be seen across the country as the campaign is launched ready for Brain Tumour Awareness month in March. Like Charlie and Jess, all the children have either been bereaved by a brain tumour, are living with a brain tumour or have a close family member who has been diagnosed.
The kids, aged up to 13, are donning their best headwear from beanies to cowboy hats, trilbies to Panamas, baseball caps to novelty headpieces, and are asking others to join them for Wear A Hat Day 2019, the UK's premier brain tumour awareness event. This year, it takes place on Friday 29 March and is expected to smash all records as it marks its 10th year.
Dave Leatherbarrow died from an aggressive glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) in January 2015. Previously fit and healthy, the 34-year-old was diagnosed after experiencing symptoms similar to that of an ear infection and, despite treatment, Dave died just over a year later.
His widow Diane Leatherbarrow said: "I'm so proud of the girls for being part of this campaign. They were just five and two when their Dad died but they will always remember him and always try to do something positive in his name. I only wish he could be here to see how well they're doing."
Wear A Hat Day also has the backing of supermodel, businesswoman and brain tumour survivor Caprice who underwent surgery to remove a meningioma brain tumour two years ago. A patron of Brain Tumour Research, Caprice plays a key role in raising awareness of the disease and campaigning for the government and the larger cancer charities to increase national investment in research. Also supporting this year's fundraiser is Strictly Come Dancing finalist Debbie McGee who lost her superstar magician husband Paul Daniels to the disease three years ago.
Corporate supporters already signed up for the fundraiser include Specsavers, Hobbycraft, and Venture Studios – the latter worked with families across the UK who have been affected by brain tumours to create the stunning portraits used in the campaign.
Also taking part will be hundreds of schools, workplaces, and individuals who will don their hat of choice and hold a whole host of hat-themed fundraising events in support of Brain Tumour Research.
Sue Farrington Smith, Chief Executive of Brain Tumour Research, said: "We are extremely grateful to Charlie and Jess for helping us to launch Wear A Hat Day 2019. I know that people will be both distressed and inspired to hear the stories of all of these families who, like my own, know the pain of a brain tumour diagnosis.
"We are entirely committed to easing this pain by improving treatment options for patients and, ultimately, finding a cure. Brain tumours kill more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer yet, historically, just 1% of the national spend on cancer research has been allocated to this devastating disease; Brain Tumour Research is proud to be changing this.
"The sad truth is that brain tumours are indiscriminate and can affect anyone at any age and this means the impact on families is enormous. Too many children are losing siblings, parents and grandparents, too many parents are enduring the agony of their child's diagnosis, and society as a whole continues to bear the burden of increased costs through the NHS, lost taxes, and demands on the benefits system."
Wear A Hat Day has raised over a million pounds since it was launched by Brain Tumour Research 10 years ago and is the culmination of Brain Tumour Awareness Month in March. The big day will see schools, workplaces, families and individuals across the UK fundraising and taking part in fun events to raise awareness of brain tumours and help fund life-saving research.
Funds raised will develop the charity's network of world-class brain tumour research centres in the UK where scientists are focused on improving outcomes for patients and, ultimately, finding a cure.
To get involved, or donate, please visit: www.wearahatday.org
Or text HAT to 70660 to donate £5*
#HATTASTIC
* Texts cost £5 plus network charge. Brain Tumour Research receives 100% of your donation. Obtain the bill payer's permission. Call 01908 867200 with any queries.
Farel James at Brain Tumour Research on 01908 867206 or 07887 241639 or Farel.James@braintumourresearch.org
Brain Tumour Research is the only national charity in the UK dedicated to raising funds for continuous and sustainable scientific research into brain tumours, and we are a leading voice calling for greater support and action for research into what scientists are calling the last battleground against cancer.
We are building a network of experts in sustainable research at dedicated Centres of Excellence whilst influencing the Government and larger cancer charities to invest more nationally.
We welcome recent funding announcements for research into brain tumours from the UK Government and Cancer Research UK – £65 million pledged over the next five years. However, this potential funding of £13 million a year comes with a catch – money will only be granted to quality research proposals and, due to the historic lack of investment, there may not be enough of these applications that qualify for grants from this pot.
We want research funding parity with breast cancer and leukaemia. We are calling for a £30-35 million investment every year for research into brain tumours in order to fund the ground-breaking research needed to accelerate the translation from laboratory discoveries into clinical trials and fast-track new therapies for this devastating disease.
The Brain Tumour Research charity is a powerful campaigning organisation and represents the voice of the brain tumour community across the UK. We helped establish and provide the ongoing Secretariat for the All Party Parliamentary Group for Brain Tumours (APPGBT) which published its report Brain Tumours A cost too much to bear? in 2018. Led by the charity, the report examines the economic and social impacts of a brain tumour diagnosis. We are also a strategic programme lead on the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission, exploring the financial impact of brain tumours.
Key statistics on brain tumours:
Brain tumours are indiscriminate; they can affect anyone at any age
Brain tumours kill more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer
Historically, just 1% of the national spend on cancer research has been allocated to brain tumours
In the UK, 16,000 people each year are diagnosed with a brain tumour
Brain tumours kill more children than leukaemia
Brain tumours kill more men under 45 than prostate cancer
Brain tumours kill more women under 35 than breast cancer
Less than 20% of those diagnosed with a brain tumour survive beyond five years compared with an average of 50% across all cancers
Please quote Brain Tumour Research as the source when using this information. Additional facts and statistics are available from our website. We can also provide case studies and research expertise for the media.


This is an excerpt of an upcoming book (which you can pre-order) The Lost Mandate of Heaven: The American Betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem, President of Vietnam by Geoffrey D. T. Shaw by permission of the author, who is a member of VVFH.
Rufus Phillips, a CIA operative who had just met with Diem but a few days before the coup, was deeply saddened and distraught when he entered Gia Long Place on the day after the overthrow as it brought to his mind the immediate sense of waste and stupidity in the acts of those who were responsible for Diem's murder: "I wanted to sit down and cry. And I was so upset when I heard that he'd been killed…That was a stupid decision and,God, we paid, they paid, everybody paid." 2 At the time, Vice President Johnson had supported Nolting and other officials who had attempted to stop the coup plotting as, by all accounts, he genuinely liked Diem and thought him a superior leader. He was livid over the murder of Diem and did little to hide his contempt for those who had a hand in it and later, in 1966, when he was President, he confided to Senator Eugene McCarthy the horrible reality of what happened back in 1963, in Saigon: "We killed him [Diem]. We got together and got a goddamn bunch of thugs and we went in and assassinated him. Now, we've really had no political stability since then." 3 William Colby had stated nearly the same thing to this writer back in 1996 when he confided that after Diem, things never really got back on track. On November 5th, Madame Nhu stated: "Whoever has the Americans as allies does not need any enemies…I can predict to you all that the story in Vietnam is only at its beginning." 4 Her words were to be proved prescient and true.
In correspondence between themselves written after the coup and murder of Diem and Nhu, General Harkins and Ambassador Nolting tended to be harder on Hilsman, Harriman, and the American press than on the President vis-à-vis responsibility for what went wrong in South Vietnam. For example, on March 27, 1964, Harkins wrote a letter to Nolting expressing his sorrow that the latter had resigned from the State Department. Harkins claimed that the removal of Diem had set the whole counter-insurgency program back about ten months, and he apportioned a good deal of blame to the press: "As you know, the press took the sails out of Diem starting last June and July to make him practically ineffective." 8 Nolting replied to Harkins on April 7, 1964 and informed him that he and his wife, Lindsay, had gone over the tragedy of what had happened to Diem and Nhu so many times that it was driving them crazy. He told Harkins that he wished that he had been allowed to stay on in Saigon; but, in the final analysis, he had come to believe that the destruction of Diem's GVN was inevitable. Nolting also reiterated that his reasons for resigning from the State Department in protest over the Government's poor behaviour, which resulted in Diem and Nhu's murders, were well-founded.
That he had been unwilling to go along with the State Department's policy while serving as US Ambassador in Viet Nam.
That he had refused Rusk's personal request to extend his tour of duty in Saigon beyond two years.
Nolting then proceeded to lay out an accurate chronology of events and correspondence related to his permanent return to the United States. The Ambassador also pointed out that regardless of the serious problems that erupted with the Buddhists when he was on leave in Europe, no one informed him. None of this was reported to Nolting, even though his deputy, Trueheart, and the State Department in Washington had been instructed to let him know immediately if a real problem came up, as he would have cut his vacation short and returned to Saigon had he known. 21 Further implicating the Department's attempts to keep him uninformed, Nolting was not even told about Henry Cabot Lodge's appointment as new United States Ambassador to South Vietnam. Instead, he first heard about it over the ship's radio on his way back from Europe at the end of his vacation. Once in Washington, both the State Department and Diem requested his further presence in Vietnam. He promptly returned there, only to find relations between the U.S. government and the GVN all but destroyed and in serious jeopardy. As such, he set to work with Diem, as opposed to the Harriman/Hilsman instructions of table pounding which Trueheart had carried out in his absence. Thus Nolting was able to stabilise the situation so that by the date that he was actually recalled and went home to the United States, affairs were much calmer.
Nolting's entire argument was consistent and straightforward down through the years. From his early letters and cables sent from the embassy in Saigon to the State Department, to his very last arguments at White House meetings; from his early private letters to friends and associates, immediately after the fact in 1964, to his late 1980's interviews; the consistency of his testimony is remarkable. Hence Nolting's account of his mission to South Vietnam is of particular value, enhanced, ironically, by the inconsistencies of those who railed against him in the Department of State. The inconsistencies of the testimonies and recollections of the Harriman faction have been made manifest in this work and stand in stark contrast to that which Nolting stood for. From Halberstam et al. in the news media, who attempted to hide behind a veneer of journalistic objectivity, but then openly admitted to wanting to bring down the Diem government, the contradictions are clear. From Harriman and Hilsman, publicly declaring, after the fact, that they had no intention of seeing Diem destroyed, to the transparent coup plotting machinations of their cables and instructions to both Nolting and Lodge, a distinct picture of arrogance, deceit and duplicity is driven home. Indeed, this direction of the Harriman group becomes so unmistakable as to undermine any claim to the truth that they may have had. From Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge we even have an incredible and blatantly inconsistent testimony. He was the diplomat who, after the fact, stated that the cable sent from Washington, which had called for a coup, was a terrible mistake. In his own words, he stated that these instructions had left him "thunderstruck," but his cables at the time told the Kennedy administration, with compelling urgency, that they had better not back down from overthrowing Diem.
The record of Department of State meddling in South Vietnamese internal affairs, and the department's internal clash over the issue of promoting a coup against Diem is abysmal and the consequences speak to this directly. Nevertheless, there are a few positive things that can be said, which are made plain for the reader in this work, which indicate that the American government had, in Frederick Nolting, placed the right man for a very difficult task in Vietnam. For one has to consider, quite apart from his work as a diplomat, that Nolting had to have the imagination and mental dexterity to discern that the war America was facing in Vietnam was something new. He recognized that the fight against the communists was not so much that of guns and bombs as it was one of political legitimacy. He discerned that Ngo Dinh Diem had a true political legitimacy that spoke to something much deeper in the Vietnamese soul than mere democracy. Democracy was a foreign political construct that held little meaning, and had virtually no historical tradition, in the centuries-old customs of Vietnam. Accordingly, Nolting intuited that the most valuable gifts America could give the struggling GVN under Diem were patience and time. In this sense then, Nolting was not only a great American diplomat but a military strategist of some substance.
I am sorry to have been unable to get an appointment to see you, for I have wanted for several months to talk with you about Vietnam and related matters. I believe you and I have seen the issues in Vietnam in much the same light from the time of your visit there in May, 1961; at least, I have that impression from talks we have had in the past. I know, therefore, how heavily this problem must now weigh on your mind, as indeed it does on mine also, and I earnestly hope that, despite certain irrevocable errors that I think have been made, a way can yet be found to fulfill our national interests there with honor.
I take the liberty of sending this letter, Mr. President, because I feel an obligation as well as a desire to tell you frankly and directly about my future course of action, which is likely to be interpreted in the press and elsewhere as being related to my tour of duty in Vietnam.
I have today sent to the Secretary of State a request to be granted retirement from the Foreign Service, in order to accept an offer in private business. That my decision has been influenced by my strong disapproval of certain actions which were taken last fall in relation to Vietnam, with predictable adverse consequences, I do not deny. Nor do I deny that I have been uncomfortable in my association with the Department of State since returning from Vietnam six months ago.
Under these circumstances it seems sensible for me to accept a position in private business. As a private citizen, I shall continue to do my best to contribute to our country's success.
I solicit your understanding, Mr. President, and I wish you, as you know, personal happiness and all success in looking after the affairs of our nation.
Nolting went to work for Morgan Guaranty Trust in Paris as its Vice-President. 30 He worked at this post in Paris from 1964 until 1969, when he became Assistant to the Chairman in New York City. In 1973, he became a consultant to the company and was able to maintain this position until 1976. All along and simultaneous to his business career, he re-established his academic contacts.
Thus from 1971 to 1973 Nolting served at the University of Virginia as Diplomat-in-Residence. He went on to hold teaching and administrative posts as Olsson Professor of Business Administration in the Darden School of Business (from 1973 to 1976). He also became Professor in the Woodrow Wilson Department of Government and Foreign Affairs and helped found the Miller Center of Public Affairs, of which he became the first Director. He went on to serve as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation and as a member of the Center for Advanced Studies and the International Management and Development Institute.
He retired from his full-time academic commitments at the University of Virginia in 1982 and began the painstaking process of compiling documents for his critical analysis of the Kennedy administration's blunders in Vietnam. This work produced his political memoirs, From Trust To Tragedy, a work that devastates many of the popularly held myths about the Kennedy–Diem period. Because of its unrelenting precision, it will stand as a testament to his gentlemanly yet bold role in American diplomatic and military policy toward Diem's GVN.
William Colby would go on to become the Director of the CIA (1971 – 1975) under Presidents Nixon and Gerald Ford but his penchant for seeing things clearly, naturally enough, never made him a likely candidate for an even higher political post after this prestigious appointment. The travail of South Vietnam's war years never really left him alone and, indeed, in his retirement years he went on to become one of the founding executives of the Vietnam Center at Texas Tech University. Some of us who knew him always held a small thread of doubt in our minds as to why he perished so suddenly after returning home from a Vietnam Center conference in 1996; for this was the conference wherein Bill Colby actually went after some of the senior figures who had been involved in the escalation of the war. Within less than a week of his return home, his body was found floating in the Chesapeake as he had gone missing when he went out on a solo canoe trip thereupon. Mrs. Nolting, Ambassador Nolting's widow, told this writer straight-out that many of their diplomatic friends believed that Colby had indeed been assassinated.
One of the most fitting tributes given for Diem came from Cardinal Josef Frings, the Archbishop of Cologne when, in 1965, he stated: "Only today, in the midst of these grave incidents (in Vietnam), do we realize that the greater part of the world has not given just recognition of this noble man." 35 In his pastoral letter, Cardinal Frings went on to note that those who thought the death of Diem would bring peace and plenty to South Vietnam had learned to repent in leisure, and through great sorrow and tragedy, for what they had wrongly assumed in haste. 36 Diem's memory is kept alive, unto this day, by devout Vietnamese Roman Catholics and all those who know the truth of what transpired in Vietnam, now half a century ago.
This entry was posted in Historical Perspective, Pre-1965 Involvement, South Vietnamese and tagged assassination, Diem, mistake, Nolting, State Department on October 5, 2015 by blogadmin.
If you're interested in all things Vietnam, you may already be familiar with the Saigon Arts, Culture and Education Institute. If you're not, you may want to pay them a visit. I'll bet you end up bookmarking the site. Filled with interesting articles about Vietnam, many of them concerning the view of the 2nd Indochina War and its aftermath from the perspective of the Vietnamese, the site provides a unique, South Vietnamese perspective of that fateful time in history.
The South Vietnamese, more than anyone else, are painfully aware of what being "liberated" by communists means. They suffered the loss of many loved ones, the lengthy imprisonment of others and the tragic loss of their freedom under the iron hand of their rulers. Many have died, and continue to die, in their struggle to free their country from the yoke of tyranny.
Their mission is "1. to collect songs, tapes, books, artworks and memorabilia related to the diasporic society, 2. to promote Vietnamese arts and culture through workshops, discussions, exhibitions and shows, 3. and to research, publish articles and books about the diaspora." They do it quite well. There is a cornucopia of arts and culture at the site, and the interested visitor can spend days wandering through the site enjoying what it has to offer.
The site also offers newsletters, the most recent one being #81, and a forum which is their official journal, published quarterly. Some of our members have been honored as Man of the Year.
Visiting the site will fill you with pride and a sense of melancholy for what was lost in Vietnam.
This entry was posted in Historical Perspective, South Vietnamese, The Communists and tagged arts, culture, entertainment, news, Vietnam on July 27, 2015 by blogadmin.


This post is very late and is going to be incredibly brief. We have been on the most amazing vacation: a cruise on the Disney Dream, which was a surprise for little man's birthday! I can't wait to share all about it!
In the meantime, I was so busy with packing and didn't have any internet over the weekend, so there was a bit of break from blogging. I am ready to write again, and I hope you are along for the ride.
Mr PugRunner went to his friend's house for the day while little man and I stayed home and worked on Fish Extender gifts and last minute shopping for the trip. It was a long day, but we had fun. And he even helped me plant some of the flowers in the front yard. I was very appreciative of the helping hands, knowing how awful I am at gardening.
For May 4th, Star Wars Day, I figured that four miles would be appropriate.
Little man had a field trip to Home Depot for a presentation on growing flowers and vegetables (timely, no?), so Mr PugRunner chaperoned the trip while I packed and organized. It looked like they had a wonderful time.
That evening, I had a photo shoot for a friend's family member – the rainy weather had caused us to postpone several times but it was worth it in the end.
We had an early Cinco de Mayo dinner before little man's karate class, trying out a new-to-us Mexican joint. Fortunately, it was quite yummy, and you couldn't go wrong with complimentary Coronas.
I swung by my parents' house to finalize our plans for the trip, and to pick up the Fish Extender that she so generously made for me. She is far more crafty and talented with the sewing machine than me, and I was so happy with the end result.
For next time, I will cut out some felt Mickey ears for the pockets, but for our purposes, this was perfect. Thanks, Mom!
It was finally time to test out my new Wave Inspires! Whoo hoo!
It was definitely time for a new pair. My right arch still isn't feeling quite back to normal. It will be good, and I'm going to be adding another pair to the rotation in the next month, just to make sure that my feet are getting proper support.
After school, we picked up little man – it was time for our vacation!
We had booked rooms in Cocoa Beach for the night. That way we wouldn't be rushed getting to Port Canaveral in the morning. The hotel had a package for overnight parking and shuttle to and from the terminal, and we figured that would be the least stressful way of getting to the ship.
We had a family dinner with Nana and Papa Bear and then my mom and I took a lovely walk back to the hotel on the beach.
We turned in early so we could get some rest.
After breakfast at a Cocoa Beach diner, we grabbed our bags and waited for the shuttle. I was stressing out about our late Port Arrival Time (because I stress about all these things) and our early shuttle, but I figured we would just deal with it.
We got to the port and were checked in by about 10:45. By 11:30, we were on board (thanks to some Pixie Dust from one of the crew members who found out it was my birthday).
At least in the running sense.
However, it was my birthday! And it was the most magical day!
I will be back with lots of posts about the cruise and all it had to offer, and the 5K on Castaway Cay. It was such a fun time and we can't wait to go back.
Don't forget that today is the last day to enter to win a completely customized Journal Menu training journal!
Do you like cruising? Ever cruised DCL?
When was the last time you had a New Shoe Day?
Just the other day, my Timehop showed pictures from my last cruise: 7 years ago, to Alaska from Seattle. I love cruises in the way that I love all-inclusive resorts . . . it's great for a bit of luxury, but the "where to" seems to be, well, inconsequential — while I can say that I've been on "an Alaskan cruise," I really don't feel that I've "seen Alaska." Know what I mean?
That said, I've never done a Disney cruise, though I, very much, want to. I think, when my two are the age of your little man, it might be time to check it out.
Oh, wow! Seattle to Alaska must have been fabulous! My mom wants to take a cruise to and through Alaska. I think we will do it, too. I get exactly what you are saying though, about the destination being inconsequential. It's one of the reasons I've never really liked cruises – I love the destinations LOL.
Honestly, I was prepared to very much not enjoy this trip, and I have to say it was wonderful. Even if little man wasn't with us, I would sail DCL again. Your kids will love it, and so will you!
Thanks! It was a great birthday!
I can't wait to hear all about your trip! I had to google fish extender though, I had no idea what you were talking about. What a cute idea! I love Disney, and I can't wait to read all about the cruise! Love the new kicks too! My favorite color!
I stocked up on sneaks when they were on one of the deal of the day sites awhile back. So I have one more pair left before new shoe day happens again. I think it's time I take that pair out though. Maybe Thursday!
I'm honestly not a germaphobe, but the ship was immaculate. They were always cleaning and handing out sanitizer wipes at the entrance to all the dining rooms.
Definitely try out those new shoes! I love my new ones!
I've never been on a cruise before, I can't wait to hear about it!
The kids loved the field trip. I'm not sure what the triceratops had to do with anything, but it definitely posed for its share of photos!
Happy Birthday. My birthday was May 9!!!
I've never cruised, believe or not. I like to explore, and I don't know how I'd feel about being on a ship.
I am like you – I like exploring. That being said, I didn't feel trapped or contained or remotely claustrophobic. Maybe because it was only three nights, and I didn't have time to feel the walls close in? I don't know.
I went on the Disney Wonder years ago for my honeymoon. I loved it! I really want to try the new boats. I think we are planning to take a Disney cruise next year.
Awesome! That must have been a fabulous honeymoon. I can't say enough about the Dream.
Can you adopt me? 😀 I haven' t been on a cruise but I've heard such amazing things about the Disney ones. You are such a great little family and your little boy is one lucky kid!
Thanks for the love! We try to have fun and we hope we are providing him with some really great and memorable experiences.


A lot of the work that I do happens in large organizations, in projects that involve many people. That is very attractive to me: working with large groups always provides a lot of dynamics. "Large-scaled" tends to look like massive: 'roll out' a plan and everybody heads in the same direction. But that is not the way it works. Organizational development arises in personal conversations, the conversation between you and me. I don't feel comfortable working in a group where I don't know the people personally. That is why I always tend to start with an intake or a dual-acquaintance. To me, that is a kind of contracting. In the feedback of these conversations in the group, I reflect on what I have encountered, make patterns visible. That is how a joint process starts.
Many of the questions arise from reorganizations or mergers. People have to connect to each other in a different way. There may be conflicts, or disturbed working relations. These are often caused by neglect, lack of interest or lack of appreciation. There may have been many changes in management or new managers are appointed to make a clean sweep.
I enter these conflict situations in a non-judgmental way. I use my connective qualities – by having individual conversations and feedback to the group. I ask if everybody feels heard enough and whether I did everybody justice. I also ask if they trust me enough to continue the road we started on. Without trust, there is no chance for success. And when there is no trust, I am just not the right person for the job.
I really enjoy making radio shows: shows that take an hour, with conversations on a theme, alternated with music. It has taught me to formulate fast and with sharpness. It provides a nice combination of deliberation and honesty. This also helps me in boardrooms. It is nice being able to give a thorough and quick response to people.
Making radio is a way to make an intimate conversation audible for a large (or select) audience. It can be a beautiful and effective intervention to bring lightness and playfulness in heavy matters, and so makes them more discussable.
In the LCL of the FCE, I facilitate the participants in working on strategical organizational issues and to acquire a position in which they are visible and are able to have influence.
A lot of what my colleagues and I do externally with clients, we also try to do internally at Kessels & Smit. To me The Learning Company is one big experimenting laboratory.