text:
Stock Market Today
New York Futures Exchange
New York Stock Exchange Listings
New York Stock Exchange Quotes
New York Stock Exchange Market
What is the New York Futures Exchange?
Keith Koons
The New York Futures Exchange is a global trading center that matches buyers and sellers of numerous goods and commodities together. Unlike the stock exchange, where shares in a company are bought and sold instantly, the New York Futures Exchange deals with items that are to be sold in the future. For example, if a steel manufacturer in Denmark was in the process of producing a large amount of product, he would want to have a buyer lined up so that he could quickly sell the material once it was completed. What the New York Futures Exchange does is match that manufacturer with a buyer, and together they would agree to a contract that stated at a specific future date the buyer would pay a set amount of money for the steel. Millions of items are sold on the New York Futures Exchange daily in these exact scenarios, with almost any commodity imaginable being available.
Before the New York Futures Exchange was operational, many industries had a very difficult time selling their products for a fair price. Perhaps the hardest hit were farmers, because even though they would enter into a formal futures contract with a buyer, one party or the other would back out once it came to harvest. If the crop was worth substantially less than when the contract was signed, for example, the farmer would try to peddle his goods elsewhere. The New York Futures Exchange regulates these types of trades to ensure that both the buyer and the seller complete their obligations within the contract.
The New York Futures Exchange matches buyers and sellers for upcoming rather than current transactions.
While many would question the purpose behind a buyer entering into such a contract, the business principals are simple. An investor does not simply buy items at random, and just like on the stock market, a calculated prediction is made as to what the item's overall value will be several months in the future. Many traders, for example, have aggressively sought gold on the New York Futures Exchange because of its steady rise in value over the years.
Some investors choose to engage solely in commodity futures as a means of generating revenue from an investment portfolio.
Since the prospect of futures has steadily risen throughout the 20th century, in 2006, the New York Stock Exchange partnered with the Paris, Amsterdam, Lisbon, and Brussels exchanges to form the first intercontinental futures market ever. By bringing together global buyers and sellers in one convenient location, the prospect for both parties has greatly increased. Another big draw to the New York Futures Exchange is that standardized contracts are rarely implemented, allowing business people from both sides of the agreement to define the terms as they see fit.
What is the Chicago Board of Trade?
What is the Tokyo Commodity Exchange?
What is the Futures Industry Association?
What is the Montreal Exchange?
What is the New York Mercantile Exchange?
What is a Futures Exchange?
What is COMEX?
By: NAN


text:
require 'hashie'
require 'optser'

require 'serf/parcel_factory'
require 'serf/util/error_handling'

module Serf
module Middleware

  ##
  # Middleware to catch raised exceptions and return an error parcel
  # instead.
  #
  class ErrorHandler
    include Serf::Util::ErrorHandling

    attr_reader :app
    attr_reader :parcel_factory

    ##
    # @param app the app
    #
    def initialize(app, *args)
      opts = Optser.extract_options! args
      @app = app

      # Tunable knobs
      @parcel_factory = opts.get(:parcel_factory) { Serf::ParcelFactory.new }
    end

    def call(parcel)
      # Attempt to execute the app, catching errors
      response_parcel, error_message = with_error_handling do
        app.call parcel
      end

      # Return on success
      return response_parcel if response_parcel

      # We got an error message, so build out and return the error parcel
      return parcel_factory.create(
        kind: 'serf/events/caught_error',
        parent: parcel,
        message: error_message)
    end

  end

end
end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


January 7, 2015 Adri H.
Each year, I start by looking back at the previous year and making goals for the year ahead. This year is no different in that sense. I started by reviewing the work I had made, etc. but, I feel like I am in such a different head-space than I was a year ago. Everything has changed. My eyes have a razor-sharp focus on the prize, and the stakes feel so much higher now that I have a baby.
With that nesting energy, I made things like there was no tomorrow. I hit all of my goals - made some art, knit by hand and by machine, quilted baby F's zig-zag quilt, and blogged more efficiently. I think I was kind of scared that there wouldn't be time after the baby came. My fear of having no time to do anything was somewhat justified. Luckily, I think F is very healthy and pretty independent, so that affords me snippets of time to work here and there when he's playing or napping.
Now I'm looking forward to 2015, and that same innate sense of urgency that came with pregnancy remains in my system. Maybe it's the hormones? Whatever it is, I feel like I must create right now -- now or never!! Yes, it's that dramatic a feeling.
Find my personal illustrative style, and figure out how/where to sell my art work.
Sew a few new non-maternity knit tops for myself.
Kind of a mixed bag of goals, right?
That last goal is so huge, it threatens to take over my brain. So, in the spirit of getting things done, I break down each goal into action-oriented tasks. In terms of motherhood, what that means for me, is that I just take it one day at a time.
Happy 2015, everyone! May it be a great year.


text:
Asus Eee: good things come in small packages
By PC Plus published 20 November 07
A tiny laptop you can lose down the back of the sofa
The Asus Eee features an Intel Celeron M processor and a compact 4GB solid state disk drive
Since we first managed to get our hands on a prototype of the Asus Eee out in Taipei at the beginning of the summer, we've been eagerly awaiting the arrival of a review unit. It's a very small laptop. But with last generation technology resting inside it why, exactly, is everyone getting so excited about it?
In short: it's all about the price.
Revolutionary price tag
At £220 this is an incredibly affordable machine. It's especially affordable in the tough as nails ultra-portable market, where most of these diminutive laptops come in at well over £1,000. There isn't another machine on the market that even comes close to offering what the Eee does at this price-point.
Both Intel and the OLPC project have also been working on their respective budget notebooks for a while. But the Eee, in contrast, actually feels and looks like a serious machine. The rival devices have a certain toy-like quality about them, whereas the Eee simply looks and behaves like a tiny laptop.
Refreshingly low-tech
Inside is an Intel Celeron M with 512MB RAM and a 4GB solid state hard drive. These specifications don't exactly sound impressive. But when you consider what a laptop like this is realistically going to be asked to do, you'll see that high-end parts are of less importance.
An ultra-portable laptop is never going to be expected to play Crysis or any of the latest 3D-heavy games. What they are used for is travel productivity. To use the Eee means reading and writing documents on the go, amending the odd spreadsheet, checking and writing emails and general Internet use.
And this Asus machine manages to tick all these boxes with consummate ease. Its last generation hardware will also cope with all but the most high-def of media demands.
Built without Windows
One of the reasons that Asus has been able to keep costs so low is the inclusion of a specially designed version of the Linux distro, Xandros.
It may seem like a surprise when the company is trying to push the Eee into the mainstream market, but the interface is clean, simple and skinned so closely to Windows XP that it feels instantly comfortable. It also means that Asus has been able to bundle a suite of programs for the machine that is incredibly comprehensive.
For your web and email demands, there's Mozilla's Thunderbird and Firefox, as well as the OpenOffice 2.0 office suite, capable of practically everything Microsoft's own suite can do. It also comes with software for the embedded webcam, an IM client, and decent video and music players. If you want to feel particularly Star Trek, all the included programs can be activated by voice command too...
If you don't feel comfortable with all this open source behaviour, with the aid of an external DVD player you can install XP on the Eee without problems. The manual even comes with an excellent guide to installing and optimising Microsoft's OS.
This creates an interesting stand-point from Asus. In the PC world, where the latest and most up-to-date technology has always been the hallmark of a brand-new product, it has taken the view that usability should be the focal point. Using older, though still capable hardware, Asus has created a machine to suit most wallets and most people's needs.
See more Laptops news
The Apple Watch SE plummets to record-low price in epic deal at Amazon
The Nintendo Switch Pro Controller really needs a refresh
The Umbrella Academy season 3 art teases the saddest entry yet
Get in the festive spirit with Huawei's Light Up My Xmas Tree
Portable audio players vs MP3 players: what's the difference?
The PS5 can't run God of War at 8K... but the Nvidia RTX 3090 can

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
To Drill Down...
But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed.
XKeyscore, the documents boast, is the NSA's "widest reaching" system developing intelligence from computer networks – what the agency calls Digital Network Intelligence (DNI). One presentation claims the program covers "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet", including the content of emails, websites visited and searches, as well as their metadata.
To drill down means to move from summary information to detailed data by focusing in on something. In a GUI-environment, "drilling-down" may involve clicking on some representation in order to reveal more detail.[1]
To drill down through a series of folders, for example, on a desktop means to move through the hierarchy of folders (from the top downwards) to find a specific file or to click through drop-down menus in a GUI. Clicking on an item moves you to a level of greater detail. When an online user accesses more and more pages of the website, he or she may delve deeper into the content of the site.
Addendum: The NY Times just posted a piece describing the extent of the NSA's push to eavesdrop the world. Needless to say, quite ambitious and eminently doable give just how powerful and persuasive systems and the net have become in the 21st century.
The Obama administration on Wednesday released formerly classified documents outlining a once-secret program of the National Security Agency that is collecting records of all domestic phone calls in the United States, as a newly leaked N.S.A. document surfaced showing how the agency spies on Web browsing and other Internet activity abroad.
Together, the new round of disclosures shed even more light on the scope of the United States government's secret surveillance programs, which have been dragged into public view and debate by leaks from the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden.
Seems the eminent Mr. Snowden has been right all along regarding the emergent surveillance state, courtesy the NSA. As a bonus, click here to download the complete XKS manual. Who knows, we, the great unwashed, could use something as user friendly and as powerful as this to sift through the never ending cascade of emails that inundate us 24/7. :)
By Remoran - July 31, 2013 No comments:
The Thought Police, Virginia Style
1954 anyone?
Pass the Salt, Please
Surveillance 24/7- Phase II, is set to go live if the article titled Feds Tell Web Firms To Turn Over User Account Passwords, courtesy Information Clearing House, is correct.
July 26, 2013 "Information Clearing House - "CNet" - The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users' stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed.
If the government is able to determine a person's password, which is typically stored in encrypted form, the credential could be used to log in to an account to peruse confidential correspondence or even impersonate the user. Obtaining it also would aid in deciphering encrypted devices in situations where passwords are reused...
Some of the government orders demand not only a user's password but also the encryption algorithm and the so-called salt, according to a person familiar with the requests. A salt is a random string of letters or numbers used to make it more difficult to reverse the encryption process and determine the original password. Other orders demand the secret question codes often associated with user accounts.
It gets better.
Some details remain unclear, including when the requests began and whether the government demands are always targeted at individuals or seek entire password database dumps. The Patriot Act has been used to demand entire database dumps of phone call logs, and critics have suggested its use is broader. "The authority of the government is essentially limitless" under that law, Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who serves on the Senate Intelligence committee, said at a Washington event this week.
"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."
― George Orwell, 1984
It's a sad day. The Oil Drum is going away, a site yours truly admired and used as a valuable resource when talking about peak oil and the consequences of what happens when demand for fossil fuel energy outstrips supply. What made the drum different was the way it presented complex data in ways that could be understood by rubes like me.
The world currently produces around 91 million barrels a day (mb/d) of 'oil' in the International Energy Agency's definition, which is for all liquids. For the past two years, actual crude oil production (which includes lease condensate in the EIA's definition) has been hovering around 75 mb/d on an annual basis, just slightly over the 74 mb/d plateau established in 2005.
The moment of truth for peak oil will be when the decline of mature fields finally overwhelms new production additions, and global supply begins to turn south. (A vogue alternative is that we'll reach "peak demand" first, where oil is replaced by other fuels and demand falls due to greater efficiency, but as yet I find the proof that this has happened, or will happen, unconvincing.)
That moment of truth isn't quite here yet. Fracking, along with all the other methods the world is employing to squeeze a bit more oil out of the earth, has barely budged global oil production. Here is the chart:
As per the wont of BRT, Peak Fish, the supplier of the graphic above, is a new resource BRT will use as Peak Fish "takes hard to locate, difficult to understand public data and displays it in a way that's readable and visually appealing."
I'm Dreaming of a ... :)
As Why Evolution is True would say...
I am the Walrus, napping on a Russian submarine LOL :)
A Simple Matter of Perspective
When looking at this glorious image, courtesy of NASA's Cassini Mission to Saturn, the tiny pale dot seen in the picture is earth or, as Carl Sagan said so eloquently in Pale Blue Dot,
"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."
Make you think doesn't it?
The Folly of Going Private
When taxpayers lose control of public services, in this case, the fubar known as Chicago's Parking Situation, something done without the knowledge of said tax payers, bad things happen, and then some.
Mr. Rowey holds up the example of Chicago's 36,000 parking meters that were sold in a 75-year lease to an investor group backed by Morgan Stanley as a success. In fact, Chicago taxpayers, investors and mayors across the country will tell you that not only was it an unmitigated disaster, it is also Exhibit A in the folly of blindly giving up taxpayer control of services.
An after-the-fact investigation by the city's inspector general concluded that the decision to enter the lease contract lacked "meaningful public review" and neglected the city's long-term interests to solve a short-term budget crisis. Specifically, it found that "the city was paid, conservatively, $974 million less for this 75-year lease than the city would have received from 75 years of parking-meter revenue." That's nearly $1 billion that could have been used for better police and fire protection, longer library hours and many other services that would benefit the public good rather than private profits. By Dec. 31, 2009, Chicago had only $180 million left from the $1.15 billion parking meter deal, forcing the city to consider alternative sources of revenue rather than relying on long-term reserve funds generated by the parking meter lease.
Matt Taibbi, in his incendiary book, 'Griftopia': Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America, expands upon this dubious practice of privatizing public services with details on the various Wall Street deals that bankrupted America, in collusion with government, in ways that boggle the mind.
"Our leaders know we're turning into a giant ghetto and they are taking every last hubcap they can get their hands on before the rest of us wake up and realize what's happened."
"This story is the ultimate example of American's biggest political problem. We no longer have the attention span to deal with any twenty-first century crisis. We live in an economy that is immensely complex and we are completely at the mercy of the small group of people who understand it – who incidentally often happen to be the same people who built these wildly complex economic systems. We have to trust these people to do the right thing, but we can't, because, well, they're scum. Which is kind of a big problem, when you think about it."
Get the book, you'll learn a lot. I did and I have.
The ingenuity of Goldman Sachs in gaming the system never ceases to amaze. To whit:
MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. — Hundreds of millions of times a day, thirsty Americans open a can of soda, beer or juice. And every time they do it, they pay a fraction of a penny more because of a shrewd maneuver by Goldman Sachs and other financial players that ultimately costs consumers billions of dollars.
The story of how this works begins in 27 industrial warehouses in the Detroit area where a Goldman subsidiary stores customers' aluminum. Each day, a fleet of trucks shuffles 1,500-pound bars of the metal among the warehouses. Two or three times a day, sometimes more, the drivers make the same circuits. They load in one warehouse. They unload in another. And then they do it again.
This industrial dance has been choreographed by Goldman to exploit pricing regulations set up by an overseas commodities exchange, an investigation by The New York Times has found. The back-and-forth lengthens the storage time. And that adds many millions a year to the coffers of Goldman, which owns the warehouses and charges rent to store the metal. It also increases prices paid by manufacturers and consumers across the country.
Simply unreal but injecting unnecessary cost into various business operations in order to get a little extra has become the way America does business, just see Government to see how the real pros make it happen.
The Unnecessary Atomization of Knowledge
The NYTimes just posted an interesting article tiled, Losing Our Way in the World, an excellent piece on showing how people seemingly lack knowledge on how to integrate discrete nuggets of data into a comprehensive framework as seen by the quote below.
SADLY, we often atomize knowledge into pieces that don't have a home in a larger conceptual framework. When this happens, we surrender meaning to guardians of knowledge and it loses its personal value.
A number of years ago, the documentary "A Private Universe," about how we misperceive the world around us, was filmed at Harvard's commencement. Twenty-three faculty members, alumni and graduating seniors were asked, "Why is it warm in the summer and cold in the winter?" All but two answered incorrectly, saying the Earth was closer to the sun in the summer than in the winter (it's actually closer in January).
Arguably, the students were drawing on fragments of what they had learned in class somewhere — didn't Earth's orbit form an ellipse around the sun? — instead of what they could perceive themselves, as the seasons changed.
One "correct" answer has to do with the tilt of Earth's rotational axis with respect to its orbit. But a Neolithic farmer might cast his arm in an arc across the sky and explain that the sun was low in the winter and high in the summer. The farmer's explanation would be perfectly correct, rooted in experience.
Creative people, in this writers's opinion, avoid this subtle trap as synthesizing new ideas necessarily involve integrating the parts into a comprehensive whole dictated by the specific discipline in which the creative act is housed whether it be composing a masterful work like So What or conceptualizing the theory of relativity while riding on a tram, something education should teach the young in this connected age of the web.
Thinking like a bug
Common sense or, Thinking like a bug, can give rise to, in this case, a really cool solution to mosquitoes, particularly with a summer as wet and as hot as this one has been.
Over the Fourth of July holiday, my wife and I joined some friends for a barbecue in their backyard. The guests were lively and the space was lovely — grassy and open but shady and surrounded by lots of shrubs and trees.
In other words, it was perfect for mosquitoes — and indeed, closer inspection showed that they were thriving in all that greenery.
But our friends had come up with a solution that saved us from having to deal with bug repellents or, worse, bites and itches.
On a low table, they set up a small electric fan, perhaps 12 inches high, that swept back and forth, sending a gentle breeze across the grassy area where people were sitting.
That was it. No citronella candles, no bug zappers, no DEET, nothing expensive or high-tech. Yet amazingly, it worked. As far as I could tell, no mosquitoes flew into the vicinity of the simulated wind; nobody was bitten.
As we left, I asked our hosts about the fan idea; they credited a mutual friend at the barbecue. He, in turn, paid tribute to a friend of his: Frank Swift, president of Swift Food Equipment Inc. in Philadelphia.
So I reached out to Mr. Swift, who replied by e-mail. "The solution came from trying to think like a bug," he explained, "and realizing I don't like flying into a 15 m.p.h. wind."
Thanks NYTimes, I needed that. :)
Patent Trolls
Patent Trolls, you know, the companies who make money by suing rather then innovating, is big time business as articulated by the NYTimes in a post titled Have Patent, Will Sue: An Alert to Corporate America.
Mr. Spangenberg's company, based in Dallas, helps "turn idle patents into cash cows," as it says on its Web site. A typical client is an inventor or corporation, with a batch of patents, demanding a license fee from what it contends is an infringer, usually a titan in the tech realm. His weapon of choice in this business — the brass knuckles of his trade, so to speak — is the lawsuit.
In the last five years, IPNav has sued 1,638 companies, according to a recent report by RPX, a patent risk management provider, more than any other entity in the patent field. "To get companies to pay attention, in some percent of the market, you need to whack them over the head," Mr. Spangenberg said. "In our system, you can't duel, you can't offer to fight in the street, which would be fine with me."
The problem with this centers on the fact, only the lawyers profit, not tech, and certainly not innovation as seen by the stupid interface lawsuits going back and forth from Apple and Samsung.
This is partly because the number of patent infringement suits has more than doubled in recent years, to 4,731 cases in 2012 from 2,304 in 2009, according to that RPX report. The cost to businesses, which pass along the expense to consumers, is immense. One study found that United States companies — most of them small or medium-sized — spent $29 billion in 2011 on patent assertion cases.
"And only about $6 billion of that money wound up in the hands of inventors," said James Bessen, a co-author of the study and a professor at the Boston University School of Law. "As for the other $23 billion, most of it goes to legal expenses, both for defendants and patent troll companies, with the rest going to operating expenses of the trolls — overhead and marketing — and finally, patent troll company profits. That's why we call this type of litigation a tax on innovation. It discourages innovation much more than it encourages it."
Yours truly has a patent pending, maybe when it goes live, I can either take the low road and become a patent troll or the high, by innovating. I'll take the 2nd because innovating is a hell of lot more interesting and beneficial then the first option, a course akin to getting something for nothing, something that just seems wrong if you ask me.
Kind of Sums it up to ME
Ah, if only Paddy Chayefsky was alive.
Adrift - A glimpse Into Wonder
Fog, forever mysterious and wondrous, shows it's hidden beauty through the lens of Simon Christen
Crazy fast kind of explains it to me. :)
Interfaces @ 50
Hard to believe but sci-fi interface design has been around for 50+ years, something pretty amazing without question. This info graphic from infographicjournal shows just how far tech has evolved regarding the front end side of hardware ranging from the quasi schlock of Lost in Space to the incandescent 2001, the greatest science fiction film of all time. Enjoy.
A True Visionary
True visionaries are as rare as natural black pearls, occurrences of each being most mysterious but ever present with society never knowing when such an entity possessing these singular qualities will show up. Jobs, Einstein, Davis and Tesla, being members of this exceedingly rare breed, changed society in ways that cannot be quantified, must now include Douglas C. Engelbart, a computer visionary who intuitively knew what computers could become 20+ years before the advent of systems able to be accessed by means extending beyond the ubiquitous punch card based on the mechanics of the 18th century Jacquard loom.
Computing was in its infancy when Dr. Engelbart entered the field. Computers were ungainly room-size calculating machines that could be used by only one person at a time. Someone would feed them information in stacks of punched cards and then wait hours for a printout of answers. Interactive computing was a thing of the future, or in science fiction. But it was germinating in Dr. Engelbart's restless mind.
In his epiphany, he saw himself sitting in front of a large computer screen full of different symbols — an image most likely derived from his work on radar consoles while in the Navy after World War II. The screen, he thought, would serve as a display for a workstation that would organize all the information and communications for a given project.
It was his great insight that progress in science and engineering could be greatly accelerated if researchers, working in small groups, shared computing power. He called the approach "bootstrapping" and believed it would raise what he called their "collective I.Q."
Because he had read Vannevar Bush's amazing 1945 paper As We May Think, the first expression of what the web would eventually become 50 years later, (BRT The Memex) Engelbart took Bush's ideas to the next level by conceptualizing networked machines able to drive the internet that Bush was talking about using a keyboard, mouse and display to make it happen, hardware conceived of in his mind years before tech would catch up with his unique vision. To make sure such hardware could actually be developed, Engelbart invented the mouse, the device we know and love, as the prime interface driver for all things digital in the connected age of the web. Click here to see The Mother of All Demos to see why. Addendum, here is the Stamford University version of The MOAD. :)
Seen above are Englebart's patent drawings of the mouse and how it connected to a computer complete with keyboard and display. Said patent was approved on November 17th from a paper he gave to the patent office on June 21, 1967. Click here to see the patent.
Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked, is mine. - Nikola Tesla
Look at this picture carefully and then read the caption below, sent to me by a good friend of mine talking about how it was back in the day. :)
Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much
older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.
The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this 'green
thing' back in my earlier days."
The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."
She was right -- our generation didn't have the 'green thing' in its day. Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.
Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribbling's. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags. But too bad we didn't do the "green thing" back then.
We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day.
Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.
But that young lady is right; we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.
Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana .
In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us.
When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.
Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.
But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then.
We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a
cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water.
We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.
But we didn't have the "green thing" back then.
Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the "green thing."
We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances.
And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.
But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" back then?
I do remember some of these things so at least my memory hasn't left me though my hearing has. :)


text:
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Created a high impact intervention for 150 NGOs helping them build robust operations, processes and donor engagement programs.
Dhwani Foundation
Dhwani attempts to improve the efficiency & accountability of NGOs & therefore increase credibility
India's multiple social challenges have a high impact on society and especially, the marginalized communities. NGOs, as they are without the trappings of power or driven by profit, are often more effective in driving change in the communities they work in. NGOs can therefor be a credible bridge between Government and society, as also between for-profit institutions and communities. The smaller and more rural NGOs are specially hard pressed to adapt to these changes. This has led to a drop in both quantity and quality of work getting done. Dhwani foundation focuses on building capacity in NGOs.Dhwani does this by mentoring as also by imparting knowledge and skills in the areas of compliance, good governance, accounting, MIS, technology adoption, program management & strategic planning. Dhwani simultaneously works with other players in this ecosystem, including Government, NGO Federations, Corporate Donors and Donor Agencies to build a common understanding of issues.
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To gain consensus across stakeholders for common professional standards Enhance Visibility, Transparency, Accountability and Efficiency through better use of process and technology in the social sector Enlarge quality resource pool for Social Sector
5th Phase of Leaders Training
5th Phase of Leaders training was held in Bangalore on StrategicPlanning during which Mr Aditya from Titan Group conducted a 3 days extensive workshop on creation of Strategic Plan Document for each of our partners. All the participants involved with great enthusiasm and we were successful in drafting the final copies of Strategic Plan for all the 23 NGO partners along with their Board members, Leaders and Operations Managers.
10th Phase Operations Manager Training
10th Phase of training for the Operations Managers was held in Bangalore on first 2 day of the training covered the good practices in Finance and accounting for an NGO facilitated by Mr. Jahir Mansuri renowned charted accountant, Followed byHuman Resource Management by KN Gopinath, V Satish and Ms. Anita Bhat on HR and developing Prevention of sexual harassment policy
Operations Managers 9th phase training
9th Phase training Program for Operations Manager Accountants on Tally and digital Media Content writing by Prof Usha Reddy. Topic covered on Website, Facebook Page and linked in Update on the social site. On 24th to 29th Sept 2018 at Bangalore
8th Phase training program conducted for the Operations Manager on Minimum wage, HR, and Fundraising on by Mrs. Anitha Bhatt, Mr. M J Aravind, and Mr. Gopinath. Topic covered on Leave policy Child protection policy as well 21st to 24th August 2018 at Bangalore
7th phase training program for the Operations Managers on digital Media content writing, Goonjan MIS and write up on One pager from 24th July 27th at Maitreya Bangalore
Training conducted on Legal compliance for an Operations manager and accountants on 19th to 22nd June at Chithradurga Mr. Jahir Mansuri Resource person taken sessions on the legal compliance of PANCARD, TAN, 80G 12AA and PF, etc.
Operations Managers 5th Phase training program at CFL school Magadi. From 13th to 18th May 2018 Training on good Governance by Mr. Venkesh HID Forum Topics covered on - Principles of good governance,ethical practices in the Board, Legal compliance and public disclosure, Laws and regulations, Effective governance, Board responsibilities, and Board Meetings.
Operations Managers 4th phase training at on Digital Media. At IIIB Bangalore. On 10th to 14th April 2018. Training on Digital Media content writing, creating a website, facebook and link din by Mr. Rajesh, Mr. Amit, and Ms. Usha Reddy. 25 Website and Facebook page were created by all the OMs in the training program.
3rd Phase OM's Traning
3rd phase of operations manager's training program was held from 5th to 10 March 2018 at ISI. Session on HR was facilitated by Mr. Gopinath and on basic principles of marketing by Mr. MJ Aravind. OM's were then taken on an exposure visit to APD to understand the standard and systems of the organization.
2nd Phase OM's Training
Operations Managers 2nd phase training program. Conducted by Mr. Ramakrishna Surdev at ISI training center from 8th to 12th Feb 2018. 25 Operations managers participated in the training on leadership management and team building. Also, OM presented their respective organization profiles and case study.
1st Phase OM's Training
1st Phase induction training program for Operations Managers was held from 22nd to 24th January 2018 at ISI training centre at Bangalore. Training was conducted on Niranthara program's roles and responsibility of the OM's, risk management, team building. Session were run by Mr. Gopinath and Mr. Suranjan.
1st Phase leaders training program
Inauguration of Niranthara Program by Mr. M J Arvind and Mr, Amit Das. 1st Phase leaders training program on Leadership Management for NGO leaders organized on 22nd to 23rd Dec 2017 25 NGO leaders have participated in the training session was taken By RK at Ashirvad training center Bangalore. Resource person Mr. Shidhar TITAN interacted with all the leaders and explained what CSR companies expecting from the NGO Sector
Mr. M. J. Aravind
Managing Trustee
MJ Aravind has over 30 years of global experience with large multinational corporations including Compaq, DEC, and Xerox in areas such as supply chain, sales and marketing, customer service and field operations. Aravind was a co-founder and VP Operations of Daksh eServices, one of India's earliest and largest independent BPO (business processing organization) companies. Post Daksh, Aravind leveraged his operational experience and extensive network to help set up the India operations of Artiman Ventures, an early stage Venture Capital firm. In the last decade, Aravind has been extensively involved with the Social Sector in executive and Board roles. He was on the Board of The Association of People with Disability for 8 years. He is also an Advisor to the Disability NGO Alliance, Bangalore. He is based in Bangalore
Ms. Chitra Aravind,
Founder Truste
Ms. Chitra Aravind, a Founder of Dhwani Foundation is an artist and avid gardener. She is a practitioner and teacher of Stained Glass artworks. She is based in Bangalore
Ms. Manju Kuchal
Lifetime Trustee
Ms. Manju Kuchhal has nearly 20 years of experience in the area of technology. For the last 8+ years, she has been volunteering with Dhwani Foundation which works towards providing technology solutions to NGOs. She is currently Trustee of Dhwani Foundation. As part of volunteering, she works with NGOs in identifying the areas where technology can help their operations, engages with relevant technology solution providers and help them with the implementation of such solutions. Before that, she worked with Tata Consultancy Services in their software division. She has done Master in Computer Application from LD College of Engineering, Ahmedabad, Gujarat University.
Mr. K. N. Gopinath, Executive Director
KN Gopinath heads Dhwani Foundation as its Executive Director. He is responsible for developing the organization's strategic plans and directing and executing the overall operations of the foundation. He has over 20 years of varied experience in the Social Sector with a long stint in The Association of People of Disabilities, Bangalore He is the managing trustee of Motivation India, a subsidiary of the Motivation UK one of the leading international organization in the field of wheelchair provisioning. Gopinath is also a sought after resource person in the Sector. He holds a master's degree in Social Work and a Certified Common Purpose Graduate
Mr. V. Satish, Senior Program Manager
Mr. Satish is a development sector professional with about 2 decades of experience working with National and International organizations across the country. He has experience of working in Education, Water and Sanitation sectors and Health Sector – HIV/AIDS, Urban Health, Maternal Child Health. During his journey with development sector, He has learnt work with various beneficiary communities like Urban and Rural poor, Commercial Sex Workers and People Living with HIV/AIDS. As part of his roles, he has managed large teams spread across various states. Academically he is Master in Sociology.
Ms. Thriveni G., Cluster Manager
Ms. Thriveni Gandhi working as a Cluster Manager at Dhwani Foundation from Dec -2017. she has taken a responsibility of 4 Organization which is based in central Karnataka. She completed her Graduation from Kuvempu University. She also completed her Fellowship program from Deshpande Foundation Hubli in 2008. She started her career 2005 as a National Service Volunteer at Chikmagalur District she moved to Bangalore and started her Career in the NGO sector in 2006-07 she worked in nearly 7 Organization both National and International Organization in the sector of Community Health and Research in all over Karnataka. She severed in Many organizations as District co-ordinator, currently, she is working in Dhwani Foundation as a Cluster Manager. Based in Davanagere
Ms. Vinaya K., Senior Manager Technology Solution
Vinaya has over 18 years of experience in the IT services industry. She started her career with Infosys and spent a decade there amassing technical knowledge and honing management and customer relationship skills. After a short maternity break, she returned to the industry and founded her own design services company focusing on providing training and developing multimedia solutions. Being a boot-strapped start-up, she managed it end-to-end and turned it into a professionally managed successful venture. She was selected as one of the privileged few across the country to undergo Goldman Sachs-ISB sponsored - "10000 World Women Entrepreneur Management Program" in 2011 Vinaya is based in Bangalore
Mr. Pradeep B. K., Assistant Cluster Manager
Pradeep has spent his entire career in the Social sector and has worked with GVSSN, Magic Bus India Foundation, and NIMHANS. . Pradeep holds a Master's degree in Development Management from the University of Mysuru. He is currently based in Bangalore
Mr. Absar Patel, Assistant Cluster Manager
Absar has 5years' experience in youth development, corporate training, marketing, sales and project mentor-ship. Prior to Dhwani, Absar worked with Deshpande Foundation, Authentic, and Vidya Sankul IT Solutions. He has started 17 youth clubs in 17 villages around Chikodiwhich leads up to creating employment skills for unemployed youth. He has also held the post of General Secretary for IYC (Indian Youth Congress) from Raibag region. He is a Commerce Graduate from Monad University, Hapur, UP
Shruthi T., Senior Associate - Technology Solutions
Shruthi started in the development sector 2 years ago by joining as a Project Manager in Don Bosco Tech Society where she worked on skilling and employment programs for underprivileged youth. Shruti is an IT graduate with MBA in Global Business, and started her career in TCS She is based in Bangalore
Mahesh Chandra E, Manager – Finance/Admin/Operations
Mahesh comes with over 17 years of experience in the area of finance and admin. He worked with organizations such as, World Health organization – Gulbarga branch office, Institute of Leadership & Institutional development (ILID), Child Fund India and few others. His expertise is in the field of accounting, finance management, training, grant management, partnership management & administration. He holds PG diploma in financial management and higher diploma in software engineering. He is based in Bangalore with his wife and young daughter of 7 years old. He is the native of Gulbarga (Kalburgi)
Audit Report 2016-17
Dhwani Trust Deed
80G Certificate
PROGRAM 1 - GOONJAN
Hearing a lot of social sector organizations and donors say that existing applications do not fulfill the unique needs of their work, Goonjan met with a large cross-section of Donors, NGOs and IT professionals to establish customer requirement. Goonjan was therefore created ground-up from these findings.
Additionally, Goonjan attempts to address some common sector issues of poor connectivity, old the hardware limited IT capability and low understanding of English by designing a cloud-based system with easy User Interfaces.
By March 19, Goonjan will have over 60 installations in India and Cambodia with over 2,00,000 beneficiary records.
We are thankful to our partners :
1. SENSEI Technologies (P) Ltd
www.sen-sei.in/solution/goonjan
2. 1NGO - Enabling digital presence for NGOs
www.1ngo.in
3. HID- Forum
4. IIIT- Banglore
5. KCJM
6.Smart CEO
7. Tally
9. B K Ramdayani & Co ( Internal Auditor)
10. Gowthama & Co (External Auditor)
PROGRAM 2 - NIRANTHARA
Niranthara was conceived by surveying over 100 donors, Government agencies, beneficiaries, NGO leaders and managers, by asking them, "What makes for a good NGO?"
From this exercise, emerged a total of 161 points highlighting important characteristics which then was converted to a curriculum. 23 NGOs from different domains enrolled in the pilot program launched in January, '18.
The program focusses on building institutional capacity of NGOs through 24 months of comprehensive hand holding involving classroom training, the supply of tools, overseeing site implementation and building support for the changes with the Board, Leadership, senior managers and program staff of the NGOs.
Alongside, the program works with subject experts, donor community, academic institutions, and technology houses to set standards
RESOURCE FACULTY
Mr. Ramakrisha Sudeo – Development Trainer, Odisha
Dr. Jogin Desai - Chair of Social Venture Partners India, Bangalore
Mr. Jerome Dsouza – General Manager, Programs - APPI
Mr. Narayan Krishnaswamy – Chief Peoples Officer, APPI
Ms. Liril Gupta – Chief Finance Officer – APPI
Mr. Adithya – Montblack – Tata
Mr. Sreedhar – CSR Country Head, Titan
Ms. Prathibha – Livelihood Expert, Titan
Mr. Abhijit Mukherjee – Former Director, Marketing & Fund Raising, APD
Ms. Anita Bhat – HR Expert
Mr. Krishna Kumar – Fundraising Expert
Mr. Pravin – State Manager, CRY
Mr. Basavaraju – State Commissioner for Disabilities, Govt of Karnataka
Ms. Christy Abraham- Chief Executive Officer - APD
Ms. Jacintha – Founder, Transcendix LLP
Mr. Ram Sheshu – Rotarian
Ms. Leena David – India CSR Coordinator, Capgemini
Ms. Nona – Consultant
Mr. Krishna – CEO, Sattva Consulting
Make a generous donation to help us reach more beneficiaries.
Account Number: 00000030035281919
Bank: State Bank of India
Branch: Rajarajeshwari Nagar
All donations are eligible for tax savings under 80G.
329, 18th Cross, Ideal Homes Layout, Kenchenhalli, RR Nagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka
Nirvana, #329, 18th Cross, Ideal Homes Layout, Phase 1, Rajarajeshwari Nagar,
contact@dhwanifoundation.com


text:
Fwire News
Blaze hits Dubai skyscraper, New Year's fireworks proceed nearby | Reuters
Fwire
DUBAI Fire engulfed a 63-storey skyscraper in Dubai on Thursday night, but with the block evacuated and only minor injuries reported authorities went ahead with a New Year's fireworks display at the world's tallest building a few hundred metres away.
hidden December 31, 2015 21:08:04 IST
Tongues of flame shot skywards from one side of the luxury Address Downtown Dubai hotel and residential block, which stands across a plaza from the 160-storey Burj Khalifa tower where people had gathered for fireworks to mark the New Year.
Television pictures showed pieces of blazing debris raining down from The Address as evacuated occupants hurried away from the building, some running.
"We came out on my balcony to look at the Burj. All the buildings around here had fireworks prepped on the roof," Paul Mithun, a U.S. consultant in downtown Dubai said.
"We were like, huh, that looks like a little Olympic torch off in the distance. We thought someone lit fireworks. In under two minutes, the fire went up two-thirds of the length of the hotel. I watched the whole thing. It was real bad."
But as midnight struck, with the Address building continuing to burn, onlookers cheered as a swirling mass of multicoloured fireworks enveloped the Burj Khalifa.
The Dubai government's media office said the Address blaze was 90 percent under control. Police chief Major General Khamis Matar told Al Arabiya television: "All residents of the hotel were evacuated and there are 14 injured, with light injuries."
A medic on the scene who declined to be identified told Reuters: "There are more than 60 people injured with light injuries from smoke inhalation and from crowding while in the stairs evacuating the building."
One resident staying on the 15th floor of the tower, completed in 2008, told Britain's Sky News of "absolute pandemonium" as those inside realised the building was ablaze.
"The alarms went off when the building was already properly on fire," he said.
FIREWORKS GO AHEAD
A Reuters correspondent saw police evacuating a viewing area near the base of the Burj Khalifa.
The fire at the Address building had take hold in minutes.
"Oh my God!" shouted one witness who happened to see the first few moments.
"The flames were running up one side of the building, reaching about halfway up ... Flames were licking upwards and out. Orange and yellow," the witness said.
As the evacuation proceeded, there were moments of panic.
"There's more shouting. It's more panicked this time, many voices, some screams," the witness said.
The Dubai media office said the blaze had started on the 20th floor, on the outside of the 300-metre tower, and that internal fire-fighting systems were operating to try to prevent it getting inside the hotel.
Four fire brigade teams were at the site.
Dubai is a trade, tourism and investment hub for the Gulf region, and is one of seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
(Reporting by Dubai bureau, Writing by Noah Browning and David French,; Editing by William Maclean and Ralph Boulton)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Updated Date: December 31, 2015 21:08:04 IST
Magnitude 5.9 earthquake hits off Eastern Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea sits on the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, which is a hotspot for seismic activity due to friction between tectonic plates
New York: Massive fire in building leaves 19 people dead, including nine children
Investigators said the blaze was triggered by a space heater started in a duplex apartment on the second and third floors of the 19-storey residential building
Boris Johnson accused of flouting COVID-19 norms during 2020 garden party, Opposition demands inquiry
ITV reported that the prime minister's private secretary Martin Reynolds on 20 May, 2020, sent out dozens of emails urging attendees to 'bring your own booze'
Woman jailed in Iran on suspicion of espionage returns to UK: All you need to know about Aras Amiri
The London-based Iranian woman, who worked as an artistic affairs officer with the British Council, was acquitted of espionage charges by Iran's Supreme Court and has now returned to the UK after spending more than three years in Elvin prison
Trading threats and warnings, US and Iran inch closer to a nuclear deal
Despite all the posturing, the impetus for reaching a deal renewing the 2015 treaty remains strong for both sides.
Mumbai: Fire breaks out in furniture scrap shop at Ghatkopar, no casualties reported
Eight fire engines have been rushed to the spot to douse the flame. The fire erupted at around 10.30 am in Sunder Baug area of Asalfa locality
At least 80 shops gutted as major fire breaks out at Delhi's Lajpat Rai market; no casualties reported
The fire in Lajpat Rai market, which is located opposite to the Red Fort, started around 4.43 am.
London: Pudding competition opens for Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee celebrations
Buckingham Palace said the unprecedented anniversary will be celebrated throughout the year, centred around a four-day UK bank holiday Jubilee Weekend from 2 June to 5 June


The Northampton branch of the RNLI is one of over 1,000 fundraising branches around the UK and Ireland. Our purpose is to raise funds for the RNLI to support our lifeboat crews, lifeguards, flood rescue teams and safety advisers, all dedicated to saving lives from drowning.
Go to About us to find out who we are and what we do and News and events for details of the fundraising activities we have coming up in the next few months.


text:
Filattiera ist eine italienische Gemeinde mit  Einwohnern (Stand ) in der Provinz Massa-Carrara in der Toskana. Sie liegt etwa 40 km nordwestlich der Provinzhauptstadt Massa.

Die Nachbargemeinden sind Bagnone, Corniglio (PR), Mulazzo, Pontremoli und Villafranca in Lunigiana.

Die Gemeinde war die ehemalige byzantinische Hauptstadt der Herrschaft in der Lunigiana. In der Nähe der Kirche Pieve di Sorano wurde ein Dorf ausgegraben, das aus römischer Zeit stammt.

Weblinks

 Offizielle Website der Gemeinde (italienisch)

Einzelnachweise

Ort in der Toskana

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
100Films.co.uk
100% movies. Except when it's about TV.
by director
"100 Films" Years
Year 1: 2007
Year 10: 2016
1900s & earlier
Pre/Post/Neo/etc.
Monthly progress
Make/Remake
alternate & director's cuts
British films
films about films
video game films
Tag Archives: WW2
Posted on July 3, 2015 by badblokebob
David Ayer | 135 mins | Blu-ray | 2.40:1 | USA, UK & China / English & German | 15 / R
I don't believe there are very many movies about tanks — there's Kelly's Heroes (which, I must admit, I only know of thanks to ghostof82's review of the film currently under discussion), and I've heard Lebanon's very good, but no others spring readily to mind. I suppose there are sound production reasons for this, to do with getting bulky movie cameras into tiny spaces and the logistics of choreographing tank battles. The dearth of other films on the same topic automatically gives Fury, about an American tank crew in the closing months of World War 2, something of a leg up in the memorableness stakes.
Specifically, we follow the crew of a tank nicknamed 'Fury', commanded by 'Wardaddy' (Brad Pitt), driven by 'Gordo' (Michael Peña), the cannon manned by 'Bible' (Shia LaBeouf), and Grady (Jon Bernthal) is the mechanic or something (I'm not really au fait with what jobs there were in a tank, this is just what I managed to glean from the film itself). After the co-driver is killed, this team who have been together for years are forced to accept a new member, Norman (Logan Lerman), who was trained to type 60-words-per-minute and, apparently, not much else. What follows is a mix of exciting action, men-at-war character drama, war-is-hell imagery, and something of a battle for the soul of the innocent new kid.
In some respects, then, Fury is a bit "seen it all before". The desaturated photography, muddy landscape and slightly-ramshackle military campaign are all very post-Saving Private Ryan, though writer-director David Ayer lends enough of his own directorial flair that it feels more visually distinctive than most Ryan rip-offs. The "battle for the soul" story dates back at least as far as Platoon, but the thing is, it's fertile ground. Here you're contrasting men who've been fighting this tough war for years, who are accustomed to its brutality, with someone fresh to the fight, whose ideals haven't yet been replaced by the practicalities of conflict.
Most of the characters exist in a moral grey area, something which some reviewers seem to struggle with. From the off, our ostensible heroes are not shown in a particularly pleasant light, committing or encouraging acts we would view as unconscionable. As the film goes on, it seems like we're being invited to bond with them, to respect or admire them. I'm not sure that's a wholly accurate reading of it, though. I think we're being shown different sides to them — much as Norman is, in fact. At first you see the depths they have reached; then, as you get to know them, you see a little more of their true (or at least their pre-corrupted-by-war) characters. Does this redeem them or excuse their actions? Well, that's your decision. I don't think the film is predicated on you coming round to their way of thinking. Without meaning to spoil anything, it's not as if the meta/karmic world of plot construction lets them off scot-free by the end. Of course, whether we need our focus characters to be clean-cut heroes or whether complex morally-grey/black characters are preferable is another debate.
One of the advantages is that you can never be sure what the characters are going to do. Arguably the film's strongest sequence comes after the tank column Fury leads has captured a town. The men are given some time off before they advance, which naturally means drinking, destroying German property, and whoring. While Bible reads and Gordo and Grady persuade a woman back to the tank to 'share', Wardaddy spies a woman (Anamaria Marinca) hiding at an upstairs window and drags Norman up with him. Inside, they find the woman and her pretty younger cousin (Alicia von Rittberg). As Wardaddy settles in, you have no idea what he's going to do. He's being nice, but does he mean it? Where is this going? No spoilers, but the unfolding scenes are among the film's strongest; and as Wardaddy, Norman and the two women sit down to a meal, the rest of Fury's crew arrive, kicking off one of the most uncomfortable mealtime scenes outside of a Tarantino movie. This is a scene most reviews seem to single out, I've since realised, but that's for good reason: even watching it cold, the powerful writing, direction and performances mark it out as a sequence that transcends the movie it's in. Again, it's the unpredictability of what these men might do; the grey area of the guys we're meant to think are the heroes not always being heroic.
For the viscerally inclined, Fury has much to commend it also. The aforementioned scarcity of tank battles on screen means almost every action sequence feels fresh and unpredictable, and Ayer stages them with requisite excitement and tension, too. The highlight is probably a three-on-one tanks-vs-tank fight that shows the might of the German opposition. The climax, in which the five men hole up in their mine-scuttled tank to take on literally a whole battalion of SS troops, is possibly too over-the-top for a movie that's otherwise pretty realist in its aims, though even this is reportedly inspired by a real incident. Ayer again makes a fair fist of it seeming plausible, at least.
Beyond that, this is a very brutal depiction of war, to an almost horror movie level at times. Instructed to clean the tank on his arrival, Norman finds half the previous driver's face lying inside; a man burning alive chooses to shoot himself in the head; various other limbs and faces explode as the movie goes on. Do we need to see such graphic detail? The old fashioned "get hit and fall over" style of being shot has clearly had its day, but do we need more than, say, a spurt of blood? Some would argue not. Some would argue part of the point is this ugliness, this inhumanity — it happens, or happened, and so it should be there; we shouldn't be glorifying it by sanitising it. Nonetheless, at times Fury is a particularly extreme example of depicting the realism of violence, and some won't feel up to stomaching it.
I think Fury is a rather rewarding movie for those that can, though. The fact it provokes debate is no bad thing — I think it's a misinterpretation to read the film, as some online commenters clearly have, as "these guys do horrible things, but they're the main characters and the not-Nazis, so I must be meant to like them, so the film is bad". Well, I suppose it's not news that some people struggle with cognitive dissonance. On the flipside, I don't think you're meant to outright hate them — there's an element of "the Allies did bad things too, y'know" about the film, but that's not its sole aim. I think it's more complicated than that, and, naturally, all the better for it. Even on a more surface level, though, there's adrenaline-pumping excitement to be had from the well-realised action scenes. It's a combination that worked very well indeed for me, and if my score errs on the side of generosity then, well, consider it redressing the balance.
Fury debuts on Sky Movies Premiere today at 3:45pm and 8pm.
Posted in 2010s, 2015, 5 stars, Action, Drama, War	| Tagged Alicia von Rittberg, Anamaria Marinca, Brad Pitt, cognitive dissonance, David Ayer, Fury, Jason Isaacs, Jon Bernthal, Logan Lerman, Michael Peña, Nazi, Nazis, Second World War, Shia LaBeouf, tank, Wardaddy, World War 2, WW2	| 4 Replies
Valkyrie (2008)
Posted on April 30, 2015 by badblokebob
Bryan Singer | 108 mins* | TV | 16:9 | USA & Germany / English | 12 / PG-13
On the 70th anniversary of Hitler's death, the true story of some people who tried to kill him…
After abandoning the X-Men franchise for a Superman reboot/continuation that was retrospectively branded a commercial and critical flop (it actually grossed $391 million worldwide (more than Batman Begins, for example) and has a fairly strong Rotten Tomatoes score of 76%), director Bryan Singer returned to more traditionally dramatic fare — and Nazis — with this true-story war movie about a German plot to assassinate Hitler.
Tom Cruise is Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, an army officer who believes Hitler needs to be removed for the sake of Germany's future. Invalided home after an RAF raid, he discovers he's far from alone in his beliefs when he's recruited into a conspiratorial group who have already failed to assassinate Hitler several times. There he concocts a plan to take out Hitler with a bomb during his weekly briefing at the Wolf's Lair, blame it on the SS, and use the Führer's own Operation Valkyrie contingency plan to seize control before any of his cronies can do it first.
There's no point beating about the bush: they don't succeed. We all know that. The film's marvel, really, is in making us believe they might. Well, not believe it — we're not stupid, are we? — but invest in it. It's also a revelation how far they got. No, Hitler isn't killed, but the associated confusion engineered by the plan (they cut off communications from the remote Wolf's Lair, meaning the news that Hitler survived takes a long time to come out) means an awful lot of Valkyrie is enacted. In the end, they're done for by bad luck — some people make some decisions which undermine the plan, whereas if they'd gone the other way it might have succeeded even with the Fuhrer still alive. What might have been…
One of the stated aims of the conspiracy is to show the rest of the world that not everyone in Germany believed in what Hitler and his inner circle were doing. It may have taken us a long time to realise that, for fairly understandable reasons, but quality films like this help get the message out. Singer has crafted a proper thriller here, replete with scenes of edge-of-your-seat tension. Many a filmmaker can't manage that with a fictional storyline, never mind one where we know exactly how it turns out.
A top-drawer cast help keep the drama ticking over too. Complaints that accompanied the theatrical release, about the German characters all speaking English, feel thoroughly bizarre. How many movies in history have foreigners all speaking English? I mean, what about Schindler's List, for just one broadly-related broadly-recent example. Have we really reached a point where everyone is so accepting of subtitles? No, of course we haven't. I think it's a baseless criticism to latch on to; one that misses the point so severely it's difficult to think how to rationally argue against. It's just wrong. Anyway, most of the cast are British thesps — Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Kevin McNally, David Schofield, Tom Hollander, even Eddie Izzard — so you're guaranteed quality. Even Terence Stamp proves that he can act, in spite of what some other performances would have me believe. Cruise is a suitable leading man. This isn't one of his greater acting performances, but nor is he in simplistic action hero mode.
Elucidating a sometimes-overlooked aspect of an over-covered era of history, managing to tell its story with all the thrills and tension of a narrative where we don't know the outcome, Valkyrie is a film to be commended. It's also a fitting tribute to very brave men on the 'other side' who tried to do the right thing.
* I always try to list the running time of the version I watched, but I feel this one needs a quick explanation, because it's a full 13 minutes less than the listed running time. Was it cut? Probably not. I watched it on TV, with PAL speed-up and end credits almost entirely shorn. PAL gets you down to 115 minutes; I can well believe there were seven minutes more to the full credits. So there you go. ^
Posted in 2000s, 2015, 4 stars, Thriller, true stories, War	| Tagged Adolf Hitler, Bill Nighy, Bryan Singer, David Schofield, Eddie Izzard, Germany, Hitler, Kenneth Branagh, Kevin McNally, Nazi, Nazis, Second World War, Terence Stamp, Tom Cruise, Tom Hollander, Tom Wilkinson, Valkyrie, World War Two, WW2	| Leave a reply
The Good German (2006)
Posted on December 5, 2010 by badblokebob
2010 #103
Steven Soderbergh | 103 mins | TV (HD) | 15 / R
The film was shot as if it had been made in 1945. Only studio back lots, sets and local Los Angeles locations were used. No radio microphones were used, the film was lit with only incandescent lights and period lenses were used on the cameras. The actors were directed to perform in a presentational, stage style. The only allowance was the inclusion of nudity, violence and cursing which would have been forbidden by the Production Code.
So says the IMDb trivia page for The Good German, Steven Soderbergh's delightfully thorough attempt to create a 1940s-style film noir in the '00s. It's even in 4:3, donchaknow.
But is this a case of style over substance? Some critics accuse it of just that, saying it concentrates more on the look & feel than the characters. They do have a point, but the style is, if not incidental, then still not the sole purpose. The tale is more about the mystery — indeed, mysteries — than the characters. Films like The Third Man and Casablanca spring readily to mind; tales where characters cross and double-cross, where you can't be certain who's on whose side, or why, or when, or for how long. Though, yes, The Good German does lack the depth of character found in either of those examples.
Still, this isn't merely a pastiche — or at least not as much of one as it could have been in lesser hands — but instead is a work that conforms to the genre conventions and the filmmaking style of the era it's both set in and sets out to emulate. It's very believably done too, so much so that the very modern levels of violence, sex and swearing are uncomfortably incongruous. Perhaps this was Soderbergh's intention, but you can't help but think that it's a misstep. If you're going to all that trouble to recreate the visual, audio, acting and plot styles of the era, why not ensure the dialogue and action follow suit? There's no need for the violence, sex and swearing in this particular tale; at least, no need for it in a way that couldn't be conveyed as effectively using Production Code-friendly methods. I'm uncertain if I like the film less for failing on this measure, but it does add to its inherent oddness.
Thematically the film is quite strong, though thanks to an assortment of almost red-herring-ish mysteries it might take more than one viewing to tease them all out. The setting, in both place and time, gives away the central issues: Berlin, after the war, as the Allies decide who will be prosecuted for the atrocities Germany committed and who will be allowed to escape without a trial. Who was responsible — the ringleaders, their underlings, ordinary people? Every character is connected to this somehow, every one has their morals tested or examined.
We're certainly given a fair look at each of the three leads, as the film switches its focus between them around-about each act break, signalled by a brief voiceover from the new central character — one of which casually reveals the answer to what had, for a while, seemed to be the central mystery. But how much do we get to know them, really? It's easy to see why critics said "not very well", because they're too busy uncovering the conspiracies and revealing their part to actually show us much about themselves. But then why should that be a problem? It's a noir thriller, not a character drama. Surely it's about the mysteries and, if you like, the themes, rather than letting us understand the people caught up in them?
Indeed, the array of mysteries distracts from thematic pondering, or the wider conspiracies that the tale is ultimately concerned with. To list them would spoil plot twists, but each in turn seems to be the Main Story — until all is revealed and we have a chance to see the bigger game that's been played all along. I suppose in that respect it's like some of the best classic noirs — The Big Sleep springs to mind in this field, not that The Good German is quite as unknowably complex.
Soderbergh's exercise in era-recreation can be deemed a success: if you can ignore the famous modern cast and the pristine visual quality of a recently-produced film, it looks and sounds exactly like something from the '40s. Is that enough to sustain a feature? No. But the accompanying story — which, as this is an adaptation, surely inspired Soderbergh's production intentions rather than being invented to slot into them — provides meat on the stylistic bones.
And yet, having seen it, I can't help but feel that The Good German is little more than an interesting curio; one that deserves to be seen but, following that, viewers would be better off sticking to real noirs.
Posted in 2000s, 2010, 3 stars, adaptations, Drama, Film Noir: Pre/Post/Neo/etc., Mystery, Thriller	| Tagged Cate Blanchett, Film Noir, George Clooney, Second World War, Steven Soderbergh, The Good German, Tobey Maguire, World War 2, WW2	| Leave a reply
It Happened Here (1966)
Posted on November 23, 2010 by badblokebob
Kevin Brownlow & Andrew Mollo | 96 mins | DVD | PG
Alternate histories are always fun, and nothing seems to have provoked more than the Second World War. Which, as a defining event in modern history for a good chunk of the world, is understandable. It Happened Here is perhaps one of the earliest examples, depicting a 1940s Britain under Nazi occupation.
Co-directors Brownlow and Mollo use a dramatic narrative, as opposed to faux-documentary, to show off their vision of an occupied Britain. They shoot it in grainy, handheld black-and-white with a rough-round-the-edges feel that gives it the air of documentary even when it's undoubtedly scripted and performed. How much this is deliberate and how much an accident of circumstance, I don't know — they were both young, amateur filmmakers at the time, working on a small budget; United Artists spent more on the US trailer than was spent on the entire film. Whatever the cause, it works, because they're also not trying and failing to convince us this is a documentary, simply employing the visual cues which help sell their history as real. Using a dramatic narrative also gives the viewer an identifiable character, nurse Pauline, which works nicely by drawing us into the story's world, helping us feel and relate to the compromises and sacrifices that have to be made — and, as the film forces us to realise, would be made — under such circumstances.
Pauline is apolitical, which for the sake of the film means she can get buffeted around, seeing many facets of occupied life. She's drawn into the regime without losing our sympathy, but when she legitimately disagrees with it she's shoved out of the way to a country hospital — which allows us to see another aspect; namely, the quiet but methodical enacting of The Final Solution in an occupied territory. The whole film builds to this point, gradually showing the darker and deeper levels of cooperation — which starts out almost harmless and ends with organised mass murder — meaning it never feels like Brownlow and Mollo are pushing an agenda too hard, but still confront us with the reality: that we'd probably succumb too, and this is where we'd end up.
The film is distinctly anti-Nazi, then, though not without its controversies in spite of this. At one point, real fascists play themselves. I think you can tell, because I suspected as much before I looked it up to see: they're not great actors, but they deliver their horrific polemics with a calm zeal. The argument that this merely gives some hateful people a platform for their views isn't without merit — they're certainly given a good chunk of time to discuss them — but it's an ultimately effective sequence. Other characters ask questions — or perhaps other cast members do, because, knowing the fascists are real, it becomes hard to tell if it's all scripted and in character or just a real-life Q&A that Brownlow & Mollo filmed. Either way, it works because any right-minded person is going to see the inherent ridiculousness of their views with ease.
Another controversy arose over the villains being British collaborators — few German Nazis are seen — and the ease with which many agreed. But this is based in the facts of what occurred in other occupied territories; maybe Britain's plucky spirit would've shown through, as many like to believe, or maybe many would have caved for the easier life — or, indeed, life at all. The film is examining several perspectives of occupation, and using the fictional context to good effect: this could have happened, the film says, however much we like to believe we wouldn't have collaborated like (and/or resisted better than), say, the French.
Talking of the resistance, I presume the controversy didn't stop with its depiction of collaborators: both sides are shown to be just as/almost as bad as the other. The film opens with occupying Nazis massacring women and children, including a hurried and confusing gunfight in which it's unclear whether Pauline's friends — all women and children — were slaughtered by the Nazis or a group of resistance fighters holed up nearby. Mirroring this, the film ends with a group of British resistance (and/or invading American and British troops) rounding up surrendered collaborators and gunning them down in cold blood. No one comes out of this well — and that is perhaps the most truthful part of all.
Nonetheless, It Happened Here is more anti-Nazi than pro-Nazi propaganda, in my opinion, though it's easy to see why any material critical of the Allies could have outweighed the overall bias when the film was first released, just 20 years after victory in Europe. Generally, and viewed from a much more removed perspective, Brownlow and Mollo do a good job of offering conflicting perspectives with minimal comment, allowing the viewer to decide how ridiculous certain newsreels or opinions are, or how weak or misguided characters may or may not be — on both sides.
Posted in 1960s, 2010, 4 stars, British films, Documentary, Drama, Fantasy, War	| Tagged alternate history, Andrew Mollo, It Happened Here, Kevin Brownlow, Nazi, Nazis, occupation, Second World War, World War Two, WW2	| Leave a reply
Churchill: The Hollywood Years (2004)
Posted on January 16, 2008 by badblokebob
2008 #4
Peter Richardson | 84 mins | TV | 15
What if the Americans made a movie of Winston Churchill's life, prone as they are to re-write World War 2 history to show they won it all by themselves?
This is ostensibly the premise of this spoof from some of the team behind Channel 4's The Comic Strip. I say ostensibly, because the film is bookended (for padding, I suspect) with scenes that suggest that the real Churchill was an American GI, and the British simply re-wrote history using a somewhat chubby actor called Roy Bubbles. Sadly, the joke was funnier when it was riffing on those US historical re-writes.
The problem with killing that joke is, it's the best one the film's got. It's also just about suitable for a five-minute comedy sketch, or, at a stretch, a series of sketches. The strategy for drawing this out to movie-length seems to have involved those bookends, as well as bunging some outtakes at the end and including a bunch of ridiculous, irritating, and unfunny subplots with Hitler and his entourage. It's a shame to see the talents of actors such as Antony Sher and Miranda Richardson frittered away on such material.
This is all being a tad harsh, because Churchill actually has its fair share of amusing moments. The supporting cast of British TV comedians are mostly very good, Neve Campbell's posh English accent (usually such a stumbling block for Americans-as-Brits) is as good as anything a British actress could have delivered, and Christian Slater and Romany Malco make for a likeable pairing. But, again, most of the best bits are of sketch length, and so wind up spread out among the padding.
In that respect it's quite a shame, because there's a good idea, good potential, and some good laughs in here.
Posted in 2 stars, 2000s, 2008, British films, Comedy, War	| Tagged Antony Sher, Christian Slater, Churchill: The Hollywood Years, Miranda Richardson, Neve Campbell, Peter Richardson, Romany Malco, Second World War, spoof, The Comic Strip, Winston Churchill, World War Two, WW2	| Leave a reply
I Care a Lot (2020)
What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen These Films from 1986?
Blindspot 2022
The Worst of 2021
"100 Films"…
'initial thoughts'
Film Noir: Pre/Post/Neo/etc.
Misc. Attributes
alternate & director's cuts
drabble reviews
Out today on Blu-ray from @anti_worlds — one of my favourite films from 2020, PATRICK 🔨
My complete review of 2021 is now online!
Review: Rosamund Pike pretends to care for old people in I CARE A LOT. Unfortunately, I did not care a lot for it... 100films.co.uk/2022/01/15/i-c… 1 day ago
That system can be "get rid of them all" if that's really what the majority of #Letterboxd users want — but also th… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 3 days ago
Went to log the first episode of #Cracker on #Letterboxd and, although most of the series is on there, and I swear… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 3 days ago
12 more films I should have seen but haven't, this time all from 1986, that I must watch in 2022... 100films.co.uk/2022/01/12/wdy… 4 days ago
My Blindspot picks for 2022 — 12 films I should have seen but haven't that I must watch this year... 100films.co.uk/2022/01/12/bli… 4 days ago
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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Emergency food aid for around a million Palestinians in Gaza may run out from June if the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees cannot raise another $200 million following a cut-off in U.S. funding, the agency said on Tuesday.
Pierre Kraehenbuehl, who heads the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) providing aid for Palestinians across the Middle East, said U.S. President Donald Trump had withheld $305 million in funding, far more than the $65 million reported in January.
"So if you suddenly have no certainty about the amount of food aid coming from the U.N. for a million people ... you can just imagine the kind of effects it could have," he said, although he stressed he was not justifying any link to potential outbreaks of unrest.
Gulf states, Norway, Turkey and Canada have stepped in with a total of $200 million to help meet a $446 million budget deficit for 2018. UNRWA's planned budget is over a billion dollars for 2018.
The United States, long the biggest donor to the agency, is providing just $60 million of a promised $365 million, Kraehenbuehl said.
That leaves a $200 million shortfall to fill for rice, flour, sugar and also to keep funding schools in Gaza and the West Bank and elsewhere in the Middle East.
More than two million Palestinians are packed into Gaza and while Israel withdrew its troops and settlers in 2005, it maintains tight control of Gaza's land and sea borders. Egypt also restricts movement in and out of Gaza on its border.
Trump withheld the aid to UNRWA in January after questioning the value of such funding, while the U.S. State Department said the agency needed to make unspecified reforms.
Many Western diplomats saw Trump's decision as a reaction to the condemnation across the Middle East of his Dec. 6 decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and before any peace settlement between Israelis and Palestinians. The United Nations also voted to reject that recognition.
Kraehenbuehl said that after donors such as Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates had come forward, he would now seek help from Germany, France, Sweden and Britain, traveling to Berlin later this week. Israel is not a contributor to UNRWA.


Here is a copy of the letter that was emailed last year to all SHS families. So far, we've had a very positive response. Although we are not going to Hawaii this year, we are still encouraging membership in the Oasis Club.
Long road runs through Saratoga neighborhoods on hot dry summer days may seem like punishment to some, but to many it is all part of preparing for another successful Cross Country season at Saratoga High School. Athletes will log as many as 500 miles in order enter the season in tip-top shape. And the intensity of summer conditioning will be even greater this year, as approximately 100 athletes will be competing for 14 spots on a traveling team that will participate in an event in Hawaii this September.
The health and safety of our athletes—your children—is my primary concern. And perhaps the greatest threat to long distance runners is dehydration, which can have very serious consequences. I am asking you to show your support for Falcon runners and to help protect their safety by joining the Cross Country Oasis Club.
By placing a sign in your yard that is visible from the street, you are letting our runners know that they have permission to drink from your garden hose. They will rarely need to take advantage of your kind invitation, but when they do they will be very grateful, and will reward your hospitality by leaving things exactly as they found them. Even if they never drink from your oasis, they will take pride in this visible show of support from our community for their sport.
A donation of $20.00 will cover our cost of producing the signs, and will make you a lifetime member of the Oasis Club. If you would care to donate more, we will gratefully use your donation to help send our team to Hawaii this fall.
I would like to get a general idea of how many of our neighbors would like to participate in this program. Please send me an e-mail if you are interested, and I will have the signs ready before the start of summer.


Flotilla Madness | Yo, Yenta!
Man, not a great week for the Jews, right?
Not only has the Gaza aid ship fiasco generated a whole lot of bad press for Israel, but it's got Jews everywhere openly questioning their loyalty to the Jewish state.
Surely the questioning was already there, but the Tweets and news reports of "an Israeli attack" on "peaceful activists" has opened a flood of commentary from Jewish writers voicing their "ambivalence" about Israel.
The first piece I read was Marjorie Ingalls' parenting column on Tablet.com, which fairly and honestly explores how terrifying it can be to explain the Israeli/Palestinian conflict to our children. She also says that she thinks Israel acts like a "bully," but that "disagreement with Israel doesn't mean not loving Israel, just as being upset with your own children doesn't mean you don't love them." She caught a huge amount of flak from Tablet's readers, elegantly addressed in this follow-up piece. I disagree with her on many points, but I respect her courage in offering up her experience.
Then I clicked on David Luban's "No Direction Home," a long-winded treatise which I think is about the decline of "liberal Zionism" but comes off sounding like an excuse of why he no longer feels compelled to stand with Israel.
Look, I know us liberal American Jews' relationship with Israel is COMPLICATED. I don't begrudge anyone for their informed opinions. I've struggled over the years with my own ability to love Israel and not agree with its government tactics and then have to defend Israel's right to exist in casual conversation. But I have to wonder if all this hand-wringing is provoked by the habit of us self-proclaimed liberal Jews to believe and react to propaganda masquerading as fact.
Israel, for all its technological advancement, has a kind of Asperger's-esque inability to sense how it's perceived in the world. Or maybe it doesn't care. But it needs to, because it's losing support fast among its own people, or at least the American liberal-flavored ones. Hopefully, when the next flotilla arrives from Ireland tomorrow, someone in the PR department will do their job to show the world that of course aid is allowed into Gaza — after it's been checked for weapons and materials that could be used to harm the citizens of Israel.
As for me, after reading about and clicking through and thinking and discussing this incident all week, my views on Israel are the same: I still stand by her. I'm a loud, proud liberal, make no mistake, but I've never felt comfortable with the knee-jerk apologies for Israel I heard living in Northern California (boy, I'm glad that I'm not there right now). I've encountered too much frightening anti-Israel vehemence that has obvious roots in anti-Semitism to think it's possible, as a Jew, to disassociate oneself from Israel in the eyes of the rest of the world. And you know what? That's not a problem for me, because unlike Marjorie Ingalls, I do stand with Abe Foxman's eagle-eyed quest to hold haters accountable, and I happen to adore our local Yom Ha'atzmaut festivals.
Vid via my friend in the Jew Crew T-shirt.
I wasn't as surprised by Huff Po's bias as I was Salon's. I go there at least once a day because i like the unique views of whatever's new. But it felt like an assault every time I went to their main page – just screaming anti-Israel propaganda with absolutely NO fact-checking, attempt to get comments from anyone on the other side, etc. I'm still shocked, and trying to decide if I'll ever go back there.
I loved your thoughtful commentary in the Flotilla incident. Why would any country allow a foreign ship, train, car, etc. into their country w/o exercising the right to inspect it should they so choose? Simple international law, right?
I want to thank you for your insight on this event. As a liberal Jew myself, I have had a hard time stomaching a lot of this recent news. Especially as a recent college graduate and representative for Hillel on my campus I was constantly bombarded with people seeking answers to the question "how do we remain young, jewish americans, who love Israel but dislike government policy?" Jewish identity in a largely assimilated jewish world is a topic of conversation that I believe needs to be more widely discussed within out communities (mine happens to be Savannah, by the way)ESPECIALLY amongst young jews.
Thank YOU, Jenna – have we met?? I have to say the South seems a lot less bombastic towards Israel than other places, either from apathy or Apocalyptic tendencies. Where did you go to school?


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Select a town from the list below and we will show you the Traditional Music courses listed on Nightcourses.com for Ireland.
2008 All Ireland Bodhrn Champion Robbie Walsh gives instructions on the Bodhrn and passes on his techniques that gave him the title.
Learn to play and read some basic music in an easy and fun way. This course is designed for beginners and for persons with some knowledge of music.