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Death and Humour (with Susan Messing)
Posted by Kate Murray on November 4, 2021 November 22, 2021 Uncategorized
Home Uncategorized Death and Humour (with Susan Messing)
Statistics (with Dr. Nicole Beisiegel and Prof. Shane Jensen)
Mathematics Is A Joke
People in this episode:
Dr Jessamyn Fairfield (host)
Susan Messing (guest)
Jessamyn 0:11
My grief counselor passed away last week. Fortunately, she did such a good job that I don't even care.
Do a quick search for jokes about death, and you'll find a lot, like a lot a lot, some of which are surprising and say something about this traumatic universal experience, and some of which are… less tasteful. But death challenges all the societal norms and mores we have. While it isn't true that we all experience death and dying in the same way, for the same reasons, what is true is that we will all lose someone, and we will, each of us die. We know that. And we either find a way to face our own mortality, or we spend a lot of mental energy not thinking about it. Humor in the face of death is sometimes described as a coping mechanism.
But actually, you can think of a lot of the things people do – having children, writing epic tomes, building fantastic monuments – as coping mechanisms for death. So-called 'immortality projects' that distract and soothe us from the inevitability of our own death. This is the argument made by anthropologist Ernest Becker in his book, The Denial of Death, that basically all of human civilization is a coping mechanism. This includes both our brilliant inventions and our most terrible wars, motivated by fear that our own immortality projects will fail. Becker wrote this book a year after he was diagnosed with colon cancer, a year before his own death. And later, psychologist incorporated Becker's ideas into 'terror management theory', which posits that our own terror at mortality spawns both escapism and cultural beliefs that counter this terror, so that we can, you know, function. So you might try to just not think about it. Or you might have religious beliefs that include reincarnation or immortality of the soul. Or you might seek symbolic immortality through some of the immortality projects that Becker described. Death is inevitable and absurd, and outside our control, like a lot of life, actually. So how do we find meaning in it together?
I'm Jessamyn Fairfield and I'm a physicist, comedian, and survivor of life. So far, in this season of You're Up Next, we've been exploring some important topics through the lenses of science and humor. So now we're going to talk about death. And I'll be speaking with Susan Messing, an amazing improviser and teacher, who, like me, has lost someone important in the last few years.
Susan 3:11
My name is Susan Messing, and I'm a comedian, and I'm also an improviser. That is my I would say, my stronger skill set. I like to make it up and leave. But today we are, I guess, speaking about the role of satire and the ability to impact change in the world. Certainly comedy has made receiving unpleasant information easier, because a laugh is a plosive release of tension. And that has certainly saved me personally. It certainly made some professional disappointments and accolades even better, and has opened us up to the possibility of evolving more as human beings, because laughter and tears are about a few inches apart. Certainly, social satire and political satire have given us opportunities to learn almost as if you've put a pill into a piece of cheese. So that's where I am in the ride. I'm not done by a longshot, and I have a lot to learn. But I've certainly already learned a lot. So I'm grateful to be here today and to hear what you have to say and what you might want to know.
Yeah, well, thank you so much for that, because I totally agree, like laughter and tears are very close together and very related. I know too, I have met you because you're an incredible teacher of improv. Can you talk a little bit about like, how to teach people to to find the comedy in those more difficult moments, like if there's any approaches that you have or things that you've learned over the years?
You know, I think what is interesting is that comedy-, you know, when you're working with science, you're really working with a prescribed set of rules that gets you somewhere. The longer I have been in comedy, the less I have been interested in the rules that are ascribed to it, including the rules of improvisation. You might have heard some basic ones that we agree with what is said, and we add to it, we don't ask questions, we don't do this… What happened with the don'ts is that people started worrying about improvising correctly, instead of having joy. And that's why they might be suggestions that gets you off faster, but there's not a tried and true way to get there. For me, my job is to access people's imaginations, so they remembered why they are an integral part of a whole, and that their opinions are valued and will be used in the creation of this – of this art.
And so in my world, it's exciting to collaborate. When I go off on my own, I actually feel sad, and I miss my friends, because that is where I get my inspiration. So if you're somebody who likes to sit in a room by yourself and just create stuff, that's great. But you might be amazed at how much fodder there is to your joy, when you bounce your ideas off of another human being and build off of them, you might end up somewhere even better than you started with. So for me, I'm not as much interested in rules, as simple table manners as human beings that we can bring to the table, which is so exciting to me. Because I'm a 'no, but' first person. If somebody says, "I have a great idea", believe me, there's a part of me that's like, "no, you don't, and mine is better". I'm just a snottiest little person inside me that every day I fight, because when that voice is lost, then incredible things happen. I'm so inspired by the people around me, I don't want to do things on my own anymore. You know, even this conversation is a conversation. It's not what I think and 'done'. This is going to inspire you to respond to that moment. And I think if this world, were built a little more on that… And again, funny does not come from, in my world of comedy, it doesn't come from standing around and saying funny things – it's commitment and recommitment to our choices, that starts pulling out comedy. So I'm excited about reminding people that they have a great choice, and not to dump it for something better, that where you are is perfect. And you simply don't know why yet. And that's what freaks people out, because people who like the thesis and then they want to prove it, that's one thing. But sometimes you just go on a journey, and that's where the really exciting stuff starts. That's- I have full faith in my friends and partial faith in myself. But I turn down the dial that says "I hate myself and I wish I were never born, and did I leave the stove on last night?", and then I recommit to what's right in front of me. I don't know if you're the kind of person who likes to fulfill, you know, you have to prove what you said is correct. I am always discovering what works for me right now, which might not work later on. And so for people with empirical data, and they're like, "but this is what it is", science keeps changing and shifting. There's a reason that they brought improvisers to work with the guys at CERN. You know what I mean? CERN. That's Super Collider shit, that's like, real shit. But they brought people in to support them in how to work together. Because that's not a natural instinct, especially for people who like to take credit. So in my world, specificity is what pulls out the funny for us. So people can, you know, we either- I will either sympathize with you, empathize with you, or you will educate me. No matter what, I'm interested. So when I force myself to stay in to the moment, instead of move on to that next better moment, there is nothing better than where I am. That's what improv forces you to do – stay exactly where you are and eat that.
It's almost like if you've ever built a house, and then you go "ugh, I don't want to build a house, I want a koi pond", and then you start building your koi pond, and you're like, "oh, this is so stupid, I'm going to build a retaining wall", and you're like, "great". So you start building a retaining wall, and you look around and you have half a completed basement, two dead fish, and a rock. You know, and I'm like, "go back and finish that house, and if you want to build a koi pond, great, let's add the koi pond and the retaining wall – but you have to keep building those things, you have no time for the judgment, you have time to recommit to it". So as a teacher that is my job, is to force people to stay where they are and realize why those are such brilliant, brilliant choices simply by adding specificity to it. It's almost like that book you love so much that you reread it every year. You know what you're thinking about, your thinking about that book you love. You know you're not thinking about, Susan Messing is a shitty improviser. So even bringing something into it spurs your imagination, and forces you to go with it. And I understand again, as scientists, you're working with a formula. There are formulaic schools of improvisation, which simply do not interest me. People who are super left brain love to play improv like chess. And I come in, and I'm like, "I can play with you as a chess player, but I also might bring in magic". And so if you have problem with magic, this might not make the best stew, but I just stuck paprika in it, and good luck for sifting it out because it's not gonna happen. It's in there now. We're not going to ignore it. Well, that was a diatribe.
Jessamyn 10:34
I loved it, though. I'm like, I also- I love what you said about like, just commitment and recommitment. So I think even before this chat, I was like, looking through the notes I have from the workshop that you did in Dublin, like five years ago. And there was a thing about like, committing to your ideas – "don't fart and run" – and I was like, oh, that's classic.
Susan 10:52
Fart and you say "yes, I farted – two bean burritos, no cheese, extra fire sauce, Taco Bell on Clybourn". I'm staying there. And here's the other thing too. Sometimes we say stupid stuff, and we know it's stupid, and we want to hide. And I say what connects us as human beings are what makes us human. So if I acknowledge my stupidity right the hell away, we all get a good laugh. I don't care that- what, I don't have my status? Who cares? We've all had a good laugh, and now we can move on. Because I'm not going to ignore what exists right in front of me. That's exciting to me. That's the stuff I eat. My accidents in improv – sometimes I'll screw up a word – has become my greatest comedy gift. You know, my friends don't think it's stupid, because I don't indicate it's stupid. So if I don't say this is stupid, it's not. I said, Starbücks. Once, believe me. I meant to say Starbucks, and a friend said "ah Starbücks! Almost as good as Starbucks.! And then my friend Rachel said, "yes, yes, it's in the umlaut". And by the end of the scene, you absolutely believed that Starbucks had a bastard cousin coffee shop, named Starbücks. It was like an outlet mall of Starbucks, where the super roasted beans were even worse. And the sippy cups were drippy cups, you know, but they were like the Avis of coffee shops – they just tried a little harder. So by the end, we had created this entire real thing based on, I mean, what would be perceived as a mistake that came out of my mouth that nobody said, "you're stupid". They said, "I'll eat it".
You know, how many mistakes have you made with food? Even then I- you know, I'm not a good cook. I don't think I am. And if I said to my daughter, "I don't think this food tastes good". She would say, "well, I don't know if I'd like to eat it". If I say "food, bitch eats", right? So it's a part of us that needs to silence our inner critic, or to even say, I'm not sure where this will go. But I'm just putting this out there. Or if somebody comes up with an idea, instead of us saying, "that's a stupid idea", we could simply say, "how would you like that to be achieved", and then all of a sudden, this person can start, and maybe other people will fill in the blanks for you. We seem to think that we need to have all the information right in front of us, and I disagree. I disagree highly, because that's how some of our greatest inventions came about. And that's how some of our greatest art came about. Or that people write five pages of pure drivel, someone reads your drivel and says, "see this one line, that line was perfection". And then they might say, "but I have four and a half pages that were so awesome". And they go "no, no, this line is perfect". And so now you have something, but you wouldn't have had it if you didn't write those four and a half pages of shit. I'm sorry, am I allowed to say "shit"?
You definitely are. Well, and how do you- so how do you feel that that kind of philosophy of improv and everything feeds into what you mentioned earlier about, like humor as a way to cope with things? Right, like a way to cope with shitty news, a way to process things. And especially, you know, a way to make meaning out of loss because it can feel like it's wrong to laugh at bad stuff that's happening or about bad stuff that's happening, but at the same time, you know, it's part of this sort of process of connecting and everything like you were saying,
Well, there are simple things like for example, racism, homophobia, and sexism has never been funny and never will be. So we don't punch down at people who are marginalized, or I mean, that's just not only- it's wrong as a human being, and if we're looking for evolution, we'll punch up. I appreciate that. Because what it does is it takes imbalance and it balances the scales so that we as human beings, maybe can evolve a little more together. I'm not saying that I am more evolved than anybody else. As a matter of fact, I'm probably a very young soul that has so much to learn that comedy has been pushed in my face. But if you've ever been, you know, when I went to my Grandma Jean's funeral, the rabbi didn't know my mom, my grandmother at all. He was sort of a mercenary, and he started spelling out her name and letters and he said "J is for joyous, Jean was joyous. E is for effervescent, Jean was-" and I turned to my mom and I said, "Jesus Christ, you know, thank God her name wasn't Jennifer", you know, because it's just like ugh. So, you realize in those moments of pain, that this gives you just enough time to catch your breath, just enough time for you to remember that there is a balance between pain and joy, and that they are extremely close.
I have laughed and cried within seconds, and I don't think it's because I'm bipolar, because I'm not. But you know what I'm saying, like, like, it's just, it can vacillate so, so quickly, and that bringing humor to a situation just gives us a moment of, of joy, even in hell because there is such a balance. Isn't that part of Buddhism or something, that there that there is so much of a balance in nature, and that you really don't know the joy unless you have received the nadir? And I think COVID has been really difficult for people who are in mourning because people are – even if you look at Facebook, or any social media, you'll see "oh, sorry about your mom, sorry about your dad". And I'm going, "my goodness, there were systems in place to support the severity of this loss". And I remember when my sister Bonnie died in the end of 2017, just piles and piles of people sending their regards, especially because Bonnie was such an exceptional human. But – and I don't say that as your sister, she was an exceptional human – but I was like, what do they know that I don't know? Even though I had suffered that kind of loss with my dad, it was, then all of a sudden, when it hits you, you go "oh", and so to share pain, and to share memory, and to share this experience, and to not negate it; but to kind of wade through it gets you to the other side. This last year has been very difficult for me. My husband died right at the beginning of the pandemic. And again, it's been a very complicated grief for me. So my grief is different than my daughter's. And sometimes when I see her weeping, just weeping, and I look and I think oh, I wish I were there. Until I realized that if I were consoling someone, I would say "your grief path is your grief path". And I am so- I welcome everything from the distraction of you know, getting our noses pierced together, my daughter and I, or any other event that doesn't stop the process, but makes it just slightly more palatable to get through the minute and then the hour and then the day. And then time has passed in something that was biting and stabbing. Maybe, I don't care how long it takes, it takes what it takes. You start being a little more patient with yourself, and you live in it. And part of it starts- you start realizing you know your dog is rolling and shit while you are in a shit place and you're laughing as you're trying to clean shit off your dog. You know what I mean? You're going "everything is shitty and horrible", but you're laughing. I invite people to find those people that make you laugh in the middle of hell. Those people are your saviors. They really are. And I live in comedy and even then I was in hell. All my friends are funny. That's like saying "do you breathe?" Do you not I mean? So, you know, and that I will be sitting alone and making myself crack up with something very, very stupid. Which then I discover I am laughing, and I might be crying at the same time. And that it is okay to simultaneously grieve and laugh at the same time. Also, I do believe that our dead relatives and friends and even the job you lost, they would not want you to walk around being sad because that wins. That means sadness or bitterness or anything negative wins, that the way to clock great revenge on that is to pursue joy and happiness. And even for an hour in a room of rabbis who are all suffering from compassion fatigue, that all of us could be sitting there laughing together. Me also laughing at the fact that I have no right to be in a room full of rabbis. Rebbe means wise person and I'm like, "awh Jesus, I'm the line leader holding the Purell right now? This is not okay!" And so I'm laughing at myself, and like who gave me status? This is ridiculous.
I think like you said about like the length of time that grief takes. I feel like that's something, you know, people will have this idea of like, you know, someone is grieving and then you're just like super sad all the time. And then you like you come out of it and you get to be happy fun person again. And even like after I lost my dad a couple years ago, I remember I came back from his funeral, back to Ireland, and I had a show with my improv partner like the following week. And I went and did it. And another improviser that we knew came along. And he was like, "Jessamyn, gosh, I'm surprised to like, see you here. I was sort of worried about you. But like, I guess you're fine if you're doing a show." And I'm like, "this is how I don't think about what's happening", and also, I was like a dad in all of those scenes. Like, it just was how I was like, bringing this energy forward.
One of the nice things about that, though, is because we are the ones who manipulate ourselves through space. When my father died, look, I still miss that, you're still going to miss that he doesn't get to be physically present during your child's birth. You still- my father didn't walk me down the aisle, but he is very much who I am. He very much propels my shit.
And I think we are arrogant about the people that we love, that we assume that because we have our memories of them, that they never die. Do you notice that, how arrogant we are about the people that we love? My sister never died, my husband didn't die. Nobody died, nobody died. And I hate those poems that justify it- "they are just in the other room". But you know what I mean? But really, as long as we remember, we are- you're going to see in your child physical manifestations. You know, I look at my daughter, a picture of her when she was three years old, and she looked exactly like my father, which is kind of bizarre because sometimes she looks like my ex husband, sometimes she looks exactly like me. But to see where it comes from, to see the shape of her eyes. To see how smart she is. I do know that my father gave me his humor, gave my sister Robin her litigious nature, because she's a lawyer – and my father was litigious in nature – and gave Bonnie his business acumen. He gave us a legacy means it lives in you, you know. So oftentimes, when I'm sad about that, I have to reframe everything to talk myself in, which is also part of improv, because every fiber of my being wants to say, "everybody go fuck yourselves, and no". And then I say, "you know what, today, I'm going to agree with this". And then all of a sudden magic happens, and I'm like, "man, it was just a simple word, to talk myself in". Do you know what I mean? And if we all talked ourselves in a little more then action wouldn't stop. Forward propulsion, wouldn't stop, because "no" is so important. What it means is "stop and deal with me right now". I cannot go forward, unless you deal with me, which is great in some ways. But if you've got a runaway train, let's see what happens, where it runs to, you know? Why do we have to stop and make sense of all of this right now? Why don't we discover at the end what this was? And then you get to deal with the pride of, "I was able to propel myself through space, even during my worst moments, even during moments where I thought I was paralyzed, I was not". And so maybe we have lost the ability to mourn in a process that we have this three day, you know, viewing or we have a shiva. And then a year later, we put a tombstone on it, and all these systems that were set up in place, traditionally to happen. I think a lot of things are being blown out of the water with COVID. And, and in some ways, it's bad, because I do believe that those structures were put in place for a reason. But it's also maybe a new way to discover what death means or what mourning can be.
I think sometimes people go, "there's right way to do it". And I'm like, "well, who discovered that? People controlling you? I mean, let's talk about religion, right?" Religion is a way to go, "but the fish guys meet on Friday, they need you to eat some more fish" or whatever. You know what I mean? So let's fold that into the religion and say "God won't love you". You know, the only reason I even stayed Jewish is there's a loophole. You can question the existence of God and be Jewish. And I'm like, "okay, that sounds okay, I can deal with that". You know, why the fuck not? But I do understand, like, I cellularly understand that weird loss that you don't understand until you've lost your parent, or until you've lost that great love, or until you've lost anything in your life that's meaningful. I don't like people diminishing people's pain. But I do know that there's an opposite side. That is what begins to heal. And thankfully, through a lot of pain in my life, a lot of it just growing pains, I've had comedy by my side to get me through those moments. And I'm so grateful for it.
To me, this all goes beyond comedy as a coping mechanism. And it's part of the real value of humor. My dad, like Ernest Becker was diagnosed with colon cancer, he was suddenly hospitalized, needed surgery, needed chemo. And none of it seemed funny… at first. But you know, when I was growing up, my dad and I love to tell jokes to each other, over and over – old jokes, new jokes, we would go through all of 'Who's on First?' together, the classic Abbott and Costello routine. Or we'd practice telling jokes with long and elaborate punch lines, and then we'd tell the same jokes, getting every element of the punch line wrong, and presenting the mangled ending of the joke as a triumph. Because failure is funny, right? So humor was consistently something my dad and I used to deal with his cancer, on top of medicine, that is, I don't want you to think I'm advocating some sort of humoropathy here. At one point, he was going into surgery and had signed over power of attorney to me. And after we talked about how much we loved each other, I told him about all the tattoos I could have done on his belly while he was under. 'Rebel for life' was my favorite. When he was coming up from anesthesia, and someone asked him, "Eric, can you hear me?" My dad shook his head. He had a tube down his throat, and was barely conscious. And still, his first instinct was to make a joke. It was our way of still having control over the narrative of what was happening, making meaning out of the absurd truths that we were living through. Death is scary, but it's really just change. And that's the frightening thing to cope with. This thing we're all doing, of living in this world, is inherently absurd, and beautiful, and funny, and tragic. And it can't be encapsulated, unless you allow for contradictions, the way that comedy does. This openness to contradiction, to change, to surprise, is at the core of both good comedy and good science. It requires a willingness to listen, to connect to others, to ignore things like status and hierarchy, and rather to honor our shared humanity and knowledge. I've said over and over again, that I think the silos, the categories that we placed knowledge into, are artificial. It's all connected, and so are we, even as we search for the same things in 10,000 different ways. There are many paths up the mountain, but it takes a certain lightness of heart to find them.
This episode was made possible by support from the Community Knowledge Initiative, the CÚRAM Medical Device Research Centre, the research office at NUI Galway, and Science Foundation Ireland. We're grateful to our guests, our host, which is me Jessamyn Fairfield, our producers, Maurice and Shaun, and to you our listeners and our Bright Club Ireland community. A transcript of this episode is available at brightclub.ie where you can also find more information about what we do at Bright Club Ireland.


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Technology Nuclear fusion is 'a question of when, not if'
An artist's impression of how a fusion reactor might look
The prospects for developing nuclear fusion as a feasible source of energy have significantly improved, say experts.
The UK government has recently announced an investment of £200m to deliver electricity from a fusion reactor by 2040.
Private companies and governments have told the BBC they aim to have demonstration models working within five years.
But huge hurdles remain, say critics.
With the price of wind and solar continuing to drop, experts say these existing renewables might offer a more economical and timely method of tackling climate change and generating energy than an unproven technology like fusion.
Nuclear fusion is an attempt to replicate the processes of the Sun on Earth. It differs significantly from nuclear fission, which has been our only way of getting electricity from atoms since the 1950s.
Fission has proven to be hugely expensive. It generates large amounts of radioactive waste and raises serious concerns about safety and the proliferation of weapons.
Technology So what exactly is fusion?
Fusion is the process that drives our Sun.
Every single second, millions of tonnes of hydrogen atoms crash together in the tremendous temperatures and pressures of our parent star. This forces them to break their atomic bonds and fuse to make the heavier element, helium.
The giant Iter site in southern France aims to have its first plasma generated in 2025
Natural, solar fusion generates enormous quantities of heat and light.
For decades, researchers have been trying to replicate this process on Earth, or "build the Sun in a box" as one physicist dubbed it. The basic idea is to take a type of hydrogen gas, heat it to more than 100 million degrees until it forms a thin, fragile cloud called a plasma, and then control it with powerful magnets until the atoms fuse and release energy.
Potentially, it can generate power that is low carbon, with much smaller amounts of waste. It also comes without the danger of explosions.
To deliver the fusion concept, countries have focused their energies on a major international co-operative effort called Iter.
Technology Giant step forward or a white elephant?
The Iter project involves 35 countries and, right now, it is constructing a huge test reactor in southern France.
The plan is to have the first plasma generated in 2025. However, getting from this step to producing energy is extremely difficult.
Iter has also been beset by long delays and budget overspend which means it is unlikely to have a demonstration fusion power plant working even by 2050.
"One of the reasons that Iter is late is that it is really, really hard," said Prof Ian Chapman, chief executive of the UK Atomic Energy Authority.
"What we are doing is fundamentally pushing the barriers of what's known in the technology world. And of course you reach hurdles and you have to overcome them, which we do all the time and Iter will happen, I am completely convinced of it."
General Fusion
General Fusion believe their approach to fusion will work within five years
Until Iter is up and running in 2025, the UK based Joint European Torus (Jet) remains the world's largest fusion experiment.
It has secured EU funding until the end of 2020, but what happens after that, and the participation of the UK in Iter after Brexit remain unclear.
To give some sense of certainty, the UK government recently announced £220m for the conceptual design of a fusion power station by 2040.
Over the next four years, researchers based at Culham in Oxfordshire will develop designs for a fusion power plant called Step or Spherical Tokomak for Energy Production.
Technology How will the UK make fusion work?
The most widely known approach to making fusion happen involves a doughnut shaped vacuum chamber called a Tokomak. Hydrogen gas is heated to 100 million degrees C at which point it become a plasma. Powerful magnets are used to confine and steer the plasma until fusion occurs.
In the UK, researchers have developed a different form of Tokamak, that more resembles an apple core than a doughnut. Called a Spherical Tokamak, it has the advantage of being more compact, potentially allowing future power plants to be located in towns and cities.
"If you look at some of the very big units, the big machines that we are looking at, just finding geographically somewhere to put them is difficult," said Nanna Heiberg from the UK Atomic Energy Authority.
"What you really want to do is put them close to where the energy is required. And so if you can do them in a much smaller footprint, you can put them closer to the users and you can put more of them around the country for example."
Technology So where is the excitement about fusion coming from?
While governments are wrestling with Iter, many are also driving ahead with their own national plans. China, India, Russia and the US among others are working on developing commercial reactors.
Building the "sun in a box" has remained outside the grip of scientists for decades
As well as the UK government putting cash in, the European Investment Bank is pumping hundreds of millions of euros into an Italian programme to produce fusion energy by 2050.
But perhaps the major excitement comes from private companies. They are usually smaller, nimbler, and they develop by making mistakes and learning from them quickly.
There are now dozens of them around the world, raising funds and pushing forward often with different approaches to fusion than that seen in Iter and in the UK.
Here's a brief sample of some different approaches to fusion.
First Light: This company originated in the University of Oxford and was founded specifically to address the urgent need to decarbonise the global energy system. Their idea involves firing a projectile at a target that contains hydrogen atoms. The shockwave from the impact of the projectile creates a shockwave that crushes the fuel and briefly this reaction will produce plasma that is hotter than the sun and denser than lead.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems: A private company created by former Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) staff, CFS has raised significant funding of over $100m. It is focusing on developing a Tokamak system but its key innovation is in superconducting magnets. They hope to build powerful enough magnets so they can build smaller and cheaper Tokomaks to contain the plasmas required to generate fusion.
TAE Technologies: With backing from Google and other high tech investors, this California-based company is using a different mix of fuel to develop smaller, cheaper reactors. They want to use hydrogen and boron as both elements are readily available and non-radioactive. Their prototype is a cylindrical colliding beam fusion reactor (CBFR) that heats hydrogen gas to form two rings of plasma. These are merged and held together with beams of neutral particles to make it hotter and last longer.
US Navy: Worried about how to power their ships in the future, the US Navy has filed a patent for a "plasma compression fusion device". The patent says that it would use magnetic fields to create "accelerated vibration and/or accelerated spin". The idea would be to make fusion power reactors small enough to be portable. There's a lot of scepticism that this approach will work.
Technology 'A ball of liquid metal…'
One of the main challengers with ambitions to make fusion work is a company based in British Columbia, Canada called General Fusion. Their approach, which has gathered a lot of attention and backing from the likes of Amazon's Jeff Bezos, combines cutting edge physics with off the shelf technology.
They call their system "magnetised target fusion".
This approach sees a hot gas plasma injected into a ball of liquid metal inside a steel sphere. It is then compressed by pistons, much like in a diesel engine.
"The pistons all fire simultaneously and collapse the cavity with the fuel inside," said Michael Delage, the company's chief technology officer.
"So at the peak of that compression when the fuel bursts into fusion reaction, it is surrounded on all sides by liquid metal so the energy goes into the metal and you take this hot liquid metal and boil water, make steam and make electricity."
General Fusion say they hope to have a working model within five years.
Technology Why hasn't fusion worked so far?
Despite the hopes, no one to date has managed to get more energy out of a fusion experiment than they have put in.
Most experts are confident the idea will work, but many believe that it is a matter of scale. To make it work, you have to go large.
"I think fusion needs resources to really make it work," said Prof Ian Chapman from UKAEA. "You could do that within a company or a country but you really need to have the requisite scale and resources."
The compression system for the General Fusion reactor featuring large scale pistons
"When ITER works, and I say when, not if, it will be a step change for fusion and you will see massive investment come into the field."
Technology Will renewable energy make fusion redundant?
In 2018, the IPCC reported that emissions of carbon dioxide need to be reduced by 45% by 2030 to keep the rise in global temperatures under 1.5C.
Getting to that point requires a rapid decarbonisation of the energy sector. The UK has committed to Net Zero emissions by 2050 which will require the deployment of wind and solar on a massive scale. Some argue this is should be a greater priority for Britain, rather than spending large sums on experimental fusion reactors.
"The cost of renewables has shot down while the cost of the world fusion project, Iter has gone up and it now looks very unlikely they will be able to compete without new ideas," said Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith, a one time chair of the ITER council and a respected British physicist.
"I don't think this means we should give up on fusion, there are ways it could become cheaper but it is not going to be there immediately when we need in the UK at least."
Others involved in the fusion industry take a different view.
"If you're a country like Malaysia, that has a high carbon intensity of its energy system, and you're trying to move away from coal, there's not a lot of options today," said Chris Mowry, General Fusion's chief executive.
"This is the type of application we're focused on. And even in countries like Canada, which have a fair amount of renewables, it can never be 100% renewables."
"And so we need a carbon free source of energy that can complement renewables in the future."
Follow Matt on Twitter.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Konstantin Malofeev
Think Progress note that "Malofeev, 42, made his fortune in private equity and now runs Russia's largest charity —the St. Basil the Great Foundation. He's also president of Katehon, a right-wing think tank, and started his own television station, Tsargrad TV, a platform for figures like American conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin — a man known as "Putin's Rasputin," as well as a member of Katehon's supervisory board. Malofeev is a traditionalist, much like Dugin, and a devout practitioner of the Orthodox faith." [1]
Resources and articles
Related Sourcewatch
Alex Jones (Info Wars)
World Congress of Families
Retrieved from "https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Konstantin_Malofeev&oldid=715144"


Born in february 1976. That makes me part old, part young.
Picked up Basketball when I was about 10 years old, and fell in love with the game.
Michael Jordan sucked me into the world of sneakers.
Have picked up a few sneakers a long the way: sizeeleven.com.
Started Sneakersnstuff 1999. Well, actually we started in 1998, but opened in 1999.
Spend most of my days around the office, having fun with the crew.
Lots of ideas, and not that much time.
Yes, I have Google+ as well, but who cares right?


Send flowers to San Miguel Almoloyan.
LolaFlora will cheer your days and the days of your loved ones, delivering flowers on time to every corner of San Miguel Almoloyan. Delivering the arrangement that you choose in the interval of time of your preference, with an atacched card with the message you compose, at the address you provide us.
If you want to send flowers to San Miguel Almoloyan, you are in the right place!


You're stuffed like a sardine on a subway car schvitzing your brains out on what could be quite possibly the hottest day of the year. And for some reason you've crammed your already overheated body into the same wool suit you wore in January. Sure, you took the jacket off to try and keep cool, but it's no match for the almost coma-inducing humidity. Several smaller sweat spots you thought you could discreetly conceal have now merged into a single soaking wet mess on the back of your dress shirt. And did draping that jacket make your forearm leak too? Damn it.
There has to be a better way to dress for success when temperatures are on the rise. And, indeed, there is. With season-specific fabrics, colors and costs (markdowns began in late June), meet six men's suits that are bound to become your newest go-to suits this summer.
Turns out some of the finest linen in the world doesn't come from Italy. Hundreds of miles away from Milan's fashion houses on the rural northern coast of Ireland is Ballymena — home to the fabric mills of Baird McNutt. The designers at J.Crew have teamed up with this nearly century-old operation to offer its incredibly affordable (and breathable) linen in a suit with all the modern trimmings: slimmer cut, narrow lapels, shorter jacket length, and flat-front trousers. Sold as separates with a matching vest thrown into the mix, the options are as endless as the days of summer.
The simplicity of a bright white suit proves that less is definitely more. And the same applies for how you should wear it. Anything black, too saturated, or worse, a Don Johnson-esque T-shirt cheapens the look. Even the leaner cut of this suit may not be enough to avoid a mid-'80s flashback, so stick with safer solid shirts in muted tones of blue and purple. Prints and solids in richer colors can also be an option, but only if you're sartorially inclined toward tastes north of South Beach.
Seersucker has always been somewhat of a joke among people from north of the Mason-Dixon. It's worn in a trouser here or a jacket there, but never the complete candy-striped suit. Among Southerners the story is completely different. For them, seersucker is a way of life. It's a sign of sophistication and the mark of a gentleman — not to mention totally practical in 90 degree heat. This version from conservative clothier Brooks Brothers has a surprisingly trimmer fit. The suit reads as a neutral, so almost any of your usual shirt-tie combos will work. And while you're appropriately attired sipping on sweet tea, everyone else can sweat it out in their unconscionable wool wardrobe.


text:
Raiden Gains Momentum, Signs Major Partnerships
Guest December 29, 2017 Press Releases
After launching the first "off-chain" transaction solution for blockchain, Raiden Network (RDN) has significantly ramped up its business with a string of major partnerships.
"The pace of adoption of Raiden's technology has exceeded expectations," says Yubo Ruan, Co-Founder of Off-Chain Technology Group, an organization that develops blockchain transaction solutions. "We knew uRaiden made history by enabling blockchain to scale beyond 'several transactions per second' to millions per second. And by reducing the time a blockchain transaction takes from a few minutes to under a second. But we didn't expect some of the largest and most promising crypto projects to embrace uRaiden so rapidly after launch."
Raiden's payment channel framework, uRaiden, launched on November 30, 2017. In addition to scaling transactions on Ethereum, uRaiden makes possible "instant" transactions and cost-efficient micropayments. It also significantly drives down machine-to-machine transaction costs.
Key Partnerships in the Energy Sector and Computer Gaming
Grid+ (symbol: GRID), which raised over $40 million to enhance its always-on appliance that processes payments for electricity in real-time, will be using Raiden's technology to accelerate use of blockchain in the energy industry. "Electricity sales to consumers will be settled instantaneously every 15 minutes which makes Grid+ a perfect use case for uRaiden," says Alex Miller, Grid's Chief Technical Officer. Rather than having to register a transaction on Ethereum every few seconds, Grid+ will batch transactions for electricity usage and submit them just once every 15 minutes, substantially reducing expenses for Grid when it comes to Ethereum transaction gas costs.
Grid+ believes Raiden will give them the upper-hand on other energy marketplaces by cutting costs for its users. With uRaiden, Grid+ expects that its costs will be 30 times less than they would be for a Visa transaction and 20 times less than the cost of an Ethereum transaction.
Raiden has signed additional partners in the energy industry including Energy Network Foundation, whose blockchain solution features nodes operated by energy giants such as Royal Dutch Shell, the sixth-largest company in the world, measured by revenue.
In the computer gaming industry, Enjin (symbol: ENJ) will incorporate uRaiden into their smart contract platform that enables management of virtual goods for computer games. With 18 million users, Enjin is the largest gaming community creation platform in the world. It hosts over 250,000 gaming communities and sees 60 million views each month. Enjin recognized early on the challenge of accepting in-game crypto transactions and processing them fast enough to make the digital good available to the player in real-time. According to the company, "Enjin will be testing the Raiden Network for lightning-fast asset confirmation speeds." Enjin's Chief Technical Officer, Witek Radomski, confirmed Enjin will begin implementation of uRaiden in Q1 2018.
Signs China Partnership & Important Partners in the Finance Sector
Raiden has also signed partners in Asia. China-based SmartMesh will make off-Internet instant transactions possible by utilizing both Raiden technology and their own mesh network. As for the advantages of partnering with Raiden, SmartMesh points to its "scalability, fast transaction, confidentiality, interoperability, and low cost". SmartMesh has begun implementation using uRaiden and, separately, plans to roll out a SmartMesh Raiden Light Node for Raiden Network in Q2 2018.
In the finance sector, Raiden has signed on board Trade.IO, which facilitates asset trading and investment banking on the blockchain. Raiden enables Trade.IO customers to trade tokenized assets peer-to-peer in a low-latency manner. Raiden reduces Trade.IO's cost structure by batching multiple transactions before sending them as "one bill" for settlement on Ethereum, as opposed to paying an Ethereum gas fee for each individual transaction. Also in the finance industry, Raiden has signed on board MoxyOne, which will incorporate Raiden into its white-label financial infrastructure.
The Path Forward for Raiden
Called a "billion dollar coin" by Hacked.com, Raiden has delivered on the ambitious expectations set by crypto analysts during its ICO by shipping blockchain's first "second layer" transaction network, uRaiden, on schedule. Now with partnerships across key industries within weeks of launching, it shows why media outlets such as Crush Crypto described Raiden as likely being a "top-10 most valuable token because of the expected heavy usage".
"The quality of partnerships Raiden has secured right out of the gate shows its explosive market potential. It also suggests that a critical mass of companies have been waiting for a solution like Raiden to scale on Ethereum cost-effectively," says Jorge Sanchez, Co-Founder of Off-Chain Technology Group. "We expect additional announcements with major companies in the weeks ahead."


text:
Meanwhile, Back in Minnesota…
• June 30, 2009 • Comments Off on Meanwhile, Back in Minnesota…
Posted in American Politics, Celebrities/Royals, Class, Democrats, History
Tags: "Saturday Nigh Live", 2010, Air America, Al Franken, Bill O'Reilly, Democrat, Ed Schultz, Governor Tim Pawlenty, Junior Senator, Minnesota, Minnesota Supreme Court, Norm Coleman, Obama, Randi Rhodes, Republican, Senator-elect Al Franken, Sixty Votes, St. Paul MN, The Senate
Aprina Paul Memorial Held Last Night at Death Site in Evansville, WI
Brian Deese, Top Economic Aide to Biden, Will Step Down February 2, 2023
Brian Deese, the director of the National Economic Council, played a pivotal role in negotiating economic legislation the president signed in his first two years in office.
New Jersey Councilwoman Is Fatally Shot, Officials Say February 2, 2023
Eunice K. Dwumfour, 30, was found dead in her car with multiple gunshot wounds on Wednesday night. She was serving her first term on the Sayreville Borough Council.
California Will End Its Covid State of Emergency in February February 2, 2023
The orders that give the governor wider powers to fight the virus are set to expire on Feb. 28.
Mikheil Saakashvili: The former Georgian president's condition has sparked concern February 2, 2023
Mikheil Saakashvili appeared in court via video link where world leaders were shocked by his appearance.
Iran blames Israel for Isfahan drone attack, warning of revenge February 2, 2023
Iran warns of a "resolute response" after three drones targeted a site deep inside the country.


text:
Shanghai Sunfun Football Club () is a professional Chinese football club that currently participates in the China League Two. The team is based in Shanghai.

History
The club was originally founded in 2012 as Shanghai Sun & Fun F.C. (). On 30 December 2015, they changed their name to Shanghai Sunfun F.C. ().  They played in the 2016 China Amateur Football League and won the winners of 2016 Shanghai Chen Yi Cup and the first place of southeast region final–group A successively. Shanghai Sunfun finished the 4th place in the national finals and won promotion to 2017 China League Two.

In 2018, the club's chairman and former football commentator, Zhou Liang, was arrested, and the club was dissolved afterwards.

Name history
2012–2015 Shanghai Sun & Fun F.C. 上海森梵
2015–2018 Shanghai Sunfun F.C. 上海申梵

Managerial history
  Cheng Liang (2016–2017)
  Teshima Atsushi (2018)
  Zhang Zhigang (2018)

Results
All-time league rankings

As of the end of 2018 season.

Key
<div>

 Pld = Played
 W = Games won
 D = Games drawn
 L = Games lost
 F = Goals for
 A = Goals against
 Pts = Points
 Pos = Final position

 DNQ = Did Not Qualify
 DNE = Did Not Enter
 NH = Not Held
 – = Does Not Exist
 R1 = Round 1
 R2 = Round 2
 R3 = Round 3
 R4 = Round 4

 F = Final
 SF = Semi-finals
 QF = Quarter-finals
 R16 = Round of 16
 Group = Group stage
 GS2 = Second Group stage
 QR1 = First Qualifying Round
 QR2 = Second Qualifying Round
 QR3 = Third Qualifying Round

References

Defunct football clubs in China
Football clubs in Shanghai
Association football clubs established in 2012
2012 establishments in China
Association football clubs disestablished in 2018
2018 disestablishments in China

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Designer Michael Leckie has taken inspiration from Canadian Cottage Country for his latest collab with The Back Country Hut Company.
Designer Mitchell Freedland brings a contemporary spin to a classic Whistler home.
A home on Bowen Island captures forest and ocean views—and the happiness of its residents within.
A classic Danish concept informs the design of a Kicking Horse ski cabin from McKinley Burkhart.


text:
package state

import (
	"context"
	"fmt"
	"sync"
	"sync/atomic"
	"time"

	"google.golang.org/protobuf/encoding/protojson"
	"google.golang.org/protobuf/types/known/timestamppb"

	"go.chromium.org/luci/common/clock"
	"go.chromium.org/luci/common/errors"
	"go.chromium.org/luci/common/logging"
	"go.chromium.org/luci/common/retry/transient"
	"go.chromium.org/luci/common/runtime/paniccatcher"
	"go.chromium.org/luci/common/sync/parallel"

	"go.chromium.org/luci/cv/internal/common"
	"go.chromium.org/luci/cv/internal/configs/prjcfg"
	"go.chromium.org/luci/cv/internal/prjmanager/itriager"
	"go.chromium.org/luci/cv/internal/prjmanager/prjpb"
	"go.chromium.org/luci/cv/internal/run/runcreator"
)

const concurrentComponentProcessing = 16

var errCaughtPanic = errors.New("caught panic")

// earliestDecisionTime returns the earliest decision time of all components.
//
// Returns the same time as time.Time and as proto, and boolean indicating that
// earliestDecisionTime is as soon as possible.
//
// Re-uses DecisionTime of one of the components, assuming that components are
// modified copy-on-write.
func earliestDecisionTime(cs []*prjpb.Component) (time.Time, *timestamppb.Timestamp, bool) {
	var ret time.Time
	var retPB *timestamppb.Timestamp
	for _, c := range cs {
		if c.GetTriageRequired() {
			return time.Time{}, nil, true
		}
		if dt := c.GetDecisionTime(); dt != nil {
			if t := dt.AsTime(); ret.IsZero() || ret.After(t) {
				ret = t
				retPB = dt
			}
		}
	}
	return ret, retPB, false
}

// cAction is a component action to be taken during current PM mutation.
//
// An action may involve creating one or more new Runs,
// or removing CQ votes from CL(s) which can't form a Run for some reason.
type cAction struct {
	itriager.Result
	componentIndex int

	// runsFailed is modified during actOnComponents.
	runsFailed int32
}

// triageComponents triages components.
//
// Doesn't modify the state itself.
//
// Returns:
//  * an action per each component that needs acting upon;
//  * indication whether the state should be stored for debugging purpose;
//  * error, if any.
func (h *Handler) triageComponents(ctx context.Context, s *State) ([]*cAction, bool, error) {
	var sup itriager.PMState
	sup, err := s.makeTriageSupporter(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, false, err
	}

	poolSize := min(concurrentComponentProcessing, len(s.PB.GetComponents()))
	now := clock.Now(ctx)

	var mutex sync.Mutex
	var actions []*cAction
	poolErr := parallel.WorkPool(poolSize, func(work chan<- func() error) {
		for i, oldC := range s.PB.GetComponents() {
			i, oldC := i, oldC
			if !needsTriage(oldC, now) {
				continue
			}
			work <- func() error {
				switch res, err := h.triageOneComponent(ctx, s, oldC, sup); {
				case itriager.IsErrOutdatedPMState(err):
					return nil
				case err != nil:
					// Log error here since only total errs count will be propagated up
					// the stack.
					level := logging.Error
					if transient.Tag.In(err) {
						level = logging.Warning
					}
					logging.Logf(ctx, level, "%s while processing component: %s", err, protojson.Format(oldC))
					return err
				default:
					mutex.Lock()
					actions = append(actions, &cAction{componentIndex: i, Result: res})
					mutex.Unlock()
					return nil
				}
			}
		}
	})
	switch merrs, ok := poolErr.(errors.MultiError); {
	case poolErr == nil || (ok && len(merrs) == 0):
		return actions, false, nil
	case !ok:
		panic(fmt.Errorf("unexpected return from parallel.WorkPool: %s", poolErr))
	case len(actions) > 0:
		// Components are independent, so proceed despite errors on some components
		// since partial progress is better than none.
		logging.Warningf(ctx, "triageComponents: %d errors, but proceeding to act on %d components", len(merrs), len(actions))
		return actions, errors.Contains(merrs, errCaughtPanic), nil
	default:
		err := common.MostSevereError(merrs)
		return nil, false, errors.Annotate(err, "failed to triage %d components, keeping the most severe error", len(merrs)).Err()
	}
}

func needsTriage(c *prjpb.Component, now time.Time) bool {
	if c.GetTriageRequired() {
		return true // external event arrived
	}
	next := c.GetDecisionTime()
	if next == nil {
		return false // wait for an external event
	}
	if next.AsTime().After(now) {
		return false // too early
	}
	return true
}

func (h *Handler) triageOneComponent(ctx context.Context, s *State, oldC *prjpb.Component, sup itriager.PMState) (res itriager.Result, err error) {
	defer paniccatcher.Catch(func(p *paniccatcher.Panic) {
		logging.Errorf(ctx, "caught panic %s:\n\n%s", p.Reason, p.Stack)
		// Log as a separate message under debug level to avoid sending it to Cloud
		// Error.
		logging.Debugf(ctx, "caught panic current state:\n%s", protojson.Format(s.PB))
		err = errCaughtPanic
	})
	res, err = h.ComponentTriage(ctx, oldC, sup)
	if err != nil {
		return
	}
	if res.NewValue != nil && res.NewValue == oldC {
		panic(fmt.Errorf("new value re-uses prior component object, must use copy-on-write instead"))
	}
	if len(res.CLsToPurge) > 0 {
		s.validatePurgeCLTasks(oldC, res.CLsToPurge)
	}
	return
}

// actOnComponents executes actions on components produced by triageComponents.
//
// Expects the state to already be shallow cloned.
func (h *Handler) actOnComponents(ctx context.Context, s *State, actions []*cAction) (SideEffect, error) {
	// First, create Runs in parallel.
	// As Run creation may take considerable time, use an earlier deadline to have
	// enough time to save state for other components.
	ctxRunCreation, cancel := earlierDeadline(ctx, 5*time.Second)
	defer cancel()
	poolSize := min(concurrentComponentProcessing, len(actions))
	runsErr := parallel.WorkPool(poolSize, func(work chan<- func() error) {
		for _, action := range actions {
			for _, rc := range action.RunsToCreate {
				action, rc := action, rc
				c := s.PB.GetComponents()[action.componentIndex]
				work <- func() error {
					err := h.createOneRun(ctxRunCreation, rc, c)
					if err != nil {
						atomic.AddInt32(&action.runsFailed, 1)
						// Log error here since only total errs count will be propagated up
						// the stack.
						level := logging.Error
						if transient.Tag.In(err) {
							level = logging.Warning
						}
						logging.Logf(ctx, level, "Failed to create a Run in component\n%s\ndue to error: %s", protojson.Format(c), err)
					}
					return err
				}
			}
		}
	})

	// Keep runsErr for now and try to make progress on actions/components
	// without errors.

	// Shallow-copy the components slice, as one or more components are highly
	// likely to be modified in a loop below.
	s.PB.Components = append(([]*prjpb.Component)(nil), s.PB.GetComponents()...)
	runsCreated, componentsUpdated := 0, 0
	var clsToPurge []*prjpb.PurgeCLTask
	for _, action := range actions {
		if action.runsFailed > 0 {
			continue
		}
		runsCreated += len(action.RunsToCreate)
		clsToPurge = append(clsToPurge, action.CLsToPurge...)
		if action.NewValue != nil {
			s.PB.Components[action.componentIndex] = action.NewValue
			componentsUpdated++
		}
	}
	var sideEffect SideEffect
	if len(clsToPurge) > 0 {
		sideEffect = h.addCLsToPurge(ctx, s, clsToPurge)
	}
	proceedMsg := fmt.Sprintf("proceeding to save %d components and purge %d CLs", componentsUpdated, len(clsToPurge))

	// Finally, decide the final result.
	switch merrs, ok := runsErr.(errors.MultiError); {
	case runsErr == nil || (ok && len(merrs) == 0):
		logging.Infof(ctx, "actOnComponents: created %d Runs, %s", runsCreated, proceedMsg)
		return sideEffect, nil
	case !ok:
		panic(fmt.Errorf("unexpected return from parallel.WorkPool"))
	default:
		logging.Warningf(ctx, "actOnComponents: created %d Runs, failed to create %d Runs", runsCreated, len(merrs))
		if componentsUpdated+len(clsToPurge) == 0 {
			err := common.MostSevereError(merrs)
			return nil, errors.Annotate(err, "failed to actOnComponents, most severe error").Err()
		}
		// All actions are independent, so proceed despite the errors since partial
		// progress is better than none.
		logging.Debugf(ctx, "actOnComponents: %s", proceedMsg)
		return sideEffect, nil
	}
}

func (h *Handler) createOneRun(ctx context.Context, rc *runcreator.Creator, c *prjpb.Component) (err error) {
	defer paniccatcher.Catch(func(p *paniccatcher.Panic) {
		logging.Errorf(ctx, "caught panic while creating a Run %s\n\n%s", p.Reason, p.Stack)
		err = errCaughtPanic
	})

	switch _, err = rc.Create(ctx, h.CLMutator, h.PMNotifier, h.RunNotifier); {
	case err == nil:
		return nil
	case runcreator.StateChangedTag.In(err):
		// This is a transient error at component action level: on retry, the Triage()
		// function will re-evaulate the state.
		return transient.Tag.Apply(err)
	default:
		return err
	}
}

// validatePurgeCLTasks verifies correctness of tasks from Triage.
//
// Modifies given tasks in place.
// Panics in case of problems.
func (s *State) validatePurgeCLTasks(c *prjpb.Component, ts []*prjpb.PurgeCLTask) {
	// First, verify individual tasks have expected fields set.
	m := make(common.CLIDsSet, len(ts))
	for _, t := range ts {
		id := t.GetPurgingCl().GetClid()
		switch {
		case id == 0:
			panic(fmt.Errorf("clid must be set"))
		case m.HasI64(id):
			panic(fmt.Errorf("duplicated clid %d", id))
		case len(t.GetPurgeReasons()) == 0:
			panic(fmt.Errorf("at least 1 reason must be given"))
		}
		for i, r := range t.GetPurgeReasons() {
			if r.GetClError().GetKind() == nil {
				panic(fmt.Errorf("PurgeReason #%d is nil", i))
			}
			if r.GetApplyTo() == nil {
				panic(fmt.Errorf("which trigger(s) the PurgeReason applies to must be specified"))
			}
		}

		m.AddI64(id)
	}
	// Verify only CLs not yet purged are being purged.
	// NOTE: This iterates all CLs currently being purged, but there should be
	// very few such CLs compared to the total number of tracked CLs.
	for _, p := range s.PB.GetPurgingCls() {
		if m.HasI64(p.GetClid()) {
			panic(fmt.Errorf("can't purge %d CL which is already being purged", p.GetClid()))
		}
	}
	// Verify only CLs from the component are being purged.
	for _, clid := range c.GetClids() {
		m.DelI64(clid)
	}
	if len(m) > 0 {
		panic(fmt.Errorf("purging %v CLs outside the component", m))
	}
}

// addCLsToPurge changes PB.PurgingCLs and prepares for atomic creation of TQ
// tasks to do actual purge.
//
// Expects given tasks to be correct (see validatePurgeCLTasks).
func (h *Handler) addCLsToPurge(ctx context.Context, s *State, ts []*prjpb.PurgeCLTask) SideEffect {
	if len(ts) == 0 {
		return nil
	}
	s.populatePurgeCLTasks(ctx, ts)
	purgingCLs := make([]*prjpb.PurgingCL, len(ts))
	for i, t := range ts {
		purgingCLs[i] = t.GetPurgingCl()
	}
	s.PB.PurgingCls, _ = s.PB.COWPurgingCLs(nil, purgingCLs)
	return &TriggerPurgeCLTasks{payloads: ts, clPurger: h.CLPurger}
}

// maxPurgingCLDuration limits the time that a TQ task has to execute
// PurgeCLTask.
const maxPurgingCLDuration = 10 * time.Minute

// populatePurgeCLTasks populates all remaining fields in PurgeCLsTasks created
// by Triage.
//
// Modifies given tasks in place.
func (s *State) populatePurgeCLTasks(ctx context.Context, ts []*prjpb.PurgeCLTask) {
	deadline := timestamppb.New(clock.Now(ctx).Add(maxPurgingCLDuration))
	opInt := deadline.AsTime().Unix()
	for _, t := range ts {
		id := t.GetPurgingCl().GetClid()
		pcl := s.PB.GetPcls()[s.pclIndex[common.CLID(id)]]

		t.LuciProject = s.PB.GetLuciProject()
		t.PurgingCl.Deadline = deadline
		t.PurgingCl.OperationId = fmt.Sprintf("%d-%d", opInt, id)
		t.ConfigGroups = make([]string, len(pcl.GetConfigGroupIndexes()))
		for i, idx := range pcl.GetConfigGroupIndexes() {
			id := prjcfg.MakeConfigGroupID(s.PB.GetConfigHash(), s.PB.ConfigGroupNames[idx])
			t.ConfigGroups[i] = string(id)
		}
	}
}

func (s *State) makeTriageSupporter(ctx context.Context) (*triageSupporter, error) {
	if s.configGroups == nil {
		meta, err := prjcfg.GetHashMeta(ctx, s.PB.GetLuciProject(), s.PB.GetConfigHash())
		if err != nil {
			return nil, err
		}
		if s.configGroups, err = meta.GetConfigGroups(ctx); err != nil {
			return nil, err
		}
	}
	s.ensurePCLIndex()
	purging := make(map[int64]*prjpb.PurgingCL, len(s.PB.GetPurgingCls()))
	for _, p := range s.PB.GetPurgingCls() {
		purging[p.GetClid()] = p
	}
	return &triageSupporter{
		pcls:         s.PB.GetPcls(),
		pclIndex:     s.pclIndex,
		purging:      purging,
		configGroups: s.configGroups,
	}, nil
}

// triageSupporter provides limited access to resources of PM state.
//
// Implements itriager.PMState.
type triageSupporter struct {
	pcls         []*prjpb.PCL
	pclIndex     map[common.CLID]int
	purging      map[int64]*prjpb.PurgingCL
	configGroups []*prjcfg.ConfigGroup
}

var _ itriager.PMState = (*triageSupporter)(nil)

func (a *triageSupporter) PCL(clid int64) *prjpb.PCL {
	i, ok := a.pclIndex[common.CLID(clid)]
	if !ok {
		return nil
	}
	return a.pcls[i]
}

func (a *triageSupporter) PurgingCL(clid int64) *prjpb.PurgingCL {
	return a.purging[clid]
}

func (a *triageSupporter) ConfigGroup(index int32) *prjcfg.ConfigGroup {
	return a.configGroups[index]
}

func markForTriage(in []*prjpb.Component) []*prjpb.Component {
	out := make([]*prjpb.Component, len(in))
	for i, c := range in {
		if !c.GetTriageRequired() {
			c = c.CloneShallow()
			c.TriageRequired = true
		}
		out[i] = c
	}
	return out
}

func markForTriageOnChangedPCLs(in []*prjpb.Component, pcls []*prjpb.PCL, changed common.CLIDsSet) []*prjpb.Component {
	// For each changed CL `A`, expand changed set to include all CLs `B` such
	// that B depends on A.
	reverseDeps := make(map[int64][]int64, len(pcls)) // `A` -> all such `B` CLs
	for _, p := range pcls {
		for _, dep := range p.GetDeps() {
			reverseDeps[dep.GetClid()] = append(reverseDeps[dep.GetClid()], p.GetClid())
		}
	}
	expanded := make(common.CLIDsSet, len(changed))
	var expand func(int64)
	expand = func(clid int64) {
		if expanded.HasI64(clid) {
			return
		}
		expanded.AddI64(clid)
		for _, revDep := range reverseDeps[clid] {
			expand(revDep)
		}
	}
	for clid := range changed {
		expand(int64(clid))
	}

	out := make([]*prjpb.Component, len(in))
	for i, c := range in {
		if !c.GetTriageRequired() {
			for _, clid := range c.GetClids() {
				if expanded.HasI64(clid) {
					c = c.CloneShallow()
					c.TriageRequired = true
					break
				}
			}
		}
		out[i] = c
	}
	return out
}

func earlierDeadline(ctx context.Context, reserve time.Duration) (context.Context, context.CancelFunc) {
	deadline, ok := ctx.Deadline()
	if !ok {
		return ctx, func() {} // no deadline
	}
	return clock.WithDeadline(ctx, deadline.Add(-reserve))
}

func min(i, j int) int {
	if i < j {
		return i
	}
	return j
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Material of the month
Material Marvels
IOM3 Home ⁄ Features ⁄ Unweaving a rainbow – Transparent materials and refractive indices
Unweaving a rainbow – Transparent materials and refractive indices
Jack Harris
It is axiomatic that nothing can move faster than light, but it is worth remembering that this is only true for propagations in vacuo. In all natural transparent materials the velocity of light is slower than it is in empty space. In water, light travels at only 75% of its speed in vacuo and, as a consequence, charged particles, such as electrons, can travel faster than light in water. This gives rise to the eerie blue glow in water-immersed nuclear reactors – the Cherenkov Effect (see Material Matters, Materials World, December 2007, p60).
The ratio of the speed of light in vacuo to that in a transparent material is known as the material's refractive index (R). If R>1, this is referred to as a positive refractive index, if R<1 the index is negative. For yellow light, R equals 1.0002 for air, 1.333 for water, 1.5717 for crown glass and 2.147 for diamond. In conformity to Snell's Law, R is also equal to the sine of the angle of incidence divided by the sine of the angle of refraction.
X-rays, like light, are a type of electromagnetic radiation, but they differ in one important aspect – they travel slightly faster in transparent materials than in vacuo, ie R<1. As often happens in the evolution of science and technology, the critical development is within the compass of material science. Some years ago, Professor John Pendry (admittedly a physicist), of Imperial College London, pointed out that if materials that are transparent to light, but with R<1, could be developed, then as the refracted ray would move away from, instead of towards, the normal, this could help create a perfect lens, or more fancifully, be woven into an invisibility cloak.
The possibility of transparent materials
Researchers have studied transparent materials that contain tiny metal precipitates which change the electromagnetic properties of the matrix. Such studies have produced materials with negative refractive indices (ie R<1), albeit for wavelengths of light outside the visible range.
These studies have a long way to go but this has not deterred Tsakmakidis, Boardman and Hess from publishing in Nature (15 November 2007, p397) a theoretical paper entitled ' "Trapped rainbow" storage of light in metamaterials'. They assume that further developments will produce a transparent material which has a negative refractive index for visible light, and have conducted a theoretical analysis of projecting light down a tapering duplex fibre consisting of a core of a material with a negative refractive index inside an outer sheath of a material with a positive refractive index. They imagine a ray of light travelling down the core of the fibre and bouncing back and forth from the boundary between core and cladding.
In such an arrangement an optical effect known as the Goos-Hänchen shift will narrow the width in which the light rays can bounce about. As the complex fibre is tapered, there will come a point beyond which the beam cannot progress – it will become immobilised and trapped. As the critical thickness for trapping is a function of the wavelength of the light, the different colours will not only be trapped, they will also be separated. All this is very speculative but it could become important. If light can be packaged and stored, a computer using photons instead of electrons may not be far behind.
Incidentally, 'Unweaving' in my title relates to Keats' intemporate attack on Newton for destroying with science the magic of a rainbow. What would the poet have thought of scientists not only unweaving a rainbow but then holding its component colours in the palm of their hands?
'Trapped rainbow" storage of light in metamaterials', Nature, 15 November 2007


Homepage Feature HP Category The Greater Bay Area, or "China's Silicon Valley": What is It, How Will It Develop and How Can Businesses Benefit?
The Greater Bay Area, or "China's Silicon Valley": What is It, How Will It Develop and How Can Businesses Benefit?
The Greater Bay Area could be China's answer to Silicon Valley. On February 18, 2019, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council of the People's Republic of China released a development plan for the Greater Bay Area: Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou and the surrounding area (commonly referred to the Pearl River Delta). Beijing has set ambitions of developing the region into a global innovation and finance hub and improving infrastructure connectivity between the cities.
The Greater Bay Area (GBA) includes nine Pearl River Delta cities and two special administrative regions, namely Hong Kong and Macau.
The government hopes the GBA plan will fuel innovation in technology, to build a smart city cluster and support transport development to encourage trade.
The GBA plan provides opportunities for various businesses across different sections to grow and flourish. Especially, we see opportunity for retailers in GBA cities.
Drawing upon the success in other bay areas, such as Tokyo Bay Area and San Francisco Bay Area, the GBA shall see human capital and venture capital as important factors to nurture innovation and development.


(Nanowerk News) Chemical innovation plays a key role in developing cutting-edge technologies for the military. Research chemists design and synthesize new molecules that could enable a slew of next-generation military products, such as novel propellants for spacecraft engines; new pharmaceuticals and medicines for troops in the field; lighter and longer-lasting batteries and fuel cells; advanced adhesives, coatings and paints; and less expensive explosives that are safer to handle. The problem, however, is that existing molecule design and production methods rely primarily on experts' intuition in a laborious, trial-and-error research process.
DARPA's Make-It program, currently in year three of a four-year effort, is developing software tools based on machine learning and expert-encoded rules to recommend synthetic routes (i.e., the "recipe" to make a particular molecule) optimized for factors such as cost, time, safety, or waste reduction. The program seeks to free chemists so that they may focus their energy on chemical innovation, rather than testing various molecular synthesis pathways. The program also is developing automated devices that uniformly and reproducibly create the desired chemical based on the software-generated recipe – this one-device, many-molecules concept is a departure from the traditional dedicated reactors in chemical production. Make-It research teams have recently demonstrated significant progress toward fully automated rapid molecule production, which could speed the pace of chemical discovery for a range of defense products and applications.
Left Image: Overhead view of a reconfigurable chemical reactor built by SRI International. Chemicals pass through different types of reactors using tubing inside the apparatus. By changing the configuration of valves on the system, over 500 different pathways are possible on this single, tabletop device (SRI International Photo). Right Image: Automated chemical synthesizer built by MIT researchers. Chemicals flow into the vertically stacked cartridges, which serve as chemical reactors. These can be inserted, reordered, or removed by the robotic arm to perform computer-designed syntheses (MIT Photo).
Biologists needing molecules for their research would be able to produce them on-demand in custom-sized quantities rather than buying molecules in bulk from a chemical supplier and disposing the excess, Fischer said. One could imagine similar gains across many technological areas – anywhere small molecules are needed for research and development could benefit.
A major benefit of automated chemical synthesis is that it creates reproducible procedures, which democratizes and accelerates production. A drawback with existing non-automated approaches is that seemingly negligible changes – e.g., how fast a reaction is stirred or slightly different temperature conditions – can have a big impact on the purity and yield of the chemicals produced. This leads to lab-to-lab variability and difficulty reproducing prior-reported syntheses.
Additionally, automation provides a safer, cleaner, and more secure process since chemists do not need to physically handle dangerous chemicals, such as those used to develop new explosives for the military. Make-It synthesis machines require low solvent volumes, which results in less lab waste.
Make-It is achieving success due to its multidisciplinary focus with a talented group of researchers, combining computer science, organic chemistry, and chemical engineering expertise to address three areas: automated molecule design; automated synthesis, or production; and rapid reaction screening.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), SRI International, and Grzybowski Scientific Inventions (GSI) are exploring different approaches for developing software to automatically design various chemical route options. GSI's molecular route optimization software is now commercially available. MIT and SRI are also developing hardware to synthesize molecules.
The University of Glasgow is developing software to design and 3-D print small, portable reactors to provide manufacturing of specific molecules "on-the-go." Such disposable or recyclable reactors could enable much lower cost synthesis of high value, niche-area products, particularly in austere locations.
In the rapid reaction screening focus area, Purdue University and Boston University are exploring methods to build, understand, and utilize large data sets of chemical reactions to train machine-learning algorithms so they can quickly design novel molecule pathways.
Next steps in the program include integrating real-time characterization of the synthesis process through analytical instrumentation and developing more complex molecules.
DARPA Make-It researchers will present their results during a special session at the American Chemical Society's National Meeting & Expo in Boston, Massachusetts, Aug. 19-23, 2018.


text:
Jonah Hex is een Amerikaans-Filipijnse westernstripreeks.

Inhoud

Jonah Hex speelt zich oorspronkelijk af in de negentiende eeuw en draait om de Amerikaanse premiejager Jonah Hex. Hex werd als kind als slaaf verkocht aan de indianen en groeide bij hen op. Tijdens de Amerikaanse Burgeroorlog ging hij bij het leger van de Geconfedereerde Staten van Amerika. Na de oorlog werd hij een premiejager die regelmatig iemand vermoordt. Uiteindelijk wordt Hex zelf vermoord in 1904.

Bij een reboot wordt Hex in 1875 uit zijn tijd ontvoerd en belandt hij in de 21e eeuw.

Verfilming

Jonah Hex is een Amerikaanse film uit 2010 gebaseerd op deze stripreeks. De rol van Jonah Hex wordt hierin vertolkt door Josh Brolin.

Amerikaanse stripreeks
Filipijnse stripreeks
Westernstrip
Sciencefictionstrip
Superheld uit DC Comics


text:
Experiences of Depression
by Sidney J. Blatt
American Psychological Association, 2004
Review by Roy Sugarman, Ph.D. on Mar 8th 2005
Experiences of Depression reflects Sidney Blatt's long career. Blatt proposes a synthesis of two types of depressive experience, namely the anaclitic and the introjective. He begins with Freud's observations in 1895. This does not mean the Blatt gives only the classic or Freudian psychoanalytic slant, but rather moves quickly into a more contemporary view of these phenomenological dimensions. Mentioning these two royal roads to depression, one of course must then hold that these are in some way connected to the idea that impairments in the establishment and impairments of the representation of care-giving relationships, not just Bowlby-like, but more intricate than that, contributes to the etiology of the experience of mood states that reflect on of the two, and the questionnaires Blatt and his group developed with these as factors, the famous Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (DEQ) and also object relations assessments.
As so often is the case, Blatt's view of depression was colored by his early experience in training analysis, and two early index clients, referred to often as representing the dichotomy, or rather the thesis-antithesis-synthesis that would color his life work in the field.
From this epistemology thus emerges his integrative theory that informs on what he believes are the typology of human experience under the influence of the mood disorders, and are clearly illuminated in the narrative of depressed patients, given in verbatim examples throughout.
Early on, and beginning with the Austrian Maestro himself, Blatt examines the classical beginnings of theory in melancholia and mourning, moving on through Spitz and Wolf, Segal and Winnicott, Klein, Abraham in counterpoint with each other, and after Rado, the unitary theories of depression as postulated by Bibring, Fenichel, but with reference to an acknowledgment of different developmental levels at which the clients' experience occurred. The first was a primarily oral phenomenon, the second a loss of self-esteem in the Oedipal experience. Ignoring the cultural implications in those cultures that deny the Oedipal stage, and the feminist critiques of such positions, this is the origin of ideas of subtypes of depression emerging, one more primitive, one more advanced and involving views of significant others.
In this way, Blatt began to distinguish between a simple anaclitic depression and a more complex introjective depression. The former arises from the disruption of the primary care giving relationship with the primary object, the second from a harsh, punitive, unrelenting critical superego that creates the feelings of worthlessness that colour depression of this subtype, introjection referring to the superego development of introjective identification, in this case of a harsh object.
Having then explained these in detail, Blatt moves on to more contemporary theories of depression, as I mentioned above, beginning with Bowlby, predictably, given his views above. Moving on through Arieti and Bemporad's interpersonal model, and then of course Aaron Beck's cognitive behavioural model, describing the initial idiosyncratic cognitive schemas, and then the later more linear individual schemas, and then specific primal mode theory, which supposes that on activation, draws on congruent systems to implement the goal of the mode, with varying thresholds of activation, and thus various intensities of outcome, not necessarily dysfunctional. This all supposes an evolutionary value to such experience, tolerating the propensity or at list the threatened risk of pathology in the balancing of these higher functions and their value/threat, even if risky, in responding to the force of evolutionary pressure. The mode is however in reality a cognitive schema that derives from the interaction of proto-schemas and congruent life experiences, a little reminiscent of other, earlier psychodynamic formulations, and still congruent with Blatt's formulations given that the core beliefs here include the self concept and the primitive views of others. This lead Beck to his own dichotomy, namely two major personality dimensions, sociality and individuality, which Blatt again likens to Arieti and Bemporad, Blatt, and Bowlby.
Blatt then moves on to integration of the theoretical perspectives that he has elaborated on, and to object representation in depression, focusing on Klein, Segal and others of that ilk. It's a brilliant chapter, a work that stands alone in the book, and the next chapter focuses on the examples of how he and his colleagues see these two types of depression expressed in the clinical context. This is done extensively with detailed case histories, which dominate the chapter around the anaclitic-introjective split.
Part two moves on to a discussion of the value of assessing these modes of depression, and of the use of the DEQ and the Object Relations Inventory (OBI). Two attempts were made to develop measures, which evaluated the outcomes of care giving relationships in depressed patients' histories.
The first (chapter three) was an attempt to develop a systematic tool to provide a reliable and valid measure of the two types of experience, and the second, chapter four, the development of an OBI.
Akiskal and others have set out over the years to examine the affective disorders across the unique and disorderly spectrum that constitutes such illnesses. The amount of variance within a category rivals the variance between categories, and in some cases is wider, with all types of symptoms bleeding in to the primary ones, a mix of all types of things is possible, in the Fulds-Bedford way. There is a need to establish subtypes of depression that do not depend on such a wide spectrum of symptoms, but on some other criteria.
To this end these devices are thus created, including a DEQ for adolescents, loading strongly on three factors, namely dependency, self-criticism and efficacy. The adult and adolescent items look vaguely similar, but the important differences are also clear: however, the factors are stable, and cluster around interpersonal and self-critical issues. Connected to this are the subscales embedded in the first factor, namely neediness and relatedness, factor two which is related to self criticism, and factor three, lack of efficacy.
Other measures of the anaclitic-introjective experiences are discussed, including the Sociotropy-Autonomy scale (recall Beck) and the Personal Style Inventory, as well as the Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale, all with their own psychometric problems. A tiny section dealing with experiences of gender, race and social mobility is both fascinating and hopelessly too short, given the nature of cross-cultural experience as well as the influences of gender in society, but some other references follow in later chapters.
Section three is composed of a series of commentaries on the distal and proximal antecedents of the anaclitic and introjective experiences within depression, both within clinical and non-clinical groups, but with a particularly interesting section on depression and substance abuse, but more substantially opiate addiction given the centrality of depression on opiate use, across many pages. Non-clinical settings are also expansively annotated here, with special focus on children and adolescents. These extensive discussions have led to the author putting in a summary, which is most needed given the plethora of research findings, which beg an informed conclusion. Mostly, this gives Blatt an opportunity to reinforce his beliefs, namely, that self-critical individuals are more introverted, isolated and distant from others, and consequently their interpersonal interactions are unpleasant, with the convergence then of several measures of the introjective person. In contrast, on the DEQ, individuals with elevated scores on the dependency-interpersonal factor tend to be the opposite.
The promised work on gender is here too. Girls are more likely to report anaclitic depressive symptoms than boys, especially with regard to somatic preoccupations, sad affect, and loneliness. Boys are more likely to have externalizing disorders and report introjective depressive symptoms that include antagonism, aggression and an inability to work. "Differences in socialization may contribute to these gender differences in the expression of psychological distress" (page 185). I won't go there on feminist grounds, but will merely point out what Gilligan said about it all: women speak with a different moral voice, not an incomplete Oedipal accent.
In terms of the distal, or developmental origins, as compared to proximal, or precipitating events, chapter 6 focuses on negative caring experiences that create distortions in the representation of self and others in interpersonal relationships. Chapter seven then, on the much wider putative contextual experiences seen as proximal causes, has a more reactive slant. Distortions of representation means the individual will struggle to retain the necessary contact with the object, and thus in introjective depression, elements of the individual will be sought after without consolidation of the whole relationship, a kind of ambivalent, replacing the need gratification as soon as possible with some other aspect or some other object. There is a fair amount of reliance on research into the mother here, as primary love object, as well as with retrospective studies on parenting overall.
The proximal events chapter that follows is only half as long, expected in a book with such an intrapsychic slant to it.
In the concluding section, made up of a chapter which considers the therapeutic implications of such theories, Blatt examines the four above, namely Arieti and Bemporad, Beck, Blatt and Bowlby, in terms of their influence on how one goes about the business of therapy, and of course the inference is there in all four approaches of the need to stress the centrality of impaired cognitive structures in depression. Three concentrate on the therapeutic relationship, with experiences within therapy contributing to a change in outcome, but all agree on the cognitive aspects that require therapeutic change in mental representations.
An outstanding work if you follow any of the four orientations, and certainly much more palatable if you have more than just a working knowledge of twentieth century psychodynamic theory. As with so many works, the Euro or Americo-centric version of the world is rather amusing to those outside, from non-Western backgrounds, where seldom has the psychodynamic view of the development of human cognitive and emotional structure been uncritically accepted. I have had the opportunity to work with people who believe that everyone we interact with in our day to day existence is dead and a zombie, and that as individuals we do not exist at all, with one brother confessing to a crime his brother committed, seeing no difference between himself and even distant, but clan or skin related relatives. One child I saw in Africa referred to multiple mothers and fathers, all of whom he related to as a birth child, and if he had problems with Oedipus, it would have been in the midst of a de-individuated mob seen with who knows what dynamics: family therapy no good there either, he counted 91 first degree relatives living in his family home, and my room was not that spacious.
However, within this genre, and even if you struggle with psychodynamic principles, this is a master at work, and he makes it all very easy to access and comprehend, and engenders a desire, just as Freud did before him, to want to go right to work with this material and apply it to the next client you see. Perhaps it is more so to me, being old enough to recall being taught about the Wolf Boy, and certainly completing my MA degree in feminist and family therapist criticisms of psychodynamic theory, and therefore still part of my own psyche.
But especially for those who are new to the area, this will fill a huge gap for them, and done so well, it is both filling and fulfilling.
© 2005 Roy Sugarman
Roy Sugarman, PhD, Clinical Director: Clinical Therapies Programme, Principal Psychologist: South West Sydney Area Health Service, Conjoint Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, Australia.


Address : Post Master, Locomotive W Shop, Lucknow Taluk, Lucknow District, UTTAR PRADESH, India.
What is Pin code of Locomotive W Shop?
Locomotive W Shop Pin code or Postal zip code of Locomotive W Shop is an unique Post index number provided to the post office of Locomotive W Shop, Lucknow Division, Lucknow District of Uttar Pradesh state, India. These Pin codes are provided by India Post.


The Private Company Council (PCC), with endorsement from the FASB board, has made a proposed accounting standard update available for comment which would remove the variable interest entity (VIE) reporting requirements for certain situations involving private companies. The proposed standard would allow private companies who enter into leasing arrangements with a commonly controlled lessor to exclude the lessor entity from VIE treatment, thus relieving the entity from the requirement to include the lessor in their financial statements. The election would only be available if substantially all activity between the entities is related to the leasing activity.
The PCC, on which Barnes Dennig Director Tom Groskopf serves as a Council Member, has made VIE accounting one of its main agenda items since being formed. The goal of the proposed change is to have the financial statements of private companies better reflect the information that lenders and other users in their analysis of the company's financial position. Through discussions with stakeholders the PCC concluded that the related costs of applying VIE treatment to commonly controlled lessors was not justified in the benefits provided, noting that users often reverse the effects of the consolidation in their analysis of the statements.


STORM is always searching for motivated new team members who have a passion for customer service, sales, styling and who love the STORM brand. We currently have Casual positions available at our Auckland Stores located in Milford, High Street, Newmarket and Ponsonby. Previous experience in a retail environment is necessary. If you share our passion for style and edge, we invite you to apply.
Fashion retail is a fast moving and exciting business - if you like to be considered for a position in one of our boutiques at a future date please forward your resume to the contact listed below.
Do you hold a valid New Zealand work permit?
Punctual, presentable and love to deal with customers?
If so, great! Click that email link below!


Byfield Services is an independent plant hire company located in the heart of Bristol.
Established in 2008 we have now put together a great team of dedicated staff with vast experience in providing quality hire equipment to the building sectors across the South West.
We provide a large range of hire equipment from excavators, dumpers, rollers, bowsers, trailers, attachements and much more.
As a thrieving company we are continually improving and investing in quality machinery to serve our ever growing database of customers.
Check out our range of equipment ready for hire. Most of our equipment is in stock and ready for immediate hire and delivery but to check availability or to discuss the hire periods and terms, please get in touch with one of the Hire team today on 0117 941 4324.
Byfield Services is an independent plant hire company located in the heart of Bristol. Established in 2008 we have now put together a great team of dedicated staff with vast experience in providing quality hire equipment to the building sectors across the South West.
Copyright 2016 Byfield Services - All Rights Reserved.


DNA testing has revealed an unexpected event. Louisa Wildbore, my Grandmother, married in 1898 and had eight children with her husband registered as their father. Two of these children died as infants. Of the remaining six, descendants of four of them have DNA tested which has revealed that two of the four were not fathered by Louisa's husband but do share a common father. This Mystery Grandfather must have been in the Feilding, Manawatu area of NZ between, at least, 1903 and 1906.
Born 7th February 1872 in Nelson NZ to Henry & Emily MOORE.
Travelled, possibly with his brother Harry Charles, to the Feilding area of Manawatu where he met and married Louisa Maud WILDBORE in Taonui 7th November 1898.
Herbert & Louisa separated some time after Sept 1907 and apart from a 1908 Electoral Roll reference no trace of him has been found since.
This is believed to be the blacksmith shop formerly owned by E.E. Le Prou in Akaroa.
Can you verify or dispute this?
Help with identifying occupation. The image shows Harriet's occupation in the 1851 Census. At the time she was a 38 yo widow living in London.