Well, another techsytalk LIVE has come and gone, and I have to say, this may have been the best one so far… that is, I think so. I actually spent much of the day in the Convene boardroom, interviewing nearly a dozen of the presenters and exhibitors who attended that day.
Liz King Events has made it their business to gather some of the more forward thinking people in the event/tech worlds, and this year was no exception. Jill Taub Drury, founder of Drury Design Dynamics, kicked off the morning with a look at surviving the next evolution of the meetings and events industry, based on her firm's core values of maintaining excellence, working with the best people who are committed to innovation, education, and a practice of road testing new ideas. I later spoke to Jill to find out a little more of what makes her tick.
Deborah – Jill, tell us a little about Drury Design Dynamics.
Jill – Drury Design was founded in 1981. We are a fully integrated communications agency. We work with clients to support their brands across the board via meetings, learning and performance, entertainment, social and communications. We're a very diversified company. It's exciting, because we get to work with our clients across their different types of projects, and that makes it fun.
Deborah – What do you find most exciting about your work?
Jill – I love the people I'm surrounded by, they're really amazing – it's always exciting to be around a group of people who are so creative and so innovative, and smart, really smart. We do a lot of content. A lot of companies who do production, do [only] production, but we're doing the strategy and the messaging and the content and the building out the architecture of the event, so that's exciting… and then it's the clients we're working with and the subject matter and to see the changes going on within their companies, as well as the world, is really interesting.
Deborah – What kind of changes are you seeing?
Jill – Well, IBM is a client of ours, and so if you look at Cloud and technology and social and servers and all those things… There are other examples of companies we're working with where maybe they have internal things going on. Maybe they're being split or bought out, and we help with that messaging, how they communicate with their people and train their people to handle it and the expectations and prepare them for the future, so that's a whole other side of it, which is very strategic oriented. I know that we're known for these very large 20,000, 15,000 people conferences, but there's this very important part of our business that has to do with strategic leadership, and how we can help them communicate.
Deborah – Is there any other place you'd like to go?
Jill – One of the things that's interesting that I talked about today, is that you have to evolve, and over three decades, we've done a lot of that. The thing that's done for us has been to grow our capabilities, which enables us to go into all these different areas now…. I think if there was one area that I wish we did more of, it's experiential events, which is not so much about the content, it's more about the fun and engagement. We do a lot of that, and we bring it into our events, but to just do events like that would be a lot of fun… We certainly have the capability to do it. I find that there are many companies who do that who are trying to get into doing the content end, and they're finding it very hard to go that way, whereas we already do all of those things, we just haven't been going after that business.
Drury Mash [the firm's yearly professional education event] is something along those lines, particularly this year. It was really fun and everyone was "Oh, what a great party!" and I'm like, "I'm so glad you're having a great time at our great party! Let me tell you what you learned!" Because we're creating an experience – that's exactly what I wanted them to walk away with.
I really think a lot about onboarding at events. I happen to be shy. When you go to an event where you don't know anybody… if there's 200 or 300 people, it's really clear that you feel separated from everybody else. When you have 10, 15, 20,000 people, it's overwhelming, and so where do you start? So creating experiences where people can easily turn to the guy next to them, and it makes sense, and it's not awkward, and make a comment that a conversation can come from, it speaks volumes. And it's equally as important as anything else you do, because… When you go to a conference, the information, 98% of it is online. It's the experience, it's networking, it's the people and the business that you're doing, particularly as you look at millennials… The millennials made us acknowledge and put it into play, but we've always wanted this. Because who really wants to sit in a room and be talked at for five days?
Deborah – I'm so glad these types of conferences are winding down, because they're so deadening.
Jill – Yes, they are. Even when we're in an arena situation for our general sessions, we have second screen, so that if you're going to be sitting there on your computer, your tablet and your phone, and your head down, you're listening but you're doing other things, I'd rather have you go to content that's about the speaker or the conference or the subject matter. So we provide second screen information.
Jill – It's really about putting the information up there, and having a link for somebody to go to…that's what it comes down to… What's the link and how are they getting to it?
Deborah – So rather than fighting the trend of people being hooked in all the time, you are using it to advantage – if they're going to be on, give them something that will connect them back to the subject at hand.
Deborah – That's the key, to make it organic to what is going on.
Jill – Right, because when they call them marketing events, you can't be marketing all the time.
Deborah – No, nobody wants to be marketed to… in fact, I wrote an article for lLz once called Quit Marketing at Me. I got it, enough already!
Jill – I read it, I heard it, I'm there… On the second screen, the other thing is we use it for polling, right there… I'm waiting for the day when we have something like Yelp for speakers, and people are rating them as they're speaking, and it comes up on the screen. How will speakers change their presentation? I mean I would have a heart attack.
Jill – In real time it would really be tough, but I do think it would do a couple of things. It would hold speakers accountable, to make sure that they've rehearsed, to make sure that their content is really good. I have clients who, you're getting up on an arena stage in front of 18,000 people – I don't care how often you speak, rehearse! If not for you, for the technical team, so they can set your levels and see where you're going to pace to, get your rhythm down for changing your visuals, so it's really important. I also think that it will help drive pre-conference conversation along with post, which is really important. You know, you look at social during events, so social can go up – it spikes for the four days during the event, and then it goes down. So, if you can start that conversation before and then keep it going, that's what you want.
Deborah – Tell me, do you have any big mistakes that you've made that you've really learned from that you would not be too embarrassed to share?
Jill – Let's see. This is a big one to put out there. Holding onto people too long, because you think you're being nice. And you're not doing anyone a favor by that. You're not helping your company, your brand, but you're not helping them, because the longer you keep someone who isn't doing a good job and they're clearly not happy, you're making them less marketable in the job market after they leave. I think that we're very culture driven at Drury and very family oriented. It doesn't meant that we're family, we're a business, but we really care, and sometimes we do that and it's not a good thing.
Deborah – Thank you, that's a good one. I love that you've said it, and I hope that you don't call me tomorrow and say, "Don't say it" because I'm a big fan of humility and pulling back the curtain and showing process. Making mistakes is where we learn.
Jill – Didn't I say that? Don't be afraid to fail. And share those lessons.
Deborah – I think we culturally need to get past the shame of making mistakes and this insistence that we're constantly being judged, that there's some kind of judgment that's permanent and unforgivable. Because it's not like a fall from grace situation here. We're not going to hell if we make a mistake.
At under30CEO, many of the entrepreneurs I interviewed there said, "Make lots of mistakes, it's the only way you learn." How do you know unless you push into something new? Oh well, that didn't work, and then you learn. Otherwise, you don't know if maybe you're just being lucky.
Jill – And that's why I talk a lot about how it's not just educating people about the technology, or an idea or a process, they have to road test it, they have to experience it hands on, and you get two things from that. First of all, they get to experience it so they understand what it's like. They understand if the technology will work, or the philosophy behind the activation will work, but we also see how people interact so we can think about, should we adapt this and then include it into our client driven events? Maybe we shouldn't. Maybe there's not a place for it. Maybe we just need to wait for the right opportunity. But I hate technology for technology's sake. I hate kitch, trendy stuff – what's it going to do? What's the purpose?
And one last comment re: holding onto people too long. It's not a decision that you make willy nilly. It's a really thoughtful process, and it's stages. You have to work with people, see their potential, so it's not just about having the right people in the seats, it's about having the right people in the right seats. And so there are times that we'll see that a person might be more passionate about, or have more of a sensibility for another area, and we love this person, we don't want to lose them, just because they're not doing this job correctly. They might be better over here, let's give it a try. And it's not all about us. It can't be all about us. It has to be about them as well. If I cared enough to bring them on, I need to care enough about what their next step will be.
Deborah – I think that speaks to a really great philosophy of valuing relationships in all their dimensions and really understanding all those dynamics between balancing out your needs, the needs of your employees, your consultants, whoever, so that you're really taking all these needs into consideration. That speaks volumes of you as a business person, and an employer and an innovator, too, because I don't find everyone to be that forward thinking. I don't think everyone thinks that way.
Jill – I have to say, Deborah that I was really lucky to start when we started in the 80's. It's a lot harder now, because everything's faster, cycles of engagement, what does that mean, and the pressure that always is, and even how the opportunities that come to us and the expectations right out of the gate, and you hear you're not even as good as your last show. It's really hard today, whereas if I think back, I had handwritten, full page double sided letters of thank you. Now, it's a different world, and you have to go with that. But it gave us time to really understand who we were, what we wanted to be and the importance to us of the role of culture within the company, because I want to be able to go to work every day and be happy and I wanted to be surrounded by people who are happy.
Deborah – Absolutely, and I'd like to think that the process you're talking about, sort of broadening the level of internal engagement is something that we can foster. One of the things I'm hoping to do with this series of interviews is tease out some best practices and philosophies and some values that I think are significant as trends I'm seeing amongst this little subset of thought leaders. Because I really think that's what techsytalk is about. techsytalk is not just about the latest gadgets, there are so many more dimensions to it.
Jill – Liz has really couched it well. She's really terrific.


Marian bought an electric car. Argh, I was so embarrassed today. I wore my clothes inside-out. Am I to contribute either colourful and interesting sentences or those that illustrate basic syntax? It's better as it is. Juliet won't last long. The police thought the victim was Earle, but they were unable to identify the body. I'll go and tell him. Knudsen has a pickup truck. I'm going back. I wanted you to have this.
I wonder what the next question will be. He sometimes sleeps in. Well, it'll do for the time being. These plywood beams are of different thicknesses. We need to chat soon. To the best of my knowledge, she hasn't left yet. I've decided to forgive you. What is it that you saw exactly? I wouldn't be here if I didn't have to be. Jeff is really hard to get along with.
Can't we at least try to get along? We're doing it together. She's been very busy this week. It was my first time coming to Shanghai. There were no problems. That is as dramatic a sunset as I've ever seen. If they want, you shall want too. Picasso's early works have been exhibited at this hall. I should have tested this electric shaver before buying it. I'm not rejecting you.
Noemi asked me not to tell anyone, so I didn't. She flew home to Boston. I told her to do that work at once. You are at liberty to state your own views. Ben just wanted attention. You must miss me a lot. Welcome to the magical world of Narnia. It looked fantastic. The door creaked. Thuan usually eats much less than Duncan does.
He rarely went there. They brought dinner. Trying has to be careful about what he eats at restaurants because he's allergic to many foods. One more word, and you're dead! Girls, open your eyes, marriage isn't buying a horse. He conducted a tour through Europe. Malloy earns three times what I do. These apartments are designed specifically for young families. My chicken is here. Kathryn doesn't think it's weird at all.
Do you have a red pencil? Parents are responsible for the safety of their children. I caught sight of her in the crowd. Guy is something of a musician. You are my daughter. I've always wanted to try to learn French. We keep things like that in a locked room in the basement. There is little hope of his recovery. I don't have the faintest idea. Follow us.
The plan was never implemented. She fainted, but came to after a few minutes. Johann will talk to us on Monday. The boy is mad for a bicycle. I'm not going to make it. I advised her to come by 9:00. I am very rich. Jared certainly seems to enjoy Hamilton's company. Go back to your seats. I'm thinking of going.
She's not sure she's ready. An icebreaker can carve a channel in the ice fifteen meters wide. No one's going to see me. Duncan never doubted himself. What do you think Denis wanted? Gill didn't tell me what these are. I occasionally like to stop thinking about my past and relax. There is no one there. Lori doesn't think it will snow this afternoon. I'm going to have a drink with my friends.
It's probably just a phase. Rice will find a ready market there. Hillary is a geek. So you've got hair on your chest after all. And as she spoke she threw off her long cloak and everyone saw it was the queen. An agreement between European countries is needed. I thought you'd probably already gone home. Dan was an active member of the Mormon Church. I forgot the key and went back for it. I was watching a documentary.
Taken at face value, the scheme seemed OK. In what year was printing invented? They're on their way. It's a threat. I have been associated with him for ten years. Stay frosty. There is not a ray of truth in it. Use your brain! The shop sells vegetables. Diane knew me.


Companies use blogs as an informal, unstructured communication tool that can engage current and future customers and members of their wider community. Blogs are often used to start and maintain relationships, to update an audience, discuss new functionalities, and to inform about company decisions. Because blog posts are published as a sequential series of updates, they create a fleeting feeling of urgency, serendipity and newsworthiness, which makes it much more likely visitors will share blog posts through social networks.
Blogs also function as a content incubator: an unstructured area in the content architecture where you can develop new types of content for your developer portal, a place where new content types "incubate" before they get their own place, like a company's first "getting started tutorial" or "how to do XYZ" guides.
Demos and mashups help users explore the API and its functionalities.
Blog posts often contain code samples and help with problems in specific areas.
The frequency of blog posts, and the time since the last update are an indicator of the health of an API.
Blog posts can communicate policies and team culture.
Blogs can help fulfill these needs throughout the whole API implementation process. In this post I'll explore how blogs can serve the portal users' needs throughout the different stages of the developer journey. I'll discuss their labels and subcomponents, and extract best practices. To finalize, I'll list some questions to keep in mind when deciding whether, when and how to plan a blog on your developer portal.
To write this post, I reviewed the blogs of Adyen, Amazon, Apigee, CenturyLink, DigitalOcean, Dropbox, Dwolla, Facebook, GitHub, Google, IBM, Instagram, Keen IO, LinkedIn, Mapbox, Orange, Pinterest, Slack, Spotify, StackOverflow, Stripe, Twilio and Twitter. These companies have active communities and/or provide a wide variety of developer resources. I explored how they organize their blogs and what purposes the blogs serve.
The blogs in our research sample announced events, hooked their users, explained functionalities, communicated company decisions, linked to other documentation resources, provided support in certain areas, explained concepts (domain language), provided code samples, and encouraged users to think out of the box when applying the API. Blogs are generally filled with videos, images, screenshots and explanations in everyday English.
Optimize the API for search engines: blog posts are often keyword sensitive, they might help users to find their way to the developer portal and its documentation.
Hook users, get them interested in the API product (e.g. add code samples for developers).
Add user stories and case studies to reach out to other decision makers, like product owners and marketing engineers).
Show interesting integrations that require out of the box thinking.
Enable people to evaluate what's on site, via mock APIs, test accounts, tutorials, sample apps: blog posts and articles can explain how an API works, and how it can be implemented in plain English.
Show expertise: blog post writers bundle knowledge about a specific topic.
Highlight interesting or popular integration examples and tutorials.
Blog posts can include code samples, test cases and user stories that might inspire fellow developers to get started with their implementation.
Include articles for both beginner and experienced users.
Provide information about your products, e.g. via a topic selector.
Link to the portal's knowledge base to find more information on certain topics.
Explain concepts that your users might need to know before implementing.
Blog posts explain and communicate about problem areas and function therefore as support tools. Blog posts are also an internal evaluation tool: e.g. to explain a product works you will also be to testing it at the same time.
Explain problem areas in plain English.
Show developers that you care about their work: offer them a place on your portal, e.g. via guest posts or in interviews.
Add Call-to-Actions to trigger readers.
Write series on certain topics, in order to make users return to an interesting story.
Include real life examples (via interviews, podcasts, guest posts, user stories).
Provide articles that deal with everyday life tips (e.g. Keen IO's Culture blog section).
"Put a URL on it": turn questions from the community into URLs, and provide blog posts to make it easier for users to find the content they are looking for.
Companies can use their blog to communicate about the API health.
Dedicate articles to news related to API uptime and release notes.
Illustrate your services that help developers maintain their API integration with examples, use cases or guidelines.
In our research sample, we found developer portal blogs (blogs that are directly accessible from the developer portal) and more general blogs that also listed developer topics.
Companies put links to blogs in headers, footers, top menu bars, and sidebars reachable under category labels like blog, news, company, community, support, learn more, menu and products, API and docs.
Blogs often received personalized names: besides "blog" or "developer blog", we found Developer News (Facebook), The Event Log (Keen IO), Spotify Labs (Spotify), Updates (Dwolla), Changes (GitHub).
Apart from their "What's new" page, Orange has a monthly newsletter, where they discuss topics that concern several aspects of the company.
Or also sometimes with the whole blog on Medium (Slack).
List of contributors or authors to check writer IDs.
Opt for topics and categories on top of the page (and not only at the bottom of the article).
Turn questions from your users into URLs via blog posts.
Choose maximum 15 topics or labels to define article categories.
Archive older posts, but make sure readers can still find them via tags or labels that indicate the article categories. No-one likes to struggle through - only - chronologically ordered articles.
Provide CTAs at the end of each post to make sure your users can easily subscribe.
List contributors and plan what you will include in the author biographies.
Focus on different audiences through topics or via separate blogs.
Provide links to other documentation types (like API references, support pages) on your blog to facilitate onboarding and to make it easier to replicate a demo. And vice-versa: give developer portal visitors the opportunity to check blog articles easily.
Indicate how much time the reader will have to spend on your article.
A blog is a great tool to help you develop new types of content on your developer portal. If you want to iteratively develop your content, and build out your content architecture as your community grows, it is a great place to experiment with delivery formats and documentation types. But before you start you need to ask if your company is ready to maintain one?
Have you got a writer (team) or guest bloggers, a designer, a content strategist at your disposal?
How regularly can you produce new content?
Do you want to host your blog on your developer portal (and keep users on your site to find answers) or go for alternative platforms, like Medium, with custom design options, where you get an inbuilt audience and some distance from your brand to allow for experimentation?
We are working on a series of content services for developer portals, want to start a blog but need some help? - Get in touch!


Alpine 4A57 is a prototype firmware found on an iPhone Prototype discussed on macrumors. According to a photo of it, it was an internal version of iPhone OS 1.1.3.
Instead of restoring via a ramdisk, the restore tools appear to be right in the OS, suggesting restores were originally performed through userland.
Flashing 04.02.13_G on a retail iPhone can be done with bbupdater, but results in loss of Carrier Network connectivity.
This page was last edited on 30 November 2017, at 23:17.


Amid headlines that could have the power to induce panic for some investors, I spoke with Liz Claman about the "investor prediction theory" and why that mindset could be detrimental to their portfolio performance. I noted that investors should try to avoid fear by diversifying globally and keep their sights set on the long-term, despite headline news causing concern.
Matson Money is an investment advisory firm managing $8,653,755,157.02 (12/31/2017) for families nationwide. We provide prudent investment solutions firmly grounded in Nobel Prize-Winning academic principles, global diversification, and life-long investing.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results. All investing involves risks and costs and clients may experience a loss. Your advisor/coach can provide you with more information about the risks and costs associated with specific programs/investments. Information presented on this program is believed to be factual and up-to-date, but we do not guarantee its accuracy and it should not be regarded as a complete analysis of the subjects discussed. Discussions and answers to questions do not involve the rendering of personalized investment advice, but are limited to the dissemination of general information and may not be suitable for members of the listening audience. This video is based on the views of Matson Money, Inc. Other persons may analyze investments and approach investing from a different perspective from that reflected in this video. Nothing included herein is intended to infer that the approach to investing espoused in this video will assure any particular results. Actual results of accounts/assets under Matson Money management may differ materially from results shown herein because of differences in the account inception dates, account restrictions and asset acquisition dates. Also, it is not possible for any account performance to precisely match an index since indexes are unmanaged and investors cannot invest directly in any index.


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Historical Park
Rec & Athletics
Log Culture
There are two distinct places in what is known as the Log Culture area. The first is the Peters Colony Land Grant Office, pictured to the right. The Peters Colony Land Grant Office was built at the Historical Park in 2002 by Mr. Bill Marquis of Ponder, Texas. This replica was designed to represent the original Peters Colony Land Grant Office which was located in Farmers Branch in the 1840s. Local lore maintains that the original office was located somewhere along Farmers Branch Creek and that the employees often ate their meals with the Webb Family or Keenan Family. Thus, our replica office may very well be close to the location of its historic ancestor. It is reasonable to assume the first Peters Colony Land Grant Office looked much like this replica as it is typical of early pioneer cabins in Texas.
The employees of Peters Colony who lived in the cabin were tasked with helping colonists apply for land, surveying their property, and adding it to the regional map to avoid property disputes. The surveyor's equipment includes a compass, tripod and chains as well as writing implements for recording survey information and making maps. The surveyors both lived and work in the cabin. Their beds (although likely too short), are attached to the walls.
The Peters Colony Land Grant Office was constructed using freshly cut post oak trees and red clay. The logs were cut to fit together, using a saddle notch at the corners. This is one of four major notch styles used in Texas and probably the easiest and most ancient. The roof design is called a weighted pole roof, named for the small logs laid on the roof, which weigh down the clapboards on which they lie. There are two windows and several small gunports which provide visual access to every side of the house. A simple fireplace serves as both kitchen and heating unit for the surveyors and their guests. "Old mother earth served as [the floor]" for many early Texas cabins, including the Land Grant Office.
Likely, some of the men or families which applied to live in the Colony also lived in cabins like this until true log homes were built. Many pioneer families traveled long distances by foot, horseback, or wagon in order to settle in Peters Colony. Colonists to Peters Colony received up to 640 acres per family and 320 acres per individual. In exchange, all they had to do was cultivate 15 acres, keep it fenced, and build a cabin. Unlike today, there were no pre-built homes waiting for pioneers. It was common for pioneers to quickly build a cabin like this as a temporary home when they first arrived. One or two men could build this cabin using only one tool each in a matter of days.
The second, pictured to the left, is known as the Log House. Log structures were a prominent feature of Texas during the 1800s. Indeed, they were popular in present-day United States since the 1630's when European settlers constructed them based on styles that had been used for centuries in their homeland. Log structures came in all shapes and sizes and served many different purposes as dwellings, barns, smokehouses, kitchens, and more. Log dwellings, however, came in only two types: cabins and houses. According to historian Terry Jordan, "the cabin belongs to an early, primitive generation of log dwellings built for temporary occupancy in the first, difficult years of pioneering." Cabins are small, often windowless, with dirt floors, and crudely shaped logs with the bark still on the outside. The Peters Colony Land Grant Office is a good example of a cabin.
In contrast, the log house "is a second-generation dwelling, built of carefully hewn timbers, neatly notched at the corners and sawn off flush, tightly chinked, equipped with a wooden floor and window or two, and provided with graceful chimneys of stone or brick." While cabins could be built by one or two individuals, log houses were usually built by professional carpenters.
The Johnson family built the log house and several outbuildings near Pilot Point, Texas in the 1870s (although the buildings are now being interpreted as they were during the 1840s.) The Johnson family of northern Denton County, was one of the larger families in the area. From Hebron, Texas, up to the Red River, certain members of the family were quite prominent. However, little is known about the family members who lived on the farm where our structures were built.
The Historical Park obtained these structures from the U. S. Corps of Engineers. They were scheduled to be destroyed to make way for Lake Ray Roberts in 1980. With a grant from the Farmers Branch Civic League, the Historical Park was able to hire archaeologists to dismantle the structures, number the logs, and restore them.
The logs of the house were cut to fit together in the corners of the house using half-dovetail notching. This is the most common style of notching in Texas log houses and is considered "a superior type [of nothing] identified with fine craftsmanship". It produces a firm, locked joint and drains water to the exterior. The roof of the house has a shallow pitch along the eaves and over a lean-to, and toward the center climbs at a steeper pitch to meet at the peak. Inside the home, each floor is taken up with an entire room. The fireplace is only on the lower level. The staircase is located inside the home, but has a door on the lower level.
The single crib barn was part of the original Johnson homestead and is in a style common throughout 19th century Texas. In fact, Terry Jordan refers to the single crib barn as the most common farm outbuilding in Texas. Our crib, like most in Texas, was constructed poorly, for use as corn or grain storage. The door into the crib is typically quite small. It is the barn, not the log house, which has the iconic "witches hat" style roof. On either side of the crib is a storage shed.
Our barn houses a blacksmith shop in one of the storage sheds. There is no evidence that the Johnsons had a blacksmith shop in their single crib barn, but some homesteads did include a small blacksmith shed and forge to make and repair tools. The owner may have saved scrap metal and reused the material. Usually a forge was set up in a dark area in an out-building where the darkness could help him determine the temperature of the metal by its color. These farm blacksmiths generally had shop areas that were cluttered with odds and ends of metal, plus broken farm implements waiting to be repaired.
While there were similarities shared by all blacksmith shops, the position of the major pieces of equipment were based on the preferences of each individual. The size of a blacksmith determined how wide a space there would be between the forge (which heated the metal), the anvil (where the metal was shaped), and a barrel of water (to cool and set the metal.) He needed to reach all three work areas with a minimum of movement. The height of his anvil was also determined by individual height.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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After Midnight: Indian Modernism to Contemporary India, 1947/1997 2015.
Exhibition schedule: Queens Museum, March 8, 2015—September 13, 2015
After Midnight: Indian Modernism to Contemporary India, 1947/1997
Queens Museum, March 8–September 13, 2015
Rashmi Viswanathan
CrossRef DOI: 10.3202/caa.reviews.2018.11
Installation view, After Midnight: Indian Modernism to Contemporary India, 1947/1997 (photograph © 2015 Hai Zhang; provided by the Queens Museum)
After Midnight: Indian Modernism to Contemporary India, 1947/1997 looks at Indian and diasporic art from the last seventy years. Occupying much of the Queens Museum's capacious ground floor, the exhibition, curated by art historian Arshiya Lokhandwala, is spatially as well as thematically organized along two now-axiomatic fault lines of recent Indian history: India's independence in 1947 and the opening of India's markets to international commercial interests under former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the 1990s. The year 1997 marked the fiftieth anniversary of India's independence, which has spurred critical inquiry into the state of the nation and figures as one of the exhibition's fundamental questions, manifested in its selection of work.
Conceptually, the adjacency of material from these periods is meant to facilitate a dialogue between different generations of artistic production. The exhibition comprises a large courtyard and smaller adjoining galleries dedicated to contemporary art, with a smaller gallery focusing on modernism.
The modernists are represented by Syed Haider Raza, Akbar Padamsee, Maqbool Fida Husain, Krishen Khanna, Vasudeo Gaitonde, Ram Kumar, Tyeb Mehta, and Francis Newton Souza, who are now identified with the pivotal Bombay-based Progressive Artists' Group. Founded in 1947, this collective is framed as a generative force behind the eruption of modernism as a counter-institutional dialogue in newly independent India. Extending into the 1970s, the walls of the modernist gallery are lined with paintings. Gathered in the center are more experimental works by the same cadre, created either during or following travel to the United States and Europe, largely through the support of fellowships awarded by the Rockefeller Foundation.
Khanna's formal debut as an artist, the 1948 oil on canvas painting News of Gandhi's Death, delivers the intensity of the country's reception of the news through the rematerialization of the newspaper as a shroud-like fabric weaving together readers from different walks of life. Husain's paintings Sisters (1957) and Rape (1970) echo Khanna's sculptural monumentality. Rape's ghastly forms are perpetually suspended in violence, expressing the grim condition of the Indian political climate that led to the unilateral declaration of a national state of emergency (1975–77) by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Mehta's painting Untitled (Lovers, 1974) features his paradigmatic flattened, fractured forms that evoke the violence of the partition of India, when Pakistan was formed in 1947.
In contradistinction, in the middle of the same gallery, the artists negotiate new techniques of artmaking. Padamsee's film Syzygi (1970) features shifting arrays of shapes that belie the stability of geometry through their seemingly disordered progression. Other works in the center of the gallery include Husain's photographic work Untitled (Tiger, 1975) and Mehta's film Koodal (1970). The former intersects painting, photography, and performance art, documenting the simultaneity of its nude subject and the tiger painted onto her back. The latter is a jarring and introspective look at the foundational nature of violence to the formation of history. It collages various congregations—human assemblies, herds of bulls, and the massed flesh found in a charnel house—metaphorizing the bull as the destruction/apotheosis of the nation. The experimental vision represented by this section is perhaps most self-consciously (if not wryly) declared by Souza, who uses his novel technique of applying solvents to newsprint to note on a 1969 work that it is the "WORLD'S FIRST CHEMICAL PAINTING."
In the courtyard dedicated to contemporary works an installation by Subodh Gupta, featuring stainless steel utensils piled atop a boat, sails alone. What does the vessel contain that the boat does not? (2014) draws from Gupta's recognizable vocabulary of stainless steel vessels and found objects, ostensibly functioning as a conceptual anchor for this part of the exhibition through its examination of notions of home and displacement, self-sufficiency, and mobility. Sheila Gowda's The Blanket and the Sky (2004), which features flattened tar drums formed into a shelter at the periphery of the courtyard, links with Gupta's rough-hewn anchorless habitation, using material ubiquitous in an industrial landscape to focus on the particularities of urban poverty.
Home as a space shaped and defined by shifting urban and geopolitical conditions also finds articulation in Shreshta Rit Premnath's photomural Plot (2004), which projects the image of the pavilion of India at the New York World's Fair of 1964 onto the image of a billboard for a residential complex in Bangalore that advertises "New York living in Bangalore." Placing in conversation the modern commercial drives of the billboard's "east meets west" invocation and the nationalist imperatives of World's Fairs' country pavilions, Premnath thoughtfully looks at shifting discourses of internationalism in the casting of India and the Indian home.
Lining the walls of the courtyard, eclectic works speak to a diversity of contemporary art practices, linked, though not heavy-handedly, by shared concerns with history making and memorializing, the urban condition, and authoritarian statism and inequity. The worn steel and decayed fiber of Gupta's installation converses with the burnt acrylic mirrors of Jitish Kallat's Public Notice (2003), on which is emblazoned the historic "Tryst with Destiny" speech given by India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, at the birth of the nation in 1947. This reflective work, created by Kallat in the wake of the sectarian riots in the Indian state of Gujarat, which resulted in a massacre of the state's minority Muslim population, provides a space for viewers to contemplate India's contemporary political climate against the challenges and imperatives set forth at its independence. Other works also comment on the threat of the unchecked state to its most vulnerable populations, including Anita Dube's wall installation, The Sleep of Reason Creates Monsters (2001), and its myriad enameled eyes which gaze ceaselessly at its viewers. Referencing Francisco Goya's eponymous work, Dube comments on the ideal (dream) of the state as one of nightmarish surveillance. Shilpa Gupta's installation of marble slabs, 1278 unmarked, 28 hours by foot via National Highway No 1, East Line of Control (2013), memorializes those who have fallen in the sectarian violence over the disputed territory of Kashmir and remain nameless in death.
Sprinkled throughout the exhibition, video installations provide flickering counterpoints to the monumentality of such works as Public Notice. The artists Shaina Anand and Ashok Sukumaran's collaboration, CAMP, is represented by the film From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf (2013), which intertwines narratives of travel and sociable and commercial exchange. Documenting the journeys of seafarers from the Gulf of Kutch, as well as from Baluchistan, Sindh, and Southern Iran, CAMP's contribution examines ports and their linking maritime corridors as spaces of cultural formation. The video diptych Strikes at Time (2011) by Raqs Media Collective chronicles the repetitiousness of the labor of the working poor. Displacing the third-person narratives of the abovementioned video installations, the artists of the Desire Machine Collective explore the social and cultural milieu of their home state of Assam in the film Noise Life I (2014).
Dayanita Singh and Atul Dodiya invite the viewer to contemplate the physical spaces of history making. Singh, in the serial photographic work Fileroom (2012), examines the archive's metaphorical performances as storage units of history, disordered places of memory, and endless mazes of bureaucracy. Dodiya's mixed-media installation, Three Brothers (2012–13), looks at the ways in which archival displays fossilize trauma through the ordered placement of artifacts within self-contained storage units, devitalizing the tension of lived experience through staid representational practices.
In After Midnight, one is struck by the diversity of methods, media, and subject matter selected by Lokhandwala. Ambitious, and following on the heels of the well-received eponymous symposium held at New York University's Asia Pacific Institute in 2012, this exhibition uneasily straddles the genres of the national-cultural and thematic surveys, while still falling shy of the comprehensiveness expected of the survey genre. Perhaps attributable to the galleries' unusual dimensions and layout, the exhibition shifts gears abruptly between modernist and contemporary art. The spatial separation between the two limits their narrative linkage, rendering opaque the purpose of their joint placement in the exhibition. Furthermore, the logic of the organization of the contemporary section is not easy to discern. The grouping of works is not necessarily determined by shared concepts, medium, or year of production. At the same time, the unexpected adjacencies of works facilitate novel and unexpected links. For example, the relative closeness of Premnath's projection-based Plot and Dube's watchful wall installation The Sleep of Reason Creates Monsters brings the surveillance ideal of the state to bear on the commercial imperatives of urban construction.
Using art as a prismatic lens through which to view generational shifts in the processes of history production and contestation, Lokhandwala nonetheless avoids easy generalizations and categorizations through allusions to linked geopolitical concerns rather than heavy thematic framing. As a result, the onus is placed on the visitor to tease out broader narratives, encouraging multiple visits and varied engagements with the works.
Postdoctoral Fellow of Global Contemporary Art, Parsons School of Design, New School University
Please send comments about this review to editor.caareviews@collegeart.org.


Japan is unlike any other country you've skied in or been to before. The skiing alone is world class, with the Siberian weather systems bringing huge amounts of light dry powder - it's not called Ja-Pow for nothing!
Deep, deep powder and spectacular tree skiing, bullet-trains and steamy hot springs - expect far more on a Japanese ski trip.
Japan's ski resorts typically receive more snow than anywhere else in the world, particularly on the northern-most island of Hokkaido. Along with this unbeatable powder they also boast some of the world's best tree skiing, while the mellow terrain means you don't have to be an expert to ski here.
Like everyone else who's visited, we're huge fans of ski holidays in Japan. Particularly powdery, Niseko is the most famous Japanese resort, while Hakuba Valley has the finest alpine skiing. For authentic appeal, Honshu's smaller resorts are best, and our favourite is the historic village of Nozawa Onsen.
Culture is a huge part of any trip and the lightning-fast bullet trains make it easy to visit Tokyo or Kyoto while you're here. It goes without saying that the food is fantastic and, from miso soup to katsu curry, it's far more varied than you can imagine. You'll also find izakayas (Japanese pubs) and ryokans (traditional inns) in every resort and, whenever we visit, relaxing in the steamy onsens (hot springs) quickly becomes part of our daily après ritual.
Many of our team have skied in Japan and our Product Manager Andrea even grew up there and revisits every winter, so by calling us or requesting a quotation, you're guaranteed advice from someone with personal experience of the resorts and culture.
Scattered across the two largest islands, Japan's ski resorts are renowned for their huge snow records, with the most northerly island of Hokkaido receiving the biggest dumps. To the south, Honshu's best resorts are found in the 'Japanese Alps' (Nagano prefecture) and are easy to reach by bullet train from Tokyo and Kyoto. If you can't decide between the two islands, you can ski both with our Ultimate Japan Ski Safari.
This traditional resort has an idyllic setting and top notch piste skiing. A good value option, Furano is a thriving town in its own right.
The largest ski area on Honshu island, Hakuba is blessed with alpine-like terrain and huge variety. It's a great place for exploring.
Relatively under-the-radar, Kiroro has deep powder, quiet slopes and fantastic tree runs off-piste.
Japan's largest and best-known ski resort, the quality and quantity of snow here is unparalleled - for powder, it doesn't get much better than Niseko.
Japan's oldest ski resort, Nozawa Onsen is as famous for its onsens as it is for its slopes - perfect for a ski trip with added culture.
A quirky, powder-filled paradise, Rusutsu is one of our top Hokkaido choices for short stays and day trips.


A compact electronic display monitor.
Astro Monitor is a decorative object found in astro merchant ships, space stations and small ship microdungeons in space.
Apex : This monitor seems designed to display important data.
Avian : I'm not sure I understand what all the buttons on this monitor control.
Floran : Ssspace screen is making strange words.
Glitch : Interested. The information on this display could be important.
Human : This monitor is sort of an old design, but still kicking.
Hylotl : I like it, a simple and functional monitor.
Novakid : This display can likely show 'bout anything y'need to know.
This page was last modified on 27 July 2017, at 22:05.


If you're sick of losing the USB receiver to your traditional wireless mouse, it's time for you to go completely wireless with a Bluetooth 3.0 optical mouse. This mouse is fully compatible with all Bluetooth 3.0 or earlier computers, laptops, MacBooks, tablets, and other electronic devices. Its lightweight, ergonomic design makes it perfectly suited for travel, and the lack of a cable or USB receiver to lose removes the risk of leaving your mouse nonfunctional. This mouse also features an adjustable DPI/CPI to customize the cursor speed to suit your personal preferences. Quit living in the past and experience the future of wireless connectivity and computing with this Bluetooth mouse.


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A sequel to 'Love Actually'? Cast reunites for Comic Relief's Red Nose Day
Feb. 15, 2017, 8:47 PM UTC / Source: TODAY
By Gina Vivinetto
Good news for "Love Actually" fans!
The 2003 holiday rom-com's cast is reuniting to film a mini-sequel for Comic Relief's annual Red Nose Day fundraiser, Deadline reports.
'Love Actually' stars will reunite after 14 years for 10-minute sequel
Feb. 16, 201701:21
The 10-minute flick, cleverly titled "Red Nose Day Actually," will feature a dozen of the original film's stars, including Hugh Grant, Keira Knightley, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Bill Nighy, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Martine McCutcheon, Andrew Lincoln, Lucia Moniz, Olivia Olson, Marcus Brigstocke and Rowan Atkinson. (Sadly, Alan Rickman, who played Harry, died in 2016.)
RELATED: 'Love Actually' writer reveals what happened to Karen, Harry and other characters
Andrew Lincoln (Mark) lets Keira Knightley (Juliet) know how much he loves her in one of the 2003 rom-com's most famous scenes.Universal Studios
The short film, which airs on Red Nose Day, March 24, on BBC One, will be written by original screenwriter Richard Curtis, and while the 2003 movie was a humongous holiday hit — grossing more than $247 million around the world — this time around all proceeds go to Comic Relief, a British non-profit that has helped lift children out of poverty since 1985.
"I would never have dreamt of writing a sequel to 'Love Actually,' but I thought it might be fun to do 10 minutes to see what everyone is now up to," the Oscar-nominated writer said.
"Love Actually" stars Hugh Grant (David) and Martine McCutcheon (Natalie) are just two of the actors reuniting for a "Love Actually" mini-sequel to air on Comic Relief's televised Red Nose Day fundraiser on March 24.Universal Studios
"Who has aged best? I guess that's the big question … or is it so obviously Liam?" he joked.
Curtis added that he was "delighted and grateful" that so many original cast members agreed to take part in the short film: "It'll certainly be a nostalgic moment getting back together and re-creating their characters 14 years later."
"We hope to make something that'll be fun — very much in the spirit of the original film and of Red Nose Day," said Curtis, "and which we hope will help bring lots of viewers and cash to the Red Nose Day shows."


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Police seize bikes with red beacons and hooters from Saradha office
Kolkata, May 11 (IANS) Police Saturday raided the headquarters of the chit fund-aided Saradha Group that has gone bust and seized six motorcycles with red beacons and hooters allegedly used by the company's officials to carry money at night.
The bikes were found in a garage of the office, police sources said.
Meanwhile, police personnel from Joynagar in South 24 Parganas district quizzed arrested Saradha group promoter Sudipta Sen and his close aide Debjani Mukherjee in connection with a cheating case filed against them by some depositors.
The interrogators from the Bidhannagar Commissionerate were grilling Sen and Mukherjee to asecertain the total value of the property of the Group companies and Sen.
"They are trying to find where the money has been stashed and how it can be recovered. They also need to find the employees who handled the money, and the relevant papers and other documents," said a source.
A couple of days back the sleuths had summoned for questioning a former official of the Reserve Bank of India who during his days with the apex bank is said to have given some undue facilities to Sen.
A police source said names of some officers of Securities and Exchange Board of India, Income Tax department, banks, and other central and state government agencies have cropped up following Sen's interrogation. "Some of them have already been questioned. We are tallying their replies with the information given by Sen".
Sleuths have also stumbled on 40 acres of land owned by Sen in Shimla.
Sen, Mukherjeee and another senior official of the Group were arrested April 23 from Sonmarg in Jammu and Kashmir, days after the Group collapsed, unable to repay lakhs of depositors – most of them poor people from villages and small towns – who had parked their hard earned money with its companies, lured by promise of huge returns.
Already, a number of and depositors of Saradha and similar chit fund companies have committed suicide, while offices of a large number of such dubious concerns operating in the state have been attacked.
Even on Saturday, an office of a chit fund company was ransacked by depositors at Pandabeshwar of Hooghly district for allegedly cheating and siphoning of funds.
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We started our day early today at 4am to catch the sunrise at Penanjakan view point. To get there, we needed to take a 1 hour trip via a 4WD ala Paris - Dakkar race (according to our travel agent). Because of the bumpy ride, a member of our troupe (should I reveal who? heheh) couldn't really take it so that poor soul vomitted. Luckily we had plastic bags with us. Oh here's a hint: that poor soul was really excited the day before to get a tiger hat. Ahem heheh. There's an open space where visitors could perform Subuh prayers at the view point.
We reached there just in time to catch the sunrise. There were many visitors around, I really couldn't get a good view until I saw a vacant spot at the other side of the railings (but we had to be careful there as the spot is off limits supposedly, that is why the railings are there in the first place!) I couldn't find the others yet, so I just slipped myself through the railings in between the crowd and took pictures and recorded the sunrise. Well the video cam was with me since I took it over from the poor soul who vomitted heheh. The view was beautiful indeed, the sun rising slowly over the horizon.Subhanallah.
What better way to complement the sunrise watching amidst the cool refreshing mountainous air than having steaming hot coffee and tea at the rustic wooden stalls by the roadside with good company. Ah dolce vita.
From Penanjakan, we proceded to the foot of Bromo via the same 4WD, but this time the journey was shorter. At the foothill, we were given a horse (!) each. Mine was named Stefan. My jockey's name was Alexander (or something which sounded like that) Glamorous name hehe..
We rode the horses to a point where next we had to climb up the stairs to the crater of Bromo. I took the video while on Stefan's back, narrating the ride. Stefan also didn't disappoint me, he took to me rather well. Good boy Stef! ;) Of course, the horse jockey followed nearby, I wouldn't know how to ride a horse on my own! Actually, the horses are more like ponies, they are smaller. Pygmy horses maybe? Everything in Indonesia is small anyway, for example, I bought an XL t-shirt at Bromo without trying it. When I actually opened it back home, it was fit enough for me. I had planned to give it to my mom since she likes oversized t-shirts.
Sorry I digressed. Back to Bromo. Mas decided to fall back and waited for us at the drinks stall while we climbed up. Part of the staircases were covered by ash, some parts were eroded. So we had to tread carefully. Some of the braver ones just hiked up the crater by the side of the stairs, wearing just slippers. At the crater, there were no railings and it is only about 2m wide (or narrow, rather). So one must be cautious so as not to slip and fall in. OK I may be exaggerating, but I did have that imagination playing in my mind. Haiyo. Not for those with vertigo.
Then it was back on the horses to return to our jeeps. Oh yes, on the way to the Bromo crater, we passed by a Hindu temple - the local Hindu religion of the Tenggerese is a remnant from the Majapahit era and therefore is quite similar to that on Bali but with even more animist elements. Source here An offering ceremony at the crater is held once every year the Upacara Kasada held on the full moon of the 12th month (Kasada) of the Tenggerese calendar.
We then headed to an area reminiscent of a savannah, sans the zebras and giraffes. This was a resultant of the fertile volcanic contents and the climate there. Temperatures are refreshingly cool during the day, never exceeding 20°C but outright cold at night as temperatures can drop close to zero. Source here. We stopped at the savannah area for picture taking.
It was then back to the hotel for breakfast. It was already 10.30am, luckily the hotel still had reserved the food for the latecomers. After breakfast (we were famished again as usual), we showered and checked out to head back to Surabaya.
It was another strenuous journey with the very fast driving (and sometimes haphazard, but none of us dared comment anything) of our driver. I would say for most of our Indonesian trips, we had to spend a lot of time on the road to get from one place to the other because of access via trunk roads. But of course this should not be a hindrance to our travels, as the journeys can be an enjoyment if you choose to look it from a another view - you get to see the quaint villages and the local folks with their unique activities.
Before reaching Surabaya, we stopped by at a placed called Semburan Lumpur. This spot used to be a village - not just one, but 16 villages actually - where the place was engulfed by volcanic mud as result of a blowout of a natural gas well drilled by PT Lapindo Brantas, in May 2006 although company officials contend it was caused by a distant earthquake. There are 3 hypotheses suggested which might have triggered the explosion (too technical to share it here, but do check it out at the mentioned link). It has been in eruption ever since and it is the biggest mud volcano in the world. Source here. We took a motorcycle ride with the local residents to see the area. Smell of natural gas permeated the air - but heck, I saw a (maybe ignorant) villager lighting his cigarette and happily smoking away. Better stay away from him.
We said our thank yous to the villagers, but left them feeling pity for the misfortune that befell them. We headed to another branch of Restoran Tempoe Doloe for late lunch. Then we went to Little Madina - a street stall shopping area selling religious goods such as prayer garments and garments for haj and umrah. Got myself a lightweight travel telekung ala parachute which you can fold them into a very thin layer and fit it into a cute bag, which is provided together. But unfortunately, we found out that we were ripped off by the shop as at the shop next door, the same telekung cost IDR 15,000 cheaper. We quickly left the pasar.
It was now already 7pm, the bazaar -Jamabatan Merah Plaza that would have been a good place for souvenir hunting and shopping was already closed. So we were brought to a modern shopping complex in search of souvenirs - but to no avail. We ended up having coffee and drinks instead.
We reached our hotel at about 9pm. Since we were feeling exhausted a good massage would be great to loosen our stiff muscles. Mas and Ezad decided to stay at the hotel while the rest searched for a proper massage parlour. Luckily our driver remembered sending a previous customer there - so he brought us to a spa center which I forgot the name. Our spa package was relatively cheaper than what we have experienced before. But later we found out that the masseuse asked for a tip of IDR50,000 from each of us.


When you are entrusted to deal with the estate of a deceased loved one, it can feel overwhelming. We are here to guide you through this time with compassion, clarity and certainty.
A 'Grant of Probate' is the official recognition by the Supreme Court that a Will is legally valid. You may need to get a 'Grant of Probate' before you can legally deal with any assets under a deceased person's Will.
Complete Probate Service – sit back and leave the whole process to us.
We can help you to determine if you need probate, and what will be involved given the terms of the Will and the assets of the deceased.
We do this for a fixed price, which is then fully rebated against the fee we charge if you engage us for either a DIY Probate Review or our Complete Probate Service.
Call us on 1300 654 590 for straight answers about the type of application you may need to make, and what will be involved.
If you've already determined that you need a Grant of Probate, and you want to have a go at preparing the Probate Application yourself, we can help you with a DIY Probate Review for a fixed price.
We can review your Probate Application to pick up any common errors or likely issues in getting probate through, before you lodge the documents with the Probate Registry. With this service you will get the benefit of an experienced lawyer reviewing your application so that you are likely to get the Grant sooner.
Still got questions? Call us on 1300 654 590 for straight answers.
If you just want to sit back and have us do all the work – no problem. We will guide you through the process from start to finish for an upfront agreed fixed price.
If you would like a no-obligation quote for our Complete Probate Service, call us on 1300 654 590, we love discussing our fees in the context of the value and certainty we deliver.


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Where Can I Get The Updated Release Or Alternative To The Easy Local Cash (ELC) Software 3.5?
8th April, 2019 By April
In episode 227 of our weekly Hump Day Hangouts, one viewer asked whether the team knew where one could get the updated release for the Easy Local Cash (ELC) Software 3.5, which is no longer working, or an alternative.
Bradley:
Were you aware that the ELC software (ver 3.5) from Chad is now saying the software is not longer giving accurate results.
I sent him a message to get an updated version, but no response for more than 4 days.
Would you know where we can get the updated release or maybe an alternate solution?
""IMPORTANT: This version of the Easy Local Cash software has been discontinued and is no longer returning accurate results. Email here for information about the newest version of this software.""
I sent my message to these emails and nothing!


Your car has no shortage of responsibilities, like getting to and from work and picking up your kids from school to even family vacation through the county. In order to accomplish these responsibilities you have to keep your car in good condition which means keeping repairs and upgrades up to date and taking it in whenever a sign of a problem arises. Located in Troy, the Automotive Authority offers comprehensive automotive repairs and tune up service solutions for drivers throughout the Metro Detroit area. Our goal is to keep your car in premium condition for the long haul, allowing you to drive safely, swiftly, and sustainably.
Break Repairs- Arguably the single most important type of vehicle maintenance, brake repairs ensure that you are able to stop at a moment's notice. This is critical for keeping you and your family safe when traveling at high speeds or on wet or icy roads. Our brake repair team can identify even the subtlest problems with your brakes and shore them up before they put your vehicle in danger.
Engine Solutions- Your engine offers power for the entire vehicle, so the better you are at taking care of it, the better your car will perform in any environment. Our team repairs engine problems both large and small. Even if you haven't noticed any problems, we can perform an inspection to detect and address performance issues in their earliest stages. By repairing engine problems early and upgrading your powertrain with advanced equipment, we reduce fuel consumption, improve safety, and ensure that you can start your car in even the most difficult conditions.
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The earlier you address problems with your car, the easier it is to shore them up. The Automotive Authority is always available to inspect your vehicle and restore it to full working order.
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The Town Council approved a raise for the patrol officers in the Winthrop Police Department Tuesday night. Although we certainly are living in a time of unprecedented budgetary restraints, there's no question that the pay increase has been well earned. All of the Town Council members agreed about the worthiness of the new contract.
The five per cent increase, spread out over three years (though in reality six years because of the zero percent status for two of the previous three years), is reasonable and one that Town Manager James McKenna felt was equitable.


Canadian contractor loves his green spaces, and his diverse customer base loves how he maintains them.
When you grow up working in a greenhouse, receive a diploma in horticulture, and then work as a golf course superintendent for 11 years, one thing is for sure—you love green spaces.
With 18 different theme gardens, the Montreal Botanical Garden is surely a wonder for the eye. Yet, this Quebec showcase, established in 1939, has become more than a public exhibition of beautiful flowers, trees and plants. It is also a center for botanical research and education, and a place to gain new social and cultural experiences.
Albert Lauze would never admit to being the ideal contractor. But to his customers that's just what he is.
Enbretien Jacques Levesque has operated his lawn maintenance business for only five years, yet already he knows what it takes to be successful.


Like other organs in the body, the lungs are affected by the habits we keep in our daily lives. Everything from what we put in our bodies to the places we live and the air we breathe can have a major impact on lung health and enough negative elements here can create big problems – even for people born with perfect lungs.
One great example here is emphysema, a disease that slowly damages your lungs over time and makes it more difficult to breathe. The leading cause of emphysema? Not genetic risk or some birth defect, but smoking cigarettes. That's right, a lifestyle choice is the primary cause of this disease.
What other factors can cause emphysema, and how is it diagnosed and treated? Here's a breakdown.
Emphysema is just one of a few diseases that falls under the umbrella of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) – others include bronchitis and asthma. Patients with COPD feel shortness of breath over time, but many cases aren't picked up for years because people think their symptoms are part of getting older.
In cases of emphysema, air sacs in your lungs called alveoli are damaged along their inner walls to the point where they rupture. Rather than many tight pockets of air like the lungs prefer, emphysema patients develop one larger pocket in the lungs as more alveoli rupture. This actually decreases the amount of oxygen that's able to hit the bloodstream – old air is trapped when you breathe out, and new oxygen can't get in as easily.
Shortness of breath is the number one symptom of emphysema, and often the only symptom. It usually starts out moderately before getting worse over time. If this condition becomes regular enough, it might be time to see a doctor and find out if you are suffering from emphysema. If it ever becomes so severe that you can't complete daily tasks, or if you notice extremities like fingers or lips turning blue, call 911 or see a doctor right away.
In its worst cases, emphysema can raise the risk of life-threatening conditions like collapsed lungs, heart problems and holes in the lungs.
There are several kinds of tests to help diagnose emphysema, split up into a few broad categories.
There are a few different kinds of tests available, and they help with both diagnosing emphysema and tracking its progress over time. They're designed to measure how well your lungs are processing oxygen into the bloodstream, and usually don't require anything other than breathing how you're told.
In some cases, doctors will take a sample of blood and test it in a lab to see how well your lungs are sending oxygen into the bloodstream.
Usually either a chest X-ray or a CT scan for when a single X-ray can't pick up everything going on in the lungs.
Depending on the severity of a case, there are a few different treatment possibilities once you've been diagnosed with emphysema.
It's important to remember that once you have emphysema, it can't be fully cured. Treatment after diagnosis is all about managing the disease, but this is more possible than ever with the modern medicine available to us.


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Home Stay Healthy At Sea! St. Vincent and the Grenadines Lifts COVID Restrictions for Cruise Passengers
■Stay Healthy At Sea!
Oct 14, 2022 Shared from cruiseindustrynews.com
The Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines has removed COVID protocols for cruise passengers for the 2022-23 season, according to a press release.
Carlos James, the tourism minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, made the announcement to stakeholders this week, during the 28th Florida Caribbean Cruise Association Conference in the Dominican Republic.
"In spite of the many challenges encountered in the last two cruise seasons, from a global health pandemic to the eruption of our country's La Soufriere volcano, your strategic partnership allowed us to navigate those turbulent times," commented James on the decision.
In addition, the tourism minister assured stakeholders and leaders in the cruise industry that St. Vincent and the Grenadines will be risk-free and safe to visit during the 2022–2023 cruise season.
Following a period of low infections globally and low COVID-related admissions to the island's medical facilities, St. Vincent and the Grenadines has decided to relax its health protocols for arriving cruise passengers, claims the tourism minister.
The multi-island State put protocols in place to help cruise travelers during the most recent cruise season, including safe zones set up for vaccinated cruise travelers. St. Vincent and the Grenadines will replace these protocols with more relaxed health regulations for the upcoming 2022–2023 cruise season, allowing unvaccinated passengers to visit the area for the first time in two years.
Canada Drops COVID-19 Entry Requirements for Cruise Passengers


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First pictures as boy, 14, stabbed to death in Leyton is named
Police are seeking to reassure the terrified local community after the horrific murder of a child
It is thought 14-year-old Jayden was stabbed after his moped crashed with a car
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Police have named and released photographs of a 14-year-old boy stabbed to death in Leyton , in what is believed to have been a "targeted attack".
Officers and the London Ambulance Service were originally called to reports of a car crash on Bickley Road, just before 6.30pm on Tuesday (January 8).
They established the murdered boy, Jayden Moodie of Waltham Forest, was riding a moped that crashed with a car.
Detectives believe three men got out of the car and stabbed Jayden, who was found with multiple injuries, before they returned to the car and drove off.
Despite the best efforts of paramedics, Jayden died under an hour later at 7.09pm.
Schoolboy Jayden was killed in what police believe was a targeted attack (Image: Met Police)
Detective Inspector Chris Soole, who is leading the murder investigation, said: "Any murder is appalling but the death of a 14-year-old boy is particularly shocking.
"Everything we know so far points to the fact that this appears to be a targeted attack and those who carried it out had only one objective, which was to inflict fatal injuries on Jayden.
"We continue to investigate why Jayden was singled out and retain an open mind at this time.
"My team is working tirelessly to apprehend those responsible for this cowardly attack and I would appeal to anyone who has information that could assist this investigation to come forward and speak to police or Crimestoppers."
Police at the scene of the crime (John Stillwell/PA Wire)
Police are currently working to trace the car involved, believed to be a black Mercedes B Class with "extensive damage" to the front.
A section 60 order, allowing police to stop and search members of the public, was put in place in the area and is being "continually reviewed", according to the Chief Superintendent Richard Tucker.
CSI Tucker said the age of the victim "beggars belief" and that he completely understands "the alarm and concern it has raised from those who live and work in the area".
Flowers left at the scene for Jayden (John Stillwell/PA Wire)
He added: "I would urge the local community to be patient and cooperate where possible with the work detectives are getting on with in the area.
"My officers will be out working to support investigators today and be there to talk to the public and listen to the concerns they have.
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"Neighbourhood patrols will be stepped up in the area and locals can expect to see more police. I would urge anyone with information on the attack to contact police without delay."
So far no arrests have been made.
Anyone with information should call police on 020 8345 3734 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
Did you know Jayden? Would you like to speak to us for a tribute piece to honour his life? If so please reach out to our reporter at vicky.munro@reachplc.com.
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Legoland WindsorWhat's On Writer Alexandra Bullard tackled two of the biggest toy retailers in London to see which toy was the most pricey


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using System.Reflection;
using System.Runtime.CompilerServices;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

// General Information about an assembly is controlled through the following
// set of attributes. Change these attribute values to modify the information
// associated with an assembly.
[assembly: AssemblyTitle("Brawl Song Manager")]
[assembly: AssemblyDescription("This program is provided as-is without any warranty, implied or otherwise. By using this program, the end user agrees to take full responsibility regarding its proper and lawful use. The authors/hosts/distributors cannot be held responsible for any damage resulting in the use of this program, nor can they be held accountable for the manner in which it is used.")]
[assembly: AssemblyConfiguration("")]
[assembly: AssemblyCompany("")]
[assembly: AssemblyProduct("Brawl Song Manager")]
[assembly: AssemblyCopyright("Copyright © 2013-2015 libertyernie")]
[assembly: AssemblyTrademark("")]
[assembly: AssemblyCulture("")]

// Setting ComVisible to false makes the types in this assembly not visible
// to COM components.  If you need to access a type in this assembly from
// COM, set the ComVisible attribute to true on that type.
[assembly: ComVisible(false)]

// The following GUID is for the ID of the typelib if this project is exposed to COM
[assembly: Guid("bfacea07-424a-42b5-aab7-1e2fe41eccce")]

// Version information for an assembly consists of the following four values:
//
//      Major Version
//      Minor Version
//      Build Number
//      Revision
//
// You can specify all the values or you can default the Build and Revision Numbers
// by using the '*' as shown below:
// [assembly: AssemblyVersion("1.0.*")]
[assembly: AssemblyVersion("3.6.0.0")]
[assembly: AssemblyFileVersion("3.6.0.0")]

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


All STONEMONT SUB REV homes currently listed for sale in St Petersburg as of 04/25/2019 are shown below. You can change the search criteria at any time by pressing the 'Change Search' button below.
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Home > Artists > Rozanne Bell
Rozanne Bell
"I read a wonderful post on Facebook recently that said 'the Africa I know is at the heart of sky-high mountains and tropical jungle, of golden sand dunes and lush green grassland'. That's where my colours come from."
Rozanne's Edinburgh-born father and Yorkshire-born mother had moved to Zimbabwe before she was born in 1962. She lived there for the first 40 years of her life until, in 2002, the political situation under President Robert Mugabe saw her flee the country with her five young children, taking only what they stood up in.
"I took the children to school one day, and never got to go home again. I lost everything, including – for me the biggest tragedy – all my art materials and books. But please don't think I'm sorry for myself – that's not me at all! It's just the way things were."
Rozanne and her children pitched up back in the UK, followed later by her husband and parents, and she settled at Sturminster Newton in Dorset, setting up a studio in nearby Shillingstone.
Despite having had a successful career as an artist in Zimbabwe, she was forced to start again completely from scratch, seeking out frames for her paintings at car boot sales and selling her work round local pubs.
"So that was my two years of crying into my paints!" she says. "Then someone spotted my work, liked it, and got me into a local gallery. My big break was with my pictures of harbours, which I started painting after visiting Padstow and Rock in Cornwall.
"I like to use lots of different media – I have a real love of calligraphy, for example. And my paintings are created using layers and layers of paint, sometimes four or more."
Rozanne is keen that each and every work she creates is unique and isn't reproduced. "I'm ever conscious of those who like and buy my work," she says. "I haven't succumbed to the temptations of limited editions or mass market prints. Each picture I paint is an original with no one painting being the same as another."
"I am also passionate that my work remains affordable. I would rather sell ten paintings to ten nice people at a good price, than one at a fortune to a celebrity. I'm not interested in the ego of art! It bores me to death."
She may be known for her vivid animals, many, most obviously her dramatic elephants, inspired by her African youth; for flamboyant birds, for those harbours, for flowers and for street scenes, all of which lend themselves perfectly to her glorious palette of colours and to her trademark detailed metallic embellishments, but she might one day turn her attention to a subject less renowned for its colourful appearance – her mother's home county of Yorkshire.
"I just love Yorkshire – I'm actually a little obsessed with it," she says. "I love York, of course, where my mother was born – I believe one of her relatives was Lord Mayor at one time. Her family home is now the laundry of St Olave's Grammar School! And we used to visit Driffield and Filey when I was a little girl.
"I would definitely like to do some paintings of York one of these days."
The famous city of grey stone walls isn't going to know what's hit it…
Growing up under the blazing African sun surrounded by the continent's vibrant colours has had a lifelong effect on Rozanne Bell.
The artist's canvases are alive with saturated, vivid colours. "I could no more paint a bleak, dull picture than I could fly to the moon," she says now. "Anyone with an African upbringing will tell you the same: African art is so bright. I used to come over here on holidays, go to galleries, and be amazed at the lack of colour.
Follow Rozanne Bell on Facebook
Follow Rozanne Bell on Twitter
Follow Rozanne Bell on Instagram
Dazzling STRIPES by Rozanne Bell
"I just love abstracts – they're my favourite thing to do," enthuses Rozanne.
Artmarket artist Rozanne Bell
Growing up under a blazing African sun surrounded by vibrant colours have had a lasting effect on Rozanne Bell.
Sail Away by Rozanne Bell
The images of lush green grassland, vivid blue sea and dynamic tropical jungle under the bright yellow sun all contribute to her inspiration.
Select collection Stripes Abstract Evening Bay Enchanted Love Meadow Wildlife Moonlights Beach Harvest Moon
Perfect Posy
Fun By The Coast
Magenta Blossom
Stripes XI
Stripes II
Evening Blossom
Falling Blossom
Hiding Beneath The Pink
Blossoming View
Lost In Blossom
Sundown on the Harbour
Stripes IV
Stripes VIII
Stripes IX
Stripes X
Stripes VII
Stripes V


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Host: Michael Duncan
Drink: Nikka "From the Barrel" Japanese Whiskey
Hello there once again Simple Minds fans!
This weeks host is Michael and today he's brought with him a fine Japanese Whiskey that's come in a strangely – medicinal looking – bottle. He's also apparently feeling a bit under the weather so who knows – maybe he plans to poison the rest of the guys and claim Simple Minds for himself? Perhaps. Perhaps.
Regardless, the whiskey still tastes pretty good and the topic for this week should be pretty good so let's get to it.
This potentially fatal round is on Michael Duncan with the support of Matt Hanham, Justin Bourn and Jacob "The Prophet" Moffitt. The Simple Minds Podcast unravels topics such as personal development, philosophy, life, and business – one medicinal drink at a time.
Listen on: Apple Podcast | Spotify | YouTube | SoundCloud
Today's sole topic of the week is brought in by Jacob! (Travis was supposed to bring a subject to but didn't turn up, nice one Travis.) Jacob asks the guys if they agree with the idea that, much like a fear of failure, we also may suffer from a fear of success? If so, how does this fear of success differ from a fear of failure?
Jacob elaborates on these questions by pointing out his own perceived fears in his business, stating that he harbors concerns over what the future may hold as his business continues to grow.
"…Well, let's try this whiskey first." – Matt
Justin immediately proves his innate ability to be supportive by going on to state that fearing success is "bullshit". Rather, it isn't so much success that we fear, but the added work and responsibility that could come with that success. Our true fear, a fear of change, is the real challenge to fully overcome.
Justin draws on his recent experience in Vienna where he was a keynote speaker at an industry seminar, detailing the nature of his own success in his own business. More specifically, Justin speaks about the feeling of inadequacy and listlessness that he experienced when his business had achieved the great deal of success it had in the relatively brief time he worked on it. (He spoke to a few ducks in Hyde Park at one point, it's still unknown what wisdom they held but it must have been pretty good).
Ultimately, Justin managed to get out of that sense of malaise by rationalizing that his feelings were coming from a fear of what other people thought of him (FOPO). More specifically, Justin draws on how he became anxious with the idea that people would begin to see him differently and then – by extension, would react negatively towards that change.
To summarise, Justin argues that "Fear of Success" is a largely incorrect phrase, with the fear we feel from success coming from a different place. Rather, the fear we feel is again, a fear of added responsibility, added work or, in Justin's case, a fear of how we may be seen. As an example, Justin goes on to say that the fear of failing in his business is much less of an issue to him, arguing his business could fail tomorrow and he would still have the resilience to simply start up a new one.
Matt elaborates on the idea and brings up a conversation he and Justin had on the idea that they were something of a hybrid of an introvert and extrovert, with both being happy to sit behind a computer all day while simultaneously being able to handle the day to day responsibilities and roles that have been required in their leadership roles with their respective businesses.
If anything, Matt feels that the primary way he may "fear success" would be the fear that, should his business explode into a massive success, the time he can spend with family would be compromised.
This leads on the guys to briefly muse on the idea of what success means.
"If you have nothing to whinge and complain about, you're successful." – Justin
"Success is tranquility" – Michael
Ultimately, the guys seem to decide that having a continuous direction and goal to strive for is a good measure of success, should such an endeavor be a source of tranquility on a personal level.
In short, humans are kind of like dogs chasing cars. If we ever caught one and then we fear we wouldn't know what to do with it.
Jacob starts talking about his experience playing American Football (again), stating that his original desires within the team to be a major contributor became fuzzy or difficult to fully ascertain as time went on. This seemed to stem from a missed opportunity to play in the position Jacob originally envisioned himself playing in before the giant flaccid penis of reality smacked him in the face and it became obvious to the everyone he wouldn't be able to fill that role efficiently. (He won't tell us what role he was aiming for, though the life-size Rob Gronkowski cut-out he keeps in his bedroom is probably a good clue.)
This all apparently came from the fact that Jacob didn't attempt to claim the position for himself, believing he would be thought of negatively if he succeeded in becoming the Australian Gronk.
"In new and unfamiliar space, I'm quite quiet and introverted." – Jacob telling us something we totally didn't know already.
The guys eventually start moving on to the subject of Jacob inflicting a lot of self-sabotage in his own business from his own patterns of behavior. With, more often than not, this coming in the form of procrastination and a lack of follow through in certain plans. Again, this can be argued to be an example of fearing success manifesting through a form of behavior that, while Jacob is conscious of it, does not seem able to curb it.
"Being free of debt, I feel, is a strange thing to fear" – Jacob
Michael tries to build on this idea, making a decision recently to expand his business over the next few months and cites what Conrad said regarding how inspiration doesn't create action, but rather it is the action that creates inspiration.
"He is here" – Michael on Conrad
"He is everywhere" – Matt on Conrad's true, ascended state
The act of actually doing an action is a major step towards successfully achieving the goal that action is associated with. Musing or planning a system, whilst good, will only go so far before we need to force ourselves to make the first steps, as only then can we overcome the "fear of success" we feel in these moments of inaction or procrastination.
"It sounds simple of course, but simple is hard" – Michael
Michael then mentions the process he went through hiring his new colleague/manservant/Igor – Victor. Saying that despite the simple process of him finally inviting Victor into the business, much of the dialogue and planning around Victor joining had gone on for nearly two years before any action had finally taken place.
"One day, you're going to write a whole series of philosophy books and on the back of the cover will be a picture of you with a really long beard." – Matt, impressed by Michaels show of casual wisdom.
The guys move on to talking about how they were all good at school despite not studying as much as they probably should have. #humblebrag
But in all seriousness, a lot of what school teaches us, particularly regarding anything to do with nourishing a sense of achievement, accountability and/or ambitions, is severely lacking , particularly when we go into our final year of exams, which often leaves us a students developing bad habits to cope with the pressure of not only the work but also the social implications of doing work and ultimately succeeding.
For Justin (and the Medium article he said he would link us but didn't), a lot of how success works is about aiming to achieve excellence in the subject you hold to be your passion and, rather than working towards the idea of it being successful or the perception of others that that success would bring, whether that be positive or negative, we should strive to achieve success for our passion for the love of what we are doing.
"Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure." – Michael, summing up the episode.
On a final note, because you're probably dying to know as we are, we made a little preview what Michael will look one day with a giant beard.
Subscribe to the Simple Minds podcast and don't forget to leave us a review if you liked this weeks topic.
Grab a drink and check out our Facebook and Instagram. Give us your hot take on the topics discussed in this episode.


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We are highlighting another great port-of-call in the beautiful Bay of Fundy. There really is no better place to whale and bird watch than Grand Manan. If seeing an Atlantic Puffin in person doesn't impress you – we don't know what will! Catch a sunrise or sunset at one of the famous lighthouses. Visit the local art gallery and museum. Enjoy golfing, curling, or take-in a local ball game. Or head to the local beaches in search of sea glass and sand dollars. Island life moves at a different pace. We recommend a visit!


text:
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In addition to pulling in hosting revenue from companies like Disney, Netflix, and Spotify, AWS is also the backbone of the company's own internal infrastructure and the underlying foundation for its Alexa digital voice assistant. It is a major competitor to Microsoft and its Azure platform, as well as Google's cloud computing division and the cloud businesses of IBM and Oracle. AWS is so important to the integrity of the apps and websites we use that a rare S3 outage, which is the web hosting pillar of AWS, took out large swaths of the internet.
In late 2016, the company launched its first experimental Go store, which replaces cashiers with a computer vision system that automatically detects when you take products off the shelf and checks you out as you leave the store. Go now has two locations in Chicago, three in Seattle, and one that just opened in San Francisco today, with more planned in California and New York City over the course of the next year. Bloomberg reported in September that Amazon may open as many as 3,000 Go locations by 2021, with the goal of competing with stores like CVS and 7-Eleven, as well as fast casual and made-to-go meal establishments. The company is also now experimenting with brick-and-mortar stores that sell only four-star rated products from Amazon.com, starting with a location in New York City.
Go digital. Even though you're not shopping online, embracing technology can help you save. "Sign up for email alerts from your favorite retailers and follow them on Facebook and Instagram for exclusive offers," says Freeman. Last year, for example, Walmart promoted hourly manager specials to their Facebook fans, points out Andrea Woroch, a consumer and money saving expert.
Amazon lobbies the United States federal government and state governments on issues such as the enforcement of sales taxes on online sales, transportation safety, privacy and data protection and intellectual property. According to regulatory filings, Amazon.com focuses its lobbying on the United States Congress, the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Reserve. Amazon.com spent roughly $3.5 million, $5 million and $9.5 million on lobbying, in 2013, 2014 and 2015, respectively.[208]
The Echo line and its Alexa assistant are Amazon's avenues into our physical lives and our digital behaviors. With the data it collects, Amazon is able to better understand how we shop and how we want the devices of the future to listen, respond, and problem solve as if they were other human beings. Amazon has stiff competition in this space, primarily from Apple and Google, but its early investments in smart speakers and AI have helped Amazon overcome its absence in the key consumer markets like mobile, search, and social networks. As a result, Amazon has made early and tangible inroads in developing an ecosystem that customers will find increasingly hard to abandon down the line.
The company was founded as a result of what Jeff Bezos called his "regret minimization framework," which described his efforts to fend off any regrets for not participating sooner in the Internet business boom during that time.[19] In 1994, Bezos left his employment as vice-president of D. E. Shaw & Co., a Wall Street firm, and moved to Seattle, Washington, where he began to work on a business plan[20] for what would become Amazon.com.
To help you save time while shopping, Amazon offers 1-Click ordering when you first place an order and enter your shipping and payment information. This feature lets you click "Buy now with 1-Click" on any product page to instantly order that item using your saved shipping and payment information. With 1-Click ordering, you won't have to go through pages of payment and shipping options separately anymore — and when you're trying to get the best Cyber Monday deals, every second counts.
Sign up for Amazon Family and a Prime account to get special offers, coupons and discounts on family-oriented items. If you aren't a Prime member, you'll get a 5% discount on baby food and diaper subscriptions. Prime members get an additional 15% off with five or more active subscriptions. Get a 15% discount code and a free Welcome Box when you sign up for the Baby Registry.
If you're registering as a business, you will be asked to supply your business name, the business' contact information, your credit card information and tax identification number. You will also be asked to verify your phone number by supplying a 4-digit pin during an automated call or text. The process is generally fast and sellers can begin listing items immediately.
Fitness guru Billy Blanks entered American homes across the country when he introduced his Tae Bo workout. The creator of the martial art known as Tae Bo, Blanks sought to teach people how they could get more physically fit, be more confident, and do so from the comfort of their own home. The Tae Bo workout has revolutionized the way people get their exercise and provided millions of people access to an easy and effective martial art that they can learn through instructional videos.