text:
Help more students 'Finish in 4'
By The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board
Since taking office in 2011, Gov. Rick Scott has often butted heads with higher-education leaders in Florida. Scott signed budgets cutting funding for colleges and universities in his first years in office, spotlighted salaries for faculty and administrators by posting links to them on his website, talked about eliminating tenure for professors and questioned the value of liberal arts degrees such as anthropology.
Scott didn't do anything to heal old wounds when he convened a "Degrees to Jobs Summit" recently in Orlando without inviting representatives of the state's largest faculty union, the 22,000-member United Faculty of Florida. But he did launch an initiative worthy of broad support, even from his usual adversaries in academia. The governor is calling it "Finish in Four, Save More."
Scott's plan is based on an uncomfortable fact: Fewer than half of undergraduates at public universities in Florida — 44 percent — now earn their degrees within four years. Another 27 percent take six years to graduate.
With undergraduates spending about $17,000 a year for tuition, fees, books and living expenses, the cost of those extra two years adds up. It increases the debt load for students who must borrow to bankroll their educations. It also delays them from joining the working world full time. Scott calculates the total additional cost in tuition and other school expenses, together with lost wages, at $100,000.
That's a big disadvantage for new graduates entering an already challenging job market. At his summit, the governor outlined a series of practical steps for public colleges and universities to help more of their students graduate within four years.
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Some steps would seem to be simple for colleges and universities to carry out, such as routinely telling students as they pick their majors and schedule their classes about the money they'll save if they finish in four years. Another no-brainer is ensuring students receive credit for college and advanced-placement courses they took in high school. A third is making it easier for them to qualify for class credit for internships, which also will give them a boost in landing a good job after they graduate.
Another step would come at a higher cost to schools but is nonetheless worth pursuing: removing additional fees for online classes. There are about 142,000 public university students in Florida taking courses online, the second-highest state total behind Texas'. But with extra fees of $100 per credit hour at many of Florida's public universities, online courses can cost up to $300 more, which could discourage more students from taking them — even if they would help them earn the necessary credits to graduate within four years.
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Finally, Scott repeated his call for the Legislature to expand the Bright Futures scholarship program — which now covers a share of tuition and fees in fall and spring semesters — to summer classes. That expansion would give more students a chance to earn credit during summers and graduate within four years.
Lawmakers didn't approve Scott's proposal to expand Bright Futures during this year's legislative session; the change would have cost nearly $17 million in its first year. But incoming Senate President Joe Negron has called for spending an additional $1 billion on higher education, which would leave plenty of room for the extra funding necessary to expand Bright Futures.
If more college and university students graduate sooner, with lower debt loads, they'll get a head start on realizing their dreams and strengthening their communities. Those are worthy goals for anyone who has any say in higher education in Florida.
This article appeared in the Orlando Sentinel.


text:
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Dr Yogita Dogra is an eminent superspecialist in the field of Reproductive Medicine and Gynecological Endocrinology. She has a vast experience of more than 14 years in Obstetrics and Gynecology. She has done MBBS from Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC), Shimla. Her post graduation (MD) in Obstetrics and Gynecology (2008-11) is from Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh. Thereafter she did her three years DM in Reproductive Medicine (superspecialization) from another premier institute of the country i.e. All India Institute of Medical Sciences(AIIMS), New Delhi. She has worked as a Consultant in the Division of Reproductive Medicine, Department of OBG, Kamla Nehru State Hospital, IGMC, Shimla.
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© 2023 ARRIVA IVF - SUPERSPECIALITY FERTILITY CENTRE

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Feel free to link back to this page, but please don't copy/republish.
Feel free to link back to this page, but do not copy/republish my list.
Back in 2012, I was determined to find and learn about every indie polish shop. I looked for a complete list with links and names. The only list I could find was one on MUA that haayleyy posted on Feb 22, 2012 of 27 polish shops.
Since I was not able to find a single source with a complete hyperlinked list of shops, I decided to create my own. I began by looking up all the shop links from haayleyy's list and then published it here on February 23, 2012. xoxojen.com is the first blog home of the original indie shop links list.
I have since added/removed well over 800 shops to my list. On occasion, the list is scrubbed to remove broken links, change links, and remove shops that have not been active for several months or have closed. My list will never be all inclusive, but it's a really good start.
Manna's Manis helped audit the list in 2018 to remove closed shops. Big thank you to her!
If you find new shops to add here or broken links please let me know by commenting below, filling my contact form, or emailing me.
I hope you find the list useful and thanks for the visit!


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Zest Dental Solutions®, developer and manufacturer of the genuine LOCATOR®, celebrates 40th anniversary
October 25, 2017 by Implant Practice Team
Zest Dental Solutions® (formerly Zest Anchors), the developer and manufacturer of the award-winning LOCATOR Attachment System, celebrated its 40th anniversary of providing innovative solutions for the treatment of edentulous patients.
Zest's humble beginning started in 1972 within a small dental laboratory in San Diego, California. From that point through 1976, the original founder, Max Zuest, recognized the continual problems his clinician customers were experiencing with patients' over-dentures. During this time, the Zest® Attachment originated, a solution considered to be far better than what was on the market at the time. In 1977, Mr. Zuest's son, Paul Zuest, joined him officially forming Zest Anchors and releasing the second generation Zest Anchor Advanced Generation (ZAAG®) Attachment. The ZAAG Attachment was designed for all major implant systems, a product differentiator that proved to be an important growth driver resulting in the need for a larger manufacturing facility in Escondido, California. In 2000, realizing improvements could still be made to the product portfolio, Paul Zuest took over operations of the company and, together with Scott Mullaly, set forth to develop a product that would eventually become the most globally recognized and trusted brand for overdenture restorations, the LOCATOR Attachment System, commercially released in 2001. In late 2009, Zest Anchors was acquired by the private equity firm The Jordan Group.
Today, Zest Dental Solutions is a portfolio company of Avista Capital Partners, a leading private equity firm. Day-to-day operations are led by Steve Schiess as President and CEO. The company's flagship product LOCATOR has achieved worldwide acceptance as the premier overdenture attachment in the dental industry. More than 100 manufacturers have partnered with Zest to customize its patented LOCATOR Attachment System to be compatible with its respective implant platforms. Zest's Global Headquarters is in Carlsbad, California, and the company has grown to a nearly 225 employee, 75,000 total facility footprint strong innovation-driven company. It provides removable and fixed implant restorative solutions, world-class narrow diameter implant systems, and dental materials and products for overdenture modification and processing to clinicians treating the real-world problems associated with edentulism. The company has also further diversified its product portfolio with acquisitions of Danville Materials, a leader in small equipment and dental consumables, and Iveri Whitening. This diversification makes Zest a true solutions-based company for a continuum of patient care from the preservation of natural teeth to the treatment of total edentulism.
"Forty years ago the Zuest Family set out to make a difference in patients' lives," said Steve Schiess, Zest Dental Solutions President and CEO. "I am honored to be a part of a company that has made such a large impact in the dental industry, supporting clinicians, and ultimately improving patients' quality of life. I am excited for the bright future Zest has in bringing additional innovations to the dental community."
To learn more about Zest Dental Solutions and the Zest Anchors Product Portfolio, please visit www.zestdent.com. To learn more about the Danville Product Portfolio, please visit www.danvillematerials.com.
About Zest Dental Solutions
Zest Dental Solutions is a global leader in the design, development, manufacturing, and distribution of diversified dental solutions for a continuum of patient care from the preservation of natural teeth to the treatment of total edentulism. The company's product portfolios consist of Zest Anchors, Danville Materials, and Perioscopy with global distribution through OEMs, dealer/distributor networks, as well as a domestic retail sales operation for the Zest Anchors Portfolio. Zest Dental Solutions' corporate headquarters is in Carlsbad, California, with satellite operations in Anaheim and Escondido, California.
This information was provided by Zest Dental Solutions®.
Filed Under: Corporate Profile


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For the first time Deutsche Wohnen fits out an entire apartment building with a KIWI keyless entry system
In February, Deutsche Wohnen completed the core refurbishment of the former women's hall of residence of Hoechst AG in Heimchenweg, Frankfurt am Main. Following extensive restructuring work, the former hall of residence was converted into a micro-apartment building with 87 residential units. In addition to the many measures Deutsche Wohnen adopted to create this new housing, the company also invested in the digital infrastructure of the building in order to offer tenants greater convenience and to simplify the processes involved in managing the property. For the first time, all the doors of an apartment building of Deutsche Wohnen have been fitted with digital access technology. This project was carried out with the help of Arbonia, the leading door manufacturer, and KIWI, the provider of keyless entry systems.
Berlin/Frankfurt Main, 17.04.2019
Digital access technology – seamlessly integrated into the front doors of all apartments
All of the main entrance doors to the building, the doors to the cellars and a security barrier were retrofitted with established KIWI technology. For the entrance doors to the apartments, SmartDOORS, which were first presented in January 2019 at the construction trade fair BAU, are being used. These are doors by the established brand names PRÜM and GARANT which have had KIWI's access technology added. The finished product, complete with pre-installed KIWI sensor technology and a motorised lock, is delivered by the factory ready for installation. The sensor technology is installed invisibly in the door leaf and is supplied directly with electricity via the frame. Holger Rentel, a director with Deutsche Wohnen, feels that this new access technology has a number of benefits: "With these SmartDOORS we are offering a convenient and innovative solution to our tenants. In addition, there are lots of advantages during construction and when there is a change of tenant. The doors, including the KIWI access system, are installed by a single partner. This is a one-stop solution for us and means that we don't have to commission different contractors to carry out this work. We don't have any maintenance costs either because the technology has a direct electricity supply."
KIWI.KI GmbH is expanding its area of business
After growing successfully with its retrofit solutions for existing buildings, KIWI is using its integrated entrance doors for individual apartments to expand its area of business to include new builds and refurbished properties. As Karsten Nölling, the CEO of KIWI.KI GmbH, explains, "For new-build and refurbishment projects, it is important to be able to provide a solution that can be integrated seamlessly into the finished property. With the Swiss door manufacturing group Arbonia, which includes the German door manufacturers PRÜM and GARANT, we have found a partner that is open to innovation and that can supply high-quality doors. This means that we can provide our customers with an excellent product that works, like all KIWI products, on the KIWI platform."
Deutsche Wohnen trusts in digital access technology
Deutsche Wohnen has been using the KIWI digital access system since the summer of 2017. In so doing, the company is taking another important step towards digitisation in the management of its properties. The entry management of Deutsche Wohnen's entire holdings is being digitised step by step using KIWI technology. This means that Deutsche Wohnen will be able to achieve huge efficiency gains in the management of all of its approximately 164,000 residential units.
Arbonia AG invests in KIWI.KI GmbH
In January 2019, Arbonia AG and KIWI.KI GmbH presented their first joint product and announced at the same time Arbonia's participation in the prop tech company. This collaboration means that the companies can pool their expertise in door manufacture and digital software in order to be able to offer a forward-looking solution to the housing industry.
About Deutsche Wohnen
Deutsche Wohnen is one of the leading publicly listed property companies in Germany and Europe with a business focus on managing and developing its portfolio, which consists mainly of residential properties. As at 31 December 2018, the portfolio comprised 167,000 units in total, of which 164,300 were residential and 2,700 commercial. The company is listed in the Deutsche Börse's MDAX and is also included in the leading indices EPRA/NAREIT, STOXX® Europe 600 and GPR 250.
About KIWI
KIWI is a keyless entry system for main entrances and individual flats within residential buildings. The KIWI portal enables access authorisation to be managed centrally. This saves time for property managers and means that they no longer have to worry about having the right key in the right place at the right time. More than 65,000 residential units are connected to the KIWI infrastructure, and its customers include more than 500 residential property companies. KIWI is a service provided by KIWI.KI GmbH. The company is based in Berlin and was founded in February 2012. It is headed by Karsten Nölling, the CEO, and Hannah Nöthig.
About PRÜM-GARANT (Arbonia AG)
Arbonia AG includes the leading German door manufacturers PRÜM and GARANT as well as the Swiss market leader RWD Schlatter and the Polish company Invado. It is the second largest door manufacturer in Europe and produced 2.3 million doors in 2018, achieving a turnover of EUR 309 million. In addition to doors, Arbonia has three further divisions that operate in the areas of heating, air-conditioning and ventilation technology, sanitary equipment and windows. Arbonia is listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange and has its headquarters in Arbon in the canton of Thurgau (Switzerland). The company operates worldwide with its own distribution companies as well as offices and partners in more than 70 countries. The main production sites are located in Switzerland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands. In total, Arbonia AG employs around 8,200 people.
19-04-17_PR_Deutsche_Wohnen_fits_out_an_entire_apartment_building_with_a_KIWI_keyless_entry_system (pdf, 122KB)
If you have any questions about Deutsche Wohnen, please get in touch with us.
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The PCAOB re-proposed including the name of the lead partner in the auditor report last week. The Board seemed split on the proposal when you read their comments. There are those that believe disclosing the partners name will make things more transparent to users of the audit report. They even envision data gathered over time on which individual partners are involved in restatements, lawsuits over financial reports and other issues (and of course which aren't). The other point of view is that disclosing the partners name won't do anything for audit quality and it actually might cause problems because auditors will do unnecessary work "just to be sure" and others won't even consider becoming partners in the first place because of the increased scrutiny and liability such a requirement will create.
On the Industry front, this proposal could create some very interesting dynamics when combined with the existing requirement to change partners every few years. While management and the audit committee are always very interested in who the new partner will be, under the proposed rule that interest will take on more of a public relations bent rather than just caring about whether the person is a good auditor and will work well with the company. In theory companies don't negotiate with their firm who the specific partner will be, but could you imagine a scenario where an excellent audit partner who was involved in a lawsuit that was settled in the last couple of years was suggested as the next partner for the audit. I could easily see an audit committee telling the firm that if that partner will be the lead partner on the audit, then the company may decide to tender the audit work and go with a different firm. Keep in mind, this decision has nothing to do with the actual audit skills of the partner involved. Instead it has everything to do with PR perceptions of the investors.
While this scenario might actually get rid of a few bad auditors, I think the more likely result is that many good auditors end up being blackballed and more and more young CPAs question why they would ever want to subject their livelihood to such a possibility in the first place.
The really backwards part of this scenario is that less experienced auditors who handle "easier" clients are more likely to have a clean record while more experienced auditors that are willing to take on the tough assignments will likely end up with a black mark or two. This may end up with companies seeking less experienced auditors with a history of not dealing with difficult situations – this is exactly the opposite of what would be considered the necessary ingredients for a better quality audit. Maybe I'm wrong and the scenario I laid out won't happen, but it sure seems plausible to me. I just wonder if the cost of the potential for lower quality audits is truly outweighed by the benefit from possibly getting rid of a few bad auditors.
Remember that feeling of satisfaction when your auditor questioned your accounting for a large transaction and, after lots of discussion, fact finding and research, the auditor finally agreed you were presenting it correctly resulting in a pretty, clean audit opinion. Well, those days are over if the PCAOB gets it way. Even if you were right, the PCAOB proposal on revisions to the audit report will require the auditor to identify the "critical audit matter," describe why it was critical and refer to the appropriate disclosures in the financial statements. This is beyond the old emphasis of matter paragraphs and is only one of several new requirements proposed by the PCAOB.
Normally, preparers don't care much about PCAOB rule changes impacting the auditors, but this time they should take notice because it is going to significantly change that audit report attached to your financial statements. In fact, you might also need to plan on additional page(s) for your report because the audit report is likely to be much longer in the future.
In addition to a new statement on auditor independence and a required disclosure on when the auditor began serving as the company auditor, the new report will also require the auditor to "evaluate" "other information" previously not subject to the audit. "Other information" includes selected financial data and Management's Discussion and Analysis (MD&A). While "evaluate" is something less than "audit," it is also clearly more than the current requirement to review such information for inconsistencies with the audited financial statements.
In addition, this "evaluation" will be included in the auditor's report. That would seem to open up the auditor to potential liability if there was something "wrong" in the MD&A so I think we will see significantly more work in that area, if only as a purely defensive measure, if the PCAOB proposal becomes a final rule. You can also bet that the auditors will ask for higher fees as a result of the additional work. We all remember how much the fees went up with the adoption of Sox 404 reporting. While this should not be on that scale, I think it will be more than insignificant (to borrow from our standard setter's terminology in the leasing standard).
There of many out there that believe it's about time the MD&A is subject to some audit procedures given its importance to investors, and there are others that feel just as strongly that the MD&A needs to stay out of the audit so it can be truly focused on forward looking information which is notoriously difficult to audit. Whatever your feelings, now is the time to let them be known by the PCAOB. The comment deadline in December 11 which will be here before you know it, so check out the most sweeping revision to the auditor's report in years and let your voice be heard.


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Commission in bid to grub up European vineyards
The EU is preparing for a battle over plans to reform its struggling wine industry, with job losses expected in many of the oldest industrial sectors.
By Emily Smith
May 9, 2007 5:00 pm CET
The Commission last June said that a "profound reform" of the wine industry was needed in response to years of over-production and falling consumption. The EU currently spends €0.5 billion a year getting rid of surplus wine through distillation.
Reform proposals due on 4 July are expected to call for the grubbing up of 200,000 hectares of vineyards and an end to EU subsidies for distillation.
The reform argues that these changes will force low quality and unsuccessful wine – products that are not commercially successful – off the market. A ban on the planting of new vineyards will also be removed by the reform, leaving successful wine-makers free to extend production.
But an impact assessment due to be published with the proposals warns that job losses are inevitable in parts of Europe responsible for most distillation of the wine.
"Although it is difficult to foresee the actual adaptation capacity of the distillery industry," says a draft of the assessment, "according to the opinion of an Italian professional organisation, the sector could lose 75% of its jobs in Italy."
Reform is also expected to bring down the price of cheaper table wines, as wine that would, under the old regime, have been distilled is instead bottled for sale. As a result of the fall in prices, specialised table wine producers in Sicily, Italy and Languedoc-Roussillon, France, could see their income fall by up to a third.
Wine-makers in Languedoc-Roussillon last month started fires in several French supermarkets to protest against the reform.
But CEEV, the European wine producers' federation, said that changes to the industry were inevitable in the face of growing globalisation. "This may be the last chance we have to update the sector," warned José-Ramón Fernández. "We welcome the Commission's efforts to reform the industry, as long as they are accompanied by measures to move into alternative agricultural sectors that are socially acceptable to producers."
The reform proposal will stress that unviable vineyards could move into different agricultural sectors, where they would be eligible for support under the reformed Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
In addition, says the impact assessment, "the grubbing-up scheme and reinforced early retirement measures under rural development [a CAP funding plan] would give adequate support for non-competitive or older vine-growers, thus enabling them to leave the activity in honourable conditions."
A Commission agriculture spokesman said that the reform did not necessarily mean reducing the size of the EU wine industry. In the short-term the changes were likely to mean "less but better" wine on the market, he explained, but in the long-term a more competitive market, together with simplified labelling and classification rules, could see production soar.
"This reform will expand the market, making European wines a more attractive export," he said. "In the long-term people around the world could be drinking French and Spanish and Italian wine, instead of New World varieties."
Katerina Batzeli, the Greek Socialist MEP responsible for guiding the wine reform proposals through the European Parliament, said that the reform would have to propose "explicit criteria" to help wine-makers asked to grub up their vineyards. "The Commission is aware of the sector's problems and should take action to resolve them," said Batzeli.
More from ... Emily Smith


text: Q: QGIS: processing-modeler to add multiple layer name to attribute field I'm trying to add layer name using the field-calculator in QGIS (3.4.1). If I do this manualy it works fine, but if I do this using the processing-modeler I get NULL for every field. I just type @layer_name in the Formula field. Field-type is string and length is 50.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Opinion: The Crux of the Catholic Abuse Scandal, and How to Fix it
Written by David Clohessy, October 22, 2018, Social Policy
Politicians in the US don't insist on being called Your Eminence or Your Grace. They don't ask citizens to kneel before them or kiss their rings. That's because we live in a democracy. There is, however, a different kind of government. It's called a monarchy when using polite language, or more bluntly, a dictatorship. In it, those at the top hold virtually all the power and are accountable to no one.
The oldest and biggest example of this system is the Vatican. And in a nutshell, this is why clergy sex crimes and cover-ups continue in the Catholic church. This is relevant now of course because of last week's scathing grand jury report into six Pennsylvania dioceses. It's sending shockwaves across the church and beyond.
The report cites more than 300 predator priests, 1,000 identified victims and estimates of "thousands more." It concluded that church officials followed a "playbook for concealing the truth," and were "minimizing the abuse by using words like 'inappropriate contact' instead of 'rape,' assigning priests untrained in sexual abuse cases to investigate their colleagues; and not informing the community of the real reasons behind removing an accused priest," according the New York Times. "Church officials who protected (predators) remained in office or even got promotions."
According to one news account, the report included stunning revelations: a priest molested a 7-year-old girl during a visit to a hospital where she had her tonsils removed; priests shared naked photos of abuse victims; a priest arranged an abortion after impregnating a girl he had raped; a priest got a reference letter for a Disney World job after years of complaints about his abusive behavior.
"How could this happen?" many are asking. Based on the 30 years of experience of our organization, the Survivors' Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), we submit there are some very simple, even obvious, explanations. Consider again the monarchy. Bishops ignore, hide and enable child sex crimes because, as monarchs, they can. Technically, they answer to the pope. But in reality, they answer to no one. (How can one pontiff really supervise 5,000 bishops across the planet?)
Thirty years ago, a Louisiana serial predator priest generated national headlines in the US. In recent years, church officials acknowledged that 6,721 clerics are accused molesters and estimated that 100,000 US kids have been hurt.
But only two US bishops have resigned because of their complicity. None have been demoted, defrocked or disciplined. Only two members of the US hierarchy have ever been criminally charged for covering up. If you have a lifetime gig as "Your Eminence," and there's virtually no chance of being punished for shunning victims, hiding crimes, transferring predators, deceiving parishioners and stiff-arming police, why wouldn't you keep doing what bishops have done for ages? Why risk breaking ranks?
Other factors contribute to this crisis too. One is archaic, predator-friendly criminal statutes of limitations that prevent law enforcement from prosecuting those who commit and conceal heinous child sex crimes. Civil statutes are equally outdated and overly-restrictive, denying victims the chance to expose wrongdoing in court.
Excessive deference to church figures by secular officials also plays a role. For far too long, police, prosecutors and politicians have been reluctant to cross their bishops or embarrass their friends or fellow parishioners. Time and time again they've pretended to be powerless, refusing to investigate cases through grand juries. They've ignored our pleas to aggressively seek out victims, witnesses or whistleblowers using their bully pulpits and other mechanisms.
But at its root, the church scandal stems from the nearly limitless power of popes and prelates to handle crimes unilaterally, secretively and in-house, with virtually none of the oversight or checks and balances we're so accustomed to in our democracy. This inherent structural problem in the church is why we push hard to get secular institutions acts. We're convinced that such institutions are the only real way to protect the vulnerable, heal the wounded, expose the truth and deter more wrongdoing. Only external pressure will bring real change.
Specifically, here's what we're doing. We're calling on state attorneys general across the US to launch grand jury probes like the ones in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Notably, former Illinois State Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke, a devout Catholic, supports this idea. For two years, from 2002 to 2004, she chaired the US bishops first abuse panel.
Along with the Center for Constitutional Rights, we're urging the US Justice Department to launch a thorough investigation into the crisis, like governments in Australia, Ireland and other countries have done.
In Pennsylvania, we're prodding local prosecutors to get more aggressive and creative in pursuing bad priests and bishops. With thousands of police, prosecutors and victims across the state, we find it very hard to believe that not a single complicit church official who concealed child sex crimes can be charged now with obstruction, fraud, perjury, destroying evidence, intimidating witnesses, endangering children, or similar offenses.
And we're urging Pennsylvania's attorney general to keep fighting to get still-hidden portions of the new report un-redacted. Because, remember, the church is a monarchy - rigid, secretive, all-male and global. Does anyone really believe that monarchs will voluntarily reduce or share their power or reverse centuries-old patterns of self-serving behavior? They've had decades to do so but made only token moves when forced to do so by outside pressures. That's why governmental agencies and actors must step up.
It saddens us that for so long, those who have been most hurt and are still hurting shoulder the burden of pushing for reforms: abuse victims. Now more than ever, we invite citizens, Catholics, along with federal and state officials to help us do what the Catholic hierarchy seems incapable of doing: stopping this devastating damage to children.
David Clohessy is the former director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. He can be reached at davidgclohessy@gmail.com
Richard Kensinger, MSW commented 2018-11-06 18:38:36 -0600
In the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese where I live, Neither the Bishop (Mark Bartchack) nor the vast majority of parish priests are meeting informally w/ parishioners to discuss this scandal as I think they should as we are squarely in the center of this escalating crisis. I've divorced the Church due to this blatant criminality including crimes of commission and crimes of omission. Reportedly our bishop is cooperation w/ federal officials. I'll continue to post updates here.
Rich, MSW
Mary Lazarsky commented 2018-11-04 16:41:34 -0600
I don't know if this goes for every diocese, but in the Diocese of Scranton Pa. priests who were credibly accused but got off on SOL are still receiving monthly stipends from the Diocese/ one of these priests belongs to a Country Club. makes me want to vomit> what an insult to survivors> sickening.


text:
A Recount of the Ben & Jerry's Chunkfest 2013 at The Promontory @ Marina Bay by Foxy Mehmeh
By Melvin Lee October 16, 2013
Papi Melvin told me that he wants to take a break from blogging and so, I [Foxy Mehmeh] am writing this blog post on his behalf. All pictures used in this blog post were taken by Mummy Jacqueline.
Last Saturday, Papi and Mummy brought me to The Promontory @ Marina Bay for the Ben & Jerry's ChunkFest 2013, Singapore's largest ice cream festival, and we had a fabulous time indulging in the yummy Ben & Jerry's ice cream that were specially flown in for the occasion!
Despite the pretty bad weather at the beginning, a steady stream of visitors came to join in the muddy affair. As I didn't want to get myself dirty, Papi carried me in his recyclable bag and we went to sight see. There were a couple of game booths set up and we could tell the little ones had loads of fun!
Yes, even adults older than Papi and Mummy had fun at the game booths too!
A father and son duo enjoying themselves at the game booths.
A group of children waiting to compete in a sack race.
With so much activities lined up for Ben & Jerry's ChunkFest 2013, there was never a dull moment and everyone was smiling and so happy!
While sight-seeing with Papi and Mummy, fans of A Winsome Life came over to say "hi" and they received 5 pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream along with some Ben & Jerry's merchandise from us. Here's a photo of Papi with our fans!
The Ben & Jerry's ChunkFest 2013 surprised us in many ways because for one, the Ben & Jerry's merchandise were really affordable! We literally saw troops of people just rushing over for some shopping madness and we ourselves joined in the craze and Papi and Mummy bought a couple of Ben & Jerry's tee-shirts that were going for 2 Fair Coins [equivalent to $2] each! Unfortunately, there weren't tee-shirts my size and I guess I shall just stick to my foxy sweater.
Here are just some of the Ben & Jerry's merchandise that were selling at Ben & Jerry's ChunkFest 2013.
We also spotted a group of children that came for Ben & Jerry's ChunkFest 2013 and boy, were they rich! Some of them were seen carrying $50 and $100 notes to buy ice cream!
Anyway, pets were allowed at the Ben & Jerry's ChunkFest 2013 and I saw many friendly dogs. They smiled at me but I was too shy to approach them for photos so Mummy Jacqueline help me to take some photos of them for me to keep and remember them.
Papi and Me posing for a photo.
I was rather thirsty that day and the Korkor and Jiejie from Somersby were very generous to offer us some Apple Cider.
Papi and the Jiejie from Somersby posing for a photo.
When Papi gave me a cup of Somersby Apple Cider to finish by myself, Mummy was angry withPapi because she said I was too young to drink alcoholic drinks. So, after much discussion with Mummy, I got a tiny weeny cup of Somersby Apple Cider and it was simply refreshing!
We also went to checked out some of the Fairness Partners' booths at the Ben & Jerry's ChunkFest 2013 and we found Project Happy Feet quite meaningful.
When we visited Project Happy Feet's booth, we found out that Project Happy Feet is a Singapore-based not-for-profit organisation set up to empower the lives of underprivileged youths and children in developing countries by supporting their education and training through fund-raising for education-related initiatives and programmes that positively impact them or their families. Papi found Project Happy Feet so meaningful that he is considering signing up to be a volunteer.
Another Fairness Partner booth that we visited was Kerbside Gourmet.
Kerbside Gourmet is Singapore's first gourmet food truck with a social vision. "Kerby", as the truck is affectionately nicknamed, hit the streets in the first quarter of 2013 with soul food, catering to the discerning individuals who seek an alternative, sublime dining experience. Papi and Mummy ordered some of their food to try and they were really tasty! To catch Kerby and try some of the awesome food, do check out Kerbside Gourmet's Facebook Page for updates about where they will be located at!
One of the highlights of the Ben & Jerry's ChunkFest 2013 was the Vermonster Challenge.
It was my first time witnessing such an eye-opening event. The teams that participated in the Vermonster Challenge were really big eaters and it was indeed a very messy affair! In case you're wondering what is a Vermonster, the Vermonster is a large ice cream sundae served in a "Vermonster Bucket" at Ben & Jerry's Scoop Shops. The Vermonster Bucket contains 20 scoops of ice cream, 4 bananas, 4 ladles of hot fudge, 3 chocolate chip cookies, 1 chocolate fudge brownie, 10 scoops of walnuts, 2 scoops each of 4 toppings of your choice, and whipped cream. The Vermonster contains a whopping 14,000 calories and 500 grams of fat!
Here are some photos of the teams that participated in the Vermonster Challenge:
Team Mon Mon Cheongster came in second place after Team Fair La Croquette Ben & Jerry beat them with a minute lesser.
Team We Are Monsters
Team Fair La Croquette Ben & Jerry won the Vermonster Challenge and they received a one year's supply of Vermonsters!
And of course, how could we miss the yummy Ben & Jerry's ice cream while watching others chomp down the Vermonster? Papi and Mummy gotten me three different flavours of Ben & Jerry's ice cream and they were oh-so-yummy! My favourite one has got to be the Candy Bar Pie and unfortunately, it is not available here in Singapore. I really do hope they will bring in this flavour next year!
When evening came, the lights from the surrounding buildings were very pretty and the atmosphere was so surreal.
For the very first time in the history of Ben & Jerry's ChunkFest, there was a special movie screening under the night sky and the movie, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" was screened.
Well, I had a lovely and fun time at Ben & Jerry's ChunkFest 2013 and I am definitely looking forward to next year's Ben & Jerry's ChunkFest 2014! Hopefully, Papi and Mummy will bring me out again!
ben & jerry'sben & jerry's chunkfestben & jerry's chunkfest 2013ben & jerry's singaporeben & jerry's singapore facebook pagechunkfestchunkfest 2013marina baythe promontorythe promontory at marina bayvermonstervermonster challenge 2013


text:
Day: 23 September 2016
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News Team September 23, 2016
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National economies, and the investors involved in them, generally do well when public safety and rule of law can be assured. The body count has since gro...
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From the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office - Latest update: Summary – Tropical storm Megi is expected to become a typhoon and may bring hazardous sea and weather conditions to parts of Taiwan from around 26 September 2016 from Travel Advice Su...
Quick Read: Bride suffers Mexico honeymoon from hell after developing deep vein thrombosis and is shocked that insurance firm won't pay £3,000 bill
Michelle Green, 44, from North Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, travelled to the Riviera Maya on August 27 after tying the knot with her long-term partner Dave Cowell. ...
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Amnesty International has accused the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, a unit of the Nigeria Police Force, of torturing suspects and demanding bribes to free them. ...
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) declared Miami's Wynwood neighborhood Zika-free on Monday. However, the CDC recommends pregnant women and their partners remain cautious about travel within other parts of Miami Dade County.... Rea...
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Earlier this week a Japanese tourist was killed in a jetski accident in Cains. The 7 News Cairns report below has further details of the investigation that is underway. From the Cairns Post - Tourist dies in jetski accident at Cairns Marlin Marin...
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text:
Photo: SF Gate
Must Read: 'Pity The Nation' A Visionary Poem By 100 Year Old Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Ursula Faw
This poem by beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti was written in 2007, but he might as well have penned it yesterday for all of the truth that it contains. The elements that Ferlinghetti writes about have always been there, but have flashed into flamboyance in the age of Trump.
"Pity The Nation"
Pity the nation whose people are sheep,
and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero
and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.
Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own
and no other culture but its own.
Pity the nation whose breath is money
and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.
Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away.
My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty."
Ferlinghetti turned 100 years old on March 24. He co-founded the famous City Lights Bookstore, in San Francisco, and he still works there. Language is his life's blood and readers and other writers are his brethren. We're so lucky a talent like this is amongst us and still producing.
Ferlinghetti unfortunately echoes the sentiment of another great and wise American, Abraham Lincoln. I have oft-quoted this particular insight of Lincoln's, but will do so once more, because it is so appropriate: "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
We are a house divided now, and that is understatement. Another quote on that topic comes to mind, "He who bothereth in his own house shall inherit the wind." The level of internal dissension in this country hasn't been this high since Lincoln's time, and is of no avail. But it continues.
Ronald Reagan's solution was that these internal dissensions would vanish if only there was a threat from outer space. This is what he told the United Nations.
"In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. And yet, I ask you, is not an alien force already among us? What could be more alien to the universal aspirations of our peoples than war and the threat of war?"
Don't hold your breath. I don't think the deus ex machina of an invasion from space is going to save this show, this isn't Greek theater, although it is a tragedy. No, we're going to have to do this ourselves. I think the first step is to realize that some people in this country, Trump's hard core base, are hopeless. They embrace falsehood as fact and you cannot dissuade them of that. They turn it around and say that that's what you're doing. The answer, I believe, is in the silent majority, but not the one Reagan spoke of. I'm talking of the self-disenfranchised, the people who don't believe that their vote matters. If we can mobilize these people, then I think America can stay America, and stop plunging headlong down this negative and profitless path. At least, that is my fervent prayer. Let's get out the vote!
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11 Comments on "Must Read: 'Pity The Nation' A Visionary Poem By 100 Year Old Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti"
Love his work! My second favorite Beat poet after Gregory Corso. This is so prescient.
Isn't this stunning? You know who else is a visionary? Jimmy Carter. Carter saw all this gearing up back in the day, when Iran Contra, Ollie North, all of it was happening. Carter will be 95 in a few months. These guys have perspective and they're telling the truth. I hope people will listen.
Me too. It really discourages me when I see people on the left, whom I hope would be intelligent and thoughtful in their political passions, falling in love with candidates to the point where they overlook the obvious.
Denis Elliott
Something occurred to me near the end of your piece when you cited the inherit the wind quote. We have a political Party in control of the WH and Senate that is working overtime to deny evolution! (Not to mention other science)
Epimetheos
Hence "Conservatism", the estate of inertness. The opposite of what the Universe and life is; constant motion.
"In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond."
Something like Climate Change?
Or as it should be known, the ongoing global anthropogenic climate CRISIS.
But we can't even have a discussion about it without the actual scientific FACTS being questioned, let alone DO anything.
Ironic that the Anthropocene Era would be the end of this fourth rock from the sun!
Certainly can't do anything that threatens anyone's money and the solutions are going to have big economic effects on people who have the power and money to do what they have to to protect their stack, Jack.
Challenging the science is merely a diversion and distraction from having the conversations we really need about money and power and society.
jan4insight
"The self-disenfranchised" — great description! However, I don't they got that way out of the blue. As I understand it, the whole "voting doesn't matter becuz both parties just teh same" thing was originally cooked up and promoted by the noxious RW think tanks from back in the 70s & 80s. They knew, even back then, that high voter turnout favors Dems, and so they had dream up something to get people to stay home. This was one of the rotten fruits of that effort Come to think of it, it was sort of like the Russian bot farms, before… Read more »
Jan I think you are onto something here. I have always thought that the Russians, specially Putin, were playing the long game. I also think the same of China. How best to bring down a capitalist system? How about play up to their greed? And then serve the masses an illegitimate president by way of the electorate vote.
I was one of those boots in the ground and "my vote won't matter" was the no.1 thing I constantly heard. And then tRump happened. It almost convinced me too.
That is a very poignant poem for the times. What frightens me the most is that the voting majority for a very long time has been dumbed down. I apologize if I insult by what I said but it's what I see and hear in the streets of America. This group of people that I speak of want to hear an easy solution for what is a very complicated problem. And that is the audience of Fascism and Nationalistic sentiments. WWI and WWII happened a century and over seventy years ago respectively. The generations borned in the 80's and on… Read more »
Trump is trapped.
Politics July 18, 2019
Ursula Faw - July 19, 2019


text:
Q: Filling PDF Forms with PHP Are there PHP libraries which can be used to fill PDF forms and then save (flatten) them to PDF files?

A: A big +1 to the accepted answer, and a little tip if you run into encoding issues with the fdf file. If you generate the fields.fdf and upon running
file -bi fields.fdf

you get
application/octet-stream; charset=binary

then you've most likely run into a UTF-16 character set issue.
Try converting the ftf by means of
cat fields.fdf | sed -e's/\x00//g' | sed -e's/\xFE\xFF//g' > better.fdf

I was then able to edit and import the better.fdf file into my PDF form.
Hopefully this saves someone some Google-ing

A: The libraries and frameworks mentioned here are good, but if all you want to do is fill in a form and flatten it, I recommend the command line tool called pdftk (PDF Toolkit).
See https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/
You can call the command line from php, and the command is
pdftk formfile.pdf fill_form fieldinfo.fdf output outputfile.pdf flatten
You will need to find the format of an FDF file in order to generate the info to fill in the fields. Here's a good link for that:
http://www.tgreer.com/fdfServe.html
[Edit: The above link seems to be out of commission. Here is some more info...]
The pdftk command can generate an FDF file from a PDF form file. You can then use the generated FDF file as a sample. The form fields are the portion of the FDF file that looks like
...
<< /T(f1-1) /V(text of field) >>
<< /T(f1-2) /V(text of another field) >>
...

You might also check out php-pdftk, which is a library specific to PHP. I have not used it, but commenter Álvaro (below) recommends it.

A: I've had plenty of success with using a form that submits to a php script that uses fpdf and passes in the form fields as get variables (maybe not a great best-practice, but it works).
 <?php
require('fpdf.php');
$pdf=new PDF();
$pdf->AddPage();
$pdf->SetY(30);
$pdf->SetX(100);
$pdf->MultiCell(10,4,$_POST['content'],0,'J');
$pdf->Output();
?>

and the you could have something like this.
  <form action="fooPDF.php" method="post">

PDF CONTENT: <textarea name="content" ></textarea>

<input type="submit" />

    </form>

This skeletal example ought to help ya get started.

A: generating fdf File with php:
see http://www.php.net/manual/en/book.fdf.php
then fill it into a pdf with pdftk (see above)

A: For:

*

*Easier input format then XFDF

*True UTF-8 (Russian) support

*Complete php usage example

Feel free to check my PdfFormFillerUTF-8.

A: Looks like this has been covered before.  Click through for relevant code using Zend Framework PDF library.

A: We use PDFLib at work.  The paid version isn't very expensive, and there is a more limited open source edition, if you are unable to shell out for the paid version.

A: I wrote a Perl library, CAM::PDF, with a command-line interface that can solve this.  I tried using an FDF solution years ago, but found it way too complicated which is why I wrote CAM::PDF in the first place.  My library uses a few heuristics to replace the form with the desired text, so it's not perfect.  But it works most of the time, and it's fast, free and quite straightforward to use.


Today I read a paper in the latest IP Forum Magazine on 'Trade Mark Counterfeiting – the Australian Problem', by Corrs partner Stephen Stern. I read it in part because just recently, Australia decided to join the negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) (which I've discussed here and here). Stern's article is an interesting read; some of the discussion of 'counterfeiter techniques' in particular was interesting. As you can imagine, given that Stephen acts for brand owners, and given the title, the article was in part a plea for movement from the government – a plea, in short, for law reform.
What struck me, however, was the vagueness of the call for reform. And in the general spray of bullets that are the kinds of reforms he discusses, I think there's some danger of collateral damage.
Let's look more closely at those arguments.
Clearly, Australia needs legislative change to entitle brand owners to statutory, punitive or additional damages against counterfeiters, and a system that makes such damages high enough to serve as a real deterrent.
There is a significant difference between statutory damages and punitive or additional damages. Statutory damages 'pre-set' the amount of damages payable. Statutory damages (in US copyright law) is why Jammie Thomas was fined US$220,000 dollars on the basis of proof that she had made available 24 songs online (although note, the Industry said she didn't just share 24, but 1709 songs). Punitive or additional damages are much more 'at large' – they allow a court to reach some kind of judgment as to the level of damages that should be awarded owing to the flagrancy of the damages awarded. Additional damages cannot presently be ordered under the Trade Marks Act. They can be ordered for copyright infringement under Australian law, and sometimes these orders are quite significant.1 So should we have statutory damages, or additional damages? I would have said, in keeping with other areas of Australian law, additional damages would be the way to go, for reasons outlined in the next point.
Stern's quote suggests that the statutory or additional damages should be against counterfeiters. But earlier in the article he specifically notes that the term 'counterfeiting' is not defined in any legislation. Is he proposing a counterfeit-specific regime, or a general one? If counterfeit-specific, how would he propose to define the scope of the regime?2 3 If general, I really hope he is thinking additional damages, because I'd hate to see trade mark owners able to simply elect for some pre-determined amount of damages in lieu of proving damage. I mean, imagine it. Cadbury gets its 'purple' trade mark, and sues some poor unfortunate chocolate maker for using the wrong purple. We've established a statutory damages system for trade mark. Cadbury rather than proving the minuscule amount of damage from the 3 people who thought they were buying Cadbury's chocolate, elects for statutory damages for the 1,000 chocolates sold with the wrong colour. Ick.
Just what kind of 'system' for making sure the damages are sufficient to be a deterrent is Stern suggesting? Limiting the discretion of the court in determining awards? Guideline judgments perhaps? (remember, they were rejected a few years ago in the government's response to the copycats report). Are we going to send nasty notes to the judges if the awards are not deemed 'high enough'? Are we going to make the courts report the level of damages awards…? The mind boggles.
Don't get me wrong – I don't necessarily disagree with Stern that better remedies provisions are required here: trade mark law has languished in copyright's shadow to a significant extent (we even have additional damages in patent now). However, vague calls like this don't help: it is actually harder to put these principles into law than Stern acknowledges in his paper.
And the danger here is one I've complained about in copyright: overbroad laws designed to get the 'guys at the market' but which end up covering many much less malign behaviour. Overbroad laws enable selective enforcement. Selective enforcement is bad. So it's not enough to make broad calls for tougher laws. It is incumbent on people reasonably discussing such laws to identify their prospective scope – and outline how we can ensure the laws are appropriately targeted.
…the costs of obtaining an Anton Piller Order, including the need to have an independent solicitor supervise the execution of the Order and to prepare a report for the court, become prohibitive and make the process useless apart from actions in respect of the biggest and most serious of cases.
In this respect, we get even more vague. Stern makes no proposal for how this issue might be dealt with. I have to confess my gut instinct is that these things should be expensive, because they involve a significant incursion – I mean, we are talking search warrants here: people turning up on your doorstep with the right to search for stuff on your premises and take stuff away. Shouldn't such things be kept for 'the biggest and most serious of cases'? If not, just what is proposed? The ability to walk in and immediately seize material without police doing the seizing? Remember that that proposal went down when put to Europe in the context of their IP enforcement directive.
Certainly the Trade Marks Act 1995 does not contemplate the large-scale problem of the sale of counterfeits on the Internet, nor the facilitation by landlords (such as market landlords or the landlords of large shopping malls) of the sale of counterfeit products by their tenants.
Do you feel a 'third party liability' argument coming on? This sounds like a suggestion that trade mark owners should have extensive rights of 'notice and takedown' online, the way copyright owners do, and that market operators should be held liable for the activities of people at markets. As to notice and takedown – all I can say is that I'm starting to feel almost sorry for ISPs – if brand owners get their way, it could be that censorship rules, and copyright rules were just the start. The further we push this, the more ISPs start to look like the general police. As for market operators – well, there's an argument that in some cases they should be liable, but again – the hinting is so vague here. What I would want to see was a very clear delineation of the scope of the proposed liability, which I would hope would be confined to circumstances where it could be shown that the market operators were operating with something like contumelious disregard of the interests of IP owners.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed reading Stephen's article. and I'm sure he has answers to some of these questions – answers that you don't put in IP Forum because it would make the article too long. But these are real issues, and if we are ever going to be serious about law reform here, I'd want to see a lot more information.
I should also say that I'm actually pretty sympathetic to the interests of IP owners against the nasty counterfeiters. Counterfeiters themselves I have no sympathy for.
But I do have sympathy for those caught in the crossfire of this battle: other trade mark infringers who might face laws that suddenly become overbroad and remarkably tough; or ISPs and other third parties on whom the cost of some policing might be placed. In the interests of protecting everyone else, therefore, from becoming collateral damage in this fight, I want to see details. And a serious attempt to target any proposed tougher laws.
Footnote 1: For examples of additional damages awards in copyright, see: Autodesk Australia Pty Ltd v Cheung (1990) 17 IPR 69: compensatory damages $15,000, additional damages $35,000; Namol Pty Ltd v AW Baulderstone Pty Ltd  FCA 486 (affirmed Bailey v Namol Pty Ltd  FCA 1401): compensatory damages $350,000, additional damages $150,000; Milpurrurru v Indofurn Pty Ltd (1994) 54 FCR 240: compensatory damages $120,000, additional damages $70,000 (approx); Microsoft Corporation v Goodview Electronics Pty Ltd (2000) 49 IPR 578: compensatory damages $625,034.80, additional damages $500,000; Microsoft Corporation v Atifo Pty Ltd (1997) 38 IPR 643: compensatory damages $24,000, additional damages $20,000; Microsoft Corporation v Glostar Pty Ltd (2003) 57 IPR 518: compensatory damages $4,375, additional damages $291,625; Microsoft Corporation v Ezy Loans (2004) 63 IPR 54: compensatory damages $240,625, additional damages $350,000; Microsoft Corporation v TYN Electronics Pty Limited (in liq) (2004) 63 IPR 137: compensatory damages of $386,000, and awards of additional damages of $300,000 against the corporate respondent and $400,000 against the individual respondent; Microsoft Corporation v PC Club Australia Pty Ltd  FCA 1522: compensatory damages of US$188,950, additional damages of $780,000 (split between four different respondents).


POP MIMOSA MS is a soft mimosa single bleached extract of high quality indicated for tannage of hides and skins whenever a very light colour is required. In the tannage of soles and vachettas a very nice beige tone, often desired, is acheived.
To keep the embossing effect.
5-15% for chrome leather tannage.
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text:
Гленн Реймонд Ти́птон (; род. 25 октября 1947) — британский музыкант, гитарист группы Judas Priest с 1974 года. До Judas Priest играл в группах Merlin, Shave & Dry и Flying Hat Band. С 1994 года выпустил также два сольных альбома под своим именем, на которых сам и поет, и играет на гитаре. Типтон является одним из самых техничных гитаристов, играющих в стиле хэви-метал.
12 Февраля 2018 года было заявлено, что музыкант не сможет полноценно принять участие в грядущем туре группы из-за болезни Паркинсона, но останется участником Judas Priest.

Ранние годы
Гленн Типтон родился 25 октября 1947 года в небольшом городе Блекхит, Уэст-Мидлендс. Мама Гленна начала учить сына игре на фортепиано в возрасте 9 лет. Обучение продолжалось недолго, так как  мать из-за невнимательности сына перестала давать уроки.
Заинтересованность гитарой пришла Гленну в возрасте 19 лет, когда тот наблюдал за игрой своего старшего брата Гэри, который к тому моменту играл в местной группе под названием Atlantics.
Первым инструментом Гленна была акустическая гитара Hofner. Затем он хотел приобрести Rickenbacker, но был в состоянии позволить себе лишь Fender Stratocaster. Это была его основная гитара до того момента, пока её не украли на одном из шоу. Вскоре он купил чёрный Stratocaster, а чуть позднее, Gibson SG. Обе эти гитары можно увидеть, когда Judas Priest играли на Old Grey Whistle Test в 1975 году.

Judas Priest

По условиям контракта, заключённого группой Judas Priest со звукозаписывающей фирмой Gull, коллектив должен был найти второго гитариста. В мае 1974 года Типтон присоединился к Judas Priest, как раз во время записи первого альбома - Rocka Rolla. Гленн часто играл на клавишных на ранних альбомах.

Все последующие работы группы отмечены вкладом Типтона как одного из основных композиторов группы наравне с Робом Хэлфордом и К.К. Даунингом, а гитарный дуэт Типтона и Даунинга стал одним из новаторских шагов группы, который впоследствии был скопирован многими другими группами

Сольная карьера
Гленн выпустил 2 сольных альбома - Baptizm of Fire (1996) и Edge of the World (2006), которые были записаны с сессионными музыкантами.
Baptism of Fire был широко отмечен как превосходная работа. Альбом появился в продаже 19 февраля 1997 года. Гленн исполнил на нём не только гитарные, но и все вокальные партии.

Личная жизнь
Гленн Типтон живёт в селе Romsley, Worcestershire, Уэст-Мидлендс, близ Бирмингема, Англия. Там же, рядом с домом, располагается его личная студия звукозаписи. В 1980-х купил недвижимость в Испании. Типтон и его приятель, гитарист Кеннет Даунинг, любят играть в теннис и гольф.

Гленн был женат. Имеет двоих детей, Карина (1981) и Рик (1986).

Стиль игры и техника
Манера игры Типтона отличается исключительной техничностью, но в отличие от К.К. Даунинга, уделяющего большое внимание скорости игры, звучание его гитары характеризуется большей мелодичностью со значительным влиянием классической музыки. Для соло Типтона характерно использование приёмов легато, тремоло, хаммер-он и пулл-оф. Несмотря на то, что соло Гленна выдержаны в одном стиле на протяжении большей части его карьеры, с течением времени он начинал использовать различные приёмы игры, такие как тэппинг и свип. Типтон сочинил очень сложные и техничные соло на протяжении многих лет без ущерба мелодии и воспроизводит эти соло нота в ноту на концертах. Исполнение соло дуэтом с Кеннетом Даунингом стало "визитной карточкой" группы.

Дискография

Judas Priest

Сольные альбомы
 Baptizm of Fire —
 Edge of the World —

Синглы
 «Paint It Black» — 1996
 «Enter the Storm» —
 «Extinct» — 1997
 «Kill or Be Killed» — 1997
 «Edge of the World» — 2006

Музыканты на сольных альбомах
Постоянного аккомпанирующего состава у Типтона нет. Для записи каждого альбома, а иногда и отдельных песен, Гленн приглашает к сотрудничеству музыкантов из других групп.
 Бас
 Билли Шихэн
 Роберт Трухильо (Metallica, экс-Ozzy Osbourne)
 Джон Энтвистл (The Who)
 Си Джей де Виллар
 Ударные
 Кози Пауэлл (Black Sabbath, Rainbow, Yngwie J. Malmsteen)
 Брукс Уокерман
 Шэннон Ларкин (экс-Black Sabbath)

 Церковный орган
 Дон Эйри (Deep Purple, экс-Black Sabbath, экс-Judas Priest, экс-Ozzy Osbourne, экс-Rainbow, экс-Sinner, Whitesnake)
 Бэк-вокал
 Уайтфилд Крэйн

Примечания

Литература

Ссылки
 Glenn Tipton на Encyclopaedia Metallum
 Glenn Tipton. Интервью.

Музыканты хеви-метала
Хеви-метал-гитаристы Великобритании
Рок-музыканты Великобритании
Гитаристы по алфавиту
Персоналии по алфавиту
Родившиеся в 1948 году
Родившиеся 25 октября
Музыканты Judas Priest
Соло-гитаристы
Члены Зала славы рок-н-ролла

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Far Recon
Combat Mechanics
Unlockable Equipment
Scheduled Runs
Far Recon Forums
So You Want To Guest GM
Admins & GMs
Universe Information
Deceased Characters
Area-354 Locations
Surrounding Locations
Retrieved Items
Archived Pages Hub
Mechanics of Play
Fudge Dice
Resolving Skill Rolls
Maneuvers
Example Maneuvers
Load Limit
Determining Load
Flavour Items
Double XP
Birthday Points
Using XP
XP Conversion
LP Conversion
Equipment Buybacks
Character Death
Character Leave and Retirement
Above: Fudge dice
The Far Recon roleplay uses the FUDGE dice system. The fudge die is a three-sided die that can come up +, -, or 0. A + adds one to the roll, a - subtracts one, and a 0 makes no change. For example, rolling the set (0, +, 0, -) equates to one +1, one -1, and two 0s, for a combined roll of 0 to be added to the character's base skill.
The basic command for rolling dice within the IRC is "4df+X", where X is the combination of your skill and situational modifiers, both concepts which will be explained later on in this document.
There are two types of difficulty rolls: Opposed rolls, and Difficulty Checks (DC).
An Opposed Roll are used when two or more character's skills are engaged in conflict with each other. For example, if Alice wanted to sneak past Bob, Alice would roll her Stealth skill against Bob's Perception. If Alice's roll is higher than Bob's, or if the rolls are tied, then Alice would win the conflict and succeed at sneaking past Bob. The winner of the roll would typically roleplay the action out.
A Difficulty Check is when a character uses their skills against a static value, usually when a character must interact with or apply their skills with a degree of focus. For example, For instance, using Strength to climb a wall, or using Electronics to crack a computer's security. The GM would assign the DC for the action, and any character that rolls their relevant skill at or above the set DC passes the the check. Difficulty Checks are also used to heal wounds.
Action Points are a sort of character currency, representing those moments of inspiration and bursts of energy that can turn a bad situation around or cement a victory for good. All new characters begin with a pool of 3 AP; this pool is reset to full at the beginning and end of a run. This pool can be tapped for various actions during the course of a run. Replenishing the pool during runs is a rare event, only possible via accepting compulsions, so any AP expenditures should be carefully considered.
Although AP is used in multiple situations such as Aspects, Powers, Feats and Masteries, there are some applications of AP that don't fall under the above. A player may re-roll any roll in any situation for 1 AP, while 2 AP may be spent forcing a success on a non-combat roll without the need to roll.
The Medical skill allows lost Body points to be regained while in the field, allowing a wounded character to get back in the fight after being injured. Healing is accomplished by using expendable items that the character is carrying with them. When an item is used, it isn't automatically spent. Rather, the amount of Body the item heals is used, and the remainder can be used later to treat other injuries. Normally, healing supplies are not spent if the healer fails the DC. Only if the roll is a critical fail (-,-,-,-) are healing supplies expended.
In order to heal, a character must roll their Medical skill against the damage caused by the specific wound the medic wishes to treat. If there are any additional wounds on the same place, the DC increases by 1 for any additional wounds on top of the first one. For example, if Alice had a wound that caused 4 damage to her, the DC that Bob would have to defeat in order to heal that damage would be 4. Should Alice had another wound at the same place that caused 3 damage, the DCs for both wounds would be 5 and 4 respectively. Note that wounds must be treated individually, even if they are located on the same place.
In the event that a character's health drops to 0, they become incapacitated and are left unconscious, but stable. Their health remains at 0 in the absence of further damage or medical attention. In order to heal incapacitated characters, the medic only needs to treat the wound that incapacitated the character in the first place. Once this is done, they regain consciousness on their next turn.
Should a character's health drops below 0 into the negatives, they enter a critical state where they could die outright, and if left too long, could succumb to their injuries. The window of opportunity is very small: The medic must give medical treatment to the fallen character before the beginning of the next turn or they may die (unless they pass a check, see Combat). Healing critically wounded characters involves successfully treating the offending injuries that caused them to become critically injured. Whether or not the character's health was brought back to the positive digits, any successful medical roll on a critically wounded character automatically stabilizes them. Should the medic be successful in reviving the character and brings their health back into the positives, the character wakes up in 1d4 turns.
In the event that medical supplies have been exhausted, a character can still attempt to heal someone who's injured, but it won't be as effective. After all, even the most skillful paramedic or surgeon needs tools to work with. When attempting to heal without supplies, a character must find something to improvise with (such as using scraps of a torn shirt to fashion a bandage, or sticks to brace a sprain or break), but otherwise rolls as normal. If the roll succeeds, 1 Body is restored. Note that a given wound can only be treated once this way, unless the character has been injured on the same place again. It is impossible to stabilize critically injured characters without supplies.
Treating an injured character can take up to two turns in an active combat situation, or even longer if things are particularly hairy.
All characters who are injured must make a trip to the infirmary after the mission for follow-up treatment.
Maneuvers allow a character to take advantage of proficiency in one skill to improve their rolls with other skills. To call a maneuver, you must roll the skill in question and state the skill or situation to which the maneuver will be applied (along with whatever explanation is necessary to justify the maneuver). The maneuver rolls are either made against a DC of 3, or against a skill roll by the target, depending on whether the roll is directly opposed.
Should the roll succeed, the maneuver may be applied to subsequent rolls, as befitting the nature of the maneuver. For example, a Perception maneuver could be used to scan an enemy for weaknesses, and if successful could provide a +2 bonus to attack rolls against that enemy. Setting up a maneuver takes up your turn, meaning you will have to wait until your next turn to perform the boosted roll yourself. If the maneuver is of a sort transmissible to others, however, those others may make use of it in the same round as it was rolled.
While maneuvers are similar in function to Aspects, they do not normally require the expenditure of AP for their use. However, if characters are attempting to maintain maneuvers across multiple rounds of combat, they may be required to spend AP to do so. If, for example, a character was using a Perception maneuver to focus fire on a specific enemy, but was attacked or otherwise distracted in between turns, they would be required to either spend one AP in maintaining the maneuver, or lose the maneuver bonus while keeping the AP.
Bonuses from maneuvers may not be added to further maneuver rolls.
Single-turn, Opposed Maneuver: Throwing the Opponent Off-balance
– hide block
Jack is engaged in melee combat with an enemy, but is heavily wounded and cannot afford a drawn-out confrontation. He forgoes attacking for one turn, making an Agility maneuver against the enemy's Pdef; the maneuver succeeds, and Jack knocks his opponent off-balance with a shove. Jack can tap this maneuver to add a bonus of +4 to his defense roll when the enemy attacks him, and on his next turn, can add the same +4 bonus to his attack roll. This situation will only apply for one round of combat, after which, excepting interference by Jack's teammates, the enemy will regain their balance and the maneuver will end.
Multiple-turn, Unopposed Maneuver: Learning Construct Lore
Jill is a scholar, and has barricaded herself in the library of an elderly cultist, where she is presently besieged by magical constructs of the cult's creation. A stroke of inspiration leads her to search for texts relating to the cult's practices, and she comes upon an old tome relating to the rituals used to create the constructs in question. Jill uses her Scholarship stat for a maneuver, rolling against a flat DC of 6 to decipher and interpret the books. The maneuver, on succeeding, provides her with information regarding the constructs' limitations and idiosyncracies; she discovers that they are driven to frenzy by the presence of fire. With this knowledge in hand, she formulates a plan to drive the horde away with makeshift torches. After some hasty handiwork, the barricade is opened up, and the team sallies forth with torches in hand. Jill's maneuver provides +4 bonuses to Intimidation rolls for those with fire at hand, allowing the constructs to be driven apart and isolated. Furthermore, forgoing some kind of magic-induced amnesia, the maneuver will never wear off, persisting for as long as the run does (and even to later runs should these enemies appear again).
Multiple-turn, Opposed Maneuver: Aiming at a Weakness
Belinda is a gunner by trade, and is facing off against a giant stone cat monster, which is understandably hard to faze with mere bullets. With a ranged stat too low to reliably damage the beast, Belinda initiates a maneuver. Foregoing the offensive for one turn, she rolls her Ranged skill against the enemy's Agility, taking careful aim at one of the cat's eyes. The maneuver succeeds, but the cat lashes out with a paw on its turn, landing a hit. Belinda expends one AP to maintain the maneuver in spite of her distraction, hastily re-acquiring her target as she stumbles away from the cat. Now on her turn, the maneuver provides a +4 bonus to her attack roll, allowing her to score a solid hit and do some damage to the cat. Said monster's next attack misses Belinda, and she keeps her rifle aimed without any AP expenditure, allowing her to finish the cat off with another +4 boosted attack.
Load Limit is a measure of how much the character can carry, without becoming overburdened and decreasing their effectiveness. This particular stat is derived from the sum of 4 + Agility + Strength. Only weapons, particularly bulky or heavy items, Equipment from the Pre-run equipment repository, and unlockable equipment count for load. Everything else does not cost load, within reason.
Far Recon's Load system takes two variables into account when determining the Load of a particular item: Weight (how much the object will weigh the carrier down) and Size (how large and unwieldy the object is to carry around, and how much room it takes up).
NOTE: The examples are not exhaustive. They merely give you an idea of what sort of size and form factor you are looking at for each category.
Size Weight Examples Carried Load
Tiny > 500g A grenade, other small handheld items Anywhere you like 0.5
Small ~500g - 1.5kg Most handguns, a large torch, knives, small pouch of things Clipped to a belt, in a holster, in a backpack 1
Medium ~2 - 4kg Assault rifles, SMGs, briefcases, laptops, standard body armour, things generally requiring two hands to use Shoulder strap, in hands, backpack/back 2
Large ~6 -12kg Light Machine Guns, large cases, rocket launchers, heavy body armour Carried by hand or on the back 3
Extra Large 15kg+ A backpack welding kit, very large and bulky items Carried on the back 4
GMs are to be consulted regarding load at the beginning of character creation, as well as when adding any items to a character's load post-creation.
As of 21/09/2013, 'Flavour Items' no longer cost any Load to carry. Flavour Items are here defined as items:
Smaller than 2-3 Load;
That are not weapons;
That do not grant any bonuses.
A character is allowed to carry/use a reasonable number of occupation-appropriate Flavour Items. This is at GM discretion, and exceptions may be made, particularly if an item is large, or it is felt that a player is abusing the system by taking excessive amounts of 'free' items. As with all items, they must be GM approved, and cannot be added to a character at a whim.
The following are good examples of Flavour Items:
A light source
Camelbak or water bottle
Department specific items:
Basic Lockpicks
Flexicuffs
XP, or experience points are awarded at the end of a run or at GM discretion. They may be used to buy equipment or upgrades for your character.
XP is automatically granted to:
Players who actively participate in a run to its end
GMs who execute a given run
XP is generally limited to 1 XP per character and GM per run, with the following exception:
Double XP, or 'DuxP', is given to players in special circumstances, based on their performance. As might be gathered, it is 2 points of XP, rather than the standard 1. It is awarded on the following principles:
DuxP is going above and beyond the 'confines' of the run. It is coming up with solutions and actions that are innovative and interesting, beyond simply standing out.
For instance, the player's character is fighting a mime that puts up an invisible wall. They make their character walk over and open an invisible window, then punch the mime.
DuxP isn't you making a right and clever choice of talking to the bird instead of shooting it - it's doing more than that. For example, convincing said bird that you are messengers of the god it worships and having it lead a crusade in your name.
DuxP is given for really changing the narrative with your actions - it's based almost exclusively on how you respond to, and RP in, a situation, rather than rolls of the dice.
DuxP will not be awarded for the following actions:
Simply 'standing out'
Using actions, which although creative, are suggested by other people
Killing everything
NOTE: These guidelines are not set in stone, and admins or GMs may also give extra XP for other reasons. Please be aware that this is a rarity.
Is it your birthday? Tell the GMs. They'll reward you 4 XP as consolation for being one more year closer to your impending death.
So you have all your precious points. Now what? Well, XP can be used to boost your character. How is that, you ask? You purchase Unlockable Equipment.
For instance, Bobby has 6 XP and he wants to purchase some new armor for use by his character. He spends the XP, RPs requisitioning them from the Armory and bam, he has the armor unlocked. All going well, his character will keep the armor until they dies.
Should you have a character made prior to the 7/19/14 reboot, all your equipment and upgrades will revert to XP, in which you get to keep 8 XP to start out with. The remainder is rendered null and placed under "XP Used"..
Should you have Legacy Points given under the previous LP/XP system, these are to be converted to XP using the following conversion rate: 2XP per LP, but only 10XP of this can be given on to one character. The remainder is stored, and given to your next character upon creation.
Should a character have purchased equipment for XP that they no longer want or need, they may return it to the Armoury, and gain back 50% of the price paid, rounding up where that value is a fraction. This only applies to physical, returnable items - upgrades (or downgrades) granted by the Improver and courses/training (including that given by handbooks, guides or primers) cannot be redeemed.
As stated in greater detail in the Combat page, If your character's health either drops to the additive inverse of their base Body (e.g. Falling down to -8 Body if you have 8 base Body), or they fail their saving throw against death, or their Mind drops down to the negative numbers, your character will die.
Once a character dies, their player has two choices:
They can transfer one piece of equipment from the old character to the new one. If that piece of equipment is Department-specific, then the new character gets the closest equivalent in their Department list that is not more expensive; OR
They can convert the character's equipment to XP, using the rate specified in the buyback section, capping out at a maximum of 10XP. The same restrictions on what can be redeemed apply..
Sometimes, if you play the same character for a while, you'll crave a bit of a change of pace. You can put your character on leave, allowing you to play a new character while your old character is off-base for whatever reason. If you tire of playing this backup character, however, you cannot bring in a third character: you must return to your old character or keep this one around. Characters put on leave do not transfer equipment or XP to their replacements, nor vice versa.
If you've played the same character for at least three months (discounting any significant absences on the part of the player), you may retire that character: they're taken off-base permanently and you get to make a new character. If your new character dies or is put on leave, you may choose whether to bring your old character back, or create a new one. Retired characters may transfer one piece of equipment to their replacement.
game-info


text:
Enayati-ye Vasat (, also Romanized as ʿEnāyatī-ye Vasaṭ) is a village in Abshar Rural District, in the Central District of Shadegan County, Khuzestan Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 385, in 45 families.

References

Populated places in Shadegan County