text:
I Hope
November 6, 2008 June 4, 2017 / J. Thorp
Chances are I don't agree with your politics. At least not 100 percent. I voted for candidates in four different parties yesterday. Some will say that's stupid. I'm alright with that.
But today, like so many others in this country, I hope. I've admired Obama since he spoke at the 2000 DNC. I believe he is, at heart, a good man — despite a few deep disagreements on issues important to me, my family and my faith. I agree with much of what he says he would like to accomplish — although I would approach many of the issues in very different ways. But he's inspired so many people — and if that's what it takes to mobilize the people of this great nation to demand, not bigger, but better government, then I hope he continues and meets with much success.
I hope that his moderate rhetoric from the campaign matches his actions going forward. I chatted briefly with a friend from Chicago, who knows Obama (via University of Chicago Law School) better than most Americans and supports him, but even he has his concerns; it would be foolish to think that the even-keeled president-elect didn't learn a little something from the dirty side of Chicago politics. But still I hope — that his better angels will conspire with all of ours to take flight.
So many people have spoken, and will continue to speak, about Obama as the first black president of the United States. Of course this is monumental and moving: I smiled to hear Condoleezza Rice take a moment to make sure the press heard from her about what an historic moment this was, and smiled again to hear the revelers in Chicago today, including a young black man who said that, in addition to his great expectations for Obama, the president-elect has expectations for guys like him, too — among them to "pull our pants up a little higher" and "to start loving each other."
I hope it's the beginning of a new day, and an end for racism and discrimination. I hope that the black church that burned in the wee hours of the morning was a fluke coincidence.
But I have another reason to hope — for years now I've tried to imagine the first post-Boomer or Gen-X president. I hoped for a president who would look at the ways things have been done and see other possibilities, who would try new things, who would shake up the established order and hierarchy in Washington. My experience growing up in rural Michigan, then going "back East" to school, was that many in my generation don't care where you come from, how much money you have, what you look like, or even whether you agree with them or not — they care what you stand for and why; they care about your ideas, your gifts, how you can help and how they can help you. That's the kind of person I wanted to see running things.
I hope our country has elected such a man. I may not agree with him, but I hope. Call me naive, but it feels good.
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6 thoughts on "I Hope"
For me, it's the turn-out. The more than any election ever turn out. And the fact that, as you said, for just a minute even, all those people are feeling more hope than fear or cynicism.
I was on the South Side for ten years and watched Obama then. I understand your concerns. But I do think he's that guy.
Also, I don't think voting for four different parties is stupid. I think it's thoughtful.
Glad to hear that, J (re: "he's the guy") and thanks (re: four parties)!
I find myself hoping too.
Ah, hope springs eternal. Great post Jim.
Great minds think alike. Smile.


text:
title: Resume
tags:
    - career
---

## Skills

Ansible, Bash, Python, Salt, Terraform, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Kerberos, LDAP, Prometheus, Grafana, Nagios, Linux, Java, SQL, Git, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Maven, Hadoop, Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP), Cloudera Data Platform (CDP), Apache httpd, Apache Tomcat, Kanban, Scrum

## Experience

### Senior Site Reliability Engineer
[Sentry](https://www.sentry.io/)
Januray 2022 to Present
  - Consolidating divergent deployment configurations to simplify managing and supporting Sentry's offerings.
  - Automating release generation.
  - Providing 24/7 support for Sentry's offerings.

### Lead Platform Engineer, Data & Analytics (DNA)
[Royal Bank of Canada](https://www.rbcroyalbank.com/)
June 2018 to December 2021
  - Provided technical leadership to DNA's Platform Engineering Big Data team.
  - Managed day-to-day workload assignments and prioritization of the DNA Platform Engineering Big Data team.
  - Led RBC's EDL 2.0 platform design and build leveraging Cloudera Data Platform (CDP) Private Cloud Base.
    - Defined new worker types to more optimally target capacity needs while continuing to meet application performance requirements and to provide more flexibility for future cluster expansion.
    - Worked with the Enterprise Data Architecture team to create all architecture and design artifacts.
    - Worked with RBC's enterprise security teams to ensure alignment with enterprise standards and requirements.
    - Positioned the new platform to provide additional capabilities to better meet RBC's future needs.
    - Led the build of an evaluation environment for application teams to identify migration pain points, and to complete migration planning.
  - Containerized operational support tools to allow for easy maintenance and deployment.
  - Developed CI/CD pipelines for containerized tools.
  - Developed CI/CD pipelines for Ansible role and playbook development, leveraging Ansible Molecule as a testing framework.
  - Defined procedures and standards for team workflows to allow more consistent delivery.
  - Researched and evaluated tooling and platforms to provide additional options for addressing RBC's data processing and storage needs.
  - Led migration of Sensu monitoring system to a containerized Prometheus deployment to simplify deployment and support processes, allowing more effective metrics collection and alerting.
  - Led evaluation of Microsoft Azure cloud for Hadoop disaster recovery purposes.
  - Provided 24/7 level 3 support for the production support team.

### Senior Platform Engineer, Data & Analytics (DNA)
[Royal Bank of Canada](https://www.rbcroyalbank.com/)
January 2016 to June 2018
  - Designed and built RBC's new enterprise multi-tenant Hadoop (Hortonworks Data Platform - HDP) clusters with roughly 370 worker nodes in production.
    - Developed and managed internal monitoring and system management tools.
    - Integrated interfaces with Microsoft Active Directory leveraging both Kerberos and LDAP.
    - Defined standards for creating security policies in Ranger.
    - Scripted Hadoop on-boarding to simplify the on-boarding of users and applications.
    - Configured Red Hat Linux to integrate with Microsoft Active Directory using SSSD.
    - Automated system setup of all services and tools using Ansible roles & playbooks.
  - Wrote knowledgebase articles to simplify support and user interactions with our systems.
  - Organized and directed the successful upgrade of the HDP 2.4.2 environment to HDP 2.6.3, supporting 100+ application tenants.
    - Identified breaking changes required to complete the upgrade.
    - Worked with application teams to identify impact of platform changes and plan for their required code changes.
    - Built a new upgrade evaluation cluster for application upgrade testing so as not to impact business as usual development efforts during the upgrade testing.
    - Developed upgrade life cycle for the platform so that teams would have a more consistent upgrade cadence.
  - Provided technical leadership to DNA's Platform Engineering Big Data team.
  - Provided 24/7 level 3 support for the production support team.

### Implementation Analyst IV, Delivery and Support Services
[Symcor](https://www.symcor.com/)
April 2012 to January 2016
  - Provided expertise to projects for implementing middleware systems across all development, test, and production systems, working with developers, testers, project managers, and internal and external clients.
  - Built solutions that are simple to set up and maintain, to ensure consistent deployment and configuration.
  - Effective at navigating change processes, coordinating multiple stakeholders to ensure rapid progression from initiation through to completion and avoiding unnecessary delays.
  - Automated and managed build and deployment processes, allowing greatly reduced deployment time requirements and consistent deployment procedures.
  - Investigated and remediated security issues, addressing newly-discovered vulnerabilities via configuration changes or upgrades.
  - Led creation of best practice processes and procedures to ensure system implementations are consistent, reliable, and scalable.
  - Standardised Apache httpd configuration across the company to simplify configuration management, ensure proper security levels, and allow for easier problem investigation.
  - Standardised Apache Tomcat setup of our applications to allow for easy updates and consistent configuration.
  - Spun up proof of concept setups to evaluate new products, ensuring they integrate effectively with existing systems and meet business requirements.
  - Implemented and managed client facing single sign-on (SSO) integrations leveraging SAML 2.0.
  - Developed and managed internal monitoring and system management tools.
  - Provided 24/7 support for middleware systems including WebSphere MQ, Apache httpd, Apache Tomcat, Apache Geronimo, WebSphere AS and IBM Sterling Connect:Direct.

### Implementation Analyst III, Delivery and Support Services
[Symcor](https://www.symcor.com/)
September 2009 to March 2012

### Implementation Analyst II, Delivery and Support Services
[Symcor](https://www.symcor.com/)
July 2008 to September 2009

### Interactive Media Developer
Metroland Media Group
May 2008 to June 2008
  - Developed Mississauga community web sites using ASP.Net, PHP, JavaScript and MySQL.

### Automation Specialist
[Metroland Media Group](https://metroland.com/)
March 2006 to April 2008
  - Developed and maintained workflows and scripts for the MKS Integrity based C-198 compliance ticket system.
  - Developed applications and scripts to simplify maintenance of Active Directory user accounts, desktop systems, and server systems.
  - Developed SharePoint WebParts to add increased Active Directory functionality.
  - Administrated the MKS Integrity system, including ticket management, application maintenance and server maintenance.
  - Developed processes to synchronize data between various systems including Active Directory, a third party email system, Lawson, BMC Service Desk Express, and MKS Integrity.
  - Maintained and re-developed KiXtart based login scripts.
  - Provided backup support for desktop and server support team.
  - Used BMC Service Desk Express to track and maintain support tickets for all incidents.

### Active Directory Roll Out Technician
[Metroland Media Group](https://metroland.com/)
May 2005 to February 2006
  - Migrated Windows 2000 workstations and user profiles from an existing Windows NT 4.0 domain to a new Windows 2003 Active Directory domain for over 1,000 users.
  - Updated existing KiXtart login scripts to simplify maintenance.
  - Created VBS tools to aid in Active Directory user account management.

### Information Systems Technician
[Diageo Canada](https://www.diageo.com/)
May 2003 to December 2004
  - Provided second level technical support to 500 employees; including 1 national office, 7 regional offices, and 4 production plants.
  - Used Remedy's Action Request System to track and maintain support tickets for all incidents.
  - Investigated and fixed lost or incorrect customer order data caused by errors in interfaces between various sites & ERP systems.
  - Created test cases for user testing of a new web-based expense system and walked users through testing procedures.
  - Reorganized telecommunication services by identifying and canceling duplicate and unused services; recommended the most cost effective provider, and simplified future budget tracking, saving the company over $50,000 per annum.

## Education & Training

### ITIL v3 Foundations Certification
  - Loyalist Certification Services
  - November 2008

### Bachelor of Computing (BCMP) in Computing and Information Science
  - Queen's University
  - April 2003

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
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As Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the RE-Invest 2015, India's first Renewable Energy Global Investors' Meet and Expo in New Delhi on February 15, 2015, full-page advertisements in the National Capital declared the target of adding 5000 MW of small hydro capacity by 2022, in addition to other renewable energy targets. A part of this renewed focus on small hydro, a subset of India's new push for Renewable Energy, involves a new Mission for Small Hydro Projects. Even as it has some welcome features, the new Mission will not help if the government continues to ignore significant social and environmental impacts of small hydro projects. Continue reading "Mission on Small Hydro Projects: Ignoring social and environmental impacts will not help" →
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Is Your Furnace Operating Safely?
When it comes to your safety and the safety of the people in your household, you shouldn't take any risks. Natural gas heating equipment could run into problems that allow gas or carbon monoxide to leak into your home.
When you are in the market for a new heating system, it can be tough to understand all of your options. You may have an idea of what type of heating system you want (furnace or boiler are the two common options). But there are also all of these numbers and sizing requirements to deal with that can be difficult for an amateur to interpret.
Is a Heat Pump Enough for Heating in Scarborough?
The air inside your home is not as pure as you may believe. In fact, it's likely infested with all sorts of contaminants. Animal dander, insect parts, viruses, bacteria, dust, and pollen are just a few of the common air pollutants that homeowners breathe every single day.
When your furnace was brand new, it was at peak efficiency, heating your home as quickly as possible and using little energy to do so. Over time, however, the parts begin to wear down and you may notice less than satisfactory heating or higher energy bills.
Is Geothermal Cooling Worth the Investment?
What Do I Need to Know Before Installing a New Heat Pump?
Which Needs More Repairs: A Furnace or a Boiler?
Homeowners searching for the right system to install often ask which type of heater will need more repairs, a boiler or a furnace. On the surface, it seems like an easy question to answer. But many different factors come into play, and the real answer rests on individual cases.
How Does In-Floor Heating Work?
In Europe, one of the most popular forms of warming a home is in-floor heating, also known as radiant floor heating. Now North America is starting to discover the many advantages of this method of heating, and radiant systems are on the rise in Canada and the U.S. We definitely think you should consider an in-floor heating system for your next heater installation: they provide a high level of comfort combined with tremendous energy efficiency and almost silent operation.


text:
Texas abortion ban prompts Salesforce to help employees, families "exit" state
Enlarge / Protesters hold up signs as they march down Congress Ave at a protest outside the Texas state capitol on May 29, 2021 in Austin, Texas. Thousands of protesters came out in response to a new bill outlawing abortions after six weeks was signed into law by Texas Governor Greg Abbot.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff confirmed late on Friday that his company would pay for employees and their families to relocate out of Texas if they are concerned about their ability to seek reproductive health care. The move comes after the state's anti-abortion law went into effect earlier this month and the US Supreme Court refused to block the law.
"Ohana if you want to move we'll help you exit TX. Your choice," Benioff said in a tweet, using the Hawaiian word for "family." (Benioff and Salesforce have a long obsession with things Hawaiian.)
Texas' new law, known as Senate Bill 8, bans abortions as early as six weeks. That's well before many women know they're pregnant. Most women won't be able to get an accurate result from an at-home pregnancy test until three to four weeks after the day of their last period, and those who don't take a test won't suspect anything until they miss a period four weeks in. Six weeks is so early that doctors don't call it a fetus, they still call it an embryo. Six weeks is far too early for anyone to know whether the pregnancy won't spontaneously abort itself. So effectively, the law gives women at most two weeks to decide whether to seek an abortion. It does not make exceptions for rape or incest, but does for medical emergencies.
The law is unusual in that it doesn't let state officials enforce the ban, but rather says individuals can file lawsuits against anyone who "aids or abets" an abortion after six weeks, guaranteeing at least $10,000 in damages for each abortion. Basically, it allows people to become bounty hunters, chasing after women seeking medical care.
The US Supreme Court decided 5-4 on procedural grounds not to hear an emergency request to block the law. In a dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts said the law was "not only unusual, but unprecedented." He continued: "The desired consequence appears to be to insulate the State from responsibility for implementing and enforcing the regulatory regime."
1 "We stand with all our women"
2 Not just Salesforce
"We stand with all our women"
The law and the Supreme Court's decision have prompted several tech companies to announce policies aimed squarely at the new law.
Salesforce announced its policy in a company-wide Slack message, which CNBC obtained. "These are incredibly personal issues that directly impact many of us—especially women," the message said. "We recognize and respect that we all have deeply held and different perspectives. As a company, we stand with all of our women at Salesforce and everywhere. With that being said, if you have concerns about access to reproductive healthcare in your state, Salesforce will help relocate you and members of your immediate family."
Though the company did not take an official stance on the law itself in the message, CNBC said, it's pretty easy to read between the lines to see where the company has landed.
Not just Salesforce
Salesforce isn't alone. Several domain registrars and web hosts have taken stances. The anti-abortion group Texas Right to Life has been trying in vain to find a domain registrar and web host for a "whistleblower" site it set up after the new law took effect.
First it was denied by GoDaddy for collecting without written consent "non-public or personally identifiable information." Then it was told by Epik, the same company that provides domain services for Gab and Parler, to go find another registrar. The company hasn't booted the group yet—prolifewhistleblower.com redirects to the group's homepage—but Epik did say that if the site ever collects user submissions, they'll pull it. So far, Texas Right to Life hasn't been able to find a registrar or host for the site.
Earlier in the month, Lyft and Uber announced that they would cover legal fees for any drivers who were sued under the new law. Lyft CEO Logan Green said the Texas law "threatens to punish drivers for getting people where they need to go—especially women exercising their right to choose." His company started a fund that would "cover 100% of legal fees for drivers sued under SB8 while driving on our platform."
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi chimed in an hour and a half later, saying that "drivers shouldn't be put at risk for getting people where they want to go," adding that his company "is in too and will cover legal fees in the same way."
Salesforce's move may hit the bottom line harder, though. Benioff has said he expects that a significant fraction of his company's employees will work remotely, which would free workers to live anywhere in the country, including Texas. Those who moved there during the pandemic would likely qualify for relocation expenses under the new policy. Plus, Salesforce has a large office in Dallas, where it reportedly leases 100,000 square feet of office space for around 1,000 workers, all of whom would also be eligible to move.
This isn't the first time Salesforce has made a business decision based on what it views as discriminatory state laws. In 2015, it said it would cancel events in Indiana and reduce its investment in the state following the passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Later, however, it announced an expansion in Indianapolis after the state law was revised to make an exception for a city ordinance banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
abortion, ban, employees, Exit, families, prompts, Salesforce, state, Texas
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The Apple USB-C to MagSafe 3 Cable Gets a Big Discount


text:
Q: Can symmetrizing a contraction increase the speed of convergence? Dear community,
I have a problem which is very simple to state but seems to be hard to answer.
Statement of the problem
Let $f$ and $g$ be two symmetric, real functions in $n$ and $m$ variables, both of them square integrable over $T^n$ and $T^m$, respectively, where $T$ is some subset of $\mathbb{R}$. Fix $1 \leq r \leq \min \{p,q \}$ and define the contraction $f \otimes_r g$ to be the function of $p+q-2r$ variables obtained by identifying $r$ variables of $f$ and $g$ and integrating them out, i.e.
$$(f \otimes_r g)(x_1,\ldots,x_{p+q-2r}) := \int_{T^r} f(x_1,\ldots,x_p,t_1,\ldots,t_r) \ g(t_1,\ldots,t_r,x_{p+1},\ldots,x_{q}) \ \mathrm{d} (t_1,\ldots,t_r)$$
The contraction $f \otimes_r g$ is not necessarily symmetric, but we can always canonically symmetrize it by averaging over all permutations of its variables. Denote this symmetrization by $\widetilde{f \otimes_r g}$.
Suppose now that you have two sequences $(f_n)$ and $(g_n)$ of functions such that
$$ d(n) := \lVert f_n \otimes_r g_n \rVert_2$$
is positive and converges to zero.
The triangle and Cauchy-Schwarz inequalities show, that $\widetilde{d}(n):= \lVert \widetilde{f_n \otimes_r g_n} \rVert_2$ is bounded by $d(n)$ and therefore also goes to zero.
I would like to know if it is possible that symmetrizing increases the speed of convergence, i.e. that $$\widetilde{d}(n) / d(n) \to 0$$.
All the examples I did so far suggest that this can'thappen but I'm not able to find a rigorous proof.
An example
Let's take the simple case where $n=m=2$ and therefore $r=1$.
We have $$(f \otimes_1 g) (x,y) = \int_T f(x,t) \ g(t,y) \ \mathrm{d}t,$$
$$(\widetilde{f \otimes_1 g})(x,y) = \frac{1}{2} \int_T \big( f(x,t) \ g(t,y) + f(y,t) \ g(t,x) \big) \ \mathrm{d}t$$
and therefore
$$\lVert f \otimes_1 g \rVert_2^2 = \int_{T^4} f(t_1,t_2)g(t_2,t_3)g(t_3,t_4)f(t_4,t_1) \ \mathrm{d} (t_1,t_2,t_3,t_4),$$
$$\begin{aligned} \lVert \widetilde{f \otimes_1 g} \rVert_2^2 &= \frac{1}{2} \int_{T^4}
\big( f(t_1,t_2)g(t_2,t_3)g(t_3,t_4)f(t_4,t_1) \\ &\qquad\qquad\qquad +  f(t_1,t_2)g(t_2,t_3)f(t_3,t_4)g(t_4,t_1)\big) \ \mathrm{d} (t_1,t_2,t_3,t_4)
\\ &=
\frac{1}{2} \lVert f \otimes_1 g \rVert_2^2
+
\frac{1}{2} \int_{T^4} f(t_1,t_2)g(t_2,t_3)f(t_3,t_4)g(t_4,t_1)  \mathrm{d} (t_1,t_2,t_3,t_4)
\end{aligned}.
$$
This gives, in terms of sequences,
$$2 \frac{\widetilde{d}(n)^2}{d(n)^2} = 1
+
\frac{
\int_{T^4} f_n(t_1,t_2)g_n(t_2,t_3)f_n(t_3,t_4)g_n(t_4,t_1) \ \mathrm{d} (t_1,t_2,t_3,t_4)
}{
\int_{T^4} f_n(t_1,t_2)g_n(t_2,t_3)g_n(t_3,t_4)f_n(t_4,t_1) \ \mathrm{d} (t_1,t_2,t_3,t_4)
}
$$
Is it possible for the fraction of integrals on the right to converge to -1 in the limit?
Thanks for your help,
Simon

A: Actually, it is even possible that $\widetilde{f \otimes_1 g}\equiv0$ without $f \otimes_1 g$ being zero. Just consider a domain $T$ consisting into two subdomains of unit volume, and functions $f$ and $g$ that are constant on each of these. Then it is the same as dealing with symmetric $2\times2$ matrices $F$ and $G$. Your $f \otimes_1 g$ is nothing but the ordinary product $FG$ of matrices, and we know that the product of symmetric matrices need not be symmetric. Your $\widetilde{f \otimes_1 g}\equiv0$ is therefore $\frac12(FG+GF)$. Now, let us take
$$F=\begin{pmatrix} 1 & 0 \\\\ 0 & -1 \end{pmatrix},\qquad
G=\begin{pmatrix} 0 & 1 \\\\ 1 & 0 \end{pmatrix}.$$
We have $(FG)^2=I_2$, whereas $FG+GF=0_2$. Therefore $d=2$ and $\tilde{d}=0$.

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text:
The European Sky-God. 325
the myth of Pelops, who according to Pindar^ was caught up to heaven, but according to the common version was cut to pieces and boiled as food for the gods. In such cases it is, of course, the crude and ugly tale that is the better founded ; and I sadly fear that the story of Romulus being rapt away in a thunderstorm was a pious fiction designed to conceal a far more horrible fate. Two other early kings, Aeneas and Latinus, vanished in like manner ; and it is highly significant that each of them was identified after his death with Jupiter.^ In the case of Aeneas, side by side with the euphemistic statement that he had been translated heavenwards in a thunderstorm, there was a substantial tradition that he had been drowned in the river Numicius, on whose banks he was offering a sacrifice.^ Very possibly the sacrifice in question was the sacrifice of himself. Again, Titus Tatius was said to have gone with Romulus to Lavinium, in order to attend a certain sacrifice incumbent upon the kings, and there to have been set upon by the comrades and relatives of some murdered Laviniate envoys and slain by them " upon the altar with the sacrificial knives and spits."*
It would seem, then, that the Italians, no less than the Greeks, safeguarded the physical competence of their
^ Find. 01. I. 38 ff. Pelias too was cut to pieces and boiled by his daughters, who had been told by Medea that they ?night thus restore to their father his youthful vigour (Roscher Lex. iii. 1848 ff. ) — a circumstance which throws a flood of light on the motive of all these ritual murders and well accords with the theory propounded by Dr. Frazer ( Golden Bough - ii. 5 f. ).
^ Supra p. 286.
^Tib. 2. 5. 43 f., Serv. in Verg. Aen. i. 259, 4. 620, 7. 150, Dionys. ant. Rom. I. 64. [Aur. Vict.] orig. gent. Rom. 14. 3 f. adds that he was after- wards seen in full armour on the river-bank and therefore believed to have become immortal.
^Dionys. ant. Kom. 2. 52. Dr. Frazer kindly drew my attention to this passage ; and further suggests that the death of Metius Fuffetius, the dictator of Alba, who at the bidding of TuUus Hostilius was torn asunder by a couple of two-horse chariots {ib. 3. 30), bears some resemblance to the death of Hippolytus-Virbius, who was "furiis direptus equorum" {Ov.fast. 3. 265).


Is there anything else you would like to tell us about you, your family or your interest in adopting a cat? The more information you provide, the better we will be able to determine suitability of your chosen cat(s).
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text:
Putin: Russia Signed $7.5 Billion in New Arms Deals in 2014
Russia has signed $7.5 billion worth of new arms export contracts this year, President Vladimir Putin was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency on Wednesday.
"This year, Russian arms exporters signed new contracts worth more than $7.5 billion," Putin said at a meeting of defense industry officials. "As a result, the portfolio of orders is strong at around $50 billion booked," he said.
Putin added that "Russian [military] equipment and goods worth $10 billion," has been delivered to foreign customers in 2014 so far, a figure that he said was more than 70 percent of the volume planned for this year.
Russia is the world's second largest arms dealer, falling just behind the United States. Its biggest customers are China, India and Algeria, which accounted for about 60 percent of Russia's arms exports last year, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
The European Union slapped an arms embargo on Russia in July over Moscow's role in the Ukraine crisis, but accounted for a mere $3 billion of Russia's $15.7 billion in exports last year.
Russia Test-Fires Intercontinental Missile From Submarine
Russia test-fired a Sineva intercontinental missile from a submerged submarine in the Barents Sea on Wednesday as part of a check on the reliability...
$90 Million of Future Warrior Gear Purchased for Russian Army
The Defense Ministry has spent 4 billion rubles ($90 million) this year on purchases of equipment for its new Ratnik infantry kit, the RIA Novosti...
Russia's Arms Maker Rostec Bypasses Western Sanctions by Selling Plant
Russia's Rostec, a state-owned conglomerate hit by Western sanctions over Ukraine, will sell a small arms factory to a businessman who is not blacklisted...


text:
AS Police is a Burkinabé football team based in Ouagadougou which competes in the Burkinabé Premier League.

References

Football clubs in Burkina Faso
Police association football clubs

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Can Büyükberber is a visual artist working on immersive audiovisual experiences blurring boundries between physical and digital spaces. His practice consists of experiments with virtual/augmented reality, projection mapping, geodesic domes, large-scale displays and digital fabrication. Driven by an interdisciplinary thinking which extends to art, design and science, his work focuses on human perception, exploring new methods for non-linear narratives and emergent forms. He has received his Master's Degree in Art & Technology from San Francisco Art Institute as a Fulbright Scholar and been selected to Autodesk's Pier 9 and Adobe's AR Artist Residencies; exhibited at museums, galleries and media art festivals around the world, including ZKM, Karlsruhe; Ars Electronica, Linz; SAT, Montreal; Sonar D+, Barcelona; California Academy of Sciences and Exploratorium, San Francisco; Signal Festival, Prague; Akbank Sanat, Istanbul; Art Futura, Rome; collaborations with musical artists such as Grammy-Award winning rock band Tool, Shigeto and Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.


Cheshire May Build Hiking Shelter for Appalachian Trail / iBerkshires.com - The Berkshires online guide to events, news and Berkshire County community information.
The town of Cheshire is considering building a shelter and putting in picnic tables where AT hikers can take a break.
CHESHIRE, Mass. — The town will look into building a structure to shelter Appalachian Trail hikers.
"The plan so far is to erect a structure that would shelter the hikers ... the whole nine yards," he said. "It is in its very early planning stages but could include a picnic table or two."
The trail passes through Cheshire and, last year, the town was designated as an Appalachian Trail Community and has met standards to become "trail friendly."
In the past, the former elementary school grounds was the de facto meeting area for hikers. The town even rented a portable toilet for hikers who often found shelter in St. Mary's Church.
St. John said they have pinpointed the area behind the Community Center on School Street as a new location.
"It is directly adjacent to the trail and could serve as a place or hikers to rest," he said.
St. John said the project would be privately funded and would have to first go through Planning Board.
In other business, the Selectmen touched base with the Water Department on a plan bid for water main replacements in the Depot Street area.
Water Commissioner Rick Gurney said engineering for the project is complete but the commissioners did not want to prepare bid documents if the town was not ready to resurface Depot Street.
"We didn't want to go out to bid and find out that you guys aren't ready because we would be throwing away roughly $5,000," Gurney said.
He said the project does not include street paving and so they were hoping to do their project in concert with the town.
Selectwoman Carol Francesconi said the town does plan to overhaul Depot Street but it won't be happening this year because the town did not receive a state Complete Streets grant for the project.
"We didn't get the money; we didn't get the grant," she said. "It is not happening this year and I am glad you asked."
Francesconi said they would re-assess in the fall.
The Selectmen also heard from Patricia Mullin of Berkshire Regional Planning Commission about the Community Development Block Grant housing rehabilitation program it is administering for the town.
She said initially BRPC did not receive enough applications but after a townwide mailing, more inquiries came in.
"We were a little bit concerned. We weren't gathering enough applications so we did a mailing," she said. "After, we got about 50 calls."
She did ask the board to form a citizen advisory committee to help address grievances.
"In other words, if the homeowner and the contractor have a dispute or if a neighbor had a dispute with the program because of noise or whatever, we have this three-tiered system," she said.
She said these filed grievances are rare.
The town is also looking for Cheshire students to submit Memorial Day essays to be read during the town's annual Memorial Day ceremony on May 27.
Essays are due at Town Hall by May 17. All students are welcome to submit an essay and there will be a reward for those chosen.


text:
Q: Have jquery datepicker fill 2 external fields I want to have a datepicker-button that inserts the selected date in text-fields.
How can I achieve that?
Assume I have Button A, Textfield B, Textfield C.
When you click on Button A, the jquery datepicker should open. Instead of filling the value inside the opened element, the same value shall be inserted into Textfield B and Textfield C.
Normally you would define what id has a datepicker attached to like this:
$("#datepicker").datepicker();

But this logic doesn't work in this case, as the value shall be filled into different fields.

A: Ok here i have three textbox(datepicker, TextboxB, TextboxC) not as you asked( Button A, Textfield B, Textfield C). I dont think jQuery datepicker can display when you click a button instead, you make it a textbox. But one thing i did for you is this "Instead of filling the value inside the opened element, the same value shall be inserted into Textfield B and Textfield C."

$(document).ready(function() {
  $("#datepicker").datepicker();
  $("#datepicker").change(function() {
      $("#textboxB, #textboxC").val($(this).val());
  });

});
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="//code.jquery.com/ui/1.11.4/themes/smoothness/jquery-ui.css">
  <script src="//code.jquery.com/jquery-1.10.2.js"></script>
  <script src="//code.jquery.com/ui/1.11.4/jquery-ui.js"></script>
<input type="text" id="datepicker" placeholder="click me"/>
<input type="text" id="textboxB" />
<input type="text" id="textboxC" />


Hi, I'm currently running an eval version of FlexRaid on a new home server set-up.
I've successfully set up DrivePool with SnapShot raid, currently set to update once per day.
All seems to work exactly as planned.... however I've noticed that the cpu usage by flexraid is running constantly at between 35 and 55% which I can't believe is correct, especially when the server is idle.
I've set logging to verbose but there is nothing in the logs indicating what flexraid is doing with all this horse power.


text:
Psyclon Nine är ett amerikanskt EBM/Industrial-band från San Francisco som bildades år 2000.

Bandets tidiga musik klassas ofta som aggrotech, medan bandets nya musik lutar mer mot black metal och industrial-hållet. Musiken kallas Dark Electronics. När Nero först startade bandet hade han lite influenser från band som Suicide Commando, Hocico och liknande band och trodde helt enkelt att det var en annan version av rock, en mer extrem stil efter Nine Inch Nails och Marilyn Manson. Så han startade bandet som ett rockband utan att veta om att det han egentligen gjorde kallades för dark electronics/aggrotech. Det gjorde honom besviken när folk kom till deras shower för att bara dansa eftersom hans texter verkligen betydde något för honom, han gjorde inte musiken för att se folk dansa till den, han ville få fram budskap och sina känslor. Han insåg då att det han gjorde var långt ifrån det han ville göra när han var fjorton. I varje album han gör ändrar han stilen på musiken en del för att han inte vill hålla samma stil i alla album. Nero målar även på sin fritid och säljer en del av sina tavlor. Han jobbar också som modell.

Medlemmar
Nuvarande medlemmar
 Nero Bellum (Marshall Goppert) – sång, gitarr, synthesizer (1999–)
 Rotny (Rodney Ford) – gitarr, synthesizer (2006–2007, 2008–2014, 2016–)
 Sevin – synthesizer (2006–2008, 2017–)

Tidigare medlemmar
 Josef Heresy – synthesizer (1999–2008), gitarr (2006–2008)
 Eric Gottesman – synthesizer (2000–2006), basgitarr (2004–2006, 2007)
 Abby Nex (Filip Abbey) – trummor, slagverk (2005–2006), basgitarr (2009)
 Daniel Columbine – basgitarr (2006)
 Daniel Fox – trummor, slagverk (2007–2008)
 Jon Siren – trummor, slagverk (2009–2014)
 Vlixx Vladen – keyboard, synthesizer (2009)
 Merritt – basgitarr (2012–2014)
 Glitch NIX – keyboard, synthesizer (2013–2014)
 Brent Ashley – basgitarr (2014)
 Kriz Dk – trummor (2014)
 Raanen Bozzio – trummor (2015–?)

Diskografi

Studioalbum
 Divine Infekt (2003)
 INRI (2005)
 Crwn Thy Frnicatr (2006)
 We The Fallen (2009)
 Order of the Shadow: Act 1 (2013)
 Icon of the Adversary (2018)

Referenser

Externa länkar
 Officiell webbplats

Musikgrupper bildade 2000
Amerikanska musikgrupper
Musikgrupper inom EBM
Musikgrupper inom industrial


text:
Giovanni Ortolani
Via Beirut, 6
Enrico Fermi Building, Room 112
Office: +39 040 2240-324
gortolani@twas.org
Cristina Serra
Phone: +39 040 2240-429
Mobile: +39 338 430-5210
cserra@twas.org
Sean Treacy
Enrico Fermi Building, Room T8/2
streacy@twas.org
General contact: info@twas.org
TWAS is based in Trieste, Italy, and has important science-related partnerships and projects in the city and with the Italian government.
TWAS Newsletter
The Academy's quarterly magazine. Download PDF files of individual articles and/or entire issues.
Tweets by TWASnews
China-TWAS collaboration: a ripple effect
Long-term cooperation between China and TWAS is offering scientists from developing countries the chance to build prosperity in their nations. In a visit to TWAS, Vice-Mayor Ai Xuefeng of Shenzhen, China, praised the Academy's efforts.
A delegation led by Ai Xuefeng, vice-mayor of Shenzhen, China, visited TWAS headquarters in Trieste, Italy, to learn how the China -TWAS partnership is supporting scientific progress across the developing world.
The meeting was part of the delegation's wider visit to Trieste scientific institutions, organized to showcase the impact that national and international centres headquartered in Trieste have in building a common mission with the Global South.
For many years, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and TWAS have partnered in a programme to support aspiring scientists from the developing world in PhD studies. Over the past 16 years the PhD fellowship programme has awarded 1,700 fellowships, 22% of which to female scientists. During two terms that CAS President Bai Chunli served as the president of TWAS (2013-2018), the CAS-TWAS President's PhD Fellowships supported up to 200 scholars per year at top Chinese universities and research institutes. More than 230 awardees are expected to graduate in 2019.
"I am very impressed by these results – we feel very close to TWAS," said Ai. "Through your presentation we learned how much effort TWAS has put in promoting scientific development. Thank you for your outstanding work."
As TWAS's Executive Director Romain Murenzi noted when he welcomed the delegation: "We truly enjoy the collaboration with China and the Chinese scientists. In our Academy we currently have about 1,200 Fellows, and more than 250 are from China."
In addition to its partnership with CAS, TWAS is building its relationship with the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST). The meeting of the TWAS Council, scheduled for November in Hangzhou, will be hosted by Zhejiang University, with support from CAST. The 2022 TWAS General Meeting also is tentatively slated for Hangzhou.
Building scientific capacity in developing countries can have a ripple effect at various levels. After receiving a CAS PhD fellowship in 2005, Nigerian chemist Emmanuel Unuabonah was selected as a TWAS Young Affiliate from 2009-2013, and he received TWAS research grants in 2010 and 2014. He now manages his own laboratory at Redeemer University, and several of his students are starting work on their own PhDs and have receive awards to continue their research.
Shenzhen, located just north of Hong Kong in Guangdong Province, is a major Chinese technology and manufacturing centre and a hub for China's international engagement. It is home to the world's third-busiest container port.
Chinese Delegation
Ai Xuefeng
vice-mayor of Shenzhen
China Association for Science and Technology
TWAS General Meeting 2022
TWAS Council Meeting 2019


1 июня 2019, во второй половине субботы, сообщество разработчиков Kotlin снова соберется под одной крышей.
Что мы приготовили в этом году?
Стоимость участия до 1 мая - 1500 грн. Специальное предложение для студентов - 1200 грн.
Купи билеты именно сейчас по низкой цене. Не медли - количество билетов ограничено!
For David, computer science is not only about technics. That&#039s why he is working to mix others aspects with his coding skills. To make sure that the IT will not be a center of cost but an asset.
For over eight years, Dmytro has been making the world a little better with mobile apps. He actively speak at conferences, Kotlin and Android meetups. Also, Dmytro is engaged in mentoring and contribute to Open source.
Android Developer and Kotlin Evangelist. Organizer of SchoolKt and the Android Broadcast Telegram channel.
Oleg is an Android developer and Kotlin enthusiast for almost four years. Co-organizer of Kotlin L&#039viv User Group.
Dr. Venkat Subramaniam is an award-winning author and an instructional professor at the University of Houston. He has trained and mentored thousands of software developers in the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia, and is a regularly invited speaker at several international conferences. He&#039s the (co)author of multiple books, including the 2007 Jolt Productivity award winning book Practices of an Agile Developer.