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A Closer Look | Asia Society
STATE OF ASIA
Book Salon
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Talk at the Library
Gen A – Young Leadership Program
Asia NEXT – Executive Education
Curator Residency
Laos, South Korea, Solomon Islands, Nepal, and Thailand
Monks at the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar. / Photo: Remko Tanis
"A Closer Look" is a series by Asia Society Switzerland with the support of BDO and the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies of the University of Zurich, shedding light on different Asian countries through the eyes of leading local voices. The new season is on its way now, and runs through Thursday, March 23, 2023. This time, we are focusing on Laos, South Korea, Solomon Islands, Nepal, and Thailand. Watch live, online, every other Thursday, from 12:00 - 13:00 CET. Register here.
A Closer Look at South Korea
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Take a closer look at South Korea, where much more is happening than just K-Pop and threats from the North. Hear from Political Science and International Relations professor Seungjoo Lee and consultant Schoni Seung Hyun Song.
A Closer Look at Solomon Islands
Go inside this Pacific nation that's being woed by China, Australia and the U.S., while gearing up to host its first Pacific Games for which even the general election has been pushed back. With renowned local journalist Dorothy Wickham.
A Closer Look at Nepal
Thursday 9 Mar 2023
A closer look at what's happening at the foot of Qomolangma / Mount Everest, with investor and banking veteran Suman Joshi.
A Closer Look at Thailand
Thursday 23 Mar 2023
For the final episode of the season, we dive into Thailand, less than two months before the kingdom goes to the polls.
Videos of Past Episodes
Episode 11: A Closer Look at Laos
Dive into Laos, one of Asia's ethnically most diverse countries, and one of its most unknown. Join filmmaker Mattie Do and journalist Manyphone Vongphachanh on a journey through what's happening in Southeast Asia's only landlocked country.
Episode 10: A Closer Look at Mongolia
The tenth episode of "A Closer Look" takes us to the world's most sparsely populated country, Mongolia. Oyungerel Tsedevdamba and Byambajargal Ayushjav talk about nomadic traditions and modernity, education, and the civil society landscape.
Episode 9: A Closer Look at Singapore
In the ninth episode of "A Closer Look", we zoom in on Singapore. Kirsten Han and Yeo Lay Hwee share their perspectives on Singapore's successes and challenges, its human rights, the electoral system and the city-state's foreign relations.
Episode 8: A Closer Look at Kyrgyzstan
The eighth episode of "A Closer Look" brings us to Kyrgyzstan, a mountainous country in Central Asia. Political analyst Dr. Emilbek Dzhuraev talks about the country's road to democracy, post-Soviet transitions, and foreign relations.
Episode 7: A Closer Look at the Philippines
In the seventh episode of "A Closer Look", we explore the Philippines. Mina Roces and Manuel L. Quezon III talk about the Filipino identity, gender roles, family dynasties, and the 2022 presidential elections.
Episode 6: A Closer Look at Pakistan
The sixth episode of "A Closer Look" brings us to Pakistan, the world's fifth most populous country. Saad Haroon and Yusra Askari discuss press freedom, the cultural scene, and domestic politics.
Episode 5: A Closer Look at Bhutan
In the fifth episode, we explore Bhutan – the landlocked country located in the Eastern Himalayas. Journalist and Musician Supe discusses Bhutan's development path and the role of media.
Episode 4: A Closer Look at Bangladesh
The fourth episode brings us to one of the world's most crowded countries: Bangladesh. Dr. Faraha Nawaz and Sara Hossain share their view of the country, and discuss the changing role of women in Bangladesh.
Episode 3: A Closer Look at Brunei
In our third episode of "A Closer Look" Iswandy Ahmad and agricultural entrepreneur Dr. Vanessa Teo share their view on Brunei, the monarchy, and discuss the government's as well as entrepreneurial activities in the agricultural sector.
Episode 2: A Closer Look at Uzbekistan
In the second episode of "A Closer Look" we'll explore the landlocked and most populous country of Central Asia: Uzbekistan. Dilfuza Kurolova and Dr. Farkhod Tolipov will discuss the country's challenges and development of civil society.
In the Series
Episode 1: A Closer Look at Sri Lanka
The first episode of "A Closer Look" brings us to Sri Lanka – the island nation just off the southeastern coast of India. Bhavani Fonseka and Ambika Satkunanathan are talking about domestic politics and human right issues.


Despite the fact that I am reading a delightful book critiquing the politics of purity, this restaurant is worth visiting! It's name: Pure Kitchen.
What's the book? Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times by Alexis Shotwel. The book is arguing (so far and very over-simplified) marketing purity (simple lines, names like Pure dish soap) and politically inflecting along lines of purity (purity of ideology or politics, for example) and, on the other hand, living fully in worlds where everything is always already compromised. You want to eat vegetarian? Does that reduce your carbon profile (yes and no). Do you want to argue for reproductive justice in a culture (for which you also want to support cultural autonomy rather than colonialist management) which opposes abortion and women's rights? How does compromise itself lead to -- or undermine - ethics? Is refusing to compromise unethical?
In any case, the book came to mind when I chose Pure Kitchen as a place to eat in Ottawa some time ago. We were hungry. I was a tiny bit testy. Without even looking, I imagined: vegetarian or vegan, clean lines and a sense of hip humor. And, that's exactly what I got. Let me elaborate.
Pure Kitchen has staff with humorous punny kinds of t shirts, a youthful vibe but an age diverse clientele, and offers things like smoothies but also cocktails (and yes it is a juice bar), and a variety of veggie foods (including multiple kinds of veggie burgers). We went with (a) guacamole with chips to get us into the frame of mind of being less hungry so capable of ordering; and then (b) I wanted pirogies because, for some reason, I was on a pierogi kick. Alas, no pirogues so we had the quite wonderful dumplings. I admit it -- they were so good that we had two orders. I have a vague memory of getting something else, but the memory receded past the dumplings!
And, I have no idea what cocktail I got, though I was on a kick involving gin, cucumber and herbs that week. So, I likely had something like that.
It was damn (pardon me) hot out and the respite was wonderful. I would, in fact eat there again. Pure Kitchen made me happy because it was not annoyingly cloyingly veggie, or annoyingly cloyingly pseudo politically healthy. It was just tasty food in a reasonable venue on a very very very hot day.
Location: 340 Elgin Street, Ottawa -- and parking can be a pain, but it was not the day we went to Pure Kitchen and briefly wandered the streets.
For a review form the Ottawa Citizen, click here. For a totally well done blog review that is much more detailed than what I provided to you, click here.
On an impulse (she says), my partner bought me a delightful book when we were last at Ravine's. The book: Dan Barber's The Third Plate, subtitled Field Notes on the Future of Food. I read it while traveling, having held on to it for a time when I deserved a treat. And, I read it slowly.
Short review: Read this. It is smart, well written, hopeful, and intricate.
Longest review: Everything I wrote above is true, but requires reflection and elaboration, right? So here goes.
Let's begin with the local theme: Klaas Martens and Mary-Howell Martens are Lakeview Organic Grain. As I discovered by reading The Third Plate, their work as organic farmers began one day which might have been tragic: when spraying fields with various items one morning, Klaas discovered he could not move his arms. That day they say, was the start of their organic farming. Rather than enhancing their soils and managing their pests with chemical treatments, they began growing their soil. (For an article focused on the transition, click here.) That is, they focus on rotation crops and other strategies. (Click here for some more on this topic.) You can find them profiled on their website here, along with various others in their team. Located in Penn Yan, NY, on a farm that was his generationally (there is a longish and not always delightful family story involved here), the Martens' switch to organic and the success of their farm thereafter inspired many others around them. And, their need to vertically integrate led them to their own mill which serves many throughout the community.
But, no, Barber's book is not a profile of the Martens, though their focus on grain is why he initially looks to their work. Though focused on a close relation of farm to table, Barber is wrestling with what that means -- including which "engine" drives which and, what gets left out of such notions. One of the most ubiquitous products he uses is flour which, one day, he realizes is "dead" and has little to no taste. This leads to his ruminations -- and investigations -- into grains which takes him to Penn Yan, but also to the west coast, looking at a range of ways to move beyond industrial wheat.
The book is organized around the themes: soil; land; sea; seed. A reminder of the ways these interconnect, in part. A reminder of globalization. And, in each regard, a reminder that each of these is LIVING. His writing is so provocative that I ca, even now, some weeks later, imagine him standing in a trench looking at levels of soil, standing in a hotel hallway looking at huge long across depicting the roots beneath crops, and looking out from a roof onto the area of Spain from which that amazing jamon iberico comes. I know I have learned -- about the acorns those pigs eat, about the interweaving of culture and farming that creates that region, the ways that fish might be differently farmed, and more.
I have said it is well written. I have said there are sentences that moved me. I laughed on occasion and read aloud "Did you know, I asked." I recommend you read this too.
My goal now: a reservation at Blue Hill. We have been saying this for years. Really, Bibliochef: get off your duff.
And, I might read more that he has written. I know that my sense of what it means to eat and live responsibly has been affected by this book. All too rare.
And by the way, he has a website called The Third Plate. Ruth Reichl liked it. So did Al Gore. And so did I.
It has been a while since I posted about a food-related film. And, my partner kindly chose one that she thought I would like -- and as always, she was right! The film? Eastside Sushi, a 2015 release. I recommend it -- as a lazy binging foodie film.
The film is ostensibly set in Oakland, and features an array of actors and visuals of the city. The plot focuses on a young single mother, living with her father and her child, who is struggling to survive economically. While she has various jobs during the film, including cleaning gym equipment, for example, she is also a cook/chef with aspirations which are (seemingly) limited by her gender (women do not do XYZ) and her ethnicity: she is Mexican American. The pressure comes from various directions: her father wants her to focus on Mexican cuisine (despite his own low income job and SPOILER her experience of being robbed running his fruit cart) and she does not. Likewise, others expect her to focus on Mexican cuisine and the Japanese owner of the sushi restaurant she eventually joins is not in favor of either women or mexican american sushi chefs. (That it is not simply about Japanese is made evident by the presence of Korean and Chinese sushi chefs.) .
As already leaked above, over the course of the film, Juana obtains a job in a sushi kitchen, and . . . . falls in love with a cuisine that she was not originally knowledgeable about. The details are less important -- and might spoil more of the film -- but two are worth noting: (a) a white (anglo) customer seems very clearly to define authenticity in a restaurant as about who -- the ethnicity - is doing the sushi preparation; so, authenticity is a key theme of the film. And, a second theme is an axiom her father offers (eventually): don't beat them at their game, beat them at your game. I like this axiom. Change the parameters and make it your game is what I heard.
So: Eastside Sushi is worth a watch. Multiple thumbs up.
Recently, a friend opined, on Facebook, that "canning food is a liberal art." I agree. In fact, I would go further: cooking is -- or at least can be - a liberal art.
What does this mean? I do not mean that you should rush out and advise people to major in food studies (though that is an option), nor do I mean that cooking is a luxury only in the way that many speak of liberal education (as available only to those rich enough to pay for it given its frequently exorbitant cost). I also do NOT mean that it is something that one only does for a certain number of years until one acquires the appropriate degree and moves on to the "real world." Nope.
At the very minimum, I think these enterprises challenges the theory/practice divide, encourage critical reflective thinking, are interdisciplinary, re quire (or allow) life long learning, and more.
The name of my friend who stated that canning is a liberal art? Warner W. Johnston.
His blog? It is called From the Kitchens of North Ridge Road which you can find by clicking here (and I have added it to the side bar to Cooking with Ideas! You will find delightful ruminations there -- including I hear on making stock.
Googling for Recipes: Is the Cookbook Dead? The Cooking Magazine?
There is an enormous literature on the advantages and disadvantages of electronic reading devices and the impact they are having on education and on reading. There is also a huge literature on reading itself and its history, including the ways we are extensive or intensive readers, and the kinds of reading we do. The situation today is, I have to admit, kind of baffling. Let me begin with clarity: I read on both the literal page and on the screen. I like it that my phone is my kindle. And, I like to carry books around and to read them -- even though I have been de-accessioning a lot of them lately.
In any case, here is the point (insofar as I have one): I use my iPhone when I cook. And, my partner has commented on this. So, I thought I would take this opportunity to reflect on the ways my use of recipes and thus my cooking has changed. And, as a side note, the impact of this upon my shopping.
Some days I simply stick a few ingredients I have on hand into the google search and. . then kind of fool around til I find ways to use ingredients I have. I feel like I am a contestant on Chopped but cheating. The strategy works in two ways: 1) it helps when I am at a loss on how I can possibly use the combination of things in my fridge and pantry and/or 2) when I know I am missing an ingredient for whatever vague idea I had in mind. This strategy saves me from that rush to the grocery store to get . . . a lemon or coriander seeds or whatever I ran out of or just do not have. I rarely just make the recipe I find, but it gives me ideas and then onward I go.
A few down sides: I don't google very far down past page 1 or page 2 of the search results, so I am probably making things that are . . . risking being boring? I know about how far down you truly find interesting stuff in other arenas -- including googling myself when I once found bitnet conversations from 1987 (but I digress) and from professional work trying to ensure that search results appear far enough up in search results to cause people to actually click on the result. Anyway: I am afraid the google recipe habit is bad and I am not even sure why I am worried.
I know there are apps to save recipes and all sorts of things that might be useful. I don't really use them. I cannot even imagine at the farthest reach of my imagination a kindle cookbook. And, though I once had a vague desire for an iPad in the kitchen so I could actually SEE what I was trying to do when I use my iPhone, I now no longer want such a thing. Hmmm.
So, I also read cookbooks and I am trying to get off the few pages I turn to regularly in each one. And, I have to admit, I do mourn the loss of some magazines, even though I am not as in love with them when they come as I used to be. . . . Hmmm.
Enough. Back to the kitchen. Hmmm.
And, as a side note, given how many times phrases involving hands appear above: Kali?
A few options to continue thinking about this theme: try this piece that favors reading on your iPhone (or, I suppose, Android); or this more balanced (and scientific) bit. Yes, both appeared fairly high up when I googled.
Yes,beautiful -- and equally beautiful inside the covers. Published by New York University Press, in their Library of Arabic Literature collection, edited and translated by Charles Perry and Reviewed by David Waines, the book includes both an opening section of historical and contextualizing information (including commentary on the processes used to transliterate Arabic terms following various accepted protocols) and page upon page of recipes. In the latter regard, the left page has the original and the right side english translations.
On the historical and contextualizing introduction, a few comments. The book is mid-13th century Syrian in origins and written in middle Arabic. The introductory discussion opens with a very short precise of the history of cookbooks, noting the importance of Arabic examples to that history, including the book presented here, which was an early (medieval) version with 635-700 recipes (depending on the manuscript version form which one translates). The cuisine is notable for a variety of reasons, including (memorably for me) an explanation for why the "cookbook" focuses on scents as well as flavors. (Turns out there is a whole protocol involving scented washing prior to dining, and the religious washing protocols are thee in part to ensure that one's own scents do not interfere with one's enjoyment of the meal and its scents and flavors. The book is presented in the rough order of a banquet of the era, with its pages long table of contents moving from perfume to beverages to tail fat to chicken dishes and then sautes and related dishes (much of this long chapter devoted to lamb), to sweets and baked goods, to pickles of various sorts and then to hand washing powders and soaps and "distilling waters and perfuming the breath." In describing the characteristics of the cuisine, the author reminds us that in "those days" and in that culture or set of cultures, folks ate with their hands, meats were not terrible well preserved, and more than we might imagine was made from processes of fermentation. He also comments on various ingredients with which his reader might not be familiar -- and also absences given the region for which the cookbook was intended (most clearly the absence of fresh fish). The final section of the introduction focuses not the history of the book -- including the various editions (with varied lists of recipes and interpolations of various sorts), the unknown author, and conventions used in recipe books of the era. After the introduction, there are notes on the translation and related matters.
I should note: I found this all fascinating.
On the recipes: At some point in history (and yes, I once knew it, but have forgotten) the format people in the US assume for recipes was created -- a list of ingredients and directions for how to cook, laid out in step by step precision. This was long after this cookbook was created -- and so the many many recipes here are neither presented in that format nor, I have to admit, entirely clear to me. Neither the length of cooking nor the heat to be used nor quantities are always specified. The recipes kind of read like "get some meat, boil, add parsley and mixed spices, continue to cook til done." (YEs, I made that one up and, hence, it is a little shorter than some. Add a few completely unknown=to=me ingredients and voila!).
Having said this, I find this book really interesting to read slowly, paging here and there, trying to figure things out. I imagine dishes that . . . I cannot imagine.
In some ways this is a totally frivolous and useless luxury purchase for me with no utilitarian value. And yet, I am increasingly fond of the book. Yes, I bought it for its beauty. I admit I also bought it as a tiny nod in the direction of the horrifying politics surrounding Syria and, in particular, Aleppo. It is not enough, not even faintly enough. but learning a bit is always one way I try to resist the political nightmares of our time.
You can always borrow my copy. But do return it!
For some other views of the book, try here for pre-publication comments and for the cook in you, click here. Most crucially, if you, like me, want to figure out how today's foodies can help us make sense of this amazing book, try this site where Food and Wine "looks inside the best selling cookbook of 13th century Syria."
So, I often volunteer to do things for people and then am a kind of louse (I whine and resent the very activity that I volunteered to undertake). Just remember that: it is a subtext here which I am overcoming -- because I truly loved the meal that came as a result of supporting someone I love. I speak of the amazing meal at an event called Confluence, which the Corning Museum of Glass (which had a glass barge on the canal in Seneca Falls) undertook to support the National Women's Hall of Fame. There were tickets and there was fear of rain (yes there was a deluge before and after -- but not during!) -- and there was a silent and a live auction -- and there was music. But mostly: there was food, drink and an amazing meal overall. It was weeks ago now, perhaps even a month, but Confluence is still worth commenting upon.
Christina McKeough from Graft Wine and Cider Bar in Watkins Glen. Christina, and her husband Jonah, are best known for founding the popular Hazelnut Kitchen in Trumansburg. She is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and a chef dedicated to sourcing local products whenever possible.
The menu was fully locally sourced (thorough the hard work of Jessica Giles of the National Women's Hall of Fame) and donated, and included an amazing array of items. I, for example, learned that radishes with a glob of butter on top is a delightful thing. Who knew?
I do not have the menu in front of me (and nor can I find the link), so you will have to be satisfied with what I can do in terms of descriptions. And, you will need to show up in 2018 for Confluence 2).
First: there was a huge spread of cheese, charcuterie and noshes ahead of the meal where among other things I discovered the wonderment of radish + butter. I had a sparkler but cannot tell you whose it was. Alas for it was terrific as were all the pairings.
Ahead of the meal there was a huge spread of local cheeses and meats, as well as pass around hors d'oeuvres. The latter included (the only bit I had): radishes with a dollop of butter. I am amazed to say that this was terrific.
A comment on the salad: the darn thing has been described by my partner as "the best watermelon feta salad ever. Why is this a quibble? While I agree with her entirely, I also think mine is terrific.
Sausage and pork belly with spaetzle and collard greens and apricot mustard: this was amazing. In fact, the group around liked it so much that we had to get a second plate (it was served family style). I love spaetzle so was particularly taken with that and, of course, the pork belly. The belly was succulent and served exactly like I like it in terms of the portion size.
Desserts were made by Pastry Chef Karen Gilman as noted above. There were two desserts available and, I admit, I had several of the goat cheese cake with blackberry compote. Yum. I also had (piggy?) several of the layered apricot dessert. Both were terrific. The only thing conceivably better would have been Karen's Mohn Tart.
On drinks -- Both the opening reception and the pairings that came with the full menu featured local wines and ciders. I feel guilty for not knowing who all donated -- because everything was donated both for the drinks, the food, and the chef's time and expertise. I know Hosmer and Atwater both donated liquids but cannot say for sure others. Mea culpa! I can say that there were lovely roses, white and reds -- and that the dessert one was an apple based ice wine. Amazing.
So: if you hear of confluence happening again in Seneca Falls bringing together the Corning Glass Museum and the National Women's Hall of Fame -- and I think Confluence 2 will be September 2018 -- buy a ticket and come with your checkbook. Why? There was also an auction with amazing items including Corning glass blown right on the glass barge, and much, much more.
As a final side note: the Hall is a worthy charity. Please join me in donating to them through their website. And/or come along to this Fall's Induction -- which, if you are a foodie, should be a blast since Alice Waters is one of the ten inductees.
The other night, I had a thought -- and here it is in all its glory: I must be feeling better. What makes me think that? Well, I am still cranky and unpleasant to be around, and tired and etc. but -- and it is a big but -- i am noticing food related things everywhere. You can tell that by the binge blogging, perhaps.
Today, I am writing because I was reading a wonderful collection of the poetry of Rita Dove, who will be in Chicago in June, and discovered a lot of references to food. I was thrilled. The food references situated the poems, both in daily life and in particular (sub)cultures and regions of the world. They pointed to politics and to intellectual life, to history and to the future. Food, it seemed as I read, was and is everywhere -- even in the poetry of the second African American Poet Laureate of the US.
Chocolate is, perhaps an obvious ones to include here.
On the other hand, a poem entitled Adolescene II might not be so obvious (but yes, you will find food-related reflections here). Licorice?
The interweaving of life cycle, political change, and food is astonishing -- and the ways the daily quality of food moves us through a life filled with both oppression and joy and . . .
So: read some Rita Dove. Have at it!
So, International Women's Day has been a thing for a long time, especially if you live in a bi-national household as I do. It has a truly lefty history, and I even met someone in Whole Foods yesterday (who turned out to be from Poland) who was buying flowers for his wife and mother for International Women's Day.
This year, the date is getting unusual attention (the attention it has always deserved) across the US -- yes, something the date and related issues should have been receiving all along. Why? Perhaps obviously, in response to the current political situation. Women are striking (enough that some school districts are closing), people are wearing red, and either not spending dollars or urging that they be spent in women-owned or women-led organizations. Some are giving those who work for them a paid day off. Others raised dollars to support any lost wages for women on this date. The strike is not as visible as the Women's Marches of earlier this year, but in some ways are a more important marker.
I have chosen not to strike (I almost wrote I cannot but that is not accurate). I am wearing red. And I am not shopping. I am ambivalent about not striking, feeling guilty. But I am not.
What are you doing? What are you eating? How are you honoring yourself and the women you know on this date? How can we show not only how important women are to the economy but continue to push out the notion of women's rights as human rights, recognizing the many ways women of color, poor women of all hues, and even women who think that women's rights are bogus are critical to our worlds, and that every woman and girl, cis or transgendered, comes into this world deserving to be recognized as fully human?
You ask: does this belong on Cooking With Ideas? Yes. In my view, this all about food, as is this blog. It is about literal access to food, the many ways women are the carriers of food culture, the ways food insecurity disproportionately affects some, the gendered (and raced and classed) qualities of fine dining, and much more. And, given my love for cozy mysteries, this is about the ways that kind of literature is gendered as well.
And, fight the good fight however you choose to today, ensuring that tomorrow and every day thereafter, those around you know that women's rights are human rights and that we are all interlaced in a global community with the women striking across the planet.
I opened a book today, because I am a bit . . . sad and frustrated and tired. And there it was, a poem not for me. Very much not for me. But perhaps it is for you. And it definitely taught me something.
Get out the lunch-box of your dreams.
Then - like an atom bomb - it bursts apart.
Langston Hughes, Selected Poems (Vintage Books, Random House, 1974, 1959), p. 280.


Many small business owners now understand the importance of having an online presence as most of today's consumers use the internet to find US local businesses. But what many of them don't know is that unless those local listings are consistent, they may not produce the results they want.
But in order to understand why consistency is so important when creating local business listings, you have to understand how search engines work.
Every page that's put online has the potential to be found and indexed by local search engines. And when you create a local business listing on a credible local directory that has its pages indexed, your page is included in that.
But because it's no humans, but bots, that search for online pages, you have to create your local listing with that in mind. That means that unless your local listing is created the exact same way on every local business listing that you have, the bots won't recognize it as belong to the same business—and you won't get credit for all of your listings.
And that can have negative implications for your search engine rankings. In other words, unless you're consistent with the information in your local business listings, your store, service business or restaurant may not appear high enough in the search engine results for shoppers to find it.
The information that you need to be consistent with is called the NAP+W. That stands for name, address, phone number, and website—let's take a few moments to talk about why each of these areas are so important.
It seems like a no-brainer, doesn't it? After all, you know the name of your business better than anyone. Or do you? Let's imagine that the name of your business is Nancy's Deli on Main Street. Simple enough, right? But can you image how that business name can sometimes be written as Nancy's Deli on Main St. Nancys Deli on Main Street? Each time there is a variance in how the business name is written, it causes the search engine bots to categorize it as a different business. After all, they're not human and they can't recognize name variations.
The same is true for your business address—it must be listed in exactly the same way every time you create a free local business listing. Let's use the example above. If you list your business address as 123 Main Street in one local listing and as 123 Main St. in another, guess what happens? That's right—the search engine bots won't recognize it as the same business, and you won't get credit for all the local listings.
A phone number is just a phone number, right? Yes, when you're dealing with humans that's true. But a bot doesn't understand that sometimes a phone number includes an area code. That's why it's important to decide in advance whether or not you will include the area code in your business phone number.
Finally, you'll need to decide how to list your business website URL in your local business listings. Some people like to include the entire address such as http://nancysdelionmainstreet. On the other hand, some people like to enter a simpler website address like nancysdelionmainstreet.com. However you do it is fine, just be sure to do it the same way every time.
As you can see, creating a free local business listing on a credible local business is important, but it's the way you do it that will increase your business and sales. If you haven't already created yours, go to FindUsLocal.com and take ten minutes to do this important local business marketing step.
This entry was posted in Local Business Insight, Local Marketing and Advertising, Online Advertising, USA Business Directories News on October 15, 2018 by wpadmin.


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text:
Q: Grails Export Plugin Doesnt Work with namedQuery I am currently working on grails export plugin. The plugin works if I will just do simple list(). But if I associate it with namedquery, it doesn't work anymore. This is part of the code.:
def buildReport(){
  if(params?.format && params.format != "html"){
    response.contentType = ConfigurationHolder.config.grails.mime.types[params.format]
    response.setHeader("Content-disposition", "attachment; filename=report.${params.extension}")

    exportService.export(params.format, response.outputStream,Building.selectStatus(params.q).list(params), [:], [:])
  }
}

The above code doesn't work. It throws this error :
Cannot invoke method getSuperclass() on null object. Stacktrace follows:
Message: Cannot invoke method getSuperclass() on null object
Can anyone help? Thanks.
Update:
I have this in my list.gsp:
    <g:form action="list" controller="building">
    <g:select id="user" name="q" from="${myapp.Construction.list()}" optionKey="id" required="" value="${constructionId?.id}" class="many-to-one" />
    <g:submitButton name="Execute"/>
    </g:form>

If I submit that form, it will list or display the the building with the same construction Id. And somewhere down that code is:
    <export:formats
formats="['csv', 'excel', 'ods', 'pdf', 'rtf', 'xml']" action="buildReport"/>

That code will call the buildReport. But unfortunatedly the q or params.q of the select is null when calling the buildReport.
By the way, all this code is in one gsp file and it will display the same gsp when submitting the form.

Okay, I think I know why it doesn't works. Its because the params.q of
    Building.selectStatus(params.q)

is actually null! I don't know why its null. I have this in my list.gsp to pass the parameter:
    <g:textField name="q" value="${params.q ?: ''}" />

So what should be in the gsp to pass the params? Because here, I just found out that it is null.
By the way, before the buildReport is being called, the textfield has a value which the user will input.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Sixty-eight teams entered the NCAA's annual March Madness tournament and now it is time for a champion to be crowned. Tonight's title game will be a battle of top-ranked teams when Gonzaga takes on the University of North Carolina. While this year marked Gonzaga's first Final Four appearance, don't be fooled: This is not a David vs. Goliath matchup. Gonzaga is the best defensive team in the nation, and one of the best offensive teams, too — though UNC coach Roy Williams does have the edge in experience coaching the big game. Whether this year's game can live up the wild finish of 2016's championship, which UNC lost to Villanova, remains to be seen. Follow USA TODAY Sports with live updates throughout the championship game in Glendale, Ariz. .
Shortly after Senate Democrats secured the 41 votes necessary to filibuster Trump's Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, a Senate panel recommended his nomination be sent to the full Senate. It may get ugly, but Gorsuch is still likely to make it onto the Supreme Court. How might you ask? Well, Republicans say they'll just change the filibuster rules. Doing that will have a profound impact on the high court, the Senate and the 2018 elections. Republicans and Democrats have been angrily debating Gorsuch, who Trump picked to fill the seat vacated by Justice Antonin Scalia's death, in part because Dems are still seething at the GOP's refusal to consider President Obama's choice of Merrick Garland last year. Republicans call Gorsuch a stellar jurist. Dems say he's a tool of right-wing zealots and corporate profiteers.
America's longtime national pastime is back in full force. After three games Sunday, the rest of Major League Baseball's 30 teams started, or are set to start, their 2017 seasons Monday with games being played throughout the day. Sunday's action featured plenty of excitement to kick off the season, including two home runs by San Francisco Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner and walk-off wins by the Arizona Diamondbacks and St. Louis Cardinals. Today may be game one of 162, but here's how our baseball experts see the upcoming season unfolding.
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner have a problem. The first daughter and her husband are trusted advisers of President Trump, but experts say after a White House data dump Friday revealed just how much money the couple still make from their massive real estate and investment empire (worth as much as $700 million) they can't advise him on trade, tax reform and Wall Street deregulation without major conflicts of interest. So, you know, small issues. Think of it this way: Ivanka has extensive international clothing, shoe and accessories businesses. That means she and Jared will have to recuse themselves from trade issues and discussions involving these products specifically and textiles more generally, anywhere in the world that may touch on her businesses. The president is counting on Jared and Ivanka, but given their enormous wealth and far-reaching conflicts, it remains to be seen if they can perform their duties effectively — and legally.


text:
namespace plugin {

namespace {

pp::Var Error(const nacl::string& call_name, const char* caller,
              const char* error, pp::Var* exception) {
  nacl::stringstream error_stream;
  error_stream << call_name << ": " << error;
  if (!exception->is_undefined()) {
    error_stream << " - " + exception->AsString();
  }
  // Get the error string in 2 steps; otherwise, the temporary string returned
  // by the stream is destructed, causing a dangling pointer.
  std::string str = error_stream.str();
  const char* e = str.c_str();
  PLUGIN_PRINTF(("ScriptablePlugin::%s (%s)\n", caller, e));
  *exception = pp::Var(e);
  return pp::Var();
}

// In JavaScript, foo[1] is equivalent to foo["1"], so map both indexed and
// string names to a string.
nacl::string NameAsString(const pp::Var& name) {
  if (name.is_string())
    return name.AsString();
  CHECK(name.is_int());
  nacl::stringstream namestream;
  namestream << name.AsInt();
  return namestream.str();
}

// Returns a pp::Var corresponding to |arg| or void. Sets |exception| on error.
pp::Var NaClSrpcArgToPPVar(const NaClSrpcArg* arg, pp::Var* exception) {
  PLUGIN_PRINTF(("  NaClSrpcArgToPPVar (arg->tag='%c')\n", arg->tag));
  pp::Var var;
  switch (arg->tag) {
    case NACL_SRPC_ARG_TYPE_BOOL:
      var = pp::Var(arg->u.bval != 0);
      break;
    case NACL_SRPC_ARG_TYPE_DOUBLE:
      var = pp::Var(arg->u.dval);
      break;
    case NACL_SRPC_ARG_TYPE_INT:
      var = pp::Var(arg->u.ival);
      break;
    case NACL_SRPC_ARG_TYPE_LONG:
      // PPAPI does not have a 64-bit integral type.  Downcast.
      var = pp::Var(static_cast<int32_t>(arg->u.lval));
      break;
    case NACL_SRPC_ARG_TYPE_STRING:
      var = pp::Var(arg->arrays.str);
      break;
    case NACL_SRPC_ARG_TYPE_CHAR_ARRAY:
    case NACL_SRPC_ARG_TYPE_DOUBLE_ARRAY:
    case NACL_SRPC_ARG_TYPE_INT_ARRAY:
    case NACL_SRPC_ARG_TYPE_LONG_ARRAY:
    case NACL_SRPC_ARG_TYPE_OBJECT:
    case NACL_SRPC_ARG_TYPE_HANDLE:
    case NACL_SRPC_ARG_TYPE_VARIANT_ARRAY:
    case NACL_SRPC_ARG_TYPE_INVALID:
    default:
      *exception = "variant array and invalid argument types are not supported";
  }
  PLUGIN_PRINTF(("  NaClSrpcArgToPPVar (return var=%s, exception=%s)\n",
                 var.DebugString().c_str(), exception->DebugString().c_str()));
  return var;
}

}  // namespace

ScriptablePlugin::ScriptablePlugin(Plugin* plugin)
  : var_(NULL), num_unref_calls_(0), plugin_(plugin) {
  PLUGIN_PRINTF(("ScriptablePlugin::ScriptablePlugin (this=%p, plugin=%p)\n",
                 static_cast<void*>(this),
                 static_cast<void*>(plugin)));
}

ScriptablePlugin::~ScriptablePlugin() {
  PLUGIN_PRINTF(("ScriptablePlugin::~ScriptablePlugin (this=%p)\n",
                 static_cast<void*>(this)));
  PLUGIN_PRINTF(("ScriptablePlugin::~ScriptablePlugin (this=%p, return)\n",
                  static_cast<void*>(this)));
}

void ScriptablePlugin::Unref(ScriptablePlugin** handle) {
  if (*handle != NULL) {
    (*handle)->Unref();
    *handle = NULL;
  }
}

ScriptablePlugin* ScriptablePlugin::NewPlugin(Plugin* plugin) {
  PLUGIN_PRINTF(("ScriptablePlugin::NewPlugin (plugin=%p)\n",
                 static_cast<void*>(plugin)));
  if (plugin == NULL) {
    return NULL;
  }
  ScriptablePlugin* scriptable_plugin = new ScriptablePlugin(plugin);
  if (scriptable_plugin == NULL) {
    return NULL;
  }
  PLUGIN_PRINTF(("ScriptablePlugin::NewPlugin (return %p)\n",
                 static_cast<void*>(scriptable_plugin)));
  return scriptable_plugin;
}

bool ScriptablePlugin::HasProperty(const pp::Var& name, pp::Var* exception) {
  UNREFERENCED_PARAMETER(exception);
  PLUGIN_PRINTF(("ScriptablePlugin::HasProperty (this=%p, name=%s)\n",
                 static_cast<void*>(this), name.DebugString().c_str()));
  if (plugin_ == NULL) {
    return false;
  }
  if (!name.is_string() && !name.is_int())
    return false;
  bool has_property = plugin_->HasProperty(name.AsString());
  PLUGIN_PRINTF(("ScriptablePlugin::HasProperty (has_property=%d)\n",
                 has_property));
  return has_property;
}

bool ScriptablePlugin::HasMethod(const pp::Var& name, pp::Var* exception) {
  UNREFERENCED_PARAMETER(exception);
  PLUGIN_PRINTF(("ScriptablePlugin::HasMethod (this=%p, name='%s')\n",
                 static_cast<void*>(this), name.DebugString().c_str()));
  return false;
}

pp::Var ScriptablePlugin::GetProperty(const pp::Var& name,
                                      pp::Var* exception) {
  PLUGIN_PRINTF(("ScriptablePlugin::GetProperty (name=%s)\n",
                 name.DebugString().c_str()));
  if (plugin_ == NULL) {
    return pp::Var();
  }
  // Get the property.
  NaClSrpcArg prop_value;
  nacl::string prop_name = NameAsString(name);
  if (!plugin_->GetProperty(prop_name, &prop_value)) {
    return Error(prop_name, "GetProperty", "invocation failed", exception);
  }
  PLUGIN_PRINTF(("ScriptablePlugin::GetProperty (invocation done)\n"));
  // Marshall output parameter.
  pp::Var property = NaClSrpcArgToPPVar(&prop_value, exception);
  if (!exception->is_undefined()) {
    return Error(prop_name, "GetProperty", "output marshalling failed",
                 exception);
  }
  PLUGIN_PRINTF(("ScriptablePlugin::GetProperty (property=%s)\n",
                 property.DebugString().c_str()));
  return property;
}

void ScriptablePlugin::SetProperty(const pp::Var& name,
                                   const pp::Var& value,
                                   pp::Var* exception) {
  PLUGIN_PRINTF(("ScriptablePlugin::SetProperty (name=%s, value=%s)\n",
                 name.DebugString().c_str(), value.DebugString().c_str()));
  Error("SetProperty", name.DebugString().c_str(),
        "property setting is not supported", exception);
}

void ScriptablePlugin::RemoveProperty(const pp::Var& name,
                                      pp::Var* exception) {
  PLUGIN_PRINTF(("ScriptablePlugin::RemoveProperty (name=%s)\n",
                 name.DebugString().c_str()));
  Error(NameAsString(name), "RemoveProperty",
        "property removal is not supported", exception);
}

void ScriptablePlugin::GetAllPropertyNames(std::vector<pp::Var>* properties,
                                           pp::Var* exception) {
  PLUGIN_PRINTF(("ScriptablePlugin::GetAllPropertyNames ()\n"));
  UNREFERENCED_PARAMETER(properties);
  UNREFERENCED_PARAMETER(exception);
  Error("GetAllPropertyNames", "", "GetAllPropertyNames is not supported",
        exception);
}

pp::Var ScriptablePlugin::Call(const pp::Var& name,
                               const std::vector<pp::Var>& args,
                               pp::Var* exception) {
  PLUGIN_PRINTF(("ScriptablePlugin::Call (name=%s, %" NACL_PRIuS
                 " args)\n", name.DebugString().c_str(), args.size()));
  return Error("Call", name.DebugString().c_str(),
               "method invocation is not supported", exception);
}

pp::Var ScriptablePlugin::Construct(const std::vector<pp::Var>& args,
                                    pp::Var* exception) {
  PLUGIN_PRINTF(("ScriptablePlugin::Construct (%" NACL_PRIuS
                 " args)\n", args.size()));
  return Error("constructor", "Construct", "constructor is not supported",
               exception);
}

ScriptablePlugin* ScriptablePlugin::AddRef() {
  // This is called when we are about to share this object with the browser,
  // and we need to make sure we have an internal plugin reference, so this
  // object doesn't get deallocated when the browser discards its references.
  if (var_ == NULL) {
    var_ = new pp::VarPrivate(plugin_, this);
    CHECK(var_ != NULL);
  }
  PLUGIN_PRINTF(("ScriptablePlugin::AddRef (this=%p, var=%p)\n",
                 static_cast<void*>(this), static_cast<void*>(var_)));
  return this;
}

void ScriptablePlugin::Unref() {
  // We should have no more than one internal owner of this object, so this
  // should be called no more than once.
  CHECK(++num_unref_calls_ == 1);
  PLUGIN_PRINTF(("ScriptablePlugin::Unref (this=%p, var=%p)\n",
                 static_cast<void*>(this), static_cast<void*>(var_)));
  if (var_ != NULL) {
    // We have shared this with the browser while keeping our own var
    // reference, but we no longer need ours. If the browser has copies,
    // it will clean things up later, otherwise this object will get
    // deallocated right away.
    PLUGIN_PRINTF(("ScriptablePlugin::Unref (delete var)\n"));
    pp::Var* var = var_;
    var_ = NULL;
    delete var;
  } else {
    // Neither the browser nor plugin ever var referenced this object,
    // so it can safely discarded.
    PLUGIN_PRINTF(("ScriptablePlugin::Unref (delete this)\n"));
    CHECK(var_ == NULL);
    delete this;
  }
}

}  // namespace plugin

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
May 4, 2018 Toronto Blue Jays Minor League Report
May 5, 2018 Jay Blue
Wondering who some of the Blue Jays minor league players are? You can find out with The 2018 Toronto Blue Jays Minor League Handbook and the Blue Jays from Away Premium Content Section! Both are available now!
With the New Hampshire Fisher Cats rained out, the remaining clubs went 2-1 on the day as the Bisons and Dunedin Blue Jays picked up wins.
Buffalo Bisons 4, Syracuse Chiefs 3
The Buffalo Bisons beat the Syracuse Chiefs 4-3, needing 10 innings to do so. Danny Jansen had a big game, going 3/4 and finishing a home run short of the cycle, adding a walk and three RBI. One of those RBI was of the game-winning variety when, with Devon Travis on second in the 10th inning, he singled him home. Darnell Sweeney was 2/4 with a double and an RBI and Ian Parmley was 2/4 with a double. Travis scored twice, going 1/5 and Roemon Fields was 1/3 with a walk and two outfield assists.
Deck McGuire was strong, throwing eight innings of two-run ball, giving up a home run among six hits and a walk with seven strikeouts, putting the Bisons in a position to win. Al Alburquerque coughed up the tying run in the ninth but pitched a scoreless 10th to secure the win.
W: Al Alburquerque (1-0)
Roster Notes: Dalton Pompey, Richard Urena and Jake Petricka were called up to Toronto and Dwight Smith Jr., Joe Biagini and Carlos Ramirez were optioned to Buffalo. Luis Santos was DFAed by the Jays to make room on the 40-man for Petricka and Conner Eller was promoted from Dunedin to Buffalo.
New Hampshire Fisher Cats, Binghamton Rumble Ponies
Game postponed due to rain.
Dunedin Blue Jays 3, Bradenton Marauders 2
The Dunedin Blue Jays finally picked up a win, getting an outstanding performance from starter Tayler Saucedo in a 3-2 win over the Bradenton Marauders. Saucedo went seven scoreless innings, allowing only three hits and a walk with four strikeouts and two hit batters. Juliandry Higuera tossed a scoreless eighth, allowing a hit and William Ouellette gave up two unearned runs in the ninth, allowing a home run and striking out one to pick up the save.
The Blue Jays' offense didn't strike for much, but two RBI from Riley Adams, who was 2/4 with a double, and one from Yeltsin Gudino, who was 1/3 with a sac fly, were enough. Eduard Pinto was 2/3 and Nash Knight was 1/3 with a walk and a run.
W: Tayler Sauced (1-1)
S: William Ouellette (2)
Roster Notes: Conner Eller was promoted to Buffalo.
Lansing Lugnuts 7, Quad City River Bandits 8
The Lansing Lugnuts got behind the eight ball, literally, allowing eight runs in the first three innings and their late-inning comeback wasn't enough to erase the deficit in an 8-7 loss opening a series against the Quad Cities River Bandits. The Lugnuts hit three home runs with Kacy Clemens hitting his seventh home run, going 2/3 with two walks and two runs. Norberto Obeso was 1/2 with two walks, a home run and two runs, adding a stolen base and Samad Taylor hit a solo blast in the eighth, going 2/4 with a stolen base. Kevin Smith hit two doubles, going 3/5 with a stolen base and a run while Chavez Young (2/5, OF Asst.) and Kevin Vicuna (2/5, 2B, RBI, R) also had two hits each.
Colton Laws gave up five runs on eight hits including two home runs in just two innings before Brody Rodning came in to allow three runs on three hits and a walk in two innings with three strikeouts. Maximo Castillo came on in the fifth and shut down the River Bandits, giving the club five scoreless innings with three hits and a walk, striking out three.
L: Colton Laws (0-2)
Jay's Jay of the Day
Kacy Clemens and Tayler Saucedo
Minor League Report, Minor Leagues permalink
← Double-header recap: May 3rd at Cleveland
May 5, 2018 Toronto Blue Jays Minor League Report →

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Buñuel en el laberinto de las tortugas is een Spaanse animatiefilm uit 2018, geregisseerd door Salvador Simó. De film is gebaseerd op de gelijknamige striproman van de schrijver Fermín Solís en vertelt het verhaal van filmregisseur Luis Buñuel die de documentaire Las Hurdes, tierra sin pan aan het maken is.

Verhaal

Parijs, 1930. Na het schandaal dat volgt op het uitbrengen van de film L'Âge d'or heeft Luis Buñuel geen geld meer, waardoor zijn volgende project in gevaar dreigt te komen. Hij wil graag een documentaire maken over een van de meest achtergestelde gebieden in Spanje, de regio Las Hurdes. Zijn goede vriend en beeldhouwer Ramón Acín Aquilué probeert hem op te vrolijken en belooft hem het project te financieren als hij de loterij wint.

Rolverdeling

Ontvangst

Recensies

Op Rotten Tomatoes geeft 100% van de 32 recensenten de film een positieve recensie, met een gemiddelde score van 7,34/10. Website Metacritic komt tot een score van 75/100, gebaseerd op 11 recensies, wat staat voor "Generally favorable reviews" (over het algemeen gunstige recensies)

Prijzen en nominaties

Een selectie:

Film uit 2018
Spaanse film

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


In such a small country, Ecuador has a greater diversity than what you would normally think. Plus, with globalization on top of us it is more likely that you will encounter at least one Ecuadorian in your life! So here, we'll give you 5 easy steps on how to recognize us!
Yeah, we do not want to risk being even more late! Surprisingly enough, the bus comes always two minutes before we reach the bus stop. So, we run and scream "Pare,pare!" meaning "Stop, stop!" in the hope that the bus driver will have mercy and stop for us.
It is just that we take the "give us our daily bread" from the Our Father very serious and that is why bread cannot be missing for our coffee at 5pm or our breakfast.
If we are at a birthday party, we cannot really call it a birthday party without having someone's face smashed against a cake will we cheer up "Que muerda el pastel, que muerda el pastel!", meaning "that he or she bites the cake!". When we think about it, this is our way of peer pressure.
Ceviche, bolones, tigrillo, encocados or just a simple soup! We will do anything and pay anything for a tiny piece of flavour that takes us back home. That is how much we love Ecuador.


Oh, how sad it made me feel to hear about Roxie. I love schnauzers. I have a little girl and I had a little boy that was put to sleep last November. If you have a schnauzer, you have a connection with every one you see. At least I do. As time passes, it gets easier to accept their passing, but, of course, you never forget them. Thank you for sharing her with us!
So sorry for your loss, Greg. It is so difficult when you lose a pet. She looks like she was quite a character.


text:
Q: redux observable with axios onProgress i am creating an upload function that will show a progress bar to the client inside a React Redux and Redux-observable, and i use axios to do a put request to AWS S3.
My epics is as follow
...

function uploadFile(mimetype, url, file) {
  const config = {
    headers: {
      'Content-Type': mimetype,
    },
    onUploadProgress(progress) {
      const percentCompleted = Math.round((progress.loaded * 100) / progress.total)
      uploadProgress(percentCompleted)
    },
  }

  axiosRetry(axios, { retries: 3 })

  return axios.put(url, file[0], config)
}

export const uploadEpic = (action$, store) => action$
  .ofType(SIGNED_URL_SUCCESS)
  .mergeMap(() => {
    const file = store.getState().File.droppedFile
    const mimetype = file[0].type
    const { url } = store.getState().SignedUrl
    const { fileData } = store.getState().Upload

    return of(uploadFile(mimetype, url.data, file))
      .concatMap(() => {
        const uploadedData = {
          url: fileData.url,
          thumbUrl: `${fileData.folder}/${fileData.filename}-00001.png`,
        }
        return [
          upload(uploadedData),
          uploadSuccess(),
        ]
      })
      .catch(error => of(uploadFailure(error)))
  })

export default uploadEpic

The upload seems to work, as i received an AWS SNS email telling that its done, but i can't seem to see that it is updating the Upload.progress state inside my Upload reducer.
The reason i am using axios is particulary because its axios-retry and its onUploadProgress, since i can't seem to find an example doing an onProgress using universal-rx-request
so two questions probably

*

*How can i achieve this using axios

*How can i achieve this using universal-rx-request

A: Thanks to this SO answer
I ended up not using axios at all
I got it working with this
import { of } from 'rxjs/observable/of'
import { Subject } from 'rxjs/Subject'

import { Observable } from 'rxjs/Observable'
import 'rxjs/add/observable/dom/ajax'

import { SIGNED_URL_SUCCESS } from 'ducks/SignedUrl'

import {
  upload,
  uploadIsLoading,
  uploadSuccess,
  uploadFailure,
  uploadProgress,
} from 'ducks/Upload'

export const uploadEpic = (action$, store) => action$
  .ofType(SIGNED_URL_SUCCESS)
  .mergeMap(() => {
    const file = store.getState().File.droppedFile
    const mimetype = file[0].type
    const { url } = store.getState().SignedUrl
    const { fileData } = store.getState().Upload

    const progressSubscriber = new Subject()
    const request = Observable.ajax({
      method: 'PUT',
      url: url.data,
      body: file[0],
      headers: {
        'Content-Type': mimetype,
      },
      progressSubscriber,
    })

    const requestObservable = request
      .concatMap(() => {
        const uploadedData = {
            ...
        }
        return [
          upload(uploadedData),
          uploadIsLoading(false),
          uploadSuccess(),
        ]
      })
      .catch(error => of(uploadFailure(error)))

    return progressSubscriber
      .map(e => ({ percentage: (e.loaded / e.total) * 100 }))
      .map(data => uploadProgress(data.percentage))
      .merge(requestObservable)
  })

UPDATE: on rxjs 6 the merge operators is deprecated, so if you're using rxjs 6, change the code above to
// some/lib/folder/uploader.js
import { of, merge } from 'rxjs' // import merge here
import { ajax } from 'rxjs/ajax'
import { map, catchError } from 'rxjs/operators' // instead of here
import { Subject } from 'rxjs/Subject'

export function storageUploader(...args) {
  const progressSubscriber = new Subject()

  const request = ajax({...someRequestOptions})
    .pipe(
      map(() => success()),
      catchError((error) => of(failure(error))),
    )

  const subscriber = progressSubscriber
    .pipe(
      map((e) => ({ percentage: (e.loaded / e.total) * 100 })),
      map((upload) => progress(upload.percentage)),
      catchError((error) => of(failure(error))),
    )

  return merge(subscriber, request) // merge both like this, instead of chaining the request on progressSubscriber
}

//the_epic.js
export function uploadEpic(action$, state$) {
  return action$
    .pipe(
      ofType(UPLOAD),
      mergeMap((someUploadOptions) => uploaderLib(
        { ...someUploadOptions },
        actionSuccess,
        actionFailure,
        actionProgress,
      )),
      catchError((error) => of(actionFailure(error))),
    )
}


The District Council of Savanne is set up in accordance with Section 7 (2)(g)of the Local Government Act 2011 and falls under the portfolio of the Ministry of Local Government and Outer Islands.
The office of the District Council is headed by the Chief Executive and the Chairperson issues general policy guidelines on the activities of the Council over which he presides. The District Council of Savanne lies in the Southern Coastal part of the Republic of Mauritius and consists of 17 Villages. With the exception of Chemin Grenier Village and Surinam Villages which have 2 representatives each in the Council, the other 15 villages have 1 representative each, making it a total of 19 members. The 19 members elect the Chairperson among themselves for a period of 2 years.
According to the latest statistics the District Council of Savanne has a population of 80,000 inhabitants.
As per the Local Government Act 2011.
The Council area is predominantly agricultural with hectares of sugarcane fields.With recent developments in the Tourism Industry, the district houses star hotels, small hotels, guest house restaurants, scenic views, golf courts. The Integrated Resort Schemes (IRS) have gained grounds in the Village of Bel Ombre.The small and medium enterprises are also prevalent.
The district has well developed road network (main roads, secondary roads, feeder roads and footpaths) linking the main areas of the District and connecting to the other parts of the islands.
Electricity and water supply have been made accessible to almost every house by the Central Electricity Board and the Central Water Authority.
Communication is well-established in the district and the business world is connected to fax, internet, etc.
Public transport is available to connecting the main villages, towns and city.
The District is Multi-Cultural. Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Tamil and Chinese form a kaleidoscope of culture and promote social osmosis and harmony.
Football remains the most popular Sports Activity. Many football players of the region are solicited and form part of the national team. Badminton, Boxing, Handball and Volleyball are also popular.
To serve the district and its communities through high quality service with integrity, to uphold economic, social, cultural, value-based development.
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Nuclear fusion gets boost from private-sector startups
Science News Jan. 29, 2016 by Alan Boyle
Magazine issue: Vol. 189, No. 3, February 6, 2016, p. 18
Startups bring a new attitude to the energy quest — will it be enough?
RENEGADE FUSION Private-sector startups, like General Fusion, are betting they can develop an energy source for the future faster than government-funded projects. General Fusion's prototype (shown) uses pistons that converge on magnetized, superhot plasma.
The lab where a company called General Fusion is trying to spark an energy revolution looks like a cross between a hardware store and a mad scientist's lair. Bins full of electrical gadgets are piled high against the walls. Capacitors recycled from a bygone experiment are stacked up like bottles in wine racks. Ten-foot-high contraptions bristle with tangled wires and shiny plumbing.
Michael Delage, General Fusion's vice president for strategy and corporate development, makes sure nothing is turned on when he takes a visitor through the lab, which is tucked away in a bland industrial park near Vancouver. He's worried about the voltage.
"If you get a broken wire or something like that, you get a very loud bang," Delage explains.
His company and others are looking for a bang of a different sort:a smashing together of superhot hydrogen atoms that produces a net gain in energy. Nuclear fusion. It's the same mass-to-energy reaction that's behind the sun's radiative power and the blast of a hydrogen bomb, but scaled down to a manageable level for power generation.
In one fusion reaction, merging two forms of hydrogen — tritium and deuterium — yields helium plus a neutron and energy.
Government-funded research programs have spent tens of billions of dollars trying to harness fusion power during the last 60 years or so. Some are using superstrong magnetic fields to bottle up hydrogen gas that's been heated up so much that it becomes plasma, a state of matter in which the electrons are stripped away from atomic nuclei. Others are blasting pellets of hydrogen fuel with powerful lasers or ion beams, causing tiny but powerful implosions.
Although they've come up short so far, the government-funded groups insist they'll achieve controlled fusion sometime in the next couple of decades. For commercial fusion plants to deliver substantial amounts of electricity to power grids, however, will probably take until the 2040s or 2050s.
In contrast, General Fusion and at least 10 other commercial ventures say they can get fusion to pay off within a decade, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars rather than tens of billions. The upstarts are going with unorthodox approaches, ranging from piston-driven engines to devices that have more in common with particle accelerators than traditional nuclear reactors. And they're finding deep-pocketed investors who are willing to cover the cost.
Not everyone is impressed.
"For the most part, these ideas are recycled from the glory days of the 1980s, and one by one, the Department of Energy stopped funding those concepts," says Edward Morse, a nuclear engineer at the University of California, Berkeley. "It's fortunate that the investors who are quoted in these reports are very rich people. They may not miss the money."
But the start-ups insist they're adding new twists to those decades-old principles. They plan to use computer simulations, innovative engineering and an entrepreneurial mindset to leapfrog the government projects.
General Fusion injects magnetized rings of plasma into a liquid metal vortex that is squeezed by pistons.
"You can't do what we do for a million bucks," says Michl Binderbauer, chief technology officer for Tri Alpha Energy, a fusion research company headquartered in Foothill Ranch, Calif. "There's a certain level of capital expense that comes with doing frontier science.… But I don't believe it takes billions of dollars. I really don't."
A big-money power play
If perfected, fusion power technology could be worth trillions.
Fusion power has several advantages over nuclear fission power, in which heavy atomic nuclei release energy upon splitting. The best-known fusion fuel, the heavy hydrogen isotope deuterium, can be extracted from seawater. There'd be no worries about long-lived highly radioactive waste, and a fusion reactor keeps so little fuel inside that it would naturally stop if something went wrong — avoiding the risk of a Fukushima-style meltdown or Chernobyl-style radiation leak.
Fusion power also eliminates worries about the fossil fuel emissions that are warming Earth's climate. It would be a renewable energy source like solar and wind power, with some extra advantages. The reactors could be put anywhere to provide 24/7 power; no need for strong winds or bright sunshine.
"It really does have all the benefits you could ever want from a renewable energy source," says Nathan Gilliland, General Fusion's CEO. "One kilogram of hydrogen fuel has the same amount of energy as 10 million kilograms of coal. You'd have abundant fuel for hundreds of millions, billions of years."
It's that kind of enormous potential that has brought money pouring in to solve the fusion puzzle. Dozens of projects — from Astron to ZETA — have flowered and faded. The biggest project on the horizon is the ITER experimental reactor in Cadarache, France, which is backed by the United States and 34 other nations. ITER's price tag and construction timetable have both ballooned beyond original estimates. The project is now due for completion in the mid-2020s at an estimated cost of $20 billion.
Once ITER is up and running, it's expected to demonstrate a controlled fusion reaction that produces an energy surplus. But even under the best-case scenario, it would take until the 2040s to adapt ITER's technology for use in a commercial power plant.
The Wendelstein 7-X stellarator, another advanced reactor, has just begun what's expected to be a years-long experimental campaign in Greifswald, Germany. The German government has covered most of its $1 billion cost, but it's far too early to tell if the technology can ever be commercialized.
ITER and Wendelstein 7-X both use a fusion approach called magnetic confinement. At the heart of each device is a chamber shaped like a doughnut (in Cadarache) or a pretzel (in Greifswald). Inside the chamber, a cloud of hot hydrogen plasma is squeezed by magnetic fields. An electromagnetic barrage heats the plasma so much that hydrogen nuclei fuse — creating helium atoms and neutrons while converting a smidgen of mass into electromagnetic radiation and kinetic energy.
Magnetic coils hold superhot plasma within a doughnut-shaped chamber.
MAX PLANCK IPP
The other common strategy for fusion is called inertial confinement. This approach involves blasting pellets of hydrogen fuel with lasers or ion beams. The fuel is compressed so quickly and precisely that it's held in place by its own inertia, allowing it to ignite in a burst of fusion energy.
The $3.5 billion National Ignition Facility at California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory uses inertial confinement, but has fallen short. It doesn't produce more energy than it consumes in the fusion reaction (SN: 3/8/14, p. 6).
Hybrid technology
A couple of the fusion start-ups — Tokamak Energy and First Light Fusion, both in the United Kingdom — are experimenting with their own twists on magnetic confinement or inertial confinement. But the best-funded private efforts are focusing on hybrid technologies alternately known as magnetized target fusion, field-reversed configuration or magneto-inertial fusion.
In magneto-inertial fusion, puffs of hydrogen are heated, then magnetized so that they hold together. Those magnetized puffs of plasma, which take on the shape of tiny smoke rings, are injected into a compression chamber, where they must be squeezed hard enough and fast enough to spark fusion.
Although the concept has been around for decades, magnetized target fusion was traditionally passed over in favor of the technologies behind ITER and the National Ignition Facility. That's beginning to change. The Air Force Research Laboratory in New Mexico is using the method in an experiment known as FRCHX. Most of the work on magnetized target fusion, however, is happening at the private start-ups.
At General Fusion, for example, engineers are building steampunk-looking machines that they'll eventually combine into a full-scale reactor. One contraption is designed to squirt plasma rings through a 10-foot-high, cone-shaped injector. In a different room, there's a mechanical monster with black tubes reaching out in all directions.
When program manager Brendan Cassidy talks about the monstrous creation, he sounds like a mad scientist from the movies — but without the evil laugh. "We have successfully built the first device to pump liquid lead into a vortex, and use an acoustic driver to collapse the vortex," he says proudly.
In the full-scale reactor, two rings of magnetized plasma — consisting of deuterium and tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen — will be shot toward each other in a chamber with a spinning vortex of liquid lead and lithium. The pistons surrounding the chamber should slam the metal around the plasma hard enough to set off a fusion reaction.
The resulting energy will heat the molten lead even more. That liquid metal will circulate through a heat exchanger, turning water into steam to drive a power-generating turbine. Some of the lithium will be transformed into tritium to fuel further reactions.
For its full-scale prototype, General Fusion will expand the plasma chamber from 1 meter wide to 3 meters. The number of pistons will grow from 14 to 220, bringing the setup to about 10 meters wide. If that next machine works the way researchers hope, they'll get a successful fusion shot once or twice a day. To commercialize the technology, they'll need a more advanced reactor firing an energy-generating shot every second.
When it's time to commercialize, General Fusion would license the technology to the power industry. "If we ever succeed, we will partner with the GEs of this world," says Michel Laberge, the physicist who founded General Fusion.
Many roads to fusion
While government programs focus on magnetic and inertial confinement, private ventures try hybrid approaches.
Magnetic Confinement Fusion: Powerful magnetic fields contain a hot plasma of fusion fuel inside a chamber, and electromagnetic waves are injected into the plasma to raise the temperature high enough for fusion.
Inertial Confinement Fusion: A pulse of high energy is focused on a target quickly and precisely, squeezing the target and heating it to fusion conditions.
Magneto-inertial Fusion: Puffs of hot plasma are magnetized, then directed at each other under conditions that squeeze the plasma hard enough and long enough for fusion to occur.
Hover your mouse over the image below to explore different fusion ventures. Red dots indicate magnetic confinement fusion, blue dot indicates inertial confinement approach, and yellow dots indicate magneto-inertial approaches.
Sources: ITER; MPG-IPP; D. Clery/Science 2015; "An Assessment of the Prospects for Inertial Fusion Energy"/NRC 2013; General Fusion; Tri Alpha Energy; Helion Energy
Nixing the neutrons
Tri Alpha Energy is borrowing physics principles from particle colliders to pursue its own brand of magnetic fusion. In Tri Alpha's reactor design, starter plasmas are formed by merging two magnetized plasma rings. The compound plasmas are then sustained by high-energy particles from accelerators. "It will work as an energy amplifier," Tri Alpha's Binderbauer says.
Most fusion ventures, including ITER and General Fusion, plan to use deuterium plus tritium to fuel the reaction. Tri Alpha is trying a less-orthodox combination: hydrogen nuclei — that is, single protons — and boron-11 ions.
Tri Alpha's concept has some advantages. It relies on naturally occurring fuels rather than unstable tritium, which must be bred in a nuclear reaction like the one in General Fusion's machine. What's more, the proton-boron reaction, known as p-B11, is more benign than the deuterium-tritium reaction, known as D-T (SN: 11/2/13, p. 8).
One approach to fusion shoots plasma into a chamber surrounded by magnets. Injectors fire hydrogen atoms to keep the plasma stable and hot.
Each D-T reaction produces a helium nucleus (two protons and two neutrons) plus a neutron. The resulting flux of neutrons poses a radiation hazard and can degrade whatever material is being used to shield the reactor. The p-B11 reaction gives off energy without producing stray neutrons. Such aneutronic fusion is especially attractive for commercial operations.
However, achieving fusion is a lot more difficult with p-B11 than with D-T. The plasma must reach temperatures in excess of 3 billion degrees Celsius, as opposed to 100 million degrees for D-T fusion. But Binderbauer says the potential payoff is worth it.
"You're trading harder science up front for easier engineering down the hill," he says.
General Fusion and Tri Alpha Energy have both been around for more than a decade, but they are just beginning to publish intriguing findings in peer-reviewed journals. In a pair of papers published last April and May in Nature Communications and AIP Physics of Plasmas, Tri Alpha's researchers reported that they held 10-million-degree hydrogen plasma steady in a test reactor for 5 milliseconds.
Five milliseconds may not sound like a long time, but it marked a milestone for fusion start-ups. "If we had enough power to continually pump into it … we believe we could maintain the plasma at will," Richard Barth, Tri Alpha's senior vice president for government relations, said in December at a forum in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the American Security Project.
Tri Alpha says its next, bigger reactor, C-2W, should heat plasma to much higher temperatures. Within three or four years, that machine is expected to come close to sparking a sustained D-T fusion reaction. If C-2W performs as expected, Binderbauer says, he expects Tri Alpha will build an even more powerful machine and try p-B11 fusion.
Instead of using a steam turbine to convert heat into electricity, Tri Alpha's machine would use a more efficient method to convert the flow of particles into electrical current. Binderbauer expects to take the first steps toward commercialization in a decade, if all goes well.
Fast-track fusion
Just a few miles from Microsoft's headquarters outside Seattle, Helion Energy wants to fuse deuterium and helium-3 to produce energy plus hydrogen and helium-4 nuclei, but no neutrons. Pulsed magnetic fields would compress and heat the plasma to fusion temperatures for a brief instant.
Like General Fusion's machine, Helion's fusion engine would set off bursts at the rate of one per second. And like Tri Alpha's machine, the system would convert the energy directly into electricity. One of Helion's fusion-fuel ingredients, helium-3, is rare on Earth. It happens to be abundant on the moon, which is why helium-3 is often cited as a justification for lunar mining schemes. Fortunately, Helion won't have to race to the moon. The reactor is designed to synthesize its own helium-3, just as General Fusion's machine is designed to synthesize tritium.
One firm plans to spark fusion by compressing plasma fired into a chamber.
David Kirtley, a fusion researcher and Helion CEO, says the company could demonstrate a net-gain fusion reaction within a couple of years and make fusion power marketable by 2022.
Magnetized target fusion and its variants aren't the only unorthodox technologies on the fast track. Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, based in New Jersey, is developing a device that would zap hydrogen-boron fuel with a jolt of electricity, in a process known as dense plasma focus.
Other companies are working on cusp confinement, which involves trapping and squeezing ionized gas between magnetic fields. Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works lab in Palmdale, Calif., is pursuing this approach to build a compact fusion reactor by 2025 that it hopes will be suitable for installation on airplanes. EMC2 Fusion Development, based in Santa Fe, N.M., tested a cusp-confinement device for the U.S. Navy in 2014 and is looking for investors to fund a larger version.
High-profile investors
Can private enterprise really do fusion cheaper and quicker than the multibillion-dollar, government-led efforts? Hard to imagine, but investors backing the efforts are risk takers.
Tri Alpha has brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in investment, from backers that include Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen. General Fusion has attracted $94 million in funding, with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos among the investors. Last July, an investment group with connections to Canadian billionaire Jeff Skoll put money into a $10 million funding round for Helion Energy. Fellow billionaire Peter Thiel, a cofounder of PayPal, is also a Helion investor.
Even government agencies are supporting the private ventures: The U.S. Department of Energy supports low-cost approaches to fusion through ARPA-E, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy. In 2015, ARPA-E awarded $30 million to nine alternative fusion ventures, including nearly $4 million to Helion Energy. General Fusion has benefited from a similar program in Canada.
The public funding of these private endeavors raises a pointed question: If even one of the low-cost commercial strategies has a chance of working, why spend billions on the traditional big-budget programs?
"When you invest, you have some blue-chip stocks, and you have some high-payoff stocks," says Uri Shumlak, a nuclear engineer at the University of Washington whose fusion research received $4.8 million from ARPA-E. "The projects being funded by ARPA-E are high-risk, high-payoff ventures."
It all sounds like a gamble, but there's one sure thing: As climate concerns rise and fossil fuel reserves shrink, meeting the world's rising energy needs is a game that has to be won — even if it takes a mad-scientist lab to do it.
International team turns on world's largest stellarator
EMC2 revives its quest for nuclear fusion


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Removals to Canberra - Australia
It may not be as large or as well-known as some other Australian cities, but Canberra is the capital of the whole country. It was only built a little over a century ago, and the Lonely Planet travel website ranks it the third best place in the world to visit in 2018.
The Moving Partnership can arrange removals from the UK to all parts of Australia. Here we take a closer look at how Canberra came to be built, and what it has to offer.
The History of Canberra
The founding of Canberra was the result of a long-running dispute between Sydney and Melbourne over which should be the country's capital. As a compromise, the authorities agreed that it should be a certain distance away from Sydney, and that Melbourne should be the capital while Canberra was built. A rocky area in New South Wales was chosen for the site of Australia's new capital, and building work started in 1913.
The shape of the new city was determined by an international competition, which won by US architects Walter Burley Griffin and his wife Marion. As a result Canberra now consists of seven main districts, each with its own separate commercial and residential areas.
In recent years the city has grown, with more and more major government departments being moved here. Canberra is now the eighth-largest city in Australia, with a population of just under 450,000, and is part of what is known as the Australian Capital Territories.
Canberra International Airport offers international flights to Doha and Singapore, and from there connections to the rest of the world. You can also fly direct from the UK to Sydney and Melbourne and catch one of the frequent connecting flights from either of those two cities.
Canberra airport is only about 15 minutes' drive from the airport to the city centre, and there are plenty of buses and taxis. Once you have arrived, ACTION bus services run to most parts of the city. If you prefer a greener form of travel, Canberra has a large network of off-road and on-road cycle paths.
Canberra's Main Attractions
The city was built around Lake Burley Griffin, an artificial stretch of water named after the city's designer. Many of the major tourist attractions are within easy reach, including the National Gallery of Australia, which was opened by the Queen in 1982. It has the largest single collection of art of all types in the whole country.
The best place to see the whole of the city is from New Parliament House, a boomerang-shaped piece of modern architecture on Canberra's Capital Hill. This is where the Australian government meets. Visitors can admire the building's circular granite walls, and walk along a grassed walkway on the roof.
Canberra is also home to Royal Australian Mint, where you can make your own coins as well as seeing how the official currency is made. Nature lovers will enjoy strolling around the National Botanic Gardens, just half a mile from the city centre, and paying a visit to the National Zoo and Aquarium. The aquarium has small marine life up to the largest of sharks, while the main zoo numbers cheetahs, giraffes, bears and pandas among its species.
Lonely Planet said one of the reasons Canberra was one of the best places to visit in 2018 was its refurbished precincts and the growth in its restaurant and café culture.
As a comparatively modern capital, the city has absorbed plenty of recent culinary trends. Locally-sourced food is increasingly popular, in budget cafes and high-end restaurants, with the city's Food Co-Op Shop at the heart of this movement. The shop sells organic vegetables and is also a wholefoods café.
These days Canberrans, as they are known, don't just drink beer. Wine is increasingly finding its way onto more and more people's dining tables – there are more than 30 vineyards within 35 minutes' drive of the city, all producing high-quality grapes. The main varieties grown are Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Semillon.
Removals from the UK to Australia with the Moving Partnership
The Moving Partnership can organise removals from the UK to all parts of Australia, including Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney, Perth and Brisbane. Our international department also offers high-quality moving services to countries including New Zealand, the USA, South Africa, Canada and the United Arab Emirates.
We have a network of trusted international partners across the world, so we can compare quotes to come up with a competitive price for your removals package which will be tailored to fit your individual requirements. If you would like to receive a free, no-obligation quote for your move, follow the link above and fill in the online form.


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Making Threat Intelligence Less Like Manual Labor
Posted: 13th February 2018
By: THE RECORDED FUTURE TEAM
Many organizations continue to rely on manual processes to collect and make sense of threat intelligence, but doing so is exhausting and repetitive. Security analysts are no match for the scale of data they are confronted with today.
Manually sifting through data has left many security operations centers feeling overwhelmed. According to a recent survey conducted by ESG, 51 percent of organizations believe they have a shortage of skilled staff, and less than half actually rely on threat intelligence to make decisions when responding to threats.
To respond to some of the most pressing needs identified by organizations today, threat intelligence solutions need advanced analytics to automate the most repetitive tasks, namely, data collection and processing. This automation should result in fewer, more intelligent alerts, making the jobs of analysts easier — not simply broader and more frequent alerts that add to the analysts' burdens.
The enemy of critical thinking is dull repetition. Do the same thing over and over again, and your brain begins to take shortcuts, automating the process to save energy and work more efficiently. For security analysts who have to manually sift through endless streams of data to identify and prioritize threats, the dangers of "falling asleep at the wheel," or simply getting exhausted by the effort it takes to approach each new piece of information with a critical eye, are some of the biggest factors explaining why nearly three quarters of cybersecurity professionals say that security analytics and operations is harder today than it was two years ago.
To work more effectively, security operations centers must incorporate threat intelligence solutions that include advanced analytics to automate the "manual labor" parts of the job, including collecting and processing data, so that analysts can focus on doing the actual analysis instead of getting burnt out.
Overwhelmed by Data
One of the most emphasized features of an effective cybersecurity program by experts in the cyber threat intelligence community is human-machine teaming. Often, this advice is given as a word of caution toward those who might put their trust in threat intelligence solutions that rely solely on automation. And it's true that the best algorithms in the world are far, far away from competing with an expert's ability to identify patterns from incomplete data sets and get into the mind of a threat actor. But neither can any one human or team of humans keep up with the massive — and growing — amount of data that every organization is now confronted with every day.
A recent survey conducted by ESG found that 72 percent of cybersecurity professionals believe their work has become more difficult today than it was two years ago. One of the biggest reasons they feel this way is because of a shortage of expertise — the security operations centers of more than half of all organizations surveyed feel short-staffed, leaving them overburdened with tasks and overwhelmed with a plethora of alerts and notifications.
It may feel like manual processes are an inescapable part of the generation of threat intelligence — in fact, in the traditional threat intelligence lifecycle on which the modern cyber threat intelligence cycle is based, there was no better way to gather intelligence than by sending personnel out into the field to make observations firsthand. Getting information used to mean sending people to take pictures, listening in on conversations, meeting contacts, hearing reports, and manually breaking codes and decrypting communications. All of these methods took years of experience to perform effectively, despite often being tedious and time-consuming tasks.
Many of these information-gathering tasks have analogues in the world of cyber threat intelligence, and they can be equally exhausting and time consuming, if not more so. Before threat intelligence can be benefited from, it must be collected, correlated, contextualized, and enriched — and according to ESG's research, some 39 percent of organizations still rely on manual processes to perform these labors. This means some analysts are still expected to look at streams of data coming from various sources and showing up in different formats, monitor social media and forums to keep an eye out for new threats, know when to listen to and when to ignore alerts and identify false positives, and more.
It's not enough to say that this takes experience to do effectively — it simply doesn't scale. According to one report released by Ponemon Research, only 46 percent of organizations said their threat incident responders actually relied on threat data when responding to threats, and an even smaller 27 percent felt they used that data effectively when they did use it.
At the same time, when asked about the top objectives that they had for their threat intelligence programs, 33 percent of organizations surveyed stated that they wished to improve their risk management efficiency and effectiveness, and 31 percent stated that they wanted to use threat intelligence to automate remediation — that is, use threat intelligence solutions to identify indicators of compromise and then trigger automated remediation tasks.
Both of these objectives, which were the top two listed by the organizations surveyed, are substantially easier to achieve using threat intelligence solutions with advanced analytics that can automate the most repetitive labors.
Let Advanced Analytics Do the Grunt Work
The answer to the problem of manual labor is a threat intelligence solution that includes advanced analytics. The ultimate goal here is to have a tool that results in far fewer alerts — but of much higher quality — appearing on the user end, eliminating the need for your security analysts to sort out the genuine threats from the false alarms by themselves. Threat intelligence tools with machine-learning algorithms can help contextualize the flow of data, and therefore narrow it down. For example, a threat intelligence tool might use advanced analytics to determine which types of threats most commonly target certain industries. A wide-scale attack that targets the credit card information stored by many businesses may have little relevance to the security operations center of an organization that doesn't store the credit card information of their clients, for example, but if they are using a threat intelligence solution that does not have a central management and analysis portal or relies on sufficiently intelligent algorithms to tell apart a critical alert from an irrelevant one, they may waste precious time and mental stamina evaluating that alert.
Many leading threat intelligence platforms will also use artificial intelligence to analyze the techniques, tactics, and procedures used by threat actors and identify the most common indicators of compromise associated with certain types of attacks, or most commonly leveraged against particular industries. With that information, it becomes much easier for security analysts to plan for future attacks and take the necessary precautions. A threat intelligence tool with advanced analytics should act as a "helper app," says ESG, guiding organizations toward the right priorities and the fastest responses. It's far easier to point a machine to the types of intelligence of most value to your business and let machines automatically determine what's relevant. This is the difference between guessing web URLs and using Google to at least point you in the right direction.
What's needed most of all are solutions that play on the strengths of both machines and humans. Automated processes are not meant to add to the volume of work that security analysts must perform, and analysts cannot reasonably be expected to keep up with the work that machines can now do. Their roles must be complementary, not overlapping.
To learn more about finding a threat intelligence solution that can help you move away from manual processes, download your copy of ESG's "Operationalizing Threat Intelligence With a Complete Solution."