text:
Noah Lenstra
http://www.noahlenstra.com/
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Home > Volume 22, Number 8 - 7 August 2017 >	Lenstra
Agency and ageism in the community-based technology support services used by older adults
Many older adults turn to community-based institutions as they learn digital technologies in retirement. In the U.S., these institutions include public libraries and senior centers. A one-year study of technology support services in these spaces finds that older adults adapt services to meet their digital learning and literacy needs. Simultaneously, societal ageism, manifested in institutional policies and practices, hinders the agency of older adults. These findings suggest that community-based technology support services need to transcend ageism and embrace the agency of community elders, who are a growing and important segment of local communities throughout the world.
Review of the literature
Discussion: Older adults contribute to community cyberpower
The first day of October 1991 witnessed the first global celebration of the "International Day of Older Persons." This United Nations-sponsored event, and similar national and global celebrations, testify to a growing public awareness that in our aging societies we need to do more to recognize and celebrate the diverse roles of our diverse community elders (Annan, 1999). As a result of ageist structures and beliefs, the contributions of older adults in their communities, and in society more generally, are not always acknowledged or respected (Nelson, 2002).
In the United States, two community spaces that sometimes facilitate the digital literacy of older adults are public libraries and senior centers. Generally funded by local government, senior centers emerged in local communities throughout the U.S. after World War II [1]. There are approximately 11,400 senior centers in the U.S. (National Council on Aging, 2014). They have been described as "the one community institution that our independent elderly can identify as theirs" [2]. Research shows that senior centers confront many obstacles as they reconfigure themselves to support the digital literacy of the older adults that participate in them. Investigating how senior centers support digital literacy in New York City, Gardner, et al. (2012) found that:
Technology programming often plays a marginal role (i.e., a service appended to providers' core competencies such as meals provision and case management and provided through volunteer or non-specialist staff). As a consequence, technology programs are often delivered in fragmented, or ad hoc fashion, and falter due to erratic staffing, inappropriate curriculum, technology breakdowns, poor funding, and limited capacity. [3]
Public libraries occupy similar roles in the lives of American older adults. There are 16,536 public libraries in communities throughout the U.S., that is, buildings identified as public library structures (American Library Association, 2016). Although not historically focused on the needs of older adults, public libraries have over the last decade started focusing on their aging communities (Schull, 2013). For instance, many public libraries have started initiatives to support the digital literacy of older adults [4]. However, research suggests that many public libraries have yet to think about how to serve the older adults that live in their communities (Bennett-Kapusniak, 2013; Charbonneau, 2014; Perry, 2014; Hughes, 2017). For instance, in her survey of public libraries in the New York City and Atlanta metro areas, Perry (2014) found that 50.5 percent of libraries had a staff member designated to coordinate library services for older adults [5]. This type of coordination is even rarer outside urban areas. Hughes (2017) found that in the rural libraries she surveyed, only 18 percent indicated they had a designated staff member to coordinate services to older adults [6].
Through a year-long ethnographic study of technology support services in American senior centers and public libraries, this study found that older adults are not passive consumers of emerging technology support services available in these spaces. Rather, they actively support the community-based institutions in which technology support services emerge, and actively adapt these services to fit into the diverse rhythms of their diverse daily lives.
A growing corpus of multi-disciplinary research attends to how older adults use, and learn to use, digital technology in their diverse communities. Some scholars have focused on how local communities structure the engagement of older adults in digital society. Others have analyzed how and why older adults participate in virtual communities. Still others show that despite the increased participation of older adults in digital culture, a "grey digital divide" continues to exist. As a result of these continuing digital inequalities, sustained community-based technology support services are critically important for this demographic group. This study contributes to this literature by analyzing how older adults actively adapt and reconfigure technology support services available in public libraries and senior centers.
Older adults learn technology in local communities
Communities help their members learn digital technologies, and thus cross the digital divide (Williams, 2012). Communities consist of individuals engaged in similar or shared practices (Lave and Wenger, 1991) and/or with shared spaces and histories (Veinot and Williams, 2012). A growing number of studies from multiple academic disciplines analyze how older adults learn digital technologies in and through their local communities. Rosson and Carroll (2003) found that digital learning can contribute to bridging generational divides in local communities. Aziz (2009) found that college students in urban Oman are able to mobilize connections to the communities of their youth in order to bring technology support to elderly members of their rural villages. Xie and Jaeger (2008) found that in the U.S. the community spaces of public libraries support older adult digital learning.
More generally, scholars have found that both families and local institutions contribute to the digital learning of older adults. Bowen (2012) found that older adult digital literacy emerges out of "the social networks of expertise distributed among friends and loved ones" [7]. Selwyn (2004) also found that the digital learning of older adults is supported by family and friends of all ages. Hardill (2014), and colleagues involved in the Sus-IT project in the United Kingdom, showed that:
Sustaining digital engagement is linked to the significant, indispensable and crucial ICT support role of (extended) family members, who provide intergenerational support, along with motivational factors, acting as drivers for digital engagement ... . But not all older adults received the help and support needed to become confident users from family members, and for such older adults support from the community, often involving young people, organized formally by neighborhood and community groups is providing a vital resource supporting older people sustain their use of digital technologies. [8]
In their research on older adults using cybercafés in Jamaica, Bailey and Ngwenyama (2011) also illustrated that through participating in these intergenerational public computing spaces, older adults both learn new technologies and also feel more connected to their local community.
Other scholars analyze how digital technologies are appropriated into spaces populated primarily by older adults. Sperazza, et al. (2012) and Linton (2012) found that the cultures of retirement communities shape how residents there use digital technologies. Gardner, et al. (2012) found that technology support services in senior centers help older adults form new friendships and social ties in old age. Chang, et al. (2012) found that a nursing home in Taiwan shaped the implementation of an eHealth pilot at that facility. Sayago and Blat (2010) conducted a longitudinal ethnographic study of computer labs located in senior centers. They found that older adults adapt these spaces to how they want to use technology. Kok, et al. (2012) show that the cultures of an assisted living facility in the U.S. and a senior center in China shaped how older adults in these two spaces used Skype to communicate across national boundaries. These findings illustrate how digital technologies are learned by older adults in diverse local communities.
Older adults participate in virtual communities
Another stream of research focuses on how older adults participate in virtual communities. Harley, et al. (2016) find that the existing place-based social networks embedded in a local community in the south of England facilitated how older adults participate in an online community. Xie (2005) identified similar patterns in her comparative study of older adults participating in virtual communities in the U.S. and in China. Ito, et al. (2001) also found that older adults adapt virtual communities to meet their needs. In a study of a virtual community used by older Japanese adults, Kanayama (2003) found that the peer-to-peer support formed among older adults using this virtual space is important because it enabled them to learn technology together "without experiencing fears or discouragement" [9] they sometimes experienced in intergenerational settings.
In discussions of how older adults participate in virtual communities, attention has focused in particular on how older adults participate with others online. Xie, et al. (2012) found that many older adults prefer the more private space of e-mail to the more public space of social media. Sayago and Blat (2010) also found that older adults prefer e-mail. Bloch and Bruce (2011) came to similar conclusions. On the other hand, a growing percentage of older adults in the U.S. now use social networking sites on a regular basis (Smith, 2014). In more recent work, Waycott, et al. (2013) found that even those in the "oldest old" group (aged 85 and older) enjoy expressing themselves online in public virtual communities. In past research (Lenstra, 2014a; 2014b), I also found that older adults enjoy creating and sharing content on social media, such as Facebook [10]. This evidence suggests that given the right conditions older adults are as capable and as willing to creatively participate in virtual communities as any other demographic group.
The "grey digital divide" continues because of digital disengagement
Nonetheless, other scholars have shown that a "grey digital divide" continues to exist. In other words, despite gains, older adults continue to use technology at rates substantially lower than the general population (Smith, 2014). Scholars who study the exclusion of older adults in the information society have coined the term, "grey digital divide," to encapsulate this social fact. Brabazon (2005) compared the grey digital divide in Australia to the United Kingdom. Millward (2003) studied the obstacles older adults at a British senior center cope with as they learn technology. Lam and Lee (2006) analyzed how and why older adults in Hong Kong choose to not use public computing facilities.
Recent research on what has been called "digital disengagement" among older adults suggests that the grey digital divide may persist for some time to come (Olphert and Damodaran, 2013). The concept of digital disengagement adds a temporal dimension to the digital divide literature. In 2004, a British Digital Inclusion Panel stated that there is a:
Real risk that in the medium to long term significantly more citizens will migrate from being digitally engaged to being unengaged than the other way round. [11]
Olphert and Damodaran (2013) found that digital disengagement occurs among older people throughout the United Kingdom, and possibly elsewhere around the world. Digital disengagement occurs when older people who lack opportunities to continue learning new technologies, stop using technology. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some providers of technology support services in the U.S. are also becoming aware of this phenomenon. A computer center located in a senior center in Greensboro, North Carolina, states on its Web site that:
Our computer learning center was launched in 1996 with the intent of teaching computer basic usage to adults who were just entering the technology world. Now we are focused on "keeping up" with changes and challenges of advancing technology and tools (Shepherd's Center, 2016).
This quote vividly illustrates how crossing the "grey digital divide" is a longitudinal task, requiring older adults to continually learn new technologies as they emerge in order to be full participants in digital society.
More research is needed to understand how local communities support and structure the digital learning practices of their older members. This study adds to existing literature on this topic by foregrounding the agency of older adults in the technology support services they use. Supporting the agency of older adults in community-based technology support services may enable the development of more robust services able to deal with the challenge of "digital disengagement" among aging populations.
To study older adult digital learning in a community-based context, I over a one-year period studied three public libraries and three senior centers that offer technology support services that are used by older adults. The specific methods used were: 467.5 hours of participant observation (i.e., ethnographic fieldwork) with 209 older adults; 54 interviews with older adults who participate in these services; seven interviews with staff responsible for these services; and a review of documents about these institutions (Table 1). All names that appear in this text are pseudonyms used to protect the privacy of participating individuals and institutions.
Drawing on Williams's (2012) study of technology learning in public libraries, this study closely attended to the community-based processes and structures that shape how older adults learn technology over time. Data collection occurred from September 2014 to August 2015. The administrators of these institutions allowed me to conduct research there because I offered services to them. Similarly, older adults allowed me to study them because I was serving both them and their communities. At three public libraries, I participated in technology volunteer programs managed by librarians. At senior centers, I helped staff administer drop-in computer classes. At the end of fieldwork, I presented preliminary findings to a gathering of senior center and public library staff, as well as to older adults themselves.
Table 1: Time spent in the field, and older adult interviewees, by site.
Time spent in the field Older adults interviewed
Tubman Senior Center 127 hours 17
Smith Senior Center 62 hours 5
Metro Senior Center 66 hours 12
Metro Library 62 hours 3
Main Library 92.5 hours 13
Branch Library 58 hours 4
All 467.5 hours 54
The findings emerged through a situated understanding of the institutions and of their roles in the communities in which they are embedded. Fieldwork spanned an entire year, enabling me to situate the findings in both space and time (Blomberg and Karasti, 2013; Suchman, 1987). This in-depth and up-close ethnographic analysis of how people learn technologies in a naturalistic social setting reveals how people and institutions incorporate technology into daily life (Hutchins, 1995; Nardi, 1996; Nardi and O'Day, 1999). Lenstra (2016) includes more information on these methods, and on the philosophy behind them.
This study found that older adults actively adapt and reconfigure the community spaces of public libraries and senior centers. However, the agency of older adults is not always respected or acknowledged by staff and institutional structures. Ageist policies render older adults and their expertise invisible, especially in relation to technology support services. Nevertheless, older adults adapt and tweak these services as they use them to learn new technologies. This finding leads to a discussion of alternative modes of providing technology support services, which may with support, and with additional research, become more prevalent in the future.
Part 1: Older adults actively create, adapt, and adopt community spaces
Older adults organized together, and older adults organized with other sectors of their local communities, helped to create, and continue to lead, advocate for, and shape public libraries and senior centers. All six of the institutions studied formed out of independent community groups. These community groups created the structure and momentum for emergence of these public institutions (Table 2). Older adults participated actively in, and sometimes led, these community groups; they played a particularly important role in the community groups that led to the creation of senior centers.
Older adults created senior centers by organizing for equal public services against an ageist narrative that rendered them, and their experiences, invisible. All three senior centers grew out of multi-purpose, multi-generational community centers that, in practice, focused primarily on the needs of local youth. Older adults frequented these spaces because they too needed (and need) public space. A newspaper article on the Tubman Community Center from 1971 quotes a leader of the Tubman Seniors group stating that "we have all ages — 8 to 80 — crammed into this building. And when the youngsters arrive hollering and screaming, sometimes the senior citizens have to cut their activities short." This leader goes on to discuss how older adults feel pushed out of the building as young people enter and take it over. Similar tensions led to the creation of the other two senior centers I studied. Older adults organized themselves to insist on being visible in their communities. They pressured local government to allocate financial resources for the creation of senior centers where they could decide what to do.
Table 2: Dates in which public institutions and affiliated community groups emerged.
Community group started Public institution emerged
Tubman Senior Center ca. 1963 1978
Smith Senior Center ca. 1965 1978
Metro Senior Center ca. 1967 1976
Metro Library ca. 1865 1874
Main Library 1868 1876
Branch Library 1948 1972
Organized together and with other sectors of their communities, older adults continue to struggle for robust public services in both senior centers and public libraries. At senior centers, older adults continue to organize themselves in membership-based groups. These groups keep the centers going. At public libraries, older adults are a central part of Friends of the Library groups and of community advisory committees. These groups assist and provide oversight to public libraries. Through participation in these groups, older adults provide public libraries and senior centers with the community mobilization and advocacy needed to maintain and expand their funding and services.
Groups of older adults adapt technology support services
Through their communities of practice (e.g., senior center community groups), older adults adapt technology support services. Senior centers are group-based institutions. One joins a senior center and then becomes part of the group. The presence of group-based communities of practice in senior centers can be seen in the fact that older adults are more than three times as likely to socialize while using technology support services there, compared to public libraries (Table 3). At Metro and Tubman Senior Centers, older adults socialized together while using technology during 94 percent and 78 percent of field sessions, respectively. At Smith Senior Center, 42 percent of field sessions featured older adults socializing [12]. This type of socializing while participating in technology support services is much rarer at public libraries. At public libraries the norm is for the individual patron to use library technology by themselves, only talking when asking a librarian or a volunteer a question.
Table 3: Older adult socializing in technology support services, by site.
Percentage of field sessions in which older adults socialized while using technology Number of field sessions
Metro Senior Center 94% 22
Tubman Senior Center 78% 127
Smith Senior Center 42% 31
Main Library 14% 37
Metro Library 13% 21
Branch Library 3% 29
All 53% 267
In contrast, newcomers to senior centers learn they are expected to become part of the group while participating in technology support services. In March 2015 a man who had recently retired from a blue-collar job at the university started coming to technology support services at Tubman Senior Center. He came back 27 times during fieldwork. In an interview he stated:
You know, when I first came I didn't know what to expect ... . So, I got here and everyone was talking. Everyone seemed to know everyone, and they were talking about things, like, you know, growing older [laughs]. And that one guy, he said he worked for the university, in my unit! I didn't know him. I don't think our times overlapped. But, we knew a lot of the same people. And, we talked. And it was great, you know, making that connection. It really helped me feel like this is a place I could belong ... . This place is really welcoming to everyone.
In this quote, the man reveals the process by which he moved from being a peripheral participant to a full member in this community through participation in technology support services.
Those already part of the group refresh and reinforce membership while participating in technology support services. Two older men participated in more than 50 field sessions at Tubman Senior Center. The two asked questions about how to do things with their digital devices, while also socializing together about their lives and experiences. Visits to senior centers for technology support services overlap with social visits to the center. At Smith Senior Center older adults often came to the computer lab for a few minutes after another program ended, such as a potluck or a game of cards. Others would come to the computer lab and then stay around the center until another program began.
The expectation of being part of the group extends to technology helpers. Older adults invite volunteers to join them at their potlucks. Older adults also invite volunteers to their homes, and to other events in their lives. At Tubman Senior Center one of the regular participants in technology support services is an older musician in his late 70s. He formed a strong relationship with one volunteer. This relationship was strengthened when this volunteer and her husband attended one of the musician's concerts. Similarly, when the staff director at Tubman Senior Center got engaged, he invited the Tubman Seniors to his engagement party, saying, "You are all my family." He later held his wedding reception at the senior center.
Although more common in senior centers, groups of older adults using technology support services together also emerges in public libraries. On Tuesday mornings an informal group of three or four older women meets at Metro Library to get coffee, catch up with each other's lives, look at new books, and use library computers. They go to the computers together and quietly discuss some of the things they look at. Occasionally one of the women will ask a librarian for help, but usually they work together on their own.
Collaborative technology learning in senior centers
In some, but not all, cases the incorporation of technology support services into senior center groups led to the development of collaborative learning of technology among older adults. Table 4 shows that Metro Senior Center had both the highest level of socializing among older adults using technology (94 percent) and the highest level of older adults helping each other with technology. During 89 percent of field sessions at Metro Senior Center, older adults helped each other with technology. At no other institutions was collaborative learning so common. During 20 percent of the field sessions at Tubman Senior Center, and 19 percent of the field sessions at Smith Senior Center, older adults helped each other with technology. At the public libraries, less than 10% of field sessions found older adults helping each other with technology.
The reason that Metro Senior Center nurtured such high levels of collaborative technology learning among older adults relates to the history of technology support services there. At all the institutions except Metro Senior Center, technology support services were organized around the structure of one-to-one teaching and learning. In this structure, a staff member or a volunteer would assist an older adult learning technology. At Metro Senior Center, on the other hand, technology support services were instead started with the idea that older adults could help other older adults learning technology. During announcements for the program at the monthly potluck, the director of the senior center said that older adults could receive assistance from volunteers, but they could also come and help each other.
Table 4: Collaborative learning among older adults, by site.
Percentage of field sessions in which older adults socialized while using technology Percentage of field sessions in which older adults helped each other with technology Number of field sessions
Metro Senior Center 94% 89% 22
Tubman Senior Center 78% 20% 127
Smith Senior Center 42% 19% 31
Main Library 14% 8% 37
Metro Library 13% 6% 21
Branch Library 3% 0% 29
All 53% 21% 267
Nevertheless, collaborative learning among older adults did not spontaneously start taking place at Metro Senior Center. It needed support. When I came to the senior center to help in their program, I found older adults patiently waiting for me in silence. It was only after I arrived that older adults got out their digital devices and started asking questions. After they had asked me questions, they started talking amongst themselves, and eventually started helping one another. The older adults only felt comfortable helping each other with technology when an officially designated "technology helper" was in the room that they could turn to if and when obstacles arose. One participant said that she liked knowing that I was there in case they needed someone to "bail us out if we get in over our heads [Laughs]."
Part 2: Ageism and agency in technology support services
The collaborative learning of technology among older adults is fragile because of societal ageism. The agency and expertise of older adults is not always respected, or even acknowledged, by the staff and administrators responsible for these institutions, and even by the older adults themselves. Ageism appears in policies that favor young tutors for older learners, and in institutional structures that render older adults invisible. Nonetheless, despite institutional invisibility, older adults exert their agency in technology support services in multiple ways. This process is illustrated in the example of older adults forming relationships with technology helpers, despite policies and practices that discourage this type of behavior.
Young tutors for older learners
All six institutions rely on young university students as technology volunteers, a structure that reinforces the idea that young people are the natural technology tutors for old people. This reinforcement is illustrated in one older woman's discussion of why she does not help other older adults with technology outside of technology support services at Metro Senior Center:
I'm old! They [other older adults] don't want help from me! I get by with technology ... . And if I get stuck I can figure it out. Usually. [Laughs] When it works it works. But when it doesn't. [Laughs] Help someone else here at the center? No, no, no. That is for you [young people] to do. You know this stuff in and out. What could I add?
Despite being highly competent with technology, this woman did not feel comfortable sharing her expertise with others because of her age.
The structure of relying on young technology tutors for older adults leads to bottlenecks when the number of older adults seeking support far exceeds the number of young people available to assist. During an average technology support service at Tubman Senior Center, five older adults participate. In contrast, on average only two volunteers are available. Since older adults are socialized by the structure of the technology support services, and by society more generally, to seek support from a young person, this situation leads to bottlenecks in which the supply of volunteers does not meet the demand. On especially busy days, when up to 10 people came in for support from only two people, help sessions devolved into chaos as volunteers rushed from person to person, trying to make sure everyone received at least some support during the hour. In contrast, on a slow day at Smith Senior Center only one older adult participated. She exclaimed "Thank God I have you to myself today!" I heard similar remarks at other senior centers, and at public libraries, when, on slow days, older adults did not feel that they had to compete for the time of young technology volunteers.
Reliance on university students limits the volunteer pool at all six institutions. As a result, the sites continually cope with the challenge of not having enough volunteers available to support all the individuals seeking assistance with technology. In response to these problems, two of the libraries have begun thinking more broadly about who can help people with technology in the library. One of the libraries was willing to accept into their technology volunteer program any volunteer who has skills to share. The result of this more open policy is that two recently retired individuals now volunteer once a week at Main Library to help patrons with technology. One of these individuals, a man in his early 60s, stated that:
For me, it is just a way to give back. I used technology all the time on the job [as a paralegal professional.] On my job, you know, I just saw the need. I saw people needing help with technology. So I was looking for ways to give back when I retired and I saw that here at Main Library one way you can help the library is to help people with computers. So I decided that was for me. [13]
Unfortunately, individuals such as this man are rare. During fieldwork I found that almost all volunteers at all six sites were young people in their 20s. These volunteers are favored by staff, and the university is the only place where staff actively recruit volunteers. Other individuals are allowed to volunteer, but they are not actively encouraged to do so. This ageist policy reinforces the idea that older people should turn to younger people for help with technology, and not to each other.
Disregarding the agency of older adults
In the past, older adults led many aspects of these institutions, particularly in senior centers. However, as senior centers became institutionalized, bureaucratic procedures were implemented by over pressured staff to cope with the challenges of administering these complex institutions. As a result of this trend, the roles of older adults in shaping these institutions has over time become less pronounced. This is particularly so in technology support services, where older adults are not included in planning or administration.
Starting in 1984, technology support services began to emerge in these institutions, first in public libraries, and later, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, in senior centers. Technology support services have included: access to computers and other digital technologies, access to wifi, and access to individuals willing to help members of the public use technology. The primary agents involved in the creation and evolution of technology support services have been external: the local university; local, state and federal government; and local businesses, as well as the staff and administration of these institutions. Despite their leadership in the foundation and maintenance of these community spaces, in the context of technology support services older adults are positioned as passive service recipients.
Ageism shapes these dynamics. When older adults are visible in the sites, ageism often shapes their institutional portrayal. At the public libraries studied the only services explicitly for older adults are a) homebound delivery services; b) assistive technologies in the computer lab; and, c) partnerships with retirement communities. All three services frame older adulthood as a time of disability and decline. It is of course important that public libraries serve the disabled and the shut-in, but to conflate these situations with older adulthood is ageist.
Ageist attitudes also sometimes lead staff to discontinue programs that are popular among older adults. At Smith Senior Center the director complained that older adults use the computer lab for what she sees as trivial purposes. Discussing why technology support services were discontinued there before I started my fieldwork, she stated that "just a few people used the technology, and they mostly just wanted to look up trivia for things like crossword puzzles. It just wasn't worth our time to continue the program." That is, she and other staff in the park district decided that what older adults were doing with the senior center's computer lab was not important enough to support and foster. A similar incident occurred at Metro Library when the Computers 101 class was discontinued in December 2014, despite being very popular and widely used among older adults. In both cases, ageist assumptions about the digital literacy of older adults led to the cessation of technology support services used by older adults.
These institutions also cope with the many responsibilities they have by implementing bureaucratic procedures that limit the agency of older adults. As older adults seek support learning technology in their community, they navigate a complex set of rules that vary from institution to institution, such as time limits on computers and the changing schedules of technology support services. Older adults navigate these bureaucracies as individuals seeking help, not as agents in their communities ready and able to shape, adapt, and lead technology support services.
The agency of older adults in technology support services
Nonetheless, despite the presence of institutional structures that disregard their agency, older adults do in fact successfully adapt these technology support services to meet their needs. Changes emerge in technology support services through the complex give-and-take that characterizes daily interactions in these institutions. Older adults do not simply utilize services created for them. They actively adapt them to meet their needs. Through these negotiations and struggles, rules change, and new policies and practices emerge.
As individuals, older adults exert their agency by trying, and sometimes succeeding, to form supportive, sustained relationships with technology volunteers. Older adults rely on these relationships to learn technology across time. At Main Library an older man referred to one of the technology volunteers as "the one I always go to for help. She knows what I need." Similar relationships form at all six institutions.
One of the reasons why older adults develop strong relationships with particular technology helpers is that it takes time to identify someone willing and able to provide them with the ongoing technology support they need to learn technology over time. Once such an individual is found, older adults return to them over and over again. At Branch Library, one staff member (whose official job title is children's librarian) said that for the last two years she has worked with an older woman who comes in every Monday afternoon to work with her to learn to use the computer:
I can't even remember how that started! She was just coming in all the time asking questions, and I guess after a while we just kind of settled into that routine. Now I know to leave some time on Monday afternoon free because I know she will be in with more questions [laughs].
This relationship developed because the older adult insisted on it, not because it was part of the librarian's job responsibilities to form relationships such as this one.
Unfortunately, these relationships are not always supported or nurtured by the institutions in which they form. Staff at Metro Library stated that these relationships emerge very regularly, but that problems arise when a favored volunteer leaves and the older adult becomes frustrated at having to start over with a new person. As a result of this problem, the library is trying to make technology support services more anonymous. To achieve this goal, Metro Library has decided not to give volunteers name tags; technology volunteers simply wear a badge that says "volunteer" on it. Nonetheless, older adults continue to endeavor to form intimate, close relationships with technology volunteers. The library wants technology support services to operate in one way, what Durrance (1983) criticizes as the "anonymous professional-client encounter" [14], while the older adults want them to operate in a different, more intimate way. Older adults do not simply accept the services as they are created by staff, but actively tweak and adapt them to meet their needs.
This paper concludes with an empirically-based discussion of how older adults contribute to creating spaces that add to what Williams and Alkalimat (2008) call cyberpower. In these spaces, everyone's agency is acknowledged and appreciated, and through this collective agency the community can powerfully use new technologies to instantiate social change. This discussion suggests an alternative mode of operation different from the dominant trends identified in this study. The seeds of this mode are already present in the sites studied, suggesting that with support, and with additional research, they could become more prevalent. They represent a different, and possibly better, way to think about older adults, technology, and the society in which we live.
Staff who have not fully become socialized into the professional norms of the institutions sometimes develop innovative techniques that nimbly respond to the needs of users. For instance, despite official limits on how much time librarians can spend helping patrons learning technology, at Main Library a library technician — significantly, not a full librarian — always supports patrons on their personal devices in whatever form they want, for however long they want, whenever she works at the adult services desk.
In another case, one part-time employee of the park district who worked at Tubman Senior Center for six months spontaneously started supporting the Tubman Senior Center's quilting group with their smartphones. As they quilt, these women sometimes use their smartphones to show each other things they have found online, and so the part-time employee offered assistance to the women, especially with iPhones, which was the device she owned. Unfortunately, in April 2015, the employee left the senior center, and her practices were not institutionalized. Her replacement did not continue the tradition of offering technology support to the quilters; technology support was not part of her job, so she did not provide it. Nonetheless, through transgressive actions like these, limits are broken and new forms of technology support services may emerge.
Staff and volunteers also sometimes learn technology alongside older adults, in the process flattening the hierarchies of "learner" and "helper," "young" and "old." One volunteer, a young university student, discussed a technology support session she had with an older adult at one of the libraries: "When she shared her method for creating and remembering passwords. I wrote it down and thanked her multiple times for the tip! It was really great ... . We hugged at the end." Through this emotive encounter, the older adult learned that they have digital wisdom they can share with young people, and the young student learned that older adults can teach them new things about technology.
Another counter tendency to the dominant trend occurs when older library staff support older patrons with technology. At Metro Library an older woman came to the adult services desk and started chatting with a librarian, who was herself an older adult who had retired from the local university and now works part-time as a reference librarian. During their conversation, the two older women discussed the frustrations they have had trying to stay up-to-date with phones. The librarian shared with the patron some of the tips she has used to learn to use her new smartphone. At Main Library a similar interaction took place between an older library technician (who retired mid-way through fieldwork) and an older patron. These examples illustrate how the aging library workforce (Davis, 2009) could in fact play a pivotal role in changing ageist attitudes through participation in technology support services.
This study showed that older adults adapt community-based technology support services to the diverse rhythms of their community lives. Despite ageist structures and policies, older people are active agents in their local communities. The older adults here studied do not need (or particularly want) informatics solutions applied to them. Rather, they want the sustained support that will enable them to continue to powerfully contribute to, and participate in, their communities as they age.
The older adults, staff, and volunteers that collectively compose technology support services could productively work together to learn how to powerfully participate in the still emergent information society. In this alternative mode of operation, illustrated empirically in this study, everyone learns technology together. This alternative tendency emerges in part through the struggles of older adults. More research is needed to understand to what extent and how these different tendencies structure technology support services provided in other places, with other populations. Nonetheless, the findings of this study do suggest that supporting and nurturing the agency of older adults, and actively working to combat ageist representations of older adults using technology, is a viable way to create more powerful, and effective, community-based technology support services for people of all ages.
Noah Lenstra is an assistant professor of Library and Information Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His research in the field of community informatics considers the roles of libraries, archives, and museums as community institutions in the digital age. He received his Ph.D. in library and information science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in June 2016.
Web: noahlenstra.com
E-mail: njlenstr [at] uncg [dot] edu
1. Beisgen and Kraitchman, 2003, p. x.
2. Cohen, 2003, p. ix.
3. Gardner, et al., 2012, p. 13.
4. Schull, 2013, p. vi.
5. Perry, 2014, p. 359.
6. Hughes, 2017, p. 51.
7. Bowen, 2012, p. 115.
8. Hardill, 2014, p. 280.
9. Kanayama, 2003, p. 280.
10. This study was prompted by my past work with older adults in community-based digital heritage initiatives (Lenstra, 2014a; 2014b). In those projects I found that older adults do not simply use services created for them by others, but they actively adapt and reconfigure these services to meet their diverse and evolving needs.
11. U.K. Cabinet Office, 2004, p. 79.
12. The lower frequency of socializing at Smith Senior Center relates to the fact that the computer lab was smaller, having only two regular desktop computers (and one special computer with assistive software and peripherals), and thus on some occasions only one older adult participated at a time.
13. Main Library states that volunteers can assist in, among other things, "helping computer users at the library."
14. Durrance, 1983, p. 278.
American Library Association, 2016. "Number of libraries in the United States," ALA Library Fact Sheet, number 1, at http://www.ala.org/tools/libfactsheets/alalibraryfactsheet01, accessed 12 July 2017.
Kofi Annan, 1999. "Address at ceremony launching the International Year of Older Persons (1999)," Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, volume 54, number 1, pp. P5–P6.
Sherif M. Aziz, 2009. "Dimensions of IT literacy in an Arab region: A study in Barkha (Oman)," Proceedings of the 2009 International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD), pp. 288–299.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1109/ICTD.2009.5426675, accessed 21 July 2017.
Arlene Bailey and Ojelanki Ngwenyama, 2011. "The challenge of e-participation in the digital city: Exploring generational influences among community telecentre users," Telematics and Informatics, volume 28, number 3, pp. 204–214.
Renee Bennett-Kapusniak, 2013. "Older adults and the public library: The impact of the boomer generation," Public Library Quarterly, volume 32, number 3, pp. 204–222.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01616846.2013.818814, accessed 21 July 2017.
Naomi Bloch and Bertram C. Bruce, 2011. "Older adults and the new public sphere," iConference '11: Proceedings of the 2011 iConference, pp. 1–7.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1940761.1940762, accessed 21 July 2017.
Lauren Bowen, 2012. "Rewriting the aging body: Literacy, technology, and history," doctoral dissertation at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, at http://hdl.handle.net/2142/31001, accessed 12 July 2017.
Tara Brabazon, 2005. "From Eleanor Rigby to Nannanet: The greying of the World Wide Web," First Monday, volume 10, number 12, at http://firstmonday.org/article/view/1298/1218, accessed 12 July 2017.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5210/fm.v10i12.1298, accessed 21 July 2017.
Maiga Chang, Jia-Sheng Heh, and Hwei-Nung Lin, 2012. "Tele-physical examination and tele-care systems for elderly people," Journal of Community Informatics, volume 8, number 1, at http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/762, accessed 12 July 2017.
Deborah H. Charbonneau, 2014. "Public library websites and adherence to senior-friendly guidelines," Public Library Quarterly, volume 33, number 2, pp. 121–130.
Denise M. Davis (compiler), 2009. "Planning for 2015: The recent history and future supply of librarians," Chicago: American Library Association, Office for Research and Statistics (June), at http://www.ala.org/research/sites/ala.org.research/files/content/librarystaffstats/recruitment/Librarians_supply_demog_analys.pdf, accessed 12 July 2017.
Joan C. Durrance, 1983. "The generic librarian: Anonymity versus accountability," Reference Quarterly, volume 22, number 3, pp. 278–283.
Paula Gardner, Julie Netherland, and Tom Kamber, 2012. "Getting turned on: Using ICT training to promote active ageing In New York," Journal of Community Informatics, volume 8, number 1, at http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/809/907, accessed 12 July 2017.
Irene Hardill, 2014. "The intergenerational help desk: Encouraging ICT use in older adults in England," In: Robert Vanderbeck and Nancy Worth (editors), Intergenerational space. London: Routledge, pp. 273–285.
Cynthia Hughes, 2017. "Rural libraries services for older adults: A nationwide survey," Public Library Quarterly, volume 36, number 1, pp. 43–260.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01616846.2017.1275626, accessed 21 July 2017.
Mizuko Ito, Vicki L. O'Day, Annette Adler, Charlotte Linde, and Elizabeth D. Mynatt, 2001. "Making a place for seniors on the Net: SeniorNet, senior identity, and the digital divide," ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society, volume 31, number 3, pp. 15–21.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/504696.504699, accessed 21 July 2017.
Tomoko Kanayama, 2003. "Ethnographic research on the experience of Japanese elderly people online," New Media & Society, volume 5, number 2, pp. 267–288.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1461444803005002007, accessed 21 July 2017.
Adrian Kok, Kate Williams, and Hui Yan, 2012. "Skyping with Seniors: An academic, professional, and community collaboration between China and the US," Journal of Community Informatics, volume 8, number 1, at http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/896/830, accessed 12 July 2017.
Jolie C.Y. Lam and Matthew K.O. Lee, 2006. "Digital inclusiveness — Longitudinal study of Internet adoption by older adults," Journal of Management Information Systems, volume 22, number 4, pp. 177–206.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2753/MIS0742-1222220407, accessed 21 July 2017.
Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, 1991. Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Noah Lenstra, 2016. "The community informatics of an aging society: A comparative case study of senior centers and public libraries," doctoral dissertation at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, at http://hdl.handle.net/2142/92724, accessed 12 July 2017.
Noah Lenstra, 2014a. "Cyberorganizing everyday heritage in and around public libraries: An exploratory study in Illinois," Public Library Quarterly, volume 33, number 1, pp. 1–22.
Noah Lenstra, 2014b. "'You know you from Champaign-Urbana': An ethnography of localized African-American archiving initiatives," In: Dominique Daniel and Amalia S. Levi (editors). Identity palimpsests: Archiving ethnicity in the U.S. and Canada. Sacramento, Calif.: Litwin Books, pp. 225–240.
Norma J. Linton, 2012. "Roadblocks and resolutions in the technological journey," Journal of Community Informatics, volume 8, number 1, at http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/779, accessed 12 July 2017.
Peter Millward, 2003. "The 'grey digital divide': Perception, exclusion and barriers of access to the Internet for older people," First Monday, volume 8, number 7, at http://www.firstmonday.org/article/view/1066/986, accessed 12 July 2017.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5210/fm.v8i7.1066, accessed 21 July 2017.
Todd D. Nelson (editor), 2002. Ageism: Stereotyping and prejudice against older persons. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Wendy Olphert and Leela Damodaran, 2013. "Older people and digital disengagement: A fourth digital divide," Gerontology, volume 59, number 6, pp. 564–570.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1159/000353630, accessed 21 July 2017.
Claudia A. Perry, 2014. "Information services to older adults: Initial findings from a survey of suburban libraries," Library Quarterly, volume 84, number 3, pp. 348–386.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1086/676491, accessed 21 July 2017.
Mary Beth Rosson and John M. Carroll, 2003. "Learning and collaboration across generations in a community," In: Marleen Huysman, Etienne Wenger, and Volker Wulf (editors). Communities and technologies. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 205–225.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0115-0_11, accessed 21 July 2017.
Sergio Sayago and Josep Blat, 2010. "Telling the story of older people e-mailing: An ethnographical study," International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, volume 68, numbers 1-2, pp. 105–120.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2009.10.004, accessed 21 July 2017.
Diantha Dow Schull, 2013. 50+ library services: Innovation in action. Chicago: American Library Association.
Shepherd's Center, 2016. "ShepNet Computer Center," at http://www.shepctrg.org/what-we-do/shepnet-computer-center/, accessed 12 July 2017.
Aaron Smith, 2014. "Older adults and technology usage," Pew Research Center (3 April), at http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/04/03/older-adults-and-technology-use/, accessed 12 July 2017.
Lynda Jeanine Sperazza, Jason Dauenhauer, and Priya Banerjee, 2012. "Tomorrow's seniors: Technology and leisure programming," Journal of Community Informatics, volume 8, number 1, at http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/766, accessed 12 July 2017.
Tiffany C. Veinot and Kate Williams, 2012. "Following the 'community' thread from sociology to information behavior and informatics: Uncovering theoretical continuities and research opportunities," Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, volume 63, number 5, pp. 847–864.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.21653, accessed 21 July 2017.
Jenny Waycott, Frank Vetere, Sonja Pedell, Lars Kulik, Elizabeth Ozanne, Alan Gruner, and John Downs, 2013. "Older adults as digital content producers," CHI '13: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 39–48.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1145/2470654.2470662, accessed 21 July 2017.
Kate Williams, 2012. "Informatics moments," Library Quarterly, volume 82, number 1, pp. 47–73.
Kate Williams and Abdul Alkalimat, 2008. "Cyberpower," In: Douglas Schuler (editor). Liberating voices: A pattern language for communication revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, pp. 177–179.
Bo Xie, 2005. "Getting older adults online: The experiences of SeniorNet (USA) and OldKids (China)," In: Birgit Jaeger (editor). Young technologies in old hands: An international view on senior citizens' utilization of ICT. Copenhagen: DJØF Publishing, pp. 175–204.
Bo Xie and Paul T. Jaeger, 2008. "Computer training programs for older adults at the public library," Public Libraries, volume 47, number 5, pp. 45–51.
Bo Xie, Ivan Watkins, Jen Golbeck, and Man Huang, 2012. "Understanding and changing older adults' perceptions and learning of social media," Educational Gerontology, volume 38, number 4, pp. 282–296.
Editorial history
Received 22 February 2017; revised 12 July 2017; accepted 21 July 2017.
This paper is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
by Noah Lenstra.
First Monday, Volume 22, Number 8 - 7 August 2017
https://ojphi.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/7559/6518
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5210/fm.v22i18.7559
A Great Cities Initiative of the University of Illinois at Chicago University Library.
© First Monday, 1995-2019. ISSN 1396-0466.


♦ Business Single Room with two breakfast × Not Available!
♦ Business Twin Room with two breakfast × Not Available!
Copyright © 2001-2019, Longsheng Hot Spring SPA Hotel - Guilin, Guilin China Hotels Reservation Save up to 60%.


Heirloom Tomatoes - 100+ varieties of heirloom tomato seeds.
Welcome to the world of heirloom tomatoes! With 100+ varieties to choose from, now everyone can find their own favorite tomato from our huge selection of old-time seeds! We invite you to browse through our site and discover the delightful histories and delectable tastes of these wonderful treasures. From seeds, tomato growing supplies, informative books, to tomato fertilizer - you'll find everything you need to grow the perfect tomato!


text:
Q: Problema com gerador de makefiles do CMake Boas ando a seguir este tutorial de como instalar o allegro 5 com o MSYS2.
Mas tenho um problema. No momento em que vou vou correr o comando
cmake \
    -G"MSYS Makefiles" \
    -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_PREFIX_PATH:PATH=/mingw64/x86_64-w64-mingw32/ \
    -DWANT_MONOLITH=on \
    ../allegro
Recebo este erro CMake Error: Could not create named generator MSYS Makefiles

Não encontrei nada na internet de como resolver este problema. Do que reparei os geradores que aparecem estão relacionados com os programas instalados, será que instalar o msys( primeira versão ) ajudará?
Já agora tenho também a instalar uns pacotes do tutorial como mingw-w64-x86_64-dumbe mingw-w64-x86_64-pkgconf. Mas de momento não são a minha prioridade.

A: Já achei solução para isto à muito tempo.
A solução é utilizar o shell do mingw-w64 em vez do msys2.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Q: How to validate floating point numbers through regex and get it in the float type field? In the following code regex behaves perfectly fine when used with string field but ToString and float.parse methods or  convert.ToString and convert.ToSingle makes  regex behavior unexpected.
public float ProductPrice
{
    get => _productPrice;
    set
    {

        var regex = new Regex(@"^[0-9]+(\.?[0-9]{1,2})?\S$");
        if (!regex.IsMatch(value.ToString(CultureInfo.CurrentCulture)))
            throw new InvalidOperationException("incorrect pattern");
        _productPrice = value;
        MessageBox.Show(_productPrice.ToString(CultureInfo.CurrentCulture));
    }
}

// calling area

private void button1_Click_1(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    try
    {
        var product = new Product(){ProductPrice = float.Parse(textBox1.Text, System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentCulture) };
        // product.ProductPrice = float.Parse(product.ValidatingFloatValue(textBox1.Text));

    }
    catch (Exception exception)
    {
        MessageBox.Show(exception.Message);
    }
}

A: If you are getting an issue when trying to give the property a value in your button click event handler try doing the following...
try
{
    float.TryParse(textBox1.Text, out float value);
    var product = new Product()
    {
        ProductPrice = value
    }
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
    MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);
}

This way if it is an invalid number in the text box, you will pass the default. Alternatively, you can test for a zero before passing it and display a message to the user to correct the input or you can pass a reasonable default.
See also the Overload of TryParse that takes some NumberStyles like whether you allow digit separators, currency symbol etc. (I didn't know what you're validating so opted against this one) and allows you to specify the culture as you have in your example.

A: You don't need a regex to validate that value is a float, since it's guaranteed to be that type already (otherwise the caller would get a compile time error). Since that is apparently the only validation being done, you can get rid of the _productPrice backing field and then property can just be:
public float ProductPrice { get; set; }

In your click event, you can avoid using try / catch for error handling by using the float.TryParse method:
private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    float temp;

    if (float.TryParse(textBox1.Text, out temp))
    {
        var product = new Product { ProductPrice = temp };
    }
    else
    {
        MessageBox.Show("Please enter a valid number and try again");
    }
}

Note that as your code currently stands, the click event doesn't do anything = product goes out of scope before it does anything meaningful.


Sainsbury's petrol station in Morecambe.
A raging motorist grabbed a hammer when an elderly lady's car pulled ahead of his Vauxhall Zafira at a petrol station queue.
Furious Thomas Ward was threatening to the elderly motorist at Sainsbury's in Morecambe – and was then told off by a van driver who witnessed his behaviour.
Seconds later, Ward, 32, returned to his car and got a claw hammer.
The van driver had to use his door as a 'shield' fearing he would be attacked.
Ward admitted affray and was jailed for nine months.
The Honorary Recorder of Preston, Judge Mark Brown, said: "Whatever the circumstances, what followed next cannot possibly be justified.
Prosecuting, Francis McEntee said: "He was waving his arms in an aggressive manner.
"The witness says she was clearly terrified and tried to drive away to get away from the defendant.
"The van driver came out of his vehicle and shouted 'Oi' and shouted that the defendant should stop picking on an elderly lady.
The defendant, of Siddall Street, Oldham, did not use the hammer but bellowed abuse as he walked away.
Judge Brown said: "You were remonstrating with her in an aggressive, violent way.
"She appears to have been an elderly person and was obviously terrified by your actions.
"Yes, waiting in a queue and feeling somebody has jumped the queue can be frustrating, but that cannot possibly justify somebody behaving in such an aggressive and unacceptable way.


text:
Community > World > North America > United States > California > Los Angeles
Which is the best place to stay in Los Angeles, hotel or apartment? Which area is closes to most amenities at a reasonable price.
over 7 years ago about Los Angeles, United States
Stay in February
hotels apartment
Asked by Adriana Cooper via Ask a Nomad iPad app
Going to los angeles this weekend staying in west hollywood for $50 a night
Check out airbnb.com the only way to travel in my books over 7 years ago
Answered by Mathew F via Ask a Nomad iPad app
I stayed at Best Western Plus Sunset Plaza on my first trip and loved it. It's in a good location, has parking and is close to everything.
Check it out here: http://www.ustraveldiary.com/review-best-western-plus-sunset-plaza-west-hollywood/
I personally don't love Airbnb.....maybe for New York or somewhere it's extremely expenive to stay anywhere. But there's plenty of hotels in LA that won't cost a lot of money. over 7 years ago
Answered by Vesna - ustraveldiary.com via WorldNomads.com
I need an apartment hotel or furnished apartments in diamond bar
over 9 years ago about Diamond Bar, United States
Can a hotel change their rate after they have sent a confirmation?
about 10 years ago about California, United States
Boutique Hotels in San Francisco City
about 10 years ago about San Francisco, United States
Needing a very economical hotel with kitchen/kitchenette in San Francisco in August 2012. Prefer Western part of city.
over 9 years ago about San Francisco, United States
Looking for a cheap accommodation (ie. Hostels/ or hotels, if any) in downtown sf. Any recommendation?
Map of Los Angeles

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


I've been single for 18 months and I'm desperate to meet somebody. I recently met a guy who I really liked, but it fizzled out because he realised he was still in love with his ex. Even though I know it's over, all I want to do is contact him but I know that I shouldn't. How do I move on?
Sorry to hear your new relationship fizzled out, it sounds like it was off to a good start.
I know what it's like; you go on a few good dates, and start to think "finally! I can get off the single merry-go-round!"
But, just as you're about to make the leap off into a relationship, you're shoved straight back on again.
You sometimes feel like you'll go around and around forever, unclaimed. Like a forgotten bag on an airport carousel.
Anyway, as you said, you already know that you shouldn't contact this guy. If he's still in love with his ex, there's little chance you'll work things out right now.
So, I'm afraid you need to delete his number, unfriend him on social media, and consider taking some time out from dating for a bit.
Then when you're feeling better, get back out there!
Meanwhile, being single for 18 months is nothing to worry about. I know plenty of fabulous women who've been minus a man for much longer and the right guy really is worth waiting for.
One of the reasons I believe dating is so hard these days is because everybody has so much choice.
But, it's a numbers game, so get out there, be the best version of yourself and most importantly, stop using your dating status as a measure of success.
It's better to be single than with the wrong man…trust me!


text:
layout: shared/narrow-pages-list
published: false
title: "Service Workers"
description: "Service workers have been described as "programmable network proxies" and "background workers". Neither tells the whole story. A service worker is a script run by a browser in the background that lets a developer manage network interactions for one or more client pages."
published_on: 2015-10-15
updated_on: 2015-10-15
order: 1
translation_priority: 0
authors:
  - josephmedley
---

<p class="intro">   Service workers have been described as “programmable
network proxies” and “background workers”. Neither tells the
whole story. A service worker is a script run by a browser in the background
that lets a developer manage network interactions for one or more client
pages. </p>

A service worker is more than that. Because a service worker is separate from
the page that loaded it, it doesn't  need a web page or user interactions. A
service worker terminates when it's not  being used and reactivates again when
it's needed. A single service worker can  support more than one web page.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: No valid session ID in Selenium when running multiple tests I want to run multiple tests but after the first run I get an error: UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: NoSuchSessionError: This driver instance does not have a valid session ID (did you call WebDriver.quit()?) and may no longer be used . It seems like that the second run doesn't get session id.
My code looks like this (the main bit):
runTests = async () => {
    for (let i = 0; i < results.length; i++) {
        await subscribe('urlgoeshere');
    }
};
runTests();

async function subscribe(url) {
    try {
        await driver.get(url);
    }
    catch(err) {
        console.error(err);
    }
    finally {
        await driver.quit();
    }
}


The deceased is Advocate Mahbul Alam Shahin, general secretary of Bagura sadar thana unit of BNP.
According to police, a gang of miscreants attacked Shahin and hacked him indiscriminately while he was talking to a UP chairman standing on a road in Upashahore Bazar area, leaving him dead on the spot.
The reason behind the murder could not be known immediately, police also said.


Intensiv-Filter is your partner for service-based and customised solutions. Expertise and know-how from almost 100 years of filter technology goes into our analyses, consultation, planning, implementation and commissioning.
It is only the sum of technical knowledge, customer-oriented service, conceptual design, optimised production processes and efficient implementation that qualifies a provider of filtering installation engineering. Our core competency are complete system solutions.


text:
Sneaker Wars Part 10: The Vibram Bikila Has Legs and Stamps Out Lawsuit
Abebe Bikila running barefoot in Rome.
Running in Vibram FiveFingers Bikila EVO Shoes is like running barefoot. And running barefoot can, it is said, return you to a better, injury-free way of running.
That's the whole point of the Vibram experience – to reproduce what it is like to walk or run barefoot. And who better to name a running shoe that replicates the barefoot experience than Abebe Bikila, the famed two-time gold medalist who famously came out of nowhere to win the 1960 Rome Olympics marathon…sans socks and shoes.
The shoe manufacturer, Vibram, has marketed shoes called the Vibram Bikila, trademarking the name of the famous Ethiopian athlete in 2010. In February, 2015, Teferi Bikila, the son of Abebe, filed a lawsuit against Vibram to cease using the Bikila name as the family never granted permission.
"He won the Rome marathon with bare feet, and nobody did it before then or since then," Bikila, 45, said in this AP article. "It's important that his legacy be respected."
Unfortunately for the Bikilas, there is apparently a time limit on respect. A judge of the U. S. District Court in Tacoma, Washington dismissed the lawsuit in November, 2016, citing that the Bikila's were aware of the Bikila shoe brand in 2011 but did not act until 2015, and thus "it would have been unfair to Vibram to allow the lawsuit to go forward after such a delay, when Vibram had been investing in and marketing the products for years."
"The Bikilas unreasonably delayed in seeking to enforce their rights, and this unreasonable delay prejudiced Vibram," wrote Judge Ronald Leighton.
In other words, the other shoe dropped.
January 12, 2018 Business, health, Olympics, Other Olympics, Pop Culture, Track and FIeld


Management of health products including marketing, procurement, logistics, customer service, public purchasing and maintenance of computer systems. Organization and design of hospital facilities. Technical assistance service.
The Palex Group has a clear commitment to Quality.
Customers demand products with features that meet their needs and expectations. As those needs and expectations are constantly changing as a consequence of the diversity of choice available on the market and technical progress, companies must continually improve their products and processes.
This approach has been a constant feature of our philosophy during its existence, culminating in the certification of its companies in 2002 to the ISO 9001 quality standards.
Through implementation and maintenance of these systems, the Palex Group has a tool which, among other aspects, assures analysis of the customer's requirements, establishment of quality improvement goals, definition of the processes that contribute to meeting these goals, and control of the various processes.
Progress has brought with it major achievements such as the improvements in health in general. However, it has also caused a significant deterioration of the environment, which in turn has created a number of problems, in particular, increased pollution and depletion of natural resources. This has given rise to serious imbalances in modern society which may worsen unless corrective measures are implemented in some cases and preventive measures in others, both by private individuals and by organizations.
Aware of this reality we also implemented the ISO14001 environmental management standard with the goal of contributing to environmental improvement. Thus, the standard is used as a vehicle for driving the quest for ongoing improvement of its processes with a view to increasing their sustainability, particularly in the company's more significant environmental aspects.


Inspire Aviation has implemented an online exam center! This will be a service available to registered students and registered users of our website. Don't forget to register on our website to gain access to the online exam center and other wonderful benefits only from Inspire Aviation.


text:
La Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (Confédération nationale du travail ou CNT) est une organisation syndicale colombienne fondée en 1953 par les partisans de Gustavo Rojas Pinilla. Elle était affiliée à l'Agrupación de Trabajadores Latinoamericanos Sindicalistas (Groupement des travailleurs latino-américains syndicalistes).

Cette confédération fut dissoute par les autorités en 1955, sous l'influence de l'Église catholique colombienne qui souhaitait conserver l'Union des travailleurs de Colombie.

Références

Syndicat en Colombie

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


If you stare at enough of them, long enough, would you begin to intuit the arch-typal messages they carry??
People in the far northern countries sometimes hear and see the hugh beam which comes down to create their circles. Has not occurred in the UK, to my knowledge.
Animals caught in the beam are toasted to deadness.
Perhaps they are ghestalt concepts?


Many homes in Salt Lake City, CA rely on forced-air furnaces to stay warm during the winter. The warm the air using burners, then blow the heated air through your house using the same system of ducts used by your air conditioner. The system works quite well, but it's not perfect, and if you find yourself looking for another type of heater to keep your house cozy this winter, you might want to consider a boiler system instead. Boilers used steam heat conveyed through a series of pipes and radiators to warm your home, and the system provides a number of benefits over a furnace that you should consider if you're looking for a new heating system.
Boilers provide steady even heat in your home. Because it's radiant heat distributed by pipes, there's a greater amount of control involved, and each corner of your home is heated at about the same level as every other part. Contrast that with forced-air furnace, where the heat is dependent on currents and air flow throughout the home. That can lead to drafts, cold spot s and similar issues. Forced-air furnaces also spread dust and cold germs throughout your home, while boilers help improve your indoor air quality while lowering count of illness to boot. Finally, steam heat can help humidify your home during the dry months of winter: no small consideration here in the deserts of Utah.
Perhaps even more important is the fact that boilers – while costing more to install – are usually cheaper to run and could save you a great deal of money on monthly bills. Furthermore, because boilers are comparatively simple devices, repairs tend to be less frequent and cost less when they do crop up.
If you need to install or repair a boiler system, call At Your Service today!


text:
Q: starting first activity from a child activity in TabGroupActivity in android My application contains four tabs at the bottom.Each tab has multiple child activities.The flow may be like this,
    Tab1--A-->B-->C-->D-->E
    Tab2--X-->Y-->D-->E
    Tab3--M
    Tab4--P-->Q-->Y-->D-->E
      My question is ,
     when I am in C child activity of Tab1,and  I press Tab2.Again when I come back to Tab1 ,it is in C child activity.But I want A activity to be restarted.can someone please give  the solution by providing some sample code.Thank in advance

A: from your B activity, start C activity using method, startActivityForResult() and Override onActivityResult() method in all of them this way.
@Override
public void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
    finish();
}

Now at every Tab switch, you must call finish() at current active activty. that in turn will destory all activities and coming back to that tab will show you first activity.
Note that, you wont want to destroy your first activty. For this reason, you must start activity B from A using startActivity() and you donot need to Override onActivityResult() for A activity.
regards,
Aqif Hamid


The supercomfortable Sea to Summit Comfort Plus Sleeping Pad provides uniform cushioning and insulation, thanks to its two independent layers of high-resolution air cells. With independent adjustments, you can fine-tune the pad to the perfect amount softness and support.
Thickness Range: 2 - 2.9 in.
Weight: 1.1 - 2 lbs.


Are your social media campaigns still giving you the results you want? If not, it could be that your tactics, which may have been big in 2012 when you first used it, are no longer effective today.
Social media is constantly evolving, which means businesses should always be on their toes when it comes to the latest tools and techniques that would effectively meet new customer demands.
We're still early into 2018, which means there's plenty of time to reevaluate your social media strategies and weed out the ones that are causing more harm than good.
This is a common practice on Twitter and Instagram. It's true, a lot of accounts will follow you back if you follow them, so you launch into a massive follow campaign to pump up your followers count.
While this somewhat ups your social proof, there can also be a few setbacks.
Our social media audiences are now wary about following fake or spam accounts. Usually, these accounts are those that have a bigger following number than followers.
If you mass-followed accounts without regard to their real value, you will only end up with junk. Your feed will be populated with posts that mean nothing to you and your own content will not get the traction it needs.
Follow real people and relevant businesses. This will give you a good base of people and potential customers with whom you can communicate.
Create a good profile. Take time to create an attractive bio and make sure your feed or timeline shows recently shared and valuable content.
Be active. Prove that you're not a bot by resharing posts and commenting on posts.
Influencer marketing can be a valuable strategy—if done correctly. Just linking to an influencer on your post or citing them as an expert in your round-up blog in the hopes of getting them to share your content can strike them as tacky. Chances are, the influencer already knows what you're up to and he/she will only skip past you.
Use their names and titles. People love to see their own names on posts and blogs. If you're making a reference or linking their blog to your content, do something like Michael Roberts, fitness coach, recommends any of these activities.
Send them a personal note. Comment on their blog post, send them an email or a Facebook message about how awesome their work is and that you would be delighted to be given a chance to work with them.
Images and texts are still a powerful tool to drive social media engagement. But don't forget that videos are becoming big, too.
According to a study by Animoto, 1 in 4 people loses interest in a company if it doesn't have a video. Video is also predicted to make up 69% of total consumer Internet traffic.
Make social videos a part of your content mix. Take advantage of online tools like Lumen5 and Clipman.
Use Facebook Live. FB Live allows you to deliver content instantly and to a large group of audience (your FB friends and followers will all be notified about your live stream video).
Don't forget about YouTube! Create how-to videos and behind-the-scenes videos of how you create your products.
Naturally, you'd want to promote your products and services on social media. But in-your-face promotional content may come across as too egotistical and salesy. Your audiences will only get tired of hearing about you every day.
Share content from respected websites and publications. This will provide your audience with a more dynamic mix of both native and curated content that your readers will want to engage in.
Along with sharing your link on social media, you also ask your network to post your content on their own pages. This will put you in a really awkward situation. Worse still, your contact may not end up posting it because 1) your content is not relevant to their brand, 2) they don't agree with what you say, and 3) they just don't like being asked (most likely, it will always be no. 3). You don't want your professional relationships to suffer because of this.
Your content will be shared because they love it. So at any rate, make your content share-worthy. Create something that will arouse strong emotions, positive or negative.
Optimise for social sharing. Place your social share buttons where they can be easily seen. You can also use click-to-tweet pullouts, which captures significant quotes from your posts that your audiences can tweet out with one click.
Write addictive blogs. Over 2 million blogs are pumped out every day, so you'd want your blogs to be a total standout. We shared some tactics on how to write blogs that grab people attention in this blog.
Do you know of other social media practices that businesses should quit doing? Are any of these tactics still working for you? We'd love to hear your thoughts!


Driving through West Texas, one gets the feeling that absolutely no one lives in America. The sky here is enormous, the open fields roll on and on, and even where there are towns, many seem nearly deserted.
On our way to Big Bend from Carlsbad, we stopped for the night just outside of Marfa—in fact, we slept at the viewing area for the mysterious Marfa Lights, an unexplained phenomena of distant floating balls of light. They don't show up every night and I wasn't expecting to see them, but about 10 minutes after we arrived, there they were—glowing orbs bobbing above the hills. The leading explanation is that the lights are refractions of distant headlights, but nothing has been proven so far and it's a strange sight. Even better than the mystery lights were the views of the night sky—expansive and clear and covered in stars.
In the morning, we headed back into Marfa to check out some of Donald Judd's modernist art installations at the Chenati Foundation. The grounds of the museum are on the site of an old Army-barracks turned German POW camp, and we were guided through one of the buildings to see Judd's 100 untitled works in milled aluminum. The installation is a collection of boxes, all with different internal configurations. It's a piece we'd seen pictures of before, but the effect of seeing it in the space, of watching how the boxes reflected the sunlight and each other, had a huge impact. After, we checked out the 15 untitled works in concrete, then headed southwest from Marfa toward Big Bend Ranch State Park.
This park runs along the Rio Grande northwest of the national park and it's a gorgeous introduction to the Big Bend landscape. We stopped to walk the Hoodoo Trail, with its views of sandstone formations and Mexico yards away, then continued on to hike through the slot canyon of Closed Canyon Trail. Slot canyon hikes are a dream with kids: fun and engaging, with natural slides and climbing walls, and nobody can get lost or off-course. This one was a blast and we got a little caught up in the fun, so we started back a bit late and ended up hiking largely in the dark. At one point we got stuck at a spot that had been easy enough to slide down, but was steep and slick for climbing back up. But with a combination of my natural daring athleticism and David's pushing on my bottom, I made it up and got everyone else hoisted.
That night we stopped in Terlingua to make dinner, then decided we were much too tired and lazy to cook, and much too hungry to eat something easy. Instead we popped into the Starlight Theater for dinner, and I'm so glad we did. This place is downright delightful: an old theater converted into a restaurant with very solid food and excellent live music. All the musicians were local, and I'm not sure how a town of this size in the middle of nothing can support so many rad musicians, but it does. Though we may have been the only sober people, and were definitely the only people there with kids, we had a fantastic time and kept the kids up way too late eating chips and guac and toe-tapping to the tunes.
We finally managed to drag ourselves away, get the kids into bed, and drive into the park. This is where we fell in with the angels of our Big Bend visit, Jen and Brady Groves. We met these NPS uber-fans through our blog and coordinated a meet up at Chisos Basin. This was an enormous stroke of luck for us, because Jen is a master planner and had reserved primo camp sites for their visit, which they generously opened up to us, because they are wonderful.
We never make reservations before getting to a park and usually don't know during the day where we'll be sleeping that night. This would have been trouble in Big Bend, which is so massive that driving in and out of the park to camp outside would have taken up most of our visit. The park was also super busy, and though the visitors were spread out enough that we didn't feel at all crowded during the day, the campgrounds were fully booked every night we were there. So we majorly benefited by being on Team Groves. These two are park wizards.
They're also super fun, and after a leisurely getting-to-know-you breakfast on our first morning together, we set off for Santa Elena Canyon. One of the most scenic spots in Big Bend, the limestone walls of the canyon soar 1500 feet above the Rio Grande and make a perfect path for paddling. We set up the kayak and headed upstream for a bit to get a taste of the canyon from the water, then hopped out at the end of the Santa Elena Canyon Trail and hiked back while the Groves took a paddle.
Then we made the long drive to Rio Grande Village on the other side of the park, exclaiming over the stunning scenery all the way. By the time we got to the village, it was time to set up camp and make dinner, but we had one more adventure to tackle with the Groves: a nighttime hike to Boquillas Hot Springs.
The hot springs sit among the ruins of an old bathhouse, right where the Tornillo Creek runs into the Rio Grande. We hiked the half mile to the springs on a moonless night; by the light of our headlamps, we checked out the ancient petroglyphs and red pictographs on the canyon walls along the trail. When we got to the springs, the canyon walls opened up and we could see the huge Texas sky, navy-black and so covered in stars, it looked like someone had spilled salt over it. I had never seen so many stars, never knew that it was even possible to see so many stars at once. Sitting in the rock-walled pool, you could lean over the side and sink your hands into the chilly current of the Rio Grande, and Mexico was 20 feet away, unfenced and unwalled and looking no different at all from the U.S. side of the river, and overhead was an entire heaven, and all around us was perfectly heated, storied healing water just risen up from the Earth's core. The perspective was gobsmacking.
Hours later, when we finally tore ourselves away, the kids were sleeping on our shoulders and we had a new favorite national parks moment.
The next day we had to say goodbye to Jen and Brady, who headed on to Guadalupe Mountains.
We stuck around Rio Grande Village to hike into Boquillas Canyon, where Graham invented an elaborate real estate development game in which he built and sold stick-and-sand homes.
Then we drove back to Chisos Basin for a sunset hike up Lost Mine Trail, a perfect trail with perfect views over this gorgeous spot.
We had one more day to spend in the park, and we largely spent it driving and taking in as many views as possible. We went to Mule's Ears Overlook, then hiked to Lower Burro Mesa Pour-Off Trail, which during the summer monsoon season becomes a waterfall but was in this season a peaceful shady spot to wile away an afternoon.
And more mule's ears :).
Big Bend was a park that made us check our perspectives. It's enormous, for one thing, full of contrasting landscapes and extreme conditions. Its heart is the Rio Grande, a river much less grand than it used to be as water is siphoned off for use upstream, and the absence of adequate water supplies scars the landscape everywhere. Its proximity to Mexico is a constant reminder of the artificiality of borders. And its expansive sky is instantly humbling. This park quickly became a favorite, full of peak moments—we are just in love with west Texas.
Ahhh we love you guys!!! Your telling of the hot springs was much more magical than mine. I'm so glad we had the chance to meet up, can't wait for more adventures soon!
PS It's fun to have friends whom we don't completely dwarf in every photo hahahaha.


text:
My Anritsu
Avionics and Aircraft Manufacturing
Radar and Electronic Peacekeeping
Energy and Petrochemical
Repair and Calibration
Talk to Anritsu
Test and Measurement News
Samsung Selects Anritsu for Automated Smartphone Testing
MD8475A Signaling Tester with SmartStudio Manager to be Used by Samsung to Automate Smartphone Testing Process
Morgan Hill, CA – Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, a global leader in digital media and digital convergence technologies, has selected the Anritsu MD8475A Signaling Tester with SmartStudio Manager software for automated smartphone testing.
Samsung's smartphones support many different combinations of radio access technologies (RATs), such as LTE, WCDMA, TD-SCDMA, GSM and CDMA2000, across many frequency bands. They must be tested to meet the stringent interoperability requirements of over 200 network operators worldwide. In order to bring products to market ahead of the competition, it is essential for Samsung to use reliable test equipment with robust automation for fast, unattended product verification.
Anritsu's MD8475A is a reliable and powerful network simulator supporting all required radio technologies in a small footprint. The MD8475A's built-in server for IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) test capability supports critical user features. The MD8475A includes SmartStudio, an easy-to-use graphical interface enabling simple editing of call parameters. The SmartStudio Manager PC software enables easy creation and execution of fully automated test sequences. Samsung engineers have created over 100 automated test sequences to verify smartphone functions, including IMS connectivity, with these easy-to-use tools. Samsung's many global R&D sites are adopting this solution to efficiently test their smartphone portfolio.
"Anritsu is delighted that Samsung, the world's largest smartphone maker, has selected the MD8475A as a key tool in its development process," stated Mr. Takahashi Toshihiko, Senior Vice President of R&D at Anritsu. "Samsung's selection shows how Anritsu's MD8475A helps LTE device makers ensure their product quality in an intensely competitive market while reducing the product launch cycle time."
"Anritsu has proven itself to be a good partner," said Mr. Park Yun-Sang, Senior Vice President at Samsung Electronics. "The MD8475A allows us to fully test our wide range of smartphone products against many different network configurations in the most efficient manner," he added.
About Anritsu
Anritsu Corporation (www.anritsu.com) has been a provider of innovative communications solutions for more than 110 years. The company's test and measurement solutions include wireless, optical, microwave/RF and digital instruments, operations support systems and solutions that can be used during R&D, manufacturing, installation, and maintenance. Anritsu also provides precision microwave/RF components, optical devices, and high-speed devices for design into communication products and systems. With the addition of OSS monitoring solutions it has expanded its offering to provide complete solutions for existing and next-generation wireline and wireless communication systems and service providers. Anritsu sells in over 90 countries worldwide with approximately 4,000 employees.
Jonathan Borrill
Sophie Middleton
Director of Marketing TKO Marketing Consultants
Anritsu EMEA Limited Tel: +44 (0) 1444 473555
Tel: +46 (0)8 534 707 05 Email: Sophie Middleton
Email: Jonathan Borrill
Products line-up
Contact Sales Office
Anritsu World Wide
Confirm your country below to see local events, contact information and special offers.
Australia Brazil Canada China Denmark Finland France Germany Hong Kong India Italy Japan South Korea Mexico Russia Singapore Sweden Taiwan United Kingdom United States Viet Nam More


text:
Colourful Details Appear at Dash Developments' Avenue 151
Justin Trudeau?
Thread starter King of Kensington
So...does anyone take this guy seriously?
Still, there is no getting around it: Objectively speaking, on that stage, Mr. Trudeau would be a conspicuous lightweight.
Politics, however, is rarely objective. In 2010, I watched Mr. Trudeau give a frankly ridiculous speech in support of George Smitherman's run for mayor of Toronto. "Around the world, there's a battle going on between the politics of fear and division, and the politics of hope and responsibility,†he thundered, casting the entirely conventional and not very likeable Mr. Smitherman as some kind of inspirational Obama figure. "Canadians are better than that. Torontonians are better than that. We will not be divided. We will not be turned against ourselves. We will not sit and fear and cower about what the future may hold!â€
Such grandiose oratory for a mayoral election! I was trying not to laugh. But many of the Liberals in the room were trying hard not to faint.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/09/07/justin-trudeau-a-liberal-lightweight-chris-selley/
Joe R.
I think only Justin Trudeau takes himself seriously. The next election will be another easy majority for the conservatives.
I'm sure the Tories are delighted at the prospect of Justin. The Liberals need to win back the so-called "blue Liberals" who defected to Harper in the 2011 election. Somehow I think Justin comes across too "flaky" to the business types, but guys like Manley and McKenna who'd appeal to them have been out of politics for too long and are too happy making millions in the private sector to lead that rump.
Meanwhile, on the NDP side, JT is robbed of the key argument that the Liberals have been using perhaps as far back as Mackenzie King: we're big and they're small. And somehow I don't think he could effectively use the argument that "I'm socially progressive, but unlike Tom Mulcair and the NDP, I'm fiscally responsible." Mulcair comes across as far more serious and businesslike than Justin; it may have worked for Martin against Layton but the idea of Justin making that argument just seems laughable.
So what constituency does JT appeal to exactly?
It's the constituency that believes JT is the heir apparent. However, there are few " national " politicians in this country today that appear to be in the business of promoting any idealistic vision of Canada whatsoever. Harper's business is to ridicule those that make the effort.
Move aside Justin... Me thinks Jean Charest will be heavily recruited to the Federal scene
TOareaFan
js97 said:
Former Tory environment minister Charest? The only Francophone to ever lead the PC party? That Jean Charest is a candidate to lead the Federal Liberal party?
k10ery
Yes, an aisle crosser could NEVER lead a national party in Canada.
I loved the pic of Justin in today's paper. If Pierre's aphorism was "Just watch me," Justin's is "Please, please watch me!"
TOareaFan said:
Former Progressive conservative (a.k.a centrist) that crossed the floor to lead Quebec as a Liberal Premier for over 10 yrs.
He is as good of a candidate as any right now.
k10ery said:
Oh how wrong is that quote!
How is that so different from the current leaders:
Former Reformist heading our country
Former Provincial Liberal, Environment Mininster in fact, heading the NDP (is this an sign?)
And Provincial NDP Premier heading the Federal Liberals
Moving from provincial politics to federal (or the other way) often involves a change of lables/parties because the parties do not line up exactly the same provincially and federally. This is not "crossing the floor"....that happens when a member of one party in a parliament changes parties within the same parliment (think Belinda Stronach eloping from the Tories).
So, in the case of Charest, when he moved from Ottawa to Quebec....he was looking to lead a federalist party that was more towards the "right" that had a chance of winning.......in Quebec (where right and left are shifted more to the left relative to other provinces) the provinicial liberal party lines up like that and is, both, the most right of the, then, mainstream parties and the strongest federalist voice. If he were to come back to federal politics to lead the Liberals this would be a massive shift and would give them a very difficult sell job......he would be running around Quebec trying to get people to vote, federally, for the Liberals all the while being reminded of what he said in past federalelections about why people should not vote for the federal liberals.
The Reform party, through mergers and name changes....essentially became the Conservative Party....so no switch.
Former Provincial Liberal leading the NDP ....see above....provincial to federal
Former Provincial NDPer leading Liberals....see above....provincial to federal (also the fact that he is just an interim leader and his past NDP roots are often cited as why he could never lead the Liberals into battle...and why he has failed to win the leadership in the past).
What an utter cheeseball this guy is. He thinks so highly of himself.
Aren't we splitting hairs now?
Plus leadership races have always been about who you know in the party, and with the Libs down to 35 seats, I can't see that being a difficult task (especially with the limited number of policitians to pick from, I would think they would welcome a breath of 'fresh air'.
We have to also remember that Charest has dedicated the last 10 years to the Libs. I think if the Libs are serious about rebuilding the party and becoming the 'Big Red Tent' they advertise, they will seriously consider someone like Charest.
You may consider it splitting hairs....I think it is an important distinction. While it is relatively simple to find examples of politicians that have moved between provincial and federal parties and led a party with a different lable/name than the one the left.....it is much harder to find any politicians that have stayed in one level of politics (provincial or federal) actually changed parties (ie crossed the floor) and then gone on to lead the party that they have subsequently joined. In Federal politics, I can not think of one guy who has led, both, the Conservatives (in any of their incarnations) and the Liberals.....am I missing one?
I would think there is probably not one member of the the Liberal Party of Canada who is considering the former leader of the Quebec Liberal Party as a potential leader. The older members of the LPC will remember what he used to say about them/LPC before he joined the QLP and the younger members will find it hard to imagine that a grey haired, 54 year old career politician and former conservative leader is the symbol of a renewed party.
If Mr. Charest has a future in politics it is, likely, as a candidate for his old job as MP for Sherbrooke....running as a conservative to be Harper's new Quebec Lieutenant combating the NDP waive. The last election installed (at least on temp basis) the NDP as the federalist party of choice in Quebec. Sherbrooke is one of the ridings that got swept up in that and they elected a 19 year old with no experience just because he had orange signs. He had no political experience and was very quick to make mistakes. His first (Three days after the election, on the Johnn Oakley show Dusseault stated Sovereignty will happen and that only Quebecers will decide if they want to be a country.) really brought into question his standing as a federalist voice. An experienced, trusted, politician like Charest eats guys like this for breakfast.
The older members of the LPC will remember what he used to say about them/LPC before he joined the QLP and the younger members will find it hard to imagine that a grey haired, 54 year old career politician and former conservative leader is the symbol of a renewed party.
The old Libs are part of the problem...
I can see Charest having a much wider appeal to the less partisan (and the last election, showed that they were far less partisan)... Charest could at the least, be the the Liberal Quebect Lieutenant.
Pretty bang on assessment:
Strictly in terms of experience and accomplishment, Justin Trudeau is Sarah Palin minus the books, the vice-presidential candidacy and the governorship.
Is this really a man prepared to be leader of the Liberal Party? A future prime minister?
In the 1920s, when the once-mighty British Liberal party plummeted to the dismal place where Canada's Liberals are today, they turned to David Lloyd George — creator of the British welfare state, wartime prime minister, international statesman — but not even that giant of 20th century politics could save them.
Will Canada's Liberals actually seek salvation in the leadership of a man whose greatest personal accomplishment was scoring 38 per cent of the popular vote in Papineau?
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/Column+count+Trudeau/7226228/story.html
Trudeau's just another word for nothing left to lose,
(with apologies to Janis Joplin)
Your friendly neighborhood iconoclast.