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(Scleroderma Renal Disease)
Acute Heart Failure in Scleroderma Renal Crisis: A Case Study for Review of Cardiac Disease in Systemic Sclerosis. [Journal Article]
Am J Med Case Rep 2020; 8(1):1-7Amarnani A, Wengrofsky P, … McFarlane IMAJ
PMC Free Full TextPMC Free PDF
Using autoantibodies and cutaneous subset to develop outcome-based disease classification in systemic sclerosis. [Journal Article]
Arthritis Rheumatol 2019Nihtyanova SI, Sari A, … Denton CPAR
CONCLUSIONS: We highlight the importance of autoantibodies, cutaneous subset and disease duration when assessing SSc morbidity and mortality. Our classification may benefit disease monitoring and clinical trial design.
Clinical and serological profile of systemic sclerosis in Tunisia: A retrospective observational study. [Journal Article]
Presse Med 2019; 48(10):e284-e291Ben Salah R, Frikha F, … Bahloul ZPM
CONCLUSIONS: With slight variations, perhaps due to genetic, environmental or referral factors, SSc in this cohort appears to be similar to that described in other part of the world.
linkinghub.elsevier.comem-consulte.com
LiverTox: Clinical and Research Information on Drug-Induced Liver Injury: Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension Agents [BOOK]
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases: Bethesda (MD)BOOK
Pulmonary artery hypertension (PAH) is marked by proliferation of vasculature and remodeling of small pulmonary arteries which causes an increase in pulmonary vascular resistance. The resultant pulmonary artery hypertension can lead to right heart failure and death. Both endothelial and smooth muscle cells appear to play a role in the development and progression of PAH. The underlying cause of mo…
Pulmonary artery hypertension (PAH) is marked by proliferation of vasculature and remodeling of small pulmonary arteries which causes an increase in pulmonary vascular resistance. The resultant pulmonary artery hypertension can lead to right heart failure and death. Both endothelial and smooth muscle cells appear to play a role in the development and progression of PAH. The underlying cause of most cases of PAH is unknown, but some cases are associated with autoimmune diseases such as scleroderma or systemic sclerosis. PAH is also a complication of chronic lung diseases such as chronic bronchitis and emphysema and interstitial lung diseases such as sarcoidosis. Agents used for PAH, however, are largely effective in patients with idiopathic forms of this condition who do not have major structural damage to the lungs (secondary PAH). Pharmacotherapy of PAH has recently advanced with the development of specific antagonists and inhibitors of receptors and pathways involved in the modulation of smooth muscle tone in the pulmonary vasculature. Three major classes of agents are used: prostaglandins, endothelin receptor antagonists, and phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors. Prostacyclin is a prostaglandin that is produced by endothelial cells in the lungs and directly relaxes the smooth muscle cells in the pulmonary vasculature. In idiopathic PAH, there is reduced production of prostacyclin. Stable analogues of prostacyclin have been developed which can be given by infusion or inhalation and result in temporary decrease in pulmonary artery pressure.
LiverTox: Clinical and Research Information on Drug-Induced Liver Injury: Penicillamine [BOOK]
Penicillamine is chelating agent used to decrease copper stores in Wilson disease, which also has immunomodulatory activity in rheumatic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, scleroderma and systemic lupus erythematosus. Penicillamine is capable of causing hypersensitivity reactions, some of which are accompanied by liver injury which is typically cholestatic.
Is there today a place for corticosteroids in the treatment of scleroderma? [Review]
Autoimmun Rev 2019; 18(12):102403Blagojevic J, Legendre P, … Mouthon LAR
In systemic sclerosis (SSc), the use of corticosteroids (CS) is controversial due to their association with scleroderma renal crisis (SRC). However, patients with very early and early disease, characterised by main inflammatory component, may benefit from CS therapy. The aim of this review is to discuss pros and cons of CS treatment in SSc, providing current evidence about the use of CS in SSc. M…
In systemic sclerosis (SSc), the use of corticosteroids (CS) is controversial due to their association with scleroderma renal crisis (SRC). However, patients with very early and early disease, characterised by main inflammatory component, may benefit from CS therapy. The aim of this review is to discuss pros and cons of CS treatment in SSc, providing current evidence about the use of CS in SSc. Moreover, we discuss also the underlying pathogenetic mechanisms that may be the background for the potential harms and efficacy of CS in SSc.
Demyelinating syndrome in systemic sclerosis and neuromyelitis optica. [Case Reports]
BMC Neurol 2019; 19(1):234Deeb K, Eby J, Labault-Santiago JBN
CONCLUSIONS: This article expands on NMOSD associated autoimmune diseases. Systemic Sclerosis is an insidious disease that is often diagnosed late as not all patients often report skin manifestation. The finding suggests that patients presenting with acute neurological manifestations get tested for NMO-IgG/AQP-4 antibodies and other immunological studies based on clinical findings.
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Renal pathology and clinical associations in systemic sclerosis: a historical cohort study. [Journal Article]
Int J Gen Med 2019; 12:323-331Tonsawan P, Talabthong K, … Foocharoen CIJ
CONCLUSIONS: This is the first report of renal pathologic findings in Thai SSc patients. RPGN is the commonest renal manifestation among SSc who underwent kidney biopsy; for whom LN was the most common pathological finding. Nephrotic syndrome is a clinical feature of glomerular diseases other than renal involvement in SSc.
Targeting metabolic dysregulation for fibrosis therapy. [Review]
Nat Rev Drug Discov 2020; 19(1):57-75Zhao X, Kwan JYY, … Liu FFNR
Fibrosis is the abnormal deposition of extracellular matrix, which can lead to organ dysfunction, morbidity, and death. The disease burden caused by fibrosis is substantial, and there are currently no therapies that can prevent or reverse fibrosis. Metabolic alterations are increasingly recognized as an important pathogenic process that underlies fibrosis across many organ types. As a result, met…
Fibrosis is the abnormal deposition of extracellular matrix, which can lead to organ dysfunction, morbidity, and death. The disease burden caused by fibrosis is substantial, and there are currently no therapies that can prevent or reverse fibrosis. Metabolic alterations are increasingly recognized as an important pathogenic process that underlies fibrosis across many organ types. As a result, metabolically targeted therapies could become important strategies for fibrosis reduction. Indeed, some of the pathways targeted by antifibrotic drugs in development - such as the activation of transforming growth factor-β and the deposition of extracellular matrix - have metabolic implications. This Review summarizes the evidence to date and describes novel opportunities for the discovery and development of drugs for metabolic reprogramming, their associated challenges, and their utility in reducing fibrosis. Fibrotic therapies are potentially relevant to numerous common diseases such as cirrhosis, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, chronic renal disease, heart failure, diabetes, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, and scleroderma.
Glutathione Transferase P1-1 an Enzyme Useful in Biomedicine and as Biomarker in Clinical Practice and in Environmental Pollution. [Review]
Nutrients 2019; 11(8)Bocedi A, Noce A, … Ricci GN
Glutathione transferase P1-1 (GSTP1-1) is expressed in some human tissues and is abundant in mammalian erythrocytes (here termed e-GST). This enzyme is able to detoxify the cell from endogenous and exogenous toxic compounds by using glutathione (GSH) or by acting as a ligandin. This review collects studies that propose GSTP1-1 as a useful biomarker in different fields of application. The most rel…
Glutathione transferase P1-1 (GSTP1-1) is expressed in some human tissues and is abundant in mammalian erythrocytes (here termed e-GST). This enzyme is able to detoxify the cell from endogenous and exogenous toxic compounds by using glutathione (GSH) or by acting as a ligandin. This review collects studies that propose GSTP1-1 as a useful biomarker in different fields of application. The most relevant studies are focused on GSTP1-1 as a biosensor to detect blood toxicity in patients affected by kidney diseases. In fact, this detoxifying enzyme is over-expressed in erythrocytes when unusual amounts of toxins are present in the body. Here we review articles concerning the level of GST in chronic kidney disease patients, in maintenance hemodialysis patients and to assess dialysis adequacy. GST is also over-expressed in autoimmune disease like scleroderma, and in kidney transplant patients and it may be used to check the efficiency of transplanted kidneys. The involvement of GSTP in the oxidative stress and in other human pathologies like cancer, liver and neurodegenerative diseases, and psychiatric disorders is also reported. Promising applications of e-GST discussed in the present review are its use for monitoring human subjects living in polluted areas and mammals for veterinary purpose.
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Opinion + Analysis
Myer fail displays appalling IT, business incompetency
opinion The week-long outage of Myer's website starkly displays the fact that the company and its outsourcing partner IBM had failed to properly develop and test their infrastructure or put in place the most basic disaster recovery and business continuity plan, as well as highlighting the incredible immaturity of online retailing in Australia.
If you are involved in IT infrastructure work at all, you will be aware that this field has very steadily evolved from something of an art back in the 1990's and early 2000's, to something much more akin to a precise, exacting and increasingly standardised science in 2014.
I am sure many of us remember the cowboy days of the 'Wild West' when it seemed only the personal skill of a handful of systems administrators, programmers and database experts could keep any major or minor IT system running on a sustainable basis at all — especially websites prone to traffic spikes. Many minor patch upgrades to operating systems or applications would knock services offline; tiny network routing problems unexpectedly became major headaches, and hard disks would fail on a regular basis and need to be physically replaced.
However, it's safe to say that for most organisations, and for most important applications, those days are long gone.
The onset of virtualisation technologies, especially, has changed the game in terms of application uptime for almost every organisation. Did your application fail after a series of seemingly innocuous setting changes? Boot up an instance you copied five minutes ago, before you made those critical changes which took the live instance down. Has a physical server failed? No problem. Shift the instance onto another server. Instance needs a couple of extra CPUs and some more RAM? No worries. Re-configure and reboot. No problem. Hell, banks such as ING can even deploy whole new banking IT stacks in a matter of hours these days.
In 2014, many disaster recovery and business continuity strategies are built almost wholly on virtualisation. Most major organisations have at least two major datacentres, replicating data between each other continuously. If an earthquake takes out one, the other one goes live. This key concept of disaggregating applications and data from the hardware they run on has solved a billion billion headaches for IT professionals. Many consider VMware's software manna from Heaven. It should be — it costs enough.
Versioning has also solved a heap of problems. No major change should be made to any major piece of code these days without versions being maintained for every step of the way. When something goes live, if it doesn't work even after having been tested in practice, it is normally a cinch to roll back to the previous code and restart.
Cisco executives used to be fond of stating during the 2000's that consistently, in their measurements of the uptime of their network routers, it was the human factor, not system errors, which caused almost all of the downtime. The minute a live human makes a change to a live system, so the saying went, up to a percentage point of annual uptime would be lost. I can't quite remember the precise wording, but you get the picture: Machines work better by themselves. If humans get involved, they always eventually screw things up.
All of this systemisation and mechanisation of the IT process has caused many IT professionals to come to be relatively sanguine about the downtime of important systems. When every application or platform now comes with a giant "undo" button attached to roll back any problematic changes, life starts to feel a lot more predictable; the CEO isn't breathing down your neck every few weeks because important systems are now much more stable. Hell, even Australia's major banks have drastically cut down their number of Severity 1 incidents, an outcome which I think many of their IT staffers used to believe was an impossible dream.
It's for precisely all of these reasons that your writer found the week-long outage of Myer's online retailing site over the Christmas and New Year period so remarkable.
The fact that the website went down at all is hardly surprising. Australians are jumping on online retail with a massive passion right now. The combination of post-Christmas sales with that trend always places strains on such sites, and I'm sure many online retailers in Australia are locked into a cycle of regularly upgrading their web infrastructure to handle growing demand. Every website has its outages, and a few hours here or there, even when there is a great deal of money to be made, isn't a huge deal.
But the fact that Myer's website went down for a week is simply stunning.
If you read the dozens of online articles about the subject, there is very little technical detail available about why this happened or how. IBM has constrained itself to telling ZDNet that there was a "communication breakdown between Internet servers and a software application" (pre-school language if I ever saw it), while Myer itself has actually praised IBM's behaviour during the crisis, telling the Sydney Morning Herald that Big Blue allocated a "critical situation team" to finding the "bug" which caused the issue.
Myer chief executive Bernie Brooks made the extraordinary statement that resolving the technical difficulties was not as simple as "running an automatic clean-up process on a personal computer, or turning a device off and on again".
The problem for any competent IT team is … it damn well should have been.
In 2014, the technology underpinning public-facing websites is very standardised. The relationship between database servers, application servers, webservers, caching systems and the networks and physical servers they run on is very well understood. Over the past decade, the success of a million online retail sites, including very large ones, has meant that keeping such platforms up is very much the bread and butter of IT departments.
Reading between the lines, it appears that one component of Myer's setup had buckled under the unexpected load of the Boxing Day sales, taking down the rest of the site's interlinked systems in a graphic demonstration of the concept that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
But what is puzzling is why this problem kept Myer's site offline for a week. One would have thought that the retailer would have been using a standardised setup that would have avoided such a headache; with components that had been extensively load-tested in production environments at other major sites. If the 'bug' had been recently introduced, Myer should have rolled back its platform to a prior version. If it was a problem of resourcing, Myer should have dialled up the virtual power available to each component. This isn't rocket science, people — it's basic IT practice. Bog boring.
In the worst case scenario, you might expect that Myer would have kept its website offline for a maximum of 24 hours. By that stage the Boxing Day load would have been drastically reduced, additional resources could have been deployed, and the 'bug' issue could have been eliminated. Certainly the retailer had extensive resources available to it — the extensive media coverage alone would have guaranteed that IBM would throw some of its top web experts at the issue, as it apparently did.
The fact that the outage was allowed to continue for a week, during Myer's busiest annual period, indicates that what IBM's crack team found was much more than a software bug. They must have found a nest of non-standard systems which lacked basic business continuity and disaster recovery functionality. Not just one issue, but many cascading issues. Not just a system which was failing under load, but a system which had never been comprehensively tested for the load that a major retailer like Myer could expect.
And probably, worst of all, a system with many links to legacy Myer infrastructure dating back decades. It only takes five minutes at the checkout counter of a traditonal retailer like Myer checking out their archaic point of sale equipment to know that such companies don't like investing in their IT platforms. I should know. A decade ago I used to work as a systems administrator for David Jones.
The other aspect to this situation was how it dramatically highlighted the incredible immaturity of the online retailing scene in Australia.
In the US, online retailing is the absolute norm in many categories. Companies like Amazon have mastered the art of selling products online to such an extent that they now own whole spin-off companies which sell cloud computing platforms to others so that they can build their own mammoth websites.
The offhand comment by Myer chief executive Bernie Brookes during the website outage that Myer only made "less than one percent" of its annual sales from its website was extremely revealing. With the company's annual revenues being about $2.8 billion, this would put Myer's online sales at around $28 million.
Not only does this comment suggest that Myer was not overly discomforted by the fact that it would likely lose millions due to its post-Christmas outage, but it sent a huge signal to consumers that the retailer was not taking the online delivery mechanism seriously.
In many ways this is sheer business lunacy. Not only is the online retail category in Australia booming (consumer electronics retailer Kogan, for example, sold $1 million of stock in just one day on 31 July 2012), but taking orders online allows retailers such as Myer the ability to drastically cut costs out of their expensive retail outlets in prime locations. It doesn't cost much to ship a new Van Heusen business shirt to a customer via Australia Post's new specialised e-parcel delivery platform. I bet it costs a lot more to operate Myer's menswear departments in-store.
Right now, Myer should be using its premium brand and its reputation for customer service to take tiny rivals like Kogan to town. Myer's website should be a pillar of shining excellence, with a 100 percent uptime guarantee and a dazzling array of products in every category, delivered overnight on a crystal plate with complimentary caviar.
Instead, companies like Kogan are constantly eating Myer's lunch. I remember regularly browing books, consumer electronics and clothes in Myer. Now I shop exclusively at the online stores of Amazon, Kogan, Apple or AusPCMarket and The Iconic. It's quicker, easier and if I don't like what I receive, I just send it back.
There is absolutely no doubt that online retail is the future. There is also absolutely no doubt that no major Australian corporation should allow a situation where its website — let alone one that also acted as a point of sale platform — to stay offline for more than a few hours.
Myer's actions over the past week speak to deep technical incompetency within the organisation. It's not clear to what degree its partner IBM is to blame, but I suggest Big Blue should take a close look in the mirror to determine what its part in the debacle was. But beyond that, the scenario also speaks further to the sheer ignorance which Myer's business leadership has when it comes to the massively growing online retail sector.
Myer's corporate jingle, which I can hear echoing in my well-trained gray matter right now due to the stellar efforts of the company's marketing department, is that "Myer is my store". Well, I can tell the company conclusively that there are thousands of Australians, perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands of Australians, who probably feel right now that that is no longer true, due to the events of last week. Myer doesn't make products, after all — it just sells them. And what digital-savvy consumer wants to buy products through a company whose website is plainly closed for business?
Image credit: Eva Rinaldi Celebrity and Live Music Photographer, Creative Commons
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bernie brookes
Peter Kelley 08/01/2014 At 2:46 pm
Having had experience over a decade ago with another major retailers online platform (which was closed down) it requires a major paradigm shift to operate in that world. Crazy stuff like increasing the prices of the top charting CDs are one example. I also remember being on call to babysit the Christmas Hamper ordering functions which needed to be rebooted every few hours or so.
Michael Wyres 08/01/2014 At 2:49 pm
Interesting to note that in recent days, Myer have advertised for a "Test Analyst" and an "Oracle DBA". Clearly changes are afoot internally in the aftermath.
Soth 08/01/2014 At 2:58 pm
The wife smashed the online sales during the break, I do recall hearing some noises coming from the office about Myers website being down and screw you i'll shop somewhere else.
Guess they must have lost a lot of sales then.
elementalest 08/01/2014 At 3:54 pm
My mum told me the other day about her experience with Myer online. When Myer finally came back online she bought some shoes. When they arrived she opened the box to find 2 left shoes. She called them up and after about an hour they sorted something out. She had to pay for another pair and return the 2 lefts to a local store. They patched her through to the store with the shoes in stock so they could sort out shipping them to her. When they answered her she could hear them, but they could not hear her. They hung up and didn't call back.
She had to call them again and go through the same process, paying yet again. Really quite poor.
With incompetency with their online store, quality control, IT systems and customer service. Myer is probably an online store to stay clear of for the foreseeable future, unless you think its worth the potential hassle.
If they told me I had to buy a second pair of shoes to fix THEIR mistake, I would bluntly complain, and then either:
* Demand they fix it at THEIR expense.
* Demand a full refund.
* Complain to consumer affairs.
That they asked her to buy another pair of shoes to fix the problem goes far beyond a technical problem – it's just customer service 'dickheadery'.
BruceH 08/01/2014 At 4:36 pm
Another evolution of becoming a leader in the Online retail environment (maturity process) is understanding how Australian Consumer Law applies in the online world.
RBH 08/01/2014 At 4:45 pm
While it is possible to find decent leadership in Australian business, you do have to scratch pretty hard to find it. What we are good at is deluding ourselves that mates networks, political affiliation and family connections aren't extremely important to doing business in Australia (just ask Malcolm how it works).
Unless you can stitch up the market with barriers to entry however, being dumb/lazy/ignorant can only go on for so long. So when you get a market that was previously stitched up through property deals that now has to compete with the lowest cost businesses, you get Myer. Won't miss you when you're gone – but unfortunately the same directors will end up in other companies being stupid all over again.
Adrian 08/01/2014 At 4:50 pm
Have you ever looked at the Myer online store? I have and I wouldn't bother again. The online store lists a fraction of their stock and the search tools are just awful. The lack of sales via the website says a lot more for the website than for the internet sales channel. Last year I was attracted back to the store with online offer codes only to find that they wont work. Their "flagship" Bourke Street store is appalling from a customer service perspective. Christmas 2012 I stood at a counter will handfuls of goods worth hundred of dollars I wanted to purchase and had two staff ignore me for 15 mins until I gave up. Do you know how memorable it is to go from the elation of buying, to the rage of walking out the store to find something else? The fact I've actually tried to buy stuff at Myer online and over the counter and failed is extraordinary – they just don't care about service or sales. Finally their "Myer One" loyalty program should be some sort of CRM system that knows me, but it doesn't even realise I'm a man. It sends me the same offers for "fashions on the field" and other stuff I have no interest in whatsoever. I've not had one positive (or even neutral) interaction with Myer in 2-3 years. It's sad to see Myer failing so badly.
Daniel 08/01/2014 At 4:51 pm
Whoever's to blame, and given Bernie's offhanded response, you can bet your bottom dollar, it'll boil down to paying peanuts and getting moneys.
Nathan 14/01/2014 At 2:08 pm
I don't think Myer pays peanuts. IBM is not a cheap partner, and their systems are expensive. I think IBM engineers cost a lot more for a day than your typical digital agency ecommerce dev (at least in my time they did!).
The top end of town (Myer, DJs etc) pay large agencies and top tier IT companies like Accenture/IBM etc to build their systems.
This is what amazes me the most. They probably paid TOP dollar, and look at what they got? If they paid peanuts, well, then you could *nearly* understand…
DisgruntledLoner 08/01/2014 At 5:04 pm
These are the same people who are *CONVINCED* that if only the Government would repeal the $1000 GST free threshold for foreign Internet sales we would all come running back to them to do our shopping again. I bet you they wont be mentioning this fiasco of their own making the next time they are lobbying the Government.
TrevorX 10/01/2014 At 3:56 pm
They have apparently 'successfully' lobbied the LNP Government – I read some weeks ago the government has confirmed they will be scrapping the threshold, despite it costing far more to administrate and enforce than they will make from the endeavour. It used to be a $250 threshold – it was increased because of the diminishing returns of administration and enforcement on low value goods.
That is interesting. I know they were holding some sort of inquiry but I wasn´t aware they had made any decision. I don´t suppose you have a link, please?
Ray Herring 08/01/2014 At 5:29 pm
I like where i work, the boss will throw whatever is necessary at the online presence to ensure it works, we have a set up that apparently exceeds any other business (be it a bank or much larger organisation than us) in the data centre that we use in Perth.
When the system goes down, it is down for at most an hour because i check logfiles to see where the issue actually was.
When we put a critical system in place (like invoicing), we get all our staff members to stay behind after 5pm and starting hammering the system with purchases to see how it will handle things.
There's not much in our system that is capable of breaking down. And i'm just 1 person working for the company, i am the sole developer, i am the sole keeper of the POS keys in regards to fixing what gets broken.
It amazes me when there is a team of 20 or so developers for a business that take forever to fix an issue. But then, it all comes down to bureaucratic process that a lot of these business have too, thankfully i have none, the boss says what he wants, i make it happen, version 1 goes into live, if it breaks, it gets fixed, if it causes issues with data, they get fixed along with the program, total fix time, under 1hr.
Scott 08/01/2014 At 9:44 pm
Interesting that IBM were also responsible for the Qld Health payroll system that also failed spectacularly and cost the Qld taxpayers millions of dollars to fix.
chris 09/01/2014 At 9:21 am
nobody ever got sacked for hiring IBM… or so the saying goes…
Thomas 09/01/2014 At 1:34 am
Reality of Australian marketers/marketing and other areas too:
Australia is a country that has lost out in many areas and will continue to do so due to 3 main reasons-innovation, technical skills and education (all way behind). Retail and manufacturing aren't the only industries that have faced challenges due to these 3 reasons; other sectors too. Add the niche strategy that Australia has used for decades via agriculture, mining, etc and that would be the 4th failure-putting all its eggs into 1 basket for decades instead of using the diversification strategy.
Let's start with the tertiary education sector which few years back was Australia's 3rd largest export sector (now 4th). How does it survive? Foreign students especially from China and India though lately South Americans, North Americans and Europeans too. How many Australians have a university qualification? Australia population represents 0.3% of the world population and just 25% of that have a university qualification. How many have a Masters qualification? Not many. Some to most firms in Australia consider Masters overqualified. Well, sad news for 90 to 99% of the businesses in Australia that represent small to medium sized ones – rest of the world have people who have either 2 Master qualifications or PhDs and professional certifications. Unless, good at entrepreneurship, not needed to study. Sadly, for Australia, that has gone behind especially when it's niche strategy also got busted because Australia has been behind with innovations and technologies since World War 2. Also, how many foreign exchange students from Australia land in Asia? Not many compared to ones from US, Canada, UK, etc. So, those countries are learning about Asian cultures where as most Australian foreign students land in US, UK, etc (psychically close countries instead of the psychically distant countries as well). US, UK universities are still the best in the world and most are cheaper than the Australian ones nowadays as Australia's become expensive for that so the universities that are on the same level as Australia are now the challengers. Which are those countries? Canada, Germany, Japan, Singapore, China (mainland and HK), etc. Addition to those, there are the blended learning (online) and MOOCs that are challenging the educational landscape, starting from primary education right unto tertiary one.
Where is Australia for innovations and technologies? The country doesn't encourage much of both including funding which is the reason why Australian startups end up in USA. Australia gets 75% of its GDP through services as it's a developed nation though it has come out with some innovations but not that many compared to the rest of the world even with the basic innovations. Others have gone for coopetition like Apple,Samsung,Google,etc;Netflix and Amazon;Tesla and various automobile firms and so many others where rivals don't just work together but innovate as well. Australia has zilch there. Then there is the blue ocean strategy as well where not only low cost innovations occur but a whole new market segment comes up. Rest of the world so many while Australia hardly any. . Even New Zealand is above Australia when it comes to innovation.
Taking marketing technology/digital marketing as the industry, here are some weaknesses including reasons why Australia has failed (they're all genuine articles that have come up in the last few weeks to couple of months):
In Australia, what would be the reality for Marketing Technology or Digital Marketing? The answer to that question could be seen from a number of genuine sources including articles ranging from the last few weeks to about a year, some of which are (same for other sectors too and not just marketers as shown under 7th and other points):
1) Marketer study warns of skills shortages in digital marketing in Australia
2) Two-thirds of Aus marketers 'aren't effective at digital'
3) Aussie brands failing to embrace digital real-time customer service
4) Lack of skills a threat to projects
5) Is Australia That Far Behind in the Digital Market?
6) Big data policies lacking in Australian and New Zealand organisations: survey
7) Australian firms lagging behind
8 ) Australian retailers are digital-relationship laggards: Capgemini & Sydney University study reveals
9) Australian SMEs not meeting consumers on social media: statistics from Yellow Pages report
10) PayPal: Only 14 Percent of Australian SMEs Are Taking Advantage of Online
11) Latest ABS statistics: many Australian businesses still not engaging online
12) Australian businesses struggling with cross-channel marketing
13) Australian manufacturers are failing to invest in productivity raising IT: study
14) Average of 44 small businesses closing their doors each day, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics data
15) Experts say Australian business being left behind
16) Small Business Left Behind As Australian Business Confidence Lifts: NAB
17) Australian small businesses are late to the online marketing party
18) Too little, too late: Is Australia losing the online retail game?
Some of the reasons for the above could be seen from the following:
1) Can Australia's education system meet demand for digital marketers? (Even top universities of Australia are way behind compared to counterparts from US, UK, Canada, etc where students can take subjects from different schools like Arts, Engineering, Business, etc. Additionally, some Australian universities still teach traditional subjects at universities [The two university comparison examples can be University of Sydney via Commerce degree and WUSTL of US both via Marketing major]).
2) Aussie women lag behind men in numeracy skills
3) Aussies spend big on technology, but don't know how to use it
4) Small Business Nation 2013 – Around 90 to 99% of the businesses in Australia are small to medium sized ones though most are neither innovative nor have much of technology (not tech savvy)
5) Australia is Well Behind Other OECD Countries in Pre-School Education
6) University rankings show Asian rise and Australian slip
7) Australian students slipping behind in maths, reading: OECD report
8 ) If Australia Could Get Over Its 'Fear of Failure' Tech Startup Firms Could Contribute $109B to Economy by 2033, Create 540,000 New Jobs – Google Study
9) Australia is no innovation leader: GE (connected to Australia lifts ranking in Global Innovation Index, but still lags behind New Zealand).
10) Australia at risk of squandering expat expertise as brain drain hits reverse
11) Is Australia Less Tech-Savvy than We Thought?
(More of the marketing weaknesses in last 1 year and a bit on the logistics and supply chain in relation to Australia can be found under http://loveroftechnologyandbusiness.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/reality-of-australian-marketers-and.html . It also has the components or landscapes of Marketing Technology and Digital Marketing). As mentioned under that, Brand valuation could be seen via BrandZ of WPP as well as Interbrand of Omnicom and brandirectory.com that is part of Brand Finance. The top brand from Australia would be Woolworths ranked in the 100s way behind the ones from US, UK, Canada, India, China, etc. Woolworths and Coles duopoly in the supermarket sector though IGA, Aldi and Costco are 3 other players there ( https://theconversation.com/factcheck-is-our-grocery-market-one-of-the-most-concentrated-in-the-world-16520). Zara as well as others are knocking DJ and Myer ( http://www.fool.com.au/2013/08/14/clothing-retailers-be-afraid-very-afraid/ ). All of them have failed with innovation and technology (just like most Australian industrial sector) which can be seen under http://www.afr.com/p/australian_retailers_stumped_by_meuCL7di6LxiZG4VotdITL .
US at least did something with 3D and 4D printing-part of disruptive innovation that could challenge emerging and developing nations;what has Australia come out with.US manufacturing also fell into recession 30 years back but came out 10 years later with innovation-Intel is 1 proof of that and that video is 'Made in USA' under America Revealed under PBS.org. Innovation took over 30 years back from customer centric approach started by P&G,IBM,etc that went on to Google,FB,etc and that's world's top firms and ones that survive depend on innovation and technologies. Also, if going to say robotics, well most jobs that exist today won't exist in 10 years time thanks to technologies-need to adapt and change. China, Japan, etc have robot chefs. Self service revolution has existed for more than a century-ATMs, kiosks at airports, etc as well as retail sector are proof of that+3D and 4D printing +blended learning that has gone online as well as MOOCs which includes Coursera and Udacity are changing educational landscape from primary to tertiary education [US,UK and Australian top unis have their courses there and it can be done for free without certificates but if want certificates, they are cheaper than traditional education though not all courses are under the MOOCs] and so on including hybrid trade shows. DVD rentals are backward technologies that rest of the world came up with a decade or 2 ago as there are Netflix, Hulu,etc.Australia's way behind in technology and innovations-both marketing and supply chain + also transportation as it's got on to mobile payments which rest of the developed world have been on for about a decade-some of the emerging nations have been on it for 5 to 10 years also.
SMEMatt 09/01/2014 At 1:30 pm
There are a couple of huge gaps in technology training in Australia caused by some gov decisions. One of the largest trainers of engineers of specialties in Australia was sold off and since sale has killed off its training program and had a stagnating effect on entire section of the economy(I will let you guess who this is). The largest training training organization in Australia has rapidly been privatizing out function that previously had training programs attached. While both these activities had positive gains for the short term budget position, Howard built a surplus on one and the other has helped reduce the defense budget, it has long term ramification for the overall economy. You know long have a surplus of skilled workers in a variety of fields which creates skill shortages. When you have skill shortages these worker have the option of chasing higher wages in established industries that desperately need their skills. Without this skill shortage you would have a much larger quantity of skilled people willing to take a punt on something new and innovative.
Mike 09/01/2014 At 7:09 am
How long have they been outsourced to IBM? Ten years? More perhaps.
Remember the job of the outsourcer is to bid low and win the work at first, then strip the costs and service out over as many years a possible with the smallest possible investment in upgrading and maintaining the infrastructure.
During the last few years of the ten year outsourcing deal, IBM stand there (and this is a quote from a Global Services contract negotiator) "with a net, scooping up the money that falls out of the client…"
Not much wonder it took a week to fix – they are probably running ten year old kit, that was architechted in first generation web technologies and IBM have never updated it…
Oh, and I don't know what companies the author is referring to as having all this stuff running so smoothly and virtualised with automatic failover to spare datacentres etc etc, but in my experience most companies are still struggling to get even close to that IT nirvana, and are usually stuck with a hodge-podge of technologies, little in the way of real enterprise strategy, and outages are far to common. And I work in big, transactional, enterprise environments (almost 30 years now).
RPOS 09/01/2014 At 11:29 am
The term I would use is: Rabbits in headlights.
Not only does it shine a light on the technical problem, but gives us a view into the blindingly short term / head in the sand thinking of the Myer board and management team.
Mr Brookes talks about digital only making up 1% ($28million) of it's $2.8b revenues, however, he (and the Myer board) clearly misses the point that the opportunity cost of not investing properly in its digital operations 5yrs ago is that the digital revenues could have been more like 5-10% (up to $280m) of overall revenues in FY14. All without cannibalising the in-store revenues. Essentially sucking money out of the digital mkt and away from other online retailers plus getting better yields from the digital revenue.
Myer basically gambled away any brand leverage it had with its younger audience long before the Myer-online-fail over the holidays. The overall user-experience of the Myer online store is second rate at best. It has been like this for years. If Myer's digital operations were seen as innovative by the general consumer base, more people would have shopped @ Myer instead of seeking out bargains via the major overseas brands (ASOS, Amazon, etc…) or via the new long tail of digital only storefronts that now make up the new e-High-Streets in Australia.
Myer and DJ's basically thumbed their noses at Australian consumers years ago. Personally, I haven't shopped at either store in years. Neither has my wife. She buys everything (and I mean everything) online. I see Myer & DJ's as overpriced, underwhelming, over-hyped dinosaurs from a former generation. The news over the holidays was hardly surprising and really was just a matter of time before it happened.
Great article Renai.
RPOS 09/01/2014 At 12:40 pm
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/companies/online-sector-delivers-a-christmas-cracker/story-fn91v9q3-1226797684464
For those without access:
[snipped by Renai due to copyright breach]
NOW HERE IS THE KICKER….
"The strong momentum also continued through the Boxing Day sales and into January," he said.
EXCEPT FOR MYER!!!!
Brendan 09/01/2014 At 2:54 pm
These are the same people (like Uncle Harvey) that are claiming overseas sales are murdering their business.
It's not that overseas businesses are taking local sales. It's that local businesses are incapable of making them to begin with.
The market exists and will spend, regardless of whether local businesses choose to engage or not; you can't blame overseas sellers, for responding to supply said market.
When you can order something from a US store, and have it delivered before an Australian one can even fulfil the order to begin with; there's no excuse. :)
BruceH 09/01/2014 At 10:30 pm
I have a rule or two about this, if I shop at a B&M Store and the staff are helpful, knowledgeable and actually help me make the decision with clear information (i,e, not try and bitch-pump me), I purchase there – and I have openly yelled in the store at Bitch-Pumpers. I spent $5k with JB HIFI in the past 12 months because they helped me with information beyond the research I had done myself. The other rule is if I want it there and then and they have it in stock, I buy.
HN shit me blue when they want me to pay the "bought in Aus tax" AND wait 6 weeks for delivery. Taking the piss!
David 10/01/2014 At 5:12 pm
Myer, David Jones, Coles Online, The Good Guys, and Jay Jay's online stores all use IBM's WebSphere Commerce (WCS) platform with solutions implemented by IBM themselves.
The code for the WCS platform is horrific and terribly outdated, I know I've worked on it first hand. If you don't believe me (and you have even a basic understanding of web application development) view the HTML source code for any of the above sites and what you'll find is an absolute abomination of inline JavaScript and hilarious developer comments still in the production code – and no sign whatsover of any modern web application development practices.
The maintenance of these sites is largely off-shored to IBM teams in India who have a very basic understand of the WCS product and when things go wrong, lack the deep technical knowledge to work through the spaghetti code and find the problem.
The issues with the Myer site were troubleshooted unsuccessfully (and unsurprisingly) for days by a team in India before a local Australian resource with considerable talent resolved the issue which I know was a largely trivial bug that shouldn't have existed in the first place.
From my own experience, the idea that IBM had a "crack team" of experts looking into this issue is laughable. It would have been a week of finger pointing, lengthy conference calls with people in India and various managers jumping up and down.
But I guess it works in IBM's favour, sell retailers a cumbersome and flaky e-commerce stack and then hold them to ransom to maintain it and fix problems.
Rainier Wolfcastle 12/01/2014 At 6:50 am
IBM = I've Been to Meetings
Mark Foxton 13/01/2014 At 9:01 am
The lament about Australian online websites is not well grounded. There are many great websites that handle massive volumes of sales and content and perform as expected. It is interesting that most of the failures chronicled in the press are with big IT providers who are overseas focussed with Australia being a very small part of their revenue. If you want local focus look to the better smaller providers and success can follow and disaster be avoided.
Dave 13/01/2014 At 11:00 am
This smells a lot like JC Penny 10 years ago AND we all know where JCP is now. Online retailing is here to stay and IS NOT the future it is the present. Time to get with the times Myers OR be left in the dust.
best deals on tvs 13/01/2014 At 3:31 pm
Hi there, always i used to check weblog posts here early in the morning,
Allen Baranov 20/01/2014 At 10:24 pm
Lots of negative comments so here is a positive one. Though, maybe not what you are expecting.
My experiences with Amazon:
1. I ordered a DVD with them when they had just opened up. The DVD got lost in the mail. They replaced it for me… it got lost again…they replaced it again.
2. I got confused with their shopping system and used 1-click shopping when I really wanted to put an order together. By the time I had realised what I had done (about 3 minutes) and contacted their support centre to ask them to reverse the order – it had already been posted and was on its way. I explained my problem and how I had wanted to combine goods together to save on shipping costs. They paid all my shipping for the other goods.
Exceptional service for two issues that were not even their doing. Inspiring. Every industry that Amazon has entered has either really improved their services or died off. Barnes and Noble owned the book industry until Amazon came along and they had to get smart to stay in business and they did.
I'm fairly new to Australia and not really a Myers customer but it seems that they generally do not offer great service off-line and especially (obviously) online. This is an opportunity for others to come in and – if they do it right, and if the people of Australia really give them a chance – to make a change in the industry before the big stores can right their ship.
Progress..
sport-bra 25/07/2016 At 12:28 pm
May I simply say what a comfort to uncover an individual
who truly knows what they're talking about on the web.
You actually understand how to bring a problem to light
and make it important. More people have to look at this and understand
this side of the story. It's surprising you aren't more popular since you

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Additional table slowing down mySQL execution time I noticed that adding an additional table to the query, even if it is not used, slows down the execution greatly.
Originally, I had the following queries:
SELECT p.ID, c.description
FROM potatoes pp,  plants p, cells c
WHERE pp.sampleID = p.id
AND p.cellSampleID = c.id
AND p.ID REGEXP "^A-11"
AND c.number = 1;

and
SELECT p.ID, c.description
FROM potatoesNEW ppn,  plants p, cells c
WHERE ppn.sampleID = p.id
AND p.cellSampleID = c.id
AND p.ID REGEXP "^A-11"
AND c.number = 1;

Both of these take about 30 seconds to execute. I wanted to unite them into one query, so I used
SELECT p.ID, c.description
FROM potatoes pp, potatoesNEW ppn, plants p, cells c
WHERE (pp.sampleID = p.id OR ppn.sampleID = p.id)
AND p.cellSampleID = c.id
AND p.ID REGEXP "^A-11"
AND c.number = 1;

There, the execution time suddenly took so long that I aborted the query after about 5 minutes.
I thought, the OR might be slowing the query down, but after I changed the query to the following:
SELECT p.ID, c.description
FROM potatoes pp, potatoesNEW ppn, plants p, cells c
WHERE pp.sampleID = p.id
AND p.cellSampleID = c.id
AND p.ID REGEXP "^A-11"
AND c.number = 1;

it still took so long that I had to abort it after a few minutes. How can it be that just the mentioning of the additional table potatoesNEW slows down the query so much, although, when used in separate queries, both only take a few seconds?

A: You don't seem to want any columns-results from either "potatoes" nor "potatoesNEW", but just want to check that the record from "plant" exists in either of them. You can do that directly in the SQL using EXISTS:
SELECT p.ID, c.description
  FROM plants p, cells c
 WHERE p.cellSampleID = c.id
   AND p.ID REGEXP "^A-11"
   AND c.`number` = 1
   AND (EXISTS (SELECT 1
                  FROM potatoes pp
                 WHERE pp.sampleID = p.id)
       OR
        EXISTS (SELECT 1
                  FROM potatoesNEW ppn
                 WHERE ppn.sampleID = p.id)
       );

Or as I mentioned in a comment using UNION:
SELECT p.ID, c.description
  FROM potatoes pp,  plants p, cells c
 WHERE pp.sampleID = p.id
   AND p.cellSampleID = c.id
   AND p.ID REGEXP "^A-11"
   AND c.`number` = 1;
UNION
SELECT p.ID, c.description
  FROM potatoesNEW ppn,  plants p, cells c
 WHERE ppn.sampleID = p.id
   AND p.cellSampleID = c.id
   AND p.ID REGEXP "^A-11"
   AND c.`number` = 1

Note that number is a keyword, so it needs backticks.

You're using old JOIN syntax:
SELECT p.ID, c.description
  FROM plants p, cells c
 WHERE p.cellSampleID = c.id

New syntax will look like this:
SELECT p.ID, c.description
  FROM plants p
  JOIN cells c ON p.cellSampleID = c.id

Making the EXISTS SQL into:
SELECT p.ID, c.description
  FROM plants p
  JOIN cells c ON p.cellSampleID = c.id
 WHERE p.ID REGEXP "^A-11"
   AND c.`number` = 1
   AND (EXISTS (SELECT 1
                  FROM potatoes pp
                 WHERE pp.sampleID = p.id)
       OR
        EXISTS (SELECT 1
                  FROM potatoesNEW ppn
                 WHERE ppn.sampleID = p.id)
       );

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
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Interactive Entertainm...
Review - U.S. Navy Fig...
Unfortunately, very few ever get the privilege of serving their nation as naval aviators, but Electronic Arts has done a slam-bang job of providing you a way of experiencing the visceral thrills of being a carrier pilot, in the form of US Navy Fighters (USNF). USNF is an extremely ambitious product. If you have the hardware to supports its more innovative elements, this game will really blow you away. Here's a professional's checklist on the design:
Flight Model
This is a very subjective area, and as a real naval aviator I have yet to find a really good flight model in any computer simulation. However, I think the folks at EA have struck an admirable balance between realism and playability. The flight model doesn't get in the way of a player being able to accomplish the mission, but it gives the player a taste of some of the unique difficulties associated with flying "off the boat." I particularly enjoyed rolling into the groove and calling the ball. My first landing resulted in the Landing Signal Officer grading me with a fair pass. Not the kind of landing grade that will earn you top landing honors at the end of the cruise, but, hey, we survived.
Combat Realism
This is what a combat flight simulation is all about and Electronic Arts has hit the bullseye dead center with USNF. I've flown the canned training missions and I'm impressed. My next door neighbor, who did ten years in the Air Force as a Weapons System Operator (WSO) in F-4's, watched me do a night mission over downtown Kiev, where I had to take out a hardened bunker, and he was mightily impressed by the game's realism. All the elements of modern naval aerial combat are here . . . the carrier, the MIG's, the SAM's, ZSU's, you name it. You won't lack for challenge with this game.
There are several modes of play in USNF. You can play the canned training missions, you can design your own single missions, or play a campaign as your favorite alter-ego. The campaign mode also includes some interesting multimedia elements where actors play out the campaign in progress. Unfortunately, the characters tend to "ham it up" a bit much for my taste and the uniforms are not quite right, but it does add an interesting element to the game.
Exterior View/Scanning
Finally someone has implemented a way to keep your head on a swivel that actually feels natural. By pressing up, down, left and right on the coolie hat on your stick, your visual lookout will scroll smoothly in a completely natural visual scanning motion. There is no sense of disorientation, such as that experienced in Falcon 3.0's padlock mode. This one is the real deal and I like it . . . a lot!
Phenomenal soundtrack with excellent digital effects. If you have a 16 bit card, especially if you have a wave table add-on, you won't be disappointed. The digitized voice assistance is really a major innovation in the design, and should be paid careful attention to during missions.
To really run this game right you need a Pentium 90, with 8 MB of RAM and a fast video system . . . nothing less will really take advantage of all the game's elements and do it justice. While the game will run on 386's and low-end 486's with 4 MB of RAM, in 300x200 mode with details turned off (and digital sounds for the 386), I do not recommend it. Even on a 486-66 with 4 MB RAM you will lose the texture mapping of the Eisenhower, the coastlines and cities and it will still run slow. A 486-66 with 8 MB of RAM and a fast video system can run in 640x480, and is the real starting point for this game. The game is about high powered machines, and it requires no less of the player's equipment.
Compatibility Concerns
USNF runs in protected mode via the PharLap DOS extender, and may not be compatible with every type of BIOS ROM shadowing, though you can adjust your CMOS settings to handle most situations. Also, if you have a 4 MB machine you can't run USNF from a compressed drive if you're running both DOS 6.2 or higher and Doublespace. If that's your situation you'll have to create a hard disk partition for USNF.
Hook down, gear down, call the ball . . .
For anyone who ever dreamed of being a naval aviator and taking it downtown to the bad guys . . . this one is for you! Even with the heavy hardware requirements, and some niggling complaints about the game . . . I really like this one. This one rates an O.K. three wire . . . a perfect trap.
Download the demo for U.S. Navy Fighters
Created 2 months ago by Swizzle
Updated 2 months ago by Swizzle


text:
Q: How to choose OO design patterns for JavaScript By OO I mean classical OO.  I keep going back and forth between defining my "classes" ( javascript does not have traditional classes ) using the module pattern to provide privacy and using object literals to create a collection of "public statics".
I have no guiding force when I create "classes" that lets me determine what type of organization to use.  Well, besides the fact that my code passes both jshint and jslint w/ no options set.
I'm working w/ about 1500 lines of code so I need  a "guiding force" before the code becomes un-manageable and I have to scrap it.
I am well aware of the different ways to write "classes" in JavaScript.  Those taught by JavaScript Web Applications written by Alex MacCaw as well as the numerous ways listed here on SO.
However, application wise, I just don't know what method to use.
The simplest seems to be a collection of methods and variables in an object literal like this:
var public_statics = {
    public_func: function () {},
    public_var: "hello"
}

and the most complicated seems to be - an IIFE.
(function(){
    var private_var;
    function private_func(){
    }
})();

How do I know which one to use or the multitude of in-between variations?
For a concrete example: How about for a controller in the MVC.
Currently ( and some what randomly chosen), I implement a controller like this:
var Co = {};
Co.Controller = function(){
    // 'classes' from Mo are called here
    // 'classes' from Su are called here
}

then I tack on other Control related method to Co.
How do I choose what style of OO to use?

Updated
My library is currently divided between 4 namespaces:
var Mo = {},
    Vi = {},
    Co = {},
    Su = {};

Model, View, and Controller should be self-explanatory and (Su)pport is for all "classes" not contained in the MVC, for example DOM access, Effects, Debug code, etc.
What OO style should I use to further organize this library/code?
Controller "Class" example:
/**
 **  Controller
 */

Co.Controller = function (o_p) {
    var o_p_string_send;
    Su.time();
    o_p = Mo[o_p.model].pre(o_p);
    if (o_p.result !== 'complete') {
        o_p_string_send = JSON.stringify(o_p);
        Su.time();
        //Su.log(o_p_string_send);
        Co.serverCall('pipe=' + o_p_string_send, function (o_p_string_receive) {
            Su.time();
            //Su.log(o_p_string_receive);
            o_p.server = JSON.parse(o_p_string_receive);
            Mo[o_p.model].post(o_p);
            Su.time(true);
            Su.log('Server time: [' + o_p.server.time + ']');
        });
    }
};

A: IFFEs are often confusing to read and personally, I have no idea why they have become so mainstream. I think code should be easy to read and concise. Attempting to simulate language behavior that is not part of the language specification is often-times a very dumb idea.
For example, JavaScript does not support multiple inheritance, polymorphism, or many other interesting paradigms. So a lot of times, we see people trying to create these crazy ways of sorta'-kinda' having polymorphism or private members, etc in JS. I think this is a mistake.
I'm currently working as a sort of hobby project on a high-performance JS data structures library (I'm trying to outperform Google's closure and a bunch of others). Coming from a C++ and Java background, I always like to make stuff classes and I like inheritance, etc, etc. Let me share some code-snippets with you. At first, I thought I was being clever because I was writing stuff like this:
function __namespace(n, v) {
    return {"meta":{"namespace":n,"version":v}};
}

var FJSL = FJSL == undefined ? new __namespace("Fast JavaScript Library", 0.1) : FJSL;

__using = function(parent, child) {
    clazz = new child();
    clazz.super = new parent();
    if (clazz.super == undefined) return clazz;
    for (a in clazz.super) {
        for (b in clazz) {
            if (a == "constructor" || b == "constructor") continue;
            if (clazz[b] === clazz.super[a]) continue;
            if (a == b && typeof clazz[b] != typeof clazz.super[a]) throw "Typesafety breached on '" + a + "' while trying to resolve polymorphic properties.";
            if (a == b && typeof clazz[b] == typeof clazz.super[a]) {
                clazz["_"+a] = clazz.super[a];
            } else if (clazz[a] == undefined) {
                clazz[a] = clazz.super[a];
            }
        }
    }
    return clazz;
};

And I was using it like so (in the example of a simple Queue):
FJSL.Array = function() {
    this.data = [];

    this.contains = function(idx, element) {
        for (var i = idx; i < this.data.length; i++) {
            if (this.data[i] === element)
                return i;
        }
        return -1;
    }

    this.size = function() {
        return this.data.length;
    }
}

FJSL.Queue = function() {
    return __using(FJSL.Array,
    function() {
        this.head = 0;
        this.tail = 0;

        this.enqueue = function(element) {
            this.data[this.tail++] = element;
        };

        this.dequeue = function() {
            if (this.tail == this.head)
                return undefined;
            return this.data[this.head++];
        };

        this.peek = function() {
            return this.data[this.head];
        };

        this.size = function() {
            return this.tail - this.head;
        };

        this.contains = function(element) {
            return this._contains(this.head, element);
        };
    }
)};

You'll note how I'm sort of faking inheritance (a Queue uses an Array, har har, I'm clever). However, this is absolutely insane to a) read and b) understand. I couldn't help but be reminded of this meme:

Let me show you functionally equivalent code without me trying to do all this fancy pre- and post-processing:
FJSL.Queue = function(opts) {
    this.options = opts;
    this.head = 0;
    this.tail = 0;
    this.data = [];
};

FJSL.Queue.prototype = {
    add : function(element) {
        this.data[this.tail++] = element;
    },

    enqueue : function(element) {
        this.data[this.tail++] = element;
    },

    dequeue : function() {
        if (this.tail == this.head) {
            return undefined;
        }
        return this.data[this.head++];
    },

    peek : function() {
        return this.data[this.head];
    },

    size : function() {
        return this.tail - this.head;
    },

    contains : function(element) {
        // XXX: for some reason a for : loop doesn't get JIT'ed in Chrome
        for (var i = this.head; i < this.data.length; i++) {
            if (this.data[i] === element) {
                return true;
            }
        }
        return false;
    },

    isEmpty : function() {
        if (size) {
            return true;
        }
        return false
    },

    clear : function() {
        this.data = [];
    }
};

Obviously, I'd have to duplicate the prototype constructor for any other structures that may use an array, but what I'm trying to accomplish is  so much clearer, even a novice JS programmer can tell what's going on. Not only that, but if people want to modify the code, they know exactly where to go and what to do.
My suggestion is don't get caught up in the insanity of trying to make JS behave like C++ or Java. It's never going to. And yeah, you can fake inheritance and private/public/protected members, but JS was never intended for that. I think the repercussion of having this kind of bloated code (that attempts to simulate non-standard behavior) is very taxing on high-performance web-apps and their ilk.
In short, I suggest using an object literal:
var public_statics = {
    public_func: function () {},
    public_var: "hello"
}

It's easy to understand, easy to modify, and easy to extend. If your system is brittle enough to crash and burn if someone accidentally changes some "private" variable, you simply need to document it.

A: I personally prefer the IIFE simply because you can make methods private.  Otherwise, you will have to do some sort of weird convention with underscores.
Furthermore, stylitically, if you encapsulate it within a function, you have the option of making semicolons - its plain old javascript.  Requiring each line in the object literal to end with a comma seems funny to me.

A: Because JavaScript the language itself is implemented in many different ways, i.e. it is different for each browser, you already have to begin with inconsistency.
JavaScript does not directly support classical inheritance. ( It supports prototypical inheritance ).
For my needs I will choose not to implement classical inheritance.  This is not ideal b.c. classical inheritance allows you to directly implement best practice OO - encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism.
However I prefer to wait until the language directly supports OO via classical inheritance or similar.
In the mean time I will just use the basic prototypical inheritance to help enable code re-use.


Carissa Fairbrother: Is Lotto harmless or hurtful?
Sunday, 14 April 2019, 6:26p.m.
This week on Smart Money we discuss the hype behind the magic numbers and power ball.
Lotto has become the weekly entertainment for many Kiwis but is it really as harmless as it seems?
We get the inside word from financial advisor Carissa Fairbrother.
Panel: Should the police be permanently armed?


text:
In a Time of Terror, Protest Is Patriotism
Jim Hightower,
Hightower Lowdown
I'm flying a flag these days. The Stars and Stripes, Old Glory, America's flag -- OUR flag! I've strapped it to my '97 made-in-the-USA Ford Escort, and I'm zipping around town as proudly as anyone else in the red, white and blue, like some modern-day Patrick Henry on wheels.
As with so many others, I'm flying our flag out of an assertive, perhaps defiant pride -- for I am proud, damned proud, to be an American citizen, and, in this time of true woe and deep national trauma, I'll be damned to hell before I meekly sit by and allow this symbol of our nation's founding ideals -- "liberty and justice for all" -- to be captured and defiled by reactionary autocrats, theocrats, xenophobic haters, warmongers, America-firsters, corporatists, militarists, fearmongers, political weasels, and other rank opportunists.
Our flag is no piece of sheeting for authoritarians to hide behind as they rend our hard-won liberties in the name of "protecting" us from a dangerous world. We Americans are not that frightened. Nor is our flag some bloody rag to be waved by politicians hoping to whip us into such a lust for vengeance that they can turn our people's republic into a garrisoned state, armed to the teeth and mired in a quasi-religious war that George W. defines as "this crusade" to "rid the world of the evildoers." We Americans are not that blind.
Our flag is the banner of freedom seekers, risk takers, democracy builders, rebels, pioneers, mavericks, barnraisers, and hellraisers -- a liberty-loving people who are naturally suspicious of authority and able to detect that the real threat to our land of the free comes not from afar, but from within.
Our flag is made of strong democratic cloth, artfully designed and painstakingly stitched together over 225 years -- liberty by individual liberty, people's movement by people's movement. Our flag embodies a democratic continuum that connects us today to the pamphleteers and Sons of Liberty, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, the abolitionists and the suffragists, Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass, the populists and Wobblies, Mother Jones and Joe Hill, Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez.
"The first job of a citizen is to keep your mouth open," wrote German Nobel Prize winner Gunther Grass. The Powers That Be are not interested in having a national conversation, but I believe we must push for one from the grassroots up. Open your mouth -- "Hey, I'm an American, red-blooded and true, and here's what that means to me; what do you think?"
Americans desperately need to talk -- about what our society is, where we're headed, what kind of future we're creating for the next generation. Our fellow citizens are eager to engage. Early one morning, as I sat in a coffee shop writing two days after the terrorist assault, a fellow in a suit and tie stepped over to me. I didn't know him, but he said that he occasionally read my weekly columns and felt the need to acknowledge something: "I mostly don't agree with you," he blurted, "but I guess today, we're all Americans."
Indeed. Let's talk.
What astonishes me is not that the Powers That Be would want to stifle any talk that doesn't assert lock-step "patriotism," but that so many weak-kneed progressive leaders have counseled hiding our light under a bushel and withdrawing from the noble field of protest.
For example, an internal memo to Sierra Club leaders mewed, "We strongly need to avoid any perceptions that we are being disrespectful to President Bush." Hello? Protest is not disrespectful. It is the essence of American democracy, of America itself, and it is especially essential when a muddleheaded guy like George W. sits in the President's chair, totally dependent on the military establishment and corporate elite, thrusting our sons and daughters (theirs won't have to go) into an unlimited and secretive world war against terrorists supposedly entrenched in 60 nations, while simultaneously rushing to Congress with a package of 51 "emergency" antiterrorism bills to put some convenient crimps and cuts in America's Bill of Rights.
If we don't protest now, when will it matter? Yet the Sierra Club's memo-writer urges that we shut our mouths for fear of being deemed unpopular: "Now is the time for rallying together as a nation," he whimpered. Excuse me, but rally together for what, exactly?
How to Destroy Democracy
Terrorists have no ability to destroy our democracy -- but we do, simply by surrendering it, by keeping our mouths shut while it is dismantled by the authorities.
"America is being tested," bellowed the political and media establishments after September 11. True, but the test is not merely of whether the military has the brute force to smite our enemies, though this will certainly continue to be mightily tested in the far-flung, open-ended offensive drawn up by the Bushites. The real test is going to be of our democratic resolve. Will we citizens settle for life in a guarded and gated corporate empire?
"Everything has changed," we're told. No, it hasn't.
This pitiful wail by politicians and pundits went up as quickly as the Trade Center towers fell, and now it's the prevailing excuse used by those who tell us that to defend freedom we must surrender freedoms, to stop terrorist assaults on our democracy we must militarize our society.
Republicans are the harshest of the newly assertive autocrats in Washington, but Democrats, too, were quick to accept the post-September 11 conventional wisdom that liberties now must be set aside: "We need to find a new balance between freedom and security," asserted House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt just days after the attack, adding ominously: "We are in a new world."
No, we're not. We're in the exact same world. It has just come a lot closer to us, that's all, introducing itself to us in a terrible and personal way that we've basically been uninformed about until now. Yet we are not some backward, powerless people who must flee to our caves.
The adjustment we most need to make is not in our freedoms, but in our understanding of who else is in this big world with us and what it will take for all of us to get along. At a minimum, getting along will require that our nation's political and economic policies begin to reflect our people's democratic values -- economic fairness, social justice, equal opportunity for all.
In practical terms, this means putting America on the side of the poor and repressed people of the world, rather than continuing to stand alongside the thugs, dictators, corporatists, and monarchists who prosper on the misery of an increasingly angry Third World majority.
Far from building on these strengths, however, the Powers That Be are appealing solely to our nativism and pessimism, demanding that we withdraw into Fortress America and meekly allow them to deal secretively, paternalistically, and cataclysmically with an uppity world.
But it's our world, too, that they plan to up-end. The same old pols like Dick Cheney, Trent Lott, and Denny Hastert -- who built their political careers on the hackneyed line that the ten scariest words in the English language are "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you" -- are now squinting into the TV cameras and, with tight-lipped greasy smiles, saying, "We're here to protect you."
A mess of the "protection" they have in mind is collected into a hellish handbasket that they've labeled the "Provide Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act." Yes, believe it or not, they've cynically constructed an acronym that spells: PATRIOT.
Clever, what? T.J., Jimmy Madison, Old Ben, Tom Paine, the original George W., and all the other founding patriots would gag on this piece of privacy-invading, liberty-denying nastiness. It brings back racial profiling with a vengeance; it makes wiretapping and Internet surveillance a free-for-all; it authorizes the indefinite detention of anyone "suspected" of any terrorist connection, without the nicety of charging them with anything, and denies them any appeal; it requires your bank to spy on you and to report to federal agents any "unusual transaction" (such as depositing or withdrawing as little as $5,000); it leaves it to the FBI, CIA, and other bastions of authoritarianism to define terrorist activity (protest at a WTO meeting?) ... and so much more.
If only that were the end of it. They also propose to "unleash" the CIA. (When, exactly, was it leashed, and to what?) They want our super-snoop agency to be officially authorized to assassinate people -- just like the terrorists do. They want it to return to what George Bush the Elder calls the "dirty business" of espionage, which is to say hiring "unsavory people" as CIA agents to do what needs to be done (Daddy Bush would know about unsavory, for he was V.P. when our CIA financed Osama bin Laden).
Now along comes Bush the Younger with a dream-come-true for those who yearn for more police power in our lives. It's called the Office of Homeland Security, and he's given it powers to match the National Security Agency and a vague mandate that he glibly defines as "to make sure that anybody who wants to harm America will have a hard time doing so."
The OHS was created by executive fiat to be a White House agency. It will have no congressional oversight of its activities or budget. In addition, Bush has unilaterally decided to establish a "Homeland Defense Command" within the Pentagon, empowering the military to gain a foothold over civilian authority and to act against U.S. citizens at home.
If this in not enough democracy-quashing firepower, Congress is also contemplating approval of a longtime civil-liberties no-no: the national ID card. Welcome to your "new world." It's really no big deal, says Republican subcommittee chairman George Gekas, who notes that something already exists that you might not know about: the National Standard for the Driver's License/Identification Card.
It might be one thing if any or all of these measures would actually stop terrorism, but even their proponents won't make such a claim.
It's being done not because it makes sense, but simply because there is an urgency to "do something," or at least appear to do something, and the easiest thing to do in a national crisis is always to reach for the hammer and cuffs to shut down everything from people's movements to their mouths. Well, after all, say the politicians and media with near unanimity, we're at war.
No, we're not. Yes, our forces are in "hot pursuit" of the maniacal fiends who, in a grotesque perversion of Islam (practicing a violent, puritanical, fringe version called Wahhabism), have exploded our buildings, our people, and our comforting sense of isolation from an unsettled world's religious wars. And yes, George W. has declared us to be "at war" with these murderous zealots.
Good for him -- except, of course, that a president has no authority to declare war. This is more than a Constitutional nicety; it is basic to the rule of law, which in turn is an absolutely essential underpinning of democracy -- in fact, the founders took on King George III in the Revolutionary War so we'd be governed by law, not kings.
Attorney General John Ashcroft, never one to contend for a civil-liberties award, has been especially pushy in his assertion of martial-law-style executive power, stamping his tiny feet and demanding at one point that Congress pass his police-powers package "by next week."
Likewise, the media, Congress, and the White House have clamored to censor those who have dared to dissent or diverge from the orthodox line. For example, when comedian Bill Maher expressed some unapproved thoughts on television, President Bush's mouthpiece Ari Fleischer said: "Americans ... need to watch what they say, watch what they do."
Any time the authorities lock arms and assert that "everything has changed," grab your copy of the Bill of Rights and rush to the barricades.
What should we ask our government to do?
On the military front, the United States has no choice but to go after the bastards. Terrorism ain't beanbags. The ruthless mass murderers smacked our nation and all of civilization right in the face, and turning the other cheek only means we'll get smacked again.
There's no subtlety to their agenda. However, there must subtlety be to ours. The trick in smacking back is in knowing who "they" are, where they are, and particularly in smacking them without slaughtering the innocents they hide among. This requires a scalpel, not a sledgehammer, and it requires a long, patient siege (years) that is dependent more on creative diplomacy and old-fashioned gumshoe espionage than on high-tech, made-for-CNN missile shots. Bringing them to justice in a court of law would be ideal, and we should seek their capture, but these are suicidal, doctrinaire diehards, so blood will flow.
With blood and billions of our dollars involved, we have a right to demand a new honesty from Washington. For starters, they should start telling us the truth about the elites of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates, who are the primary source of brains, money, and recruits for this Wahhabi jihad.
Leaders of these nations, however, are the oil buddies, business partners, and longtime Middle Eastern enforcers of America's corporate empire, so Bush, Cheney & Co. won't cop to the fact that the murderous theocratic movement now tormenting us is based in the very nest where their corporate chums have found such comfort and profit. Will Bush go there to "smoke 'em out of their holes"?
How about a little honesty, too, on money laundering? Bush has pointed furiously at foreign banks, but how about the multibillion-dollar networks of secret accounts in the "private banking" departments of such U.S. giants as Citigroup (a major Bush campaign contributor)?
It's on the home front, however, where we citizens must be most forceful in holding Washington accountable. The looters are loose. Not common looters rampaging through the streets, but corporate looters rampaging through the Congress.
They are grabbing for bills and billions that have zero to do with combating terrorism or rebuilding our economy -- the Star Wars missile-defense shield, for example, was zapped through a week after the attack, even though a box-cutter defense shield would be much more useful. Then came "fast track" authority to ram more global trade deals down the throats of the world's people -- pushed by lobbyists and Bush's odious trade chief in the name of patriotism!
The looters also want huge bailouts, massive corporate tax cuts, oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, slashing-capital gains taxes (80 percent of this break goes to the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans), and a host of other thefts.
Instead of aiding the looters, Washington should launch a major reinvestment in grassroots America. First, stop the firing. Why should airlines get $15 billion from taxpayers while axing 100,000 employees? The same with hotel chains, car-rental corporations, and other industries that now demand bailouts. Yes, these corporations are hard-hit, but so is America. To stimulate the economy, put these bailout funds into the hands of working families all across America.
Second, strengthen our national security by making major, long-overdue public investments in our infrastructure -- schoolhouses, hospitals, roads and bridges, parks, etc. Add to this a new nationwide project to reconnect our population corridors with high-speed passenger trains. This makes so much sense that even the tightly bowtied, right-wing, anti-government scribe George Will has embraced it. Then it's way past time we expanded renewable energy sources to wean us off oil, which weds the Bush-Cheney crowd to the Saudi royal family and their ilk.
Third, to deal with the recession: Instead of cutting income taxes, cut payroll taxes; raise the minimum wage; extend health care, unemployment benefits, and day care. All of this spreads money, like fertilizer, to the grassroots economy, rather than piling it up inside global banks.
Finally, we must demand openness and full public discussion on everything from war and peace to restrictions on our liberties.
Since September 11, I find a deep hunger among most Americans for serious discussion (including hearing dissent). This gives me great hope in such a horrible time. Contrary to the media's portrayal of Bellicose America, the people I've encountered in meetings, in cafes and bars, and elsewhere (including the majority of people writing letters-to-the-editor in papers from coast to coast) are expressing anger, grief, and shock -- but they oppose the hush-hush and rush-rush we're getting, and they want us to talk and think as a democratic community.
The better part of patriotism is for us to raise hard questions, put out inconvenient information, assert our values, and appeal to what Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature."
More of Jim Hightower's writing can be found in his monthly newletter, The Hightower Lowdown. For more information, see www.jimhightower.com.


text:
Nicola Malinconico (1663 - 1721) foi um pintor italiano do período barroco.

"Ele é conhecido como um seguidor de Luca Giordano e pintou telas principalmente religiosas. Ele pintou os retábulos da capela para a igreja de St, Michele Arcangelo, em Anacapri, na Itália. Ele também pintou obras de vida morta lembrando o trabalho de Pietro Paolo Bonzi e Paolo Porpora e foi influenciado pelo pintor flamengo da vida selvagem David de Coninck.

Por volta de 1700, foi encomendado pelo bispo Oronzo Filomarino para decorar a catedral de Gallipoli na província de Lecce. Ele completou grandes telas de Cristo limpando os credores do templo na contra-fachada; Entrada em Jerusalém, Milagre dos coxos, Enterro de Santa Agatha. No teto, ele pintou Saint Agatha para a Erupção do vulcão Etna; Santa Agatha visita St. Peter na prisão; a Glória de Santa Agatha, o julgamento e a condenação de Santa Agatha (1715) e o martírio de São Sebastião.

Um segundo ciclo de pinturas foi completado com a ajuda de seu filho Carlo."

Ver também
 Pintura do Barroco
 Arte da Itália

Pintores da Itália
Pintores do Barroco

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Siri Aurdal was born in 1937 in Oslo (Norway). She currently lives and works in Oslo (Norway).
Known for her social sculptures, Aurdal utilized common industrial materials (plexiglass and pvc piping) for the creation of modular sculptural systems that could be reconceived or reformulated for a range of sites, from the gallery to an elementary school playground. She encouraged the materials to be abandoned following an installation, eschewing the art object in favor of a sculptural practice that provided a platform for social engagement. Like many artists who work in ephemeral forms, Aurdal was left with only documentation, which culled into a makeshift archive that traces her practice. It was here, that Mugaas began working to create this publication.
Siri Aurdal is represented by Galleri Riis.