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(In October 2016, I travelled to Chad and Kenya with AIM's US Director. Here's my article for AIM's magazine. And some photos at the bottom.)
I stepped from the Land Cruiser and wiped my brow (again), grabbed a dusty camera bag, and followed John and the rest of our group through the gates. Here on the fringes of the Sahara we came to see if this small town might hold an open door for a future ministry team. Central to the K people, the town is a last outpost of sorts. The one main road quickly disappears northward into hundreds of miles of wilderness, snakes up through the unearthly Tibetsi mountains, and eventually spills out into Libya. Beyond this town, it's a no-man's land where Mbororo clans carve out nomadic lives, artfully moving around in camel trains, where stately Arab cattlemen on horseback peer out through swirls of white cloth wrapped around their heads, and where scrappy bands of traders run decades-old trucks, stacked high with wares, south to north and south again. But even in a crossroads town like this, we stood out. Our arrival was unexpected but, to our delight, welcomed.
We were led into a compound of mud and brick buildings and offered an audience with the local chief. After a few days in Chad, one gets the impression that all things of importance happen on a mat in the shade, and so it seemed here. The center of governance for this town of 32,000 is a simple spot of earth under a veranda and atop a patchwork of straw mats covered in an array of fine carpets. It was a slice of refinement in a place where everything is otherwise pale brown and hard and hot. We took our seats on the soft elegance, joining a small entourage and the chief himself. We drew near (but not too near), fumbled with what to do with our legs, and listened as greetings passed through French to the local language and back to English again.
The chief sat serene and reserved, wearing the whitest, pressed jalabiya robe, gold-rimmed glasses, and a faux Rolex which dangled from his wrist. Greetings turned to an explanation of our desire to bring teams to the town and possibly staff their impressive but idle cultural center, teach English, and support the local community. The chief grew more and more intrigued. He spoke in low tones, quietly speaking through the translator at his side who then addressed our small gathering.
One of his entourage sat silently across from me – a very tall man, colorfully and richly dressed. He seemed to blend into the carpets with his tasseled clothing and the relaxed, half-reclined position of a man who probably spends a good deal of time sitting on the ground. I took an interest in watching him rather than listening to the exchange between our guide and the chief. The tall man, however, was completely transfixed by the conversation – something made evident by his face and mannerisms. Pursed lips and a gentle nod in agreement. A tilted head and eyes flung skyward in a contemplative moment. Then at one point, he was straining to hear. With his body still propped up on one arm, he took his other hand, gently cupped it behind an ear, and physically leaned in toward the speaker. The whole scene with the carpets in the dust seemed very Biblical to me. Stately men in robes, reclining at the foot of an elder, bending an ear. But the sight also struck me as a metaphor for the country as a whole. A country at a crossroads. A country leaning in.
This is Chad. A landlocked and harsh expanse, it is home to fourteen million souls and two hundred distinct ethnic groups. It sits on the map somewhere in the middle of the continent; spanning the transition from desert to jungle, touching both sides of a divide between Christian and Muslim Africa. It is one part progressive nation, and one step away from the next coup. It's a land of mystery and, most certainly, adventure – with uncharted territories, caravans, Sultans, and a fast-growing capital city. But it's also a land of tremendous potential for the gospel. In many ways, Chad is unique in this regard. At 61% Muslim and neighbor to some of the world's most protective Islamic states, you wouldn't expect to get a "missionary visa" to live in Chad; but you can. While the culture and the government tend to favor Muslims, the state is openly declared to be secular, and religious freedom is supported. Chad is also home to a somewhat gentler, more open variety of Islam that regards any serious "man of religion" as a man (or woman) to be honored. This includes Christians.
I heard a story about one of the missionaries who constructed a small room onto the outer wall of his home compound with doors that opened to the street. He would spread out mats over the dirt floor, and in the shade of the space, invite passers-by to sit and listen to the reading of the Injil – the New Testament. Being a respected man in the community and the open doors removing any stigma of secret meetings, he often drew a small crowd. From a newly-printed Bible in Arabic, the Word of God would come alive, capturing the attention and the ears of local men.
We visited a couple of language schools where foreigners taught English classes to eager, mostly young Chadian students. Lessons here were unashamedly centered around stories from the Bible, and I watched one class practice their halting English through familiar passages with deep, thick accents – probably hearing the stories themselves for the very first time. I observed a small class of just three women and their teacher in discussions about a passage they had read that day. "So we see Jesus' compassion in this story… How did he have compassion on the woman?"
What's remarkable about these examples is how openly some Muslims in Chad can interact and engage with the Bible. What can only be done in secret in many other countries, might actually happen on the street in Chad. But this does not mean there are no barriers. In fact, even though Chad is marked by religious tolerance and has an established (although minority) church, it has a striking number of still-unreached people groups. It's estimated that about 80 of the 200 distinct ethnic groups in Chad still have no viable witness to the gospel – more than any other country AIM works in. The reasons for this may be complex, but some combination of extreme cultural isolation and a forbidding environment certainly play a role.
Over dinner with a Chadian missionary named Moussa, we listened to his stories of working with the semi-nomadic Mbororo people. Apparently, the only way to minister among them was to walk with them – not one mile, but a hundred, in their shoes. Moussa would regularly join a family clan for a month or more as they wandered and camped with their animals. "Let me be with the Mbororo," he would say with a giant smile and the light of Christ in his eyes. "My heart is for them." When we asked him what it was like to live with the Mbororo, Moussa simply told us what they told him. "Sun." He spoke and paused after each word as if we needed to let them sink in. "Heat. Hunger. Thirst. Dirt." Another pause. "These things, when you are with us, you are in the middle of." This gentle man embraced those hardships and more to regularly share Christ with a people otherwise cut off, and through his obedient, long-suffering footsteps, has earned their trust and discipled many. The story inspired, but also seemed to underscore Chad's challenging spiritual environment: paradoxically accessible and inaccessible at the same time.
Toward the end of our journey, we traveled with Moussa to a couple of Mbororo homesteads and, on the way, drove our battered Land Cruiser along the edges of a gale – a rare thunderstorm that darkened the sky and churned up the arid landscape. It rocked our heavy vehicle and blasted it with sand. We stopped, and John and Pam got out while I bundled my camera gear to protect it. I glanced up for a moment and watched through the glass as Pam threw a scarf across her face, turned her head slightly from the onslaught, grimaced, and leaned into the wind. Then she began to walk, undeterred, toward the homestead. The sight, like the one of the tall man half-reclined on the carpets and cupping his ear, struck me as another kind of metaphor for this place. For AIM and the churches we partner with in Chad, there is a simple, sober acceptance that ministry here will be hard. Life here is hard. Yet, there's a resolve in the those who have been called to serve; a resolve that steps out despite the "gale" of heat, isolation, and spiritual warfare.
For nearly 120 years, AIM has fostered a dream to "reach" Chad. It took eighty years to get here and twenty-five more to build a foundation. In recent years, we've made good strides toward that dream. We have dozens of missionaries now and a track-record of success with outreach teams and other ministries. Our infrastructure to support families on the field is also growing, with a vibrant school for missionary kids and a soon-to-be-constructed retreat center set on the breezy banks of the Chari River. AIM is ready, and hopeful, for a renewed push into this land. Postured like never before for people to come and engage long-term. On several occasions over the course of our trip, I heard a similar sentiment expressed – from a young missionary couple, the AIM director, and even Moussa: "The time for Chad is now." This is true in more ways than one.
On one side is AIM, other mission groups, and the Chadian church – leaning in like Pam, undeterred against the elements and the discouragements, and resolved to share Christ. On the other side are Chad's unreached peoples, scattered across a country that itself is a great wide open door. A nation with a hand to its ear, leaning in, anticipating, grasping for the whispered Word of Truth.
Where will these two meet? Likely on a mat. In the shade. Where all things of importance happen in Chad.


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U.S. Embassy & Consulate
in the United Arab Emirates
VOTING ASSISTANCE FOR U.S. CITIZENS
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Event:  The UAE Attorney General on March 27 issued the following after a Cabinet decision regarding containing the spread of COVID-19: individuals failing to follow social distancing protocols or neglecting to wear medical masks indoors, and motorists with more than three people in their car may receive a 1,000 dirham fine. Those leaving home for unnecessary reasons are subject to a 2,000 dirham fine. Organizing or attending social gatherings, meetings, or public celebrations yields fines of 5,000 to 10,000 dirhams. This is not an exhaustive list of possible fines. Please check UAE press and official sources for full details.
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Q: Embed Smart Capture Forms on multiple pages I've not used Smart Capture forms before, but I've been tasked with replacing all the 'contact us' forms on the website with them. There are at least 30 different pages on the website with 'contact us' webforms going to the old system at the moment. Do I need to build 30+ different smart capture forms, or if I build one can I embed that same code on as many pages as I like? They all request the same information and will all be going to the same Data extension.

A: One smart capture form is enough since you are using the same data extension for all pages.

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Anil R
Afghanistan: Earthquake kills at least 255 people in eastern Paktika province
The state-run Bakhtar news agency reported the death toll and said rescuers were arriving by helicopter. Authorities said that an earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan early Wednesday, killing at least 255 people. Information remained scarce on the magnitude 6 earthquake that struck Paktika province. Still, it comes as the international community largely left Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover of the country last year amid the chaotic withdrawal of the U.S. military from the longest war in its history. That likely will complicate any relief efforts for this country of 38 million people.
The state-run Bakhtar news agency reported the death toll and said rescuers were arriving by helicopter. The news agency's director-general, Abdul Wahid Rayan, wrote on Twitter that 90 houses had been destroyed in Paktika and dozens of people are believed trapped under the rubble.
Footage from Paktika province near the Pakistan border showed victims being carried into helicopters to be airlifted from the area. Images widely circulating online from the province showed destroyed stone houses, with residents picking through clay bricks and other rubble.
Bakhtar posted footage of a resident receiving IV fluids from a plastic chair outside the rubble of his home and others sprawled on gurneys.
"A severe earthquake shook four districts of Paktika province, killing and injuring hundreds of our countrymen and destroying dozens of houses," Bilal Karimi, a deputy spokesman for the Taliban government, separately wrote on Twitter. "We urge all aid agencies to send teams to the area immediately to prevent further catastrophe."
Neighboring Pakistan's Meteorological Department put the earthquake at a magnitude of 6.1. Tremors were felt in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, and elsewhere in the eastern Punjab province.
The European seismological agency, EMSC, said the earthquake's tremors were felt over 500 kilometres (310 miles) by 119 million people across Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
Mountainous Afghanistan and the larger region of South Asia, where the Indian tectonic plate collides with the Eurasian plate to the north, have long been vulnerable to devastating earthquakes. In 2015, a major earthquake that struck the country's northeast killed over 200 people in Afghanistan and neighbouring northern Pakistan.


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Q: COM method call fails in C#, VB.NET, but works in Python I'm having trouble with a COM library I'm trying to use.  I get an ArgumentException when I call a particular method and pass it null.  This happens to me in both a C# project and a VB.NET project (I call the method using Nothing) where I added the library reference from the "COM" list in Visual Studio 2008.  When I call this same method in Python, passing in None, the method works as expected with no errors.  It's my understanding that Python interacts with the COM library through DCOM (and I have only the fuzziest notion what that means) whereas I might be using the COM library directly when I reference it in my C#/VB.NET projects.  Could something be happening that would cause the parameter I pass to get screwed up before it gets to the COM library?  I'm not sure what's happening here.  I recently updated the COM library to a newer version, so I wondered if perhaps I was getting version conflicts in there somewhere, causing the exception.  I removed all references to the COM library from my C# and VB.NET projects, deleted all bin and obj directories, and re-added the reference.  This did cause the Interop.MyCOMLibrary.dll file that shows up in obj to have today's date instead of the older date I had been seeing.
The only documentation I have for the COM library describes the method as follows:
Public Function AddItem( _
   ByVal ItemData As Variant _
) As Object

I'm trying to search around for issues regarding Variant parameters now.
Edit: so while Type.Missing and the other solutions work for getting me past that method call without error, trying to read certain string properties on the returned item from that method result in:

System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException: Item does not exist.

This is another example where it worked in Python but is throwing an exception in C#, so I'm guessing more DCOM-versus-COM weirdness.  Or perhaps this is a threading issue, since I'm using MSTest to test.

A: Yes, null is not likely to be correct.  There are a couple of Variants that indicate "no data", like VT_EMPTY, VT_ERROR, VT_NULL.  Start by passing Type.Missing.

A: Did you try using Reflection.Missing instead of Nothing/null?

A: I read in this article about going from VB to VB.NET and it said to use object in .NET since Variant doesn't exist.  I had previously tried passing default(object), which didn't work, but I tried passing new object() as the parameter and that worked--no exception was thrown!  What I don't understand is why an instance of an object has to be passed when that's supposed to be an optional parameter.  Why does null not get translated somehow to new object()?
Typing up this question on StackOverflow is what led me to this answer after two days of puzzling over it, because I had to copy/paste the exact method description from documentation.  That's when I noticed Variant instead of Object for the parameter.  :)

A: Could you try using System.DBNull.Value as an argument?
I had to find this the hard way today.
After trying all the suggestions in the answers, some of them caused an Argument Exception to be thrown, and in other cases, the call to AddItem silently returned null.
What I did was create a new VB project in the Visual Studio Solution, with a single class with a single Shared method that did the call for me, intending to pass Null from VB as an argument. The compiler complained that Null is no longer used, and suggested to use System.DBNull.Value instead. This did the trick, and as I later noticed, System.DBNull.Value worked in the C# project as well.


negativeMatt had the most liked content!
I used an Astro van set up as the accumulator is shorter and more compact. We use them on alot of pro-touring builds and they work great.
Hi all, I recently bought a 90 TGP that had been sitting since 2001. Time wasn't kind to it for sure. The seats are shot, the paint is baked but I still like the old thing. I spent a day buffing and cleaning it up , and generally seeing what I have here. The guy I got it from had swapped in a new fuel tank, new filter and had gotten it running. He had attempted a brake booster swap but that was where I picked it up. In the last week, I gathered the parts I needed and over this weekend I swapped in a hydroboost brake setup from scavenged junkyard parts. Even with the old pads and rotors, this thing stops amazingly! I plan to do a full write up as I took pics during the swap. I had a black 90 TGP many years ago and loved that car, and always vowed to have another. This one may be rough, but I'm still going to enjoy driving it!


Bryn attends Animas High school and is excited to graduate! We photographed Bryn out on her friend's beautiful property, where we got equally as beautiful photos of her. Bryn's incredible blue eyes and athleticism was so much fun to photograph. Bryn is great friends with one of our models Sarah, and we loved being able to photograph her as well. There wasn't a dull moment during Bryn's shoot, and her livelihood and natural beauty made it so much fun to photograph her!


Dorset Police held an awards event for officers and staff, at Cobham Sports and Social Club in Wimborne, on Tuesday 19 June.
A distraction burglar, who stole coins and silver worth £40,000 from a home on Pinehurst Road in West Moors, has been jailed.
Christchurch Borough Council's Judicial Review application will proceed to the High Court and the case will be expedited promptly and heard by 27 July.


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Q: Link public and confidential client in Keycloak OIDC SSO I have a Keycloak instance running with a realm and 2 different clients configured: a public one for my Angular app, and a confidential one for the Grafana instance.
I managed to login to each of them separately using Keycloak (so when I click login i am redirected to the Keycloak login page and log in with the credentials of the user i created in Keycloak).
However, I cannot figure out how to link the 2 of them such as when I log in to my Angular app, for example, when I visit the grafana instance, I am already logged in there too, and viceversa.
Did anybody manage to achieve this and could please tell me what I'm missing?
Thank you!


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Guardioli – abitanti di Guardia Piemontese
Guardioli – abitanti di Guardiaregia

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Absent: Alderweireld, Wanyama and Oakley-Boothe (not 100% sure on that).
My predicted lineup: (4-2-3-1) Vorm(c), Walker-Peters, Sanchez,Foyth, Davies, Winks, Sissoko, Lamela, Edwards, Nkoudou, Llorente.
Subs from: Gazzaniga, Aurier, Georgiou, Dier, Skipp, S.Shashoua, Sterling.
My score prediction: 4-1 to Spurs courtesy of goals from Llorente x2, Edwards's and Lamela.
One to watch: APOEL's experienced striker Mickael Pote.


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The Entire Avatar: The Last Airbender Timeline Explained
By Juliet Kahn/Updated: Aug. 19, 2022 9:57 am EST
Avatar: The Last Airbender and its sequel, Avatar: The Legend of Korra, wove a rich tapestry of story over the course of their combined seven seasons. Its fantasy world, in which select humans can control, or "bend" the elements of water, earth, fire, and air, brushed tantalizingly close to our own while remaining altogether magical. War raged, cultures clashed, and teenagers fell in love with the wrong people — or the right ones at the wrong time. Avatar's feats of bending might were always wondrous to behold, but they served the story and its characters above all, creating a world that always felt close enough to touch, yet vastly distant enough to dazzle.
As is the case with any intricately constructed fantasy world, Avatar's had a long, tangled history. Events that are literally thousands of years in the past came to bear upon Korra in her modern age of automobiles and skyscrapers, while Aang was heir to conflicts that had simmered decades before his birth. Add in things like hybrid animals, metal, lightning, and blood bending, and an oddly unstoppable cabbage merchant, and keeping the timeline straight can be overwhelming. Allow us to assist in your Avatar appreciation with this account of the Avatar world's history, from the legacy of the Lion Turtles to the assembly lines of Future Industries.
10,000 years BA (before Aang's birth): The Avatar cycle begins
Roughly 10,000 years before the start of Avatar: The Last Airbender, the world was a misty wonderland of spirits, humans, and the Lion Turtles, the last of whom were tasked with protecting humanity. It was on their mammoth shells that humans huddled together, venturing into the spirit wilds beyond only when necessary. To protect them on those occasional journeys, the Lion Turtles granted humans the power of bending for the duration of their time in the wilds. The system was broken, however, when a human named Wan used firebending for selfish ends, and was banished to the wilds in punishment.
His exile became a journey in which he encountered Raava, the primordial spirit of light and peace, and Vaatu, the spirit of darkness and chaos. Wan, tricked into freeing Vaatu, merged with Raava in an effort to undo his mistake and keep Vaatu from flooding the world with malice. They succeeded, and their bond was made permanent, making Wan the very first Avatar. Thus empowered, Wan sealed off the polar portals that linked the spirit and the human worlds. In so doing, Wan created the foundations for the world of Avatar as we know it, and set out to safeguard its future.
1,000s of years BA: The four nations form
Thousands of years passed between the era of Wan and that of Avatar: The Last Airbender's heroes, in which the four nations as fans would come to know them coalesced into their familiar shapes. The Water Tribe, originally concentrated in the North Pole, split into two nations, with a splintered third settled in the Foggy Swamp. Centuries of tribal warfare, fortress-building, and subterranean exploration created the Earth Kingdom, united under a single monarch. The Sun Warriors, who would go on to teach Aang and Zuko the Dancing Dragon form, grew, declined, and finally settled into the obscure existence glimpsed in "The Firebending Masters," while the archipelago that would become the Fire Nation was brought together during the Unification Wars.
In the midst of this upheaval, bending, once possible only through the Lion Turtles, was rediscovered and refined. Firebenders learned through observing dragons, waterbenders through studying the tidal pull of the moon, airbenders through their bonds with the sky bison, and earthbenders through the tunneling of badgermoles. Forms, disciplines, and styles were created, explored, and advanced, from lightning generation to literal flight, in the case of the legendary Guru Laghima. Though many years of this era are heavy with warfare and famine, so too are they bursting with exploration, adventure, and spirituality.
300 years BA: The era of Avatar Kyoshi
300 years prior to the events of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Avatar Kyoshi rose to power. Though she would become a formidable enforcer of justice, she was born to an infamous pair of criminals who left her in the care of strangers who, upon learning of her parents' eventual death, abandoned her on the streets to starve. Years of deprivation, study, and conflict ensued, molding Kyoshi into an Avatar as celebrated as she was feared.
Her most well-known exploits happened later in her reign: the creation of Kyoshi Island and the founding of the Dai Li, the cultural authority of Ba Sing Se who, by the time Aang encountered them, acted as a brutal secret police force. The former event, in which she bent the earth down to its magma to split off the tip of a peninsula and make it an island, was to keep the village located there safe from Chin, a fearsome conqueror. The latter act was in response to a peasant uprising, and would go on to be seen as one of Kyoshi's greatest mistakes. She was a complicated figure, her legacy up for debate from all corners, but there is no disputing the massive effect she had upon our heroes, centuries after her death.
100 years BA:The era of Avatar Roku
When Kyoshi's long life finally came to a close, the next Avatar was born: Roku, a noble son of the Fire Nation. Growing up beside Sozin, his best friend and heir to the throne, his life was largely untroubled until he was revealed as the Avatar as the age of 16. Years of training ensued, during which Sozin became Fire Lord — and yet the two remained as close as brothers. They reunited, reconnected, and when the time came from Roku to marry, it was Sozin who acted as best man.
But Sozin's ambitions had grown with every passing year. He revealed his plans for world conquest to Roku, who was horrified, no matter how benevolent Sozin claimed his intentions to be. The two split, passing decades without contact. When the volcano crowning Roku's island home erupted, Sozin did rush to his friend's aid — only to let him die in the ashes, upon realizing that Roku's death would allow him to carry out his vision of globe-spanning rule. Hundreds of miles away, a boy named Aang was born in the Southern Air Temple, heedless of the Fire Lord's intentions and the mess they would make of his childhood.
12 years AA (after Aang's birth): the Avatar disappears
The years between Roku's death and Sozin's destruction of the Air Nomads were, from Aang's point of view, peaceful ones. An eager student, he mastered airbending with enthusiasm and an innovative spirit, topping off his years of study with the invention of the air scooter. Raised by Monk Gyatso, living in harmony with the sky bison, playing games with his friends — these were gentle days, brought to a brutal end when the temple's elders, fearful of global unrest, told Aang of his Avatar destiny. Overwhelmed, Aang ran off alongside Appa, his bonded bison, only to be thrown into the midst of a violent storm. Terrified, Aang went into the Avatar State, encasing himself and Appa within a massive iceberg.
Aang was, by all accounts, missing. And so there was no Avatar to confront Fire Lord Sozin when he harnessed the power of the Great Comet, later renamed Sozin's Comet, to deliver a devastating first strike in the Hundred Years War: the genocide of the Air Nomads. Sozin, knowing they were the nation to which the current Avatar had been born, destroyed them utterly, an outrage that would spur the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribes into action against the Fire Nation. Yet for all this slaughter, the prime target remained at large. Sozin would write, years later, of his failure to capture the Avatar, who he knew to be "hiding out there somewhere... the last airbender."
12-112 years AA: The Hundred Year War
Aang proceeded to spend 100 years in the ice, leaving the world without an Avatar in its time of greatest need. Fire Lord Azulon succeeded Sozin, continuing his campaign of conquest with bloodthirsty zeal. The Southern Water Tribe was devastated during these years, subject to an assault that destroyed their central city, kidnapped their waterbenders, and led to decades of violent raiding which would eventually claim the life of Kya, Katara and Sokka's mother.
The Fire Nation's attempts to destroy the Earth Kingdom went less smoothly. Though enormous swaths of the nation were indeed decimated, subjugated, and put under Fire Nation control, Ba Sing Se, the legendary capital city, resisted capture. General Iroh, crown prince of the Fire Nation, had received a vision in his youth that appeared to bode well: Himself, conquering Ba Sing Se at last. Empowered by this prophecy and at the apex of his legendary skill, he laid siege to the city's outermost wall with all the might of the Fire Nation army behind him.
100 years AA: The Fire Nation's royal family splinters
Though the Earth Kingdom's forces fought mightily, Ba Sing Se's outermost wall was eventually breached. This was hailed as a tremendous victory — until General Iroh received word that his son had died in combat. Devastated, Iroh took stock of his battered army, their flagging morale, and his own demoralization. After 600 days, the siege was brought to an end, the Fire Nation withdrew, and Ba Sing Se was left unconquered.
Ozai, Iroh's younger brother, sensed an opportunity to advance his own position amidst this tragedy. As Iroh was returning to the Fire Nation in disgrace and lacking an heir, he suggested that their father, Fire Lord Azulon, establish him as the heir to the throne. Azulon was outraged, and commanded Ozai to murder his firstborn son, Zuko, in penance. Ursa, Zuko's mother and Ozai's wife,conspired with her husband in a desperate attempt to save her son, concocting a poison which killed Azulon in his sleep. Ozai was crowned Fire Lord, but Ursa was banished — leaving Zuko without a protector. In a few short years, Fire Lord Ozai would punish his son for speaking out of turn in his war room by facing him in a public duel, permanently scarring his face, and sending him on what he believed to be a fruitless search for the Avatar alongside his uncle Iroh. Ozai's power was cemented, and all who threatened his rule expunged.
112 years AA: The Avatar returns
When Aang was finally woken from his century-long slumber, it wasn't by the Fire Nation forces so eager to ferret him out of hiding, but by Katara, a girl out practicing the waterbending her mother had died to protect from the Fire Nation's clutches. Aang emerged onto a world utterly unlike the one he had left, yet still he found himself as weighed down by responsibility — if anything, more so. When Katara showed him a captured Fire Nation ship, brought down decades ago by waterbenders who would be kidnapped in retaliation, Aang reeled in confusion: Hadn't he only been in the ice for a week? A month, at most, if he really had to stretch it? Katara, incredulous, deduced that Aang had been effectively dead to the world for 100 years. The four nations were in turmoil, and his absence was, in part, at fault.
And so began Avatar: The Last Airbender. Aang would go on to learn of his people's obliteration, the dominance of the Fire Nation, and the long, cruel reach of the war into even the most remote places. Alliances would shift, battles were fought, and spirits were negotiated with. Some people, like Jet, became casualties, while others, like Toph, emerged from the crucible of war as benders of unparalleled skill. Aang, as the Avatar, led them all, the responsibility of his role at last assumed.
113 years AA: The Hundred Year War ends
Only one year passed between Aang's emergence from the iceberg and the end of the Hundred Year War — but oh, what a year it was. In its 365 days, the events of Avatar: The Last Airbender unfolded, from the siege of the Northern Water Tribe to the final battle of Wulong Forest. At the end of it all, Fire Lord Ozai was defeated, his bending taken away in an unprecedented use of the Avatar's connection to the origin of all bending. In meeting a Lion Turtle who revealed the secrets of energybending, Aang hearkened back to the era of Raava, tens of thousands of years in the past, to save his modern world. His 100-year absence might have thrown the world farther out of balance than it had ever been before — but in his victory over Ozai, he restored it in legendary style.
Thus deposed, Fire Lord Ozai was succeeded by Fire Lord Zuko. Zuko's ascension was risky, predicated on his worth as a newcomer and "idealist," as his uncle referred to him — not a virtue the Fire Nation was then holding in high regard, and a dramatic departure from the last four Fire Lords. But the throne was his, and so began a new age of repair, reconciliation, and above all things, peace.
113-130 years AA: The postwar world takes shape
As our heroes entered adulthood, so too did they enter the world of diplomacy. The War was won, but its aftermath would need to be reckoned with for decades to come — and most of the time, in ways that had nothing to do with who could best who in a bending battle.
This era is largely chronicled in the Avatar comics, which take place over the course of the handful of years immediately following the TV series' end. In these, we see the origins of Republic City, the multicultural metropolis that would become home to Avatar Korra, as the Fire Nation colony of Yu Dao, in which Fire Nation colonists and Earth Kingdom natives had become so intertwined as to be inseparable. Ursa, Zuko and Azula's mother, was also discovered and returned to her family — alongside Kiyi, her youngest child by her second husband. Zuko's reign was disturbed by the actions of the New Ozai Society, a shadowy group that sought Ozai's restoration and Zuko's murder. Even the Southern Water Tribe, long left behind in the march of progress, grew beyond its humble borders into a thriving city. These decades were full of trial and tribulation, but so too were they the years in which Aang and Katara married and started their family, Toph established metalbending as a discipline, and the United Republic of Nations was formally created.
143 years AA: Yakone terrorizes Republic City
Approximately 40 years before the events of The Legend of Korra, Republic City fell prey to Yakone, a waterbending crime lord. A canny, calculating man, Yakone wasn't just a top-tier waterbender, nor even just a bloodbender: Yakone was a bloodbender who could use that terrifying skill during any moon phase, at any time of day, without moving his own body. Essentially, he was able to control anyone, at any time, without revealing himself as the puppeteer pulling the strings. Years went by in which he evaded capture and punishment, expanded his criminal empire, and honed his bending to an ever-sharper point. Eventually, however, the law caught up to his tricks, and Aang was forced to remove his bending as he'd once done to Fire Lord Ozai.
But Yakone's network was not erased along with his bending, and he was soon broken out of prison and spirited away to the North Pole. There, he underwent extensive plastic surgery to construct a new face, married, and had two sons, Noatak and Tarrlok. Yakone trained the boys as bloodbenders, but Noatak, fed up with being treated as a "tool of [his father's] revenge," ran off into the polar darkness. Yakone's dreams of taking Republic City back through his children died that day, and soon enough, so did he. Yet his influence lingered in Tarrlok, who would become a Republic City councilman, and Noatak, who would re-emerge as the fiendish Amon.
183 years AA: Avatar Korra emerges
The decades following Yakone's exile were comparatively quiet. When Aang died at the age of 66, that changed: the Order of the White Lotus were sent to search the Water Tribes for the next Avatar, Aang and Katara's daughter Kya returned to the South Pole to support her mother, and Tenzin, suddenly the leader of the Air Nomads and the only living airbender, stepped into a leadership position unlike any other. Korra, cognizant of her Avatar status from a startlingly young age, was found, installed in a training compound, and prepared for her role as the bridge between worlds.
But as the events of The Legend of Korra's first season revealed, that role had changed massively. The world was rapidly industrializing, exposing a schism between benders and non-benders barely examined by Avatar: The Last Airbender. Amon seized this opportunity, leading the Equalists, his movement to end bending, to a frenzied peak of popularity centralized in Republic City. Though Korra, then struggling with airbending, made more than a few missteps in handling Amon, her first major challenge as the Avatar, she ultimately stopped him and his followers alongside new friends Mako, Bolin, and Asami. The threat had passed, but Republic City was forever changed — and Korra, having briefly lost her bending to Amon, was as well.
184 years AA: Korra opens the spirit portals
The year after Amon's defeat was a very different one indeed. While Amon and the Equalists presented Korra with an external problem to solve, Unalaq, her uncle and leader of the Northern Water Tribe, represented an internal conflict rooted in her own reluctance to engage with the spiritual. Unalaq, a schemer interested in seizing power across the physical and spiritual planes, manipulated his niece into opening a polar portal to the Spirit World, sparking a civil war between the Water Tribes, and, ultimately, undoing the work Avatar Wan completed thousands of years in the past.
This reached a crisis point when Unalaq was able to free Vaatu, spirit of darkness and chaos, from his imprisonment in the Tree of Time. He merged with the spirit, much like Avatar Wan did with Raava thousands of years prior, and become the world's first and only Dark Avatar. A thrilling battle ensued between the maliciously-empowered Unalaq and Korra, their spirits projected into Republic City's bay as towering giants of light. Though Korra vanquished the Dark Avatar, Raava was torn from her, necessitating a reunion that did restore her Avatar spirit but severed her connection with the Avatars of the past. Moreover, Korra made the shocking decision to keep the spirit portals open. For the first time in millennia, the spirit world and the mortal one were connected, and the Avatar was no longer the sole bridge between them.
185 years AA: The Red Lotus strikes
With Vaatu defeated, Korra's attention turned once again to humanity and its many concerns. She'd known that keeping the spirit portals open would change the world forever — but no one could have understood how much. With the spiritual and the mortal more closely connected than ever before, non-benders found themselves suddenly able to bend air. Bumi, Aang and Katara's only child, became one of the show's most prominent examples, alongside Toph's granddaughter Opal, a young thief named Kai who would enter Korra's orbit, and most fearsomely of all, a long-imprisoned radical named Zaheer. Suddenly made an airbender, Zaheer escaped, reformed his anarchist cell, the Red Lotus, and set his sights on slaying the Avatar.
His path to Korra was bloody and world-changing. Seeking to return the world to a more chaotic and theoretically more just state, the Red Lotus assassinated the Earth Queen, destroyed the Northern Air Temple, and poisoned Korra with mercury, seeking to kill her while in the Avatar State, thus destroying the Avatar cycle forever. Though the Red Lotus were defeated, the world, and particularly the Earth Kingdom, were in shambles — and Korra was more deeply shaken by her experience than anything she'd ever undergone before.
188 years AA: Kuvira leads the Earth Empire
Three years passed after Korra's poisoning. Seeking to regain her confidence and skill, she returned home to the Southern Water Tribe where she worked with Katara, lived with her family, and otherwise recuperated. But there was still something missing — something she only regained upon re-entering the world, training with an elderly (yet still cantankerous) Toph, and learning to face her fears of powerlessness head-on. She needed her sense of self restored, and that would take years of bitter, necessary work.
Kuvira, a metalbender of prodigious skill, had formed an army while Korra was on the outs, and, after three years, she had much of the dissolute Earth Kingdom under her thumb. In her, Korra faced a woman of passion, stubbornness, and determination — in essence, herself. The battle between the two was brutal, culminating in the explosion of a weapon that ran on spirit energy. Korra bent the energy itself, establishing a new spirit portal in the heart of Republic City. The cosmopolitan heart of the most modern city around had been joined forever to the spiritual plane, and Korra's final act was to enter it, hand in hand with Asami, ready to enjoy a well-deserved vacation. As the dust settled, one thing was clear: this tale had truly been the legend of Korra, the Avatar who reshaped the world.


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Sailthru Powers Audience Engagement for The Economist to Modernize Email and Web Experience
NEW YORK, July 28, 2016 — Sailthru, the leading Customer Retention Cloudsm for the world's top retail and media companies, today announced significant milestones achieved while working with The Economist. Results from more than a year's worth of data from email marketing and website personalization include increased email click through rates and website pageviews.
The Economist partnered with Sailthru to deliver personalized email and website experiences and to develop and sustain an audience of engaged readers – key components for longterm growth and profitability. The maturity of Sailthru's modern marketing technology, unique approach to data science driven applications, and knowledge of the media industry all lead to The Economist selecting Sailthru as their partner of choice.
With the implementation of Sailthru's 1:1 personalization, The Economist has continued to evolve digital engagement with readers. Sailthru's success with The Economist was recognized at the 2016 Association of Online Publishers Digital Publishing Awards, where the company was shortlisted for Best Media Technology Partner. The key results achieved by The Economist and recognized by the judges of the AOP awards include:
160 percent increase in website pageviews from email subscribers attributed to the implementation of email and website personalization
16.7 percent increase in email click through rates, demonstrating the consumer response to receiving personalized newsletters
78.6 percent increase in pageviews per click, showcasing the value of creating a connected, contiguous experience for individual readers across digital channels
"By working with Sailthru's team we were able to see a 160 percent increase in engagement via our email newsletters," said Anna Rawling, VP of Digital Engagement and Retention at The Economist.
"Sailthru has enabled us to understand the interests of individual readers online and to serve those readers with increasingly relevant content."
As publishers continue to seek modern technologies to enable innovation, Sailthru has emerged as one of the leading providers of automation and personalization solutions for email, web and mobile. Sailthru's ability to easily connect data sets from all online channels, deliver a connected experience for every individual reader, and increase longterm engagement and revenue metrics has led to the organization working with more of the top 200 comScore publishers than any other technology of its kind.
"Sailthru is proud to work with some of the largest publishers in the world. Our work with The Economist mirrors the success and results we've generated with many global publishers," said Neil Lustig, CEO at Sailthru. "Media and publishing leaders continuously seek solutions to solve the industry's challenges brought on by the pressures for digital monetization and increasing competition.
Sailthru was built to answer the call and we continue to deliver solutions that enable our publishing customers to take action on data through meaningful, revenue producing strategies."
Learn more about how Sailthru and The Economist work together.


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DJ, Producer,
Electric Boogie
Magnetic Bass Force alias Thomas Fahlteich was born in 1976 in Dessau in the former GDR.
He grew up there as a normal little boy. But already at the age of 8 years he got in touch with Hip Hop and Electro music because of his brother. The new style of dacing in form of break dance fascinated him. In third greade, he formed the break dance crew "Street Dancer´s Dessau" with two of his classmates. All around town there were crews who were break dancing. That is where they got a lot of inspiration and practiced every day. They wona few awards in talent competitions and became small stars in their school. It was not every day that you saw ten-year-olds at that time who were break dacing to the capitalistic rap music from the USA. When the two German states reunited in 1990, the break dance scene became less popular. He stayed true to the Hip Hop culture though.
He already felt drawn to DJing very early and bought his first two Technics SL 1210MK2 and a Battlemixer in 1994. He was still known as DJ Ultra Zonic back then. Right in the same year he got to know his brother "Mayer" alias DJ Magic Mayer personally – they already knew each other briefly from their Break Dance times though. They got along with each other immediately and a friendship developed which has been existing to this day. Magnetic Bass Force was a Harz´fein (est. 1994) member of the first hour. Both exchanged tricks for mixing and scratching. He got the opportunity from "Mayer" to scratch on several Harzfein releases. Year later they put on records in the Black Music Club of Dessau. At some point DJing was not enough for him anymore because got interested in making his own music. In the beginning with a drum computer from Mayer and a synthesizer by Yamaha. Recording on cassette really got on his nerves. A solution had to be found. The solution turned out to be an MPC 2000XL by Akai – the famous sampler in Hip Hop and Electro. Every evening new music was produced in the bedroom at home.
It did not take long though and the MPC was replaced by a computer in 2004. He produced his tracks under many different artist names (Cybertroid, Hydromatix & Magnetic Bass Force). Cybertroid and MBF were pure Electro while Hydromatix mainly focused on Breaks and Techno. Myspace made everything develop quite fast and he got the attention of other home producers. Many contacts were made – especially with Landrian from Miami. He established Devine Disorder Records in 2007. MBF was now a full member of a virtual label. The label released compilations with other artists from then on but there were also EPs with single artist like for example MBF. When Street Sounds became active again in the UK and MBF was in the first palce there twice, he also got the attention of the founder Morgan Khan. He took the chance and contributed to the the Electro sampler NuElectro Vol. 2 "A powerful source" and Vol. 3 "The Mighty Computerpower". Simultaneously there were releases on Subsonic Device (Supremeja & Darxid). One of his most recent releases was "Cold Surface" on "Global Surveyor Phase 2 Remixes" by Dominance Electricity. It became a little quiet around MBF but he is still working on Electro tracks in his home studio that will make your speakers vibrate.
BoomBoxCollector, EventManagement, PunkRock DJ, Renting Service ...
US Car Mechanic, Actor, Prop Builder, Renting Service ...
Co-founder, B-Boy


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Questa è la discografia che documenta gli album e i singoli pubblicati dal gruppo statunitense LaBelle . Il gruppo era noto come The Ordettes dal 1958 al 1961 e The Blue Belles (aka Patti LaBelle and Her Blue Belles; Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles ) dal 1962 al 1970. Nel 1971 hanno cambiato il loro nome in LaBelle.

Album

Album in studio

Album natalizi

Album dal vivo

Raccolte

Singoli

 1 - Il brano è stato registrato da The Starlets ma è stato accreditato alle The Blue Belles .

Altre apparizioni

Note

LaBelle


Fine Art Sculptures | Zimmerman Editions, Ltd.
Zimmerman Editions, Ltd, for almost three decades, has printed limited edition fine art Sculptures utilizing acrylic, glass and other unusual media. We found that working with artists to select suitable and appropriate media for their serigraphic sculptures and executing their three-dimensional designs, was a creative process that imparted timeless value to the finished art piece.
Typically, crystal clear acrylic blocks were hand cut and faceted and to the artists' exacting requirements, usually fashioned with integral bases to support the finished sculptures. Zimmerman Editions, Ltd. then printed the serigraphic images, either directly onto the sculpture media or via a special transfer process depending on the attributes of the particular sculpture. With both single and multi-panel sculptures often unique effects were created by printing serigraph images on both sides of the clear panels. After polishing and final inspection and approval by the artist, each sculpture was hand engraved and individually signed by the artist.
Zimmerman Editions, Ltd. specially packages each sculpture for protection from harm during shipping and storage, an added value for the buyer.


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The African Business Journal
South Africa Business News
Africa in Action
By: DneinNuqer
Value at its core
Built upon a foundation of corporate social responsibility, Kenyan supermarket chain Uchumi strives to share the benefits of its success and growth with its local community.
Uchumi may be the oldest supermarket chain in Kenya but its loyalty to local suppliers, humanitarian values and socially progressive aims make it a forward-thinking company with its eyes on the future. It employs more than 1,000 people and has 21 branches overall: 18 in Kenya (12 of them in Nairobi), two in Kampala, Uganda and one in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. The retailer was set up in 1976 to ensure two things, says marketing manager Francis Kiragu: "equitable affordable distribution of essential goods to the Kenyan public and a local sales outlet for the local manufacturer."
Despite having a bumpy ride along the way – the supermarket chain was declared insolvent in 2007, before making a comeback in 2008 – Uchumi has stayed true to its roots and remains very much dedicated to developing the country and its people. "We believe that by empowering the Kenyan businessmen and women we are all playing our role in growing the national GDP and improving the living standards of our countrymen," Kiragu says.
"Our entry into Uganda and Tanzania has seen these general guidelines followed – we offer native suppliers first priority to provide essential goods at competitive prices," he adds, stressing that its support for suppliers in the region is very important to Uchumi, as well as a defining quality. Another thing that differentiates the retailer is its listing on the stock exchange, meaning it is partly owned and governed by the Kenyan public.
Uchumi was only relisted on the Nairobi Stock Exchange last year, five years after it was suspended. In those five years the supermarket chain has progressed in leaps and bounds. In 2008, a year after being declared insolvent, Uchumi returned a profit of 106 million Kenyan shillings (KSh) against a loss of 257 million the previous year, amounting to a turnaround of KSh 356 million. The last recorded profit prior to this was back in 2001. Kiragu says the company's past misfortune has made Uchumi more "fierce" in ensuring past events never happen again, and now serves as a "lesson" on what to avoid.
"Uchumi Supermarkets Ltd is a new company, governed by new management and a new board," Kiragu explains. "We're geared towards improving our circumstances, not dwelling on what happened in the past. This new attitude has changed our operations, relationships with key stakeholders and indeed our fortunes.
"We work with our values in mind; we work harder and watch our environment more closely to ensure that we are effective and efficient. The team at Uchumi has shown its commitment and loyalty to turning the company around."
One element of Uchumi's "new attitude" is embracing partnerships with its suppliers, media, agencies, investment experts and others. "Partnerships have enabled us to focus on what we are good at – and that is retail business," Kiragu says. "Since our partners are experts in their lines of business, this allows us to be experts in our own.
Another is its pursuit of advanced technology, which certain expert partners have helped Uchumi implement. "We support most major payment modes, including Visa cards and mobile payments," Kiragu says. "We are in the process of upgrading our website to be more integrative. We've also introduced major payments into our system, including electricity bill payments, equity bank cash-back services and insurance brokerage services."
Other new ideas concern something quite different: corporate social responsibility (CSR). Over the last few years, Uchumi has set aside two per cent of its total marketing budget towards activities targeted to address environmental, health and education issues in its local community.
"As a retail chain owned by the public, we strive to give back to our community," Kiragu says. "We encourage all branches to support causes around them that uphold development, sustainability and equality, and which generally improve the living standards of people around them."
Uchumi has raised money through events such as marathons for treating children at Nairobi Hospital; funding educational centres, including the University of Nairobi, Kenya Methodist University and Kenya Institute of Management; and assisting with school fees for bright students. The supermarket chain is currently making the final preparations to its CSR policy 2012/13, ensuring no issue has been overlooked.
A sense of social responsibility can also be found within the company. "Our policy is to employ all races, backgrounds and gender in the country of operations. We do not discriminate," Kiragu says. Staff are encouraged to seek out training in their own areas of interest, in addition to the mandatory company training they receive in areas such as first aid and customer service.
Bolstered by recent success and new initiatives, Uchumi is preparing for major growth over the coming years. It is building two further shops in Uganda that are expected to open in this fiscal year's final quarter, as well as one in Ongata Rongai, Kenya, which is near completion. Uchumi also wants to establish additional branches in Tanzania and Kiragu says the company is "confident in growing its presence in this country and in the region as a whole". In 10 years' time, Uchumi wishes to have made its vision, "to be the supermarket of choice in the Eastern African Region – the Home of Value", a reality.
To get there, says Kiragu, the company will follow its core values: integrity and transparency; networking (sharing effective communication at all levels of the business); teamwork; commitment and accountability (particularly to its stakeholders); quality service; professionalism; and the aforementioned social responsibility.
"Through our core values, our service and quality standards have stayed uniform across board; performance easily rated and appreciated; and errors easier to detect and eliminate," Kiragu says. "We have attracted, retained and grown talent by staying the course. In the rapidly changing business environment, massive organic growth and cut-throat competition, our core values have helped us to stay grounded to what is truly important to us – our stakeholders," he adds.
It is Uchumi's stakeholders whom Kiragu credits for the company's triumphant comeback and growing success – and he sees this as the perfect time to thank them. "We are grateful to all our stakeholders: governments (Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania); shareholders; bankers; investment experts; security exchange; customers; suppliers; employees; board and management; and the media for the unwavering support they have shown us," he says.
"The 31 May 2012 marks exactly one year since we were relisted on the stock exchange and the share price is showing gradual steady growth. We could not have done this without them.
Categories: Food & Drink Tags: Food & Drink
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Tabj.co.za Business Review: SBG Securities
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Tabj.co.za is an online magazine that brings you the latest South Africa Business News from the best and most popular Business Magazines in South Africa and the region. Read all about the latest business developments in South Africa and the surrounding region, as well as political news and updates. On this website, you can find articles from industry experts and African American Business People that will show you the inside of the business world of South Africa. Moreover, we also make sure to regularly update our South African Historical Journal detailing many events from this country's history and significant events. If you want to stay in the know be sure to subscribe to The African Business Journal News newsletter and follow and like us on our social media profiles. Welcome to the best online news and magazine portal for South Africa Business News.
Most Read News Article in 2018 in South Africa Business News
Big Pharma and Africa
Shriveled by a sluggish global economy and the gradual collapse of the pharmaceutical market in the United States and on the old Continent, large global groups are considering a new look the African market. It began a decade ago and became the trend. Euler Hermes saw a 17% increase per year in Africa and Asia by 2015 – compared to only 1.3 percent in North America and 0.4 percent in Western Europe. For many years, developed countries have been privileged. But today, their health insurance systems go wrong and Labs there are more and more involved. So, they seek growth drivers, particularly in Asia and Africa.
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Q: SQL-Server Performance: What is faster, a stored procedure or a view? What is faster in SQL Server 2005/2008, a Stored Procedure or a View?
EDIT:
As many of you pointed out, I am being too vague.  Let me attempt to be a little more specific.
I wanted to know the performance difference for a particular query in a View, versus the exact same query inside a stored procedure.
(I still appreciate all of the answers that point out their different capabilities)

A: Stored Procedures (SPs) and SQL Views are different "beasts" as stated several times in this post.
If we exclude some [typically minor,  except for fringe cases] performance considerations associated with the caching of the query plan, the time associated with binding to a Stored Procedure and such, the two approaches are on the whole equivalent, performance-wise. However...
A view is limited to whatever can be expressed in a single SELECT statement (well, possibly with CTEs and a few other tricks), but in general, a view is tied to declarative forms of queries.  A stored procedure on the other can use various procedural type constructs (as well as declarative ones), and as a result, using SPs, one can hand-craft a way of solving a given query which may be more efficient than what SQL-Server's query optimizer may have done (on the basis of a single declarative query).   In these cases, an SPs may be much faster  (but beware... the optimizer is quite smart, and it doesn't take much to make an SP much slower than the equivalent view.)
Aside from these performance considerations, the SPs are more versatile and allow a broader range of inquiries and actions than the views.

A: I prefer stored procedures due to Allow greater control over data, if you want to build a good, secure modular system then use stored procedures, it can run multiple sql-commands, has control-of-flow statements and accepts parameters. Everything you can do in a view you can do in a stored procedure. But in a stored procedure, you can do with much more flexibility.

A: In short, based on my experience in some complex queries, Stored procedure gives better performance than function.
But you cannot use results of stored procedure in select or join queries.
If you don't want to use the result set in another query, better to use SP.
And rest of the details and differences are mentioned by people in this forum and elsewhere.

A: I believe that another way of thinking would be to use stored procedures to select the views.  This will make your architecture a loosely coupled system. If you decide to change the schema in the future, you won't have to worry 'so' much that it will break the front end.
I guess what I'm saying is instead of sp vs views, think sp and views :)

A: Stored procedures and views are different and have different purposes. I look at views as canned queries. I look at stored procedures as code modules.
For example let's say you have a table called tblEmployees with these two columns (among others): DateOfBirth and MaleFemale.
A view called viewEmployeesMale which filters out only male employees can be very useful. A view called viewEmployeesFemale is also very useful. Both of these views are self describing and very intuitive.
Now, lets say you need to produce a list all male employees between the ages of 25 and 30. I would tend to create a stored procedure to produce this result. While it most certainly could be built as a view, in my opinion a stored procedure is better suited for dealing with this. Date manipulation especially where nulls are a factor can become very tricky.

A: Unfortunately, they're not the same type of beast.
A stored procedure is a set of T-SQL statements, and CAN return data. It can perform all kinds of logic, and doesn't necessarily return data in a resultset.
A view is a representation of data. It's mostly used as an abstraction of one or more tables with underlying joins. It's always a resultset of zero, one or many rows.
I suspect your question is more along the lines of:

Which is faster: SELECTing from a view, or the equivalent SELECT statement in a stored procedure, given the same base tables performing the joins with the same where clauses?

A: This isn't really an answerable question in that an answer will hold true in all cases.  However, as a general answer for an SQL Server specific implementaion...
In general, a Stored Procedure stands a good chance of being faster than a direct SQL statement because the server does all sorts of optimizations when a stored procedure is saves and executed the first time.
A view is essentially a saved SQL statement.
Therefore, I would say that in general, a stored procedure will be likely to be faster than a view IF the SQL statement for each is the same, and IF the SQL statement can benefit from optimizations.  Otherwise, in general, they would be similar in performance.
Reference these links documentation supporting my answer.
http://www.sql-server-performance.com/tips/stored_procedures_p1.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms998577.aspx
Also, if you're looking for all the ways to optimize performance on SQL Server, the second link above is a good place to start.

A: I know I'm not supposed to turn this into a "discussion", but I'm very interested in this and just thought I'd share my empirical observations of a specific situation, with particular reference to all the comments above which state that an equivalent SELECT statement executed from within a Stored Procedure and a View should have broadly the same performance.
I have a view in database "A" which joins 5 tables in a separate database (db "B"). If I attach to db "A" in SSMS and SELECT * from the view, it takes >3 minutes to return 250000 rows. If I take the select statement from the design page of the view and execute it directly in SSMS, it takes < 25 seconds. Putting the same select statement into a stored procedure gives the same performance when I execute that procedure.
Without making any observations on the absolute performance (db "B" is an AX database which we are not allowed to touch!), I am still absolutely convinced that in this case using an SP is an order of magnitude faster than using a View to retrieve the same data, and this applies to many other similar views in this particular case.
I don't think it's anything to do with creating a connection to the other db, unless by using a view it somehow can never cache the connection whereas the select does, because I can switch between the 2 selects in the same SSMS window repeatedly and the performance of each query remains consistent. Also, if I connect directly to db "B" and run the select without the dbname.dbo.... refs, it takes the same time.
Any thoughts anyone?

A: Views:

*

*We can create index on views (not possible in stored proc)

*it's easy to give abstract views(only limited column access of multiple table ) of
table data to other DBA/users

Store Procedure:

*

*We can pass parameters to sp(not possible in views)

*Execute multiple statement inside procedure (like insert, update,delete operations)

A: A couple other considerations:  While performance between an SP and a view are essentially the same (given they are performing the exact same select), the SP gives you more flexibility for that same query.

*

*The SP will support ordering the result set; i.e., including an ORDER BY statement.  You cannot do so in a view.

*The SP is fully compiled and requires only an exec to invoke it.  The view still requires a SELECT * FROM view to invoke it; i.e., a select on the compiled select in the view.

A: Found a detailed performance analysis: https://www.scarydba.com/2016/11/01/stored-procedures-not-faster-views/
Compile Time Comparison:

There is a difference in the compile time between the view by itself and the stored procedures (they were almost identical). Let's look at performance over a few thousand executions:
View  AVG: 210.431431431431
Stored Proc w/ View   AVG: 190.641641641642
Stored Proc   AVG: 200.171171171171
This is measured in microsends, so the variation we're seeing is likely just some disparity on I/O, CPU or something else since the differences are trivial at 10mc or 5%.

What about execution time including compile time, since there is a
difference:

Query duration View   AVG: 10089.3226452906
Stored Proc   AVG: 9314.38877755511
Stored Proc w/ View   AVG: 9938.05410821643

Conclusion:

With the exception of the differences in compile time, we see that views actually perform exactly the same as stored procedures, if the query in question is the same.


text:
Report On Business Tricky talks await new Natural Resources Minister Greg Rickford
Tricky talks await new Natural Resources Minister Greg Rickford
Natural Resources Minister <240>Greg Rickford.
Adrian Wyld/CP
Shawn McCarthy Global Energy reporter
Published March 19, 2014 Updated May 12, 2018
Greg Rickford will need to call on all his experience working with First Nations to resolve some of the toughest roadblocks in the Conservative government's plan for energy and mining development.
The 46-year-old MP from Kenora, Ont., was appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Wednesday to replace Joe Oliver as Natural Resources Minister. Awaiting him are brewing resource battles in British Columbia and Ontario that are both economically important and fraught with political risks for the government heading into the next election.
In both cases, the government's relationship with aboriginal communities and its willingness to help finance their development are key.
Mr. Rickford came into politics promising to try to improve the economy and infrastructure of First Nations. Early in his career, he worked as a nurse and a lawyer in remote communities in northwestern Ontario. Running for election in 2008, one of his central campaign promises was about the need to improve conditions for aboriginal Canadians.
Among the top files he will have to grapple with: Stick-handling the government's consultations with B.C. First Nations over the proposed and controversial Northern Gateway pipeline, and working with Ontario to make progress on the Ring of Fire mineral development, which is also mired in tough aboriginal discussions.
"One of the fundamental challenges with energy and resources, broadly speaking, is territorial issues. A lot of them, not all of them, but a lot of them today are associated with First Nations and aboriginal peoples," said Joseph Doucet, the dean of the Alberta School of Business at the University of Alberta.
"And to the extent that [Mr. Rickford] has experienced sensitivity and an understanding of the issues – I think that could be really, really valuable."
The new resources minister has served as parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, and since last summer, as minister of state for science and technology and the junior minister responsible for Northern Ontario, including the Ring of Fire.
Industry officials say he appears well-qualified for the job.
Mr. Rickford's diverse education and experience provides a strong base for leadership on responsible development of Canada's natural resources, said David Collyer, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
But he added that the new minister will face a steep learning curve at a critical time as the embattled oil and gas sector looks to expand access to markets in Asia, the U.S. Gulf Coast and Eastern Canada and the Atlantic basin.
Pipeline opponents may be receptive to Mr. Rickford's appointment. Former natural resources minister Mr. Oliver was seen as a divisive figure by aboriginal opponents of Enbridge Inc.'s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline in British Columbia owing to his insistence that such projects are in Canada's national interest.
Mr. Rickford is unlikely to take a differing view, although he could bring a better grasp of aboriginal concerns to the discussions.
Ottawa is now engaged in multidepartmental meetings with individual aboriginal communities that are led by senior bureaucrats to address issues around Enbridge Inc.'s proposed pipeline. After a National Energy Board review panel recommended approval last December, the federal government has until summer to make a final decision.
"The whole way the government has addressed this, there has been nothing to suggest it is not all window dressing," said Vancouver lawyer Robert Janes, who represents the coastal Gitxaala Nation.
In Ontario, the provincial Liberal government has been urging the federal government to play a more substantial role in paving the way for development in the Ring of Fire, a massive chromite development near James Bay.
In November, Premier Kathleen Wynne sent a letter to Mr. Harper, urging Ottawa to match provincial funding for infrastructure development. His response could be fodder for both the looming provincial election and the federal vote expected in 2015.
"I think this [appointment] is a really good opportunity for the province to continue to make a case that the federal government needs to come to the table and needs to be a full partner in this," Ontario Minister of Northern Development Michael Gravelle said in an interview.
With a file from reporter Carrie Tait in Calgary.
New Natural Resources Minister has experience working with First Nations
Economists say Oliver's Bay Street background key for finance post
What Joe Oliver can look forward to: a sluggish economy and frail Canadian dollar
TransCanada misleading Canadians over Energy East pipeline, environmental group says
How miners will corner both ends of the market Subscriber content
Energy sector wary of rail legislation
Marois says sovereign Quebec would have power over energy decisions
Alberta rejects request to help fund Trans Mountain project
Energy sector shrugs off Redford's political crisis
Enbridge turns to Jim Prentice for pipeline help
Follow Shawn McCarthy on Twitter @smccarthy55


The earthquake hit United States the Saturday, February 9, 2019 at 14:18 with a magnitude of 4.1. The closest city with more than 15.000 habitants is Anchorage (United States - US). The epicenter is located at longitude -170.2624 and latitude 50.2112. 1757.93 km from Ovalle.


In Russia's top women's basketball league, Sparta & K Vidnoye (Moscow Region) took on the powerful UMMC Ekaterinburg Sunday February 15th. The result, a 91-73 win for UMMC.
Sparta & K's Maria Vadeeva (who will be in the WNBA this summer) posted 17. Ksenia Tikhonenko had 10 points and 10 rebounds. Maria Cherepanova scored 11, and current WNBA'er Emma Meeseeman had 10. Darya Namok contributed 8.
UMMC was led by Diana Taurasi's 26 and Candace Parker's 23. Parker also had 9 rebounds. Sandrine Gruda posted 17 and had 5 boards. Alba Torrens put up 13 and had 5 rebounds of her own. Taurasi, Parker, and Gruda all have WNBA experience, though Torrens was drafted and never played and Taurasi is sitting out this season due to arrangements with UMMC.
Also of news recently, Stefanie Dolson left Sparta & K to play for a team in Turkey.


text:
Brewers|First base
Gamel shapes up to take over for Fielder
Mat Gamel says he came to spring training in the best shape of his life. Credit: Roy Dabner
Brewers By Position
2012 Spring Training Preview
First base: Gamel shapes up to take over for Fielder
By the numbers: First base
Notes: Melvin says he'll wait to make offer to Greinke
Spring training report: Tuesday at a glance
Who should bat first for the Brewers this season?
Rickie Weeks
Nyjer Morgan
Rickie Weeks: 29%
Corey Hart: 26%
Nyjer Morgan: 35%
Someone else: 10%
Total Responses: 3659
A spring training look at the Brewers roster:
Catcher | Numbers
First base | Numbers
Second base | Numbers
Third base | Numbers
Shortstop | Numbers
Left field | Numbers
Center field | Numbers
Right field | Numbers
Bench | Numbers
Starting pitchers | Numbers
Relief pitchers | Numbers
Spring Training Maps
Interactive map of Arizona spring training locations.
• Florida spring training map
By Tom Haudricourt of the Journal Sentinel
Phoenix - Mat Gamel knew the Milwaukee Brewers were giving him a chance. More important, he knew it was time to give himself a chance.
Gamel, who will get every opportunity this spring to claim the first-base job vacated when free agent Prince Fielder bolted for Detroit, admits he wasn't physically ready to win a job on the roster a year ago. He showed up overweight, strained a ribcage muscle in the early going and missed much of camp.
It was the third consecutive spring in which Gamel was sidelined by an injury problem.
"I've never helped my case, getting hurt," said Gamel. "Last year could have been prevented by showing up in better shape, looking back on it."
Gamel, 26, decided to become more proactive over the winter, hiring personal trainer Grady Zapata to work out with him daily back home in Neptune Beach, Fla. As a result, the left-handed-hitter showed up this spring looking more physically fit, which didn't escape the attention of manager Ron Roenicke.
"From last year, yes, I do have a different impression," said Roenicke. "He came in ready; he came in in shape. He knows last year he didn't come in shape and ready, and he wasn't going to let that happen again. He was talked to a little bit about it."
Gamel, who claims "I'm in the best shape of my life," has waited for this opportunity. Formerly a third baseman blocked at the big-league level by since-departed Casey McGehee, he was shifted last season to first base at Class AAA Nashville to provide an option for what was considered the inevitable departure of Fielder, one of the top sluggers in the history of the franchise.
Though Fielder's exodus provided this opening, Gamel is able to look at the big picture of what it does to lose a superstar slugger.
"I'm not happy that Prince isn't here," he said. "You never want to see a guy like Prince leave the team. It's bittersweet. On a personal level, I needed that to happen.
"As far as what he has done for this organization and the city, you hate to see a guy like him go. But I'm excited as hell for the opportunity. I like first base more than I liked third base. I just feel comfortable over there.
"At first, I was a little hesitant about it. But I knew with Prince being the player he is and the market, I'd have a better opportunity at first. Plus, I was running out of options. I like being in the situation where I have to prove myself a little bit."
Gamel, indeed, is out of minor-league options, meaning the Brewers had to make a decision on him in any event this spring or expose him to waivers. After two big years at Nashville, including a .310 batting average, 28 home runs and 96 runs batted in over 128 games in 2011, he has nothing left to prove at that level.
Given sporadic playing time in short stints with the Brewers over the past three seasons, Gamel failed to make an impact, compiling a .222 average with five home runs and 23 RBI. But this is a completely different situation. General manager Doug Melvin and Roenicke have vowed to give Gamel a long leash with hopes that he becomes the Brewers' everyday first baseman.
"It takes a lot of stress off me as far as trying to come out and make the team the first few weeks," said Gamel. "I talked to Ron about that and he told me that. 'You don't have to feel like you have to come out and go 4 for 4 every day.'
"I have a really good opportunity here. I definitely prepared myself this off-season to take advantage of it. Getting older, I've learned more about what it takes. It takes more than God-given ability. You have to work at it, too."
Roenicke knows better than to put too much pressure on a first-time starter, especially one filling the shoes of a player of Fielder's caliber. Accordingly, he plans to bat him down in the lineup until he gets his feet on the ground.
"Seventh, eighth, sixth," Roenicke said of possible spots in the batting order for Gamel. "A lot of that depends on how he's swinging and feeling. I don't want to put a lot of pressure on him right away and stick him in the fifth slot.
"The mentality of playing in the big leagues when you get this opportunity is you need to succeed to have that confidence and know you belong. Mat has not been in that position yet. So, whatever it takes for me to get him confident and knowing he can hit at the big-league level, that's what our aim and our goal is."
Off-season acquisition Travis Ishikawa, who has played first base in the majors with San Francisco, and rookie Taylor Green, so impressive off the bench last September, also will see action at first base this spring. Roenicke also wants to see how rightfielder Corey Hart looks at his former position, providing a right-handed option if desired.
"He was fine with trying it, doing it," said Roenicke. "This isn't something to put him there every day, though you never know what happens in this game. . . . We'll get him some ground balls and see how that goes."
Make no mistake about it, however. Roenicke and Melvin are hoping Gamel puts a death grip on the best opportunity of his life and eliminates the need to consider other first-base options.
Realizing the immense confidence the club's brain-trust is showing in him to provide this opportunity, Gamel has every intention of reciprocating.
"At this point in time, I felt like I owed it to myself and the club to show up in the best shape of my life and show them I'm willing to do whatever it takes to stay," said Gamel. "It's a two-way road.
"I've been in this organization since 2005 and I don't want to go to another organization. It's time to get it done."
About Tom Haudricourt
Tom Haudricourt covers the Brewers and Major League Baseball. He was voted Wisconsin Sports Writer of Year for 2011 and 2012 by National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association.
@Haudricourt
thaudricourt@journalsentinel.com


Jake Johnson and Shameik Moore swing by Marvel headquarters to talk about "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" -in theaters now!
This Week on Earth's Mightiest Show, Lorraine Cink sits down with the voice of Peter B. Parker, Jake Johnson, and the voice of Miles Morales, Shameik Moore, to talk about the epic new animated film "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse". From the awesome animation style to alternate dimension Spider-Men, these guys have us amped for the new film. Plus, Shameik Moore reveals how he journaled this role into existence and Jake Johnson goes nuts for Squirrel Girl! Who knew?
Tagged as Comics, earth's mightiest show, Earths, ems, gwen stacey, interview, INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE, Jake Johnson, lord and miller, Marvel, marvel entertainment, Mightiest, Miles, miles morales, Morales, Movie, Peter Parker, Shameik Moore, Show, Spider, spider man, spider-gwen, Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse, spider-verse, SpiderGwen, SPIDERMAN, SPIDERVERSE, squirrel girl, stars, swing, thiwp, venom strike.


text:
Topic: Intervention
Well-SENSE's award winning FLI system delivered with design and determination
Content Types: Interview
Genoa Black caught up with Craig Feherty, Director of FiberLine Technology (FLI) at Well-SENSE, to discuss their new product after it burst onto the market last year and subsequently received the award of Most Impactful Technology at the OWI Global Awards 2020.
FLI is an intervention system for downhole data acquisition which enables the operator to perform high-quality well surveys faster than ever before. It employs single-use bare fibre-optic lines for distributed temperature and acoustic sensing, placing them directly into the wellbore from surface to total depth.
This compact and lightweight technology does not rely on the use of rigs, wireline, sickline or coiled tubing for deployment - reducing cost, risk and time taken for well intervention, while still providing a dynamic picture of a well over time. Only one engineer is needed to deploy the system and it can be used for a number of different applications.
Behind the projects success:
Feherty reflected on why the product has received so much attention over the last year. He commented, "We have been running the technology for a couple of years, developing it, trialling it, making it commercial. We knew all along it was something important for the market, that will enable well surveillance to be carried out more efficiently. Over the last year FLI has delivered impressive field results."
When asked what value the FLI system brings to customers, Feherty responded, "One struggle for the industry is efficient data collection of the right type - understanding what is happening within assets, how they are performing and where things are going wrong that may be put right. Standard intervention methods can be costly and have not evolved much over time.
"We have approached this from different angle - how to give our customers faster, richer data sets and reduce the risks that especially offshore interventions can carry. All the way through our development we have tried to address the problem of gathering more meaningful data using a simpler technique. By doing so you minimise the risk. Our product is capturing such rich data sets that it gives our customers much more of an understanding of what is going on within their well, which in turn allows them to make decisions fast. And it is delivered at a very affordable price.
Why recognition was significant:
The FLI Director continued by observing that the company is a small team that has evolved from humble beginnings, mainly through determination. He noted, "It is not easy bringing a new product to market, especially something as different as ours. Developing and building the business up, really is a true reflection on the hard work of our team and the commitment we have had. We have always known that this would be something quite special and it is only through perseverance that you get there. It is the icing on the cake that the hard work that we have committed to, and the work we have done in partnership with our customers, has been recognised by these awards."
Reflecting on 2020:
2020 was a difficult year for every company across the oil and gas industry and Feherty did not shy away from addressing the obstacles Well-SENSE had faced. He admitted, "I won't lie and say it hasn't been a challenge. It has been a challenge for all of us with a lot of uncertainties about. But I think, if anything, it gives us more pride in what we are doing.
"We have had a tough year, but we have ridden through it and with the commercial benefits FLI can offer, we still have a fantastic level of customer engagement, enquiries and orders. We are still growing and that is a testament in itself that, even in challenging times, a small, dedicated team with a great product designed to deliver value, can really make a difference."
Looking ahead to 2021:
Finally, the FLI Director turned to the future as he concluded, "I would like to say the plans will be bigger and better next year, and of course they are, but really it is keeping to the same path we are on. We are seeing demand growing for our services and our technology and we look to continue servicing that throughout 2021. The more we do, the more we can prove how FLI can make big wins for our customers and we only see that as being fruitful. As a team we are really excited for the next 12 months. 2021 will be a new beginning for all of us, but we are starting in a great position, and we are expecting big things."
Dedication and perseverance appear to have paid off for Well-SENSE with the recognition from the OWI Awards judging panel, with one of the expert judges noting that the FLI system is 'giving operators new options'. The new technology is a much needed innovative boost for the industry and is fast becoming the first choice well surveillance and diagnostic tool across the sector.


Scrap Car Shrawley are a reliable team of scrap car collectors working out of Shrawley (DY13), Worcestershire. Old scrap cars, if on the road will still need to be taxed, even if you are not using the vehicle, this is the law. you are not advised to pay to have your car towed away. We will take away your old car at no fee to you in Shrawley!
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Scrap Car Shrawley offer a local service to Worcestershire and have provided car collection in Shrawley for over a decade resulting in many happy customers. We are proud to offer a fast response we can do this as we know the area so well. We pride ourselves on being prompt and arriving to take your scrap car at the time you arrange with us. We are open 24/7 and are available to you 365 days a year, and we will work around you commitments.
We guarantee that your old car is disposed of in the right way. Dishonest companies might sell your car on and never even had any intention of scrapping, sometimes the DVLA won't even be notified that the vehicle has changed ownership. This is a scary thought as you will be liable for any fines payable. Scrap Car Shrawley always ensure that the DVLA are notified that your car has been scrapped, keeping your mind at ease. Whenever we scrap a car we always recycle or reuse whatever we can, meaning we are doing our bit for the environment.
Please try to ensure that your vehicle is disposed of correctly as we want to keep Worcestershire clean and tidy. When the road is littered with old useless cars it can seriously damage the image of any reputable town, so do your bit and scrap that car. Scrap that old car, call today!
It's so easy to scrap your car in Shrawley. Pick up the phone, dial our number and learn the process today. Otherwise, just take a look at our helpful guide to scrapping your car so that you know the procedure before calling.