Edgar Wright's next film is set to be the "genre mashing" Baby Driver. Following his departure from Marvel's Ant-Man due to "creative differences" the Cornetto Trilogy director will return to his partnership with Working Title Films.
Originally pitched as "a wild spin on the action and crime drama which will be set in the US" there's no word yet on whether the film will feature long time collaborators Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige has said he's still keen to work with Wright after the creator of TV show Spaced walked away from Ant-Man – a project eight years in the making that was co-scripted by Joe Cornish of The Adam & Joe Show fame.
There's a parallel here with the lukewarm box office reception to Wright's big budget effort Scott Pilgrim vs the World which saw the Dorset born director return to Working Title to develop The World's End.
Ant-Man's new director Peyton Reed is currently shooting a new script ahead of release next summer. The film follows Scott Lang played by Paul Rudd. Armed with the astonishing ability to shrink in scale but increase in strength, the con-man must embrace his inner-hero and help his mentor, Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), protect the secret behind his spectacular Ant-Man suit from a new generation of towering threats. Against seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Pym and Lang must plan and pull off a heist that will save the world.


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The Westside Church of Christ L.A.
Membership Legacy
Japanese Hymns
Japan: An Odyssey of Faith
Darryl Shimazu Proverbs
The Remarkable Story of Ryohachi Shigekuni
By Lindy Adams
Pioneering missionary J.M. McCaleb first went to Japan before the dawning of the 20th century. His work in evangelizing a non-western culture encouraged others to leave home and move to Asian countries. The names Sarah Andrews, Hettie Lee Ewing, the Foxes, the Rhodes, the Bixlers and the Moreheads have come down to us as the great missionary leaders of Japan before World War II.
Another figure, hardly known except in Japan and among the early missionaries, is Ryohachi Shigekuni. His story is an integral part of that history of north central Japan, the area often called the Japanese "Bible belt."
He traveled to the United States, looking for his fortune, but instead, he found Jesus Christ. The church became a sanctuary, a place where he would not be viewed as an American spy throughout World War II. When the war ended, ground zero became the place where the church had begun a major revival.
The Shigekuni family is as important in the history of the church in Japan as are the Hardemans, Baxters and Youngs for the United States.
The power of the Shigekuni story touched Harris Ives, an American who has taught on the faculty of Ibaraki Christian University for more than 20 years. He has worked with the Yoshiaki and Nobuyuki Shigekuni, the son and grandson of this patriarch of Christian faith in Ibaraki Prefecture. In this article, Ives shares their journey to faith.
— BAILEY McBRIDE, Editor
©2018 by The Pepperdine Religion and Philosophy Division Proudly created with Wix.com

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The Office365 driver is incompatible with the dll's updated by Microsoft in newer versions of the Windows Azure Active Directory module. On a Windows 2012, and Windows 2012 R2, platforms you need to download dependencies from the links provided by Microsoft.
Unfortunately Microsoft changes this link quite often so keeping it updated in this tid hasn't been possible. To find this, do a Google search for the Services Sign-in Assistant.


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Home > Finance and Economics	> Existing home sales lowest since 1995
Existing home sales lowest since 1995
Sales of previously owned U.S. homes took a record plunge in July to their slowest pace in 15 years, underlining the housing market's struggle to find its footing without government aid.
Tuesday's report from the National Association of Realtors, which was much worse than market expectations, was the latest data that indicated economic activity continued to slacken into the third quarter.
The NAR said overall sales were at their lowest since it started the existing-home sales data series in 1999, with single-family home sales that account for most business at their lowest since 1995. Association chief economist Lawrence Yun characterized overall sales as the softest since 1995.
The dismal sales report came as Chicago Federal Reserve President Charles Evans warned the risk of a double-dip recession was higher than six months ago. He doubted that output will actually shrink but said recovery will be modest.
"It is becoming abundantly clear that the housing market is undermining the already faltering wider economic recovery. With the increasingly inevitable double-dip in prices yet to come, things could yet get a lot worse," said Paul Dales, a U.S. economist at Capital Economics in Toronto.
How bad was this report? Very bad:
This is a really, really bad report. The awfulness of July's sales were a little exaggerated due to all of the demand having been pulled forward form the buyer credit. But it's unclear how many months of demand were captured early by the credit, so it's hard to know when its effect will wear off.
Bah! It's all good. Joe Biden, the Veep in charge of overseeing economic stimulus says we're on the right track.
Categories: Finance and Economics Tags: economic recession, economic stimulus, housing market, Joe Biden, Obamanomics
Beyond the 2010 midterms The RNC vs conservatives


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What would you prefer: a museum or a thriving art centre?
In the news entirely for the wrong reasons is the Bhabha bungalow. (A little aside here: is anyone or anything ever in the news for the right reason?). The newspapers are full of it, and TV channels are running discussions about it. Yet, if we were in a logical world, there would be no fuss, no controversy, therefore no news.
Article By Anil Dharker
For those of you who have missed the hullabaloo, in Mumbai's prized (and, therefore priced) Malabar Hill, tucked into a particularly quiet corner is a three-storeyed bungalow discreetly hidden from the road. This was acquired decades ago by a Parsi family called Bhabha, which came into prominence because the older son Homi became Dr Homi Bhabha, India's greatest nuclear scientist, and the founder of the nuclear establishment of the country. The younger son, Jamshed, became one of the senior directors of Tatas, and founded the National Centre for Performing Arts. Over the years, NCPA has undoubtedly become one of the country's best cultural institutions, with state-of-the-art auditoriums and a varied series of programmes across the arts.
The Tatas supported NCPA financially in its initial years, building the Little Theatre and then the bigger Tata Theatre. Even to this day the Tata Theatre is a marvel: it seats over a thousand people, but it has an air of intimacy about it — and its acoustics are so terrific that you do not need a mike to be audible in the corner most seat. (A little story here. Jamshed Bhabha was a purist, and as purists often do, he laid down the rigid law that no mikes would be allowed in the auditorium. Pandit Ravi Shankar, then in his prime, had heard of the marvellous new hall, so decided to perform there. Bhabha showed him around as a prelude to fixing dates. "Do you have a good amplification system?" Ravi Shankar asked. "The acoustics have been designed for music without amplification," Bhabha said sternly. "But I will not perform without mikes," the sitar maestro said. "In that case," Bhabha replied, "We will have to do without your concert."
To come back to the present day, and the current hubbub, Dr Homi Bhabha was killed tragically young in an air-crash in 1966, his death being a huge loss to the nation. But he had left his mark — The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) brought the best scientific brains under one roof, while BARC (Bhabha Atomic Research Centre) did likewise for nuclear scientists. The TIFR campus also has a wonderful auditorium designed by Homi Bhabha (and later, named after him). As if this isn't proof of his multiple talents, Homi Bhabha had a wonderful collection of paintings and was a very good painter himself! All of this art is housed at TIFR. These institutions, therefore, commemorate Homi Bhabha's memory already.
Jamshed Bhabha got NCPA built brick by brick, and a few years before his death in 2006 saw the completion of the theatre that bears his name, with a stage large enough to hold a symphony orchestra. Amazingly, he funded the whole thing himself! Not just that, he willed his entire estate – the Malabar Hill bungalow and its contents, including extremely valuable paintings and antiques — to NCPA. He knew that NCPA lived hand-to-mouth, so badly needed an infusion of funds in a country which is miserly when it comes to culture.
When the auction of the bungalow was announced, employees of BARC suddenly woke up to the memory of Dr Bhabha. Forty-eight years after his death! The bungalow should not be sold, they said. It should be converted into a memorial to him. They even went to court to stop the auction.
Why a memorial to Homi Bhabha in a bungalow which belonged to his brother Jamshed, and who lived there for over four decades till his death? Why talk of Homi Bhabha's legacy alone? What about Jamshed Bhabha's legacy? Was the latter's legacy less important because it involved culture, rather than science? Wasn't NCPA obliged to carry out the will of Jamshed Bhabha, which was absolutely clear in saying that the bungalow and its contents should be sold and its proceeds be used to run and expand the activities of NCPA?
And, finally, why are we as a nation so eager to build memorials to the past rather than create living institutions for the present and the future? Ask yourself what does more good: a bungalow stacked with furniture, papers, photographs and other memorabilia, or a thriving arts and cultural centre? The answer, for me at least, is clear enough.
← Mumbai Samachar: Going strong at 192
Khada Parsi stands tall again, but do his values still hold? →
Sohrab Kamdin	on June 24, 2014 at 8:46 AM
Both, – a museum & a thriving art center.


The Arc New Jersey met with Majority staff from the state Senate and Assembly to discuss draft legislation in response to an audit of background checks for employees of community providers. The bill's goal is to eliminate gaps in the background check requirements in order to ensure the health and safety of people with I/DD living in the community.
State: NJ | This entry was posted in Civil Rights and tagged Abuse & Neglect. Bookmark the permalink.


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Q: Content sent through jQuery ajax is getting cut off I am trying to send html via jQuery's $.ajax() method, and then dump the html into a new .html file, but the content is getting cut off for some reason.
I have set up a test case:

    <form>
    <textarea name="balh" id="balh" rows="25" cols="103"></textarea>
    <input type="button" id="updateContent" value="Update Changes">
    <input type="button" id="closeEditor" value="Close Without Saving">
    </form>

the file.php file is:
<?php
header("Content-type:text/html;charset:UTF-8");
$content = "".stripslashes(urldecode($_POST["content"]))."";
$dump_file = $_POST["fn"];
$fp = fopen($dump_file, 'w');
fclose($fp);
echo $content;
?>

Why is is getting cut off? I'm guessing it's come encoding problem, but I can't figure this out.

A: Your script is dying of embarrassment at the massive security hole in it.
Never, ever, write into a file where the filename is a form parameter without validating the filename first.  Even a novice hacker could use this script to overwrite any file on your system that the webserver has access to.
In your Ajax call, pass a { } style array of key value pairs in the data parameter, don't concatenate the variables with ampersands yourself:
data: { content: contents,
        fn: filename }

Oh, and you're never actually writing the content into the dumpfile, so whatever file 'fn' points at will just get truncated.
Hope that helps...

A: The html string, contents, has to be url-encoded before you POST it. Javascript provides the escape() function, just for this purpose.
Pass $('html').html() to escape() and assign it to contents, like so:
var contents = escape($('html').html());

A: I suspect that the ampersand in the javascript is causing a problem.  Try replacing it with '&' and see if that fixes it.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The Great Bustard Group is a UK Registered Charity (number 1092515), symptoms working to reintroduce the species to the UK and to promote its interests throughout its range. Great Bustards were formerly very much part of British wildlife until the 1840s when they became extinct in Britain due to collectors and changes in agriculture. They have suffered similar dramatic declines in numbers across their range in the last 200 years and their global population is now estimated to be just 35,000 individuals. They are currently listed as Vulnerable in the IUCN Red List of Globally Threatened Species. They are a missing piece of UK wildlife heritage, artificially removed from the ecosystem due to over zealous trophy hunters. There still remains plenty of habitat suitable for Great Bustards in the UK, in particular the rolling downland and arable fields of Wessex. However, their population decline and fragmentation means recolonisation is unlikely to occur without a reintroduction programme.
The Manor Barn is a privately owned and exclusive wedding and events venue located on the edge of the Stonehenge World Heritage Site. As a family run business The Manor Barn strives for exclusivity encouraging every couple that books to relax and enjoy their day, without feeling that they have to be out and cleared up for the next wedding on the conveyor belt. Likewise with private parties and corporate events The Manor Barn offers a flexible and personal approach. So please do get in contact to discuss your event in more detail.
The Wiltshire Museum, Library and Gallery were set up and are administered by the Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Society (WANHS), founded in Devizes in 1853, after the acquisition of the John Britton library of topographical and antiquarian books and manuscripts by a group of Wiltshire gentlemen. The inaugural meeting resolved to form a society 'to cultivate and collect information on archaeology and Natural History in their various branches and to form a Library and Museum illustrating the History, natural, civic and ecclesiastic of the County of Wilts'. Most of the original members were clergymen and landed gentry.
The Museum and Library have been at their current location in Long Street since 1873, occupying first the old Victorian Devizes Grammar School, then the two Georgian houses on either side of the Entrance Hall. Further extensions have increased its size to the present day. It has overseen many of the famous excavations on Salisbury Plain and the Marlborough Downs made by the Cunnington family and is a repository of the artefacts and writings of earlier antiquaries such as Sir Richard Colt Hoare of Stourhead House.
Its collecting area once covered the whole of the county, although this is now shared with neighbouring museums like the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum and the Alexander Keiller Museum at Avebury. Today the Museum is still collecting, and provides a valuable service in identifying and recording artefacts recovered both professionally and by members of the public interested in the increasingly popular subject of archaeology.
This is the official website of the Wylye and Till Valley Benefice. It provides links to the the Team and Churchwardens as well as to e-copies of the two magazines produced on behalf of the benefice: "The Messenger" and "Lower Wylye and Till Valley Parish Magazine".
Perhaps unsurprisingly for a village located on the edge of Salisbury Plain, we have a fairly high proportion of households with either current, or more especially, historic links to the Armed Forces. It's worth noting that in the last couple of weeks, the government have launched a new website called Veterans' Gateway, designed to be the first point of contact for Veterans and their families on issues ranging from healthcare and housing, to employability, finances, personal relationships and more.
Veterans' Gateway is made up of a consortium of organisations and Armed Forces charities, including The Royal British Legion, SSAFA – the Armed Forces charity, Poppyscotland, Combat Stress and Connect Assist. They have connection with additional key referral organisations – both within and outside the Armed Forces sector – meaning that they can get you to the right organisation who can help. Veterans' Gateway is funded by The Armed Forces Covenant, this is the first time a group of this kind has come together formally to deliver a service to help the Armed Forces community.
Waves is an agile and innovative Learning and Organisational Development (L&OD) consultancy implementing transformational change across individuals and organisations to increase performance, productivity and profitability. At our core, are our people, bringing a powerful blend of business, educational and military experience, at board, executive and all other levels. Our approach is to dig deep to identify root causes and challenge attitudes, beliefs and behaviours. We develop the individual and the team through our unique and stimulating experiential programmes such as our Teamscapes team building partnership, herding sheep with Raising the Baa and as Authorised Partners of Patrick Lencioni's 'The Five Behaviours of a Cohesive Team'. Our facilitators can create bespoke delivery interventions to help your Team thrive, linked to ILM accreditation.
Scotland Lodge Farm is becoming the South's reputed 'Leadership and Delivery Centre'. In addition we can offer office space, a self-contained studio flat and a conference room to rent on a daily, or longer basis.
Wessex Water run a Priority Services Register (PSR) for those customers who are a priority (medical needs, etc) or are vulnerable. The web link is shown above.
Wiltshire Council is our local unitary Authority.


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Julietta Yaunches
Technologist, mobile architect and community leader based in Brooklyn, NY.
Brooklyn Swift
Flexible Tech & Experimentation
UIKonf - May 2019
iOSCon Lightning Talk - March 2019
iOSCon Speaker - March 2019
Technology Roadmap: Rewrite vs Refactor
© 2019 Julietta Yaunches
Understanding The LLVM - Introduction
It's a common thing, as software engineers, to have a tendency to shy away from understanding compilation. At a high level, you know the compiler is turning your code into machine code the target computer (running your program) can execute. However, it's a powerful thing to understand compilation at a deeper level.
Specifically as a Swift developer, it's fascinating to know that without the earlier development of Swift's compiler, the LLVM.. the language itself wouldn't have been developed.
This article will look at what the LLVM is and the history of it's development and adoption by Apple.
What is the LLVM
LLVM is an umbrella project for many subprojects. All of which result in a compiler infrastructure and tool chain used today largely by developers using C/C++ based languages and which is heavily integrated in Xcode and it's compilation process.
Of note, and this will be explored later on, the LLVM was developed to be an alternative to the most widely used compilation toolchain of the time, the GCC (GNU Compiler Collection). Comparison of these two options has been heavy over the years of LLVM's growth and development and they both remain viable options for certain languages in certain scenarios. We will talk here about what sets the LLVM apart and why it's now the dedicated compiler toolchain strategy for Apple and subsequently iOS development.
A Compilation Tool Chain
Any set of compilation tools (such as the LLVM and it's sub-projects) follow a similar flow for compiling source code to machine code and then handing the result off to a process for linking and generating an executable.
The LLVM Pieces
A compiler's frontend converts source code to an intermediary language (IR) that can then be handed on to the next stages of compilation… or used by an IDE for warnings/errors or other types of feedback.
In Obj-c, Clang was developed to be LLVM's go-to frontend compiler.. allowing the language to be be progressed beyond what was possible with GCC.
In Swift, a custom front-end compiler was developed.
Optimizations
Optimizations are things the compiler does at runtime to speed up exection or in general increase performance in someway. Reduce footprint, inlining code, etc..
For the LLVM, it's optimizations have been something that has set it apart. Now, in many use cases, it surpasses GCC in speed and other benchmarks.
Development feedback tools
LLDB is a great example here. This is native debugger that is fast and much more memory efficient than it's counterpart in GCC, the GDB.
These type of tools exist outside the compilation flow.. but often build on the same tools. LLDB, for example, uses the source code analysis in Clang.
After the front-end has converted the source language to an Intermediate Representation (IR), and this has gone through optimization, a compiler's backend generates the code that will actually be executable by the target machine's architecture and CPU.
The LLVM's capability here is likely a strong reason for Apple's support and adoption. It uses a target-independent code generation that is capable of creating output for several types of target CPUs — including X86, PowerPC, ARM, and SPARC. Useful for a company building software that will run on so many different hardware devices.
Linking tools
Won't go into these too much for LLVM. Just know that linking is one of the last stages of 'building'. It does happen post compilation and will usually raise errors if you've got duplicate definitions across multiple source code files.
Where the Power is
Most compilation toolchains, including GCC, break things into a front-end, middle section and back-end. This brings great flexibility. LLVM went further in terms of modularity and reuseablity.
If you want support for a new language, you write a front-end lexer to convert you source language to LLVM IR code.
If you need speed given a certain source code size, you could incorporate a new optimizer.
If you need your code to run a specific target architecture not supported you could write your own backend
Many of the LLVM projects can also be plugged into GCC.
Apple & LLVM History
The LLVM compiler project was not started at Apple but University of Illinois by Chris Lattner (that guy) and a professor there, Vikram Adve.
It was originally implemented to compile C & C++, but was created with a 'language-agnostic' design in mind… this caught the eye of Apple they brought Lattner, his project and it's development in-house in 2005. Though it appears it was not immediately invested in, Lattner spent his own time advancing the project until he was able to demonstrate it's value and convince Apple to invest a team in it. It was further advanced and over time became integral to Apple's development toolset… slowly replacing the previously used GCC compiler and many of the low-level tools Apple used across it's development.
The benefits brought by the LLVM allowed Apple to progress Objective C and Xcode and much of the performance and potential of their low-level tools.
In 2010, it seems the LLVM reached a point where it could support more features than could be added to Objective C. Lattner apparently began working on Swift at this point. The framework laid by the advancements to the LLVM, Obj-C and Apple toolset seem to have been foundational in the direction Swift would go.
"We simplified memory management with Automatic Reference Counting (ARC). Our framework stack, built on the solid base of Foundation and Cocoa, has been modernized and standardized throughout. Objective-C itself has evolved to support blocks, collection literals, and modules, enabling framework adoption of modern language technologies without disruption. Thanks to this groundwork, we can now introduce a new language for the future of Apple software development." – Chris Lattener
Timeline of LLVM history at Apple
This article should have given a good idea of the LLVM specifically around:
What the it is from a high level
What it's most fundamental modular projects are
Why, how and when Apple adopted it
Where it's power lies
One interesting next step in learning about the LLVM and it's use would be to look at how the Swift front-end compiler was developed and how it fits into the LLVM toolchain. Fun!


WASHINGTON/DUBAI — A draft US-Russia plan calls for a cessation of hostilities in Syria to begin on February 27, but excludes Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front militants, two western diplomatic sources said on Monday.
The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed a report by the Al Jazeera television network, which also reported that the draft calls on Syrian parties to agree to the cessation of hostilities by midday on February 26. One of the sources said this was accurate, but the second was unable to confirm it.
Islamic State attacked the Syrian government's main supply route from Damascus to the northern city of Aleppo on Monday, a day after the group targeted Damascus and Homs in some of the bloodiest car bomb attacks of the war.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said fighting and air strikes continued unabated across the country, a day after US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, reached a provisional agreement on terms of a cessation of hostilities that would not include Islamic State.
The government has been making gains against Islamic State to the east of Aleppo, while also mounting major offensives against insurgents to the north and south of the city.
Islamic State is also under pressure from the Kurdish-backed Syria Democratic Forces alliance in the northeast.
The observatory's director, Rami Abdulrahman, said government forces had reclaimed one of four positions seized by Islamic State on the road, which it has cut in previous attacks.
"The regime has recovered one of four positions that IS took on the road," he said.


Karbonn Titanium S99 runs on Android v 4.4 (KitKat) OS powered by 1.3 GHz Quad-core processor. Features are 512 MB RAM and 4 GB internal memory expandable up to 32 GB. Display resolution of this smart phone will be 480×800 pixels with IPS capacitive touch screen of 4 inches. Price in India is Rupees 5370- and available in Black and white color options at indiatimes shopping .Check out lowest price to buy online.
Karbonn Titanium S99 has 5 MP rear camera with digital zoom, LED flash and Digital front camera. It comes with 1400 mAh Li-Ion battery capacity to power up. Here the detailed specifications.
Karbonn Titanium S99 Price in India is Rs.5370. This price may be changed now. Always check out lowest price before buy online.Compare the price on different shopping websites.


text:
Charlotte's New Library - An Investment In What We Ought To Be
By Tommy Tomlinson • Nov 11, 2019
I was a library kid. I can still hear the squeak of the hardwood floors in the little library in my hometown in Georgia. I can still smell the faint must of the pages. I can still see the blue spines of the Hardy Boys books I devoured like potato chips. The library had all the books I wanted for free. It seemed like a miracle. It still seems that way.
The other night, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library officials unveiled the design for the new main library they're going to build uptown. It looks spectacular. There's an atrium where you can see up through all five stories. There's a rooftop terrace. There's a café and a plaza where people can gather even if they don't want to check out a book.
It's not going to be cheap – they're going to tear down the current library and rebuild on the same spot. The building will cost about $100 million, and the library wants to raise another $35 million for technology and support. The library has already locked down about two-thirds of that money – Mecklenburg County has pledged $65 million and the Knight Foundation has promised $10 million, among others.
But this might be the point when some of you are wondering how much we need a new library at all. Amazon has any book you want. Google has the treasures of the libraries in the world put together. So these days, what's a library for?
Well, first of all, it's available to everyone. Not all of us have the money for stacks of books or home computers. As we've all heard by now, Charlotte is a hard place to move out of poverty. One gateway to a better life is the access to knowledge that a library provides.
Second, it's a gathering space. Libraries across the country have figured out how to make themselves into a third place – not home, not work, but somewhere you want to go. Uptown Charlotte doesn't have an obvious place to meet somebody, unless you count the Firebird statue. A new library in a beautiful space could be that place to meet.
And finally, a library is a symbol of what matters to us. It says that Charlotte strives to be a more literate and educated place. That has some practical benefits – most big companies looking for a place to land want just that sort of thing. But it's also a message to ourselves, a statement of who and what we want to be – a place of learning and discovery.
The other night at Verse & Vino, the library's big fundraiser, four authors got up to speak. They were from different parts of the country, but each one talked about how much their library meant to them growing up, how it shaped the lives they lead today. I'm glad our library is going to be modern and gorgeous. But the truth is, it doesn't have to be. Every library is magic.
Tommy Tomlinson's On My Mind column normally runs every Monday on WFAE and WFAE.org. It represents his opinion, not the opinion of WFAE. You can respond to this column in the comments section below. You can also email Tommy at ttomlinson@wfae.org.
Lingering Feelings Over A Long-Ago Vote May Have Hurt The Sales Tax Proposal
By Tommy Tomlinson • Nov 6, 2019
If you want to find a reason why Charlotte-Mecklenburg voters rejected a sales tax increase for the arts, parks and education, you've got lots of choices.
Elite College Athletes Make Money For Everyone But Themselves. That Needs To Change.
Let's pretend for a second that you're Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence. It's a nice fantasy. You are a 6-5 NFL prototype who looks like a surfer and throws like Zeus. You led the Tigers to a national title last year as a freshman, and your team is undefeated again this season. Clemson has never lost with you at quarterback.
Sen. Lindsey Graham Knows What 'Lynching' Means. He Just Pretended Not To.
By Tommy Tomlinson • Oct 28, 2019
On a February morning in 1947, in the darkness before dawn, 31 white men gathered in Pickens County, South Carolina.
A white cab driver had been robbed and stabbed two nights before. A black man named Willie Earle had been arrested for the crime. But the 31 white men did not wait for a trial. They showed up at the jail with shotguns. The jailer gave them Willie Earle. An hour later, somebody placed a call to a funeral home, notifying them where to find a dead black man on a dirt road west of Greenville.


An Indian film director, screenwriter and a lyricist Kavitha Lankesh is known for her work in Kannada cinema industry. Kavitha hails from a prominent family of journalists and media publishers. Her father P. Lankesh founded the highly successful weekly tabloid Lankesh Patrike. Gauri Lankesh known for being a critic of right-wing Hindu extremism who was recently shot to death by unknown assailants outside her home is Kavitha's sister.
It is of great privilege to announce that Kavitha Lankesh will take part in the third edition of Kerala Literature Festival happening on 8th February at Kozhikode Beach.
Kavitha began her career as a documentary film-maker before directing her first feature film, Deveeri (1999), which went on to win international, national and state awards. She is considered to be one of the renowned film-makers of Kannada cinema. She has directed and produced more than fifty documentaries/informational films and more than forty corporate films.
Deveeri marked Kavitha's debut as a feature film director and the film went on to win state, national and international awards, including the International Critics Award, National Debut Director Award, and the Aravindan Puraskaram for best debutante director in 2000. Deveeri participated in eighteen international film festivals and won nine awards. Kavitha's second film was Alemaari. The film has Bhavana and Prakash Raj in the lead roles.
Kavitha wrote and directed Preethi Prema Pranaya, a drama film, in 2003. It won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Kannada and the Karnataka State Film Award for Best Story and was a commercial hit running for 100 days in theaters across Karnataka. Kavitha Lankesh also runs a resort exclusively for children called 'GRAMEEN CAMP". Grameen camp that introduce school children to various traditional village games and life styles as well educate them about farming.


Like many people I've been following the ongoing development of Apple Pay with interest, but it seems that some retailers aren't too keen on the new solution – so much so they've created their own.
In America, the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), a consortium of the country's biggest retailers including Walmart and Target, has clubbed together to produce a rival to Apple Pay called CurrentC. The technology behind CurrentC is said to be slower and clunkier than Apple Pay but it does offer consumers loyalty rewards and initially, stores that are part of MCX won't accept Apple Pay.
The main reason why these retailers are opposed to Apple Pay is all to do with credit card fees. Retailers have to pay credit card companies between 1.5 and 3% of every card transaction that's made in their stores, which amounts to a significant amount of money over a year. Moreover, Apple Pay runs on card networks so if it becomes popular, the likes of Visa and MasterCard would only grow stronger and could potentially increase their fees, something which these retailer are afraid of. With CurrentC, they wouldn't have to pay half as much as they currently do.
Another factor is customer data. Retailers want more information about their customers for marketing purposes but Apple Pay does not even share credit card numbers, meaning that retailers have little way of knowing who their customers are or what they're buying. CurrentC, on the other hand, will provide them with far more data through its loyalty rewards programme.
These big retailers have to accept that mobile card payment is here to stay and is only going to become more and more widespread among consumers. While CurrentC may save them a lot of fees, you could argue that by blocking Apple Pay from their stores and offering what sounds like a worse solution in its place, MCX risks turning its customers off and driving them to rivals who do accept Apple Pay.
If retailers really want to take on the might of Apple, they'll need an innovative mobile payment concept with a robust infrastructure behind it to succeed. Meanwhile, MNOs need to be asking serious questions about their own mobile payment strategy as yet more businesses move in on something which should be their bread and butter.


text:
import {IStatement} from "./_statement";
import {verNot, seq, plus} from "../combi";
import {Version} from "../../../version";
import {IStatementRunnable} from "../statement_runnable";
import {NamespaceSimpleName} from "../expressions/namespace_simple_name";

export class Enhancement implements IStatement {

  public getMatcher(): IStatementRunnable {
    const ret = seq("ENHANCEMENT", plus(NamespaceSimpleName));

    return verNot(Version.Cloud, ret);
  }

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


I set off towards Banchory this afternoon to ascend my final Section 21 Marilyn. There are several potential starting points for this hill. I opted to start from Raemoir, following a land-rover track from the start of the walk to just below the summit.
About five minutes after setting-off it started to rain. The rain continued for most of the walk.
During the walk I could hear gunfire. Following sign warns of "wildlife management".
Just after the gate there is a useful sign about dogs and the Access Code.
Given the amount of bracken on this hill, I was glad of the land-rover track up through it.
After clearing the forest, I was a bit surprised at how far I still had to go to reach the summit.
I only saw two other people during the walk. They were both carrying tupperware containers filled with Blaeberries. The upper slopes of this hill are completely covered in Blaeberries.
As I approached the summit, I was a bit concerned with very dark clouds just a short distance away. Thankfully the really bad weather bypassed the hill.
The final 50m or so to the summit cairn requires leaving the track. The cairn is not obvious as this area is quite flat with deep heather. GPS was useful to get straight to it. Summit – NJ6818202923.
Clachnaben, Kerloch and Cairn-Mon-Earn were all visible to the South.
From the summit, I returned to the starting point via the same route.
Quite an enjoyable walk despite the weather.


Will say about tiger woods winning the masters? He swore up and down woods would never win another major. I bet he will go back to what he used to say and go with I said tiger wouldn't win another major unless it's the masters bc that's what he used to say a few years ago b4 finally declaring he will never win another including the masters.


Are you ready for another blog hop?
It's that time of year where we are all thinking about the holidays, gratitude, and gift giving. So to help you stay in your creative flow for the rest of the year, all of us on the StencilGirl Creative Team have created fun projects for you to try. We're all using holiday-themed stencils.
Here are two of my starflakes, but I made several others (as you may have seen in the video). This could be a fun project with kids too.
In total, our Creative Team members have made 12 projects and there's bound to be one you'll adore and a few you'll want to try.
And of course we have a giveaway for you. So be sure to leave a comment on each of the team members' blogs so you get entered to win a $25 StencilGirl Gift Certificate!
Kiala Givehand -- you're here!!!!
Be sure to comment by midnight Central Time in the USA on November 8th and we'll randomly choose a $25 StencilGirl Gift Certificate winner. The more blogs you comment on, the more chances you have to win. The winner will be announced on the StencilGirl Facebook Page on November 9th.
Share the hop with your friends! They just might buy you a stencil if they win :-).
Fun project! Loving the scribble sticks.
What a fun holiday project! I can't wait to make these!
Hanging snowflakes is something I do every year. This is a new one I can use. Thank you.
Great idea for fun with the kiddos!
Fun project..I just started using the scribble sticks; really like them too.
These are adorable Kiala, I make make a few to hang in my studio windows for the holidays !!
Such a fun project! A great take on a wonderful winter theme.
for favors for a party.
Stunning project, I hope the time don't flies because I have much too do before it is Christmas LOL. Thanks again for this wonderful bloghop tutorial.
Loved how you share the supplies used.
Great project thanks for sharing. Abarott(at) Hotmail dot com.
A great project that the whole family can do together!
Thank you for the tutorial and tips.
Delightful ornament idea - thanks!
I loved this idea - totally took me back decades (I won't tell you how many) to when I was a kid in England and we made yards and yards of paper chains for Christmas decorations. Just doing the colouring, cutting and glueing makes me feel like Christmas is coming! Thanks for the memories!
I've made these in the past from store-bought papers - love the idea of decorating plain paper first!
Love your starflakes, they are beautiful and look fun to make.
Lovely starflakes! Thanks for showing us how to make them!
Cool idea. This is a nice bonding with my kids on the holidays. We'll make this together for our decorations.


Once you find a home to settle into, it becomes a prized possession. You work to make it your own, installing décor and fixtures to convey your family's personality.
Have you ever thought to express yourself by upgrading your roof, siding, or deck? With the help of the contractors at D.S. Bahr Construction, Inc., you can enhance the look and function of your home.
Not only do decks provide a social space in your yard, they also increase your home's value. At D.S. Bahr Construction, Inc., we can remodel and repair your deck, or install a new one.
Both roofing and siding boost your home's style and security. Different materials create different atmospheres around your home—wood conveys a different feeling than vinyl, for example. Different materials also require different levels of maintenance.
When you want new roofing or siding but don't know where to start, D.S. Bahr Construction, Inc. is ready to help. We are eager to help homeowners in and around Minneapolis, MN, with roofing, siding, and decking services.
We know our services can enhance your home's look and value. Call 612.722.1448 to receive a free estimate for your upcoming project.


The Epicore dovetail profile offers a hanging feature to accommodate signage, lighting, or other mechanical and utility components. Epicore hangers can be placed continuously, spaced across the width of the profile. Hangers can be installed as they are needed and can be relocated, reused, or removed at any time during the life of the building.
Spans 16' to 32'. Depth 6.5".
Spans 12' to 26'. Depth 5".
Spans 10' to 25'. Depth 3.5".
Spans 6' to 13'. Depth 2".
Spans 6' to 20'. Depth 2".


text:
Kajmany na XXX Letnich Igrzyskach Olimpijskich w Rio de Janeiro reprezentowało 5 sportowców – 3 mężczyzn i 2 kobiety.

Był to dziesiąty start Kajmanów na letnich igrzyskach olimpijskich.

Reprezentanci

Lekkoatletyka

 Mężczyźni

Pływanie

 Mężczyźni

 Kobiety

Żeglarstwo

Kobiety

Linki zewnętrzne

Państwa uczestniczące w Letnich Igrzyskach Olimpijskich 2016
L2016
Sport na Kajmanach

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Agriphila dalmatinellus is een vlinder uit de familie grasmotten (Crambidae). De wetenschappelijke naam is voor het eerst geldig gepubliceerd in 1900 door Hampson.

De soort komt voor in Europa.

dalmatinellus
Dier uit het Palearctisch gebied


Moderator Courter has moved the UUA Board to Policy Governance. Policy Governance asserts that the organization is led by the Board which established goals for the organization (called "Ends") and establishes "Policies" which establish the boundaries of permissible actions to achieve those ends. The staff or administration then goes forth to do the work of the organization within the policies that have been made. An end may be to be financially self-supporting; the policy is the staff can't rob banks to get income to cover expenses.
The administration is supposed to provide the board with "monitoring reports" in which it reports how it defines the end in practical terms, establishes measurable goals to reach that end, and reports as to whether it is in compliance with the end. The Board can dispute whether the definition and the goals are reasonable.
It's much more complicated than that. But our UUA Board and UUA Administration have not been able to make this work. To the point, that a $100,000 consultant to mediate this is considered a wise investment.
You might remember that at the last election for UU President, Moderator Courter endorsed Rev. Laurel Hallman, whose experience at the First Unitarian Church of Dallas included working with policy governance. Rev. Morales expressed much more informal commitment to policy governance.
Rev. Morales won the election. And the Board and the Administration have been unable to agree on the reporting needed.
Is this a relationship problem? I doubt it. If there is anything that you can count on is that the leaders of the UUA possess exquisite interpersonal and relational skills. It is the one trait required of leaders throughout the denomination. After all, these same people managed to work through all the complications of Justice GA in Phoenix, when so many assumed it would be a hot mess in the desert.
I think that the problem is that the UUA has tended to view governance and organization as the effective substitutes for shared mission and vision. Indeed, we talk about congregational polity as though it were a theology.
I don't resent the $100,000 to spent on a consultant. It's not the money. It's just that it continues the pattern of looking toward governance as the solution to our problems.
What if we went another way: What if we gathered the wisest, most dedicated and inspirational leaders of Unitarian Universalism and asked them to articulate our mission and vision and to work with our leaders to build personal commitment for that. Instead of turning toward expertise, we turn to inspiration as the way forward.
The vision must be held by the whole Association.
The vision should generate concrete plans with goals, goals that are measurable.
The capacity to be concrete, to measure those concrete programs, to evaluate the impact of those programs is necessary for the vision to be more than a wish.
Governance is the process of moving from ad hoc to strategic, from "feedback" to evalutation.
Vision is not an alternative to governance, governance is the way vision is given hands.
The Carver model was designed for for-profit corporations. It is often inappropriate for many non-profit organizations. Having served on a school board, I know a number of school boards that have gotten into trouble by adopting the Carver model. Among other things, it is harder to quanitify the goals of a non-profit organization than it is to measure profits.
In addition, for many non-profit organizations, the means of getting to an end are at least as important as the end, and simply setting parameters is not quite the right way to approach the issue.
Boards should avoid micro-management, but you don't have to adopt the Carver model to avoid micro-management. The Carver model also submerges conflicts over important issues under weird side-issues about process.
The $100K seems questionable to me. I would like to see an explanation of how this will solve the problem.
I suspect the problem is that President Morales and the Board have somewhat different goals for the UUA, not a "failure of governance" that can be solved by a consultant.
Does anyone know enough about what is going on to explain what is REALLY going on? What is the real disagreement behind this supposed disagreement about whether the reports properly quantify the goals? I find it difficult to believe that this is the real issue.
The problem isn't policy governance, and it is not true that policy governance was "developed for profit making corporations."
Our problem is reports that do not account for the efficacy of programs. If they are worthwhile programs (which I beleive they are) they should be a way of measuring their impact.
The Board is not mistreating the President.
I've read the Carver model. I've been to briefings on the Carver model, including one delivered by John Carver. I've observed school boards trying to use the Carver model.
It is true that John Carver believes that his model applies to non-profit organizations and that many non-profit organizations have attempted to apply the model. So in that sense, you are right that the model is, in Carver's opinion, designed to work for non-profit organizations.
I continue to think that this model's focus on quantifiable ends and limitations on means is a mistaken application of governance that might be appropriate for for-profit corporations to the non-profit world. I do not think the Carver model is well-designed for many non-profit organizations.
And I would also add that as an economist, I'm all in favor of quantifying what can be quantified, and have spent much of my career thinking about how to measure the causal impact of public policies..
One thing that the Carver model fails to deal with is the enormous difficulty in many non-profit service organizations in actually measuring the causal impact of policies and practices and programs on what really matters. This creates real problems for the model.
The money is a symptom, not the disease, but it is one we need to really have looked at. Governance isn't religion, and polity (as I have said so many times) is not theology. I don't mind the UUA establishing more of a leadership role, but that role needs to be rooted in healing and encouraging people, not in being a political movement.
We had growth because there was a time when people were looking for something, and our message told them that we could help them find it. We failed them, and now they are leaving us. There are congregations that are doing well, but they are exceptions. We are loosing the smaller congregations, in part, due to lack of leadership and hollow theology.
We need more than "ends" and "means". If we believe in ongoing revelation and deny that there is a set end to the world, then we need to do away with the idea that our goals have "ends". We need to see our mission as continuous and we need to make it central to everything we do.
I am disappointed in the UUA, to the point that I have given up "Unitarian Universalist" as a label with any meaning. We are so afraid to exclude anyone from our potential pool of dues-paying membership, that we only offer weak and shallow platitudes. Our "Principles" read like a UN resolution, and our sources are pick-and-choose rather than an integrated system of understanding.
$100,000 would be a very small price to pay for real change, but I have no reason to believe that moving more efficiently in the wrong direction could possibly be a good use of our resources.
Citing materialsojourn's comment: "We had growth because there was a time when people were looking for something, and our message told them that we could help them find it. We failed them, and now they are leaving us. There are congregations that are doing well, but they are exceptions. We are loosing the smaller congregations, in part, due to lack of leadership and hollow theology.", I would like to use this negatively phrased assessment as the starting point to propose the adoption of a significantly new paradigm for reviewing the current UUA governance and policy position, particularly as they address the need to grow membership. Finding sufficient affirmation of this need from the most popular UUWorld article/essay of 2013, i.e., Doug Muder's "Is Religion Broken?", I urge those interested to read his blog before reading the rest of my proposal.
I believe his blog represents a clear and substantial instance of a very significant shift in the evolving overall mindset about "religion". We have failed the younger generations insofar as we have not altered the design of our "policies" to self align to this shift, i.e., it isn't due to lack of leadership and hollow theology, it's due to our leadership (who do have a very high level of leadership energy and ability) staying with a theology that is rapidly shifting to an ideology that is no longer subscribed to by a large segment of the people. As our lives in general have changed so incredibly in the last hundred years, let alone the last two hundred years and beyond, this segment is casting aside the old paradigms of spirituality (read religious community is no longer needed for community/survival) in favor of new ones, ones that are yet to be clearly articulated - we're in between.


text:
Closing Sunday: "REAL TO REAL: Photographs from the Traina Collection," at the de Young Museum
"Melissa" (2005, Chromogenic print, 50"h x 40"w) by American photographer Alec Soth is on display at the de Young Museum through September 16, 2012, as part of "Real to Real: Photographs from the Traina Collection." The image was taken at the Flamingo Inn at Niagra Falls, the former honeymoon capital of the world, just after the woman, Melissa, was married. Image courtesy: Traina Collection.
An engaging and controversial show, Real to Real: Photographs from the Traina Collection is closing this Sunday, August 16, 2012, at San Francisco's de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. Drawn from the impressive holdings of San Francisco native Trevor Traina, a member of the FAMSF Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Board and the son of its President, Diane B. (Dede) Wilsey, the exhibition brings together rare black-and-white vintage prints of classic images by Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Diane Arbus and Garry Winogrand with works in color by artists ranging from Stephen Shore and William Eggleston to Cindy Sherman, Alec Soth and Andreas Gursky.
How the mix of 110 images, produced by some of the pre-eminent artists working in photography from the 1950s has to the present, qualified as a major exhibition at the museum has been a source of controversy. Some Bay Area art critics have suggested that it was improper protocol to give museum space to someone so closely connected with the internal politics of the museum.
When Fine Arts Museum director John Buchanan passed in December 2011, Mrs. Wilsey stepped up to run things until a suitable new director could be found and six months later her son has a prominent show in the museum. It might look cozy but, so far, no one has come up with any rules that were violated. The show, which examines different historical understandings of Realism and its changing definitions over time, was curated jointly by Art Historian Kevin Moore, who served as an advisor to Traina on the collection, and Founding Curator of Photography and Chief Administrative Curator at the Fine Arts Museums Julian Cox.
Photography has not been considered "fine art" until fairly recently by the FAMSF according to Mrs. Wilsey, who spoke at the exhibition's press conference in June about the history of photography and the museum's long lack of wall space devoted to the medium. Now, things have changed and the museum is welcoming photography, with Julian Cox proudly at the helm. Cox states, "It was Alfred Stieglitz who, a century ago, campaigned in support of photography's expressive possibilities independent from other visual arts, because he believed the medium to be endowed with what he described as "a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality."
Most of us are moved by photography because it provides us with a myriad of possibilities to understand our lives through the power of images. The Traina collection includes some well-known icons as well as powerful works by emerging and experimental young photographers. Notes Cox, "The Traina collection includes many images that sit firmly within the tradition of photography as a craft and a vocation, alongside those made by artists who consider photography as just one medium among others from which they can select to communicate an idea. This use of photography within conceptual art has been at the center of Traina's most recent activity as a collector, and it brings the exhibition fully into the contemporary moment with new works by artists such as Roe Etheridge, Christopher Williams and Ryan McGinley.
Traina said, "There are often photography shows of one artist or one period. What makes this show special is that it traces an idea — the evolution of the documentary tradition and the maturation of the photographic medium — across almost seven decades. The evolution of color photography and the huge glossy prints that sit next to their pristine black and white antecedents are really fun to see."
Catalogue: An accompanying 136-page catalogue, Real to Real: Photographs from the Traina Collection (2012, $45) features over 85 plates and includes a foreword and introduction by Curator Julian Cox and an essay by art historian Kevin Moore.
Details: Real to Real: Photographs from the Traina Collection closes Sunday, September 16, 2012. The de Young Museum is located in Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, San Francisco. The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday 9:30 a.m. to 5:15 p.m.; Fridays (through November 23, 2012) until 8:45 p.m. and is closed Mondays. For information about museum hours and ticket prices, call (415) 750-3600 or visit www.deyoungmuseum.org .
September 15, 2012 - Posted by genevaanderson | Art, de Young Museum | Alec Soth, Andreas Gursky, " at the deYoung Museum, Cindy Sherman, Closing Sunday: "REAL TO REAL: Photographs from the Traina Collection, De Young Museum, Dede Wilsey, Diane Arbus, FAMSF, Garry Winogrand, John Buchanan, Julian Cox, Kevin Moore, Lee Friedlander, Robert Frank, Stephen Shore, Todd Traina, William Eggleston


text:
Album Review: The Superstar Sibling Detective Agency by The Swinging Belles
by Sandy May
Sandy reviews the latest from the Juno Award-winning Kid's trio, The Swinging Belles, and has her children weigh in.
Parenthood is supposed to transform us into better human beings, with a seemingly unavoidable worse taste in music. Tribe Called Quest and Wu-Tang … are traded in for Old Macdonald Had a Farm, and Wheels on the Bus, until one day anthropomorphised insects singing The Beatles makes perfect sense.
While I've never expected my young children to cheer for the Bronte sisters over Goodnight Moon at bedtime, music is one area where I've stubbornly refused to acquiesce.
But how to bridge the gap between Blood on the Tracks and Baa Baa Black Sheep? Enter The Swinging Belles, and their new album The Superstar Sibling Detective Agency. The Swinging Belles, for anyone unfamiliar, are an energetic Juno award winning swing band for kids. Erin Power and Laura Winter are the group's cheerful and animated vocalists and storytellers.
They sing songs about the importance of dusting yourself off, having a positive attitude, and valuing your friends, with all the sweetness of Julie Andrews assigning you homework, which makes sense given that Power and Winter can both be found teaching primary school when not performing as The Belles.
The Swinging Belles make music for children first and foremost, but there's enjoyment for parents that extends beyond watching your kids' avant garde dance moves. Swinging Belles guitarist Duane Andrews is an extraordinary musician who combines traditional Newfoundland music with Manouche gypsy jazz in the style of Django Reinhardt, and it's his musicianship that really helps to bridge the gap between parents and children.
The Swinging Belles make music for children first and foremost, but there's enjoyment for parents that extends beyond watching your kids' avant garde dance moves.
The combination of Power, Winter, and Andrews has been winning over multi-generational fans since their 2015 debut More Sheep, Less Sleep, which culminated in the 2016 Juno for Children's Album of the Year. The Swinging Belles maintain, and even expand their energetic swing-jazz sound with their new release The Superstar Sibling Detective Agency.
Enlisting the help of good friends The Once, Patrick Boyle, Greg Bruce, Curtis Andrews, Kathy Conway Ward and Andrew Cooper, the album is a dash of Dolly Parton's The Grass is Blue, The McGarrigle Sisters' Log Driver's Waltz, The Triplets of Belleville, and the Quintette du Hot Club de France.
Putting the Tunes to the Kids' Test
In any case, what have the children got to say about it? My test-subjects, Jules and Anouk, are really the best positioned to review The Superstar Sibling Detective Agency.
Jules didn't say much, but bounced wildly in his rocker until passing out. Anouk, the more thoughtful critic of the two, gave the album high praise, and enthusiastically singled out "Sea Creatures Ball," "All the Dogs," "Fly," and "Brightest on the Heart" as some of her favourites. (Fans of bluegrass artist Old Man Luedecke will recognize this last track as a cover off his 2015 album Domestic Eccentric).
All in all, The Superstar Sibling Detective Agency is an enjoyable combination of good messages, good humour, and good music. The energetic and participatory nature of the group's live performances shines through, and ultimately shows that it is indeed possible for music made for children to be entertaining and engaging for all.
Hot off their performance at La Semaine Acadienne in Courseulles sur Mer, France, The Swinging Belles will host the official launch party of The Superstar Sibling Detective Agency in a grand Carnival-style extravaganza, at The Lantern on October 13th. Stay tuned for ticket details!
Sandy May
More from Sandy May
Ouroboros Brings the Party with Sophomore Effort
They're one of the city's preeminent party bands for a reason: they've...
"10 Finely Tuned New Tracks" from Juno Nominee Kellie Loder
Album Review: Patrick Boyle's After Forgetting
Mark Bragg is Back: His New Album Drops March 29th


text:
Q: CoreAudio AudioQueue | How to stream from network to specific Audio Server plug-in device on macOS? I am relatively new to macOS programming but not programming generally. I'd prefer to work in (Objective)C/C++ rather than Swift. I need to open a specific audio device for output and stream a live stream of audio data from the network to the output device. The device has a custom Audio Server plug-in driver that we have source for. I'm feeling really stupid trying to figure out from the Apple documentation what I need to call to do these things. Can anyone help answer the following:
1) What are some of the appropriate APIs to use to do this? I'm thinking I need CoreAudio and AudioQueue, but I'm too ignorant here to be sure. Any references to similar example applications would be appreciated. Book recommendations would be appreciated, too.
2) How do I open my specific, custom driver for output? Does it have something to do with the UUID I see in the driver code, or is the driver identified some other way? I need my program to find the custom driver without any human assistance like picking from a selection list.
3) A dumb question because I haven't seen a clear example in application examples I've looked at: I downloaded the CAPlayThrough application (https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/samplecode/CAPlayThrough/Introduction/Intro.html) and kind of understand it, but I don't understand something in particular. How do I write my "pushed" in-memory data from the network to the output device? Do I need to use some kind of callback that reads from a ring buffer that the network live stream is written to?
ADDENDUM:
3/24/2020 Based on further research, I've answered my main questions but still have an issue that I think is out of scope. I will give my answer below and write up a new question.

A:
1) What are some of the appropriate APIs to use to do this?

The Core Audio API would be fine. See AudioDeviceCreateIOProcID and AudioDeviceStart in CoreAudio/AudioHardware.h. For some reason, the Apple documentation site doesn't have the docs for them, so you have to find it in the header file.
Or you could use AVAudioEngine. (But not AVAudioPlayer.)
Depending on your other requirements, it might be easier to use an existing program like GStreamer or VLC.

Any references to similar example applications would be appreciated.

CAPlayThrough could be an OK place to start, but it uses AUGraph, which is deprecated. I'm not sure whether you'll need the varispeed audio unit it uses to adjust for differences in the sample rates, but you can at least get started without it.
This looks it does something similar without using AUGraph: https://github.com/pje/WavTap/blob/master/App/AudioTee.cpp

How do I open my specific, custom driver for output?

The driver would publish an audio output device and it would have a property called kAudioDevicePropertyModelUID (See AudioHardwareBase.h.) and should have a constant value for it. You can check it by double clicking on the device in HALLab.
Your program could use AudioObjectGetPropertyData to get the kAudioHardwarePropertyDevices property of the "audio system object" (kAudioObjectSystemObject) and then get the kAudioDevicePropertyModelUID property of each device.
If you're using C++, you might want to use the Public Utility classes to help with that.

Does it have something to do with the UUID I see in the driver code, or is the driver identified some other way?

The driver is identified by its bundle ID. You can use the kAudioHardwarePropertyPlugInForBundleID property to the the AudioObjectID of the audio object that represents the driver (i.e. the plug-in). You can also find the device through the plug-in object.

How do I write my "pushed" in-memory data from the network to the output device? Do I need to use some kind of callback that reads from a ring buffer that the network live stream is written to?

The function you pass to AudioDeviceCreateIOProcID will be called every IO cycle and given a buffer to fill with the samples for that cycle.

A:
1) What are some of the appropriate APIs to use to do this?

I've determined that Audio Queue Services fit my need best.

2) How do I open my specific, custom driver for output?

I found I can set the desired audio output device by using the SetAudioQueueProperty function with the kAudioQueueProperty_CurrentDevice parameter as in the following fragment.
  CFStringRef deviceUID = CFSTR("BlackHole_UID"); // For example
  status = AudioQueueSetProperty(queue, kAudioQueueProperty_CurrentDevice, &deviceUID, sizeof(deviceUID));

3) How do I write my "pushed" in-memory data from the network to the output device?

Considering how AudioQueues work, it looks like I should do the following: send the decoded, streamed audio to a ring buffer that is pulled from the output AudioQueue callback.


Despite widespread privacy concerns, several Canadian provinces are pushing through with the implementation of the enhanced driver's license (EDL) scheme that seeks to link U.S.-Canada border security measures.
In January, British Columbia became the first province to implement an EDL pilot program in conjunction with Washington State. The province currently has some 500 EDLs activated.
Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec are working on their own version of radio frequency Identification (RFID)-enabled drivers' licenses with embedded personal ID and citizenship information.
The programs are an offshoot of Washington's Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) that requires travelers to the U.S. to carry a passport or equivalent ID to enter the country starting June 2009.
RFID or radio wave-based technologies are used to tag and track objects and people. Information from simple numbers to complex data is implanted on a microchip that can transmit signals to an RFID reader.
EDL proponents say embedding required data into a driver's license that can be read by an RFID scanner from several meters away will eliminate the need for manual passport inspection by border agents.
This, they say, will significantly speed up border crossings.
As an EDL will contain citizenship data, the card would serve as an alternative to a passport, providing non-drivers with a photo ID card equivalent to a driver's license.
But civil liberties and public advocacy groups on both sides of the border say that such a system is riddled with flaws. They warn it could lead to racial profiling, breach of privacy, and even ID theft by cyber criminals armed with their own RFID scanners.
"This program will essentially enroll Canadians into a national ID program developed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security," says Stuart Trew, regional organizer of the Ontario and Quebec Branch of Council of Canadians.
The Council is an Ottawa-based citizens' advocacy organization with more than 70,000 members across Canada.
While for now enrolment is voluntary, Trew says down the line it's likely to be made a requirement – one that would create multiple categories of travelers.
He said once the program becomes widespread, it would be all too easy for border agents to consider all non-EDL holders suspect.
Like many civil liberties activists, Trew believes such "enhanced" licenses have little anti-terrorism value, and can in fact expose holders to possible identity theft.
For one, the system's effectiveness depends on other ID-type documents – such as birth certificates – that the EDL will be associated with.
In the U.S., for instance, sources of these diverse documents rarely interact, and it's easy to gain access to spurious documents.
The EDL system developed for the DHS by Digimarc Corp., a Beaverton, Ore-based company, does not support encryption and allows information to be read from a distance of up to 20 feet.
RFID readers can do a blanket scan of multiple card holders even from a traveling vehicle, Trew noted.
He said there have actually been trials where this type of identity theft was proven to be easily accomplished.
Digimarc was unavailable for comment.
But the notion that cyber criminals will be able to steal card holders' personal information was refuted by David Oved, communications adviser to Jim Bradley, Ontario's Minister of Transportation.
The actual information about the card holder remains in the database, Oved said.
The ability to scan for the numbers from a distance is actually meant to reduce the time it takes for border agent to bring up on the computer screen a traveler's file, he said. The idea is to have the files ready before the traveler faces the agent. This, will hopefully, reduce cross border lineups.
For determined identity thieves correlating an EDL serial number with a person's private information is relatively easy even without hacking into the associated database, according to Andrew Clement, professor of information studies at the University of Toronto.
Clement spoke on the topic of EDL at the Canadian Identity Forum recently held in Toronto in conjunction with the Ontario Privacy Commission headed by Anne Cavoukian.
Serial numbers associated with an individual's EDL, Clement said, should be considered and receive appropriate protection just like an IP address which the Privacy Commission considers part of a persons personal information.
Clement said for a substantial number of Canadians, passports still constitute a viable and secure ID document.
"RFID is an effective technology for managing the supply chain and tracking livestock or objects not people," he said.
Another serious issue is the security and origin of the database containing the traveler's information. Databases both private and public have been breaches numerous times in the past both by external and internal operatives.
In the case of EDL's Canadian's personal information will likely reside in U.S. government databases as well, Clement said.
No EDL project in Canada should proceed on a permanent basis unless the personal information of participating drivers remains in the country, according to a joint resolution passed by the privacy commissioners late last month.
The resolution also called for "meaningful and independent oversight" of how the U.S. Customs and Boarder Protection receives and uses the personal information of Canadians.
This would include regular reporting of oversight activities and corrective measures to the Canadian government and the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
The U.S. government is well within its rights to impose such stringent requirements, and the Privacy Commission is powerless to stop it according to Trew.
Can Apple "kill switch" zap an app off your iPhone?


text:
package org.b3log.symphony.cache;

import javax.inject.Named;
import javax.inject.Singleton;
import org.b3log.latke.Keys;
import org.b3log.latke.cache.Cache;
import org.b3log.latke.cache.CacheFactory;
import org.b3log.symphony.model.Option;
import org.b3log.symphony.util.JSONs;
import org.json.JSONObject;

/**
 * Option cache.
 *
 * @author Liang Ding
 * @version 1.0.0.0, Aug 11, 2016
 * @since 1.5.0
 */
@Named
@Singleton
public class OptionCache {

    /**
     * Option cache.
     */
    private static final Cache cache = CacheFactory.getCache(Option.OPTIONS);

    static {
        cache.setMaxCount(1024);
    }

    /**
     * Gets an option by the specified option id.
     *
     * @param id the specified option id
     * @return option, returns {@code null} if not found
     */
    public JSONObject getOption(final String id) {
        final JSONObject option = (JSONObject) cache.get(id);
        if (null == option) {
            return null;
        }

        return JSONs.clone(option);
    }

    /**
     * Adds or updates the specified option.
     *
     * @param option the specified option
     */
    public void putOption(final JSONObject option) {
        cache.put(option.optString(Keys.OBJECT_ID), JSONs.clone(option));
    }

    /**
     * Removes an option by the specified option id.
     *
     * @param id the specified option id
     */
    public void removeOption(final String id) {
        cache.remove(id);
    }
}


text:
Repurposing Old Industrial Sites As Public Parks
by Kaushik Patowary Wednesday, November 27, 2019
The public park Landschaftspark in Duisburg-Meiderich, Germany. Image credit: mini_malist/Flickr
Landschaftspark, or "landscape park", of Duisburg-Meiderich, Germany, was once an industrial site that was adapted and transformed into a stunning public park by the design firm Latz + Partner in the early 1990s. Attempt was made to preserve as much of the existing site as possible. Giant blast furnaces and loading bridges of the former coal and steel production plant still looms large above the rusting iron plates that were once used to cover casting molds in the pig-iron casting works. The waste water in the open canal was replaced by clear water. Bridges and footpaths were added. Where the heavily contaminated sintering plant once stood, is now a flourishing meadow and a shady grove. The entire park is a huge festival place where as many as fifty thousand people gather during festivities.
Image credit: (L) Thomas Wensing/Flickr, (R) !Koss/Flickr
Image credit: (L) !Koss/Flickr, (R) Thomas Haeusler/Flickr
Image credit: (L) !Koss/Flickr, (R) !Koss/Flickr
Image credit: haveseen/Shutterstock.com
Breathing fresh air into old, degenerated industrial sites is not new. One of the oldest such project was the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont in northeastern Paris, that opened in 1867 during the regime of Napoleon III. This area, just outside the limits of Paris, was originally the place where criminals and traitors were hanged and gibbetted. After the 1789 Revolution, it became a refuse dump and then a place for cutting up horse carcasses and a depository for sewage. Another part of the site was a former gypsum and limestone quarry. Architect Jean-Charles Alphand completely remade the landscape, digging up a lake and shaping the lawns and hillsides. But effort was also made not to hide the past of the site, but rather work to enforce it.
Parc des Buttes-Chaumont. Image credit: frlegros / Shutterstock.com
A notable predecessor to Landschaftspark was the Gas Works Park in Seattle. The 19-acre site was a gasification plant that produced coal gas used for lighting, cooking, and refrigeration. The plant also manufactured tar, lampblack, charcoal briquets, sulfur and toluene. After the plant closed in 1956, it was acquired by the city and opened to the public as a park in 1975. Rather than removing the gasworks, the derelict structure was incorporated into the park. The boiler house was converted to a picnic shelter complete with tables and fire grills, while the exhauster-compressor building was transformed into an open-air play barn, housing a maze of brightly painted machinery for children.
Gas Works Park in Seattle. Image credit: Jason Finn/Shutterstock.com
Image credit: Checubus/Shutterstock.com
A similar site exist near the city of Gräfenhainichen, in Germany. There, in a former open-cast mine, lie five enormous decommissioned industrial machines—bucket wheel excavators, continuous bucket dredgers as well as stackers, each measuring up to 130 meters long and 30 meters high. When the mine shut down in the 1990s, these machines were left behind to form an open air museum called Ferropolis. The unusual backdrop formed by these gigantic relics of industrial history, surrounded by the flooded mine shaft, is nowadays a popular setting for open-air concerts, opera and music festivals.
The Melt! Festival 2018 in Ferropolis. Image credit: Matthias Ripp/Flickr
Image credit: (L) Juska Wendland/Flickr, (R) Matthias Ripp/Flickr
Image credit: (L) Matthias Ripp/Flickr, (R) Cinematographer/Shutterstock.com
Image credit: (L) S. Kuelcue/Shutterstock.com, (R) Thomas Quack / Shutterstock.com
One of the most significant adaptive reuse projects was the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex in the city of Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Zollverein was among the largest coal-mining facility in Europe, and a leading example of German heavy industry. At its peak, between the two World Wars, Zollverein employed 8,000 workers and had an annual output of 3.6 million tons. But after World War II, the industry shifted from coal to oil and the Zollverein mine gradually decreased in production until it closed in 1986.
Immediately after, the state bought the coal mine territory and began preserving the site. Today it serves as a museum to the fascinating history of one of the largest industrial regions of the world. The various buildings have been repurposed as art galleries, exhibition halls, and restaurants. There is also a swimming pool and an ice skating rink. The preservation of this outstanding industrial monument was so exceptional that the UNESCO included it in their World Heritage Sites list in 2001. UNESCO noted that the "sensitive and imaginative adaptive reuse [of the project] has ensured that their forms survive intact, with significant items of the industrial plant preserved, and that their interrelationships remain visible in a clear and logical manner."
A swimming pool inside the Zollverein Coal Mine Complex. Image credit: www.pottleben.de
Image credit: (L) Thomas Wolf/Wikimedia Commons, (R) trabantos/Shutterstock.com
Image credit: trabantos/Shutterstock.com
Image credit: (L) saiko3p/Shutterstock.com, (R) Peeradontax / Shutterstock.com
Examples of such adaptive reuse are seen in other places across Europe. Not all of them were turned into parks. One gasometer in Oberhausen was transformed into an exhibition hall, and several gasometers in Vienna was made into livable apartments. The Tate Modern Art Gallery on the south bank of the Thames in London, is another famous adaptive reuse project. The building was originally a power station.
Repurposing Old Industrial Sites As Public Parks Reviewed by Kaushik Patowary on Wednesday, November 27, 2019 Rating: 5
Tags : France Germany Industrial Landmarks Parks USA


text:
Technology 10 Oct 2017
Technological Progress: Risk or opportunity for employment?
Marta Torres Briegas
The development of new technologies as a means to alleviate workloads is part of the day to day running of businesses. Increasingly, robots, artificial intelligence, and computer algorithms are taking over humans in the execution of mechanical tasks. However, many theoreticians are wary of the consequences this development will bring upon the workplace. Darrel M. West discusses the impact of these emerging technologies on society in the book 'The Next Step. Exponential Life', which can be downloaded for free from the BBVA OpenMind project website.
Listen to audio Leer en español
Francisco González: "In the future, there will be new jobs that we can't even imagine today"
On the occasion of the annual meeting of the International Advisory Panel of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, BBVA Executive Chairman Francisco González shared his vision of the implications of the current technological revolution: "The technological and digital transformation is an extraordinary opportunity, but actively managing the changes it entails is fundamental to ensuring equal opportunity and the transfer of its enormous benefits, advantages and possibilities to the whole of society."
Computerization has helped to improve production, both in terms of speed and cost reduction. However, its dizzying growth is leading many to think that employment could be adversely affected in the short term. It is a fact that the number of industrial robots replacing human labor has increased worldwide. According to a study by RBC Global Asset Management, that automation costs in companies have dropped sharply.
This uncertainty about the impact that technology will have on society is stirring up a debate that is dividing experts. The pessimistic current, which includes economists Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, predicts that the technological process will be detrimental to workers who can only offer manual skills. This situation will lead to a destruction of employment and a sharp decline in wages, giving rise to a marginal class of permanently unemployed citizens.
Download complete book
Other theoreticians refute these pessimistic predictions. While recognizing that, indeed, many jobs will disappear, they say new and better jobs will be created. Work will be transformed but humans will still be needed to supervise the work of the machines. These jobs will be more productive, and therefore pay higher wages.
"Work will be transformed but humans will still be needed to supervise the work of the machines"
Francisco González Rodríguez
Francisco González: "Banks will do new things that we can't even imagine right now"
A host of CEOs and chairpersons from some of Spain's leading companies gathered at the BBVA headquarters in Madrid to attend an event organized by the bank and global business research association The Conference Board. During his welcoming speech, BBVA Group Executive Chairman Francisco González said the transformation that is rippling across the banking industry will go far beyond "doing the same things in different ways," and will require "doing new things that we couldn't even have imagined with the previous technological infrastructure."
Francisco González is one of these 'techno-optimists'. During the annual meeting of the International Advisory Panel of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, BBVA Group Executive Chairman stated that "the most digitized societies or economies with a greater intensity in the use of robots have very low unemployment rates. In 2016, the unemployment rate in the United States stood at virtually the same level recorded at the 20th century, despite rising productivity, population growth and the labor force increase. "Over this same period of time, per capita income multiplied by 7.4. "The experience of all these countries teaches us how technical progress translates into greater social well-being", he said.
According to BBVA Research, the outlook is also rather optimistic. Thanks to automation, new activities will be developed that will create new jobs. Automation and computerization will complement workers who perform non-routine and abstract tasks and will not affect those who perform more complex manual tasks. Robots, IoT, IA, and big data will start taking over tasks from some current activities, paving the way for the development of new ones as society becomes wealthier and more services are demanded. In addition, while living standards increase, we may also start seeing shorter work weeks.
Consequences for public policies
The rollout of technology in the workplace allows people become more productive in a very short time. Countries that have invested in robotics have experienced a boom in economic performance. West says that in the future, society may not need as many workers as it does today.
This is where the debate about the political and economic implications of emerging technologies arises. According to the author, a notable increase in the number of people without full-time employment would exacerbate differences within society and complicate the distribution of benefits such as pensions, health care and insurance. This possibility casts serious concerns over the current model, which links healthcare and pensions to employment. In an economy that requires much less workers, we will need to think about how to secure benefits for the unemployed. West analyzes measures that must be considered to deal with this situation.
Robots, artificial intelligence or big data will replace some positions, but better ones will be created". Francisco González
Artificial intelligence doesn't create, or destroy jobs. It transforms them
A recent White House report analyzes the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and other exponential technologies on the labor market. Doomsayers estimate that the U.S. will lose more than three million jobs from IA, but optimists recall that the phenomenon will create millions of new jobs.
The first would be to create a welfare system that is not linked to the workplace. Were unemployment levels to reach unsustainable highs, the State would be required to find a way to develop the so-called 'flexicurity' or 'flexible security', breaking the direct link between benefits and employment.
The second solution would be to fund continuing training and retraining programs, with the aim of providing incentives for people to continue improving their education and training in adulthood, in order to keep up with a job market that constantly shifts due to rapid technological innovation. A proposal aimed at encouraging volunteer work is in the same line. West states that all analyses suggest that in the future we will need to weigh in the possibility of earning income new ways, other than full-time employment. Being required to work less hours will allow us to have more spare time, so he proposes to create credits to reward community contributions.
The author's last proposal would be to bolster artistic and cultural agendas to occupy the free time. In his opinion, it will be essential for people to lead full lives, even if society needs fewer workers.
Despite different predictions about the impact of technology on society, West argues that we must pay attention to the coming changes and start tackling regulatory and job related issues. The challenge is to make the transition between the new jobs and those that are rendered obsolete as efficient and equitable as possible: protecting people, not jobs.
Computer studies, sciences and development
Economics, businesses and finance
Labour, consumption and social welfare
Labour, employment and enterprise
Technology Updated: 09 Oct 2017


He just wanted to escape the sun's rays. The driver of the tractor brand "T28" was fined 3 thousand somoni for illegal use of toning on the vehicle.
Tajikistan extradited to Russia a Russian citizen Denis Khisamov, who was previously transferred by the Turkish authorities to Dushanbe.
The interior ministries of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have agreed to collaborate in combating terrorism, according to the Tajik Interior Ministry's website.
The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Secretary-General Yuri Khachaturov has highly appraised the CSTO Collective Rapid Reaction Force (CRRF) joint exercise conducted in Tajikistan.
Officers of the Agency for State Financial Control and Combating Corruption have reportedly discovered an arms cache containing nearly five kilograms of TNT in the northern province of Sughd.
This year, Dushanbe has fulfilled its autumn conscription campaign ahead of schedule.
Tajikistan will host a ten-day military exercise of the Collective Rapid Reaction Force (CRRF) of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
The 10th Review Meeting of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Sub-Regional Drug Control Cooperation took place in the Kazakh capital, Astana, on October 31.
Eighty-five servicemen have finished special warrant officers' courses at the Training Center of the Border Troops of the State Committee for National Security (SCNS).
The Coordination Service of CIS Council of Border Troops Commanders assess the current situation along Central Asia's borders as extremely tense.
Tajik President Emomali Rahmon today received visiting Russia's Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, according to the Tajik president's official website.
1,300 Tajik nationals are fighting alongside Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria and Iraq, a new report says.
By October 19, Tajikistan has reached 60 percent of the autumn conscription campaign target, Faridoun Mahmadalizoda, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense (MoD), said.
Moscow Grand Mufti Albir Kurganov has expressed concern about radicalization of Tajik migrants.
The 73rd session of the CIS Council of Defense Ministers took place in Dushanbe on October 12.
Russian defense minister says Russia has assisted Tajikistan in training five tactical groups intended, first of all, for covering Tajikistan's common border with Afghanistan.
Native of Tajikistan has been arrested in Moscow on suspicion of public calls for extremist activity, according to Russian RBC .
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu will arrive in Dushanbe tomorrow for participation in the next meeting of the CIS Council of Defense Ministers.
CIS defense ministers will gather in Dushanbe on October 12 for the next meeting.


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Leadership Highlight: Sean Brinkley Jr. the Former President of Phi Beta Sigma at Kennesaw State University
Leadership Highlight
In an effort to highlight the young leaders who are leading undergraduate chapters across the nation, we at Watch The Yard reached out to the brothers of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc.'s Alpha Beta Theta Chapter at Kennesaw State University and did an interview with Sean F. Brinkley Jr. the former president of the chapter.
The position of president of an undergraduate chapter of a Black fraternity is a highly respected role and there is a special pride that one takes. 22-year-old Sean Brinkley Jr. has used the position to gain new leadership experience, improve the lives of other students on campus and help the community around him.
We interviewed the Music Composition major with a minor in Dance, and talked about his position, goals, future and what it means to hold a leadership position on campus in the digital age.
Read the full interview below.
What does it mean to be a chapter president to you?
I feel that the president of any organization should be a well rounded individual who reflects not only the ideals of their organization but the culture of their community. Specifically in NPHC organizations, the individual not only serves as the face of their chapter but serves as the back bone of their chapter. Only 5 months after my initiation into my organization I was voted in as president. For a significant amount of time of my collegiate career I never saw myself as the president of any student organization, let alone a Divine 9 fraternity. I had served in vice president positions and positions that played vital roles in the respective organization, but never did it cross my mind that I was one of the most qualified individuals for the role of president.
As I navigated through the different challenges that came with holding the presidency, I quickly realized that I had an opportunity to redefine not only what it means to be a member of Phi Beta Sigma but what it means to be a leader in the organization. Many of my actions were surrounded around the idea of servant leadership. In conjunction, I always created an environment where any student in the Kennesaw State Community can approach me and the members of my chapter. Serving in the role wasn't about being in charge or telling individuals what to do, but moving individuals in your organization in a way that benefits the common good of the organization and the surrounding community.
What made you decide to attend Kennesaw State University for undergrad?
Kennesaw State University has one of the best music programs in the southeast of the United States, I knew from the time I signed in for my school of music audition that this was the school for me. Besides the student to teacher ratio in the college of the arts at KSU, the school was still young in the grand scheme of University Life in the United States.
In just the past three years the institution has tripled in size and has become on of the largest schools in Georgia. I wasn't aware of the huge amount of changes the university was going to go through after my first year in attendance, but I'm thankful that I remained to see what this university had to offer. Due to the exponential growth the university is currently growing through, there are so many opportunities that are available for students to get involved and impact their community.
What specific initiatives is your chapter heading up this year and how do you think they will improve the campus/surrounding community?
In the past we have had a focus on Breast Cancer Awareness. We hosted an event called Ln out with the Sigmas where we partnered with a popular student organization(Team Take No Ls) and hosted an event that encompass games form the MTV series "Wildin Out". In between each game we had individuals who were impacted by the disease come out and speak about how cancer has impacted their lives. The event was ticketed and we raised over $1000 that we donated to a local philanthropy. Moving forward we are looking to focus on Campus safety. With the current climate between Americans of color and law enforcement and the newly implemented campus carry legislation in Georgia, we saw a need to program to help foster a stronger sense of security in our University police. We plan on hosting a serious of town halls that address the details of campus carry and what proper interactions between law enforcement and students should look like.
What made you want to pledge Phi Beta Sigma?
I have always wanted to pledge a Divine 9 organization but I had not done much research prior to my junior year of college. At Kennesaw State University every student who wishes to pledge must attend NPHC Convocation. At this event I learned about every fraternity and their history. I wasn't sure what I was looking for exactly but something jumped out at me when I was in the room for Phi Beta Sigma. They began discussing their motto "Culture for Service, Service for Humanity" and followed up with discussion about how members of the organization focused on being immersed in the community and not putting themselves in a separate or higher category. I felt that this aligned with who I was and the work I had already been doing on campus. I knew this was the organization for me because from the time I walked in the room the members of the organization were humble and treated everyone with respect. My mother had also joined the Sigma Mu Zeta Chapter of Zeta Phi Beta prior to the semester I was initiated. I saw this as an opportunity to not only impact my community and begin fostering a blue and white legacy in my family, but to diversify and strengthen the relationship between mother and son.
What is it about your specific chapter that makes it so unique?
The members of The Alpha Beta Theta Chapter of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. are some of the most intelligent, wise, and talented brothers I know. Every member who is initiated has a diverse skill set and is able to take on any task that is thrown their way. Despite how talented and successful the members are, we are some of the humblest people you will meet. We believe in working hard and working hard for our community but in a way that it not boastful. We see ourselves as the Peoples Frat as we are always advocating for our peers.
We now live in a digital world, what do you think undergraduate chapters across all orgs need to do to represent themselves online in 2018?
Social Media is a great platform for chapters to impact their communities, showcase their chapter and its attributes, and correspond with chapters that are not in close proximity. I feel that many chapters need some sort of active social media account that stays up to date. My chapter has received and partaken in many opportunities just by networking and interacting with other respectable social media pages, members of the KSU community, and other organizations (Greek and Non Greek). We have acquired roughly $1500 this semester alone just by signing up for step shows that we received via instagram.
What does leadership mean to you?
believe that leadership is service and mentor based. I have always prided myself on being a servant leader. I pushed myself everyday to embody what I wanted my chapter to be. Most importantly, I understood that I could not do it all by myself. I built a circle that I could trust (Greek and Non-Greek) where I ran many of my big decisions by and always faulted myself before I faulted members of the organization.
Why do you think Watch The Yard is important to Black greekdom?
There are many platforms and sources of media that tarnish the legacy of NPHC Organizations . Watch the Yard does an awesome job of showcasing the positive attributes of the organizations that are often overshadowed by these other forms of media.
What does brotherhood mean to you?
Brotherhood means showing up for one another even when you do want to. It means holding one accountable at all times and loving one another despite the circumstance or behavior performed.
What do you plan on doing after graduation?
I plan on pursuing a masters in Higher Education Administration with a focus in Fraternity and Sorority Life, Housing and Residence Life, and or Student Life. As far as my organization I would like to eventually become a chapter advisor for my chapter to continue some of the work I started in my undergraduate years. I will also be continuing my passion for the arts by working as a freelance composer, musician, and dancer.
We at Watch The Yard would like to commend Sean F Brinkley Jr. for his work as the president of Alpha Beta Theta Chapter which has a long legacy that spans back to 1999.
Share this on Facebook and help us highlight Sean F Brinkley Jr..
Related Topics:2018FallgeorgiaKennesaw State Universityleadership highlightphi beta sigmasigmasvideo
2004 Miss America Winner Ericka Dunlap Is A Member Of Delta Sigma Theta


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LIVE Score England U19 vs Canada U19 ICC U19 World Cup 2022 ENG U19 vs CAN U19 Latest Updates
England U19 vs Canada U19 LIVE Score, ICC U19 World Cup 2022: Get the Live Cricket Scores, Latest Scorecard, Commentary, Highlights and Latest News from ENG U19 vs CAN U19 in the ICC Under-19 World Cup at the Warner Park, Basseterre, St Kitts.
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South Africa U19 vs Uganda U19 LIVE Score, ICC U19 World Cup 2022: Get the Live Cricket Scores, Latest Scorecard, Commentary, Highlights and Latest News from SA U19 vs UGA U19 in the ICC Under-19 World Cup at the Queen's Park Oval, Port of Spain, Trinidad.