Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC are pleased to be able to announce that they are rekindling their partnership with the Italian sportswear manufacturer ERREA; who will supply playing kit, replica kit and training wear from the start of season 2017/18 as part of a new 4 year deal.
Both the home and away kits are due to be unveiled to supporters in early May with the retail launch planned for later the same month. Fans will be able to purchase the new kits exclusively from the ICTFC Club Shop at the Tulloch Caledonian Stadium.
The club, in association with ERREA and our main club sponsors, McEwan Fraser Legal, will soon be announcing some innovative, not to be missed, opportunities for our supporters around the launch of the 2017/18 kit.


If you need a DAAD Proof of Language Proficiency form for any reason, e.g. your semester abroad, you can gain this by registering for a test appointment over NEO. The number of participants per appointment is limited.
Please follow the International Center application deadlines for the semester abroad.


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About Miri
Miri is a writer, teacher, therapist, and cancer survivor who writes about psychology, mental health, sexuality, and tons of other stuff. They enjoy gardening, coddling their cats, practicing yoga, and generally being outdoors. Follow them on Twitter, buy their zine, and support their writing on Patreon.
I Read Ready Player One and Liked It
May 2, 2018 Miribooks, literature, Ready Player One, sci-fi, science fiction
Last month I saw this trailer in a movie theater and was captivated:
Yup, I didn't realize it was for Ready Player One until close to the end. But I couldn't look away from this trailer, and have watched it a bunch of times since then.
Anytime there's a cultural phenomenon like this–something that's so beloved by people I know and so hated by other people I know–I get curious. To wit, the most recent person to recommend Ready Player One (the book) to me was a super progressive lesbian who's only slightly older than me and not exactly a gamer. So that got my attention.
(Last time this happened, with Fifty Shades of Grey, I couldn't even get through the first page because of how bad the writing was. So whatever it was that drew so many people to it remained a mystery to me.)
So recently I saw the book in a bookstore, picked it up to read the first few pages, and rapidly found myself totally engaged in it! This was stunning. Sure, there were some boring parts I skimmed, but that's most novels for you. I was surprised that despite the general shallowness of the book's overarching themes and philosophy, the writing itself was good, and I wanted to read more.
Having now finished it, I still agree with most of the political critiques of it that people have been making for years. (The ones I don't agree with are either over minor details that I think the reviewers missed, or else matters of taste–I found the writing interesting, others didn't.) Even if you read this book in its historical, pre-GamerGate context, it has some troubling things to say about people and about the world. Post-GamerGate, the book becomes extremely tonedeaf, which is a fact not lost on many of its critics. [1]
Ready Player One came out in 2011, the same year that Anita Sarkeesian started her Tropes vs. Women series, which she followed up with Tropes vs. Women in Video Games in 2013, intensifying the online abuse against her to a fever pitch. Then, in 2014, Zoe Quinn became a target after her abusive ex-boyfriend posted a screed against her to incite further online threats and harassment, and the festering cesspool we know as GamerGate truly kicked off. In that context, even a "shallow" and "harmless" book about nerdy boys obsessing over pop culture trivia doesn't feel so harmless anymore. On the one hand, it can be important to evaluate literature in the context it was originally written. On the other hand, had Ernest Cline been a more socially aware person–or, perhaps, someone other than a white man–he would've seen that particular writing on the wall a long time ago. He may not have found the idea of a glorified nerdy trivia contest as appealing.
That said, the book is at least somewhat original in a few interesting ways. For instance:
1. The dystopia is created by an energy crisis.
Yes, that's not exactly unique, but I can't count the number of speculative fiction books I've read in which dystopian societies have been created by nuclear war, alien invasion, a sudden massive environmental cataclysm, Big Bad Government suddenly becoming super oppressive, man, and so on. Ready Player One goes with what honestly feels like the more likely scenario: our reliance on fossil fuels and disregard for the environment will gradually produce even more extreme income inequality and lower quality of life significantly for everyone except the super-rich. Authorities like government and the police won't necessarily become any more oppressive than they already are; they'll just lose their influence. (In the book, the police seem completely absent until the very end [a minor plot point that nevertheless kind of ruins the vibe], and the federal government is mostly a useless figurehead. Wade mentions that he doesn't bother voting for them because they're all "reality stars" and the like, which is uh…prescient.)
Corporations, on the other hand, will run the show. Ready Player One is a (possibly unintentional) satire of the "corporations are people" concept in that Innovative Online Industries, the villain of the story, has countless avatars in the OASIS, trying to win the easter egg hunt.
2. Technology has actually improved education.
But one cool thing about the society Wade lives in is that the OASIS has made free, decent public education available to all, because the creator of the OASIS set up a foundation that provides free VR equipment to all students. This is how Wade is able to have a good high school education despite living in the slums, and it's how he's able to access the OASIS and compete in the easter egg hunt to begin with. He gives a lot of details about how virtual school works, and while I won't bore you with the details here, it's seriously cool.
3. It's actually one of the least gatekeeper-y sci-fi books I've ever read.
Despite what everyone says about the book being inaccessible/irrelevant to anyone without an interest in/obsession with 80s pop culture, I found the opposite to be the case. And to be clear: I have no interest in 80s pop culture, and no personal connection to it, since I arrived as an immigrant in the United States long after the 80s were over and that stuff holds no nostalgic appeal for me, or any other appeal. I kind of hate most of it, actually.
And yet for all the references Wade and his friends drop, he explains all the important ones. Reading the book feels less like being gatekeep-ed (gatekept?) out of a nerd club and more like having someone excitedly rant to me about the stuff they love, and why it's cool. I actually enjoyed some of the things I ended up learning from the book, such as how to achieve a perfect score in Pacman and how some of the earliest video games were made. I didn't come out of the book with any more of an interest in playing those games and watching those movies, but I felt like I'd stepped into someone else's experience for a bit and that was really cool to me.
Furthermore, unlike many SF/F novels that just drop you into an unfamiliar world and force you to figure it out as you go along, Wade actually explains a lot about how his world works, including the energy crisis, how the OASIS works, and what living conditions are like for most people. While this may be boring to some people, I found all of it fascinating! It was like reading a first-person anthropology study. He does the same with a lot of the video games he plays, which was cool for similar reasons even though I don't personally like those games.
4. Success requires both luck and hard work.
Some critics have focused on the fact that the book implies that having a perfect knowledge of 80s pop culture is the most important thing in the world and that Wade just happens to succeed because of this.
The actual plot is a bit more subtle than that, in some interesting ways that I'll get to later. A brief recap: in a dystopian future, the OASIS, a free massive virtual world that almost everyone uses, has become many people's only refuge from the difficulty and hopelessness of their everyday lives. When James Halliday, the creator of the OASIS, dies, he leaves behind an easter egg hunt–a set of challenges for players to complete. The winner will have control of the OASIS for life. Unfortunately, Innovative Online Industries (IOI), a massive and powerful corporation, seems poised to win this challenge and use that to monetize the OASIS and thus prevent most non-wealthy people from being able to use it. Wade Watts and his friends/rivals Aech and Art3mis are determined to beat IOI, whose powerful avatars–the "Sixers"–are constantly on their tails and will stop at nothing to win.
Because Halliday came of age in the 1980s and loved the nerdy pop culture of that time period, that's what his easter egg hunt centers on. In fact, Wade mentions during the hunt that it's Halliday's way of sharing his interests with the world.
But at the time the easter egg hunt started, nobody really cared about that stuff anymore. In fact, Wade mentions that the first time he saw Halliday's video explaining the challenge, most of the references in it were lost on him. As a result of the easter egg hunt, though, people around the world–including Wade and his friends–started consuming 80s media to try to solve the puzzle, and falling in love with it in the process.
From this perspective, it's a little deeper than "Nerd Boy Wins the Internet Because He Knows All the References." Wade and his friends (because–spoiler alert–they win together) win partially because of luck and a little bit of help from others, and partially because they did the fucking work. Wade is too poor to do much besides attend school in the OASIS and take advantage of its free media libraries and has no family who actually care about him or what he's doing, so he spends years reading, watching, and playing everything he can that may have some connection to the easter egg hunt. And it pays off.
5. The OASIS isn't ultimately portrayed as unhealthy escapism.
Most science fiction that deals with all-encompassing virtual reality worlds that the majority of the populace uses take a decidedly negative view of them. These systems are usually portrayed as addictive like drugs, causing people to abandon their work/school/family responsibilities in order to spend 24/7 in a fantasy. When these stories have a "happy" ending, it usually involves the VR system being destroyed or otherwise abandoned.
Ready Player One does not take this view. First of all, many people attend school, work, and socialize in the OASIS, so their "real lives" do very much happen there in part. Second, Cline does, I think, explore some of the potential dangers of virtual reality in a more nuanced way than some other writers do. Wade has a period of time when he's so obsessed with the easter egg hunt that he doesn't leave his apartment for months on end, and two of the characters, Shoto and Daito (actually Akihide and Toshiro, two Japanese teens), actually met at a program for hikikomori, people who become social recluses and refuse to leave their homes [2].
However, the book doesn't treat these examples as representative of all OASIS users, all of the time. There's an interesting moment when Wade encounters an avatar of the late James Halliday after completing the easter egg hunt, and Halliday cautions him about spending too much time in the OASIS: "As terrifying and painful as reality can be, it's also the only place where you can find true happiness." It might sound odd, coming from someone who once wrote, "Being human totally sucks most of the time. Videogames are the only thing that makes life bearable." Yet Wade ends up taking a similar emotional journey–the book closes with Wade and Art3mis (Samantha) finally spending time in person, as Wade observes that "for the first time in as long as I could remember, I had absolutely no desire to log back into the OASIS."
While talking to Halliday's avatar at the end, Wade also learns that he alone now has the power to destroy the entire OASIS if need be. "Don't press it unless you're absolutely positive it's the right thing to do, OK?" he tells Wade. "I trust your judgment."
It's a more interesting depiction of virtual reality than I usually encounter. After the events of the book are over, I imagine Wade leading a more balanced life–enjoying time in nature and with his friends in the "real" world, but also logging in periodically to the OASIS and having fun shooting monsters or hanging out with people from all over the world.
Like I said, though, I consider most criticisms of the book to be quite valid. So, where do we start?
I think of Ernest Cline somewhat like I think of George Lucas–someone who had some super great ideas but lacked a nuanced enough understanding of human psychology and society to completely pull it off. Ready Player One could've made some fantastic commentary about gender, inequality, and a variety of other issues, but largely chose not to. That's a shame.
There were quite a few aspects of this book that stuck out as shallow, unpolished, or straight-up bad:
1. Gender.
Oh, god, let's talk about gender in Ready Player One. Yikes.gif. There are, unless I'm mistaken, only four female characters in this book, only one of whom exists as a woman throughout the story. The first is Wade's aunt Alice, a "malnourished harpy in a housecoat" who neglects him, tries to steal his computer to sell, and summarily dies in an explosion early in the novel. The second is Mrs. Gilmore, a "sweet old lady" who lives near Wade in the trailer park and also dies in that explosion. Her function in the book seems mostly to serve as a foil to Aunt Alice and to give Wade one person to briefly feel sorry for after his home is destroyed in an attempt on his life.
Next we have Aech, Wade's best friend of years who is actually a Black lesbian. But this isn't revealed until close to the end of the book, so for all Wade and the reader know until then, he's a straight white man.
Aaaand then there's Art3mis, a well-known blogger that Wade nurses an online crush on even though he realizes he knows next to nothing about her and she may look nothing like her avatar. But of course, they soon meet and Complications Arise.
It will surprise no one to know that I hate the way Art3mis is used in this book. Although she could potentially be a really cool character/person, Cline chooses to reveal little about her besides her appearance, competence at video games, and her reactions to Wade, which of course serve to further his character arc. In the middle of the novel, she breaks things off with him for Reasons–to focus on the easter egg hunt, ostensibly–which triggers a months-long depression in Wade. When the evil Sixers achieve the next milestone in the hunt, Wade finally realizes that he's allowed his girl troubles to distract himself from his goal, so this serves as a wake-up call for him.
At the end of the novel Wade meets Art3mis in person and learns that the reason she didn't want him to know what she looked like is because…she has a birthmark on her face. This plot point means that Cline gets to conveniently introduce ~~~DRAMA~~~ in the form of a girlfriend who's insecure about her looks while also ensuring that his protagonist ends up with a conventionally beautiful woman as his prize.
And that he does, by the way. Even though they haven't spoken for presumably months by this point, the novel ends with Art3mis waiting for Wade in the center of a maze. After winning the easter egg hunt, he finds her there and they kiss and suddenly it turns out that she loves him and he's her favorite person in the world and so on and so forth.
Aside from all the other problematic aspects of her Art3mis is portrayed and utilized in the book, perhaps my least favorite is this trope where the "love interest" in a story ends up with the main character for no apparent reason other than that she's the only potential "love interest" in the story and the main character needs to receive a woman as a prize at the end. (See also: Peter and Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy, almost every other movie with a romantic plot ever made.) It's never clear what Art3mis sees in Wade, why she wants to be with him, why/how her feelings on that change throughout the book, nothing. She simply allows the relationship to happen, then abruptly ends it, and finally allows it again.
And that's too bad, because even as written, Art3mis could be really cool, and her story arc could've also been really cool. Alas.
She even tells Wade numerous times in the book that he doesn't really know her and only sees what she chooses to present within the OASIS. It would've been interesting if they met in person earlier in the novel, and Wade actually had to struggle to reconcile everything he projected onto her with who she actually is, and tried to make the relationship work in all of its beautiful messiness. Instead, everything seems to just work out for him romantically because he wills it so.
A lot of Wade's cringey interactions with Art3mis can be chalked up (and many people do chalk them up) to adolescence, but a good writer would gently challenge that even in the writing of it. Besides, Wade's not the only one in this book who gets obsessively fixated on a woman he's not even with. Towards the end, we learn that the James Halliday and his best friend Ogden Morrow, with whom he worked for many years on the OASIS and other projects, had a huge falling-out before Halliday's death because of–what else?–Halliday's unrequited love for Morrow's wife. He stopped speaking to Morrow out of "overwhelming jealousy." These are adult men.
Lastly, I want to specifically address the really transphobic moment that happens when Art3mis and Wade are joking around about how he doesn't know who she really is or what she looks like in real life. He asks her, "Are you a woman? And by that I mean are you a human female who has never had a sex change operation?"
This transphobic statement doesn't serve to advance the story in any way, so I can only assume it's there because of Cline's own beliefs, or his beliefs about how other people are. Given how gender-fluid young people today are, I don't see why, in 2045, Wade would say this.
Cline could've had Art3mis challenge the statement in her usual wry and cocky way–"And what if I were a human female who has had a sex change operation?"–but instead she just says, "I am, and have always been, a human female." And the conversation moves on.
There's no excuse for Cline to write this.
2. Race.
More yiiiiiikes. There are, as far as we know, three people of color in this book, and one is only revealed as such at the end. The other two, Shoto and Daito, are relatively minor characters of Japanese origin who are literally just a list of Japanese stereotypes. Yes, it's as bad as you think. They constantly refer to people as having "no honor" and bow to others in greeting, and their avatars of course commit suicide (referred to in one case as seppuku, oh god, why).
There's no way that Cline actually thinks that actual Japanese people act this way, given his in-depth knowledge of modern Japanese culture. It's possible that the characters act that way because they've chosen to make their avatars look like samurai, I don't know. In any case, it's a bowl of yikes.
The third person of color is of course Aech, who finally reveals herself to Wade at the end, fearing his reaction. Although momentarily feels betrayed that she had her identity from him, he quickly accepts it, later reflecting that he loves her no matter what: "None of that had changed, or could be changed by anything as inconsequential as her gender, or skin color, or sexual orientation."
But those things aren't "inconsequential"! Come on, it's not nearly far enough in the future for that. I wish that Wade had instead said that he loves his friend and respects her even more knowing how much more she had to overcome, or at least something that acknowledges who she is.
3. The uses and abuses of nostalgia
Nostalgia is, obviously, a key theme of the book. In many ways it's its organizing principle. The book is about a dead man's nostalgia-fueled challenge, and its most passionate fans are people who share that nostalgia.
But the full implications of that are mostly left unexplored. There's a point at which Wade wonders why Halliday, who claims to have had such an awful childhood, would recreate his hometown so painstakingly and lovingly within the OASIS and make it a crucial part of the easter egg hunt. I wonder that too, even though I know that that's exactly how nostalgia often works.
Then again, I also think that critics of Ready Player One often judge the characters as if they were living in our own world, right now, rather than decades in the future. Wade and his friends are not whiny manchildren who think that the 80s had the best movies ever, dude. They're people who grew up in poverty, with only a fraction of the freedom and resources that Halliday had growing up as a teenager in his beloved 1980s. They can't really be said to be nostalgic given that they never actually experienced any of that.
That said, the book never really addresses the potential consequences of all of that looking backwards. Near the beginning on the novel, Wade tells Art3mis that if he wins the game, he wants to use the money to build a spaceship for himself and his friends, and possibly leave Earth altogether in search of something better. Art3mis is surprised that he'd so quickly abandon the Earth to its problems, and says that she'd use the money to try to fix things. (Then, in one of my favorite moments, Wade asks her if she really thinks she could "fix all the world's problems," and she says, "I don't know. Maybe not. But I'm gonna give it a shot."
Towards the end he seems to be more civically minded, but there isn't really any direction to it. The world still is what it is. Innovative Online Industries still exists, and will presumably continue to keep murdering people and indenturing them and such (the sudden appearance of the police to arrest Sorrento, their head of operations, notwithstanding).
Which brings me to my next point:
4. The ending doesn't follow.
It honestly seems really unrealistic that Wade and his friends won, and that IOI is just a non-issue now, and Art3mis wants to be with Wade despite avoiding him for most of the book, and–right. This book is a male wish-fulfillment fantasy. It's very analogous to Jupiter Ascending in that way, which is why the divergent responses these two works have received in the media is very telling. [3]
In the world that Cline sets up, it seems impossible for anyone to actually beat the Sixers, considering that they cheat at the game and have seemingly infinite funds and avatars. On the one hand, that sounds like a typical underdog story, but on the other hand, in such stories the underdog typically succeeds by exploiting their enemy's weakness. (See: the Rebels and the Death Star, Katniss and the rich kids she fights in the Hunger Games, the Avengers and…whatever they're presumably going to do in the next movie.) The Sixers supposedly have a weakness (everyone keeps talking about how they don't really love nerd culture the way they do), but that's not why they lose. They lose because Ogden Morrow, Halliday's old pal, finds Wade and his friends and offers them sanctuary, and because Wade has an "extra life" from a side quest he completed because he thought it was the main quest. All of that seems rather…incidental.
And, sure, it doesn't have to be realistic. Jupiter Ascending wasn't either, and people still loved it. I still liked Ready Player One, too.
Ultimately, what makes the book so fascinating and compelling for me is the central question that it poses: if your world changed irrevocably for the worse, what would you want to remember? And if you had a virtual reality in which you could build a memorial to that world, what would you build?
In Ready Player One, James Halliday's answer–and Ernest Cline's–is 1980s American pop culture, and a certain sort of Ohioan suburbia. While that's easy to dismiss if those things don't resonate for you whatsoever, we each get to answer those questions however we want, along with some nerdier ones: how would you use virtual reality to share your particular niche love with others? What sort of game or challenge would you design to get them to love it too?
And this is where I again wish this story had been written by someone else. Ernest Cline is, I'm sure, an interesting person, but he was born in 1972 in Ashland, Ohio, so this is exactly the story you'd expect. I couldn't help but think about a Ready Player One written by Nnedi Okorafor [4], in which a bookish girl from the slums of Lagos finds herself on a quest inside the OASIS that has her battling monsters from West African myths and folklore, relying on her encyclopedic memory of the stories she's been reading since childhood. Or one written by Ken Liu [5], in which a teenage history buff from rural Gansu province enters the OASIS and discovers a portal to a perfect recreation of pre-Revolution China, where he must travel backwards through the dynasties and use everything he's managed to learn about their cultures in defiance of the law, while being pursued by the avatars of guobao agents.
But Ready Player One is what it is. Yet I'm still captivated by it, because it made me imagine the possibilities I just described, and many more.
[1] https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/3/26/17148350/ready-player-one-book-backlash-controversy-gamergate-explained
[2] https://www.nippon.com/en/currents/d00332/
[3] https://www.themarysue.com/ready-player-one-jupiter-ascending/
[4] http://nnedi.com
[5] https://kenliu.name
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Q: iOS app randomly crashes when scrolling through a table view, not sure how to handle error thrown All I have is a simple table view that downloads content from twitter using AFNetworking and then displays it in cells. I have paging enabled in my tableView, and sometimes when I scroll between my data on my iPad, my app just freezes and my Xcode screen changes to this:

I am new to Objective-C, but in Java when things like this happened, it wrote out a list of all the methods and line numbers in my code leading up to the crash. Is there any way to get it to do something like that? I don't understand anything about this, and the console is just blank.

A: Check this question out. It will show you how to determine what is causing the exception.
As with Java, you can also add a try block and their corresponding catch and finally blocks to handle the exception. See this question.

A: Its because you are using a dictionary in which the object and key at some point of cell is creating problem for you. Check your NSDictionary data.

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Photo by Al Sermeno / KLC Photos
Cal's Offensive Line Future Looking Bright
Coming off a season where their O-line has been drastically limited at times, the Bears will look to flip the script with a fairly deep and talented line next season.
With everyone back next season and young O-linemen showing good progress, the future is bright for the Bears' O-line.
Cal will return it's full 2019 starting line next season, with left tackle Valentino Daltoso (rs junior), left guard Matt Cindric (rs frosh), center Mike Saffell (rs junior), right guard McKade Mettauer (true frosh) and right tackle Jake Curhan (rs junior) all returning.
The Bears signed three offensive linemen in the 2019 class and with their injuries and lack of depth, the 6-4/270 Mettauer was pressed into service early, starting the third game of the season on the road vs. Washington.
"I'm very impressed with him," said Greatwood. "Nothing has intimidated him. He goes in and battles. He's a tough guy. You really can't tell with his attitude and demeanor out there that he's a true freshman. I haven't seen him back down or get intimidated by any situation or anybody he's played. And the big thing, with true freshmen, normally you see those guys get worn down later in the season but he really hasn't. He's kept his performance pretty darn high throughout the season, which if a pretty big plus."
Mettauer's size coming in was typical of the type of linemen Greatwood recruits, and while his early playing time wasn't ideal carrying just 270 pounds, the additional weight and strength gains he's sure to experience next season and beyond combined with his experience this year should serve him well.
"I've always favored recruiting offensive linemen who are athletes first. If I feel like they have the frame to add the weight and add the strength necessary to compete at this level, if I'm going to make a mistake, I'm going to make a mistake on a guy who's an athlete first.
"Having said that, secondly, they have to be guy where football's extremely important to them, that are going to spend the time not only in the weight room but in the film room in order for them to be better. Self-motivated guys. That's what I'm always trying to look for. Obviously, the second part of it is hard to judge sometimes. You can't really open up a guy and see what's inside. But just being around him enough to get a feel for the importance of the game, the importance of improving over their careers.
"Offensive line is the type of position you develop over time. Very fews guys come in -McKade being the exception- who are ready-made to play early. So you want to see that growth potential in them -physically, mentally, emotionally and just a desire to play football and continue to get better. That's what I'm looking for.
"I'm not always perfect at it. I've got my share of skeletons (recruiting misses) in the closet. But hopefully that's the type of guys we're attracting here."
Like Mettauer, fellow offensive linemen Brian Driscoll and Brayden Rohme came in on the light side but both have been able to take it slower, learning the offense playing scout team and building up their bodies.
"I like them," said Greatwood. "I think they're both going to be very, very good players. They both have a toughness. They both have the intangibles we were talking about. They're handling themselves in a mature manner. I think you'll see both of those young men playing a lot of football for us down the road."
Besides the development of young players, the Bears will also have the luxury of solid depth next season with some of the younger guys ready to play and the return of some veteran starters.
"We obviously have two guys that were slated to be starters this year in Gentle Williams and Will Craig coming back," said Greatwood. "The competition alone I think will make us better. Iron sharpen iron with the guys getting out there competing with each other every day for starting spots.
"It's also going to be nice with experienced guys. Jake Curhan's played every snap this season. Matt Cindric's played every snap. McKade, with the exception of the first game- has played most every snap and that takes it's toll on a body. It will be nice to have 8-9 guys you can put in there and feel like you're not going to drop off. So you can give some guys a bit of a blow for their bodies. So I'm excited about next season and the competition level among the group. It should be good."
The Bears' number of healthy offensive linemen was perilously low, with just three holdovers from the Dykes era who should've formed the nucleus of the O-line of third, fourth and fifth year linemen in the progam.
In one stretch, the Bears had just five scholarship offensive linemen available, including one true frosh and two redshirt frosh. Next season, they'll have 13 scholarship OL who can play plus two true frosh who will have the size and strength to contribute early if needed in massive OT Everett Johnson and big OG Jaedon Roberts.
Is there a sweet spot for total OL scholarship's in Greatwood's mind?
"Normally there's a limit on that because you're always dealing with the 85 cap but I'd like to have 15 at least," said Greatwood. "If you could sneak 16 -there's been years I've had 17 but most of the time, it's been 15. This year, we'll only take two (or three if Jaedon Roberts plays OL, as expected). Next year we'll have more because we'll have a fairly significant senior class (Curhan, Saffell, Daltoso and Williams) leaving us. So we'll have to get busy for next year's class -three to four guys.
"I hate to have to recruit more than like four (in a class). It's just hard to get much more guys than that coming in at once. You'd like to have the classes spaced out, where you're graduating two to three at the most each year. Next year, because of guys redshirting and all, it will be a little bit unbalanced in that regard."
Add in frosh Ben Coleman, who moved over from DT as well as rs frosh Erick Nisich, who made the same move, and the Bears will be fairly loaded with viable options manning the trenches in 2020.
The future looks bright, indeed.
Redbox Press Conference -Illini QB Peters Will Play
Thursday Practice Report: Bears Finish up Time in Berkeley
Tags: Steve Greatwood, Bear Insider, Cal football, Mike Saffell, Matthew Cindric, Brian Driscoll, Brayden Rohme, McKade Mettauer, Football


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First Look At Red Bull Racing RB11 2015 Formula One Car: Video
Viknesh Vijayenthiran February 2, 2015 Comment Now!
Infiniti Red Bull Racing is the last major team to reveal its new race car for the 2015 Formula One World Championship. While the final livery is yet to be shown, many of the details of the new car, dubbed the RB11, can clearly be seen. What's immediately apparent is the new nose, which appears almost identical to the one used last year by Mercedes AMG. But beyond that many of the RB11's updates are under its all–new black and white skin.
Expert designer Adrian Newey remained influential in the RB11's development, though as he reveals in the video above he wasn't as involved in the RB11 as much as he was in previous years' cars. According to Newey, the main focus was on the power unit and the packaging that goes with that and setting about optimizing the car.
The power unit is still sourced from Renault Sport, the performance arm of French automaker Renault, and it's much the same as last year. A turbocharged 1.6-liter V-6 works in conjunction with two motor generators, one mounted to the main driveline and another integrated with the turbocharger. Peak output is around 750 horsepower.
Newey taking less of a lead role in the design of the RB11 isn't the only major change for Infiniti Red Bull Racing this season, as the team's driver lineup now consists of Daniel Ricciardo, the only non-Mercedes AMG driver to win a race last season, as well as Russian youngster Daniil Kvyat, who replaced Sebastian Vettel after the German swapped to Ferrari late last year.
The new RB11 was shown on the eve of the first round of pre-season testing in Jerez, Spain this week. It was fourth quickest after the first session, with Ricciardo behind the wheel, though it suffered some mechanical issues after just 35 laps. The quickest of the day was Vettel in his new SF15-T, followed in second by Sauber newcomer Marcus Ericsson. The third quickest was Rosberg in the new Mercedes AMG W06 Hybrid, who shocked many by putting in 157 laps, more than double that of any other team. Unfortunately for McLaren, running its new Honda power unit, teething issues meant the team could only complete six laps, with Fernando Alonso driving first.
The first race of the 2015 season is the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, which takes place on March 15. Below are some of this season's other F1 cars that have been revealed:
Ferrari SF15-T
Mercedes AMG W06 Hybrid
Lotus E23 Hybrid
Williams FW37
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High-Res Gallery: Infiniti Red Bull Racing RB11 2015 Formula One car
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Home » Blog » Small Business » How To Safely Reopen Your Brick-and-Mortar Business As Pandemic Measures Are Lifted
How To Safely Reopen Your Brick-and-Mortar Business As Pandemic Measures Are Lifted
Jason Vissers Jason Vissers has been researching, analyzing, and writing about small business software and finance since 2015. His financial expertise has been cited in numerous publications, including The Ladders. Jason graduated with a Political Science degree from San Diego State University in 2001.
The COVID-19 pandemic we've all been dealing with has had a devastating effect on both public health and the global economy. As our institutions struggle to flatten the curve and contain the economic fallout, the lack of a coherent message from the authorities regarding when and how brick-and-mortar businesses can safely reopen has added to the stress and uncertainty felt by those whose livelihood depends on such businesses.
While we're all dealing with a huge amount of uncertainty right now regarding when the public health outlook will start to brighten, there are some basic principles you can adhere to in order to keep your employees and customers safe when the time comes to reopen your business.
Protecting Your Employees
Protecting Your Customers
Be Prepared To Shut Down Again If The Outbreak Resurges
Governmental guidance as to when non-essential businesses may reopen varies from state to state and from locality to locality. In Georgia, the governor has already allowed businesses such as gyms, restaurants, and theaters to reopen — albeit against the warnings of public health officials who warn that such measures may accelerate the spread of the virus.
Other states are taking a different approach. In Pennsylvania, the state government has implemented a red-yellow-green system for reopening areas of the state — localities will move from "red" (the highest level of restrictions) to "yellow" and finally to "green" based on what regional public health indicators suggest is safe.
Likewise, the hard-hit state of New York has published a reopening guide for businesses that contains specific guidelines for individual industries and which establishes criteria by which the various regions of the state will be assessed to determine whether reopening can begin.
A state-by-state rundown of stay-at-home orders and reopening forecasts is available online. However, regardless of the directives coming from various state officials, the federal government's criteria for when states should begin easing restrictions call for:
A decline in new COVID-19 cases for 14 straight days
A decline in reports of symptoms that might represent undiagnosed COVID-19 over that same period
Hospitals should have the capacity to handle new cases without operating in crisis mode and have a "robust testing program" for health care workers.
Thus far, no state has met these guidelines. If your state has announced a general reopening without meeting these guidelines, you may want to think carefully before reopening.
Regardless, the time will come when you can reopen your business in some capacity. When considering how to do this, it's helpful to look at the examples set by essential businesses that have remained open. For instance, many grocery chains have implemented capacity limits based in part on the square footage of the store. Likewise, in areas where restaurants are set to be allowed to reopen soon, capacity limits will come into play, along with restrictions such as a mandatory 6-foot distance between diners and restrictions on the use of reusable menus.
It may not be business as you're used to doing it, but it's going to be our reality for the foreseeable future. Now, let's discuss how you can protect the health of your employees when you reopen your brick-and-mortar business.
Whenever you're able to reopen your business, protecting your employees will be your foremost responsibility. Let's discuss how you can achieve this.
What Are Wellness Checks And How To Implement?
In an effort to protect the health of workers, some localities have mandated screening procedures — often referred to as wellness checks — for employees of businesses that have been allowed to remain open. Such checks may include:
Checking for such symptoms as a cough, shortness of breath, a sore throat, diarrhea, or a fever (touchless thermometers are recommended to check for fevers)
Asking employees if they've had close contact with someone diagnosed with COVID-19 in the last 14 days
Asking employees if they've traveled (internationally or domestically)
The CDC has posted a guide to keeping your employees safe and reducing the spread of COVID-19 in your workplace, including information on how to screen your employees for COVID-19.
If you're going to implement a system of temperature checks for your employees, you'll have to comply with health care privacy laws — therefore, you'll need to ensure the privacy of your employees' health data. One way to do this is to establish the use of instant-read thermometers that are shown to the employee after a temperature check but whose data is not recorded by the company. Additionally, to ensure proper procedures are followed, try to contract with health care professionals to conduct the temperature screening rather than training existing employees to do the screening.
Is PPE For My Employees Necessary?
On the subject of providing PPE for your employees, the CDC says the following:
CDC recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain, especially in areas of significant community transmission. Cloth face coverings may prevent people who don't know they have the virus from transmitting it to others. These face coverings are not surgical masks or respirators and are not appropriate substitutes for them in workplaces where masks or respirators are recommended or required.
Employees should continue to follow their routine policies and procedures for PPE (if any) that they would ordinarily use for their job tasks. When cleaning and disinfecting, employees should always wear gloves and gowns appropriate for the chemicals being used. Additional personal protective equipment (PPE) may be needed based on setting and product.
CDC does not recommend the use of PPE in workplaces where it is not routinely recommended. Facilities can use the hierarchy of controls, such as administrative, and engineering controls – these strategies are even more effective at preventing exposures than wearing PPE.
Of course, each particular type of business may have to make its own adjustments to allow for greater safety, which can lead to problems relating to the availability of safety supplies. A recent news story featured the owner of a barbershop in Georgia who reported being unable to open back up due in part to being unable to find the supplies she needed to safely reopen. We expect similar situations to unfold across the country as stay-at-home orders are lifted but safety supplies remain hard to come by.
Unfortunately, like so many questions we face in this new era, there are no easy answers.
If you're going to establish a mask policy for your employees — which your state may require you to do — you'll need to maintain a sufficient supply for your workers and implement a way to ensure that the masks are clean. Employees will also need to be trained regarding how to wear a mask properly. Without such policies, employees will be left in the dark as to how to protect themselves.
How Can I Ensure Social Distancing Policies Are Followed?
By now, we're all familiar with the principle that we must stay at least six feet apart from each other to help maintain safety. When ensuring that employees adhere to this policy, you'll have to take into consideration more than just your employees' immediate working environments (i.e. the office). Even after you make sure employees can work at least six feet apart from one another, you'll have to establish distancing policies for the use of break rooms, bathrooms, and other shared spaces in the workplace. You may even need to set up a system of one-way traffic in the hallways and corridors of your building. Wherever workers face the possibility of encountering each other, you need to ensure that it's possible to follow social distancing rules.
How Often Do I Need To Clean?
Surfaces and equipment that come into contact with employees and/or customers will need to be cleaned on a regular basis. There are no specific guidelines regarding exactly how often this must occur, but the following is what the CDC recommends:
Current evidence, though still preliminary, suggests that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, may remain viable for hours to days on surfaces made from a variety of materials. It may be possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.
If the machinery or equipment in question are not accessible to employees or have not been in contact with someone infected with COVID-19, they will not present an exposure hazard.
If machinery or equipment are thought to be contaminated and can be cleaned, follow the CDC cleaning and disinfection recommendations. First clean dirty surfaces with soap and water. Second, disinfect surfaces using products that meet EPA's criteria for use against SARS-Cov-2external iconexternal icon and are appropriate for the surface.
If machinery or equipment are thought to be contaminated and cannot be cleaned, they can be isolated. Isolate papers or any soft (porous) surfaces for a minimum of 24 hours before handling. After 24 hours, remove soft materials from the area and clean the hard (non-porous) surfaces per the cleaning and disinfection recommendations. Isolate hard (non-porous) surfaces that cannot be cleaned and disinfected for a minimum of 7 days before handling.
One step you can take to improve safety is to adjust your hours and your employees' schedules to allow for the extra time you'll need to spend on cleaning and sanitizing the surfaces that your employees and customers come into contact with.
What If An Employee Won't Return To Work?
Even if you take all the required steps to protect your workforce, you may still have employees who don't feel safe enough to come back to work. An employee may have an underlying health condition or be living in a small dwelling with vulnerable people and may have a reasonable fear of taking on the risk of coming in.
In such cases, you'll have to plan for how to run your business with less than a full staff, and you'll need to think about how to address the legitimate health concerns of employees who are reluctant to return to the workplace.
Upon reopening, you'll be responsible for the health of your customers as well as that of your employees. Here are some tips for keeping your customers as safe as possible when the time comes to reopen.
Implementing Occupancy Limits
When you're legally able to open for business, you may need to abide by occupancy limits set by your state or locality. For example, in North Carolina, occupancy inside supermarkets and retail stores is currently limited to 20% of the fire capacity of the store.
Obviously, occupancy limits aren't ideal and will cut into your profits. No business owner wants to turn away willing customers! Unfortunately, during a public health emergency, we all have to make painful adjustments.
How To Encourage Social Distancing Inside Your Store
We've published a detailed article about how to implement social distancing in your customer-facing business. I highly recommend reading it before you reopen your business if you're looking for guidance on implementing social distancing.
Again, look to the examples of businesses that have been permitted to remain open, such as supermarkets. Supermarkets have implemented such measures as keeping foot traffic flowing in one particular direction and placing tape on the floor in the check-out lane to ensure that customers stay 6 feet away from each other (of course, this requires supermarkets to put up signage directing customers to do these things). Now, depending on the size and nature of your establishment, you may not need to do everything that's being done at grocery stores, but since you'll need to maintain the principles of social distancing, you'll likely need to implement similar measures.
Further Precautions
Additionally, you'll want to put up signage outside your entrance asking visitors not to enter if they have experienced any COVID-19 symptoms recently or have come into contact with anyone who has. And if your business office is accepting visitors, it's advisable that you have visitors call your receptionist first before entering.
Keep Open Lines Of Communication
Considering the fact that your customers haven't been able to come around in a while, you don't want them to forget about you entirely. That's why you need to keep communicating with them. If your business hasn't been talking to your customers via social media and/or through email marketing, you should start doing so right away. If you have important information regarding your future reopening (or any policy changes or product availability updates) to convey, you should obviously do that, but even if you don't, it's a good idea to keep communicating with customers just to stay fresh in people's minds.
As things stand, none of us can forecast the future with any accuracy. We may experience a lull in new infections over these next months as the weather warms — or the partial reopening of society may just lead to a surge in new cases that requires another lockdown. As daunting as this possibility may be, it could happen, so you'll need to prepare for the possibility of shutting down again in the near future.
We're all going through a frightening and tragic chapter in our collective history. However, we are a resilient people, and just as the small business community hasn't given up the fight, Merchant Maverick will keep providing the clear information and unbiased reviews you deserve. Together, we're going get through this. Better days lie ahead. Until then, keep an eye on our COVID-19 hub for small businesses — we're adding to it continuously, covering all the latest developments.
Jason Vissers
Jason Vissers has been researching, analyzing, and writing about small business software and finance since 2015. His financial expertise has been cited in numerous publications, including The Ladders. Jason graduated with a Political Science degree from San Diego State University in 2001.
@jvizz_mm
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Home » What is Right Care, Right Time, Right Place? » Meet the team
The Right Care, Right Time, Right Place programme is being delivered by NHS Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and NHS Greater Huddersfield CCG.
However, the people who have developed the proposals are more than just the programme team and include clinicians, NHS staff, health service leaders and specialists in Quality and Safety, Estates, Human Resources, Finance, Communication and Engagement and their colleagues.
The consultation is also supported by clinicians and health leaders at Calderdale & Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust.
Below are the chairs and chief officers for both CCGs. To read more about the CCGs visit their websites by clicking one of the links above.
NHS Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG)
Dr Alan Brook, GP and Chair
Alan Brook has been a GP in Brighouse since 1987. He qualified at Newcastle University in 1982 and is originally from Bradford. Alan was one of two national GP trainee representatives to the Royal College of General Practitioners. On arrival in Calderdale, he joined the Local Medical Committee (LMC), he later served as its Medical Secretary, then Chair.
He founded the Audit Group in 1990 and helped GP practices to compare their performance with others and find areas for improvement. He successfully led a proposal to form a single Primary Care Group (PCG) in 1997, at a time when the preferred model would have been to split the area in two; a united configuration which has stood the test of time. He chaired the PCG, which in turn became a Primary Care Trust (PCT). He strives for excellence in his practice and encourages others to do the same. Alan is now Chair of Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group
Alan is also chair of the CCG Finance and Performance Committee and a member of the Remuneration Committee.
Dr Matt Walsh, Chief Officer
Matt graduated from the University of Leeds Medical School in 1987. After various hospital and GP training posts in Bradford, he became a GP partner in 1991 and was appointed as a GP trainer two years later.
Over the years he developed an interest in NHS management, and has held various posts across West Yorkshire combining clinical practice with management.
Before joining NHS Calderdale as Medical Director in 2009, Matt had worked as the Clinical Governance Lead for Bradford South and West Primary Care Trust and also the Executive Director for Commissioning at NHS Leeds.
NHS Greater Huddersfield Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG)
Carol McKenna, Chief Officer
Carol was previously Executive Director of Commissioning and Strategic Development at NHS Kirklees and before that Director of Commissioning and Service Development at the former South and Central Huddersfield PCTs.
Carol has worked in the NHS for more than 20 years, 10 of which in director roles. Carol has spent most of her NHS career working in commissioning roles in Huddersfield and Bradford.
She has been involved in leading change, developing organisations, service reconfiguration and strategic change. Carol is the chair of the Finance and Performance Committee.
Dr Steve Ollerton, GP and Chair
Steve, from Southport, is a GP Principal at Skelmanthorpe Family Doctors and has worked as a GP for 15 years. Steve graduated from the Medical School at the University of Leeds University in 1998. He became part of the West Pennine GP training scheme involving working in hospitals in Calderdale and Kirklees and in GP practices.
Steve chairs the Greater Huddersfield CCG and leads on finance and performance, partnership working, communication and patient and public involvement. He also sits on the Council of the Yorkshire and Humber Clinical Senate. His main areas of interest as a GP are diabetes, minor surgery and commissioning. He is a member of the Finance and Performance Committee and Joint Commissioning Committee.


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The Village of Arroyo Grande is home to many historic buildings, and we were happy to give this 100-year old home a fresh start, as a modern dental office. This job represents the type of commercial improvement we look forward to – a job where artistry and craftsmanship combine.
To put it bluntly, the existing building was in very bad shape. We started by gutting the inside down to the studs and bare floor. Beginning with the 100-year old foundation, our experienced crew turned the historic structure into a modern, 21st-century dental office, complete with new med-gas plumbing, state-of-the-art electrical, custom cabinets and countertops. Everything was done to exacting medical/dental standards.


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A Unique Case Of Silent Voters: The Missing Women In Indian Democracy
India is a singular case in the history of democracy that turned its people into voters before they became citizens. This was not an easy task in the context of the horrors of partition, illiteracy, gender inequality, and acute poverty. A group of bureaucrats began establishing the practices of electoral democracy much before the first Indian election of 1951.
Why then does India still rank low in women's representation in the legislature despite having had women as its president, prime minister, and chief ministers? Why are there so few women in Indian politics? Do women leaders and women voters matter in Indian democracy? How will the world's largest democracy, without adequate female representation, deliver policies that promote women's welfare?
Our speaker, an eminent economist with a keen interest in development challenges in India, will discuss the factors behind 'missing women' and 'silent voters' of Indian democracy? And what happens when there is a better representation of women in the electoral process and Parliament. She will argue why a greater female force in Indian society is critical even when it happens for electoral compulsions.
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