text:
package com.jadic.cmd.resp;

import org.jboss.netty.buffer.ChannelBuffer;

import com.jadic.cmd.CmdHeadIc2Pos;
import com.jadic.utils.ConstDefine;
import com.jadic.utils.KKTool;

/**
 *
 * @author Jadic
 * @created 2013-1-21
 */
public class CmdCheckBlacklistI2P extends CmdHeadIc2Pos {

	private byte[] posId;//POS机编号	6	POS机的编号,用BCD码表示
	private byte[] psam;//PSAM 卡号	6	BCD
	private byte[] cardNo;//卡号	8	(2:城市代码 BCD	1:卡主类型 BCD 1:卡子类型 BCD 4:发型流水号HEX)
	private byte status;//状态	1	(0:正常  1:锁卡	9:非正常,不锁卡)

	public CmdCheckBlacklistI2P() {
		super();
		this.posId = new byte[6];
		this.psam = new byte[6];
		this.cardNo = new byte[8];
		this.status = ConstDefine.CARD_VALID;
	}

	@Override
	public int getCmdSize() {
		return super.getCmdSize()
			 + this.posId.length
			 + this.psam.length
			 + this.cardNo.length
			 + 1
			 + super.getCmdEndSize();
	}

	@Override
	public short getCmdPackSize() {
		return (short)(this.getCmdSize() - super.getCmdPackSizeExcludedBytes());
	}

	@Override
	public boolean fillChannelBuffer(ChannelBuffer channelBuffer) {
		if (!super.fillChannelBuffer(channelBuffer))
			return false;
		try {
			channelBuffer.writeBytes(this.posId);
			channelBuffer.writeBytes(this.psam);
			channelBuffer.writeBytes(this.cardNo);
			channelBuffer.writeByte(this.status);

			byte[] d = new byte[this.getCmdSize() - super.getCmdXorExcludedBytes()];//计算校验值时去掉头和尾
			channelBuffer.getBytes(super.getCmdXorStartIndex(), d, 0, d.length);
			channelBuffer.writeByte(KKTool.getLRC1(d));
			channelBuffer.writeByte(KKTool.getLRC2(d));
			return true;
		} catch (Exception e) {
			return false;
		}
	}

	public byte[] getPosId() {
		return posId;
	}

	public void setPosId(byte[] posId) {
		this.posId = posId;
	}

	public byte[] getPsam() {
		return psam;
	}

	public void setPsam(byte[] psam) {
		this.psam = psam;
	}

	public byte[] getCardNo() {
		return cardNo;
	}

	public void setCardNo(byte[] cardNo) {
		this.cardNo = cardNo;
	}

	public byte getStatus() {
		return status;
	}

	public void setStatus(byte status) {
		this.status = status;
	}
}


Turn at my rebuke; surely I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my words known to you.
Wisdom rebukes us by revealing God's law. The apostle Paul instructs in Romans 7:7, "I would not have known sin except through the law." He therefore says, "That the law is holy, just and good." Herein is the purpose of the law, to reveal our sins. Wisdom, therefore, rebukes us through the law of God. It instructs us to turn and empowers us to do so by the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. In this wisdom we see the grace of God, which is, God granting us the ability to be conformed to the image of His Son. Wisdom guides us by the law of God that we might be transformed into the expressed image of Christ. Wisdom by the law turns us from a way that leads to death, to the way that leads to life, Christ. The "Word" of Christ keeps us on the right path. This is the wisdom of God.


text:
echo "Start to make demo build"

yarn run clean
yarn run build
mkdir demo
cp index.html demo/
cp -r build demo/

echo "Demo build finished"

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Shakespeare's Mother: The Secret Life of a Tudor Woman
Actors: Michael Wood
Keywords:Shakespeare's Mother: The Secret Life of a Tudor Woman
The Lessee
In a series of life events, a group of young adults expressed their love, desires, and secrets in ways they didn't imagine they could.
One hundred superstar comedians tell the same very, VERY dirty, filthy joke–one shared privately by comics since Vaudeville.
Genre: Comedy, Documentary
This documentary follows NBA superstar LeBron James and four of his talented teammates through the trials and tribulations of high school basketball in Ohio and James' journey to fame.
Genre: Biography, Documentary, Sport
A student's premonition of a deadly rollercoaster ride saves her life and a lucky few, but not from death itself – which seeks out those who escaped their fate.
Genre: Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Adam, an awkward teen, spends a summer with his older sister, who is part of New York City's lesbian and trans activist scene. He meets the girl of his dreams…
The Devil's Chair
With a pocketful of drugs, Nick West takes out his girlfriend Sammy, for a shag and a good time. When they explore an abandoned asylum, the discovery of a bizarre…
A woman runs for her life though the streets of Los Angeles after her blind date suddenly turns violent.
Zombie Doctor
Two friends hired to police a small town that is suffering under the rule of a rancher find their job complicated by the arrival of a young widow.
Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance, Western
Through a case of mistaken identity, a young executive falls for a man who doesn't fit the life plan she's followed since childhood.
The owner of a factory that produces flavor extracts, Joel Reynold seems to have it all, but really doesn't. What's missing is sexual attention from his wife, Suzie. Joel hatches…
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Romance
A young boy's discovery of a colorful, wish-granting rock causes chaos in the suburban town of Black Falls when jealous kids and scheming adults alike set out to get their…
A 19 year old Brooklyn boy who is torn between two worlds when his photography portfolio wins him a partial scholarship to NYU. He must figure out how to balance…
The Driftless Area
Pierre Hunter, a bartender with unyielding optimism, returns to his tiny hometown after his parents' death. When he falls for the enigmatic Stella, Pierre is unknowingly pulled into a cat-and-mouse…
Mosquito Squadron
In WW2, a RAF squadron leader mourns the death of a comrade and receives a bombing mission against a secret Nazi V-2 rocket testing facility in France.
Genre: Drama, War
Night of the Slasher
A teenage girl must commit horror movie sins such as drink alcohol, do drugs, and have sex to lure a killer and finish him off.
Genre: Comedy, Horror, Thriller
When drones arrive in a flash, slaughtering humanity and stripping the Earth of its resources, a small team of scientists hiding in Los Angeles works to expel the drone menace…
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction, Thriller
Zuo Er
Li Er, a 17 year old girl who has great difficulty hearing out of her left ear, is rejected after confessing her love to a boy, Xu yi. Instead the…

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Save the Date…Diwali 2017. Friends of India invites the community to celebrate Diwali with Dining, entertainment from the local community participants along with a professional entertainment (yet to be announced) on Saturday, November 11th at the Cashman Field Center.
SAPNA – South Asian Political Network Alliance invites you to its monthly luncheon with a recently elected Las Vegas City Councilman and a retired US Air Force fighter pilot Steve Seroka, on Saturday, September 16th, at the India Masala Restaurant.
SAPNA – South Asian Political Network Alliance invites you to its monthly luncheon with special guest Nevada State Treasurer Dan Schwartz, on Saturday, August 19th, at the Capital Seafood Restaurant in the China Town Plaza.
Las Vegas Chapter of the Association of Physicians of Pakistan Descent of North America (APPNA) invites you to an evening of glamour and entertainment with an internationally renowned Punjabi Bhangra artist Sukhbir Singh on Saturday, Septrember 9th at the Treasure Island Casino & Resort.
NAPI – Nevada Association of Physicians of Indian Origin invites you their second annual banquet on Saturday, September 9th 2017. The annual banquet with dinner and entertainment by Jay Leno and Donald Trump's impersonators along with an Indian Bollywood music by Kaaravan will be held at the Conference Center of Las Vegas from 6pm onwards. For further information and tickets, please visit www.napiusa.org/events.


OPTIMUM SERVICE FOR YOUR PERFECT WATCH.
Each movement, each step, and each finishing process is aimed at building the perfect Laco watch for you. The Laco Team is only satisfied when you are.
Even outside of our watchmaking workshops we assure you optimum quality. For example, with a service that will satisfy our customers around the clock even before they make a purchase. This involves trained staff and a perfectly structured process in administration as well as excellent assistance. Our knowledgeable staff and our online service hotline are therefore happy to answer your questions. The same applies to the Laco dealer in your area, with whom we work closely together, provide intensive training on our watches, and who will be at your disposal with words and deeds. This way a Laco watch means you always receive the best advice.
EVEN AFTER THE PURCHASE WE ARE AVAILABLE AROUND THE CLOCK FOR YOU.THIS IS OUR EXTENSIVE SERVICE.
We believe: really good customer service does not end with the purchase. Actually, that's when it starts. Because excellent service is part of a high-quality watch. That's what we mean by a lasting and trusting partnership with our customers.
If you have found the perfect Laco for you, we will be there for you even after the sale with advice and practical help. If you have questions about your specific model, or other areas, you may find the right answer in our FAQs. If a matching theme is not listed, of course you can always contact us personally. All of our service hotline employees are there to help you. Or just send us a email - we will usually reply the next working day. We look forward to hearing from you and answering your questions, and are also available to you with the following customer service options.
The manufacture of watches is a traditional craft, and we can draw on more than 90 years of experience. Great attention to detail, high quality material, and superior processing are all characteristics of our handmade watches. Quality that we build - and that we trust. Therefore you receive a 24-month guarantee on your Laco from the date of purchase.
THE REPAIR OF YOUR WATCH.
Carelessness, an accident, a fall: there can be many reasons why repairing your Laco is necessary. In these cases we offer our customers an estimate before starting repairs. For this, we charge €40. This is also payable if the repair is not carried out. For mechanical Laco watches made prior to 1985, the flat rate is €98.
PROPER MAINTENANCE - REGULAR REVISIONS.
To ensure that your mechanical Laco watch will be a reliable companion for years to come, we recommend a revision after about five years to verify the status of the watch and to replace worn or defective components, if necessary. The movement is completely disassembled, cleaned and provided with new special oils, so that precision is restored. If necessary, we will provide your Laco with new seals - and check the watch of course for water tightness. The cost of the revision depends on the condition of the watch and the type of movement.Of course, we also offer lucky owners of an original Laco aviator watch from the 1940s a revision and/or restoration of individual watch parts. Specially trained watchmakers are capable of making the most delicate parts of the movement if necessary. In addition our parts warehouse has a considerable stock of original spare parts.
EXPLORE THE LACO WORLD PAGE BY PAGE: THE CURRENT CATALOGUE.


text:
Being In An Environment: a performative perspective
October 4, 2021 · by ||| · in Pickering. ·
This paper by Andrew Pickering is a revised version of a talk given at Oxford University, February 2, 2012, as part of a series of Linacre Lectures on "Environmental Governance and Resilience". Dr. Pickering is a British sociologist, philosopher and historian of science at the University of Exeter, and has received numerous awards and recognitions.
[][][]
The central thread is a conviction that our thinking on this topic should start from a concern with performance and agency – the actions of people and things – rather than from scientific knowledge as a given point of departure. My approach is ontological rather than epistemological. It grows out of my earlier work in science studies, and I begin by reviewing some concepts developed there, and why they clash with mainstream academic discourses, before moving on to environmental topics and examples. Key threads include a distinction between two paradigms in scientific and engineering approaches to the environment, and an attempt to put science in its place – to see from the outside just how science figures in our relations with the environment. I am especially keen to establish the possibility of engaging nature in a directly performative fashion – one that does not centre itself on knowledge, science and the laboratory.
Science studies: performance and agency
In 1995 I published a book called The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency and Science, and all of my subsequent work has grown out of that. The analysis of scientific practice I laid out there was straightforward enough, but as I have taken the story further I have become increasingly aware of a mismatch between my thought and mainstream academic discourses. So one thing I need to do here is to clarify my position as well as I can, before addressing environmental questions.
The key move in The Mangle was to focus on performance rather than cognition. We have all been taught to think of science as primarily a cognitive activity – the production of knowledge about the world – but my argument was that if you want to understand scientific practice, you should start by thinking about (a) the performance of scientists – what scientists do; (b) the performance of the material world – what things do in the lab; and (c) how those performances are interlaced with one another. This might appear to be obvious: of course scientists struggle with the material world and try to come to terms with it. But actually, at least as far as the dominant academic traditions are concerned, it is not obvious. The natural sciences themselves tell us stories about how the material world is; the social sciences do the same for the human world; but neither of them talk about performative struggles between the two. There is a notable silence, a striking lack of systematic thought, on this topic. To that extent, western education continually reproduces a Cartesian cognitivism and a Cartesian dualism of people and things.
Now, it might be that there is a reason for this silence – namely, that there is nothing worth saying about performative interactions of people and things – but in The Mangle I did develop a few concepts that seemed to me to get somewhere, that broke the scholarly silence in ways that are worth taking further. One concept was "agency", a term that I use to refer directly to action, doing things that are consequential in the world. The key idea of The Mangle was that scientific practice has the character of a "dance of agency" between people and things, the human and the nonhuman. The first case-study in the book is about Donald Glaser's work in developing the bubble chamber as a new device for experimental particle physics. Very simply, along the way to the finished device Glaser built all sorts of set-ups; then he would stand back with a movie camera in his hand to record what they did; then he would react to that, somehow reconfiguring the set up; then he would see what that would do; react to that again; and so on. So this passage of practice is a nice example of a dance of agency. Sometimes Glaser acted as a classical human agent; then he would become passive and the apparatus took over the active role, doing its thing; then Glaser took over again, back and forth; and eventually a working bubble chamber emerged at the end.
This is simple and obvious – no-one has ever disputed that this is how things go in scientific research. But still, it is where my journey into academic outer space started. As I said, there is no room for talking about performative dances of agency within the mainstream disciplines. Importantly here, dances of agency are symmetric, they do not centre on or privilege the human. We are agents, but so are rocks and stones, cats and bubble chambers – all of these things act and interact. And especially as far as the human sciences are concerned, symmetry is heresy. The human sciences play out a sort of "human exceptionalism" (Pickering, 2008a), dwelling endlessly upon what's so special about us: souls, mind, reason, language, representation, will, intentionality, values, etc, etc. Refusing this exceptionalism – refusing to centre the story on human specialness – is what first put me beyond the academic pale, I think (Pickering, 2009a).
One further remark and then we can move on. Agency, as I use the word, is emergent in practice in a brutal sense. Scientists cannot know how material set-ups will perform in advance – Glaser had to find out what his instruments would do by building them. Likewise, even Glaser himself did not know in advance how he himself would react to their performance – human agency is emergent too. That means that traditional causal interpretations of action are importantly misleading, and that we need to think instead about forward-looking evolutionary processes, dances of agency that explore a world of endless emergence and becoming. My story of the mangle was a way of trying to conceptualise that.
From the lab to the world
After writing The Mangle I began to think about ways of generalising the story beyond the lab (at the end of the book, I claimed it was a "theory of everything"). And I quickly realised that our relations with animals, nature and the environment are an obvious place to look. It might be hard to think about science along these lines – we are so deeply conditioned to identify science with knowledge – but it is totally obvious that we engage with the environment performatively. In The Mangle I mentioned the weather, but think about earthquakes and tidal waves. How else could we regard these than as manifestations of the agency of nature, to which we react performatively, trying to ward them off, usually through engineering, but never quite succeeding?
And to bring this picture down to earth, I fixed on a couple of examples, which I can briefly discuss here. One was a story about invasive species, Asian eels in the mid-west (Pickering, 2005). This was an amusing story I found in the New York Times, about the importation of these eels to the US as pets. They turned out to grow quickly and rather horrifyingly. The owners disposed of them in local ponds, where they multiplied and competed successfully for food with the fish. This upset the fishermen who liked catching large-mouthed bass, so various tricks were tried to get rid of the eels, for example draining the ponds. This didn't work because the eels survived by burrowing into the mud (unlike the fish, which died). Then people tried building concrete barriers to stop the eels spreading to other ponds and waterways – but this failed too because the eels just climbed over them.
For me, this is a beautiful example of a dance of agency, not now in the lab, but in the wild – a performative back and forth of the human and non-human in which the eels show up as always emergent, surprising, unpredictable. I want to ontologise it – to take it as a little model of how things go in the world in general. The world is full of agents which can interfere with one another consequentially but without any sense of control. We acted on the eels and made a difference for them, but the outcomes were not as hoped – they were emergent – and vice versa. All this seems to me visibly true, but one cannot say it in the language of mainstream ecology or sociology: they cut up and edit the world in ways that make it vanish.
After the eels, I fixed on the Mississippi, and John McPhee's wonderful history of the struggles between the river and the US Army Corps of Engineers – the ACE (Pickering, 2008b; McPhee, 1989). As McPhee tells it, this has been again a story of an emergent performative backand-forth. The river does something – floods – the ACE does something in response – raising the levees, building control structures – the river responds to that – running higher, washing away the structures – etc. Again, we have a dance of agency, now writ very large, in which the river, the engineering structures that surround it, and, indeed, the social groups and structures that depend on the river, have all been emergently and unpredictably transformed – mangled – over the past 150 years, or so.
What I take from this, then, is that there are interesting and possibly important things to say about our being in the environment in the performative idiom, as I call it, which are inexpressible in the language of the mainstream disciplines (civil engineering, hydrology, sociology, ecology). Thinking about dances of agency offers us what seems to me a new perspective on being in the environment, different from that of the conventional natural and social sciences.
Science, emergence and islands of stability
So what? Where does this get us? Let me follow a line of thought.
In the late 1990s, the University of Illinois where I then worked got a large grant to develop an interdisciplinary "capstone" undergraduate course to mark the start of the new millennium. I ended up co-organising it with David Ruzik, a colleague in the department of nuclear engineering. He taught the opening class, and he began by calculating the carrying capacity of the earth. You figure out the total amount of arable land there is, how much it can produce (with so much fertiliser, genetic engineering, and so forth) and divide by how much one person needs to live on. This gives you an estimate of the total population the earth can support. Ruzik's conclusion was that we do not need to worry for a while. This is not, of course, an unusual way to reason. The students had no difficulty with it and, in fact, it might be our usual way of thinking as far as global questions are concerned; it somehow exemplifies our usual way of "governing" the planet. But, at the time, I was dumbstruck by the hubris of it all, and now I can say why.
First, it ignores emergence. It assumes that we know all the chains of cause and effect, so that our initiatives will have the expected consequences, and only those. We grasp the levers of power through knowledge. Everything I know contradicts this – the story of Glaser and the bubble chamber; the eels; the ACE and the Mississippi. The world is too lively. We can interfere performatively with it, and it will respond, but there is no guarantee whatsoever that the response will be what we expect. Second, we could ask where emergence has gone in Ruzik's calculation. The answer is that conventional science substitutes for it, replacing a genuinely lively nature with machine-like representations that we can reason around. The levers of power are clear on paper, then, though not in the world. The same could be said of the Army Corps of Engineers. They too use the best of science in their dealings with the Mississippi; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and, sometimes, emergence breaks through, as in 2005 with Hurricane Katrina (Pickering, 2008a).
Where can we go now? One point that should be acknowledged, and that certainly needs more thought, is that, sometimes, we do manage to get on top of nature, so to speak. Machines do work reliably; roofs do keep the rain out. Usually, we think of this in representational terms. Engineers explain to us how bubble chambers or nuclear reactors work in terms of some known laws of nature, and we usually treat that as the end of the story. So, perhaps, one virtue of the turn to performance is to open the story up again. From my perspective, the production of reliable machines is not primarily a cognitive achievement at all; it depends, rather, on finding performative "islands of stability", as I call them, in intersections between the human and the non-human. These are not, in fact, given or guaranteed by knowledge; we should see knowledge as growing out of them. And they are chancy things. Our footing on them has to be continually adjusted, again in a performative fashion. Bubble chambers and nuclear power stations have to be serviced and maintained to keep them in shape, which once more takes the form of dances of agency. And we should recognise that sometimes we lose our footing. In the first generation of bubble chambers, the Harvard-MIT machine exploded, killing one person, injuring others and causing millions of dollars worth of damage. Fukushima evokes equivalent unexpected outcomes in the nuclear world (Pickering, 2012).
But the question I want to consider now is: does my story of dances of agency help us think about "other ways to go on" in the world, other ways to conduct our performances? I think it does. Our hegemonic way of engaging with the environment is the one I have just described – which Martin Heidegger (1977) called "enframing". It entails a detour, as Bruno Latour would say, through science. We turn the world into scientific representations, figure out how to dominate those, and then remake the world in line with our calculations. This detour, of course, is where emergence disappears and where things can go very wrong. What's the alternative? Skip the detour, forget about representations, forget about science; recognise instead that our being in the world is at root performative, and act that out.
We have now arrived in scholarly outer space. Words, language, symbols, representations, science – these are the stock in trade of us academics, and my recommendation is to forget about them – or, to speak in more measured terms, I want to put them in their place, to see them as a small part of a world of performance and becoming, by no means the centre of it. So I am not surprised when my colleagues look at me blankly when I say things like that. But we can press on. From a performative perspective, the key question is: what would this other way of going on – which Heidegger called "poiesis" and I like to call the stance of "revealing" – look like? Could we live without the detour through science and knowledge? Let me try to spin out some examples, in the spirit of an existence proof, moving from rather passive relations with nature to more active ones.
Hylozoism
I live in the Exe valley. You can see very easily where the floodplain of the Exe is, a flat strip of land a mile or so wide with the Exe meandering across it, hemmed in by nice Devon Hills, with their fields populated by cows and sheep. When the river floods, as it quite often does, the cows, sheep and farmers stroll off to higher land. There are a few more or less ancient raised tracks crossing the floodplain – walkways, railways, roadways – which look pretty odd and intriguing most of the time but whose purpose becomes totally obvious when the waters rise. We could say that over the centuries people in the Exe valley have found a way of living in dynamic equilibrium with the river; that this has involved very little by way of a detour through science; and that it works. The present configuration of the Exe valley is the upshot of the stance of revealing – a performative openness to what the river will do, and a performative response to that. The beautiful village I live in, a quasi-nomadic approach to farming, and the strange river architecture around it have all grown out of a long dance of agency.
Of course, the Exe is a little river, not so important in the grand scheme of things. The Rhine, on the other hand, is big and important, and it strikes me that the current Dutch project Room for Rivers is a revival of the traditional stance (Rohde et al., 2006; de Groot and Lenders, 2006; Palca, 2008). Room for Rivers aims, as I understand it, to let the river flood, in the spirit that it is better for us to adapt to regular finite floods than to try to pin down and enframe the river, with the disasters and catastrophes that inevitably follow. I am tempted to call Room for Rivers a "hylozoist" project. Hylozoism, for me, is the idea that everything we need is there in nature already, and that we can latch onto it directly and performatively instead of going through long detours of cognition for the sake of bending nature to our will. I started thinking about this when I was trying to understand the cybernetic biological computing projects of the 1950s and 1960s. There the truly amazing idea was to entrain pond ecosystems, for example, to manage factories (Pickering, 2009b, 2010). Now it strikes me that water engineering in general might be moving in this hyolozoist direction – a realisation that maybe nature is better at controlling itself than we are.
These were examples of letting go; now I can turn to more active relations with nature. At a meeting in Oxford in December 2011 ("Practising Creativity: Thinking/ Making in the Act") Sarah Whatmore showed a picture of novel dams being built upstream of a Yorkshire town called Pickering (of all places!). The novelty of these dams is that they look as though they have been built by beavers rather than by engineers; they are simply tangled meshes of branches thrown across a stream. What fascinates me about them is that rather than dominating streams via a detour through science, they stage an exploratory dance of agency with them, finding out how nature will respond. Obviously, the state of the dams and how they act depends on their history, for example, on how much detritus has been washed down and caught by the dams or detached from them. I don't know how well they work, but this is an example of engineering in the mode of revealing and finding out, rather than enframing and domination through knowledge.
Moving from micro- to macro-structures, we could think about the Dujiangyan dam in China (Li and Xu, 2006). 2,000 years old, this dam is famous for the elegance of its performance. It acts differently according to the season and the waterflow in the river, variously diverting water into irrigation channels and dampening out floods. I have not been able to find out much about the history of the dam's construction, but it was not designed scientifically and its maintenance crucially entails a dance of human and nonhuman agency. The dam structure is not fixed; every year it is eroded by waterflows and every year it is rebuilt in line with the experience of the previous year. Not coincidentally, I think, it is one of the places where heaven and earth are joined – there always seems to be a spiritual angle on hylozoist relations to nature.
Staying in the east for a moment, we could think about the Chinese concept of shi. As the title of François Jullien's (1999) book explains, shi refers to the "propensity of things" to act in specific ways. The moral here is that successful human action depends on latching onto the shi of whatever situation one finds oneself in, going with the flow, in the Taoist sense of the term. I am told this way of thinking is simply commonsense in China, though it is certainly alien to western academic thought. What puzzles me about it is how one is supposed to know which way shi is flowing; what is the propensity of this arrangement or that? But thinking about this can move us towards consideration of some even more active ways of relating to the environment in the mode of revealing.
In his book, Seeing Like a State (1998), Jim Scott refers to a body of thought and action that he calls "metis", which he sees as a less poisonous alternative to modernist rationalisation. He gives an example that I find striking, of a traditional Japanese approach to the environment:
"Erosion control in Japan is like a game of chess. The forest engineer, after studying his eroding valley, makes his first move, locating and building one or more check dams. He waits to see what nature's response is. This determines the forest engineer's next move, which may be another dam or two, an increase in the former dam, or the construction of side retaining walls. Another pause for observation, the next move is made, and so on, until erosion is checkmated. The operation of natural forces, such as sedimentation and re-vegetation, are guided and used to the best advantage to keep down costs and to obtain practical results."
Clearly here, the engineer is finding out what the propensity of the valley and the water is, and he does that by deliberately staging a performative dance of agency with it: trying this, seeing what happens, trying something else, just like Glaser en route to the bubble chamber. So here we have a very nice example of a sort of purposeful finding out how to control nature without any detour though science and representation – a way of trading on the dance of agency rather than trying to short-cut it through knowledge. One point to emphasise, then, is that a performative perspective does not require us simply to let nature go its own way, as in the Exe valley; rather, it opens up the possibility of foregrounding and actively conjuring up emergent dances of agency in practice rather than casting a scientific veil over them. It might also be worth noting that one can speak of experiment in this connection: the Japanese forest engineer certainly experiments on water flows in the valley. But this is not the same sense of "experiment" as that usually associated with science. Scientific experiment depends on the detour I have been talking about: a displacement of phenomena away from the world and into the lab for the sake of producing knowledge which can then be re-exported to the world – which is, for example, how the Army Corps of Engineers proceeds in its dealings with the Misissippi. Scott's example points to another sort of experiment which entails performative interaction with the thing itself, with no displacement, and focused on a performative outcome rather than exportable knowledge – "experimentation in the wild", we could call it (following Hutchins, 1995).
Again, we can scale this example up, and also bring it more up to date. Lisa Asplen has written about performative and mangle-ish ways of getting along with the environment. The easiest one to think about is called adaptive management (Gunderson and Light, 2006). Just like the Japanese example, adaptive management, as I understand it, is all about experimentation in the wild and staging dances of agency as a way of exploring the shi of any given situation. Asplen (2008) discusses experimental floods on the Colorado River staged downstream from the Glen Canyon dam. The idea there was to find out how the river and the downstream ecosystem would react to different flows of water, as a basis for further dealings with them. One important point that Asplen emphasises is that while the scientists involved did have conventional scientific representations of river dynamics, they were prepared to find out that they were wrong – as indeed some of them were; valuable monitoring equipment simply got washed away; the river and ecosystem reconfigured themselves in ways that surprised the scientists. This sort of experimentation in the wild, then, is alive to emergence in the dance of agency, interested in it, not trying to short-circuit it through knowledge. Asplen (2008) also discusses projects of ecological restoration. These sound like classic enframing exercises, trying to make nature conform to a given representation of what it should look like. But what Asplen stresses is, again, that the restorers are alive to emergence, allowing their targets to shift in the light of what emerges in the dance of agency – a whole new ecological formation in the case she studied.
Imagining another science
That brings me to the end of my examples; where have we got to? From one angle, my basic idea is that we can understand the world as built from performative dances of agency. That is what there is in the world; that is my ontological vision. Then my idea is that we usually contrive not to see this. We edit out the emergent aspects of the dance by substituting scientific representations for them, and proceed to act on the basis of those representations. Like Heidegger, I think this is our characteristic way of inhabiting the world in modernity, in relating to the environment and much else. But a constructive spin-off of my analysis is that it helps us to imagine another way of being in the world – of experimenting directly in, and learning from, dances of agency, instead of conjuring them away via some epistemological sleight of hand. I have not dwelt on this, but I also think it is obvious from my examples that this other way of going on – the hylozoist stance of revealing – is, at least, much less prone to a catastrophic dark-side than the stance of enframing and domination, which is something very much in its favour. From another angle, this essay is an attempt to argue that there are interesting and perhaps important things to be said in the performative idiom. As I mentioned before, I often feel like I have arrived in outer space, but I do not think it has to be outer space, even for academics. It should be our home, the place we set out from and return to in our explorations. To finish, perhaps I should explore a bit further how we should think about science itself.
I said earlier that we should get rid of science, but I immediately qualified that by saying I really wanted to put science in its place. What is going on here? We can start by thinking about the sort of conventional scientific knowledge that my friend David Ruzik used to calculate the carrying capacity of the earth. I feel like saying that we need more of this sort of knowledge but that we should trust it less. The worst thing we can do is forget about emergence by adopting a hard realist interpretation of current beliefs and putting them into practice come what may. I am afraid that is how we go on most of the time; I hope it is what environmental scientists are now realising does not work very well and simply invites disasters. Instead, we should see scientific knowledge for what it is – a situated, partial and retrospective way of making sense of what has happened so far. Cognitively, it may be the best we can do; it is our way of thinking about the future; but it is always liable to go wrong. Novelty will emerge from the dance of agency, and then we will, or should, revise our actions and beliefs. Practically, this means that when we try to act out our scientific visions we should be on the alert for surprises and willing to modify both our knowledge and our plans accordingly. Constant monitoring of worldly performance – this is what I mean by saying we should trust science less.
One of the cyberneticians I studied, Stafford Beer, once wrote a paper with a great title: "The Surrogate World We Manage" (Beer, 1975). His argument was that much management is totally focussed on a paper world of representations, and that the real-world consequences of this range from regrettable to catastrophic (think of the current so-called financial crisis). That is the sort of environmental management we need to beware of. And I could just mention that this always seemed a rather abstract point to me until I moved back to Britain in 2007. I now work in one of those surrogate worlds that Beer warned us about. I am sure the University of Exeter looks splendid on paper. You can actually find diagrams of reporting chains and flow charts on whiteboards in the administrators' offices. At the ground level, in contrast, we are all going mad trying to reconcile teaching and research with a stream of impossibly unrealistic commands. I imagine many rivers feel the same. Which, just to follow this tangent a bit further, reminds me of another cybernetician, Gregory Bateson. Bateson moved from an interest in schizophrenia in the 1950s to environmental concerns in the 1960s and 1970s, and he gave much the same analysis of both (Bateson, 1968; 2000). Both circle around attempts to stamp a modern blueprint onto an emergently lively system – enframing selves and rivers respectively – and the disastrous consequences that follow when these project fail. Hurricane Katrina as the madness of the Mississippi; madness as the Hurricane Katrina of the soul.
We can go back to science. I increasingly think it makes sense to distinguish between two different paradigms, in Kuhn's sense, for thinking about and acting in the world (Pickering, 2009b; 2010). One is the modern paradigm, exemplified here by Ruzik's calculations. As Heidegger said, this draws on the sort of science that makes the world calculable and sets it up for enframing. But there is a different kind of science, that Heidegger did not think about, which represents the world differently. Cybernetics would be one example of this other paradigm, but complexity theory is probably a more relevant version today. I am not an expert in this version of environmental studies, but I can sketch out some tentative thoughts.
First, I like the complexity approach a lot. Instead of linear models of cause and effect, it offers us a vision of basins of attraction in highly complex socio-ecological formations – attractors that pull these entities back to specific sorts of states, until one crosses a boundary when they flip over to another attractor, for better or for worse (Folke, 2006; Miller et al., 2010). This sounds to me like a much better representation of how the world is than calculations of the carrying capacity of the earth. And this sort of representation certainly serves as a warning against trying too quickly to edit out emergence and surprise. But two questions arise from a performative perspective. One goes back to the question of realism: should we just believe these sorts of representations: do they literally describe how the world is? In the world of Deleuzian philosophy, Manuel DeLanda (2002) would say yes to that question and then go on about attractors as the structure of "the virtual". I am inclined to say no. What complexity is good for is the construction of an alternative and non modern imaginary, for people who need that sort of thing. If you are a fan of science and would like to think your way out of enframing, read a few papers on complexity – they will show you how even a simple determinist world can nevertheless continually surprise us.
But from another angle, I am inclined to wonder what else complexity can do for us. I don't think there is much hope of ever pinning down the actual complexities of any important real ecosystem, of mapping the attractors and their boundaries; and I certainly don't think there is any hope of doing that for socio-ecological systems. Speaking ex cathedra as a sociologist, multi-agent models of social systems, for example, do not remind me of anything I have come across in my research. The social world is not built from N interchangeable and otherwise identical agents. At best, these models can function, again, as aids to the imagination.
In the end, what fascinates me is how necessary people find it to embark on incredibly long, complex, expensive and tiring detours through science to get hold of what sort of a place the world is. Why bother, when you simply have to look? Why is it so hard for us to see that we live in a world that just is lively and surprising? It probably starts with what we teach our children at school – but that is another story.
Tags: agency, corporeality, episteme, existenz, infrastructure, ontography, polity, praxis
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One response to "Being In An Environment: a performative perspective"
dmf October 5, 2021 at 4:44 pm · · Reply →
Andy's book on The Mangle of Practice is a classic and his pragmatist move from the representative to the performative is to be applauded, so I was always confused by his insistence here (and elsewhere) on the desirability of ontology talk when this epistemological gambit is the heart of his thesis/project:
"I am especially keen to establish the possibility of engaging nature in a directly performative fashion"


The Middleton Senior Men's Curling team were the not-so-gracious hosts for the 1967 Provincial Championship. Feeling right home on Middleton ice, the Meb Armstrong skipped rink defeated their opposition in six straight matches.
Along with Skip Armstrong on the victorious Middleton Rink were mate Gordon Goucher, second Fred Smith and lead C.D. MacLean . En-route to the Championship game were a few games that were not decided until the final end when the Middleton quartet bore down to claim victory with some great shot-making.
In the final game against Wolfville, Middleton took the lead in the second end and never looked back in their 8-4 victory.


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Rail sabotage is one of the Belarusian forms of grassroots action opposing the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

At the end of February 2022, the first reports appeared in the media about sabotage on Belarusian railways in order to disable manpower, signalling control equipment, and the transport of military materiel by rail for military operations on the territory of Ukraine.

Actions

Signalling equipment was destroyed in three regions of Belarus, and railway lines were blocked. As a result of these operations, the work of several branches of the Belarusian railway was disrupted, particularly in the south of Belarus. There have been some 80 acts of sabotage on Belarusian railways as of 12 April, based on data from the Belarusian Interior Ministry. The most common form of damage is setting fire to the signalling equipment. This disrupts the lights on the railway system, forcing trains to slow to . A married couple set fire to the logs of military equipment kept by the railways. Other acts of sabotage have involved the railway's workers themselves as well as hackers attacking the railway's computer system. The Deputy Interior Minister threatened to kill the partisans in a statement in early March. Shots were fired at people attempting to set fire to a signal box in late March. In late April, the lower house of Parliament passed a law to apply the death penalty for sabotage.

The opposition's actions assisted Ukrainian forces in defeating the Russian offensive which aimed to conquer Kyiv.

See also
 Rail war
 2022 rail war in Russia

References

External links
 Sly, Liz The Belarusian railway workers who helped thwart Russia's attack on Kyiv The Washington Post (April 23, 2022)

Belarus in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
Protests in Belarus
Resistance movements
Opposition to Vladimir Putin
2022 in Belarus
Acts of sabotage
Rail transport in Belarus
Resistance during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
2022 crimes in Belarus
Railway accidents in 2022
Railway accidents and incidents in Belarus

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


The loadspace is a healthy 575 l with the seats up, providing more than ample room for the perfect weekend getaway.
Cleverly configured, the Evoque Convertible tailgate has been developed to allow easy access to the loadspace and even has ski hatch with arm rest. The loadspace capacity remains 251 l regardless of the roof position and is able to accommodate a standard golf bag, or a baby buggy.
The Meridian Sound System 380 W with 10 speakers plus subwoofer delivers exceptional definition, crystal clear highs and full, deep bass through the careful arrangement of speakers. You can also upgrade to the 660 W Meridian Surround Sound System. This has 12 speakers plus subwoofer on the Convertible or 825 W with 16 speakers plus subwoofer on the Five-door. Delivering the very best in world-class audio reproduction, it provides the ultimate soundtrack to your journey– bringing you closer to the original performance.
Your smartphone and vehicle can provide a wealth of information and keep you entertained. InControl Apps helps link your smartphone seamlessly to the system, allowing you to control compatible apps via the Touchscreen, whilst the MeridianTM Sound System plays your music.
Delivering a sportier, more economical performance, the new 4-cylinder 2.0 l Si4 Petrol engine has a 177 kW output to provide maximum efficiency, performance and fuel economy through a Continuously Variable Valve Lift system in combination with variable cam timing. A diesel option is also available with an output of 132 kW.
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Our Driver Aids allow you to concentrate on the road ahead by monitoring and helping you with specific driving situations, with range of parking technologies take the stress out of parking.
Get the conditions inside your Range Rover Evoque just right. On HSE Dynamic Convertible, heated and cooled front seats are also available and for the ultimate in comfort 14-way electric front seats with memory and massage front seats allow both the driver and front passenger to select individual programmes via the Touchscreen.
Open and close the tailgate with the least amount of fuss with powered gesture tailgate. Once the smart key is detected, the tailgate can be operated by a kicking gesture underneath the rear of the vehicle. Sensors are mounted on either side of the vehicle to allow convenient kerbside operation.
Some journeys need added extras. That's why Range Rover Evoque's towing capacity, of up to 2 000 kg on Five-door and 1 500 kg on Convertible - is supported by the optional Surround Camera System. This includes Tow Assist which aids reversing by predicting the trailer's direction.
From the icy proving grounds of Arjeplog, Sweden, to Dubai's unforgiving desert sands, we ensure our legendary all-terrain performance is innate in every vehicle. Prototypes are developed across approximately 8 500 km of the most demanding off-road routes.


Why Choose NBFC over Banks?
It's very common nowadays that Nbfc Companies in Bangalore are getting more preferences than banks when it comes to opting for education loans. But have you thought why people are opting for NBFCs more? WE have jotted down the difference between a bank and a NBFC and we will leave it up to you to decide why NBFC is superior than a bank.
Difference between Banks and NBFC: Bank borrows money from common people and gives interests on savings accounts and fixed deposits while NBFC borrows money from investors or financial institutions, and their average cost of borrowing money is 9%, and that of banks are 6-7%. When students choose NBFC over banks their interest rates are higher.
Processing Fees: Banks consumes higher processing time than NBFC. So, if you need a loan on an urgent basis, NBFC is a preferred option over banks.
Tax Benefits: If you are taking a loan from a bank you automatically become eligible for income tax deduction while when taking a loan from NBFC there are no clear income tax exemption rules mentioned. Although education loans from NBFC is eligible for income tax deduction.
Repayment during course period: When you take a loan from a bank, you can start repaying while studying. You have to repay once you get a job or 6 months after the completion of your particular course. In NBFC, you have to pay a certain amount every month.
The biggest advantage of borrowing from an NBFC is that they cover a huge range of institutions and courses universally, as against banks, who restrict their loan offerings based on the course and the destination.
NBFC's lending process is far more relaxed, easier, and transparent and is often much faster in sanctioning & disbursing loans. They are also more likely to offer a wide range of customer friendly services that may be specifically suited to certain students.
A lesser amount of paperwork is required to obtain a loan from NBFC than a bank.
NBFCs usually don't cap the amount of loan that they can offer a student. Based on the course requirements & its value NBFC can offer loans to the tune that the student is requesting. Banks, on the other hand, have a limit set on the amount they can offer a student.
Therefore, from the above conclusion we can assume that NBFCs are more relaxed when it comes to providing loans. So if you need a loan on a urgent basis you can search for "List of Nbfc in Bangalore" and get your loan approved in a blink.


Well, the 2018-2019 Ontario Hockey League's regular season has come to a close. That means it's time for us to look at players eligible for the 2019 National Hockey League Draft in June and their statistical accomplishments for the season.
For this installment, we've added some categories such as shooting percentage from high, mid and low danger zones, primary assists, powerplay goals and more. While we take great care in accumulating stats, always refer to the OHL site for official stats. We also recommend checking out Prospect-Stats. It is a great resource, but usually takes a day to update.
As in years past, we only include players eligible for the NHL draft for the first time.


Music and art have so many valuable connections that we can teach our students! What better way to share this connection that through an African Art unit studying Djembe drums. Students will learn about how they are made, what makes them unique, and then get a chance to build their own Djembe drum from plaster! We are very excited to work in a 3-D form and get messy!
Third graders will begin to look at the artwork of Wayne Theibaud next week and learn about a new element of art: VALUE! They will look closely at his artwork and notice his strong use of light to make images look 3-D on paper.
Third graders will begin exploring with the material of oil pastels and create their own Wayne Theibaud inspired artwork to demonstrate their understanding of Value.
Third graders have been enjoying the soothing sounds of Zen music in art to inspire our LINE unit artwork creations. We learned about the art of Zentangle as well as revisiting our knowledge of LINE, PATTERN, and COLOR.
Check us out on instagram @summitartists for progress pictures and check back soon for our final creations!


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October 8, 2012 By Sizwe 4 Comments
On a recent visit to the UK, I met a number of media companies and local journalists including a few members of the editorial team at the BBC. It was clear only minutes into the conversation that the issues facing the broadcasting industry there were significantly different from those the SABC are currently grappling with in South Africa. They were more future-focused and ranged from harnessing the opportunities brought about by technology changing journalism and interactivity, to how to manage a changing public demand for content.
In South Africa, the SABC's key challenges appear to be almost exclusively internal. Between political bickering about news coverage, the evident SABC leadership crisis, exposed fraud and abundant corruption, there is little time to consider customer service and needs, let alone any thought leadership on the future of broadcasting. Of course, this is not to say that the BBC does not have its own internal leadership issues – it certainly does. However, the scale is different by an order of magnitude.
The broadcasting industry focus and public media attention in the UK lies more on equity, technological progress and quality of service. A quick glance at the BBC editor blogs will easily validate that. There is a substantial platform for interaction with the end customer – not only through the likes of World Have Your Say and the multitude of reporter blogs, but more directly so on BBC editorial content and general programming.
SABC head office – Johannesburg. Photo by Mike Powell.
In South Africa, you'd be hard pressed to find a place to voice similar opinions on the SABC, other than next to your water cooler at your own office. The fact that senior BBC editorial staff usually reply to many of the comments, concerns and feedback adds to the sense of customer focus that is so lacking at the SABC.
The recently published findings of forensic reports on the SABC shed more light on its lack of customer focus. It appears that the SABC leadership team are more concerned with self-enrichment and political positioning than with the job of broadcasting.
Consider the following findings in the SABC audit:
"Irregular contracts" to the value of close to R200 Million (over US$23.5 Million) that were deemed by the SABC's own internal audit team to have delivered "no significant value"
Evidence of tender awards where there were clear conflicts of interest with the negotiating parties
"Irregular expenditure" around sponsorship for events (a la ICT Indaba)
Providing a politically connected family with free exposure worth millions for their newspaper, the New Age
Hiring Hlaudi Motsoeneng as Chief Operating Officer after ignoring its own governance structures. This, incidently, is a person who had lied about twice failing high school matric.
Appalling recruitment and due diligence practices including hiring the likes of Justice Ndaba who had forged 3 qualifications including an MBA to secure his position. To aggravate the situation he was allowed to continue working even after this was discovered!
Last month, the SABC suspended its Chief Financial Officer, Gugu Duda for "procurement irregularities".
When it comes to reporting, the question of the impartiality of the public broadcaster is always on the table. In this respect, the SABC is no different from the BBC. Locally however, the bias appears more explicitly. For example, the SABC was asked to avoid media coverage for local firebrand Julius Malema since he has become a thorn in the ruling ANC government's side. Complying to this kind of direct request is unlikely to go down well in the UK. In South Africa however, it seems par for the course.
It is unfortunate that there is a complete lack of accountability at SABC. How can it then expect tax payers to cough up an additional R6 Billion (over US$700 Million) to fund a digital strategy when its house is in disarray and there is ample evidence of what can only be described as looting? When failing to meet 68% of a total of 89 goals set for the broadcaster constitutes an "overwhelming success", what chance is there the SABC will come even close to anything like the BBC?
You are not alone if you think that betting on the SABC pulling itself out of its current mess is like putting your faith in online gambling in South Africa or on the likes of this excellent website in the UK. Sadly, you probably stand better odds of success if you buy lottery tickets online and keep your fingers crossed. One can only hope that the South African public raise enough of an raucous about the SABC so that the government is forced to take stock and more importantly, action, to rectify the situation.
Stay tuned for our forthcoming editorials on interactive TV, social issues around human trafficking, online gambling legislation in South Africa and more.
Filed Under: Editorial Tagged With: BBC, corruption, freedom of speech, Gugu Duda, Hlaudi Motsoeneng, media bias, New Age, SABC
Nkolelo Sibanda says:
I think it's quite unfair to compare the SABC and BBC – they are quite different animals with very different funding structures. I agree though that the corruption and internal strife at the SABC prevent it from taking on many of the thought leading initiatives taken on by major international broadcasters – covering things like media convergence and user interactivity.
Nkolelo
Maryanne says:
If the awful political meddling from the ANC stopped for a few months, they might be able to make some progress. With the run up to Mangaung in play, it's doubtful that will happen anytime soon. Too bad.
Joseph NK says:
Personally I feel the BBC is quite biased in their reporting anyway – public broadcasters all have their political agendas and know which side their bread is buttered on. The BBC just has more money and therefore more flexibility about the initiatives they can take on.
@Nkolelo – you're right you can't compare the BBC with SABC – the SABC is a crappy third world broadcaster with zero credibility and no mind of its own.
Jason Boulton says:
I am a media student in South Africa and I wonder if the BBC would consider a collaboration of some sort with SABC especially with the likes of the BBC Connected Studio initiatives – it would be great to get that kind of exposure to leading edge thinking here. (In return, judging by this post and the results of the forensic audit, SABC could return the favour and teach the BBC how not to hire and implement corporate governance principles!)
News24.com | Proteas resurgence continues with 1st ODI victory as Van der Dussen, Bavuma sparkle in Paarl January 19, 2022
Rassie van der Dussen and Temba Bavuma's centuries were ultimately enough to get the Proteas over the line against India in the opening ODI at Boland Park on Wednesday. […]


Based in Singapore, Stobbs (pictured) will focus on developing and driving the company's strategic priorities in the region.
Markel, which has a regional presence in China, India, Malaysia and Singapore, is seeking to further its links with local insurers and distributors, as well as develop products for emerging risks.
Stobbs joins the team in Singapore from Abbey Tax, a Markel firm based in the UK, where he was the managing director and helped develop the company into one of the UK's leading tax advisory businesses.
Before joining Abbey Tax, Stobbs was a strategy and development executive at Markel's London office and prior to that he was with the Boston Consulting Group.


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Flip-Flops, Political Opportunism and Barack Obama
The McCain campaign is trying to paint Barack Obama as a flip-flopper, ala John Kerry. I don't think it will work in the same way it worked with Kerry, however.
Kerry's flip-flopping, most spectacularly shown as he windsurfed off of Martha's Vineyard, was seen as a sign of weakness. Kerry was portrayed as being as weak on the war on terror, an out-of-touch effete Yankee snob, and kind of a nerd. He was the kid who always got picked on in the class-room, because he was a brown-noser.
Obama is different. The flip-flopping charge won't work with him. While he may be seen as weaker on the war, that doesn't have the same resonance as it did four years ago. Each day we move beyond September 11th, the less resonance it has with the voting public. And the war in Iraq, despite our successes, remains unpopular and has contributed to the collective bad mood that country currently finds itself in.
Obama also cannot be portrayed as the effete East Coast Yankee, because well, he is from the South Side of Chicago. He's not the dork that Kerry came off as. He is the cool kid in the glass, he moves with a grace and an arrogance that comes not from great wealth, but from somewhere else.
But Obama is clearly not a straight-talking man of the people. Indeed, his latest moves show him to be a political opportunist of the highest degree. He joined his church, according to fellow Illinoisan Bobby Rush, so he could be seen as more black. And when that church ceased to be useful to him, he not only quit it, he trashed the pastor that "brought him to Christ."
He worked his way up in Illinois, by befriending guys like Tony Rezko, who helped to bankroll his campaigns. When Rezko got into hot water, he too was sacrificed.
The same dynamic, of course, occurred with his pledge on public financing for the Presidential campaign. When it was convenient, and when believed he had no chance to bring in the money he is bringing in today, he was all for public financing. Today, hasta la vista, baby, to public financing.
He is also trying to have it both ways on the DC gun ban. Like all liberals, he strongly supported the gun ban early on. But today, he is singing a different tune, about how he has always supported the individual's right to bear arms.
Obama's complete lack of principle doesn't show a tendency to flip-flop. It shows instead a strong sense of political ruthlessness that betrays something a little more sinister. He is someone who believes that the ends justifies the means, and that the only thing that truly matters is the final result, which is his ascension to the White House.
It is easy to paint this kind of ruthlessness as typical of a politician. But actually, his stunning lack of principle takes it to a different level, attained only by Presidential figures like Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon. For Clinton and Nixon, it was really all about them, damn the Constitution.
Obama has not yet demonstrated the political courage to take on a specific special interest, or a Democratic sacred cow. He has shown no ability to bring Republicans and Democrats together for a cause greater than party. He has yet to cross the line to achieve anything of note in the Senate. In the Illinois legislature, Obama was known most as the guy who voted present early and often, in order to maintain his political viability.
Unlike John McCain, who has many politically risky gambles with his career, including immigration, campaign finance reform, and most notably, the surge, Obama takes no chances. He is not a flip-flopper by any means. He is a ruthless political opportunist who will do anything to achieve his ambitions.


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SN 1999A – supernowa typu II odkryta 10 stycznia 1999 roku w galaktyce NGC 5874. W momencie odkrycia miała maksymalną jasność 18,30.

Przypisy

Supernowe zaobserwowane w 1999 roku


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About Troy
Troy Talk
The All-of-the Above Energy Strategy
It would be difficult to volunteer a word that has more potential for raising a reflexive concern than the term nuclear.
While we know the benefits it provides — plenty of affordable, reliable energy to the world — we allow, privately at least, to fall into the valley of doubt, skepticism and fear.
For that reason, the role of energy and the environment both now and for future generations is an unending discussion. And if we are to offer our intelligence, creativity and problem-solving skills, then every possible answer is something we must carefully analyze. When it comes to solving the growing need for energy, while reducing carbon emissions to deal with climate change, then honest debate on the pros and cons of nuclear energy should be on our collective agenda.
Our country's growing dual challenges of creating and sustaining true energy independence from foreign sources to meet an increasing demand and the proper stewardship of our environment in the face of the overwhelming evidence of climate change will require an innovative approach. It will require focusing on getting the job done rather than designating which vehicles can and cannot be used to meet these challenges.
The need for various sources of clean power has never been clearer. To address the issue of climate change, the world needs 40 percent of electricity to come from zero-emissions sources, according to the International Energy Agency. Now, the work to expand renewable energy sources must continue. Those efforts are a key component to meeting this charge. However, energy experts from all over the world have concluded that these efforts alone will leave us considerably short of meeting that demand.
That is why re-examining nuclear energy, and more specifically advanced nuclear technology, is essential. Technological innovation in this sector has grown rapidly, and the fears of this industry have begun to be addressed. Advanced nuclear reactors are using innovative fuels and alternative coolants like molten salt, high temperature gas, or liquid metal instead of high-pressure water, and even fusion reactors, to generate electricity. These innovations can spur a national discussion that allows us to reject inflexible and antiquated reasoning that drives policy steeped in political orthodoxy and not toward a pragmatic solution.
A conversation about nuclear energy is fraught with either a stereotype for knee-jerk reactions that it almost requires a conscious effort to step back and face the facts. I'm suggesting that expanding the safe use of nuclear energy should be on the table for conversation. And, to be clear this is not a proposal to use a technology that is new. Much of the world already uses it. In fact, roughly 50 percent of New Jersey's energy is produced by nuclear power. Further, According to the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), nuclear energy generates 98.5 percent of New Jersey's carbon-free energy. And, the nature of that use, including safety and efficiency, has progressed significantly.
Recently, a dim picture has brightened. Several bipartisan bills are pending before Congress which confront the obstacles that would prevent the United States from developing next-generation nuclear power. "The House introduced a billed entitle Advanced Nuclear Technology Development Act that would create a more efficient regulatory review process more aligned to the requirements of the current and future nuclear energy systems," according to Derrick Freeman, in realclearpolicy.com. "The Senate passed bipartisan legislation … directing the Department of Energy to partner with private innovators to develop and test concept supporting advanced reactor technologies and to work with the NRC [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] to establish a testing facility for these concepts."
This is a commendable beginning. But it will be the follow through that matters most. if we are to truly reach our nation's energy goals and stem the tide of climate change, we cannot allow ourselves to be prisoners of old world thinking. As technological innovations abound we need to embrace the advancements in energy science to ensure that our country's energy needs are met. That's my take, what's yours?
troytalk media blog
Steve Stern commented 2016-07-28 14:42:30 -0400
There are a number of problems with nuclear energy which are not touched upon in this otherwise excellent essay.
First, the nation has no comprehensive approach to the disposal of nuclear waste. Yucca Mountain may never happen, and in the meantime, spent nuclear fuel poses an environmental and potential terrorist hazard when it is stored on site.
By its very nature, nuclear power plants are large installations in relatively isolated locations and require a robust and reliable transmission system. By contrast, solar and wind power can be generated much closer to the consumer, making it cheaper and more robust in getting power to the ultimate users.
Accidents happen. We've seen this in Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. No system can be made 100% safe. So even if the probability of a similar accident is extremely low, if and when it DOES occur, the consequental damage to the surroundings, the health of the population, and the long-term effects are very high. If a solar array catches fire or a windmill falls down, the damage is localized to a small area and there are no long-term effects. Not so with nuclear. The impact of failure is a generational problem.
Instead of building more nukes, we should work toward increasing our inventory of clean energy generation facilities. In the long run, nuclear is neither cheap nor safe.


When we were 25, we put everything we owned in storage, packed one bag each, and headed Down Under for a year. Of course, we came back with a whole lot more - our son Parker. When we first moved back, we filled his room with photos of where his life started. But as we have moved from place to place over the last few years, those pictures have been scattered around, packed away, and tucked in corners. This three part mini-series is a glimpse at how I am attempting to bring the beach back home in Parker's room.
First up is a landscape photograph tuned into an art poster. Landscapes can evoke memories from a special time, yet I find myself replacing them with pictures of my children. Cutting a meaningful quote out of a landscape photo is one way to add interest and a pop of unexpected color.
After finding a quote that fit what the photo represented to me, I uploaded it to the Cricut Design Space, set the dial to poster board, loaded my mat, and pressed go. Once the Cricut Explore was finished doing its thing, I glued the photo onto a brightly color piece of cardstock and finished with a frame.
It is always easy to go from inspiration to creation in a few simple clicks with the Cricut Explore. And lucky you, Cricut is giving away 50 machines! If you want to win one, all you need to do is upload a photo of any project that you have made (it does not need to be made with a Cricut product - it can be anything as long as you made it) with the #cricut and #imadeit to Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter and you will automatically be entered to win. Check out the official rules right here. And if you want, go ahead and tag me (@cloudydaygray), so I can play along with the fun!
I made this project as an entry into the Cricut Design Star challenge. Cricut has asked a number of bloggers to enter projects with specific themes as a fun way to test out the Cricut Explore. I am also now an official affiliate blogger for Cricut, so any purchases made through a link from this site, will result in a percentage going into my pocket. Always, thank you for your support.


Hey David! I would like to request a showing of 6218 Revere Place. Let me know what times you are available. Thank you!
Wonderful 2 bedroom,2 bathroom,2 living area,cottage located on one of the quieter streets in this delightful neighborhood. W-unique archways, hdwd flooring,WBFP,& spacious living room complete w-vaulted ceiling, & built-in bookshelves. Updates include a master bath w-soaking tub,walk-in shower,Travertine flooring & tile,& an incredible walk-in closet. Large back yard with wood privacy fence, and award winning Stonewall Jackson Elementary!
All data for this listing was last updated on June 06, 2018 at 07:19PM.


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Home » Health News » Roadmap for AI in medical imaging
Roadmap for AI in medical imaging
04/16/2019 Computer Modeling, Encryption, Hacking, Information Technology, Medical Devices, Medical Imaging, Medical Topics, Today's Healthcare
In August 2018, a workshop was held at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Md., to explore the future of artificial intelligence (AI) in medical imaging. The workshop was co-sponsored by NIH, the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), the American College of Radiology (ACR) and The Academy for Radiology and Biomedical Imaging Research (The Academy). The organizers aimed to foster collaboration in applications for diagnostic medical imaging, identify knowledge gaps and develop a roadmap to prioritize research needs. The group's research roadmap was published today as a special report in the journal Radiology.
"The scientific challenges and opportunities of AI in medical imaging are profound, but quite different from those facing AI generally. Our goal was to provide a blueprint for professional societies, funding agencies, research labs, and everyone else working in the field to accelerate research toward AI innovations that benefit patients," said the report's lead author, Curtis P. Langlotz, M.D., Ph.D. Dr. Langlotz is a professor of radiology and biomedical informatics, director of the Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Imaging, and associate chair for information systems in the Department of Radiology at Stanford University, and RSNA Board Liaison for Information Technology and Annual Meeting.
Imaging research laboratories are rapidly creating machine learning systems that achieve expert human performance using open-source methods and tools. These artificial intelligence systems are being developed to improve medical image reconstruction, noise reduction, quality assurance, triage, segmentation, computer-aided detection, computer-aided classification and radiogenomics.
Machine learning algorithms will transform clinical imaging practice over the next decade. Yet, machine learning research is still in its early stages.
"RSNA's involvement in this workshop is essential to the evolution of AI in radiology," said Mary C. Mahoney, M.D., RSNA Board of Directors Chair. "As the Society leads the way in moving AI science and education forward through its journals, courses and more, we are in a solid position to help radiologic researchers and practitioners more fully understand what the technology means for medicine and where it is going."
In the report, the authors outline several key research themes, and describe a roadmap to accelerate advances in foundational machine learning research for medical imaging.
Research priorities highlighted in the report include:
new image reconstruction methods that efficiently produce images suitable for human interpretation from source data,
automated image labeling and annotation methods, including information extraction from the imaging report, electronic phenotyping, and prospective structured image reporting,
new machine learning methods for clinical imaging data, such as tailored, pre-trained model architectures, and distributed machine learning methods,
machine learning methods that can explain the advice they provide to human users (so-called explainable artificial intelligence), and
validated methods for image de-identification and data sharing to facilitate wide availability of clinical imaging data sets.
The report describes innovations that would help to produce more publicly available, validated and reusable data sets against which to evaluate new algorithms and techniques, noting that to be useful for machine learning these data sets require methods to rapidly create labeled or annotated imaging data.
In addition, novel pre-trained model architectures, tailored for clinical imaging data, must be developed, along with methods for distributed training that reduce the need for data exchange between institutions.
In laying out the foundational research goals for AI in medical imaging, the authors stress that standards bodies, professional societies, governmental agencies, and private industry must work together to accomplish these goals in service of patients, who stand to benefit from the innovative imaging technologies that will result.
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