text:
Insider: March 18, 2021 — Feeding Spinoffs, Watch Dogs, City Cast launches this month
4:03 PM MDT on Mar 18, 2021
Keep an eye on this.From The Verge:
Musicians aren't thrilled with Spotify — they say the streaming platform undervalues their work and they deserve to be paid more per stream. So today, Spotify's trying to address those concerns with a new website called Loud & Clear, which offers more insight into how much the platform pays artists and how that money is distributed.
What happens over there on the music side…Over at Vox Media, spinoffs and continued growth. Digiday has a tight piece up on how Vox Media has been using its more popular podcasts (in this specific case, their daily news pod Today, Explained) as a testing ground and incubator for spinoff audio properties (in this case, the weekly science show Unexplainable).
We're seeing more of this style of approach to new show launches these days, typified on the one hand by a thinking that's oriented around expanding a core brand or franchise — for Vox Media, it's the whole Explained thing; for the New York Times, it's The Daily; and so on — and on the other hand, by really leaning hard on the value of an existing dominant feed. The fundamental thinking being: why start a whole new audience development cycle around a new project when you can leverage off a publishing touchpoint that already has a strong footprint among listeners and generally lower the cost of entry for that new project?
Here, Vox Media is using the dominant Today, Explained feed to validate an idea and guide attention when that idea is validated enough to flip into a standalone project. An alternate approach, I think, can be found at The Ringer, which seems to leaning pretty deep into the notion of using one feed for several shows within the same subject area. The Daily recently published a four-part series on school reopenings through the lens of one Texas city, which in another context, could've been spun out as a separate feed to begin with.
As the podcast ecosystem (and podcast charts) get ever more saturated and crowded, launching whole new shows through other existing, active feeds will probably end up being more effective than appealing Apple Podcast for front page real estate. Of course, the risk here is possibly crowding a dominant podcast feed with stuff its subscribers — ahem, sorry, "followers" — don't necessarily want. But that's the essential risk-reward balance endemic to any marketing enterprise; it's certainly worth more of a shot, more widely.
Meanwhile, before we move on, don't miss Digiday's other finding in the piece on the big picture around the Vox Media Podcast Network: revenue apparently grew 50% across the audio division — which, the piece notes, "includes over 200 podcasts, many of which are devoted to regional sports teams" — in 2020 compared to 2019. That data point came from Liz Kelly Nelson, which the piece also notes was recently promoted to VP of Audio at the company.
And just in case: I am once again reminding you that I'm a contributor to Vulture, which is a brand under New York Magazine, which these days is owned by Vox Media, because media consolidation, baby.Watch Dogs. Here's something interesting.. From Variety:
The Media Roundtable, a group of organizations that aims to promote civility and stronger dialogue in media, is launching a chart of what it considers to be the podcasts that display the most and least bias. The debut of the chart, prepared by the research organization Ad Fontes Media, is part of a bid to get advertisers to support content of a better quality in an era when the proliferation of niche outlets makes such stuff more difficult to track.
I'm not familiar with Ad Fontes Media, which describes itself as a "media watchdog organization" that seeks to "make news consumers smarter and news media better," in large part through creating and publicizing a chart system that designates the reliability and bias of various media outlets. That system, called the "Media Bias Chart," is the cornerstone product in Ad Fontes Media's output, and according to the website, the content ratings are formulated by "a small team of human analysts who have political views across the spectrum."
Again, I'm not familiar with this organization, but I am familiar with another organization that's listed as part of the Media Roundtable Oxford Road, the media agency that does a fair bit of work in the podcast industry. The agency apparently published a blog post announcing the initiative back in December, which totally flew by me. Here's a portion of what CEO Dan Granger wrote about the effort at the time:
Media Roundtable's purpose is to empower media and advertisers to advance even-handed reporting and opinion without malice. Our strategy is simple: shift the incentive structure that currently feeds our modern "Outrage Industrial Complex" and reward content that benefits its audience and treats its subjects with dignity, even if through disagreement, but always with respect.
I get why a group of media organizations and agencies would go out and try to do something like this, given podcasting's increasing — perhaps ever-present? — associations with polarizing figures like Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, (insert other hypelord name here), and so on, combined with the medium's general identity of being a hard-to-measure, hard-to-track, and hard-to-moderate space. (For what it's worth, I'm inclined to think the latter feeling largely has to do with the relative newness of the medium; broadcast radio, for example, is also pretty hard-to-track if you really think about it, and the question of its moderation has largely been rendered moot by the sheer consolidation that exists in that space.)
Anyway, I find this interesting, but at the end of the day, the effectiveness of this initiative — or any initiative like this — is dependent on whether they're able to successfully produce results (however defined), which in turns depends on whether they're able to carve out a strong presence, a sense of credibility, and a clear reputation, which recursively enough, depends on whether they're able to produce results (however defined). Because if not, what's the point?
That said, there's also the larger question of whether media bias assessments is something that can and should be trusted in the first place, both in terms of the actual practitioners and the very concept of media bias watchdog themselves. There's some rich discussion on this already (see here and here), but generally, the thinking is: who watches the watchers, but who watches those who watch the watchers? What makes this organization more credible, more morally authoritative, and more trustworthy that the media companies themselves? It's turtles on turtles, all the way back around.City Cast launches this month. City Cast, of course, is the new locally-oriented podcast-plus-newsletter company founded by David Plotz and backed by Graham Holdings, which I've been covering somewhatclosely over the past few months.
As a reminder, the company is starting off in two cities: Chicago and Denver. The Chicago products launched yesterday (led by Jacoby Cochran), and the Denver products (led by Bree Davies) are scheduled to roll out on March 25.
I'm excited about this, and being a Mountain West resident, I'll be tuning into the Denver podcast when it comes out.Revolving Door.
Audible has named Leigh Zarelli as its new Chief Product Officer. Zarelli joins from Marriott International, where she served as SVP of Global Digital. According to the press release, she will "drive Audible's global product roadmap and vision, overseeing Audible's flagship product, Premium Plus, as well as its latest streaming offering, Audible Plus."
Speaking of Audible, I'm told that Lindsay Michael is joining Amazon Music, where she'll hold the title of "Podcast Manager, Canada." Michael was a longtime veteran of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, where she mostly served as the co-host of the CBC's Podcast Playlist program.
Spotted on good ol' LinkedIn: Corinne Gillard is joining Spotify as Executive Producer of Original Content, starting next week. Gillard was most recently a SeniorProducer and Development Lead at Harpo Productions — a.k.a. Oprah Winfrey's media empire — and was once the Director of Development at Crooked Media between 2017 and 2019.
Over at Three Uncanny Four, co-founder Laura Mayer has a new title: Head of Creative and Editorial. A rep with Sony Music confirmed the title change, and it comes not long after co-founder Adam Davidson's rather abrupt-seeming departure from the company.
Got a new job? Tell me — would love to Let The People Know.Miscellaneous Notes
Right Wing Watch: Cumulus Media announced yesterday that Dan Bongino will host a new radio show that will fill the spot left open by Rush Limbaugh's death. As a reminder, Bongino is part of the next-generation conservative media figures that have largely popped up through a mixture of Facebook, YouTube, and podcast engagements. The line blurs.
The Action Network, the sports betting media company, has announced a content partnership with The Volume, Colin Cowherd's sports podcast network that was formed with iHeartMedia earlier this year.
From the New York Times: "U.K. Podcast Companies Want What the U.S. Has, Looking Past the BBC." Nothing you wouldn't already know from reading Caroline Crampton's coverage here in Hot Pod over the years.


GMA was established on the 23rd of April, 2011, by Henrietta Owusua Agyen popularly known in the modeling and fashion industry as Herty Twens; a professional model with analytical and logical reasoning. Herty has taken part in Top Notch Fashion Shows and has worked with top local & international fashion designers and photographers. Herty was awarded Model of the Year 2012 at the Ghana Fashion Awards, won Next Rated Fashion Entrepreneur at West Africa Fashion Awards 2016 held in Lagos, Nigeria and was also the youngest female nominee in the Fashion Category at the 40 Under 40 Awards 2017.
With her nine (9) years of experience in the modeling industry, Herty realized a lot of people had passion for modeling but felt restricted because of their body statistics. Out of this, GMA was formed to give the aforementioned category of aspirants the necessary platform that will help them unleash and develop their talents with regards to modeling.
Our mission is to raise a generation of runway, fashion, promotional and developed models who will deliver top notch modeling services to clients thereby helping them to maximize their sphere of influence.
Our vision is to extend Gold Model Agency & School (GMA) across Africa and beyond.
GMA runs a professional training and grooming program every 6 months for aspiring models after which a certificate is awarded upon successful completion of the modeling program. We also have short courses with one and two month's duration.
Gold Modeling School's maiden graduation ceremony and official launch of Gold Model Agency was held at Novotel Hotel on the 17th of February, 2012. The event was dubbed Golden Graduation, which was well attended by well-known fashion designers, top stylists and several media houses.
Golden Hair & Fashion Show, the graduation of second batch of Gold Models was also held at Holiday Inn Hotel on the 22nd of February, 2013 which had 10 participating fashion designers and over 20 professional models gracing the runway.
THIRD BATCH OF MODELS had their pre graduation party at Reggie Rockstones Office on 1st November 2013 and graduated on 2nd November, 2013.
GMA hosted the second edition of Golden Hair & Fashion Show, dubbed, Golden Hair & Fashion Show Reloaded which was aimed towards bringing Avant-garde Fashion Designers, Fashion Hairstylists, Top Make Up Artists and Professional Fashion Photographers in Ghana and beyond all together on one runway and also to mark the successful completion of the certificate in modeling program by the fourth (4) batch of models graduating from Gold Model Agency & School. The celebration of our anniversary also comprise event objective. This event took place at Ridge Arena, inside Alisa Hotel, North Ridge on the 10th October, 2015 with over 400guests.
After two fantastic seasons of unparalleled success, GMA took a giant leap forward and moved their annual flagship fashion event dubbed Golden Hair & Fashion Show '15' to the World Trade Centre, Accra on October 10,2015. As part of the activities for this event was the graduation of 5th Batch of Gold Models. It was a well-attended event and a world class production from Team Gold as we brought Avant-garde Hairstylists, Emerging and Talented Fashion Designers, Top Models and Media Houses all together on one platform to promote and advance the cause of Ghanaian Fashion to a global audience.
6th BATCH OF GOLD MODELS had the graduation party at 02 Lounge on 6th August, 2016.
The award winning event returned on 27TH October, 2017 with the 4th Edition of Golden Hair & Fashion Show. The event was held at National Theatre, Accra with sixteen (16) established and emerging designers, two (2) Avant garde hair brands and amazing music performances. What made the event epic was the graduation of over 30 students of Gold Models from Accra and new branch in Kumasi. The Night witnessed an audience of 400 people, top media houses, bloggers and outstanding photographers.
(Download) GES Implementation OF Free SHS Doc.


text:
require_relative 'repository'
require_relative 'profile'

class Config_reader

  def initialize
    @config = YAML.load_file('../config/conf.yml')
    @repositories = []
    @profiles = []
  end

  def read_repos
    @config['repositories'].each do |repository|
      @repositories.push(Repository.new(repository['name'], repository['recepients'], repository['migration_folders']))
    end
  end

  def read_users_from_config_yml
    @config['profiles'].each do |profile|
      @profiles.push(Profile.new(profile['login'], profile['email'], profile['id'], profile['slack_id'], profile['tz_shift'], profile['enable']))
    end
  end

  def get_repos
    read_repos
    @repositories
  end

  def get_users_from_config_yml
    read_users_from_config_yml
    @profiles
  end

  def get_activity_checker_configuration
    activity_checker_conf = {}
    activity_checker_conf[:timeout] = @config['activity_checker']['timeout']
    activity_checker_conf[:recipients] = @config['activity_checker']['notify']['slack']
    activity_checker_conf[:labels] = @config['activity_checker']['labels_for_pr_ignoring']
    activity_checker_conf
  end

  public :get_repos, :get_users_from_config_yml
  private :read_repos, :read_users_from_config_yml

end

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Chitwan is famous as one of the best wildlife viewing national parks in Asia and was declared a UNESCO Heritage Site in 1984. The park is world renowned for Rhino sightings in great numbers. With mixed vegetation of savannah, riverine and sal forest, Chitwan is Nepal's most visited national park and a haven for wild life aficionados.
Four of the 'Big Five' can be seen (rhinos, tigers, leopards and Asiatic elephants) along with a rich population of deer, wild boar, marsh muggar and ghariyal. Due to its close proximity to the Himalayan circuit, the park also shelters winter and summer migrants along with more than 500 native bird species. Chitwan is a birdwatcher's paradise, replete with species such as the Great Hornbill, Ruddy Shelduck, Pied Kingfisher and Red Headed Trogon can also be found. Strict conservation policies and military patrolling have reduced poaching incidents and the park's rhino population is on the increase.
Early morning and evening nature walks into Chitwan National Park, naturalists proactively interpret the forest and spot rhino and on the rare occasion, tiger.
There is no better experience than conoeing down the Narayani River in the early evening. Watch the sunset and listen to the birds as they gently make their way home at the end of the day. Listen to the sounds of the forest, catch a glimpse of a ghariyal and see flocks of pelicans in flight.
Your naturalist will drive you into the core area of Chitwan National Park. Crossing the savannah and entering into the dense forest, spot various birds and animals in their natural habitat.


A special town meeting is in the books in Westhampton.
The voters approved new regulations covering medical marijuana dispensaries and enacted a moratorium on recreational marijuana establishments during the Monday meeting.
The moratorium is in effect until the end of 2018 or until local regulations are created.


Audio is one of the most important aspects of our world today. No matter who you are in the world, or where you are, there is a good chance that you are constantly hearing all sorts of information – whether it's the news, podcasts, talk shows, music, announcements, or media such as TVs, movies, video games, and more. The point is, we are constantly barraged with sounds, and many of them are important to our career or our personal lives. Whether it's talking through the phone to relatives and friends, or using conference calls to make sure that the integral people in your business is on the same page – audio is essential to modern life, in general.
That's why so many companies have contributed to the advancement of audio technology throughout the years, whether it's a company that has helped to develop hearing devices or a company that designs new headphones with new features. There are also companies that have truly not only been there since the beginning, but have maintained at the forefront. Crutchfield truly is one of those companies, and as a result, they are essentially an important part of history, while also remaining to this day, still eager to bring the best products to the masses.
In 1974, Bill gets the idea for a mail order car stereo business, since people love listening to music on their car radio.
In 1975, just a year later, Bill had the foresight to ask for customer feedback, which helped him revamp his business and hone it to appeal to more consumers.
In 1981, the business expands to include home audio, video, and telephones.
In 1992, the company develops a vehicle research team, to optimize their audio products in cars more than ever.
In the year 2000, Crutchfield is given the "Circle of Excellence" award by Bizrate.
In 2013, the company diversifies, entering the pro audio sector.
In 2018, Crutchfield is named one of the best places to work in Virginia.
The company can help you no matter what your needs are. It doesn't matter whether you simply want a better home theater business, are looking for the right drone equipment to make your advertising campaign success, or simply want to make sure that you hear the right bass in your car – Crutchfield can help with all of those things.
It truly is hard to find a company like Crutchfield, that has been able to persevere through the decades and stick to their values throughout the changing markets. They have expanded when they needed to, and taken the right steps, all while ensuring that they make their company a great place to work. This isn't just shown in awards, the website even boasts about their employees, and calls them "family". This kind of attitude makes a customer proud to continue to support them. No matter what your audio needs, there's a good chance that Crutchfield can take care of them for you!


Cottelletts de veau. Sauce Tomata Cut them thin. trim them of a good shape & fry them in butter. have ready some thick tomata sauce. Well cover them with it. Make a pillar of whole steeped rice in the centre of the dish ornament it wit lobster spawn. chop parsley & yolk of eggs, boiled Hard and rubbed through a coarse sieve. Lay the cutlets round, & garnish. _____ Maintenon Cutlets. cut these off a neck of veal not too thick egg them over, dip them in chopt herbs, spice, and bread crumb, previously mixed. fry them in butter, serve them with a sauce Piquante. Mutton chops may be done in the same manner.


text:
Support/Doc | About | Purchase | Advanced Search
Semantic Graph Technologies
Common Lisp Tools
Barbara Reichert
Reichert Communications, LLC
barbara@reichertcom.com
Franz's Allegro Common Lisp Meets Demand for High Performance Artificial Intelligence and IoT Applications
Allegro CL 10.1 Gains ARM Processor Support for IoT Applications
OAKLAND, Calif. — April 25, 2017 — Franz Inc., an early innovator in Artificial Intelligence (AI), leading supplier of Common Lisp (CL) development tools, and market leader for Semantic Graph Database technology, today announced Allegro CL 10.1, which includes key performance enhancements now available within the most effective system for developing and deploying applications to solve the challenges developers face in the field of Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT).
"The market is recognizing the increasingly symbiotic relationship between the IoT and cognitive computing." said Dr. Jans Aasman, CEO of Franz Inc. "This release of Allegro CL 10.1 with support for ARM processors provides IoT developers a high performance tool to scale their applications and deliver innovative and intelligent IoT products to market."
Growth in Artificial Intelligence technologies has surged recently. According to MarketsandMarkets the artificial intelligence (AI) market is expected to be worth $16.06 Billion by 2022, growing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 62.9% from 2016 to 2022. Similarly the IoT market size is estimated to grow from $157.05 Billion in 2016 to $661.74 Billion by 2021, at a CAGR of 33.3% from 2016 to 2021.
"Cognitive computing's marriage with the IoT will enable the timely aggregation of sensor-driven streamed data with a plethora of sources both internal and external to the enterprise. The application of machine learning, deep learning, neural networks, and other AI algorithms will engender intelligent data to feed into predictive analytics for fully synthesized, time-sensitive cognitive analytic data." – IoT Evolution
"Demand for faster, more intelligent and scalable applications is increasing with the Big Data onslaught that is impacting applications in traditional AI industries like National Defense, but also in Life Sciences, Manufacturing and Financial Analytics," said Dr. Jans Aasman, CEO of Franz Inc. "Franz Inc. is well positioned with Allegro CL and AllegroGraph to capitalize on the opportunities in the AI and IoT markets."
Franz's technology also played a vital role in the recent discoveries of the Trappist-1 Exoplanets via the Spitzer Space Telescope. Spitzer Integrated Resource Planning and Scheduling System (SIRPASS) has helped produce spacecraft activity plans for the Spitzer Space Telescope and was developed with Allegro CL.
About Allegro CL
Allegro CL is a powerful, dynamic Artificial Intelligence development system that is especially well-suited for enterprise-wide, machine intelligence development. Now applications with billions of objects are made easy with Allegro CL, the industry's leading Common Lisp based development environment. Allegro CL delivers parallel memory management capabilities including parallel garbage collection and fast memory recycling.
About Lisp
Lisp is one of the first high-level programming languages and still in widespread use today. Lisp was originally created as a practical mathematical notation for computer programs and quickly became the favored programming language for artificial intelligence (AI) research. The most widely known general-purpose Lisp dialects are Common Lisp and Scheme. Allegro CL is the Common Lisp language developed and sold by Franz Inc.
About Franz Inc.
Franz Inc. is an innovative technology company with expert knowledge in developing and deploying Graph Search solutions. AllegroGraph, Franz's flagship, high-performance, transactional, and scalable Graph Database, provides the solid storage layer for powerful Enterprise grade NoSQL solutions. AllegroGraph's Activity Recognition capabilities provides a powerful means to aggregate and analyze data about individual and organizational behaviors, preferences, relationships, plus spatial and temporal linkages between individuals and groups.
For additional Franz Inc. customer success stories, please visit:
Allegro CL - http://www.franz.com/success/
AllegroGraph - http://allegrograph.com/allegrograph-at-work
Franz's Professional Service team is in the business of helping companies turn Data into Information and Information into Knowledge. We combine Data, Business Intelligence, and Analytics consulting services under one roof for our customers. Franz, an American owned company based in Oakland, California, is committed to market-driven product development, the highest levels of product quality and responsive customer support and service. Franz customers include dozens of Fortune 500 companies and span the healthcare, government, life sciences and telecommunications industries worldwide. Franz has demonstrated consistent growth and profitability since inception. For more information, visit www.franz.com.
All trademarks and registered trademarks in this document are the properties of their respective owners.
Copyright © 2019 Franz Inc., All Rights Reserved | Privacy Statement

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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text:
VANZI
brokering the Governance Framework for the
3D Geo-referenced Digital Built & Legal Environment (3D Geo-DBLE)
GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK
History of VANZI and Development of VANZ/DBE Concept
VANZI arose out of a need to model a proposed solution to port-related logistics.
In 2010, Michael Haines was heading a new port-logistics company exploring the use of 'inter-modal hubs' to move container freight into and out of the Port of Melbourne more efficiently. The difficulty was in getting some 300 disparate stakeholders to visualise the proposal - to understand how it could benefit them, and the community. From experience in the vehicle industry, Michael hoped to use 3D simulation to engage stakeholders. Unfortunately, it soon became apparent that the data to support the model did not exist, or was under the control of many different entities and could not be readily accessed.
After talking with representatives from the 'geo-spatial' industry about the problem, in late 2010 he was invited to speak at spatial@gov. At that conference, Michael called on the industry to look beyond 'mapping' and 'location', to see how the emerging 3D technologies could be leveraged to provide realistic context for the simulation of large scale transport flows. By taking a 'high level' view, users could see the whole network as a 'system', but then zoom down to the operating level to better understand bottlenecks, inefficient stacking patterns and vehicle movements in 3D.
Following the conference, a workshop was arranged that generated lots of discussion and ideas - but no clear way forward.
Then in early 2011, Dr Peter Woodgate, CEO of the Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information (CRCSI), agreed to set up a new company: VANZI Ltd, with Michael as CEO. Its initial aim was to promote the integration of spatial and simulation software. Stuart Cole, then with National Information and Communications Technologies of Australia (NICTA), also saw the benefits of incorporating newly developed 'optimisation' tools and agreed to join the Board. Dr David Platt brought in the Municipal Association of Victoria (MAV), representing Local Government's interests in planning, building and asset management. Prof Bill Appelbe, CEO of the Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing (VPAC), rounded out the initial team with expertise in simulation and large scale IT project management.
While not originally a part of the Board, the Land Information New Zealand has remained keenly interested in and supportive of the project, hence: the 'NZ' in VANZI.
During succeeding months Michael continued to engage with government and the spatial industry and again presented at spatial@gov in 2011, outlining the fuzzy beginnings of the Framework... though without any clear idea of how it could be put into practice. In particular, it was missing a key ingredient: the structural side of the whole built environment!
By good fortune, in early 2012 Michael was invited to a workshop being conducted by buildingSMART, where he met the Chair, John Mitchell. The workshop was one of a series to get stakeholder feedback on a Federal Government proposal to require the use of Building Information Models (BIM) for all new Federal buildings after 2016 (the National BIM Initiative).
Both John and Michael soon recognised that BIM was the missing part of the VANZ Framework. Until then, VANZI's focus had been on 'spatial' modelling, using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software. GIS uses data captured remotely from satellites, aircraft and vehicles to represent the external surfaces of the world.
BIM is relatively new software that allows integration of many different data sets generated in the design process to be brought together into a coherent realistic 3D model, including all internal spaces and building components.
In essence, VANZ/DBE needed to integrate GIS and BIM data so individual buildings could be seen in their spatial context.
With this insight, VANZI was invited to be part of the buildingSMART team investigating the work required to implement the National BIM Initiative.
This shifted Michael's focus to understanding the challenges faced by professionals in the property sector in gathering and managing 3D building data. Unlike GIS data which is mainly in the public domain, BIM data is primarily about private spaces. This raises concerns not only for privacy, but also security and liability, as well as issues of copyright. Integrity and longevity of the data also becomes paramount during design and construction, as well as for asset management over the life of the building.
To address the problem of how to designate the 'authoritative' data set, and to manage the ever growing pool of data, it was proposed that only 3D computer models lodged with the Local Government (for building approval, or voluntarily), or government or utility buildings and infrastructure, would qualify as 'VANZ/DBE Data'.
buildingSMART included the revised VANZ/DBE Framework as a key part of the National BIM Initiative which is now before the Australian Government.
Until this point there had been little interaction between the two communities: 'spatial' and 'building' modelling in Australia. However, this is rapidly changing with an increasing number of software providers offering more integrated products.
John Mitchell subsequently joined the VANZI Board, with buildingSMART agreeing to provide reciprocal support for the VANZ/DBE Framework. He was later replaced by Jim Plume, Secretary of buildingSMART.
On 30 July 2012, a workshop of some 80 VANZ/DBE Stakeholders from across all levels of Government, as well as property professionals and technology providers met to consider the Benefits, Challenges and Countermeasures relating to the Revised Framework. This workshop was crucial in taking VANZ/DBE to its next stage, and was funded primarily by Regional Development Australia, Sydney, whose CEO Bob Germaine held a similar vision for an integrated 3D virtual world to assist city planning.
While support for the overall vision was growing, it became clear from the workshop that the proposed solution to the 'authoritative data management' problem was incomplete: it was not going to be possible to rely on Local Government alone to take on the majority of this challenge.
The idea of a formal 'Data Bank' Network emerged as a solution after Michael began looking for other examples of how society manages transaction data. This approach allows Government bodies and utilities to establish their own 'Data Banks', or use a commercial service - with all costs being passed to property owners in exchange for improved and overall less costly design, approval, construction and asset management processes
The role of Government is then limited to establishing the appropriate legal framework and in regulating the Data Banks to ensure compliance.
With this idea, Government interest in the project escalated, including support from the Federal Office of Spatial Policy and the Major Cities Unit, as well as Victorian Department of Business and Innovation. The New Zealand Government has been an ongoing supporter through its Department of Land Information and is now expanding its support through its Department of Building, Innovation and Employment.
In late 2012, Prof Michael Fraser Director of the University of Technology, Sydney's Communication Law Centre and Chair of the Australian Copyright Council agreed to lead the Legal Workgroup when it is set up. This will examine the regulatory issues raised by VANZ/DBE in order to develop a uniform legal framework across Australia and New Zealand. It will be based on the principle that whatever rights, restrictions and responsibilities apply in the Real World, should, as far as possible, be mirrored in VANZ.
Also in late 2012, Prof Abbas Rajabifard, Head of Department of Infrastructure Engineering, and Director of the Centre for Spatial Data Infrastructures and Land Information at Melbourne University agreed to join the VANZ/DBE project. Prof Rajabifard has promoted the idea of 'Virtual Australia' for many years and now leads a project looking at how processes within the Victorian Land Office can be integrated into the virtual world. This work is key to understanding how to authenticate ownership, and permit real time authorisation for access to VANZ/DBE, based on title. He is also looking at how we can geo-reference all 'property-related' legislation to easily link it to specific properties, without the need for anyone to conduct searches and analysis of the complete body of law that may apply to any property.
In early 2013, the first Technology Workgroup was formed to look at the technical issues involved in creating VANZ/DBE and to help develop a VANZ/DBE Demonstrator in each capital city across Australia and New Zealand.
By late 2013, it became apparent that the VANZ Initiative was better aligned with buildingSMART and the Spatial Industries Business Association (SIBA); as these organizations are more directly focussed on the VANZ/DBE user community within the planning, building and property sectors.
This is no reflection on the CRCSI. VANZI remains deeply appreciative of the support offered in the early stages of the project. The switch to SIBA was simply a pragmatic decision based on how best to take the project forward.
To facilitate this move, VANZI Ltd was de-registered and shifted to become a knowledge centre within SIBA (to save money!), working in conjunction with buildingSMART.
In 2013 and 2014 Conferences were held to promote the development of the VANZ Framework to underpin creation of the Digital Built Environment. The 2014 Conference was jointly sponsored by buildingSMART and opened by Paul Fletcher, Parliamentary Secretary for the Australian Federal Minister for Communications. The conference continued the push for formal recognition of the DBE.
In July 2015, a new paper was prepared by buildingSMART and the Spatial Industries Association promoting the integration of Building Information Modelling and Geographic Information Systems. This paper has endorsed the need to establish robust legally enforceable mechanisms to manage access rights to the information held in the DBE. The paper has specifically referenced the two core concepts proposed in VANZ initiative, namely: 1) that access rights to information held in the DBE should align with legal property ownership rights in the real world, and 2) that access should be brokered through a network of "data banks" (analogous to financial banks) where people can securely lodge built environment information and gain access to information regulated by those access privileges.
In November 2015 the 3D Qld Taskforce issued a tender for development of the 3D Qld Road Map that included as part of its requirements investigation and application of the VANZ/DBE vision.
Michael Haines put together the team that won the tender under the banner of ACIL Allen Consulting
In April 2016 the team was commissioned to undertake the work in two parts. The first part involved widespread to consultations to understand the challenges faced by industry and government in moving to a 3D Digital Cadastre and in creating, storing, accessing and sharing 3D data to build a federated DBE. This report was completed in February 2017 and released to the public in April 2017.
At the suggestion of a number of stakeholders, a workshop was held in Feb, 2018 with the aim of attracting participants to form a National Workgroup to formulate the Governance Framework for VANZ/DBE. By the end of 2018, the Workgroup has expanded to around 80 organizations from around Australia covering most of the stakeholder groups.
Part 2 of the Road Map, setting out the steps to develop a 3D Cadastre and the DBE was completed in May 2018 and released in October, 2018.
Work is continuing to gather industry and government support for the initiative, as the technology to deliver the vision continues apace. It is anticipated that, as the technology becomes more common place, recognition will grow of the need for a formal framework to integrate the many interests in the DBE - to reduce cost and improve clarity of access rights.
Any organisation interested in participating should contact Michael Haines.
© VANZI


Gran Fiesta Amigos de Mazatlán 2010 – I missed you, Maz!
Followers of MexicoPremiere know I have a long-standing love affair with Mazatlán and I'm back again for more, thanks to my amigos. Every year, the Mazatlan Hotel Association rolls out the red carpet for national and international wholesalers—and invite the media to see and enjoy everything that's new and everything that's still wonderfully unchanged about Mazatlán. I've only been here for a few hours, but I'm already in heaven. Thanks to the Hotel Playa Mazatlán for my lovely room (I already unpacked, so it's kinda messy. I took a picture of my view instead!) Late lunch was a perfectly prepared chicken breast a la plancha with vegetables, rice and salad. Yum.
Another view: Writer Carolyn Patten joins MP as guest blogger!


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NewsFinancial
Truck Demand Drives Paccar to Record Q1 2019 Sales and Profits
April 30, 2019 by Cyndia Zwahlen
Kenworth truck maker Paccar reported record first-quarter sales and profits thanks to demand and deliveries. (Photo: Alan Adler/Trucks.com)
Paccar Inc., which makes heavy-duty trucks, reported robust financial results for the first three months of the year, driven by record truck deliveries amid strong global demand and growing market share.
The builder of Peterbilt, Kenworth and DAF trucks posted $6.49 billion in first-quarter revenue, a 15 percent increase over the year-ago period. Net income for the quarter reached a record $629 million, up 21 percent from $521 million in the same period a year earlier.
Bellevue, Wash.-based Paccar said it delivered 51,500 vehicles worldwide in the first quarter, a 15.7 percent gain from the year-ago period. Its gross margin was 15 percent, up from 14.8 percent a year ago, according to Baird Equity Research. Analysts there attributed the boost in profits largely to the strong performance of the truck side of the business
Paccar, which has 28,000 employees, operates three main businesses: commercial truck design and manufacture, parts sales, and financing services for dealers and wholesale customers.
CONTINUED GROWTH SEEN
Despite concern that truck manufacturers will be hit a potential slowdown in the U.S. economy and freight volumes, Paccar said it expects continued growth in sales and profits. And it touted its ability to manage costs during a potential downturn.
"We've proven historically that we can manage our cost structure quite efficiently, and this will be no exception," said Chief Executive Ron Armstrong Tuesday in a call with stock analysts.
Analysts agreed.
"We remain bullish on PACCAR given our favorable truck sector call and the company's operational pedigree," said David Leiker, an analyst at Baird Equity Research.
"It's usually quite difficult to poke holes in this company's performance, and Q1 was no exception," said Alexander Potter, an analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co. The company has "a healthy backlog of new truck orders and even if a cyclical downturn materializes in 2020, which seems likely, we don't think Paccar will be caught off-guard."
The company raised the lower end of its estimate for industrywide retail sales of Class 8 trucks in the U.S. and Canada. Paccar now predicts sales of at least 295,000, up from the 285,000 it had estimated a few months ago. The high end of its estimate for potential industry sales remains at 315,000.
So far this year, those sales are up. Industrywide retail sales are 23 percent higher in the first quarter of 2019 in North America compared with the same period last year, the company said. In 2018, the industry sold 285,000 trucks in the U.S. and Canada, a 30 percent jump over 2017 sales, according to Paccar.
In Europe, the company still expects truck industry registrations for the above-16-ton market to be between 290,000 and 320,000 trucks.
Registrations for Paccar's European DAF truck division rose 10 percent in the first quarter. DAF captured a record 17.1 percent of the market share in Europe, Paccar said. The company's goal is a 20 percent share of the market.
Worldwide truck sales for the company were up 17.3 percent to $5.1 billion in the first quarter compared to the year ago period. Pretax profit for the truck sector jumped 44.5 percent to $517 million.
About 56 percent of the company's new trucks were delivered in the United States and Canada in the first quarter. About 33 percent were delivered in Europe. The remainder went to other regions.
Sales for the parts business hit $1 billion in the first three months of the year, a 7 percent increase over the year-ago period.
First-quarter pretax profits grew 8 percent to $207.6 million compared to the year-ago period.
Paccar's financial-services business includes its portfolio of loans for dealers and wholesale customers and a leasing company.
First-quarter revenue was up 5.2 percent to $349.5 million compared to the same period a year ago. Pretax income was 24 percent higher at $84 million, compared with the year-ago period, the company said.
Paccar Leasing has a global fleet of 38,000 vehicles. It said it will open used-truck centers in Prague and Denton, Texas, this year to continue to boost its used truck remarketing capabilities.
Paccar said it will incur capital expenditures of $625 million to $675 million this year. Spending on research and development, including advanced powertrain technologies, will range from $320 million to $340 million. The company recently opened a research facility in Silicon Valley, where it is exploring autonomous vehicle technologies, both its own and those provided by other companies.
Armstrong, who will retire as chief executive in June, repeated his belief that the company needs to be prepared for a future of alternative fuels but will be guided by the potential for return on its investments.
"As we progress over the next 12 to 24 months we will be figuring out what the best is for us for the long term," he said. "There is still quite a bit of challenge with respect to the economic viability of some of these powertrain choices and can they survive without a high degree of subsidization. In in our minds it's still early days."
Paccar Sales Top Expectations for Fourth Quarter
Cyndia Zwahlen January 29, 2019
Peterbilt and Kenworth truck maker Paccar Inc. reported record truck deliveries and better supply chain performance in the fourth quarter, boosting sales and profits.


The last ten years have been about movement and travel, family and fortune . . . during this time we discovered Morocco, and were drawn to the countryside around Tangier, not far from the seaside town of Assilah. There is something magical about being rooted in Africa while being able to see the shoreline of Europe on a clear day.
So it is here we are trying to put down a few tentative roots, in the hope of having a place to call home one of these fine days – a place where our children will long to spend their holidays, and friends reminisce over glasses of cold wine while watching a warm sun sink into the horizon.
Having done a bit of writing in my life, I thought it would be both fun and fulfilling to write & blog about our travels in Northern Morocco, sharing with you the places we go and the people we meet along the way as we plant our olive trees and draw plans in the sand for our home to be.


New research managers and grant administrators working at AMRC member charities and for research staff at charities new to AMRC. Non-AMRC members are welcome to attend.
You will gain a good understanding of the core principles and stages of research management at AMRC member charities.
You will learn from speakers from member charities how those principles work in practice so that you can gain practical advice on issues relating to research management.
You will have the opportunity to network with people working at other charities and with AMRC staff.
Join us at our 2019 AGM and enjoy mince pies, mulled wine, and ping pong.


After graduating in creative writing, would-be novelist Sinan (Aydin Dogu Demirkol) returns home to his parents and sister in a small village outside the Turkish coastal town of Çanakkale to decide on his future.
That's what The Wild Pear Tree is nominally about. But Çanakkale is a tourist destination, the site of ancient Troy, and Nuri Bilge Ceylan's filmic Trojan horse (in deadpan shots we even see the stucture left behind after the making of Brad Pitt's Hollywood film though no one comments on it) mesmerisingly opens out into a riveting, wide-ranging look at the state of Turkish society today – its morality, politics, economy and unemployment, religion in an increasingly hardline Muslim country – and examines their relationship to the arts and creativity, be it writing or also filmmaking.
Sinan is not a particularly endearing character. He resents being back home again. He meets a female former schoolfriend Hatice (Hazar Ergüçlü), who may or may not have once been a girlfriend, and who he may or may not be in love with, and discovers she is now wearing a headscarf and getting married, though not to the person he thought. He unenthusiastically takes the state exams to enable him to get a last-resort posting as a teacher because he has no other prospect of work. He has to decide about doing his military service.
He tries to get funding from local bigwigs to publish his novel, a collection of short essays of musings on the local area titled The Wild Pear Tree, but they're not very impressed as it doesn't promote tourism. And he argues with everyone in a contrarian way: much of the film is taken up by long takes of Sinan's peripatetic discussions with various people whilst walking, rather in a Linklater style, such as his long debate with two local imams (that he catches scrumping apples), one traditional and one progressive – its seriousness subtly undercut by the ambient sounds of bleating sheep.
Ceylan (Winter Sleep, Once Upon A Time In Anatolia) alternates scenes of great beauty, such as Sinan's brief meeting with Hatice in a golden orchard, with scenes of dry observation: after Sinan is obliviously and insultingly tactless with the local celebrity author Süleyman (Serkan Keskin) about his work, in a bookshop and walking with him, an incident with a statue on a bridge is quietly yet hilariously slapstick. As well as sympathetic humour, there are startling dream sequences that don't seem like dreams and two really heart-stopping shock moments.
But the human centre of the film is the working out of Sinan's fractious relationship with his father. Idris (played by comedian Murat Cemcir) is the charismatic local schoolteacher, a handsome charmer but also a compulsive gambler who has gambled away all the family's money and property, building up huge debts so that they're living hand to mouth, yet who continues to gamble with any cash he can get hold of – a constant cause of bitter arguments. He is also determined to dig a well on land the family owns, despite being told that there's no water there, a fruitlessly Sisyphean metaphorical task – maybe. Another drily observed scene is of Idris and Sinan working together, attempting to raise one of the boulders that fill the dry shaft.
And it's Idris who provides the key to the film when he describes the fruit of the wild pear tree and explains what it means to him and explains its metaphorical meaning to Sinan – and to us. Sinan is a writer who admits he doesn't like people, and we have to wonder if such a combination is possible. And he doubts whether anyone will actually read what he has written. After university, the film shows his 'sentimental education' in real life. His father Idris, on the other hand, despite his many faults and failures, has an understanding of human nature and he reveals an unsuspected well of human kindness.
The Wild Pear Tree is a humane masterpiece that slowly creeps up on you, beautifully made and magnificently acted. It's a long film but its 188-minute running time is so involving from beginning to end that I would not wish it any shorter.
The Wild Pear Tree premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and is released on 30 November 2018 in the UK.
A delicious update of the Emperor's new clothes parable, Xavier Giannoli's Marguerite exposes the well-meaning flattery of the have-nots.


Thermal Imaging Inspections are performed for people that have leaks and need to find the source, renovators who need to know where the in-floor heating pipes are for basement developments, Commercial electrical panel scans for insurance purposes and many more applications. At Lanron Inspections we are qualified as Level 2 Thermologists and were one of the first inspectors in the City of Calgary to have this certification. It is one of the best tools at our disposal and does find many defects during inspections whether it be a water leak, missing insulation or hot electrical. Ensure if using a different company the Inspector is a properly trained Thermologist for misread results can cause unnecessary repairs and wasted dollars.
Home Inspectors at Lanron Inspections provide Thermal Imaging/Infrared Inspections to clients across Calgary, Airdrie, Okotoks, Strathmore, and Cochrane, Alberta.
Other Services include: Pre-Purchase Home Inspections | Commercial Inspections | New Home Warranty Inspections | Thermal Imaging / Infrared Inspections I Pre-Listing Home Inspections.


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YouTube Hall of Fame: Movie Scenes We'd Like to Sue For
Inspired by the recent lawsuit against the makers of Drive — filed by a woman, who, not unreasonably expected the movie to feature more driving and fewer exploding heads — this week's installment of YouTube Hall of Fame collects the movie scenes that were so bad we'd like to take someone to court.
Splice (Katie Baker): A few months ago I was spending a kickin' Friday night all alone in a hotel room, idly flipping channels on one of those hotel TVs that has no "guide" and no HD. There was NOTHING on, so when one channel flashed Adrien Brody's face I stopped there, trusting that anything with him had a potentially good chance of not being that bad. The unrecognizable movie was kind of weird, but compelling/confusing enough that I never felt like changing the channel.
I had missed the beginning, but basically it seemed like Adrien Brody and another lady scientist had created some sort of mutant life form in their lab that was part human but also part other things (for example, the life form, named "Dren", had really wide-set eyes and a long rat-like tail and rabbit-type legs and spoke only in dolphin-like clicking noises) and were now secretly really attached to it, putting it in a dress and treating it like their child. Anyway, one of the characteristics of the mutant being was how rapidly she/it aged, and you could tell that this was going to present some problems down the road for the scientists as the being got bigger and more aggressive and stronger-willed and all that. Just your typical "I've created a monster!" fare, no big deal, nothing I couldn't handle, and the movie was … kind of good?
Until it got to the end, in which, (um, spoiler alert?) "DREN" HAS HORRIFYING AND WING-SPREADING [NSFW] MUTANT-ON-TOP SEX WITH ADRIEN BRODY, WHO ALL ALONG HAS BASICALLY BEEN HER DAD!!!!!!!! AND THEN MORPHS INTO A MALE MUTANT AND RAPES THE SCIENTIST LADY IN THE WOODS!!!!!!!! AND BOTH SCENES LAST FOREVER AND IF YOU THOUGHT THAT THE SEX SCENE IN WATCHMEN WAS KIND OF DRAWN OUT AND UNCOMFORTABLE THIS IS LIKE THAT TIMES FIFTEEN MILLION (although, to be fair, without the cloying use of "Hallelujah," which I appreciate) BUT STILL!!!! WTF, MOVIE???? WTF?????????????
"Lying here terrified that if I turn off the lights I will be killed/groped by an errant tailsticle," I tweeted that night, after an emergency IMDb session revealed that the innocence-shattering movie I had just witnessed was called "Splice." A few hours later, upon waking, I reported: "Had a series of vivid nightmares last night; woke up twice in a full sweat. I blame Splice."
The next day I was obsessed. I read every review of Splice that has ever been written. My favorite one ended up being Manhola Dargis in the New York Times. "Mr. Natali [the director] loses his way in the last half-hour," is all she had to say about thirty minutes that fundamentally changed me forever in ways that I don't want to talk about. But one thing I will say, as I violently shudder at the memory: thank god that hotel room television didn't have functioning HD.
Just Go With It (Michael Weinreb): It wasn't my choice to purchase tickets for Just Go With It, a film that touches on all the archetypal motifs of the Sandler oeuvre. That call belonged to my 13-year-old nephew, which (while less than ideal) seemed all right, as long as it tickled his tasteless adolescent sensibilities. It was two o'clock on a Saturday afternoon. I didn't expect La Dolce Vita. However, I also didn't know I was going to see the most stultifying rock star of the last 25 years hoover a coconut with his sphincter while a grass-skirted, smack-talking Virginia Woolf crashes into him. There are five dominant '90s personalities in this scene, including four I would like to shove down a steep hill into obsolescence. You get away with a stern warning, Patrick.
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (Daniel Silver): My inner child was slowly tortured and killed on May 19, 1999, sometime between 12 and 2:16 am as Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace unspooled before my naïve and hope-filled eyes. The exact time of death was when Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn explained away "The Force" to a young Anakin Skywalker in some inane, pseudo-scientific way (Midi-chlorians!). Not even the great Liam Neeson could make this dialogue resonate. And at the midnight premiere, Neeson was speaking directly to the most accepting and forgiving of audiences (Jake Lloyd's wooden performance didn't help either). No longer was the mythical Force left to Star Wars lovers' imaginations. No longer was there a reason to hang upside down on the monkey bars and try to get a can of root beer to shoot into your hand. So for this, I'd like to sue George Lucas — for wrongful death of millions of childhoods.
Seven Pounds (Lane Brown): The ending of this 2008 Will Smith organ-donation comedy is like something M. Night Shyamalan might have come up with if he'd eaten some bad clams and fallen asleep in the sun. In it, Smith plays Jesus a guy who feels bad for killing his fiancee and six strangers in a car accident (he was texting). So he gives a kidney, bone marrow, part of his lung, a piece of his liver, and his house to five "good people" whose lives he decides are worthy of saving. Then, finally, he takes a fatal ice bath with his pet box jellyfish (see above), bequeathing his corneas to a kindly blind guy (Woody Harrelson) and his heart to a studio-approved love interest (Rosario Dawson) suffering from a rare cardiovascular disease. Pounds' marketing kept its whole premise a secret, by the way, so moviegoers had no idea what they were walking into. I Googled for spoilers before I saw it, but I still think I'm entitled to damages. Or at least new corneas.
Bamboozled (Patrice Evans): The opening scene for Spike Lee's Bamboozled begins with a definition of the the term "satire", a heavyhanded move that usually means you're in terrible, terrible hands for readers of essays, blog posts, and emails, let alone the audience for cinematic features.
But as a Spike Lee Joint in 2000 you might have been prepared to forgive and forget a little overindulgence. Especially since had his sights set on making a nod to Paddy Chayevsky's Network, and subtlety has never been his stock-in-trade. The movie could cut out fifteen minutes and is a bit mussy in the second half, but no decision sinks the film (a box-office dud) like Damon Wayans' choice to play the lead character Pierre Delacroix/Peerless Donathan as an over-the-top uptight snooty black man with a fake accent. Wayans voice is so affected it almost comes across like patois and right from the gate it prevents the audience from ever actually immersing themselves in the cinematic experience. Feels more like a performance art experiment than acting. In hindsight, relative to what this movie could have been, Wayans may have well made the worst acting decision in the history of filmmaking. If Denzel played this role, Bamboozled might have become a classic. Instead me, Jada Pinkett Smith, Savion Glover, Tommy Davidson, Michael Rapaport, Paul Mooney, Terrence Blanchard, The Roots, Mos Def, Charli Baltimore, Mc Serch, Canibus are all filing class action for wasting a considerable amount of talent, and wonderful (some debut) performances on a conceit that should have been toned down in rehearsal.
X-Men (Molly Lambert): It didn't ruin the movie but it stick out: this scene of Halle Berry as Storm in the first X-Men movie terminating Toad with the immortal non-joke "Do you know what happens to a toad when it's struck by lightning? Same thing that happens to everything else." Spiffy one-liners: more of a Wolverine thing?
Previously: The Deleted Scenes Hall of Fame
YouTube Hall of Fame: When Sitcoms Got Dark
YouTube Hall of Fame: Tom Hanks on Late Night, Pandas on a Slide, and Helen Hunt on Crank
YouTube Hall of Fame: Howard Cosell, R.E.M., and Two Men Hit With Footballs
YouTube Hall of Fame: Stevie Nicks Combs Her Hair, a Comedy Film From Nigeria, and the Least Sexy Video on the Internet
To comment on this story through Facebook, click here. Read more Hollywood Prospectus.
Filed Under: Drive, Movies, Star Wars, X-Men, Youtube Hall of Fame
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The public consultation on the draft proposed byelaws ended on 1 November 2021 and attracted more than 3,500 responses.
During that time a wide range of people, groups, organisations and partners, submitted valuable feedback on the proposals.
These responses will be evaluated and considered ahead of further reports to Authority for further consideration, likely to happen in early 2022.
The byelaws are in place to protect the special qualities of Dartmoor National Park including its wildlife, habitats, cultural heritage, archaeology, and the livestock that graze the commons.
The current set of byelaws relating to access land on Dartmoor were adopted in 1989 and are therefore over 30 years old.
The review, agreed by Authority at its meeting held in public on 3 September, aims to ensure the byelaws are updated to be:
Relevant and proportionate for modern society
Clear and easy to understand
Cover the right activities and areas
Complement other powers and legislation.
What changes are being proposed?
View a side-by-side comparison of the existing and proposed byelaws (PDF) or the full draft byelaws.
View the proposed changes to the camping map.
Find out which areas of land the byelaws apply to (PDF).


These two-piece aluminum timing covers for GM Gen III & IV LS Series allow quick camshaft removal and installation without the need to remove the damper pulley or steering components. The cam can be installed and removed through a window in the front of the cover which is sealed with a plate and o-ring for superior leak prevention. Not for use with a double roller timing chains.


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Let's stop the NSA before it destroys the cloud industry
Dylan Tweney@dylan20
Most people don't seem to care much whether the government is spying on them.
For these people, the constant drumbeat of revelations about the National Security Agency's apparently limitless and nearly unfettered capability to spy on Americans, whether at home or abroad, is no big deal. If you've got nothing to hide, why worry? These folks are even less worried about the NSA's truly unfettered capability to monitor non-citizens in any part of the world — to say nothing of sending drone strikes to take out suspects even marginally connected with terrorism. Why should they be concerned about what happens to non-Americans?
Because the NSA's actions might put a stake in the heart of the next big technology revolution, that's why.
The potential impact
According to a recent estimate by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, the U.S. cloud industry could lose out on $22 billion to $35 billion of revenues (.pdf) in the next three years, simply due to concerns over NSA surveillance of U.S.-based cloud data centers.
The beneficiaries could be European cloud providers — especially those based in countries with a history of respect for privacy. For instance, the ITIF report stated, Switzerland's largest hosting provider, Artmotion, reported a 45 percent increase in revenue in the month after the first leaks about the NSA's PRISM program. German telecommunications executives and government authorities are considering blocking data transfers to the U.S., which could position that country as a good alternative for companies that want to steer clear of American servers.
That, of course, assumes that the governments of Switzerland and Germany don't already have their own NSA-like spying programs, as England does — or data-sharing agreements with the NSA itself. Time will tell whether these assumptions are correct.
An estimate by research firm Forrester is even more dire. Taking a global view, Forrester estimates that PRISM and programs like it around the world will end up costing the cloud industry $180 billion over the next three years.
Now, keep in mind that these predictions, like most monetary figures generated by research analysts, are quite possibly wildly overstated. Let's assume that the numbers are bogus but that they reflect a real uncertainty, at the moment, about the ability of IT managers to trust cloud services. In other words, individual Americans may not care about the NSA. But IT managers for large corporations, at home and abroad, are certainly going to take an even harder look at the idea of using Amazon Web Services, Rackspace, or Google Cloud Platform than they already are.
Are you going to trust your customer data to Salesforce.com if you are an overseas company with a long history of dealing with people in the Middle East — say, an oil company? Or a manufacturer with an interest in setting up shop in China, but who is dealing with skittish customers and government officials who don't want to become a target of U.S. government espionage?
My guess is that IT guys at companies like these, who are already nervous about cloud solutions, are going to use the NSA revelations as yet another big mark against the cloud. Instead, they'll refocus their efforts on data centers they control themselves.
What's an IT guy to do?
Now, IT guys are not dumb. They know that any data transmitted on the Internet, encrypted or not, is vulnerable to interception at some point. Avoiding American cloud services won't do very much to prevent a determined spy agency from sniffing out your secrets. But at the same time, you don't have to make it easy for the NSA spooks by loading all of your data to a server whose every communication may be scooped up and stored for possible reference in a giant data center in Utah. You can buy yourself some time, avoid some oversight, and give your customers some assurance by steering clear of those "scary" cloud services.
And that's the problem, because the shift to cloud services (and the corresponding consumer shift to mobile devices, which goes hand in hand with the cloud) is one of the biggest technology transformations to come along in years. It's as big as the shift to the Internet was 15 years ago, or the shift to client-server a decade before that. Publicly-traded cloud companies already have a combined market capitalization of $100 billion. Destroying trust in the cloud is not the way to make that number grow.
What the U.S. government decides to do in the next six months regarding digital surveillance will make a big difference. Are we going to become a state that, by default, monitors the vast majority of communications traversing our networks? Or are we going to strike a balance between the desire for security and our need for civil rights — a need that, I might add, has much to do with the richness of the entrepreneurial ecosystem here?
As the ITIF recommends, the U.S. government needs to step up and say exactly what information it does and does not have access to. Other countries should do the same. We need transparency, so it is clear — now and in the future — what data is being collected, how long it's being held, and what purposes it is really being used for.
I'm not disputing the need to monitor Internet communications for national security needs. But I do think that there should be disclosure requirements. We can't permit law enforcement agencies to collect any data they want, for any purpose, with no meaningful oversight or disclosure.
If you want a picture of what the business climate looks like in a country without a rich regard for freedom and privacy, just look at Russia. That country jails punk rockers for church protests, is outlawing homosexuality in the face of strident international protest, and has imprisoned millions of entrepreneurs over the past 10 years.
Did Steve Jobs grow up in Russia? Did Russia produce Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, or Mark Zuckerberg? Could Sergey Brin have cofounded Google while remaining in Russia?
The answer to these questions is obvious. That's why we need to take a stand, in no uncertain terms, against the blanket surveillance of internet communications.
The future of the cloud — and a generation of new businesses — is at stake.


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Richard Crux, Managing Partner, Düsseldorf, Germany
Paula Elmore, Managing Partner, San Francisco, USA
Lee Brantingham, Managing Partner, Hong Kong, China
What Impact has COVID had on HR Practices…and What Can We Learn From It?
We surveyed a global group of senior HR and talent acquisition professionals on the impact that the health crisis has had on a range of executive search and human capital management practices. Remote working is seen by most as a positive development, but there is a greater need to assess the capability of leaders within a digitized workforce, whilst at the same time executive search budgets have shrunk.
Conducted in April and May, just over a year after the WHO declared the COVID outbreak a pandemic, the survey aimed to take a long-term pulse of how the key HR functions of organizations have been impacted.
The vast majority of HR executives have embraced and are supportive of a largely remote workforce. Two in every three respondents said that the working from home model is either positive or very positive for their organization.
Reasons cited for this include the improvement in efficiencies associated with digitized workforces, with less commuting and co-worker distraction. Perhaps more importantly from an HR perspective, the work/life balance is also better, which leads to higher rates of employee retention. There has also been a mindset shift from company leaders about how efficient a remote workforce can be. Additionally, some mentioned that this way of working has the flexibility and dynamism that younger generations have been looking for.
Interestingly, the majority of respondents (62%) felt that COVID has brought about an increased need to assess the capabilities of their executives, mainly because leading a virtual/remote workforce requires a different skillset and leadership style. The degree to which leaders supported the mental health of employees was of huge importance when societal lockdowns commenced, and this is just as important as the outbreak drags on.
Half of the respondents said that COVID has negatively impacted executive search budgets, and 35% said that COVID has negatively impacted the number of searches they were undertaking.
"The early days of the pandemic had a significant impact on executive search activity as client organizations grappled with the crisis's near-term impact on their respective businesses and employees, as well as the immediate forced shift to a remote work model," explained Paula Elmore, Managing Partner at NGS Global's San Francisco office. "By the middle of 2020, a growing number of companies seemed to be adapting to a new working model and finding a path forward in terms of their executive recruiting requirements."
The confidential global survey was completed by CHROs, VPs of HR, and Talent Acquisition executives across all inhabited continents and represent the vast majority of the largest industrial nations of the world, including the USA, China, Germany, India, the UK, France, Brazil and Spain. Companies from a wide variety of sectors participated, including finance, health, telecommunications, food and beverages, and cosmetics.
Along with so many aspects of an organization, the search for executive talent has been adversely affected by COVID:
• 85% said that the search process has changed, with 33% saying that it has changed a lot or a great deal, and 33% saying that it has changed for the worse
• 83% said that the speed of a search has changed as a result of COVID, with 33% saying that it has changed a lot or a great deal, and 35% saying that it has changed for the worse.
Yet the survey clearly indicates that the picture is not homogenously negative. Three in every four respondents said that various aspects of the candidate interview process have improved or at least not gotten any worse as a result of COVID.
Interview scheduling is much more efficient because candidates are more readily available in the digital world. The hiring process is no longer constrained by the logistics associated with in-person meetings. This enables firms to at least initially pitch a job opportunity to a more geographically diverse candidate pool. Some respondents, however, pointed out that whilst online meetings and interviews have advantages, they need to conduct a higher number of those online meetings to properly assess a candidate and develop a strong bond.
"At the very senior executive level, my clients were initially very reluctant to move to an offer without being able to physically meet in person with candidates or have candidates visit global headquarters," explained Lee Brantingham, Managing Partner for NGS Global in Hong Kong.
"As the length and depth of the travel restrictions became clear, many of these clients were able to adapt not only through video interviewing but also found in-country peers who could be brought into the process. Often, they would physically meet and assess senior candidates on behalf of the hiring managers. HR teams also used in-depth candidate assessment tools they had not used before. Deep referencing also became even more important. These strategies helped offset the initial reluctance of making critical hiring decisions."
Other key anecdotal takeaways from the survey included:
• key leadership skills that are seen as most valuable throughout the pandemic include the ability to inspire others, resilience, adaptability, and competencies around integration and communication
• there is a greater organizational emphasis on local empowerment and accountability, without having the support of regional resources who are unable to physically join or visit local teams
• even though working from home was seen as mostly positive, several drawbacks were mentioned. Some respondents perceived a reduction in collaboration, innovation and productivity at their firms, and felt that their organizational culture was weaker as a result
• working from home has also impacted the onboarding process for new hires. Candidates have even rejected offers after consideration on this point and not being able to meet with the new teams face-to-face. Yet many new hires are asking for a work from home component to be built into their contracts
• finally, executive-level candidates might be exercising caution when considering a career move in today's climate, which compounds recruiting challenges.
Delving further into COVID's impact, NGS Global conducted their own internal survey exploring what the company's own partner group felt about the impact that COVID has had on executive search.
Nine out of every ten partners felt that COVID has changed their search processes and approach at least moderately, if not significantly.
The elements that have changed most dramatically are business development (more than half (54%) of NGS Global's partners felt that this has changed significantly or extremely) and the interview process (93% of partners felt that this aspect has changed at least moderately, if not significantly or extremely).
The interviews are in general shorter when conducted on video, but some partners have found that to be more efficient. Interestingly, some have also suggested that online interviews deliver better outcomes than before: they have allowed for the introduction of traditional competency-based/objective interviewing instead of drawing judgments based on a candidate's executive presence/personality that used to color judgments when meeting in-person.
The elements that have changed the least include client expectation (with 4 in every 5 partners claiming that this has not been a significant change) and qualifying candidates (with 3 in every 4 partners stating the same).
Richard Crux is the Managing Partner of NGS Global's German operations in Düsseldorf, and the research project lead.
"COVID forced the hand of every organization to become deeply self-reflective. Initially driven by the need to keep their workforce safe from the virus, HR executives are now grappling with longer term fundamental issues and policies around how they should best manage and support employees, how best to collaborate, with what technologies, and what fundamental ways of working are best suited to both productivity and staff wellbeing.
"Hiring teams should be aware that candidate expectations have also shifted a year into the pandemic. Flexible, tech-centric, collaborative workplace cultures that have concrete diversity plans and evidence of progress are winning the war for talent."
Contact Richard, Lee or Paula
Printable PDF of Article
Also from Lee: The Impact of Trade War on Asia's Supply Chain: An Insider's Perspective
Also from Paula: Challenges of Gathering Compensation Data on Candidates
Also from Richard: A Profile of Düsseldorf, Germany and NGS Global's Practice There


The sort of bow I'm earning is usually a eu styled flat custom mathews bowstrings. This bow was used for hunting and protecting against in Europe. The most crucial stage to making deemed one of these bows are going to be to obtain a hatchet or ax additionally to your bush knife. Then you certainly should explore an excellent hard-wood tree to crank out a stave. With the time you completed these actions slice the tree down within the foundation, lessen the limbs off, and develop it toward your get the work finished region. This is when the bush knife arrives into enjoy. Think about your bush knife and consider All of the bark off.
Then set your continue to left hand into the idea on the blade in conjunction with the right hand to the manage and angle it down and in direction of you. Then slide the blade with travel all over the wood and slice it right until lastly you achieve the main with would be the amazingly difficult section through the middle. Get this completed on all sides until finally eventually quite little is remaining but that. For the time that is certainly carried out, you must possess a bit of wood about 2 inches in diameter. If all of these approaches are finished, you'll want to get your bush knife and slice about fifty p.c an inch in the stave until it is an oblong board. It now ought to be about one 1/2 substantial and.40-.50 on the inch thick and someplace about 60-72 inches extended.
Now, about 1 inch with the major and bottom slice it to some extent, so it meets from the center. Then, consider a file and file a notch about the top rated and foundation in your bow string. At this time you can must rub Danish oil within the quite a few sides with the bow. Immediately after this genuinely is all done, get some nylon and string your bow. Depart the bow set up for around a single week. After you hearth it prior to then the bow will virtually absolutely crack or crack. Following the 7 days has handed, get an animal leg tendon or almost any muscle mass mass tissue, with each other with a few animal excess unwanted fat. Once performed pick the leg tendon or muscle mass mass and hammer it into strands and position onto the bow stave, then burn the animal fats till a paste.
Then set onto the bow around the strands. Make sure that you include things like the total location with strands and paste. Let dry for 1 thirty day period if using animal extra fats as well as a pair of months if using standard glue. Quickly after all of this is accomplished it can be time for you to make the arrows. Request to find a pleasant cedar sapling, in the event you are not able to locate cedar use any hardwood that is unquestionably straight and about 0.twenty 5 inches thick. The moment yet again use Danish oil on it when its de-barked. Get any arrow-head potentially on line or by blacksmithing it by yourself. Latch the arrow-head on with left-over tendon strands and use glue to safe and sound it. Then get some goose feathers, slash them in fifty per cent and glue three into the arrow. Quickly after the overall higher than is finished you ought to have a incredibly really perfectly performing bow and arrow.


Demonstrates what emotions are, why there is no such thing as a bad emotion, and how students can get a handle on strong feelings like anger, sadness, frustration, and disappointment. Sam is getting stomach cramps because of his upcoming recital. Melissa is afraid of meeting new people in unfamiliar surroundings. Cassie has a fear of the water. Explains the flight-or-fight response and models appropriate coping strategies.


The Aria Poker Room, inside Aria Resort & Casino, offers a classy, comfortable atmosphere with nearly nonstop No Limit Hold'em, 1-3 and 2-5. You can also try daily and nightly tournaments at 1p.m. and 7p.m.
My only complaint with the room is it might be bigger, other than that, it's stellar. Attentive staff, cushy chairs, artistic décor, and a convenient location. It's near all the action, including the Sports Book, Deuce Lounge, table games, video poker, the fine Mexican food of Javier's, and the swank circle drive entrance at City Center.
A wide range of players play here, from professionals to international tourists to locals.
Even more, lots of high-stake games happen in the rear sections of the poker room, including the famous Ivey Room. You might see famous pros strolling or strutting through, including Phil Ivey, Johnny Chan, Tom Dwan, Daniel Negreanu, and various young high-stakes players. Many of them live at The Martin or Panorama Towers just across the bridge/highway. Celebrities swing by, too, like Paris Hilton or Don Cheadle.


Its enthusiastic adoption by developers has meant more and better apps for you — on any Apple device you use. This is a useful option when you need to update multiple computers but only want to download the update once.These versions of the standalone installers are available from Apple Support Downloads.
In OS X El Capitan, those apps give you new and better ways to do the things you do most.
Like surfing the web, managing your email, taking notes, and editing your photos.
Learn more Swift is an innovative programming language with modern features that produces safe, lightning-fast applications for OS X, i OS, and watch OS.
OS X El Capitan brings lots of useful enhancements to your Mac. An even more powerful Spotlight for searching your Mac and beyond.
Refinements to essential apps like Photos, Safari, Mail, and Maps.
An all-new Notes app for gathering your thoughts, photos, maps, web links, and more.And faster performance across the board — from gaming to launching apps to accessing mail.Learn more about new features OS X is the operating system that makes it possible to do all the things you do on a Mac.It's simple to do amazing things and delightful to do the everyday things.And it's designed specifically to take advantage of everything your Mac is capable of.So if you use an i Phone, not only will you feel right at home on a Mac, but your Mac will work with your i Phone in ways no other computer can.
Indian girls are known all over the world for their coyness, cultural background and enviable grace.
Participantes inclu\u00edram: CEO's, Matchmakers e Afiliados da Ind\u00fastria Dating Online.","title":"Testemunhos Adicionais das startups dating e afiliadas dating na i Date 2015 de 20 a 22 de janeiro de 2015 em Las Vegas.


Friends of the Earth Canada congratulates RONA on its commitment and performance to reduce the use of neonicotinoids in its nursery plants. Last year, Friends of the Earth tested nursery plants for neonics and advised gardeners to buy only neonic-free plants through their "Gardener Beware" campaign. The test results indicated over half of the nursery plants considered to be bee friendly in fact contained bee-harmful pesticides.
Just as gardening season 2015 ramps up, RONA has disclosed that 70% of all plants sold in their corporate RONA and Reno-Depot stores are neonic-free. It seems that the 30% that may contain neonics are likely to be hanging baskets and exotics like tropical indoor plants. For 2016, RONA commits to requiring all its suppliers to clearly identify their products as containing or not containing neonicotinoids.
RONA's announcement comes ten months after a meta-analysis of 1,121 peer-reviewed studies by the Task Force on Systemic Pesticides concluded neonicotinoids are a leading factor of bee population declines.
In a German Court last month, Friends of the Earth Germany won the right to free speech about the bee-harmful effects of neonics in gardening products against an injunction brought by Bayer. For decision and background on the case, click here.


RedLetterMedia's Harry S. Plinkett (Mike Stoklasa) is back with an in-depth look at Paul Feig's Ghostbusters from the comfort of his basement lounge chair. Plinkett catapulted to Internet phenomenon with the Star Wars Prequel reviews that captured millions of views on YouTube. He's ready to tear into Ghostbusters with the same fire and fury, check it out below.
Love him of hate him one has to admit that Plinkett does make some seriously valid points about the movies he reviews. What did you think?


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Nostalgia Movie
A first official look at Actor Jon Hamm in Nostalgia, the upcoming drama movie directed by Mark Pellington based on a script he co-wrote with Alex Ross Perry:
"The film follows the lives of people connected through loss, examining the human process of finding love and solace in the artifacts and memories we share with each other."
Do you like vintage convertibles like the car Jon Hamm is driving on this picture?
Besides Jon Hamm, the film is also starring Ellen Burstyn, Catherine Keener, Nick Offerman, Amber Tamblyn, Patton Oswalt and Bruce Dern.
The release date of the movie is set to February 16, 2018.
27 November 2017 tags: Nostalgia
Nostalgia - Nostalgia Genre: Drama Directed by: Mark Pellington Starring:...
Nostalgia Movie trailer - Check out the first official trailer of Nostalgia, the upcoming...
Nostalgia Poster - Take a look to the first official poster of Nostalgia, the upcoming...
Nostalgia Movie Poster - We just spotted this new poster of Nostalgia, the upcoming drama...


"They look like ours," I said to my husband Doug as I was looking at the small faces pictured online of the beautiful children killed in the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut a few days ago. "They look like our kids." My heart sank thinking of the parents sitting at home on this night longing for their children.
What can we do for them? What can we do for the family members of the adults who heroically died saving children's lives? What can we do for those who have seen this crime take place? What can we do for those that were first responders who have images in their mind of this incredible atrocity? What can we do?
We can't make sense out of senseless.
I was on Facebook this past Friday reading people's thoughts about the massacre. I read a conversation between two young adult men that went something like this. The first man posted, "Let us pray for these families." His "friend" replied and said, "Forget praying. Send these people some money. They don't need your prayers; they need money for funeral costs." The first young man replied back, "Just because you don't believe in God, don't come on my post and slam me for telling people to pray." And, then they kept bantering.
I thought about their exchange and it actually kept me up that night thinking. It caused me to remember when I found myself in a traumatic situation where my life got turned upside down in a matter of unforeseeable minutes. I remembered back two years ago when I almost left my husband and two children behind when I suffered an amniotic fluid embolism where I died for ten minutes. I woke up from the incident feeling so much closer to death than life. Not knowing if I would have the will to survive because of how much went wrong and how poor my health was. People responded to me in many ways. Some sent money and I remember my heart being warmed by their generosity. The money helped us in our time of financial need, but it did not get me out of bed in the morning. Although it was an amazing gift, it was not the thing that gave me the strength to survive.
What got me out of bed in the mornings when I was depressed, when I was in pain, and when I felt hopeless was the outpouring of prayers. I would constantly think of people praying for me and I would remember their words and that was where I found solace and hope. The abundance of prayers infused strength in me.
My friend Francesca who writes the blog For the Cause of Love (www.forthecauseoflove.blogspot.com) lost her five-year-old daughter tragically and unexpectedly a few years ago. Her sweet girl had the flu and went to take a nap never to wake again. It was unthinkable! It was heartbreaking! We were able to raise money for funeral costs and for her family. I think she would agree that the money was an incredible blessing to her family, but if you read Francesca's blog, you will see it is prayer that gets her out of bed in the morning. It is trust in God that gives her hope and even joy in the midst of her unquenchable, unfathomable pain.
Will prayer solve this tragic outcome? Probably not. It won't bring those innocent children and brave adults back. But, prayer is the place where Christ meets us in the middle of our suffering and becomes our strength when we are weak. Scripture tells us that as we become weaker, Christ becomes stronger.
All I know from my own experience of dying for ten minutes is that God is real! Heaven is real and God is love! God can bring us from the depths of darkness, depression, sadness, anger, hatred, and anxiety and bring us into the light. And, every word of prayer whispered, God hears!
I hope we all send money, food, and any supplies this community needs, but even more I hope we devote ourselves to prayer. It may just be the thing that gets those affected by this crime out of bed in the morning to get their other children fed and clothed for the day, or that gives them strength for that moment in the day when they just want to fall apart or curl into a ball and hide. It may be the thing they need to encourage them to hope, to believe, and to trust. Let us not be distracted by politics, media, or God-less friends from being courageous and humble enough to beg for prayers and to get on our knees and plead for Christ to comfort the countless souls in mourning because of this injustice.
To those in Newtown who have lost a child, a daughter or a son, a wife or a husband, a sister or a brother, a mom or a dad, or those who had to see this crime scene as first responders, know that I am praying for you and my heart aches for you. Know that many in this country are uniting with you in your pain and suffering and offering our hearts to you.
For those reading this blog, I encourage you to leave a prayer in the comments and I will post them. Let's cover those who are suffering with our love and prayers!
Tanya – Eternal Loving God: Father of us all and lord of all life.
We come to you today with hearts saddened by the death of our (children, brothers,sisters, mothers, fathers) all who are wounded in Newtown, CT.
We need the tender touch of your great love and mercy.
As a teacher, I walked into my class a different person today. I looked at my students and thought how can anyone want to hurt them. I looked at them and thought I would take a bullet for each and every one of them if it ever came down to it. I pray for these families that they may find comfort in Christ and the love of family and friends. I thank God for the quick thinking of the adults who stoped this form being even more horriable then it alreay it. God reat thier souls!
Prayer is not the least we can do, it is the most. It may not feel like enough but we are not God and we implore Him. He is enough. A lesson not always easy to learn.
I have felt that praying sometimes feels like it is not enough and sending Money is the easy way out. I feel that I want to be there in person to help familys as I feel I can be more at peace with myself that I could hug someone and let them know I am here for them and minister to them. So I have aked God to let me know what he wants me to do, for now I am praying for everyone that is ivolved everyday and I have asked poeple on facebook to pray for Newtown CT and all involved.
Please Lord Jesus, comfort all those suffering first hand from the tragedy in Newtown. We are all overwhelmed by this horrible situation, and in many ways we are all suffering because of it. Have mercy, Sweet Jesus, on all the souls of the faithfully departed, that by Your mercy, they will rest in peace. Heal the hearts of all those broken by this tragedy. Bring Your peace to each and every one, lifting them up, and helping them to fly on eagle's wings once again. Please dearest Jesus, draw our hearts to You. Give us the grace to turn to you in trust. Please teach us all, through this tragedy, to turn to You in our every need. In Jesus name, we pray. Amen.
Thank you Melanie for the invitation to offer prayers for those suffering in Newtown.
In my darkest hour, I turned with trust to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I know that They hear my prayers and comfort me in my every need. I have lived through my own tragedies and it was the incredible power of God's grace and intercessory prayer that got me through. Thank you for sharing what you did. It is only the healing power of God, and the strength from being lifted up in prayer that gives us strength to carry on. I pray for this every day, and will continue to pray for all those affected by the tragedy in Newtown. God's richest blessings on each and every one!
WOW !! What a nice tropic and great sharing to newtown, cheers author for your nice site .