text:
Grainne Suter of jml Training Consultancy - Professional Trainer ♦ Executive Coach ♦ Facilitator ♦ Results-focused development that works.
Lord Davies' review, Women in the Boardroom now published
Lord Davies' review, Women in the Boardroom, which calls for firms to adopt voluntary targets in order to achieve a minimum of 25% female representation on boards by 2015 has been published today 24th February 2011.
Jackie Orme, Chief Executive at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), has today welcomed the publication. In the CIPD Press release - Jackie Orme said: "We welcome Lord Davies focus on a voluntary approach. His review marks the start of a process. It is the right start, but everyone involved in the governance of British firms now needs to step back and recognise that there needs to be a fundamental shift in established perceptions of what a great board member looks like. That is the only way we will ensure we get to and beyond the 20% target swiftly and in a sustainable way.
"That means far more than setting internal targets and filling them in a tick-box way. From my own experience in business, I know that a range of opinions, backgrounds and perspectives is always better than what is often referred to as 'group think'. But I also know that we face a challenge to some severely entrenched attitudes in many boardrooms. I was once told a startling story by a woman who, being interviewed for a non-executive director role at a FTSE 100 firm, was told: 'Don't worry; we're not interviewing you because you're a woman. We've already got one of those'. It is precisely that kind of tokenism and numbers game we need to avoid.
"Meeting Lord Davies' objectives must be about more than skirts on seats. It needs to be about a concerted challenge, lead by chairs of boards and headhunters themselves, to the established views of the skillset, background and range of experiences that make great board members.
That board members should be appointed on merit is a truism - but the definitions of what constitutes 'merit' have been allowed to become too comfortable and too static - to the detriment of corporate performance. We need to get better at drawing from non-traditional sources - and the benefits of that approach will extend far beyond getting more women in the room. It holds out the prospect of generating a vibrant new generation of board members, capable of challenging orthodoxy, banishing group think, and generating more sustainable growth for their firms.
"By seizing this opportunity to challenge established norms, we'll do so much more than just ensuring women are allowed to make up the numbers. Lord Davies has created a platform we can build on - but everyone involved in the governance of our biggest firms now needs to step up and play their part."
Commenting on the publication of 'Women on boards – Independent Review by Lord Davies of Abersoch', Miles Templeman, Director-General of the Institute of Directors, said: "We are pleased that the report stops short of advocating gender quotas for the boardroom. Quotas would have been incompatible with a meritocratic approach. However, it was unhelpful that Lord Davies did not rule out quotas once and for all. With only 11 per cent of the respondents to Lord Davies' consultation – of which 88 per cent were women – supporting the idea of quotas, I question why he thinks the threat of quotas should remain.
Mr Templeman added: "A greater diversity of people on boards in general is necessary, and this clearly means we need more female directors. The way to do this is to increase the pool of female senior executives from which directors can be recruited. Improving flexible working opportunities for aspiring female executives will be central, with companies rather than Government taking the lead in creating these opportunities.
"We also believe that Lord Davies is right to argue that a combination of entrepreneurs, existing providers and individuals needs to come together to consolidate and improve the provision of training and development for potential board members. This is an area in which the IoD is ready to make a major contribution through its Chartered Director programme and other professional development activities."
Key IoD points on the substance of the Davies Review:
•We are pleased the report stops short of advocating gender quotas for the boardroom. It is striking that only 11 per cent of the respondents to Lord Davies' consultation (of which 88 per cent were women) supported the idea of gender quotas.
•However, we are concerned that Lord Davies continues to threaten gender quotas at a later date if "the recommended business-led approach does not achieve significant change". This attitude is unhelpful. Gender quotas for boards should have been rejected once and for all as being incompatible with a meritocratic approach to senior level appointments. Furthermore, they would be demeaning and undermining for female directors and aspiring female directors
•The report recommends that listed companies should establish policies and new reporting requirements for female participation on boards and amongst senior executives. These measures are not desirable as they distract companies from establishing a board and management structure that best reflects their specific needs.
•Adding further requirements to the UK Corporate Governance code in respect of gender diversity would not be a positive development. The Code already states that "The search for board candidates should be conducted, and appointments made, on merit, against objective criteria and with due regard for the benefits of diversity on the board, including gender". Further requirements in terms of gender diversity policy will increase the risk that the Code becomes viewed as a list of political requirements for listed companies rather than a guide to improved effectiveness.
•We agree that non-executive director appointments should be more widely advertised. Furthermore, Lord Davies is right to argue that "A combination of entrepreneurs, existing providers and individuals needs to come together to consolidate and improve the provision of training and development for potential board members". This is an area in which the IoD is ready to make a major contribution through its Chartered Director programme and other professional development activities.
•A greater focus on director development would also assist in the achievement of one of the reports other recommendations; that women from "outside the corporate mainstream, including entrepreneurs, academics, civil servants and senior women with professional service backgrounds" play a greater role on boards. Appropriate development and mentoring activities – tailored to the specific needs of women – could contribute a great deal to the achievement of this objective.
The CBI today welcomed Lord Davies's report, Women on Boards.
Helen Alexander, CBI President, said: "The lack of women at board level needs addressing urgently, and the best way of achieving this is through companies reporting on their progress.
"We believe firms should report against internally-set targets that reflect different starting points, the nature of particular sectors, and the size and structure of the board.
"Lord Davies's report rightly proposes that chairs of FTSE 350 companies should set the percentage of women they aspire to have on their boards, based on the characteristics of their business.
"A Government-set target for FTSE 100 directors would not reflect the different circumstances of individual companies. It should be for companies, not the Government, to set an appropriate target.
"The report contains good ideas to develop and sustain the talent pipeline to the boardroom, including harnessing the role of investors, executive search firms, and mentoring. The review has also been wise to avoid quotas, which would not have addressed the real issue of how we bring about a cultural change."
Source: CIPD,IOD,CBI
For the past ten years jml Training has been delivering specialist training programmes for women in management. For further information follow this link http://www.jml-training.com/Training_Development_for_Women.htm
Posted by Philip Suter at 05:04
to the jml Training Consultancy blog site, offering news reports and information on Management Training in the UK and overseas.
jml Training Consultancy - latest blogs
jml Leadership Training
Leadership - Coaching - International Training -There has never been a better time to invest in your organisation's future than investing in training now
jml Diversity & Inclusion Training
Diversity and Inclusion Training for UK organisations from jml Diversity Inclusion Training
Training Experiences
Equality and Human Rights responds to the Davies R...
Equality in the boardroom in the UK coming soon?
Lord Davies' review, Women in the Boardroom now pu...
Are managers confident and competent in managing u...
Expert says Make sure the job feels right at inter...
Housing associations shortlisted for awards
New qualifications launched by Institute of Sales ...
Public Procurement proposals are welcome
Despite the downturn of the economy employers cont...
Are Housing Associations Compliant with the Equali...
English housing associations re-let around 5 per c...
Recognise and capitalise on your potential with tr...
New public sector equality duty guidance


text:
What Is Regulation W?
Understanding Regulation W
Complying With Regulation W
When Does Regulation W Apply?
Investing Regulations
Regulation W: Definition in Banking and When It Applies
Elvis Picardo
Elvis Picardo is a regular contributor to Investopedia and has 25+ years of experience as a portfolio manager with diverse capital markets experience.
Erika Rasure
Reviewed by Erika Rasure
Erika Rasure is globally-recognized as a leading consumer economics subject matter expert, researcher, and educator. She is a financial therapist and transformational coach, with a special interest in helping women learn how to invest.
Regulation W is a U.S. Federal Reserve System (FRS) regulation that limits certain transactions between depository institutions, such as banks and their affiliates. In particular, it sets quantitative limits on covered transactions and requires collateral for certain transactions.
The regulation applies to banks that are members of the Fed, insured state non-member banks, and insured savings associations. Regulation W was introduced to consolidate several decades of interpretations and rulemaking under Sections 23A and 23B of the Federal Reserve Act.
Regulation W restricts certain kinds of transactions between banks and their affiliates.
The rules that banks must follow to comply with Regulation W were tightened by post-2008 financial reforms.
The Dodd-Frank Act expanded the definition of a bank affiliate and the types of transactions Regulation W covers.
Regulation W
Regulation W, the rule that implements sections 23A and 23B of the Federal Reserve Act, was published on Dec. 12, 2002, and came into effect on April 1, 2003.
Sections 23A and 23B, Regulation W limits the risks to a bank from transactions between the bank and its affiliates. They also limit the ability of a depository institution to transfer to its affiliates the subsidy arising from the institution's access to the federal safety net, which offers benefits such as lower-cost insured deposits and the discount window. These objectives are accomplished by imposing quantitative and qualitative limits on the ability of a bank to extend credit to an affiliate or engage in certain other transactions with it.
The Fed noted in January 2003 that Regulation W included 70 years' worth of interpretive guidance concerning statutory requirements "that are fairly brief but extremely complex in application." Regulation W is comprehensive in its scope, resolving as many as nine significant issues, including derivative transactions, intraday credit, and financial subsidiaries.
Because most large U.S. banks exist within a diversified holding company structure, the possibility that bank funds may finance somewhat risky purposes exists. Regulation W seeks to limit this risk and is conceptually straightforward, although implementation is not easy. Compliance with Regulation W is a particular challenge for some banks that are dealing with issues such as rapid growth in capital market activities or integration of previous acquisitions.
Complying with Regulation W was complex, even before the regulatory reforms that were instituted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act—which has been criticized by some as being overly burdensome—further tightened Regulation W's requirements.
Because exemptions to Regulation W rules widely provided emergency liquidity to affiliates during the financial crisis, the Fed's ability to grant exemptions on its sole authority was curbed under the new rules. For example, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) now has 60 days to determine whether an exemption is justified or whether it might pose an unacceptable risk to its deposit insurance fund and raise any objections.
Modifications to Regulation W have also expanded the concept of what an "affiliate" is and what constitutes a "covered transaction" under the law. Banking regulators now expect greater transparency from banks in complying with Regulation W.
Regulation W aims to protect banks and federal deposit insurance funds from undue financial risk.
Given that Regulation W applies to covered transactions between a bank and its affiliate, two basic questions need to be answered in determining whether a transaction is subject to this regulation:
Is the transaction between a bank and an affiliate of the bank?
Is the transaction a "covered transaction"?
Regulation W defines a bank's affiliates quite broadly including any company that the bank directly or indirectly controls or that is sponsored and advised by a bank, as well as subsidiaries of the bank.
Covered transactions under Regulation W cover a wide spectrum of transactions, including:
The extension of credit to an affiliate
Investment in securities issued by an affiliate
Asset purchases from an affiliate
The acceptance of securities issued by an affiliate as collateral for credit
The issuance of a guarantee or letter of credit on behalf of an affiliate
Under Regulation W, transactions with any affiliate must total no more than 10% of a financial institution's capital, and transactions with all affiliates combined must total no more than 20% of an institution's capital.
Banks are also prohibited from purchasing low-quality assets from their affiliates, such as bonds with principal and interest payments that are more than 30 days past due. Meanwhile, any extension of credit must be secured by collateral with coverage that ranges between 100% and 130% of the total transaction amount.
As an example, consider a transaction where the hypothetical bank BigBanc intends to purchase a loan portfolio from its subsidiary SmallBanc. In order to comply with Regulation W, BigBanc must ensure that the transaction with SmallBanc does not exceed more than 10% of its capital and that the loan portfolio is not considered a low-quality asset. The transaction must also take place under market terms and conditions.
The Fed monitors banks' exposures to their affiliates through the FR Y-8 report that collects information on transactions between an insured depository institution and its affiliates. The report has to be submitted by banks quarterly, on the last calendar day of each quarter.
Financial institutions that are found to be in violation of Regulation W can be hit with substantial civil penalties. The amount of the fine is determined by several factors, including whether the violation was caused with intent, undertaken with reckless disregard for the institution's financial safety and soundness, or resulted in any type of gain by the perpetrator.
How Does Regulation W Work?
Regulation W establishes the rulemaking authority granted to the Federal Reserve pursuant to sections 23A and 23B of the Federal Reserve Act. It regulates covered transactions, which include the extension of credit to an affiliate, asset purchases from an affiliate, acceptance of securities issued by an affiliate as collateral for credit, and other specifically defined transactions.
What Is the Limit of a Transaction With a Single Affiliate?
No transaction with a single affiliate can exceed 10% of an institution's capital.
What Is the Limit of Transactions With All Affiliates?
All affiliate transactions may not exceed 20% of the institution's held capital.
Are There Exemptions From Regulation W Requirements?
Yes, Regulation W allows the Federal Reserve Bank to permit exemptions, but certain exemptions also require approval from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
Regulation W—added to the Federal Reserve Bank's "alphabet regulations" because it is the 23rd letter of the alphabet and the 23rd regulation—governs covered transactions between a bank and its affiliates. This is outlined in Section 23A of the Federal Reserve Act.
Section 23A defines the kinds of companies that are bank affiliates. It stipulates the kinds of transactions covered by this statute. It also sets the quantifiable limitations on a bank's covered transactions with any single affiliate; also with all collective affiliates. Finally, it outlines collateral requirements for specific bank transactions with affiliates.
Code of Federal Regulations. "Part 223-Transactions Between Member Banks and Their Affiliates (Regulation W)."
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. "Adoption of Regulation W Implementing Sections 23A and 23B of the Federal Reserve Act."
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. "Legal Interpretations-Frequently Asked Questions About Regulation W."
Federal Registrar. "Transactions Between Member Banks and Their Affiliates."
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. "Report Forms-FR Y-8."
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. "Federal Reserve Act: Section 29. Civil Money Penalty."
Guide to US Banking Laws
Guide to U.S. Banking Laws
Dodd-Frank Act: What It Does, Major Components, Criticisms
Major Regulations Following the 2008 Financial Crisis
Too Big to Fail: Definition, History, Examples, and Reforms
Volcker Rule: Definition, Purpose, How It Works, and Criticism
Understanding the Basel III International Regulations
What Is Basel I? Definition, History, Benefits, and Criticism
Basel II: Definition, Purpose, Regulatory Reforms
Basel III: What It Is, Capital Requirements, and Implementation
What Basel IV Means for U.S. Banks and FAQ's
A Brief History of U.S. Banking Regulation
The Evolution of Banking Over Time
How the Banking Sector Impacts Our Economy
What Agencies Oversee U.S. Financial Institutions?
Dual Banking System
What Is the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933? Purpose and Effect
Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA): Definition and Requirements
Bank Secrecy Act (BSA): Definition, Purpose, and Effects
How Banking Works, Types of Banks, and How To Choose the Best Bank for You
Chartered Bank
Nonbank Financial Institutions: What They Are and How They Work
Shadow Banking System: Definition, Examples, and How It Works
Islamic Banking and Finance Definition: History and Example
What Is Regulation E in Electronic Fund Transfers (EFTs)?
What Is Regulation CC? Definition, Purpose and How It Works
Regulation DD
Deregulation: Definition, History, Effects, and Purpose
Regulation F
Regulation F establishes limits on the risks banks may take on in their business dealings with other financial institutions.
The Volcker Rule separates investment banking, private equity, and proprietary trading sections of financial institutions from lending counterparts.
Federal Reserve Regulations
Federal Reserve regulations are rules put in place by the Federal Reserve Board to regulate the practices of banking and lending institutions, usually in response to laws enacted by the Congress.
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is a series of federal regulations passed to prevent future financial crises.
Federal Reserve System (FRS)
The Federal Reserve System, commonly known as the Fed, is the central bank of the U.S., which regulates the U.S. monetary and financial system.
Federal Reserve System: What It Is and How It Works
The Federal Reserve System is the central bank of the United States and provides the nation with a safe, flexible, and stable financial system.
The History of the FDIC
International COVID-19 Stimulus and Relief
How to Become an Accredited Investor
Federal Reserve Regulation D: What It Is, Limits on Withdrawals

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Q: What does AmeriTAX Mediation Group do?
A: AmeriTAX Mediation Group is the Nation's #1 choice for tax relief. If you are receiving certified mail from the IRS, have a wage garnishment, bank levy, un-filed tax returns, or any other IRS or state tax issues we can help.
Q: Who qualifies for a tax relief program?
A: From the individual taxpayer to the small business, almost everyone will qualify for some form of relief.
Q: Can I speak to someone regarding my tax issue now?
A: Yes! Just call 1-800-931-0014. Our office hours are Monday through Friday 6AM-6PM PST and our on-line application is available 24 hours a day. Just fill out the form and a tax strategist will contact you as soon as possible.
Q: What if I have years of un-filed tax returns?
A: We assist many clients who haven't filed taxes in years. In many cases we can greatly reduce the large penalties and interest fees that have accrued over the years making them up to date on their taxes.
Q: How long does it take for my tax issues to be resolved?
A: Because the specifics of each case are so different, resolution can range from one week to six months. If you have time sensitive issues, make sure and tell your assigned tax strategist as they can tailor a program to specifically suit your needs.
Q: Will the IRS continue collecting once I'm represented?
A: When you decide to take advantage of our services collection activity will usually stop, and most correspondence and telephone calls are directed through our office, freeing your time. Once your case is accepted and settled out, tax liens, IRS debt and impending collection action will no longer be a nuisance. You will get a fresh start!
A: The IRS uses specific formulas and guidelines to evaluate relief based on the national standard index of living. If applied for per their guidelines, resolution is quick and exact. AmeriTAX Mediation Group bases each case on an individual analysis of the national standard index as it currently exists, relying on the information our clients provide as the basis for relief. Because of this, we're able to accurately forecast the best case scenario for our clients.
Q: Do you have attorneys?
A: Yes. Our hard working team includes highly trained tax attorneys educated with the most current tax laws, regulations and codes. They know how to negotiate with the IRS and state to get your tax problems solved as favorably and efficiently as possible.
Q: Can I use my local CPA or tax attorney?
A: Yes. But the average CPA or Tax Attorney does just one or two resolution cases a year and charges by the hour. We do 150-200 cases each month and charge by the case. Because of this, we're able to achieve superior results at a fraction of the cost of local CPAs or tax attorneys.
A: Our staff of tax professionals has spent years perfecting the art of being able to achieve superior results in a fraction of the time while still giving you the individual attention you deserve. We begin the process by assigning each case a team of tax professionals who will work on your case from beginning to end utilizing our proven work-flow system and world class customer service. Our attorneys and case managers know the current tax code and know your rights as a taxpayer. Once a personalized case strategy is charted out we redirect most correspondence with the IRS through our office and continue to negotiate with the IRS until your case is settled.
A: Unlike expensive CPA's or Tax Attorneys who charge by the hour, we charge a simple, one time, flat fee for each case. That means no per-call charges or hidden fees like "cheaper" services. As each case varies in complexity, fees will vary accordingly.
A: Many of our clients will qualify for a relief program called an Offer in Compromise (you owe the tax, but you cannot pay the entire amount.). This option can settle debt for a fraction of what was originally owed. Otherwise, we can enforce one of many other options for the individual and small business which will challenge and eliminate penalties and interest, lift liens off of property, stop Wage Garnishment and release Bank Levy. We can also negotiate an affordable Payment Plan.


I can't count how many YouTube videos I've laughed at where someone who is streaming live get's told by the chat to press Alt+F4 on their keyboard only to either close the application or shutdown a game they were streaming. This has been the source of a lot of trolling videos but I'm here to tell you that it doesn't have to be and there's some explaining it so we don't get duped into using it incorrectly.
In Windows, aside from pressing the handy X at the top right of most application windows, most of the time, there will be an equally powerful keyboard alternative. This is Alt+F4 on your keyboard. In the video, I explain how any application window that is in focus can be simply closed in quick succession by simply pressing the key combination. This can either be really powerful for those of you who need to close down applications extremely fast or shutdown your computer with ease.
Note, that you must press Alt+F4 for each window that is opened, after one window shuts down, the application that is now in the front foreground and in "Focus" is now ready for you to use or close down that next application, so on and so fourth with the same key combination. Until you run out of application windows to close or you have no application windows in focus, you will not get prompted for the shutdown options by your computer.
So, if you practice this, you can more than likely be fast enough to avoid your boss catching you checking out YouTube on company time. Close that NSFW website you don't want people knowing you're into that. Or simply shutdown that PC like a quick draw wild west antagonist destined to be the fastest keyboard gun in the west.
Either way, its a simply little key combination that I'm sure might come in handy for whatever you need it for and hope this helps you out in navigating Microsoft Windows that much easier.


Although these slots are based on the TV crime family, even they have a ranking system. When you play Sopranos slot, you start in the rank of soldier and then after playing 3 bonus rounds in that rank, you are promoted to the rank of capo. Once again, you play 3 bonus rounds in that round before being promoted to boss. The 7th, 8th and 9th bonus rounds are played as boss and then you are promoted to family.
There is of course a different bonus round that is played for each of the ranks that you attain and the soldier's bonus round has 25 free spins. It is possible whilst playing this round to get an extra 5 free spins plus there is an additional wild on the reels.
Although the capo bonus round only has 20 free spins, any win during them has a x2 multiplier but you can possibly increase this to a x5.
The boss bonus round sees a big drop in the number of free spins, down to 10 but there are as many as 5 extra wilds on the reels and again you can increase the number of spins by 5.
Family is the rank that everybody strives to reach and so for this bonus round, many of the symbols are removed from the reels to make the wins easier to attain and even then, you are still given 10 free spins. Any win that involves a wild in this round, is automatically given a multiplier of x2.
There is one other additional bonus round that you can play on this slot machine regardless of what rank you hold and that is the stolen goods bonus round. This round is triggered by getting at least 3 stolen goods symbols on the reels. In this round you are offered the chance to choose which container, from several, you would like to keep and although you may not know the contents when choosing, after opening it, you are not happy, you can change it but only twice.
Play Sopranos slot at Genting casino!


Junk Removal and Donations, Greenwich, CT.
We warmly welcome the residents and businesses of Greenwich, Connecticut to our website.
The Junk Recycler is a full service Junk Removal Company serving Greenwich, CT. We focus on optimizing recycling and donating within the junk removal process. Our service includes appliance removal, furniture removal, recycling electronics, donation pick up, furniture donations, dump runs and much, much more. Promoting Sustainability while providing excellent customer service are our foremost priorities.
We gain satisfaction by creating satisfied customers, happy vendors, and the knowledge that we are 'Saving The Planet One load At A Time' by recycling and donating your items to those in need.
Please call us on 1 855 586 5463 for further information or if you're ready for your clearance you can Book Online Now.
Eco Friendly, affordable and Reliable Junk Removal & Dump Runs in Greenwich, CT.
The Junk Recycler offers top quality service at outstanding value. Compare and you'll see our prices are significantly less than our junk removal competitors. Find out more about our Junk Removal and Hauling pricing and Coupons for Greenwich, CT.
We look forward to providing you with our junk removal & hauling services.


ALL UNANNOUNCED AND MOSTLY UNDETECTED there has come in modern times a new cross into popular evangelical circles. It is like the old cross, but different: the likenesses are superficial; the differences, fundamental. From this new cross has sprung a new philosophy of the Christian life, and from that new philosophy has come a new evangelical technique-a new type of meeting and a new kind of preaching. This new evangelism employs the same language as the old, but its content is not the same and its emphasis not as before.
The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him. It gears him into a cleaner and a jollier way of living and saves his self-respect. To the self-assertive it says, "Come and assert yourself for Christ." To the egotist it says, "Come and do your boasting in the Lord." To the thrill-seeker it says, "Come and enjoy the thrill of Christian fellowship."
The Christian message is slanted in the direction of the current vogue in order to make it acceptable to the public. The philosophy back of this kind of thing may be sincere but its sincerity does not save it from being false. It is false because it is blind. It misses completely the whole meaning of the cross. The old cross is a symbol of death. It stands for the abrupt, violent end of a human being. The man in Roman times who took up his cross and started down the road had already said good-by to his friends. He was not coming back. He was going out to have it ended.
The cross made no compromise, modified nothing, spared nothing; it slew all of the man, completely and for good. It did not try to keep on good terms with its victim. It struck cruel and hard, and when it had finished its work, the man was no more. The race of Adam is under death sentence. There is no commutation and no escape.
God cannot approve any of the fruits of sin, however innocent they may appear or beautiful to the eyes of men. God salvages the individual by liquidating him and then raising him again to newness of life. That evangelism which draws friendly parallels between the ways of God and the ways of men is false to the Bible and cruel to the souls of its hearers.
The faith of Christ does not parallel the world, it intersects it. In coming to Christ we do not bring our old life up onto a higher plane; we leave it at the cross. The corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die. We who preach the gospel must not think of ourselves as public relations agents sent to establish good will between Christ and the world. We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, the world of sports or modern education. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum.
God offers life, but not an improved old life. The life He offers is life out of death. It stands always on the far side of the cross. Whoever would possess it must pass under the rod. He must repudiate himself and concur in God's just sentence against him. What does this mean to the individual, the condemned man who would find life in Christ Jesus? How can this theology be translated into life? Simply, he must repent and believe. He must forsake his sins and then go on to forsake himself. Let him cover nothing, defend nothing, excuse nothing. Let him not seek to make terms with God, but let him bow his head before the stroke of God's stern displeasure and acknowledge himself worthy to die. Having done this let him gaze with simple trust upon the risen Saviour, and from Him will come life and rebirth and cleansing and power.
The cross that ended the earthly life of Jesus now puts an end to the sinner; and the power that raised Christ from the dead now raises him to a new life along with Christ. To any who may object to this or count it merely a narrow and private view of truth, let me say God has set His hallmark of approval upon this message from Paul's day to the present. Whether stated in these exact words or not, this has been the content of all preaching that has brought life and power to the world through the centuries. The mystics, the reformers, the revivalists have put their emphasis here, and signs and wonders and mighty operations of the Holy Ghost gave witness to God's approval. Dare we, the heirs of such a legacy of power, tamper with the truth? Dare we with our stubby pencils erase the lines of the blueprint or alter the pattern shown us in the Mount? May God forbid. Let us preach the old cross and we will know the old power.
(A. W. Tozer, Man, the Dwelling Place of God, 1966).


In this tutorial, we will be performing PCA on a MD trajectory of protein. Before doing the PCA, we need to prepare the trajectory which includes removing periodicity and removing water molecules. Most of the MD packages have options to do this. We will be using GROMACS in this tutorial. We will be using .xtc format for trajectory and .pdb for topology file. Any other common trajectory format should also work with MODE-TASK.
select system to apply it.
Copy the entire contents of the MODE-TASK scripts into the MODE-TASK directory.
We will run all scripts from the MODE-TASK directory. Move the trajectory (md_01_noWAT.xtc) and topology file (complex.pdb) into the Tutorial directory.
MODE-TASK includes tools to perform PCA on Cartesian coordinates as well as internal coordinates. It also allows users to run different variants of PCA on a single MD trajectory.
Run the following command to perform the singular value decomposition (SVD) PCA on CA atoms.
(a)- Various output files are written to the out_md_01_noWAT.xtc directory. 2D Plot of first 3 PCs, Scree plot, RMSD plot, and RMSD Modes plot. For details about these output files, please refer to the MODE-TASK documentation.
(b)- Command line output: Following output is redirected to command line.
2D Plot of the first 3 PCs in grace and png format is written. In order to open the .agr file with xmgrace run the following command.
You can also visualize the .png format figure plot by opening it with your favorite picture visualizer. In the same way, open the rmsd.agr and pca_variance.agr.
One can also do PCA on internal coordinates of a MD trajectory. Options are available for different types of internal coordinates such as, pairwise distance between atoms, 1-3 angle between backbone atoms, phi angle, and psi angle. Run the following command to do PCA on pairwise distance between CA atoms.
Run the following command to do PCA on backbone psi angles.
Output files include 2D plot of first 3 PCs and Scree plot, which can be visualized using xmgrace as described earlier.
To perform the MDS on pairwise RMSD between C-alpha atoms, run the following command.
Output files include 2D plot of first three PCs which can be visualized using xmgrace as described earlier.
Run the following command to perform t-SNE using pairwise RMSD of CA atoms as the index of dissimilarity.
Output files include 2D plot of the first 3 PCs, which can be visualize using xmgrace as described earlier.
© Copyright 2017, CJ Ross, B Nizami, M Glenister, OS Amamuddy, AR Atilgan, C Atilgan and Ö Tastan Bishop Revision 13d6ff55.


text:
Recommended Brazilians toil for gold in illegal Amazon mines
Mementos of Korea's Divided Families
Namyangju, South Korea Kim Hong-Ji
Updated 27 Mar 2014 10 images
The 1950-53 Korean War left many families stranded on opposite sides of the North-South border. Many were parted forever, some were able to see their relatives again very briefly at a few specially organised family reunions.
The latest reunion was held last month. Photographer Kim Hong-Ji talked to some of those who felt the joy of seeing their families again after over 60 years apart as well as the pain of saying goodbye once more – probably forever.
3 Mar 2014 . SEOUL, South Korea. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji
Kang Neung-hwan was a participant in the latest reunion for families divided by the Korean War.
The ninety-three-year-old said that during the war he was separated from his wife, just four months after they were married and without him knowing at the time that she was pregnant.
Kang said he later heard that his wife and parents passed away in North Korea. He met his son for the first time at the reunion.
"I had never seen my son, but the first time I saw him at the reunions I immediately knew who he was. I was heartbroken," said Kang, pictured holding a photograph of the two of them together.
"I believe that one day the two Koreas will reunify. My son, please stay healthy and wait for me until that day comes. Let us meet again soon."
Eighty-year-old Kim Sun-yeon also took part in the latest family reunion, which was held on February 20-25.
Kim said that during the war, when her family left their hometown to seek refuge, her big sister went missing.
At the recent family reunion she met her sister's son, but she was unable to meet her sister again, who died a few months earlier.
"The North Korean People's Army killed a lot of people during the war, so I thought my sister died as well. But last year when I registered for the family reunions, I found out that she was alive," said Kim, pictured holding her sister's photograph.
"If the reunions had taken place last year in September like they were supposed to, I could've met my sister. But the reunions were postponed to this February and my sister died in the past few months. I have so many things I want to tell her but I can't anymore."
9 Mar 2014 . NAMYANGJU, South Korea. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji
Jang Choon, 82, was also a participant in the latest reunion.
He said he fought during the war for the North Korean People's Army but he became a prisoner of war in the South, where he chose to stay.
He said that his brothers and sisters received a note saying that he had died in the war.
"They were holding ancestral rituals for me," said Jang. "Words cannot express how happy I was to meet them again in 60 years."
Jang holds out an old picture of his youngest brother Jang Ha-choon.
The 82-year-old said that the last words he shared with his family during the reunion were: "Please stay healthy until the day we meet again. Let us meet again to talk more. Please stay alive for a long, long time."
He said that then they sang a song called "Spring in My Hometown" and cried before parting ways.
11 Mar 2014 . YONGIN, South Korea. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji
Kim Myeong-do, 92, likewise took part in the February 2014 reunions.
He said that he used to be an elementary school teacher in North Korea but he came to Seoul when he was 21 to go to college. After the war broke out, he had to settle down in the South and was separated from his family.
Kim holds a picture taken during the reunion with his younger brother.
He said the last words he shared with his family were: "Someday the two Koreas will reunify. This [division] won't last forever."
"I don't know when but shouldn't the Koreans live together as one people? Isn't that the only hope we can look to as we live on?"
"He thought the two Koreas would reunify two or three years after their split, but over 70 years went by before he saw the land of his birth again."
Kim Hong-Ji, Reuters Photographer
Last month North and South Korea allowed a group of families divided by the Korean War to come together for a brief reunion. Separated on either side of the border between North and South, it was the first time they had seen each other in more than six decades.
Those who took part in the reunion knew that they were luckier than many others, who didn't get to see their loved ones across the border at all. But they still had to go through the pain of parting all over again – more than likely forever – after their brief, tearful meeting.
I wasn't allowed to cover the families at the scene of the reunion. But the event made me wonder what it was like for those who returned to a normal life in South Korea after emotional gatherings with their long-lost parents, kids, and siblings from the North.
Some of the families who took part even thought their relatives had died in the 1950-53 war until they got their invitation to join the reunion. What did the reunited families talk about? Did they recognise each other with grey hair and wrinkles? What were the last words they said to each other before their goodbyes?
Wanting to know the answers to these questions, I obtained a list of participants in the latest reunions and began calling dozens of them. It was harder than I had imagined to arrange the interviews. I thought at first the families would be happy to talk in front of the camera. But after fulfilling a life-long dream of seeing their relatives in the North again, I found that many of these elderly Koreans appeared exhausted, and their emotions were spent.
Some critics say that the reunion program works too slowly and involves too few families. Many elderly people on both sides die before they can reconnect with loved ones, critics say. North Korea recently rebuffed the South's offer to hold talks to discuss arranging more reunions between divided families.
Since the first reunion in 1985, over 18,000 North and South Korean family members have met at some 19 reunions. Of the 128,000 people in South Korea who are registered as being from families separated by the Korean War, nearly half of them have already died and over 80 percent of the survivors are over 70 years old, according to the South Korean government.
Eventually, I managed to set up interviews with ten people who returned from the latest reunions. They said the event was heavily controlled, and they were only allowed to spend 11 hours with their relatives over 4 days.
South Koreans were told before the event that there were some questions they must not ask their families from the North, which is technically still at war with the South. The North Koreans all brought the same gifts for their relatives: three bottles of North Korean liquor and a tablecloth, which appeared to have been provided by the government, not by themselves.
On March 4, I met Kim Sun-yeon, an 80-year-old woman who got separated from her older sister and saw her mother killed by artillery shrapnel during the war. At the reunions, Kim was reunited with her North Korean nephew, instead of her sister, who had died late last year.
Kim said if the North had not scrapped planned reunions last September just days before they were due to go ahead, her sister would have been alive and could have come to meet her.
"I have so many things I want to tell her but I can't anymore," Kim said with tears.
On March 9, I travelled east of Seoul to meet 82-year-old Jeon Ho-yeon. He left his home in North Korea in 1942, when he was just 12 years old, to study in Seoul.
He thought the two Koreas would reunify two or three years after their split, but over 70 years went by before he saw the land of his birth again. His relatives have all died except for one younger brother in the North.
The Korean Red Cross, the reunions' organiser, told him not to ask how well his brother's family was doing in North Korea, Jung said. He regretted that he couldn't ask how much his parents missed him or how his brother's life has been.
On March 11, I interviewed Choi Jung-sook, 84, who lives in a city called Namyangju in suburbs of Seoul. She started to talk even before I asked her questions.
"I want to meet my sister again. I want to go again. Or at least I hope I can call her," Choi told me. I had to choke back my tears to continue with the interview.
Her one hope was now that she knows her sister is alive, she can send her letters.
A wave of tears kept 87-year-old Heo Gyeong-ok from talking during the reunions. "I just touched my sister's hands and cried so we couldn't talk that much. I should have brought some notebooks to write down questions I wanted to ask. Now I wish I could buy her a warm jacket and good cosmetics," Heo told me.
"I wanted to ask, is our old house still left there as it was in our town?" Heo said, when I asked her what she regretted not having said when she saw her family again.
I don't know when this elderly woman will be able to ask her relatives this question. No one does.
Their reunion was just another reminder that the emotional scars left by hostilities between the two Koreas still hurt.
Heo Gyeong-ok, 87, holds a polaroid picture taken during the reunion with her younger sister.
Kim Hong-Ji
Spray cans and Euros
Young Rohingya mothers flee persecution
Cox's Bazar
Land of salt
Little Rann of Kutch
The Buddha factory
Madaya
Tatars of Crimea
Bakhchisaray
Faces of Romania's past
Making it as a masseuse
Nuclear refugees
Fukushima's children
Nihonmatsu
A night at the ball
Dancing all over the world
Geelong - where next?
Banished once a month
Achham
Supermarket chic


See? Ain't this a happy place?
Sweet, liquorice and chocolate! There's even cola flavoured chocolate.
Whole roasted hazelnut toffee. Yum!
Traditionally handmade fudge "double deadly". This is my fav.
Toffee and fudge are the 2 must try when you're in UK. How I wish I've bought more.


This post categorized under Exterior and posted on July 26th, 2018.
Flower bed ideas dont have to be predictable. Discover the best designs that can help transform your yard from boring to something special in 2018.Make garden tasks easy with a wheelbarrow from Kmart. A wheelbarrow is one of the most useful and essential pieces of equipment to have for any garden.Wheelbarrow Gardening Fowey Cornwall. Darren Hawkes award-winning Cornish landscape gardener offering contemporary garden and landscaping services.
Beautiful (and affordable) DIY garden paths that you can build in a weekend without breaking the bank or your back to spruce up your yard.Gorgeous garden and front yard landscaping ideas that help highlight the beauty and architectural features your house. See the best designs for 2018We gathered up over 20 of the BEST Garden Ideas and DIY Yard Projects to get you ready for Spring All of these are fantastic & unique ideas that look so much fun to make.
Do you enjoy spending time outdoors and being in the garden Those of you who do have gardens understand the many benefits as you gaze and admire all that they have to offer.A Collection of DIY Garden Fountain Landscaping Ideas & Projects Outdoor Fountain DIY projects built in fountain and water features tutorialsOld Fashioned Wooden Garden Wagon Cart Flower Planter. Description Showcase flowers and plants and create sensational seasonal displays with Rock Garden Designs Landscaping Ideas for Front Yard With unpredictable weather patterns and the business of 21st-century lifestyles the traditional garden and the maintenance that comes along with it is starting to lose its appeal.


Liverpool John Lennon Airport (LJLA) is among the first airports in the UK to utilize a tool on its Twitter account that measures customer feedback. This is part of a wider program, which, over the past 20 months, has seen LJLA undertake a full customer service transformation.
The internationally recognized customer metric tool Net Promoter formed the basis of the airport's recent investment strategy which has seen £2.5m (US$3.4m) invested in new passenger facilities including toilets, car parks, flight information screens and technology, along with award winning staff training and development.
Twitter recently introduced Customer Feedback, a new tool that leverages direct messages to gather feedback in Net Promoter Score (NPS) format. In partnership with Sprout Social, a leading provider of social media management and customer care software, LJLA is one of the first companies in the UK to be able to incorporate the feature, which has only been implemented by a limited number of brands across the world.
Net Promoter Score is a management tool that can be used to gauge the loyalty of a firm's customer relationships and Twitter has incorporated NPS into its facilities to enable brands to monitor their customer service and customer satisfaction on the social platform more easily.


text:
Former Army Capt. Swenson receives Medal of Honor
DAVID NAKAMURA
WASHINGTON - It was a tender moment that demonstrated the brotherhood of the U.S. servicemen who fought for their lives in a remote Afghanistan province four years ago. In the heat of battle, Army Capt. William Swenson leaned in and kissed the head of a severely wounded comrade while loading him into an evacuation helicopter.
On Tuesday, President Obama cited that moment - captured in a video taken by a medevac crewman - as he presented Swenson, 34, with the Medal of Honor for his valor in the Ganjgal Valley in eastern Afghanistan. Swenson, who has since left the military, is credited with risking his life to help save other U.S. troops and Afghan allies and retrieve the bodies of four Americans who were killed Sept. 8, 2009.
"Amidst the whipping wind and the deafening roar of the helicopter blades, he does something unexpected. He leans in and kisses the wounded soldier on the head - a simple act of compassion and loyalty to a brother in arms," Obama said of Swenson during a ceremony attended by 250 guests, including Vice President Biden, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, first lady Michelle Obama and several previous medal recipients.
Obama noted that of the nearly 3,500 times the country has awarded the medal, the video of Swenson "may be the first time that we can actually bear witness to a small fraction of those actions for ourselves."
Swenson, who lives in Seattle, did not speak during the White House ceremony. Afterward, an Army spokesman confirmed that Swenson had asked to return to active duty more than two years after he left the service. "We are currently reviewing his request and processing it within established policy," said the spokesman George Wright.
A return to service - Swenson would have to undergo a drug test and background check, as is routine, would be a remarkable turnabout.
Swenson's path to the White House ceremony was a rocky one. After he criticized his Army superiors for failing to provide enough air and artillery support, his medal nomination was delayed for years. Army officials said they lost his nomination packet in the computer system for 19 months.
Swenson became the second service member to accept the medal for the Ganjgal battle. The other recipient, former Marine Corps Cpl. Dakota Meyer, who accepted the award in 2011, was not in attendance. Swenson has expressed skepticism about the accuracy of Meyer's account of the battle.
Two other Marines, Ademola Fabayo and Juan Rodriguez-Chavez, who helped Swenson and Meyer in the rescue missions, attended Tuesday's ceremony. They both have received the Navy Cross for their actions.
Swenson said he would accept the medal in honor of fellow soldiers and Marines and family members of those who died.
"It does not really belong to me; it belongs to that event and the people I stood with," he said of the medal.
In an interview with The Washington Post, he said he had no memory of kissing the head of Sgt. 1st Class Kenneth Westbrook, who had been shot in the cheek and shoulder, until he saw the video earlier this year.
"You could have told me it happened, and I wouldn't have believed you," he said in one of his first extended interviews since the battle. "But it did, and it was captured on film. And it offered a glimpse of the humanity that does occur on battlefields."
Westbrook, a married father of three, survived for a month after leaving the battlefield on the helicopter before dying of complications from a blood transfusion. His widow, Charlene Westbrook, was in the audience at the White House on Tuesday.
"Charlene will always be grateful for the final days she was able to spend with her husband," Obama said.
Swenson and Westbrook had been working for a year as trainers with the Afghan Border Police in Kunar province in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistani border.
They were trying to prepare the Afghan forces to oversee remote tribal areas that were often teeming with insurgents and not aligned with the Afghan national government.
On the day of the battle, about 11 U.S. trainers and 80 Afghan troops set out to meet with the town elders. As soon as they reached the valley, they were ambushed by Taliban fighters hidden in the higher mountain terrain that ringed the valley on three sides. In all, five Americans and 10 Afghan troops, along with an Afghan interpreter, were slain.
Looking back on their last moments together in the video, Swenson said: "To see him and to see me in that situation gives me comfort to see him walk off the battlefield. ... I would trade anything for that not to be our last moment, but that was our last moment, and I'll always have that now."


text:
Will Netflix Gaming Take Down Highly Monetized Games?
Posted by Adina Hutanu | Dec 9, 2021 | Gaming, Netflix, Publishers, Streaming Platforms
With over 214 million subscribers, Netflix is the most popular streaming platform globally. The company, founded in 1997, is the leading giant in the movie streaming and production industry. It all began with the selling and renting out DVDs in the late '90s, and then fast-forward to 2007, Netflix started offering videos to people on the internet.
Over the years, the company has gathered many awards and landed outstanding achievements. Netflix is currently the largest entertainment company by market capitalization. It ranks 124 on Fortune 500 companies and 284 on Forbes Global 2000. Besides, it has produced movies that will forever remain in people's hearts. As of the time of writing, Red Notice, a Netflix original movie, is the most streamed in the world.
However, it seems all of these are not enough for the company. Perhaps, they are scared that they might lose relevance in the next few years, and another streaming platform will take their place. And on several occasions, Netflix has made it known to the public that they are in great competition with Fortnite and YouTube. Therefore, they deem it fit that it's time to expand the entertainment industry by producing games.
Netflix In the Gaming Industry
Netflix is going into games production. Gaming is something they have been talking about since the beginning of this year, and the intention was made clear when they hired Mike Verdu, the former VP of Facebook Oculus, as their VP of games development in July. However, this is not their first big move. They have once worked with outside studios to create two Stranger Things game titles.
Now, they are stepping it up by having a game studio of their own and a team of game developers. Netflix acquired Night School Studio in September, and on November 2, they launched their games service for Android users. They have also hired Amir Vahimi, the former VP at Scopely and a game genius, as their VP of game studios. As of November 9, Netflix games became available globally for iOS devices. All of these happened in 2021.
The company is moving fast with its gaming ambition. At the moment, they are offering five free games to Android and iOS users. And they promised to add more as the company's gaming section grows.
However, observing and analyzing the past events, Netflix is known for displacing big companies from top positions. They have done this several times in the movie industry. Can they do this in the gaming industry? Will they even make it in the industry?
Before I take on this question, let's understand Netflix's ambitions in the gaming industry.
Netflix Gaming Ambitions
From the first time Netflix hints to the public about its interest in gaming, there have been speculations. Everyone is cooking their story about the company's intentions and how their subscribers will react to the new development. Why is Netflix investing in gaming?
Purely for growth
No company will see the chance for growth and won't take it; Not even a company like Netflix with colossal capital and market value to diversify and test new business ideas. Gaming is the new growing entertainment industry. The industry saw a boom during the pandemic. And ever since then, the number of gamers in the world has been rapidly increasing.
The same year saw the release of two unique consoles (PS5 and Xbox series X and S) that enticed people to games. Some are meeting up to play physically, while other hardcore gamers are playing on the clouds. Meanwhile, millions of game lovers are glued to video games streaming platforms to watch their favorite gamers play and compete.
All of these prove a vast business opportunity in the gaming industry. Many other companies like Amazon and Facebook are also investing to gain a good share of the gaming profit. However, Netflix has made it known that they are strictly into it for growth and retaining their subscribers.
A Netflix audit has revealed that the company is experiencing slow growth, and they might start losing their subscribers if they don't come up with another enticing package. Therefore, they have made their five games accessible on the platform and promised that the subscription rate would remain the same. All they want is to keep and gain more subscribers.
Retain top position in the entertainment world and compete with big streaming platforms
Netflix is going into this foray because they want to keep leading the entertainment world, and that may change if another company has game lovers. In a Netflix quarterly report released far back in 2019, the company mentioned that "Fortnite" is a more significant threat to its business than the Warner Bros HBO. It is so because the game is becoming a virtual getaway for teenagers and young people across the globe.
Likewise, YouTube is a big Netflix competitor. In October 2018, the company noticed a spike in the number of viewers when YouTube went down globally. Besides, the platform is one of the major streaming platforms for gamers. Not just YouTube or Fortnite – Roblox, with its 70 million players, could also be a threat in the future.
The world has changed, and presently, people are spending more time on their mobile phones than on TV. Therefore, any business or entertainment platform that wants to win in this generation must be built around mobile users. Although Netflix has mobile apps for Android and IOs users, they must give their subscribers a reason to use and hang out on the app. Games will make this happen.
Build games around their movies to get more subscribers
Like they have done with Stranger Things, Netflix probably wants to build more games based on their movies. By doing this, they will convert their previous subscribers to gamers. Imagine a game of Money Heist or Squid Game; you would agree that millions of people worldwide will play the game because they enjoyed the movies.
Does Netflix Have a Chance Against Highly Monetized Games?
Netflix is still in its early stages of game production. And unlike the movie, the game industry is quite different and complicated and might not work out so quickly. Amazon could testify to the difficulty in game production. Although the online marketplace is a leading tech giant, it took several failures to come up with its first video game – New World.
Presently, Netflix has five games on their app, including Stranger Things: 1984, Stranger Things 3: The Game, Shooting Hoop, Card Blast, and Teeter Up. And they are free to play for all subscribers. This is just the beginning for the streaming platform; things might change later in the future because the idea of providing free games doesn't look realistic to some extent.
As they have no plan to monetize their games, Netflix probably wants to pay a one-time compensation to developers with fantastic video games ideas (just guessing). This could sometimes be a good deal for developers, as the game may not get enough attractions as expected.
However, it could be otherwise if the game turns out to be a big hit. Developers would prefer making a deal with another studio that will pay them as the game grows and gains more players and recognition. Therefore, they may lose good content to their competitors, continually harming the number of subscribers.
Meanwhile, from the other way round, this non-monetization model could also be why they will win in the industry. If they could come up with great deals for game developers, this model would help them attract good content. Some developers also like it when their content is not monetized because having a game with quality content, no ads, and no title purchase will attract many game players.
Moreover, Netflix has a better chance of winning if they could make games for their movies. As mentioned earlier, gamers will readily engage and talk about a Money Heist video game or Squid Game. However, it's up to Netflix to create quality content from the movies to keep the spark going.
Also, Netflix has millions of existing subscribers as an added advantage. They have already gained people's trust as far as entertainment is concerned. Therefore, they could be dragging the position with Fortnite and other highly monetized games with two or three-game hits.
Before they stand a chance, Netflix must give in all they have to survive the first few years in this new business. The first few years are the most difficult. They could quickly build on when the foundation is strong. After perseverance, the company needs good content.
It won't be simple to convince people to stop playing Fortnite and Call of Duty. Players must see and confirm that the games are worth their time than the highly monetized ones. Free games may attract new subscribers, but if Netflix wants to keep their existing customers and compete in the game business, they need good content and intelligent developers.
PreviousGoDaddy Hacked, 1.2 Million Websites At Risk Of Phishing Attacks
NextWill Influencers Prefer YouTube or Twitch for Their Streaming?
Will Influencers Prefer YouTube or Twitch for Their Streaming?


Her work has been translated into dozens of languages. It has been made into films, signed for young deaf children and illustrated in light. Her poems have won prizes and her short stories have been read on BBC Radio 4.
Mimi is represented by MBA Literary Agency.
Hi Mimi, I found you through your agents website (as I'm currently submitting my manuscript) and you caught my eye as my story has the themes hope and recovery so I shall now be following you on here!
Lovely! Shall follow you, too! Good luck!
Hi Mimi, just wanted to say I've really been enjoying your blog, particularly as I've been going through very similar stages lately…submitting a first draft…the love/hate experience of writing…the isolation…the terror of getting people to read your work and give feedback…exposing yourself and being vulnerable in your writing…the struggle/exhilaration of rewriting. It has been very comforting to read about someone else experiencing it all too! Thanks for sharing and all the best for your new novels!


FREE SHIPPING ON ALL ORDERS ABOVE US$100.
Do not use bleach or detergent that has bleach components.
When leather is spoiled, use dry cloth to wipe and apply thin layer of leather cleaner.
Sign up with Vacant Label now for the latest news and deals, and get 15% off!


text:
Sierhiejówka – dawnej samodzielna miejscowość. Obecnie część wsi Szaragi na Białorusi, w obwodzie witebskim, w rejonie miorskim, w sielsowiecie Mikołajewo.

Historia
W czasach zaborów folwark w gminie Mikołajewo, w powiecie dzisieńskim, w guberni wileńskiej Imperium Rosyjskiego.

W latach 1921–1945 folwark leżał w Polsce, w województwie wileńskim, w powiecie dziśnieńskim w gminie Mikołajów.

Powszechny Spis Ludności z 1921 roku nie podał danych dotyczących miejscowości. W 1931 w 1 domu zamieszkiwało 5 osób.

Wierni należeli do parafii prawosławnej w Hołomyślu i rzymskokatolickiej w Dziśnie. Miejscowość podlegała pod Sąd Grodzki w Dziśnie i Okręgowy w Wilnie; właściwy urząd pocztowy mieścił się w Mikołajowie.

W wyniku napaści ZSRR na Polskę we wrześniu 1939 miejscowość znalazła się pod okupacją sowiecką. 2 listopada została włączona do Białoruskiej SRR. Od czerwca 1941 roku pod okupacją niemiecką. W 1944 miejscowość została ponownie zajęta przez wojska sowieckie i włączona do Białoruskiej SRR.

Od 1991 w składzie niepodległej Białorusi.

Uwagi

Przypisy

Wsie w rejonie miorskim
Miejscowości województwa wileńskiego (II Rzeczpospolita)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Have your or someone's personal signature engraved on this dainty silver disc necklace.This beautiful necklace is a touching way to remember a lost loved one. The delicate size makes this the perfect gift for any woman, be it a friend or your mother or daughter. Also available in a larger 3/4" size.
- The disc pendant is engravable on either side, or both. Word limits: 1-2 words/side.
- If you want to extract the signature from a long note or card, make a note to us under "Instructions and requests".
5Signature image for back engraving (if selected): File uploaded!


http://youtu.be/lmYm2lG59aY At Camps Road Farm we grow our hops following organic standards but we are not yet organic certified. Growing hops this way adds a lot of obstacles that might be easier to face if we were growing them conventionally but we feel it is worth the extra effort. Nothing against growing them conventionally, just putting it out there so you have perspective on our numbers.
The hops are technically in their third year but there were a lot of mistakes made in teh first couple of years as the learning curve has been very steep. They should perform this year as second year hops. We have done a fair amount of propogating and replanting so there are bines at different stages of the process throughout our yard. The yard itself is 1.4 acres. There are 21 rows that are 250 feet long. I'll get into a little more detail about how we grow hops and what are some of the mistakes we made a little later in this post.
If you would like acopy of teh excel file used to create the video you can scroll to the bottom of the post and put in your name and email address to join the Farm Marketing Solutions email list. If you are already on it you will be receiving a copy of the file in your inbox after this post goes live.
To figure my production numbers for this years budget I have two numbers, wet hops and dry hops. When it comestime for harvest the hops cones (pictured above) will start to dry out in the field. They get to about 80% of their full moisture level and you want to get them off the bine and help them finish the drying process. Once harvested you dry the hops to roughly 8-8.5% moisture content.
What gives the hops their flavoring quality is the lupulin inside the cone between the leaves. You want to get rid of a lot of the moisture because it can casue off-flavors in your beer due to oxidation and decomosition. We use the UVM moisture calculator to calculate the moisture in our hops as we harvest and dry them.
Brewers can use wet hops to brew beer if they have it available. They have to use more because the flavors are not as concentrated and they have to make up for all the water weight. Dried hops are more valuable because (ideally) they have been preserved at their peak flavor and the variables that cause off-flavors have been mitigated or eliminated. There is definitely a lot of art and science to all this (like everything on farm) and it takes some skill to get it right. I am still learning for sure.
The estimations for what you can produce from a hop yard per acre vary depending on who is giving you the number, where you are growing it, how you are growing it, etc... We estimate that when the hop yard is full of plants and all of them are fully grown we will yeild around 3000 pounds of wet hops. We have 1.4 acres and will have roughly 1400 plants.
For this years' budget however we are definitely not at peak production. I anticipate we will get about 1000 pounds of wet hops this year.
Whether you are starting or running a hop yard there is a lot of labor. Even just walking around to check for pests and problems takes a lot of time. It is just like any other plant that you might grow on farm. They require love, attention, and a heavy dose of understanding. There are pests, nutrient imbalances ordeficiencies, and of course the dreaded downy mildew.
With such a small yard we don't benefit from doing anything at a large scale. Most of the work we do in the hop yard right now is by hand or with simple tools. We train by hand, prune by hand, and trellis by hand. All the manure spreading, ammendment spraying, and over-all care is done in a simple and kind of inefficient manner.
As the yard develops we are going to better track the labor necessary so we canplan out our labor better in the future. A good thing about the hop yard is that even though it is 1.4 acres, all the plants are basically the same. That means it can be easy to train in a group to a task and set them loose.
Even though we are managing the hop yard according to the organic standards there are still things we have to do to ammend the soil and assist the plants as they grow up to be the hearty beasts they become by harvest time. We ran soils tests earlier this year and we are are a little too acidic at 5.7 so we will be adding lime to get us up closer to 7 where hops are happier. We also usecertain foliar sprays like fish emulsion for a boost of nitrogen when the plants are younger, we use OMRI approved pesticides though we do use them sparingly. As in only if we really really need them.
I apologize that this is a very basic and very vague overview of how we are growing hops. This blogpost is about the budget for the year and not meant to go into real detail about our growing practices. I will be posting videos and other content as the year goes on about our hops operation and all the other things we do on farm. If there are any specific questions or if there is anything you would really like to see this year please leave a message in the comments section below.
Besides the hops themselves there are other products you can get from humulus lupulus. We have made wreaths from the bines, propagated and sold hop plant starts, and even gone so far asto experiment making tinctures with the hop flowers as a medicinal herb. It can be used as a sleep aid, can be used in soaps and shampoos and in cooking as hop herb butter.
The possibilities are only limited byyour imagination. It is good practice on farm to get all that you can from the things that you grow. We will be testing our market with different products to see what is successful and year to year get better at making the most out of our hop harvest.
There are a lot of mistakes you can make when starting a farm. It is part of the learning process. No one is going to do it perfectly and we can all learn and grow as farmers by sharing our hard lessons learned with each other so that we are not all making the same mistakes. In short order here are a few things we would do better when starting the hop farm.
There are some good stories with each of these examples and I will go into them as the year goes on. One of the best places to follow along with Farm Marketing Solutions and thus my farm is through the FMS YouTube Channel. Subscribe and get updates when I post new videos (if that's your thing).
Hops need a lot of love and attention. Because we are a very diversified farm there can be things that get over-looked on farm. Livestock has always taken prescidence because we won't let the animals suffer at all because we're "too busy". As we move forward we are more actively planning out time to observe the farm and make sure we are doing all that is required for optimal health of the plants and animals.
In the coming years I plan on having the rest of the hop yard planted where we haveempty spots, we will increase plant health and yeilds, and we will build a community of people involved in the hop yard to help us keep labor costs down.
All of my record keeping this year will come into play as we launch the Farm Finance Challenge on Farm Marketing Solutions. I will be publicly publishing my production and financial records on the blog to share with other farmers so that we can all learn from each other and hopefully save a few people from making the same mistakes that I have.
There are a dozen other farms that are joining Camps Road Farm in the Challenge and that is quite amazing!!! Starting 2/9/2015 follow along each month as I publish my records and then the next day publish everyone else's numbers. I am really excited for the transparency and the community that I know will grow from the project. At the end of the day we're doing it to keep ourselves accountable and to support beginning farmers with the power of knowledge.


Chinese Herbology is the theory of Traditional Chinese herbal therapy, which accounts for the majority of treatments in Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Traditional Chinese Medicine has its origin in ancient Taoist philosophy which views a person as an energy system in which body and mind are unified, each influencing and balancing the other. Unlike allopathic medicine which attempts to isolate and separate a disease from a person, Chinese Medicine emphasizes a holistic approach that treats the whole person. Many people have found Traditional Chinese methods of healing to be excellent tools for maintaining optimum health and preventing illness.


The Engine 2 Diet was created by Rip Esselstyn, a former firefighter. This diet is a plant based diet.
"Go Plant Strong" is the diet slogan. Rip based this diet around his inspiration by his father's research to treat heart disease with nutrition. The diet is a 28 day weight loss plan that puts emphasis on plants. It offers two approaches, the Fire Cadet which is gradual, or the Fire fighter which is more extreme.
The Fire Cadet plan removes unhealthy foods over time and replaces them with nutritious alternatives.
1st week: Eliminate processed foods, refined foods and dairy. This includes foods like soda, chips, pasta, and white bread.
2nd week: Eliminate animal products such as fish, chicken, eggs, and meat.
3rd week: Remove added or extracted oils such as olive, coconut,and canola.
4th week: Build on weeks 1-3 by adding more fruits, vegetables, and legumes.
The fire fighter eliminates animal products and refined foods at the very beginning.
Scratch It & Find Out - Scratch It to reveal Big Savings on Diet Meal Delivery from BistroMD.com.
Any canned or packaged food containing more than 2.5 grams of fat per 100-calorie serving.
You are encouraged to have no alcohol, one drink of wine per day if necessary.
The Engine 2 Diet is a vegetarian, vegan diet or will be by week two.
Rip suggests that we exercise 5 or more times per week for 10-45 minutes per session. A four week exercise plan is included in the Engine 2 diet book.
L: Mixing Bowl Salad - in a big bowl - add your greens, veggies, beans, fruit etc.
4 weeks of the Engine 2 Diet Meal Plans and Shopping Lists.
No meat, no dairy, no sugars, no sweets, no eggs, no fish may be a problem for many of us.
You will need to plan and prepare meals.
You will need to add a supplement with B-12, D, and omega 3.
A superb diet but difficult.
The Engine 2 Diet is a very healthy diet and will help you to lose weight. It is also a hard diet to stay with. If you choose this diet, be careful not to load up on starches and be sure to get enough protein. I give this diet a thumbs up because it is such a healthy diet, but I do NOT recommend that you add it to your weight loss choices. The reason is due to its level of difficulty.
You should always consult your health care provider before making changes that may affect your health, but if you have medical conditions such as Diabetes Type 2, heart disease, high blood pressure, or high cholesterol, this diet may be worth considering. It should get you off any medications in a short time and dramatically improve how you good you feel.
Use This Code at Checkout to save 20%!


Valentine's Day is just around corner and it's time to roll the sleeves and prepare some super delicious dessert for our loved one. Heart – shaped desserts can be bought all over the city, so why not take some inspiration for cooking at home?
In this article we are sharing ten of the most loveliest and delicious cookies inspired by Valentine's Day. Double chocolate or pudding, Linzer or cookie sandwiches, it's just up to you to scroll along, get inspired by love and choose your favorite dessert!
These cookies are the type of cookies that give those home-sweet-home vibes. Sometimes you don't need to experiment, but keep to the traditional recipes such as this one – the deliciousness is guaranteed. What's better than heart – shaped sugar cookies with your favorite jam, dusted with confectioner's sugar? If you like the good old Linzer cookies, then this is your recipe.
Soft, buttery cookies with frosting is such a classic Valentine's Day recipe, but honestly who can resist? They're the type of cookies that everyone wants to try and then have some more! Since it's the love holiday we're talking about, you can get a little bit creative when it comes to the frosting and the decorating – a pink frosting with tiny edible hearts will do the trick, right?
Chocolate pudding cookies? Yes, please! These are going to be the perfect treat you can come up with if you and your beloved one love chocolate. What makes them even more delicious are the M&M's inspired by Valentine's Day, used for batter ingredient plus for topping – chocolate and M&M's are a well – known dessert combination. Add some red and pink sprinkles and you're ready.
Cookie sandwiches are such a delicious classic dessert. Heart – shaped for Valentine's and your treat is ready! These are made with a sugar cookie mix, so make sure to pick your favorite and prepare a creamy frosting as well. This is a budget – friendly recipe that will take about an hour to prepare all the cookies and there will be plenty of them!
Here's another heart – shape cookie recipe, but this one is the healthiest on the list and it's perfect for vegans. The recipe makes about 24 one inch heart – shaped cookie sandwiches made with so many tasty ingredients! For this recipe you need Medjool dates, sunflower seeds, walnuts, raw cacao powder and vanilla extract. In between the layers, there's amazing raspberry filling.
Don't you just love peanut butter, especially when you eat it together with chocolate? These cookies are ideal for you then, as you will get to eat the perfect peanut butter sugar cookies with pressed heart – shape chocolates. They are ready in less than one hour and we're pretty sure that thanks to their deliciousness they will be gone in such a short time!
Pretzels are known as one of the best snacks ever, but have you ever considered to make a dessert with them? They add such a crispiness, and thanks to that contrast in the flavors, your dessert can be quite delicious! This recipe is the most budget – friendly on the list, as all you need are two ingredients – pretzels and red candy melts.
Any fans of strawberries? For this recipe, you need just three ingredients for the cookies – a package of strawberry cake mix, eggs and a cup of shortening. However, these cookies aren't special if you don't make a sandwich out of them. So, for that cause prepare a great filling using these ingredients – cream cheese, butter, vanilla and powdered sugar.
Valentine's Day seems like a good day for some fortune cookies right? Especially if it's just a good fortune there to foretell. For these cookies, you might have a little trouble while folding the baked cookies into fortune cookies, but after few tries this will be easier and you can easily make them. Aren't these the cutest Valentine's Day cookies?
And our last recipe means plenty of chocolate – chocolate cookies with chocolate filling, dipped in chocolate with plenty of sprinkles! These not only taste the best, but they also look so satisfying that will simply be not possible to try one… And then go on with few more of these, because let's face it – who doesn't like chocolate desserts?


text:
Making of Shakthi V. – A Social Media Influencer
February 7, 2017 by Aafreen Ansari
"I was born in 1972, apparently not a good phase for medical services in India.
When I was of 3 and a half months, I got a normal fever. Everything was okay until the age of 6. But then I had a fever again and this time, it was quite severe. It lasted 7 days and I lost consciousness after the third day. My parents took me to a doctor.
Penicillin was newly introduced in that time. So the doctors wanted to use it more often. In that attempt, the doctor gave me an overdose, enough penicillin for four people. It so happened that I was allergic to penicillin right from birth. So then instead of fever going away, it shot up. I lost whatever consciousness I had. My mom became really scared, so she took me to another doctor.
The second doctor declared me dead after examination and moved me to the mortuary. He asked my parents to get 6000 rs for claiming the body. In that time, since it was quite a big amount, it took them half a day to arrange the money. When they came back, the mortuary attendee told my parents –
"I don't think your child is dead yet. I have put him on another table. And I think he is breathing."
My parents then came inside and found that the dead body wasn't quite dead yet. What they did not know was that I had regained consciousness a couple of hours before they came in. That's a very bad place for a 6-year-old to regain consciousness. Took me 5 years to get this incident out of my head.
"Mortuary is a very bad place for a 6-year-old to regain consciousness."
The 2nd doctor stuck to his diagnosis that all my vital organs were at a zero. And he had no idea how I had regained consciousness. Parents took me to doc 3. By that time, my right hand and leg had swollen completely. The doctor flat-out said to my parents "This kid is going to be a vegetable for the rest of his life – he will not speak, or respond to any kind of stimulus ever in his life. Instead of having him in your home, you should go drop him at an Ashram somewhere and have another kid." All this, while I was sitting there right in front of him.
My mom got very upset, but she refused to give up on me. She told the doctor that if my kid can wake up from a dead state in a mortuary, he definitely is destined to do something in his life.
She took me home. We went to the fourth doctor. My swelling had subsided by then but I couldn't move my hand or leg. On examining my condition, the doctor told my parents about the overdose of Penicillin and that it had screwed with my nervous system and my motor nerves were affected. My right limbs became paralyzed and the base area of my spine got affected with it. And they have been paralyzed ever since."
– Shakthi V.
~ these are the lines by Shakthi V, whose son is his superhero, and who himself is a mentor to startups and is a celebrity on twitter.
Going back to School –
He couldn't stand up, but he insisted on going back to school like any normal kid saying that if others can move on their twos, he would move on his fours. Neither his friends nor his school had any problem with his condition. Moreover, he used to always top his class. His school & CBSE gave him a scholarship till 10th std and his mom didn't have to pay anything for his school fee.
When he reached the age of 10 or 11, his parents found out about a doctor who had flown to Chennai from the US. He suggested a surgery which would help him to at least stand up a bit and move around while wearing calipers. Calipers were made out of iron in those days and they used to have sharp edges. While sitting down, if you moved your leg, those sharp edges would poke your skin, causing it to bleed. He used to bleed from afternoon till evening. After a couple of months, he decided to take them off and continue his studies in his normal physical state.
College –
While figuring out what to do next in life, he got a lot of suggestions from a lot of people because of his disability.
Of course, they were to open an STD booth, or become an accountant for a company, become a teacher or better yet, to go and join an Ashram. He took neither of these and decided to pursue engineering and study computer science. Getting there was tough because he got a seat in an engineering college in Selum which was far away from his home in Chennai. His parents became worried because of this, and also because the college was not quite accessible. It was on a hill with a rocky terrain, and a lot of steps in the way while entering or even while going to the washroom.
He still insisted his parents on joining that college because he did not want to give it up because of his limitations. His parents got him a house not far away from the college. With slight modifications here and there, he made it through four years of engineering. And not just made it, he also got the highest score in his university for Discrete Mathematics!
His friends helped him out to move around wherever possible, because India, in the late 80's wasn't what we could call 'accessible'. So the buses or any public transport or the basic amenities were hard to get for any individual with a special condition.
But accepting all of that, Shakthi looks back to his college days and says that yes, it is difficult but if you think about it, anything worth doing doesn't come without difficulties.
Further Studies –
After finishing college, the suggestions again flowed in that now that he is done with his whim of doing engineering, he should go and take up that job of accounting or teaching.
At that time, BITS Pilani had come to their campus with a drive for Masters. They took his interview and his project was AI – he wrote an expert system. They offered him to do his masters with them as they were really impressed by his work and skills. He accepted their offer.
Shakthi happily says that they were the first institute in India to address the issues of accessibility for the special needs students. They gave him a room that best suited his needs and rearranged the classes such that he didn't have to move around a lot. They even made the classes non-mandatory for him, as long as his grades were not affected. He happily says that out of a 5 point CGPA, he scored 4.7!
Career and Early Jobs –
SSI – Software Solutions Incorporated was setting up in India and they needed someone to manage their data center in Chennai. He was appointed there as a Unix System Admin and was later made the in charge of networking.
Cisco was setting up their office in Bangalore and they came to SSI to learn Sybase. Shakthi and the India head of Cisco used to have daily conversations. At the end of their two months course, he offered Shakti to be the Networking Specialist at Cisco in San Francisco. He took up the offer and cleared all the rounds of interviews.
One thing lead to another and he went on to becoming one of the first 15 Indians to clear a CCI – Cisco Certified Internetworking expert. He became a technical expert at Cisco in a bunch of things.
He then continued to work in network and communications for a while before shifting to India and becoming a Social Media Influencer.
source: SMWi Blr
Life as of today –
On recalling his childhood, he says that after getting wheelchair bound, for the first six months he felt like his life had ended. Because he had to depend on other people to carry out his basic human activities. He couldn't go his favorite place – the terrace anymore without asking someone for help.
Today he has around 163k twitter followers and gets around 3 million average monthly impressions on his tweets. He also mentors startups about marketing on a regular basis. He has even helped the prime minister to set up the social media campaign of #startupindia.
Shakthi also runs a website – thequill.in where he critically reviews upcoming smartphones & other hardware products. Shakthi is a well-known speaker in the marketing summits of India and around the world. He quotes –
Your disability is like a stone. If you pick it up and hold it close to your face, it will block your vision and will be the only thing you'll see. But if you let it stay on the ground, after a point of time, you won't even notice that it's there.
It took him more than three years to wrap his mind around his condition. But then he chose to pick the option of adapting to his condition and making the best use of it.
He credits his mother for being his biggest support. Shakthi quotes his mom saying "You have the best brains in the family, try to use it. It's a virtue and it will get you from point A to point B and further in your life."
He shares his lesson that he focused on where he wanted to get rather than how he got there. This thinking helped him to think of his limitations as minor hindrances in his journey of becoming who he wanted. And he directed all his focus into learning and moving ahead in his life.
Tags: disability, entrepreneur, influencer, shakthi, social media, twitter
Aafreen Ansari
Poet by nature and entrepreneur by profession, I love to read books and draw inspiration from Neruda and Rumi. Believing in the positivity of life, I aspire to change the world with my work and words.
Special Olympics – An Olympic of Intellectually Disabled
India's 73 Medals in The Special Olympics – World Winter Games 2017
The story of Madras Dyslexia Association
It's a 'Special' Valentine's!
Story of Maddie – A passionate musician


Dubai Garden Glow Colorful Night was the 8th part of 11 major tourist attractions my family have been in the 2017 Winter United Arab Emirates.
I am a regular reader of this blog and never ever get disappointed! They are always up with something new and amazing stuff!


text:
Q: Folder are file not zipping I have implemented Zip a folder or file then download and saving it to memory.
My problem is, it is downloading without any error but i am not getting Zip file, and if i click on downloaded file it is showing:

Can't show

Or

Can't display message.

My code:
String fileName = tvtitle.getText().toString();
        String fileExtension = tvtype.getText().toString();
        File imageDirectory = new File(Path);
        imageDirectory.mkdirs();
        int fileLength = connection.getContentLength();
        String _path = Path;
        input = connection.getInputStream();
        File outputFile = new File(_path, fileName + fileExtension);
        FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(outputFile);
        ZipOutputStream zos = new ZipOutputStream(fos);
        File srcFile = new File(input.toString());
        byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
        zos.putNextEntry(new ZipEntry(srcFile.getName()));
        int length;
        while ((length = input.read(buffer)) > 0) {

            zos.write(buffer, 0, length);

        }
        zos.closeEntry();
        input.close();
        zos.close();

A: I just don't know what is the type of this variable "input"
I think you should have FileInputStream (reading source file) to be paired with FileOutputStream (set to destination/zip file).
And this line of code:
File outputFile = new File(_path, fileName + fileExtension);

Your output must be .zip file right?
so, it should be:
File outputFile = new File(_path, fileName + ".zip");

or something similar
And it will be like this
String fileName = tvtitle.getText().toString();
String fileExtension = tvtype.getText().toString();
File imageDirectory = new File(Path);
FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(imageDirectory);
ZipEntry zipEntry = new ZipEntry(fileName);

FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream("test.zip");
ZipOutputStream zos = new ZipOutputStream(fos);
zos.putNextEntry(zipEntry);
byte[] bytes = new byte[1024];
int length;
    while ((length = fis.read(bytes)) >= 0) {
        zos.write(bytes, 0, length);
    }
zos.closeEntry();
fis.close();
zos.close();
fos.close();

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Only a bit over three months left of 2018 and the silly season is almost upon us. Everyone in Australia knows that the country shuts down in early November with the Melbourne Cup and doesn't start up again until the end of January.
As I don't go to the races, have no travel plans for the summer and don't drink alcohol this annual idiocy-fest should not affect me. But I am filled with fear and trepidation because I have so many writing projects which were going to be released "by the end of the year". Score so far: NIL.
It's not as if I haven't written them. Almost all have been through several edits, I have a production method in hand, cover artists lined up … one final edit each, I say to myself, and they will be ready to go. I so much want to do this, because there are new writing projects I want to start. Sure, there are lots of things that get in the way of finishing books, ordinary life stuff. That's bad enough. But now I am suffering a crisis of confidence. Maybe I should just embrace the silly season and forget about writing altogether, apart from dumb "Season's Greeting" cards. Or I should take a leaf out of my own (unpublished) cook book and get going on the cakes and puddings. At least I could sell them at a cake stall!
A few short years ago independent publishing seemed so clearly the way to go. But it seems more and more difficult to get any purchase at all with the reading (buying) public without a huge effort in marketing strategy and general non-writing activity. Writing itself takes second place. I need to get serious, not about writing, but about the "writing career".
Everyone says you have to do it, and lots of people tell you how. Using the Internet strategically is obviously top of the list these days. Don't get me wrong, I love the Internet and have done ever since it debuted back in prehistory, well, the early 90s or whenever it was. I love my blogs, both the writing and art sites, it feels truly creative putting them together, but I do that because I love it, not to build a following or expand an email list. I am a member of the Alliance of Independent Authors and they put out some great stuff. but tweeting is troppo mucho and Facebook gives me a kind of hysterical indigestion, yes, I know, I shouldn't have subscribed to those I-Love-Cats sites but there was a reason for that, believe it or not, although I won't go into it here.
No, the real problem is I can't wholly see myself as someone "building a writing career". I am a writer, I love to write, writing is what I do. If I have any time at all, like those precious two or so hours before the world wakes up in the morning, I want to spend it writing or editing or thinking about better turns of phrases for titles or thinking about how to improve a story or how to introduce some new themes. I don't want to spend it building my email list or tweeting or whatever. It's bad enough that I have had to go through so much time just working out how to produce a workable manuscript which will go through the publication process smoothly, and identifying useful information sites to follow. But now I see I have to see I have to Put Myself Out There as well.
This morning I came across an article by Wendy Jones called How Being an Opportunist Helps Build Your Writing Career (republished 5 September 2018) here.
This article really made me realise that I just didn't have the right frame of mind to be a successful Independent Author. Just not opportunistic enough. Read it and weep!
On the other hand maybe I should go to the Melbourne Cup and hand out leaflets urging punters to buy my books! Now that's an opportunity.
After life as an anthropologist, including years of fieldwork in remote Australia and Southeast Asia, I am now working on painting, photography, art and cinema and publishing fiction, memoir and children's stories. I spend most of my time in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney and at a house on the Hawkesbury River, where my family has lived since 1923.
Previous: Amazon creates NoSpace for Australian authors: Ingram Spark to the rescue?
Next: More on opportunism: hire an actor!