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Categories Airtel DigitalTechnology News
Reliance Jio Set-Top Box and Airtel Xstream Have This One Major Difference: Check What it Is
Finally, on September 5, the Mukesh Ambani led telecom operator announced the pricing of its much-awaited JioFiber services. This fibre-to-the-home service, however, does not only bring broadband to the homes of the customers but also brings many other things with it like the Jio Home Gateway and the Jio Set-Top Box as well. But, only days before the launch of JioFiber, Airtel already played a defence move in the market by introducing its Xstream Box which is a Set-Top Box and Android TV console that gives the Jio Set-Top Box a firm competition. It is now the obvious question of the customers, which one of the two is the better offering and from an economic standpoint, will getting a JioFiber
connection make more sense? Let's check out what the facts say.
Reliance Jio Set-Top Box and Airtel Xstream Box Similarities
The first thing to note is the similarity between the two offerings which Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have introduced into the market. There are no two thoughts about the fact that Bharti Airtel has introduced the Xstream Box and the Xstream Stick as a means to overshadow the launch of JioFiber. Both of these consoles, the Jio Set-Top Box and the Xstream Box have many overlapping features. The two consoles provide Satellite TV and over-the-top applications as well. On taking a much deeper look, it becomes clear that Airtel Xstream Box is possibly the only set-top box in the market right now which can give a tough competition to Reliance Jio's Set-Top Box, the reason being that there are no consoles in the market right now which would pair Satellite TV and OTT applications in a well-rounded manner as these two offerings do.
Where Does Reliance Jio Set-Top Box Get Competition?
There was one way that the Reliance Jio Set-Top Box could have left the Airtel Xstream Box far behind, and that was if Reliance Jio was shipping a free TV connection with its offerings. Initially, it was expected that Reliance Jio would offer the IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) with its JioFiber service, but later the telco revealed that the subscribers would have to get a separate connection to watch TV with the Jio Set-Top Box.
Airtel Xstream STB vs Reliance Jio Set-Top Box Pricing and Features
It is worth noting that both of these consoles come loaded with the respective OTT apps like Jio TV, JioCinema, for Jio Set-Top Box, and the Airtel Xstream Box comes with Airtel Xstream App. This is besides the other OTT apps like Netflix, ZEE5 and more. There is also no lack of Live TV channels available through these apps. However, the major difference between the two comes in pricing as the Airtel Xstream Box is available for Rs 3,999 for the new consumers whereas for the Airtel Digital TV existing subscribers an upgrade to this console would cost Rs 2,249. On the other hand, as part of the Welcome Offer, Reliance Jio is offering the Jio Set-Top Box free of cost to its subscribers with a JioFiber connection. Reliance Jio has claimed that the Jio Set-Top Box is worth Rs 6,500, so when the telco starts charging for its STB, the compass might turn in favour of Airtel. Right now keeping both the features and pricing in mind, getting a Reliance Jio Set-Top Box to combine with an LCO connection seems like the best choice for the consumers.
Arpit spends his day closely following the telecom and tech industry. A music connoisseur and a night owl, he also takes a deep interest in the Indian technology start-up scene and spends rest of his time spilling poetry and stories on paper.
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Arts & Culture, Editor's Pick, Fiction, Literature, Reviews, Translations
BOOK REVIEW: WAKE ME UP AT 9 IN THE MORNING
by Barbara Wheatley
• January 5, 2023 January 5, 2023
Crime is deliberate, causing physical or psychological harm and damage to people and property, and is illegal. Where there is crime there is punishment. And where there is a perpetrator there is a victim. This also manifests curiosity and speculation. Moving oneself out of a comfort zone, to immerse oneself instead in an underworld of Chinese crime only to lose oneself there. But can crime be different the world over?
Theft is the most popular crime and indeed it is theft that features heavily in this novel. Behind the simplest of red covers and title fonts, the author of Wake Me Up At 9:00 In The Morning, A Yi, is already noted for his "unsentimental world view" and "challenging literary style." His style can seem a bit weird, but it works – it is fine to mix existing genres, and to cross borders in genre, in order to create something new. A Yi has, however, taken it further to produce something experimental. Will most readers have ever read anything similar? Probably not. In his choice of characters, who are members of clans, (including the Ai), setting (rural life in an Aiwan countryside and village) and time period, A Yi has combined elements of what he loves with his own life and work experience.
Interestingly, the novel started life three years ago and is available in Italian and Chinese, which makes me wonder about the translation of a translation of a translation and how different the telling might be. Here we have a male author and a female translator and together they have constructed the novel to greatest possible effect. A Yi is part of a literary set and takes his writing very seriously. He was inspired to write Wake Me Up by the bleak view of humanity he witnessed in his career as a detective. Under the pen name A Yi, he is best placed to describe crime and re-enact it in the pages of a novel. We as readers likewise play detective and aim to work things out for ourselves, joining dots and spotting clues of which there are almost too many. At times, perhaps, the imparted knowledge of a detective in his first full length novel is not so easily transferrable to a reader. Moments in time are played out meticulously moment by moment. It's what you don't see or read that is more telling, hence the need for joining dots.
My interview with Nicky Harman, the prize-winning translator of this novel with 25 years of Chinese contemporary fiction behind her, is a joy and a privilege. She explains her top tip – that the accuracy of the translation lies in reflecting the style of the writing. She first considers what is actually being said, and the effect of why it is so. There are multiple things at play because, as translator, she needs to know what A Yi wants to do and say and why, as well as taking on board any sentimental threads. Due to its deliberately experimental style, there are ambiguities that needed to be toned down for the Chinese market as it was far more gruesome in its original form. I am one who loves ambiguity, but it is not clear at times where one character's voice ends and the other begins, so a little of the impact is lost. Nicky would describe her translation as being "rendered" rather than embellished. She likes to see herself as an "intermediary between cultures" and has "the privilege of showing others what exists in other cultures." I cannot disagree. As for the editing of the translation, she explains that her editor becomes her best friend.
The characters and place names are perhaps difficult to digest at first, but the beauty of the language is largely due to the translation. Language is exquisitely woven into events with the story being told by several narrators over five sections of the book. A Yi is deft in his creativity and Harman provides us with as beautiful a prose as possible and in this, they become writing partners in crime.
In keeping a man's notoriety alive (despite being found dead by his lover), we are invested from the start. At the funeral of chief mobster Hongyang, circumstance and action come at once. Tastes and smells abound as does touch. The event becomes an opportunity for characters and community to come together, although not necessarily out of respect for the deceased, and get caught in the hustle and bustle (where it is described as "a herd of migrating water buffalo") whilst being given a chance to say their piece.
Is there a longing for connection? In the sense of community, of village and non-fictional village life, yes, as it is brought to the surface through humanity, death, marriage, family, camaraderie and loyalty. But the novel makes a huge emotional impact on the reader with issues of criminalisation of gang members and women, prostitution, vice, greed, addiction, respect, disrespect, trickery, corruption, debauchery, lies, money, and revenge. A Yi hereby showcases humanity not only at its best but also at its worst. As a female reader I was particularly drawn to the misogyny which is rife. Were the novel to be written today it may, perhaps, be different, given the progress society has since made. It is also written pre-pandemic, so again might look different through a post-pandemic lens.
The novel is indeed graphic in its detail, but it needs to be, to properly portray the underworld scene. The author is clever, however, at knowing the limits, and often despite the minutiae, elements are skilfully left to the imagination through layered detail. Better still, with the advent of cult viewing such as "Parasite" and "Squid Game," or Spain's "Money Heist," there is a feeling that this book could quite easily become cult reading and viewing itself. Think also Brett Easton Ellis's "American Psycho."
The story is also driven by obvious conflict. Whether internal or external, it is how A Yi brings his tale together. The very opening line, set in the present day, "Xu Yousheng was to hear a lot more about Jin Yan when he arrived in Aiwan" immediately places the reader at the heart of an internal conflict.
Quite early on, the book title begins to make sense. There was a controversial reference to Jorge Luis Borges being behind the original title. A Yi himself tells me that the novel was originally called "Mud and Blood," which is a metaphor for a person's filth and cruelty. The title eventually used, although reasonably bland, does nonetheless imply an ending – that the protagonist does not wake up as expected. It was inspired by the phrase in a Borges dialogue with his rival Sabato, where they talk about what's real and what is a dream. But it was also based on a tale heard by A Yi's friend at her grandmother's house about a man who had died drunk, which is not that uncommon an occurrence. Pitching this whodunnit with an ambiguous title works; the tale is thereby still unexpected. As Nicky Harman says, "the difference is that there is much more than crime in A Yi's stories, but they do all contain crime."
A Yi cleverly processes information into short stories first. Is it A Yi's real world? Has he created a superficial reality? Does anyone lead a normal life? What is external happiness and duty, and what is domestic happiness? Power is at play – followers, subordinates, enemies, supporters, rivals, schemers, family and friends all make up the community which A Yi created and which the character Hongyang made and leaves behind. Hopefuls are in line to try to take over from him and almost re-position themselves within the community to do the same or different or better – or worse – but there is clearly only one Hongyang; I believe the community to be spherical in its existence. "Hongyang had looked daggers at you, even as a little kid. A person like that was born once in a generation." Nicky Harman confirms there was always some good to be found in Hongyang – despite the dirty dealings.
Symbolism, philosophy and mythology form a huge part of Chinese culture and feed the writing of each chapter. The Underworld referred to is not the afterlife, although, in Chinese mythology, there are 18 levels of hell (which reminds me of a staircase in ascending or descending order of seriousness of a crime). How many crimes have been committed exactly? They are interlinked, interwoven and countless, committed one within the other.
Upon investigation and closer inspection, the nucleus of the story lies dead centre of the book, although it's possible not to approach the novel as a whole, due its complexities. Chapters 17 and 18 for example are deliberately self-contained, in which a psychopathic waitress goes on a killing rampage. This supports A Yi's preferred method of writing in short story form first. He got the idea from working magazine journalism where effectively a supplement was stapled to the middle of the magazine. The creativity to resemble what he knew by inserting such an idea is nothing short of genius. It further explores the writing form and pushes boundaries, creating something entirely conceptual.
Reading this novel calls to my own mind some kind of omniscient mind map, with landscape, characters and crimes carefully plotted. Within each description there could well be a clue. We ask ourselves who's connected to who, which explains the need for a character list, that reads like a screenplay, and not just in terms of family or friendships. In this mind map chapters 17 and 18 are at the centre and everything explodes outwards from there.
One scene stands out for its descriptive scene setting and could resemble the likes of a gamblers' den found more typically in gangster films:
"The chandelier looked like an anchor. The lamp base …. spray-painted to look like it belonged in a European country house. It was lit by six coffee-shop-style bulbs, each emitting a warm golden glow like everlasting candles, and Hongliang* often raised his tall, amber-stemmed glass …. sipped his brandy, to the accompaniment of Fleetwood Mac on the sound system. The vocals…. gradually eclipsed during the song as the instrumental took over, making you feel weightless, as if suspended over a waterfall."
* Hongyang's cousin
Take note of the double-entendres here, of the imagery, simile and metaphor, because they recur throughout the book. The scene links the reader to a more popular European setting rather than one that is culturally Chinese. The novel, however, has its own defined sense of place and showcases Chinese human nature. It is greater than the sum of its gruesome parts. There is irony in something so gruesome being described so beautifully. Violence, Harman explains, is difficult to deal with, so one learns to step back and put any personal feelings on a backburner to re-address later. Wake Me Up points out that "we all know that every event has one outcome but many causes."
I undoubtedly ask questions of this novel, but one thing is certain: I will not look at Chinese culture the same way again. As a reader it has been put on my map and perhaps that is the whole point. It becomes more of a popular manifestation, mentioning for example yin and yang (opposite but interconnected forces – and maybe no coincidence that a main female character has the name Jin Yan), and feng shui. Even the featured mah-jong tile-based game is used as metaphor for "following the rules of the game of life."
Ultimately this is a policeman with a story, wearing a journalist's hat, an amalgam of fictional and non-fictional experiences and it is the continued fascination of wanting to go back to pages in case you've missed something – to check back on detail or to find a missed clue – that make the combination so powerful. Unlike its opening, the book has a more open-ended closing sentence, leaving us with another dot to join.
Wake me Up At 9 In The Morning
By A Yi
Translated from the Chinese by Nicky Harman
One World, 416 pages
Barbara Wheatley
Barbara has a longstanding passion for language and the written word. A reader who writes, and a writer who reads, she freelanced her way in London for 8 years in PR, writing promotional campaigns, press releases, copy, slogans, etc., within the music and entertainment industry. She last promoted PR packages within the Press Association before full-time motherhood allowed Barbara to pursue her interest in Creative Writing. This creative enthusiasm led to 3 unfinished fiction novels. Now a mum to 3 teens, she has been a student on college and university courses as well as workshops and festivals, independently and online. A move to Devon saw her first flash fiction submission longlisted then shortlisted. Her work has regularly been published on Friday Flash Fiction (which also appears on Twitter) and has appeared on Paragraph Planet and several collections of new writing. In the pursuit of her true writing voice, she concentrates nowadays on Creative Non Fiction, where her experience and portfolio of work steers her organically towards memoir, essay-writing, journalism and reviews. On her writing to do list are more submissions and a blog; her TBR pile is ever-expanding. She is new to social media, but still into music, and a keen photographer, into pre-loved stuff and mental wellbeing, she is proud to have recently become a Litro contributor. Links to stories; http://www.paragraphplanet.com/jan1621.gif https://www.fridayflashfiction.com/longer-stories/birthday-days-by-barbara-wheatley https://www.fridayflashfiction.com/100-word-stories/hand-on-heart-by-barbara-wheatley https://www.fridayflashfiction.com/100-word-stories/on-the-horizon-by-barbara-wheatley https://www.fridayflashfiction.com/100-word-stories/clothesline-by-barbara-wheatley https://www.fridayflashfiction.com/100-word-stories/parking-meter-by-barbara-wheatley https://www.fridayflashfiction.com/100-word-stories/chocolate-box-by-barbara-wheatley https://www.fridayflashfiction.com/100-word-stories/way-to-go-by-barbara-wheatley https://www.fridayflashfiction.com/100-word-stories/potato-cakes-by-barbara-wheatley https://www.fridayflashfiction.com/100-word-stories/about-flash-fiction-by-barbara-wheatley https://www.fridayflashfiction.com/100-word-stories/gone-with-the-wind-by-barbara-wheatley https://www.fridayflashfiction.com/100-word-stories/case-study-body-parts-by-barbara-wheatley https://www.fridayflashfiction.com/100-word-stories/hope-by-barbara-wheatley http://www.paragraphplanet.com/jan1621.gif https://www.fridayflashfiction.com/100-word-stories/postcard-news-by-barbara-wheatley https://www.fridayflashfiction.com/longer-stories/come-home-by-barbara-wheatley https://www.fridayflashfiction.com/longer-stories/oh-potter-by-barbara-wheatley
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Towards the Flame: Empire, War and the End of Tsarist Russia
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Katharine Whalen is a musician, singer, and songwriter originally from Greenville, North Carolina. She contributed vocals, banjo, and ukulele as a member of the Chapel Hill jazz band Squirrel Nut Zippers, a group that she founded in 1993 with then-husband Jimbo Mathus.

After the breakup of Squirrel Nut Zippers, Whalen released an album on Mammoth called Katharine Whalen's Jazz Squad. She took part in revival Zippers revival tours during the years 2007–09. Since then she has been a member of the bands Swedish Wood Patrol and Certain Seas.

Solo discography
 Katharine Whalen's Jazz Squad (Mammoth Records, 1999)
 Dirty Little Secret (M.C. Records, 2006)
 Madly Love (Five Head Entertainment, 2011)
 Whaler's Ink (with Brian Risk, as Risk Whalen, 2014)

References

American banjoists
American ukulele players
People from Greenville, North Carolina
Musicians from North Carolina
Squirrel Nut Zippers members
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Thank you very much for having me present today.
To open with, however, I'd like to make the point that while we support efforts to make switching easier, the evidence shows that providing more information and a few prompts will not overcome consumers' perception that the potential benefits of switching are simply not worth it.
Sticking with the same product and provider can be a rational decision. Consumers should not be penalised for this loyalty; the result should be neutral at worst. Remedies that focus on prompting consumers to switch do not encourage firms to treat their existing customers fairly in the first place.
That said, we'd like to voice our support for the discussion and draft recommendation that strengthen the power of consumer choice in insurance. In 2015, Consumer Action called on insurers to be more upfront with yearly price rises on renewal notice. We surveyed the community and 86 per cent of those surveyed wanted the change.
We called on insurers to include on renewal notice not only the price of the premium for the forthcoming year, but also the price paid last year and the reason for any change. Unfortunately, there hasn't been any meaningful response from the industry. This change would do two things. First, particularly if the renewal discloses a premium increase, it would prompt people to question the value of the insurance and shop around. Second, information about the reasons for increased cost might help people take steps to mitigate the risk. For example, if they live in a cyclone prone area, they might learn about what changes they could make to their property to reduce the risk and premium.
We also strongly support the proposal to extend a deferred sales model to all add-on insurance products and sales channels. The harm caused by junk insurance is immense – in our submission to the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking & Finance Sector, we estimated that misconduct in add-on insurance is likely to have costed consumers over a billion dollars over the last ten years. That's money that should be returned to consumers' pockets.
Since 2016, we have run an online tool called Demand A Refund which enables people to complain about the sale of add-on insurance and request a refund from the insurer or financier. Almost $1m have been claimed through the site. While most of the complaints have related to car dealers, around 33 percent relate to other sales channels like banks or finance institutions. It is clear that harm is occurring in other sectors.
An effective deferred sales model will break the sale between the loan and insurance, reducing the opportunity for pressure. However, it is important that there is careful design of a deferred sales mechanism. Unless it is robust, there will be circumvention or regulatory gaming. We've already seen proposals for 'bridging' insurance covering the deferral period, which would establish a new opportunity for high-pressure selling.
Examination of gaming or circumvention is important, because the real core of the problem is commission selling. The use of commissions drive reverse competition, where insurers are competing for access to the market through car dealers, banks, or other sales channels. This additional cost does not deliver a public benefit. That is self-evident when we see claims ratios of less than 10 cents in the dollar. We would encourage the Commission to require industry to set claims ratios that deliver consumer value, and then demonstrate that they can meet those – a performance standard if you like. Such a reform would provide an incentive for insurers to compete in a way that benefits customers.
There are other products bundling practices in the finance sector that we consider should be examined as well. For example, the practice of bundling mortgages with credit cards. This is inherently anti-competitive as it hides the true cost, makes switching more difficult and raises responsible lending issues. An EU report from 2016 that collected and summarised the evidence on barriers to effective competition in the European mortgage market noted that it "did not find any compelling evidence that such practice was justified by efficiency purposes".
I would like to also voice support for the Commission's Draft Recommendation on home loan pricing disclosure. Unadvertised discounts are likely to mean that less savvy consumers end up paying higher rates, because they don't know to push their lender. As I said at the beginning, in a competitive market, people should not be punished for being less literate or engaged.
To make sure that publication of a benchmark rate or rates actually helps consumers, we would encourage this idea to be consumer-tested. We think that to be effective, it will need to be simple as possible to enable people to understand it. The Commission's draft recommendation talks of a tool which can respond to different combinations of loans or borrower characteristics. We suspect that the more complex this is, the less likely it will be used. Benchmarks work best for consumers when they are easy to understand and clear.
I'd like to respond to the Commission's recommendation around brokers and a proposed best interests duty. Brokers act as advisers to consumers, and the public expectation is that they are acting in the customer's interests, so this recommendation is very welcome. However, there is no clear policy reason for this only to apply to brokers owned by lenders. We consider that it should apply to all lenders. I must say that in our legal practice, we rarely see a broker sale add value to a consumer – rather the broker is used to find credit that is unaffordable.
We also support the view that mortgage broker commission structures weaken competition and switching. I'd like to particularly make a comment about clawbacks, which really are an anti-competitive exit fee in another guise. Exit fees on mortgages were outlawed in 2011. We've had complaints about clawbacks – on one occasion our client was unsatisfied with the service provided by the broker and wanted to refinance the loan again so as to no longer be associated with the broker. The broker later contacted the client advising that their commission had been clawed back by the lender and so the broker was in turn clawing it back from the borrower. The amount claimed by the broker was in excess of $2000, and requested within seven days. Clawbacks that charge a consumer should be banned.
Consumer Action is very supportive of the ePayments code being made mandatory, and consider that it can be strengthened. Mandating the ePayments code has been recommended by a number of inquiries, but we're yet to see it come into effect.
Liability arrangements or the ePayments code should be maintained and extended to Open Banking. The ePayments code includes the long-standing principle of banking law that the financial institution requires the mandate of its customer to validly debit an account, and that only in exceptional circumstances can a customer be held liable for unauthorised transactions on their account.
We do understand that Open Banking is to allow only read access to people's account, not write access, like in the UK. However, it is important that this sort of principle be maintained. Banks hold a position of trust, and it is not only fair but also efficient for them to be responsible for third party access to customer information or accounts. Banks are in a much better position to ensure security is robust.
The Final Report into Open Banking identified a scenario where a bank shares customer data with a third party, but the data is inaccurate, incomplete or misleading. The third party offers the customer a product based on misleading information and the customer suffers loss. The report says that the bank should not be liable for the product of the data recipient. This sort of outcome seems fundamentally unfair. Really, the principle should be that a bank is liable and it should seek recovery from the third party.
Finally, we'd like to make a few points about customer consent in a fast-moving market. We think it is a concept that needs to be fundamentally revisited. To really give consumers power in a competitive market, consent cannot be hidden in terms and conditions or through pre-ticked boxes. Consent to sharing data with third parties cannot be a condition of accessing a service or product. The Open Banking review did say that express customer consent should be explicit, fully informed and able to be permitted or constrained to the customer's instructions. We think it has to go further – consent must be separate, voluntary, clear, specific and time-limited. Consent also needs to be able to be withdrawn, and withdrawn simply. We would urge the Commission to recommend industry develop a standard to make sure consent operates pro-competitively, not anti-competitively.


Is it possible to create a 9×8 rectangle using all 72 Carcassonne tiles?
These are all the tiles used in the game. Let's get started!
Yea, of course possible, and if not a rectangle, there should be at least one formation of tiles that use all 72.
So I wanted to figure out all of the possible combinations to pave a rectangle. Here was my approach for a brute force algorithm.
Label all the tiles with what they contain, going clockwise from the north position.
For instance, the tile below will be labeled VRPR.
To take into account that the tiles can be rotated, we can shift letters in the label. The last tile rotated 90° clockwise makes it RVRP.
The base rule of the game is that tiles placed next to one another need to have similar sides. For instance, the formation above is valid, but below isn't.
In terms of labels, two tiles can be placed next to each other if the letters corresponding to opposite sides are equal. To get the letter of a label corresponding to an orientation, we can assign each direction to a number to lineup with the order in which we labeled the sides. North is 0, East is 1, South is 2, and West 3. This way, the index of the letter in the label corresponds to its orientation. In our example, "VRPR" yields R, because there is a road on the East side of the tile.
If we want to place PPRR on the east side of the VRPR, we need to check if the west side is also a road. And sure enough, "PPRR" yields "R", so the placement of PPRR on the east of VRPR is valid.
We see that adding two to the direction gives the opposite direction, as long as you keep the value between 0 and 3. This you do using the modulo function: 2+2=4 becomes 0 (North), 3+2=5 becomes 1 (East), etc. So generally, this condition needs to be true for a placement to be correct: tileA[direction] === tileB[(direction+2)%4], ℅ being the modulo operator.
The time has come to tackle the brute force algorithm. After thinking for a bit, here is what I came up with.
4. Wait, how many iterations?
I had done all of this without asking a crucial question: how many iterations will the brute force algorithm have to go through?
Well, you start with 72 tiles. Once you place the first tile, you'll be left with 71 tiles to choose from for your next move. Then you'll be left with 70, then 69, and so on until 1. So the number of possible combinations is 72×71×…×1=72!=6×10103, that's 6 and 103 zero's behind it, which is 1021 times as many atoms as there are estimated to be in the universe. And that's not even taking rotation into account!
Bad news for me but good for my CPU, the brute force algorithm wasn't going to work.
I was pretty bummed, but then it dawned on me that in science, it's often much easier to prove something is false than to prove it is true. The new question then is: how do we prove that you can't pave a surface with all the Carcassonne tiles?
What could possibly make the challenge impossible? Well, let's look at villages. When you create a village, you have to start with a wall. To close said village, you also need a wall, and to extend it, you need walls on both sides perpendicular to the direction of the extension. Altogether, all villages in Carcassonne have an even number of walls.
And because you can't just leave a village open (even on the border of the grid, otherwise it would be too easy), the challenge is only possible if the total number of walls is even.
It is impossible to use all the Carcassonne tiles to construct a rectangle or any figure, really.
However hard you might try and be close to succeeding the challenge, you'll always be left with one open village.
That's about it, thank you for reading!


Created by Paul Busse, these G-scale trains are specially designed to safely operate in rain, snow or other wet conditions. More than 2,500 small trees, shrubs and plants make up the landscape where seven different trains pass by replicas of famous Tennessee landmarks.
The garden railroad is on display through 31 December, 2011.


text:
Paintball variations
Paintball is played with a potentially limitless variety of rules and variations, all of which are specified before the game begins. The most basic of all game rules is that players must attempt to accomplish a goal without being tagged with paintballs. Generally paintball is divided into either its original incarnation woodsball, or the small arena-based and tournament de facto speedball. Amongst these paintball game types, variations of basic rules can be played.
1 Stock paintball
2 Basic variations
3 Tournament formats
Stock paintball[edit]
Stock Paintball is based on the original technology of the 1980s. A player uses a pump action paintball marker, which requires a pumping movement after each shot to reload, and must adhere to the following rules:
The marker must have a horizontal paintball feed - the marker must be tilted (rocked) forward or backward to feed the next shot.
The marker may not be semi-automatic - it requires pumping or cocking prior to each shot being fired (in other words "rock and cock").
The marker must be powered by a single 12 gram powerlet - limiting the number of shots to 15 to 40 depending on the efficiency of the marker.
The marker may only hold a maximum of 20 paintballs inside the feed tube.[1][2]
Basic variations[edit]
Elimination or Slayer - Teams or individual players must simply eliminate all of their opponents by marking them with a paintball.[3] Most games with a different primary goal, such as capture the flag, use this as a secondary winning condition.
Capture the Flag - When paintball was first started in 1981, the very first game played was a round of capture the flag with twelve people divided into two teams.[4] Each team must take the flag from the opponents' flag station and return it to their own station to win (a common variant).
Center Flag - Similar to Capture the Flag except there is a single flag placed in the center of the field, and each team's objective is to take that flag either back to their own starting station or across the field to their opponents' station.
King of the Hill - Players attempt to capture and hold one or more bases.[5] These bases may be arranged in a path, and to capture one the team must control all previous bases along the path, or the bases may be distributed throughout the field of play with any one of them up for grabs at any given time. "Reinforcements" are common in these games as it is otherwise unlikely any one team will capture all bases without completely eliminating the other side.
Attack/Defend - One team is given an advantageous defensive position, such as a cluster of bunkers, advantageous terrain such as a hilltop, or a pre-built fortification, within which they must defend some critical goal point. The other team is given unlimited reinforcements, and must reach the goal point in as short a time as possible. Teams then switch sides and the now-attacking team must beat the previous team's time to reach the goal. Related attack-and-defend games can be played with uneven teams as military scenarios.
Reinforcements/resurrections - Not a game format by itself, but common in recreational and scenario games, this rule variant allows one or more eliminated players of one or more teams to re-enter the game after being eliminated. The simplest form is when a group has an odd number of players; instead of having a player sit out, the team with one fewer player gets one "resurrection"; the first player eliminated may simply go back to his team's starting point, touch it, and re-enter the game as the team's "missing man". "Reinforcements" are commonly used in more structured variants like scenario play, and allow groups of eliminated players from both teams to re-enter the game at specified time intervals.
Jail tag is a full game variant based on the similar kid's game, in which players who are eliminated go to a "jail" area, and players still in the game can "rescue" a player from jail by touching them with their hand, and bring them back into the game as a "reinforcement".
Vampire, Predator, Terminator, Zombie - A common family of variations derived from simple "elimination" games, players split into two uneven teams. Depending on the variant, the team with fewer players is given some advantage reducing that team's ability to be eliminated from the game. "Vampires", for instance, may turn players from the other "Hunter" team into Vampire players by shooting them. "Terminators" or "Predators" may require a hit in a certain area, such as the facemask, to be eliminated, while other hits don't count. "Zombies" may have both advantages and disadvantages; they may require multiple hits and be able to convert players from the other team, but may also have a disadvantage such as being required to walk, or to "convert" players by tapping them with the barrel instead of marking them with a paintball.
Scenarios - Players split into teams according to the specific scenario, usually modeled on some real-world police, military or security situation. A common scenario game is "VIP"; one player of one team represents the VIP (they may be armed or unarmed), and the goal of the rest of that player's team is to get the VIP across the field without being eliminated, while the goal of the entire opposing team is to eliminate the VIP. The team protecting the VIP may have some advantage such as "body armor" (multiple hits may be required, or members of that team may simply not be able to be eliminated, allowing players to use themselves to "shield" the VIP). Other scenarios generally fall into the "attack & defend" category, where even or uneven teams compete to invade and oppositely defend a specific fortification on a field. Paintball equipment can be used in police scenario simulation like hostage standoffs, bank robberies, etc., and many paintball parks offer fields that can be used for this purpose; however, most real training along these lines is done with different equipment such as Airsoft, laser-based equipment or modified real-world weapons such as those that use Simunition. The use of paintball fields and equipment for scenario play has been the cause of suspicion by law enforcement; see Paintball - Accused terrorist usage.
Common Foe[6] - Commonly used when supplies and/or player staminas are low or total player count is high, this format pits individual players or small teams against each other in an open-ended game format allowing extended rest time and reduced paint usage. The basic idea is to start with a normal elimination game played between two even teams, A and B. A third team of equal force, C, stays on the sidelines. When the total number of eliminated players between A and B equals the strength of team C, that team enters the game against the remaining players of A and B, which now turn to fight the "common foe". The eliminated players from A and B form a new sideline team, D, which enters the game when the bench of eliminated players fills up again. Play continues in this fashion, with surviving members of all previous teams allying against each new team entering from the sidelines, until either a prescribed number of new teams has entered, or until the majority of eliminated players have insufficient paint, air or stamina to rejoin the game as a new team. The "winning" players are either the ones who have been eliminated the fewest times, as indicated by tally marks on their hands made by a sideline ref each time they hit the bench, or alternately, the surviving members of the "oldest" team still in play win, as evidenced by letters written on their hand.
Tournament formats[edit]
This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
Tournaments may be played with teams of various sizes. 20-man and 15-man tournaments were common on wooded fields in the 1980s, and professional paintball teams played 10-man for most of the 90's and into the new millennium
Today, tournament paintball is dominated by 3-6 "small", 6-9 "med", and 9-12 member "large" formats. In most tournament formats, teams play a set of games against various opponents. Teams earn points for each game, with the most points awarded for capturing and hanging the flag, but some also awarded for opponents eliminated and teammates left alive at the end of the game.
Capture the Flag - The original tournament format, woodsball tournaments of any size are commonly capture the flag format, as well as most 3-man or 6-man speedball tournaments, but may also be used with other team sizes. The game starts with a flag at each team's starting station, and the team to capture their opponent's flag and return it to their starting station wins. The National Professional Paintball League plays a 7-man capture the flag format, which was used in the NPPL US Paintball Championship (NPPL Commander's Cup 2005 in Miami) broadcast on ESPN2 in the spring of 2006. 7-man capture the flag is also played by regional tournament series like the Xtreme Paintball Sports League and the New England Paintball League.
Centerflag - The two flags of capture the flag are replaced by one flag located at the center of the field. The first team to take this flag to the opposing team's starting station wins the game. 6-man, 9-man and some 12-man competitions primarily use the centerflag format. Paintball Sports Promotions, a national circuit, offers 5-man centerflag divisions in addition to XBall.
XBall - A newer format first played at the International Amateur Open in 2002, XBall pits two teams against each other in multiple rounds of Center Flag played one after another until game time runs out. A team scores one point for each game of centerflag they win, and the team with the most points at the end of the match wins. Professional XBall matches are 50 minutes long, split into two halves, while non-professional matches use various shorter game times. Although only 5 or 7 players per team play in any given game, depending on league rules, teams may roster up to 19 players and substitute them after each point. Unlike most tournament formats that forbid players to communicate with people on the sidelines, XBall teams have a coach who can communicate, along with the spectators, with players on the field. Players who receive penalties are not permanently removed from the game, but placed in a hockey-like penalty box for several minutes. The National XBall League, a professional circuit associated with Paintball Sports Promotions, plays the XBall format, which was also used for the Smart Parts World Paintball Championships broadcast on ESPN2 in the fall of 2006.
Race To - Like XBall, but only has one period, typically 20 minutes long. The first team to reach a set point total (commonly 5 or 7 points), or the team with the highest point total after game time has elapsed, wins the match. Race To is offered by Paintball Sports Promotions as well as regional series like the Playground Paintball League (PGPL).
Scenario paintball
^ "Tournament Guidelines". Retrieved 15 March 2010.
^ Stock paintball "Paintball Marker". Archived from the original on 2017-02-19. February 21 2017.
^ Zimmerman, Fred (March 13, 2005). "Paintball warriors embrace fast and furious version known as 'speedball'". Stars and Stripes. Retrieved 20 March 2010.
^ "What's the History of Paintball?". www.Paintball-Tips-And-Tricks.com. Retrieved 20 March 2010.
^ Kuttappan, Vivek (June 28, 2008). "Shoot to win, or dye trying". LiveMint.Com. Retrieved 20 March 2010.
^ Isaacson,Eric. "Common Foe - Paintball Games & Scenarios". XtremeOutdoorRental.com. Retrieved 29 July 2014.
This article includes a list of general references, but it remains largely unverified because it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (March 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
Smith and Young (2007). Paintballer's Almanac Vol. 1. Lulu Press. ISBN 1-4303-0730-7.
Malensek (2002). 50+ Ways to Play with Your Paintballs. Infinity Publishing. ISBN 0-7414-1105-9.
List of paintball markers
Electropneumatic paintball marker
Paintball tank
Paintball pistol
Stock paintball
Professional play
List of paintball leagues
List of professional paintball teams
Angel Paintball Sports
DYE Precision
Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story
Splat!
Extreme Paintbrawl
Gotcha! The Sport!
Greg Hastings' Tournament Paintball
Greg Hastings Tournament Paintball MAX'D
NPPL Championship Paintball 2009
Appendix:Glossary of paintball terms
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paintball_variations&oldid=984451327"
Paintball variants
Articles lacking in-text citations from March 2010


The California kingsnake is native to southern United States and northern Mexico. They are mostly brown or black, but can have stripes of yellow or white. Some kingsnakes generally stay in an area that is 330 to 350 square meters. They can take over 100 days to travel across this area!
Our California kingsnake is shy, but has very beautiful patterns. Visit our kingsnake today!


It is extremely strange that a country that has produced an avalanche of engineers, many of whom have gone on to start some of the leading tech companies in the world, are CEOs of various multinationals, are heads of M&A divisions on Wall Street and have taken over many of the world's consulting firms can be accused of coming from an educational system that is fundamentally unsound.
And yet, that seems to be the case. A few years ago, the Economist highlighted a study done by Indian firm Aspiring Minds on a large number of Indian engineering graduates. The firm is run by brothers Himanshu and Varun Aggarwal who had previously collectively received engineering degrees from the temples of global engineering (the Indian Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
What the brothers unearthed was shocking at first, but perhaps not so surprising when you actually think about our educational experiences in India. Aspiring Minds essentially concluded that a large number of Indian engineering graduates are unemployable, with 95.8 percent of them not fit to work in a software product firm and only 17.8 percent employable by an IT Services company. These figures were apparently even more bleak than the 25 percent figure of employability presented by McKinsey around ten years ago. (Aspiring Minds' test was similar to the GRE and gauged students' analytical, verbal and quantitative skills). A recent study on current work force skills which I wrote about here pretty much said the same thing.
Many who have navigated the Indian education system as students, even at an elite level, will tell you that one of the evils of our system is the emphasis on rote learning. According to this piece, around 70 percent of Indian principals felt that Indians weren't given enough opportunity to develop creative thinking abilities and that the existing system today was along the lines of the 'factory model' architected in the 18th and 19th centuries in order to feed the engine rooms of the Industrial Revolution.
Of course, rote learning isn't all bad. As this article points out, "Without spellings, facts and rules… you're left floundering in a knowledge-free vacuum," and that "data leads to - proper, considered thought, rooted in knowledge and the logical jumps and inferences that naturally develop from the simple gift of knowing stuff." Indians are comfortable around numbers precisely because things like multiplication tables and assorted formulas were hammered into us at a very early age.
Off course, if only that were bolstered by a healthy degree of conceptual foundations, I may have enjoyed science instead of eventually analyzing the human condition while stopping by woods on a snowy evening. Instead, today, engineering is simply the means to an end for many Indians rather than an end in itself—and this is doubly dangerous in a cloud-computing, plug-and-play world where engineers are being commoditized and upstaged by vocational students and management graduates.
The inadequacies of the Indian system became apparent to me when I went from a high school (11th grade) in India that was a breeding ground for future IIT engineers and did my 12th grade in a public high school in Queens, New York (my mother was transferred there for work) where I enrolled in the Advanced Placement Calculus class. I had already studied a third of the course work in India but suddenly found a whole universe of practicality opened up to me when I realized, for the first time, that an Integration problem was really about calculating the area under a curvy line that could actually represent a garden or a pathway or a wall and not just some abstract concept that focused on getting the right answer. It was a revelation.
The problem with many of India's engineers (I am told by many who fit that category)—especially those enrolled at India's best schools like the IITs of the world—is that they focus mainly on getting in. This usually means thousands of hours (and Rupees) spent on 'tuition' classes outside of school. Once in, there's not much intellectual flexing.
The founder of one of India's leading indigenous consulting firms recently told me that he got a rude shock when he arrived in the US for a graduate degree in Management after a supposedly top notch Indian engineering education because he was simply unable, at least in the first few months, to cope with the style of conceptual, analytical thinking that was taking place. "We were all so used to being force-fed for years that when the feeding wasn't there, we became paralysed," he said.
Indian engineers in the country have it worse because the absence of any liberal arts framework means that elite engineering students often have an elevated impression of themselves but tend to know little of the world around them upon graduation.
But it's not just engineers who find themselves in peril. This article written by an American who spent time at one of India's elite colleges, St. Stephens, looks at how he found a profound lack of depth amongst the students there. At least engineers have some kind of foundation in Science whereas these 'Commerce' and 'Arts' graduates, on average, tend to have a foundation in, well, nothing. Which is why many Indians who do their undergraduate in India tend to repeat many of these years in the US.
What's worse, Indians in general, post-graduation, have a serious lack of knowledge about their own history and culture. This was certainly the case with me when I was in high school. The upper strata of society tend to be the worst off. Having lived in Delhi for the last seven years, I have found that wealthy children from elite urban high schools and privileged boarding schools are in fact the ones that are the most underequipped with critical thinking or sophistication in formulating a world view compared to those coming out of the more 'average' institution. Perhaps, the womb of air-conditioned cars that ferry one back and forth and air-conditioned houses to shield you from the elements and half a dozen staff at home, not to mention ski vacations in Switzerland prevent any kind of realistic examination of life around you.
It is not that Indians are not smart. Anything but, people would argue. It is the education system that has failed them. The profusion of successful Indians in the world is despite the odds of a broken system and thanks to the vast population base that allows for attractive numbers. In reality the majority of Indian children, as Pratham, the country's foremost education NGO will tell you have a 2nd grade level of reading and proficiency in the 7th grade and only 1/3rd of students in the fifth grade can do simple division problems.
So, it must come as a tremendous source of relief for those wringing their hands at ruins of the educational system in India to read that social venture capital Lok Capital as well as seedfund Chennai Angels has invested close to US$1 million in Everest Edusys, a company that weans children away from rote learning to learning by doing. It plans on setting up science laboratories in schools across southern states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala where "students learn concepts such as force, motion, gravity through touch and feel and activity based tools," he said.
Everest Edusys' flagship product Quest Explore Discover (QED) is a mobile interactive exhibit center that teaches students in K-12 science principles in a hands-on way through experiments and other activities.
Apparently Everest has come up with tools that have been used at by over 20,000 children in 100 schools out of which 20 percent are government-run—a category that Everest wants to focus more on in the future by bringing the wonders of a science lab to their doorsteps. The idea is to spur critical thinking at a young age so students by using active learning methodologies. According to research, students using their system enjoyed a 47 percent improvement in their performance. Another outfit Flintbox wants to provide activity boxes on a monthly subscription basis for young children to get their conceptual and creative juices flowing at a young age.
Another innovative enterprise, Skyfi Labs, tries to tackle the problem a little higher up the chain by trying to transform 'textbook geniuses' into employable engineers by giving them something Indians don't really get often (how many Indians do you know had to slave away at summer jobs or internships?)—such as access to practical, hands-on training, on- and offline.
The outfit has trained over 25,000 students from more than 150 colleges according to VCCircle by conducting two to three day courses in areas such as robotics, aeromodelling, web and mobile app development and civil engineering according. Apparently, a Skyfi Evaluation Engine takes a close look at the performance of each student and then feeds this to companies looking for capable recruits.
A few more of these novel solutions and we just may have a shot at reaching our potential in what could be a deluge of graduate talent in the country. Till then, the rot will continue.


Release information Technical bulletins What are Technical Bulletins?
Whats new in Apprenda 7?
Welcome to our docs site. Docs on this site are for ACP version 9.
Technical Bulletins contain information about major known issues or other limitations in the system. If you are experiencing a specific problem, it may be best to see if a Technical Bulletin has been created for the issue first prior to contacting support. Note that Apprenda does not publish a bulletin for all system issues.


Cancer in ear. Cat died.
I recently put our beloved cat Benny to sleep after a tragic event that I am describing in this post. At the time I put Benny to sleep I absolutely felt that I had made the correct and humane decision. I feared that Benny would suffer needlessly if I took him home. My housemate feels that I gave up too soon and that had I brought Benny home he might have survived.
In the months running up to the tragedy I was treating Benny for ear polyps in his right ear. Due to a bleeding incident in his right ear the night before, I took my 13 year old (had him since he was 3 months old) neutered male cat Benny to the vet. While at the vet, our Benny had an even more severe bleeding incident. The vet recommended emergency surgery to stop the bleeding and to remove a tumor in his ear which was bleeding. At this point I had no knowledge of any pre existing conditions that could have affected the outcome of the surgery. I only wanted to save his life. The doctor did an ear ablation as he described it and removed the vertical ear canal. The doctor also ordered a biopsy on the tumor. Initial post surgery seemed hopeful although Benny was not eating while at the hospital for two days prior to taking him home. I was told by staff that sometimes cats will not eat until they get home. Benny was receiving post surgery medicines and electrolytes while at the hospital. Taking Benny home he ate a little then threw up. After that I could not get him to eat. Neither the Tramadol for pain nor the Mirtazapine appetite stimulant I brought home worked. I even went out to buy yogurt and gave him Pepcid. I got up throughout the night petting and stroking him but he would not eat.
The next morning I called the vet and was told to try giving him Mertazapine first and to wait 2 hours (time enough for the Mertazapine to work) before giving him Tramadol. Still Benny did not eat. Shortly thereafter I took Benny back to the vet. The biopsy report was back and indicated that the tumor was cancerous. The vet did an x-ray to see if the cancer had spread (it had not as far as the x-ray could determine). Benny did, however, have an enlarged heart and was anemic. The vet proposed another surgery at no charge to remove the horizontal ear canal but wanted to wait on the radiologist's report. The radiologist recommended against further surgery. The vets outlook suddenly became pessimistic. At this time the vet mentioned euthanasia. With a heavy heart I approved euthanasia but I still do not know why a hopeful outcome went so wrong.
1) If he was eating before surgery (despite the pre existing conditions of the cancer and enlarged heart, both of which I was not aware) why did he stop eating after surgery? The vet stated that underlying conditions such as the enlarged heart, cancer, and anemia resulted in Benny not responding to the pain meds or the appetite stimulant. He also told me that anesthesia is in many respects more dangerous than the surgery. Does that statement mean that anesthesia is implicated in Benny's failure to eat. The vet also stated that due to the enlarged heart, the anesthesia for the second operation might have killed him.
2) Why did the pain management not work? I never understood the explanation as to why Benny would not eat after surgery.
3) Did I act too soon and was I acting responsibly when I let Benny go?
Oh, I am sorry to hear of Benny's story. I think that the answer to everything you have asked is in this statement that you made: "The biopsy report was back and indicated that the tumor was cancerous."
It was the cancer that was responsible for his death. If you had not done surgery, then the ear would have continued to bleed and Benny would have eventually died either from blood loss or from spread of cancer. So, surgery had to be done.
If a body is fighting cancer, then it has a hard time healing. Most cats can recover from surgery quite well, but if a cat is fighting an underlying cancer then the body may not have been able to heal properly. I wouldn't say that the anesthesia was responsible for his failure to eat, but rather that his body was just to sick to recover from surgery.
It sounds like everyone did the right things here. I can't see how things could have been done differently. I also think that you made the right decision when it came to euthanasia. If you had not euthanized, the absolute best case scenario I could come up with would be that Benny lived in a state of "just existing" for a few more weeks. Ear cancers in cats tend to be very aggressive. Benny was very ill. I would have recommended euthanasia as well because I don't think it would have been fair to put him through another surgery when the hopes of a good outcome were slim.
Thank you for your response. Your comment about Benny being ill before the surgery brings up another question. I can accept the premise that an advanced cancer could cause Benny to not heal after surgery. However, if Benny's cancer had advanced to that point wouldn't I have noticed a change in his behavior? He did shake his head from time to time but I assumed that was related to his ear discomfort due to the polyps. Benny was socializing, eating, and purring right up to the trip to the vet. I did not mention that he was taking Tapazole for hypothyroidism for months prior to the incident. I don't know if that is relevant.
Cats are amazing at hiding illness and pain. If a dog has a sore leg they'll limp but if a cat has a sore leg they'll usually just not move around much and only limp I it's really bad. There's no way of knowing whether he was feeling unwell before surgery but we do know that cancer was present.
The tapazole is probably not relevant although cats with hyperthyroidism often do have heart problems. We know he had an enlarged heart so this could be a factor as well.


text:
Book Review / The Organization of War Under Edward III
I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to get out of this book, and whether it was going to a kind of war-by-numbers like the brilliant Hundred Years War series by Jonathan Sumption. It actually surprised me how interesting it was. I bought it for research, but it's fantastically readable account of what England and her people did when a call to arms was made during one of the most famous warring periods in history.]
Covering specific areas or, as it says on the tin, the *organisation* of Edward IIIs most famous overseas wars, sections such as defence, supplies and shipping and the movement of troops, give specific information relating to what happened when war was declared, not just for the knights and the men heading out to fight, but the coastal towns and their expected actions, the villages and towns that were suppliers of victuals for the armies, the seizing of ships to carry the king's army, and even the mindset and outlook of the people left behind. It is extraordinary how much the normal balance of the country could be upset by these battles, and how every corner of the realm must pull together to ensure there were no weaknesses once men, horses and victuals were gleaned–and removed–from it.
There are sections in it I think I would have loved to have more depth to, as sometimes just as I'm hooked on one thing the author moves on. To be fair, it seems primarily written as a concise overview, and that's what a bibliography is for. It's also pretty objective; Hewitt has no qualms about writing the nastiest stuff that men at war did over in France, nor does any famous character he mentions get a free pass when he knows they did something deplorable, which is refreshing. It was a dirty business.
Overall, a great addition to any library of medieval non-fiction, for research or general interest. Also, it includes a great quote by poet Deschamps, specifying the folks in the Middle Ages had FOMO:
"Each of them eagerly answers the [king's] order, And rushes to the army that he may say 'I was there.'"


At 12.30 CET today a press conference will be held, chaired by EU commissioner John Dalli.
The subject will be the EU commission's adoption of a new legal framework governing the regulation of medical devices.
You can follow it live, here.
Oh, and remember this moment, because from the moment the new regulations come into force in 2015 you can be sure things will change. It's unlikely that the status quo will endure beyond that time, which means the usual picture of (usually American) companies sliding their products onto the EU market by having to jump over the smallest of barriers so to do, will end. It's likely that higher risk products will be subjected to a whole new level of scrutiny, much closer to a U.S style PMA process. It's likely that clinical data requirements will ramp upwards and that all data used in support of an approval will find its way into the public domain (it currently doesn't). It's likely that the notified body(NB) set-up will be overhauled so companies can no longer pick NBs they perceive as softer or from "softer" countries.
And required post-marketing surveillance measures will be a key focus area as everyone seems to agree that, for implants at least, registries have been the best way of spotting problems.
We'll stop there. You can play the prediction game yourself for the next hour or so.
We'll be back later with post-match analysis.


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    name: 'UINT16',
    read: readNotYet(16),
    write: writeNotYet()
  },
  8: {
    name: 'UINT32',
    read: readNotYet(32),
    write: writeNotYet()
  },
  9: {
    name: 'UINT64',
    read: readNotYet(64),
    write: writeNotYet()
  },
  0x11: {
    name: 'XMLDATATABLE',
    read: readString32,
    write: writeNotYet()
  }
}

function readHashtable() {
  var result = {}
  var str = "";
  var num = readInt16().value;

  for(var i = 0; i< num; i++){
    str = readString8().value
    var type = readByte().value;
    result[str] = TYPEENUM[type].read();
  }

  return {type: 0x63, value: result};
}

function readNotYet(off) {
  return function() {
    offset += off;
    return 'not-yet';
  }
}

function writeNotYet() {
  return function() {
  }
}

function readBool() {
  var result = buffer[offset] != 0;
  offset++;
  return {type: 2, value: result};
}

function writeBool(toWrite) {
  if(toWrite) {
    writeByte(1);
  } else {
    writeByte(0);
  }
}

function readByte() {
  var result = buffer[offset];
  offset++;
  return {type: 3, value: result};
}

function writeByte(byte) {
  buffer[offset] = byte;
  offset++;
}

function readString8() {
  return {type: 12, value: readChar().value};
}

function writeString8(toWrite) {
  writeChar(toWrite);
}

function readString32() {
  var count = readInt32().value;

  var result = new Buffer(count);
  buffer.copy(result, 0, offset, count+offset);
  offset += count;
  return {type: 13, value: result.toString()};
}

function writeString32(toWrite) {
  writeByteArray(new Buffer(toWrite));
}

function readByteArray() {
    var byteArraySize = readInt32().value;
    var result = new Buffer(byteArraySize);
    buffer.copy(result, 0, offset, byteArraySize+offset);
    offset += byteArraySize;
    return {type: 0x63, value: result};
}

function writeByteArray(array) {
    var byteArraySize = array.length;
    buffer.writeInt32LE(byteArraySize, offset);
    offset += 4;

    array.copy(buffer, offset);
    offset += byteArraySize;
}

function readChar() {
  var count = readByte().value;
  var result = new Buffer(count);
  buffer.copy(result, 0, offset, count+offset);
  offset += count;
  return {type: 0x12, value: result.toString()};
}

function writeChar(toWrite) {
  var toWriteBuffer = new Buffer(toWrite);
  writeByte(toWriteBuffer.length);
  toWriteBuffer.copy(buffer, offset);
  offset += toWriteBuffer.length;
}

function readDataTable() {
  var dataTable = [];
  var num = readInt32().value;

  for(var i=0; i<num; i++) {
    var colName = readString8().value;
    var type = readByte().value;
    dataTable.push({name: colName, type: type, row: []});
  }

  var rowN = readInt32().value;

  for(var j=0; j<rowN; j++) {
    for(var k=0; k<num; k++) {
      if(readBool().value) {
        var data = TYPEENUM[dataTable[k].type].read();
        dataTable[k].row.push({type: dataTable[k].type, value: data});
      }
    }
  }

  return dataTable;
}

function readDouble() {
  offset += 8;
  return {type: 11, value: 0.0};
}

function readFloat() {
  offset += 4;
  return {type: 10, value: 0.0};
}

function readInt16() {
  var result = buffer.readInt16LE(offset);
  offset += 2;
  return {type: 4, value: result};
}

function writeInt16(towrite) {
  buffer.writeInt16LE(towrite, offset);
  offset += 2;
}

function readInt32() {
  var result = buffer.readInt32LE(offset);
  offset += 4;
  return {type: 5, value: result};
}

function writeInt32(towrite) {
  buffer.writeInt32LE(towrite, offset);
  offset += 4;
}

function readInt64() {
  var result = new Buffer(8);
  buffer.copy(result, 0, offset, 8+offset);

  offset += 8;
  return  {type: 6, value: bigInteger(biguintFormat(result, 'dec', {format: 'LE'}))};
}

function readDateTime() {
  var dateTime = readInt64().value.divide(10000);
  var epoch = bigInteger('62135596800000'); // 01/01/1970 : http://stackoverflow.com/a/7844741
  var delta = dateTime.subtract(epoch);
  return {type: 14, value: new Date(delta.toJSNumber())};
}

function readInt32Array() {
  var size = readInt32();
  var result = [];
  for(var i = 0; i<size; i++) {
    result.push(readInt32().value);
  }
  return {type: 0x61, value: result};
}

function writeHashtable(toWrite) {
  if(Buffer.isBuffer(toWrite)) {
    toWrite.copy(buffer, offset);
    offset += toWrite.length;
    return;
  }

  var count = Object.keys(toWrite).length;
  writeInt16(count);
  for(var key in toWrite) {
    if(toWrite[key] == null || toWrite[key].value == null) {
      writeString8(key);
      writeByte(1);
    } else {
      var type = toWrite[key].type;
      writeString8(key);
      writeByte(type);
      TYPEENUM[type].write(toWrite[key].value);
    }
  }
}

module.exports = {
  readHashtable: readHashtable,
  writeHashtable: writeHashtable,
  readDataTable: readDataTable,
  getBuffer: getBuffer,
  setBuffer: setBuffer
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Today's Gamasutra round-up includes RuneScape's partnership with WildTangent, a Hong Kong raid of pirated coin-op arcade machines, and Blizzard's first annual art contest, as well as the latest GameSetWatch posts, product news, Serious Games Source news, and Gamasutra job postings.
- Jagex Ltd, creators of MMO RuneScape have signed a deal making WildTangent, Inc. their marketing and exclusive advertising sales partner in the US. The advertising deal includes selling advertising campaigns in and around the game, while the marketing agreement will add RuneScape to the WildTangent Games Network to drive subscription sales.
- According to a a Coin-Op Today report, touchscreen arcade manufacturer Merit Entertainment announced today that the Hong Kong Customs and Excise raided a Kowloon, Hong Kong business on June 28, 2006, arresting one employee and seizing 32 illegal copies of Merit�s 2005 and 2006 Force video games. The raid culminated a three-month investigation into the illegal distribution of Merit�s 2005 and 2006 Force video games. Bob Fay, Merit�s Director of Government Relations remarked that "This police action will be the first of several that are likely to happen worldwide in the months ahead."
-Blizzard Entertainment, makers of uber-popular MMO World of Warcraft recently offered a sneak peek of their first annual Blizzard Art Contest for 3D artists and 2D concept artists with submissions to be accepted beginning on July 31, 2006 at midnight PST. Grand prizes valued at over $10,000 each will be awarded in the four following categories: Best Diablo Art, Best Cinematic Art, Best Starcraft Art, and Best Warcraft Art. Fourteen additional secondary prizes valued at over $1,400 each will also be awarded.
- The latest updates on Gamasutra sister weblog GameSetWatch include an interview with Halo screenwriter DB Weiss, news of The Escapist's website format change, and a much-needed fix to the Xbox Live version of Uno.
- Also updated today: a Serious Games Source/GDCRadio audio feature of a Serious Games Summit lecture entitled 'Can Serious Games Work in 45 Minutes?', plus the latest Gamasutra job postings, featuring openings from Activision, Blue Fang Games, Kush Games, Visual Concepts, and Volition.


Your car may be your pride and joy, or simply a way for you to get from point A to point B, but either way, you want to make sure it will last. There's nothing better than the smell of new car, or the feeling of slipping behind the wheel into soft, comfortable seats and heading out onto the open road.
But did you know that even the act of getting into and out of your car can take a toll on the fabrics of your seats? Small bits of grit that are carried in on your shoes or hands, spills that can occur while you're driving, and even the oils from your skin can work their way into the fibres of your car seats and cause damage to the fabric. So how can you protect your car interior? How can you maintain that new car feeling? By choosing expert car seat cleaning by Clean Carpets Holbeach.
Erase stubborn stains: Spilled a drink while on the road? Had oil on your hands that you didn't notice until it was too late? We can remove even the worst spills and stains to renew the beauty of your fabric. We use eco-friendly products that clean without causing damage to your seats.
Freshen your car: Remember when your car smelled new and the seats were soft and plush? Our expert car seat cleaning will get rid of stale odours and the gritty, greasy feel that dirty car seats can have. Enjoy that new car smell again, no matter how old your ride is!
Lengthen the life of your seats: As dirt, oil and grime work deep into the fibres of your car seats, they can cause damage that can make the fabric on your seats more prone to rips and tears. Protect the value of your car by letting us remove them before the damage is done.
Increase the value of your vehicle: Whether you're trying to sell or just want to keep your car in mint condition, a proper clean can make a huge difference to the value of your car. Invest in car seat cleaning to improve the value of your asset.
At Clean Carpets Holbeach, we're about so much more than carpet cleaning. Count on our team of highly trained experts to keep your car seats looking and feeling like new. No job is too big or too small for our experts. Whether you've got some minor marks that mar the beauty of your brand new ride, or you need major help to renew an aging vehicle, we're here to help.
Our experts are standing by to help, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We're pleased to offer service right at your home or workplace and we take pride in being the number one choice for carpet and upholstery cleaning in Holbeach, Spalding, Boston, Kings Lynn, Peterborough and the nearby region. See for yourself just how good your car seats can look — call today to book your car seat cleaning or request a free quote. You'll be glad you did.


Piyush Goyal will be gifting 6 new local trains to Mumbaikars of which 28 will be on Central Railway while 32 on Western Railway.
The new local train services will begin from October month including the 14 services on Harbour Railway and 14 on Trans -Harbour Route. Although, no new services announced for Central Railway due to maintained traffic. Piyush Goyal all set to unveil this service very soon.
Earlier, Piyush Goyal started local train services between CSMT and Kalyan on the mainline as soon as he became Railway Minister. Railway authorities had prepared a plan to start 12 services before of Thane and Kalyan stations by October, but are now rethinking it. They have hinted to launch in November.
The main aim for starting services is to increase capacity and reduce overcrowding. Since Western & Central Railway are facing this problem over the years, most of services are expected to be added in peak hours. It will cover 7 AM to 11 AM and 6 PM to 10 PM. Implementation of services will be carried out under the guidance of Ministry of Railway.
On another side, due to various casualties took place in recent times, Ministry is concerned with this problem over to all and have taken help from various officials to reduce overcrowding and get maximum benefits to commuters.
The railway minister is expected to officially change the name of Elphinstone Road station to Prabhadevi station, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus. Consequently, a series of escalators, elevators on both lines and a foundation stone for a statue of Maratha warrior king Shivaji will be the key focus for Ministry.


text:
It is a capture-twenty-two, say boffins who possess learned the new effect off In addition to fund into lower-earnings home and you may Black colored families
Published On - October 11, 2022
"We keep putting rules out there knowing full well the rule has a more adverse impact on people of color," Clyburn, now the House Majority Whip, tells Newsweek. "All you've got to do is look at the result. If you pass a law and the law has an adverse impact on Black students, it speaks for itself."
One out of most of the four And consumers and most an effective third away from Black consumers has actually earnings below the federal impoverishment range, according to Baum. A whole lot more generally, the girl research shows, six for the 10 Black moms and dads with Along with money might be noticed lower-money in the place of 25 % out-of light In addition to-loan proprietors.
One sign of the problems this ilies is the relatively high PLUS loan default and delinquency rates at some HBCUs. Of the 182 schools in the Newsweek database with a combined rate that's at least twice the median, three in 10 percent were historically Black institutions.
Included in this was Philander Smith College or university, for the Absolutely nothing Rock, Arkansas, where over 9 out of ten Together with loans see lower-income families and you will 30 percent off parents is actually behind or perhaps in standard on the repayments. A bit ironically, considering the backlash facing toning credit criteria ten years ago, financial aid manager Kevin Barnes blames the latest school's highest standard speed on the authorities to possess enabling high-risk consumers to carry out money to start with.
The brand new Character one to Universities Play
Universities do have a hands, though, inside the direction family members to And additionally finance. Parents rarely learn about which borrowing solution up until a college financial support officer says to them, Fossey says. And many universities earnestly push parents to acquire unlike their youngsters, based on Mayotte and other masters, in order to keep their student standard pricing down.
That's because a college really stands to lose significant federal capital if the 30 percent or even more of its scholar borrowers try within the default for three consecutive seasons or 40 percent or maybe more standard in a single season. However, there isn't an identical code for the parent loans.
"To your establishments, Mother or father And additionally funds are just like a grant. It get the currency regardless of how it does towards family unit members."
"Into the associations, Father or mother Along with loans are just like a give," told you Rachel Fishman, deputy manager to possess degree browse at Brand new America, an arizona, D.C. think tank. "It obtain the money in spite of how it does on relatives."
There's no way of understanding how many institutions lay stress to your mothers so you're able to obtain. Certain schools, given that a matter of coverage, don't discuss And additionally funds until students has actually worn out other manner of investing in the degree which can be nevertheless springing up brief. Here's an example: At payday loan online Hawaii the Wayne County College or university in the Detroit, in which only 7 % of the school's more step one,one hundred thousand mother borrowers defaulted inside the 2017-19, As well as financing is actually considered to be a past hotel.
"We learned that moms and dads usually do not always comprehend the ramifications away from borrowing from the bank," claims Catherine Kay, Wayne Country's older director of financial aid. "For many who offer these types of fund from the front, people often use over they want to. A dad could potentially borrow from year to year while the obligations very can add up."
Loose borrowing conditions improve college or university availability getting moms and dads with limited economic tips but log off them with expenses they struggle to spend
Brand new College or university of new Orleans makes all of the finance away from their initial aid has the benefit of, however, does render him or her once the a final solution, said Ann Lockridge, the brand new financial aid manager at the personal university, in which less than 80 moms and dads made use of Also money in the 2017-19. The institution got an excellent thirteen percent standard price when it comes to those years. In comparison, one another Philander Smith and you will LeMoyne-Owen state they give Parent Along with fund as a financing choice from the start.


text:
//
//  NSData+SDDataCache.h
//  TXCategories (https://github.com/tlsion/TXCategories)
//
//  Created by 王-庭协 on 2017/1/12.
//  Copyright © 2017年 ApeStar. All rights reserved.
//

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

@interface NSData (TXDataCache)

/**
 *  将URL作为key保存到磁盘里缓存起来
 *
 *  @param identifier url.absoluteString
 */
- (void)tx_saveDataCacheWithIdentifier:(NSString *)identifier;

/**
 *  取出缓存data
 *
 *  @param identifier url.absoluteString
 *
 *  @return 缓存
 */
+ (NSData *)tx_getDataCacheWithIdentifier:(NSString *)identifier;

@end


Maintaining your dog's dental health can be a challenging task, but this step-by-step guide helps make it easier.
Most people know that bad breath in dogs is very common. What they may not know is that it's often a sign of poor dental health. The fact is, 85% of all dogs have periodontal disease by the age of just two years!
Periodontal disease starts with plaque accumulating on the teeth. If the plaque is not removed, it hardens into tartar. Accumulations of tartar lead to swollen and sensitive gums and gingivitis. By this time, the dog has advanced dental disease. This isn't just a cosmetic issue – it can have negative effects on many internal organs. Scientific evidence has shown that bad dental health can cause heart, lung, and even kidney disease. Poor dental care can actually shorten a dog's life.
The speed with which dental disease progresses depends on the breed of dog and his diet. Smaller breeds seem to have more dental problems earlier in life than larger breeds. When I was in veterinary school many years ago, we were taught that dogs and cats should be fed dry food to help remove tartar from their teeth. In general, this is not true. The Veterinary Dental Society states that dogs eating dry food do not have better dental health than those fed exclusively canned food.
Just as with humans, daily home dental care for dogs can prevent the development of periodontal disease, control plaque development and maintain fresh breath.
Look into your dog's mouth and determine if he already has periodontal disease. Look for swollen red gums, pus along the gum line, cracked teeth or a foul odor. If you find any of these things, he needs a trip to the veterinarian to determine if a professional dental cleaning is needed, before you start home dental care. Beginning dental care at home if your dog already has a problem can worsen the condition and be painful to the dog. This could make him reluctant to allow you to brush his teeth in future. If everything is fine with your dog's teeth, then you can start a daily brushing routine.
Brushing your dog's teeth every day is important because plaque can form on a clean tooth surface within hours, and can mineralize to tartar in a few days. Brushing removes plaque before it has a chance to become tartar. You can use daily tooth brushing sessions as an opportunity to spend more time with your dog.
1. Start slowly. Ideally, you should start brushing a dog's teeth when he is a puppy, between eight and 12 weeks of age. If you start early, he'll be used to it by the time his permanent teeth come in. You can also start with an older dog, but it will take longer for him to accept the brushing.
2. It is important that you try to make it a positive experience. Do not over-restrain your dog. Make the sessions short and rewarding. It is important that your dog learns to see the brushing as a pleasant experience. If your dog is small, hold him/her in your lap and praise and reassure him throughout the procedure.
3. Get your dog used to having his mouth touched. Lift the lips, put your fingers in the mouth and rub the teeth with your fingers. Do this daily, in short sessions, at the same time every day so your dog comes to expect this extra attention. Once he likes the idea of your fingers in his mouth and playing with his teeth, you can introduce some toothpaste.
4. Use toothpaste made for dogs. Human toothpaste foams up and can give your dog an upset stomach. Initially, put the toothpaste on your finger and rub it on the dog's teeth. Gently rub the teeth with a circular motion. Start with the front teeth and work towards the back. Keep this session short and repeat on a daily basis until your dog is used to his "tooth rubs" and accepts them without complaint.
5. Next, introduce a soft bristled tooth brush designed for animals, or graduate to a finger brush. Be careful not to brush too hard. It is normal for dogs to want to chew on the tooth brush. Brush in circles and from side to side. It's the action of bristles on the teeth that removes the plaque. Focus on the gum line, as this is where plaque tends to accumulate.
In addition to brushing, there are a couple of other things you can do to improve your dog's oral health.
• Dogs fed raw diets actually have the best teeth. Dogs that have one to two raw bones weekly have better teeth than those who only eat commercial kibble. Large beef bones can be used with larger dogs but you do run the risk of breaking teeth. These bones can be given frozen to the dog and taken away after about an hour. I recommend feeding them outside as they do make a mess.
• There are many canine oral sprays, gels and rinses available. These can be used in addition to brushing. Be careful when purchasing these products, however, as some contain xylitol or alcohol, which are toxic to your dog. There are some natural herbal remedies that can be used for periodontal disease as well. They help with gum infections and are made to be used as part of a complete oral hygiene program.
Home dental care for your dog means some extra work, but the more you can do, the healthier he will be – and the fewer professional cleanings he will need.
Previous articleHow do dogs recognize other breeds?


text:
A&E Editorial Movie Reviews Movies Opinion
Retro Review: Mucho Mucho Amor – The Legend of Walter Mercado
tmnstaff September 23, 2022 No Comments Hispanic Heritage MonthJohn Carter JrMovie Reviewretro review
BY JOHN CARTER JR
It's Hispanic heritage month and with it comes reviews featuring Hispanic talent at the forefront. In this review we take a look at the life of the Lovely Walter Mercado, the star of the 2020 Netflix Documentary Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado Directed by Cristina Costantini and Kareen Tabsch. The documentary comprises a series of interviews with people closely involved in the life of Mercado – Latino celebrities including Eugenio Derbez, Lin Manuel Miranda, and Walter Mercado himself.
The film not only examines the history of Mercado's early years growing up in Puerto Rico but also examines his start in the theater and on television, his fallout with his former manager Guillermo Bakula, speculation concerning his sexuality, and more. Let's touch upon some of the topics discussed in the film.
According to Mercado ever since he was young he was different from the other boys,
"When I saw other boys, I know that I have another way of life," he said in the film.
While his brother would go work with his father in the sugarcane fields, Mercado would stay at home with his mother playing the piano and reading books. He thought everything about him was different and to that his mother said:
"If you're different, go on being different. Don't worry about that. To be different is a gift. To be ordinary is common," she said in the film.
Mercado took that advice and channeled it into not only his work but into his way of life. Eventually, in his life journey, Mercado was doing a play called "Tríptico Del Amor, Del Dolor, Y De la Muerte" in Puerto Rico. Elin Ortiz, who had a show on Telemundo, invited Walter Mercado to do a promo for the play. According to Willie Acosta (Mercado's longtime assistant) Elin Ortiz, presumably after Mercado had arrived on set, told Mercado:
"No, We'll do the promo later, but Walter let's talk about astrology, you're always reading the palm of everybody around here and you're always asking 'what's your sign?' And What's your sign? And What's your sign? Let's talk about astrology,'" Acosta said in the film.
He ended up doing a 15-minute segment generally talking about astrology the day he was supposed to do the promo. According to Acosta the general manager of Telemundo came down and said:
"He Has to do that show again tomorrow because people are calling," he said.
Mercado goes on to say that he was told that the Telephone lines are full, so he needed to be in tomorrow, here, doing the same show today.
"I want Walter Mercado every day, 15 minutes a day in this show and I want you with the same costume tomorrow. I want Walter in capes," Mercado said.
After three months they asked for one-hour shows of Walter Mercado's astrology called " Walter Las estrellas y usted"
From that moment on Mercado's fame grew, becoming a household name across Latin America as well as the world. Walter become the voice to turn to either on radio or television for millions of people especially the Latino and Hispanic communities. He was a Fred Rogers-like icon to Latinos spreading a message of Peace and Love. However, that fame did come with its fair share of controversy. The criticism hurled at the psychic network, Mercado's relationship with Guillermo Bakula, and the consistent prejudice, homophobic and otherwise, often found rampant in machismo Latino culture affected Mercado's career and personal life.
Mercado dealt with many critics and impersonators throughout his career, especially concerning his identity and the way he presented himself. The conundrum of being unable to reveal or be open about your identity in a culture that loves you but also rejects things about you. Willie Acosta states in the film:
"When they see Walter and make fun of him it's because they wish they could be like Walter. Yes."
LGBTQ Karlo Karlo says the Latino community was and still is homophobic, but to him, Mercado has always been someone that gave him hope and was a superhero to him. Mercado was breaking rules and barriers for people like him amongst people who were also like him in different ways. Being a powerful light for many LGBT people (as seen in the film) in the Latino community. Acosta tells the audience that Walter has been told "That's a… (Insert homphobic slur)" but in response to that he always takes an "I don't care pill."
The film goes on to show Mercado at his last major public appearance at the History Miami Museum for an exhibition called "Mucho Mucho Amor: 50 years of Walter Mercado". He has wonderful interactions with his fans which he calls "my people" and as the film begins to discuss what will become of the legend of Walter Mercado. The darling diva, Walter, himself says "Walter Mercado is a force of nature, without beginnings and endings. He used to be a star but now Walter is a constellation". Mercado has since passed away in San Juan surrounded by friends and family.
Walter Mercado is and will always be a legend, and this documentary conveys exactly why. His message that love is the most important and powerful thing in this world influenced and affected the lives of millions of hearts not simply Latinos. The documentary goes to great lengths to convey the struggles he endured in a way that is more intimate than we have ever had with the television personality. It gives viewers a clear image of who Walter Mercado truly was, a person who truly loved and wanted others to as well. Although Walter has still passed his message and his essence remains in our hearts as a more than a latino icon. Walter Mercado is a legend and In the words of the legend himself:
"Que dios los bendiga a todos hoy, mañana y siempre . Y que reciban de mi siempre paz, mucha paz. Pero sobre todo mucho, mucho, mucho que? Amor" – Walter Mercado
For the full film check it out on Netflix, I give Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado a 10/10 for the delicious fashions, the intimate portrait of the life of Walter Mercado, and Walter Mercado himself.
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