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Q: What is the relationship between "integration testing", "continuous integration servers" and "nightly builds"? I've been out of school for a few years now, and just recently started going back and re-reading some of my textbooks (I want to stay fresh). I've actually found my software engineering textbook fascinating and plan on reading the whole thing - which if funny, because when I was in school I found it horrifically boring.
So there's a half-chapter dedicated to integration testing. And, like most things in academia, it's all theory with very little practical applicability anywhere in the reading. But, it got me thinking.
We use CruiseControl for continuous integration testing, but seeing that we are a large development team and I don't handle deployments/builds/releases, I've never worked with it hands-on. I just get an email every now and again when I break the nightly build. And two tech leads to explain myself to.
Getting on to my question: my old textbook refers to integration testing as the pairing and testing of components with each other, as opposed to unit tests which target 1 particular class. This can be done in a "top-down" or "bottom-up" approach, where top-down implies testing the whole things as a system, and then recursively breaking down the system into smaller subystems and testing them; bottom-up implies the opposite (start small, grow big).
My question:
How do the following threee concepts relate to each other:

*

*This academic explanation of integration testing; and

*So-called "continuous integration servers" like Hudson, Jenkins or CruiseControl; and

*The concept of having a "Nightly Build" where code is checked out of a SCM and compiled automatically

Is it just coincidence that the first two have the word "integration" in them? Is performing a "nightly build" the same as running a continuous integration server (at night), or are they two separate concepts?
And if continuous integration testing & nightly building have absolutely nothing to do with academic integration testing, then how does integration testing actually manifest itself in the real world? Are their frameworks like JUnit out their but that only concentrate on integration testing?
I know these are a lot of questions, but they really just boil down to understanding what each of these are and how they are used. Online searches for each of these pull back pretty vague, abstract answers.

A: Too vast to explain in few lines.
Continuous integration is basically the cycle for automated checkouts, build, tests, code quality checks, deploy and much more.
The tests part of it would include the Unit testing (unit code), integration testing (with dependecies on database or external resources) with tools and frameworks like junit, rspec.
These can be scheduled for nightly builds and build on regular intervals.
Continous integration tools like cruisecontrol, hudson help you to configure this process.
Its more like a schedular to do different task, define dependencies with addition to notifications and artifact management and much more.
All of these are pretty much interdependent.
More info @ http://martinfowler.com/articles/continuousIntegration.html

A: "Integration testing" is used in several ways; the use of the word "integration" in "integration testing" and "continuous integration" is due to a meaning of "integration testing" that was more common in the past.

*

*"Integration testing" generally refers to tests that test all of one's code at once, or at least several pieces of one's code at once. It is the complement of "unit tests", which test a single module of one's code at a time. In most projects unit and integration tests run in the same test suite. In large projects, especially in the past when the software industry wasn't as good at automating tests, integration tests might be done in a separate process, on a system assembled from the work of different teams. The "integration" in "continuous integration" came from this latter usage.

*"Continuous integration" is the practice of running your project's build every time the source code changes. "Build" includes compiling (if your language needs compiling), generating artifacts to deploy, and running automated tests (including unit and integration tests). Continous integration servers support this process by watching the source code, starting the build and reporting the results.

*"Nightly build" is the practice of running your project's build overnight. It has been replaced in most cases by continuous integration, because it's better to know your build is broken as soon as possible.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Honda barely pretended their 2013 Honda Accord Concept is anything but a minimally adorned version of the production car that'll debut and go on sale later this year. Like Ashley and Mary Kate Olsen, there are subtle differences, but so subtle you don't actually care.
Speaking of subtle changes, there's not a lot to distinguish this latest-generation Accord from the outgoing one. There's a slightly more aggressive front clip and somewhat distinguishably different grille. The taillights wrap around into the body in a pleasing way.
Maybe the Olsen twins are the wrong point of comparison. Maybe the new Accord is more like the Deschanels. The outgoing 8th-generation car is Emily and the new ninth-generation version is the slightly peppier, slightly more attractive, slightly lighter Zooey.
The powertrains are also evolving, and at a pace that's less glacial than the styling. The next Accord will feature the new Earth Dreams 2.4-liter, 16-valve DOHC direct-injection four-cylinder, producing 181 horsepower and 177 lb-ft of torque while promising an increase in fuel economy. The 3.5-liter V6 returns with more power, as well.
A plug-in hybrid system is also planned, albeit a less ambitious version than some of its rivals. It'll only propel you electric-only for 15 miles on a single four-hour charge, but they'll let you choose those 15 miles. Progress!
What do you expect? In our sororal construct the Accord ain't never gonna be the Kardashians. Or even the Kardashians or Deschanels. The Accord lineup is the Gore sisters; you'd never fantasize about them but you wouldn't kick them out of your house, either.


While I, in no way, condone the events that happened, I'm quite happy with this ruling in the favour of MySpace. It's one thing that has been troubling me, in regards to parenting and even down to the learning of personal responsibility by children. We cannot continue to "let them be kids" by allowing them to shirk the lessons needed to be a functioning and socially responsible adult.
As I said, I in no way condone the fact that the girl in the case was assaulted. However, the guy who committed the act has been found guilty and faces up to 20 years in prison for assaulting her. The parents, chose to seek recourse against MySpace through a lawsuit, claiming they failed to protect their daughter. However, they failed to hold their daughter accountable for allowing MySpace to protect her, by falsifying her age (she was 13, but represented herself via myspace as 18).
While I do agree that it was the parent's responsibility to ensure their kids safety, I don't agree that victims of crime are somehow responsible for their victimization. The responsibility always lies with the perpetrator.
Yes, the responsibility to commit, or not commit a crime lies with the person who perpetrates the act. In this case, I don't know the details, so not going to speculate outside of the fact that he is going to serve prison time. That said, the responsibility for personal safety lies with the individual. Which is what I'm trying to get at, here. In this case, against MySpace, yes, they would have held some responsibility had she represented herself as being under 18. But, she didn't, yet the parents were seeking to have blame placed on MySpace, instead of recognizing their failure to teach their daughter preventative skills to minimize her chances of being a victim.
That said, were I to lay blame at the daughter's feet, would be to say that had she represented herself as being under 18, or even if she was 18, this would not have happened. Which is a false statement, as neither statement is true. The measures I presented above are means to minimize the chances of being a victim or the effects of an attack, they do not 100% prevent any chance of attack.
No one asks to be a victim, and in a perfect society, it would not happen. However, we live in an imperfect society, where the responsibility for our safety lies with the individual. If we teach our kids this when they're young, they will grow up being more aware and able to reduce the chances that they're attacked, or minimize the level of an attack, of any sort.
And, me being me, I see this as a chance for the parents, or any parent, to use this as a lesson to move on and recover from the incident (assuming the guy was seeking to damage the girl) as well as work towards prevention in the future.


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SATS (tidligere fitness dk A/S) en dansk fitness-kæde. Den er med 47 centre og ca. 125.000 medlemmer Danmarks tredjestørste fitnesskæde målt på antal centre, kun overgået af Fitness World og Loop fitness (cirkeltræning).

Historie
Virksomheden blev grundlagt i 2001 af Rasmus Ingerslev og åbnede Nordens dengang største fitnesscenter på Nygårdsvej på Østerbro i København. Centret, der stadig er en del af kæden, var ved åbningen på 5.000 kvadratmeter og blev kendt for at have en indendørs løbebane samt VIP område. Nygårdsvej lagde også m2 til kædens hovedkonto samt uddannelsesfaciliteter for personalet.

I 2005 indfusionerede fitness dk konkurrenterne Fin Form med hovedsæde i Tommerup (Fyn) og blev derved landsdækkende. Den næste indfusion skete i 2006. med det Sjællandsbasserede Hard Work Studio der særligt var dygtige på holdfronten og havde flere centre i og omkring Storkøbenhavn. I april 2006 købte PARKEN Sport & Entertainment (PSE) aktiemajoriteten i selskabet og har siden erhvervet de resterende aktier. Siden har kædens hovedsæde været beliggende i Telia Parken. I juli 2018 solgte PSE aktierne i fitness dk til SATS Group, der er ejet af kapitalfonden Altor Fund III og TryghedsGruppen.

I forhold til mange af konkurrenterne profilerer fitness dk sig på sine wellness-faciliteter i form af sauna, dampbad, spa, personlig træning, VIP omklædning, "kun for kvinder" træningsområder samt massage.

I starten af 2008 drev fitness dk ca. 8 % af de kommercielle fitnesscentre i Danmark og ca. 22 % af alle danske fitness udøvere trænede i kæden.

Fitness dk har flere gange været på kant med gebyr-reglerne, og har tidligere fået kritik for at opkræve uigennemskuelige gebyrer.

Siden 1. oktober 2015 har Jakob Hansen været kædens administrerende direktør. Han efterfulgte Thomas Bagge Olesen

Referencer

Virksomheder i København
Etableret i 2001
Fitnesskæder i Danmark

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Bois.io | Play Bois.io free on iogames.space!
Start off in an airplane thousands of feet above the arena. Jump out whenever you're ready and navigate towards the blue cube. While the map of the game is huge, the blue cube is the only area where gameplay will actually take place. Use your wits to survive in this massivley multiplayer online arena game. Players are pitted against eachother in an elimination stye tournament. You will climb higher up the leader board the more opposing players you are able to eliminate before the fickle finger of fate find you! Collect items which you can utilize in your strugle agains the opposing players. Some of these items are long range, some are single use and some are pugilistic. You'll be able to carry up to six different items at a time, as well as finding supplies to upgrade or reboot them as you need duing the game. Your victory is dependent upon being able to find and do away with the opposing players before they are able to find and do away with you. You will be foced to employ underhanded strategies and over the top athletics to out run, out play, and out live the other players!
Instructions / How to PlayThe W,A,S,D or Arrow Pad are how you move through the game.
Please use your mouse to aim the reticule and change your view.
You will use the left mouse button to strike.


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Engaging Non Traditional Allies
What are the benefits and barriers to working with allies who are perceived as non traditional?
New Tactics
Welcome to the discussion! We thought we'd start this conversation by looking at what it is that makes an ally 'non traditional' and the benefits/barriers to engaging this type of ally. Consider these questions below when sharing your comments in this discussion topic:
What do we mean by 'non traditional allies'? Why are some allies perceived as 'non traditional'? How do we makes these allies that seem unusual to the human rights community, usual?
What are the benefits of working with allies perceived as non traditional?
Is it hard to develop these kinds of partnerships? If so, why? What are the barriers that get in the way?
Share your thoughts, experiences, questions, challenges and ideas by replying to the comments below.
For help on how to participate in this conversation, please visit these online instructions.
Jan Beddeleem
When having a short look at my biography, it's obvious, i represent somehow non-traditional allies in human rights issues. Without wanting to dominate this discussion from the very beginning of the week, i think the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender activists and grassroot organisation in very hostile countrries and countries that criminalise the act or the identifying as homosexual under national or religious laws, are non-traditional alies.
In Europe the involvement of asylumseekers, undocumented migrants in the struggle for human rights and for international solidarity is often seen as non-traditional, especially when it is an empowering and not a parenting approach.
I am here, ready to answer all possible questions about the barriers, the possible hurdles, the benefits of partnerships and much more, and i hope to learn a lot from the other topics discussed.
Who are perceived as 'non traditional' allies in human rights?
Thanks for being the first to add a comment, Jan! I'm interested to learn more about how LGBT activists and orgs, and grassroots orgs are being seen as non traditional allies within the human rights community. Is this because human rights groups in repressive societies do not consider LGBT activists and orgs as part of the human rights community?
It's interesting to think of asylum-seekers and undocumented migrants as non traditional allies in human rights work. I would suspect that many human rights groups strive to engage these allies, but I wonder how this translates into practice. Do others have examples of successful partnerships of this kind - the kind that is empowering and not 'parenting'? Share those examples in this conversation!
I think that what you're saying is that these groups - LGBT, asylum-seekers and undocumented migrants - are not being as included as equal partners as they should be in human rights work. This is a point that I hope we explore in this discussion.
I also wanted to add that other kinds of groups and institutions perceived as 'non traditional' allies are those that are perceived to be 'the bad guy' - those that are in power to violate rights. Often, human rights groups run campaigns to name and shame these groups and institutions into respecting human rights. But that isn't the only approach, which is why we're hosting this discussion - to explore ways that human rights groups are working with these unexpected groups often considered the 'bad guys'.
We hosted an online conversation in January on Building strong human rights partnerships and coalitions and the benefits/barriers to working with non traditional allies came up. Here are a few quotes/thoughts from that discussion that I hope will be discussed here:
"In practice, when NGOs use only the tactic of criticizing police from the outside they are engaging only part of the total picture and having a mixed impact. NGOs can work together to engage in tactics that push on unacceptable behaviour from the outside while pulling for positive behaviour from the inside." More info here
"Even the most difficult and ugly political situations in the world cannot be simply divided into good guys and bad guys. Bad situations are often only transformed into better ones step by step. One of the most crucial and difficult steps for a budding civil society in a post-repressive state is to make the leap of investing some hope and faith in the future of the state, and consequently to begin the arduous task of building alliances with the state administration." More info here.
Looking forward to learning from all of you!
- Kristin Antin, New Tactics Online Community Builder
Ex of an empowering partnership, via Shari
Regarding my question about examples of partnerships that are empowering and not parenting, Shari shares a great example in her comment here. Authentic relationships are key.
Thanks, Shari!
ShariEJUSA
what we mean by "nontraditional"
Thanks Kristin!
I've been really interested in seeing the various posts in this thread about whether different groups are nontraditional or not. I want to second Tracy's comment that the term is really relative.
At EJUSA, we work with different kinds of allies, many of whom may be perceived as nontraditional in one context but traditional in another. There are several types of constituencies that I think would be relevant to a conversation about nontraditional allies. I always hate to categorize people, but I also like lists so this is one way that I think of the different kinds of nontraditional allies with whom we could partner:
Constituencies who are directly affected/engaged in an issue but assumed to be on the "opposite side" of it (for example in criminal justice reform this might include law enforcement or crime survivors, whereas on a different issue those same constituencies would be "traditional" -- or we say "natural" -- allies). Tracy's post about working with those who may have committed human rights abuses would fit in this category.
Constituencies who are assumed to be on the "opposite side" of an issue because of their political orientation (for example conservatives on a presumed progressive issue or progressives on a presumed conservative issue). In our experience these divides are false to begin with, and referring to people in this category as "nontraditional" only works to entrench the assumptions about "sides." But we recognize that the outside world may perceive these alliances as nontraditional.
Constituencies who have historically been left out / marginalized from engaging on a particular issue, although they might have a natural affinity or stake in the issue (several posts have mentioned the LGBT community in this context).
Constituencies who have simply not been engaged on an issue because it's not a priority for them, it's not perceived as directly affecting them, etc. They may not be on the "other side" of the issue but they aren't really thinking about the issue at all. Some of the work in this category involves making connections between the impacts of the problem we're working on and the seemingly unrelated concerns of people we hope to work with. There usually is a lot more relationship than may be assumed at first.
EJUSA has placed a lot of emphasis on working with people in the first two categories, to build bridges across political divides and find common ground among people who seem to be coming from very different perspectives of an issue.
For example, we have a project called Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty that fits in this category. People assume that the death penalty is a progressive or liberal issue, but in reality, the conservatives who run Conservatives Concerned will tell you that the death penalty doesn't align with conservative idealogy. So the political divide on this issue is really a myth. Many conservatives have come forward since the launch of the group saying they thought they were the only ones who opposed the death penalty. A great example of this kind of work in action is a video by Reason Magazine about conservatives at CPAC working on criminal justice reform issues. Conservatives Concerned is featured as well as other groups like Right on Crime.
Spectrum of Allies to provide yet another framework
Thanks, Shari! I like that list. It's so interesting to read how people are framing these concepts of 'non traditional' allies. All of those categories of potential allies (that are often overlooked) are really important to consider in a strategic context. It reminds me of a great strategic thinking tool called the Spectrum of Allies (I'm linking to this tool on Beautiful Trouble because we're in the process of launching our own set of tools, but it's not live yet). It helps you put people into categories (yes, I know it's something that makes people uncomfortable) around how much that person supports your efforts on a particular issue. The categories are:
Active allies
Passive allies
Passive adversaries
Active adversaires
The key is to find the rights strategies and tactics to shift this spectrum a little towards your active allies. In this way, "movements win not by overpowering their active opposition, but by shifting the support out from under them." (from the Beautiful Trouble website)
Any other tools out there that are useful for bringing a different perspective this kind of analysis of allies, constituencies, etc?
jwyndham
Partnering with Scientists and Engineers
I would like to add to the discussion a comment about partnering with scientists, engineers and health professionals. In my work, they are vital to contributing to the promotion and protection of human rights, and one of the challenges we DO NOT face generally is in attracting individual scientists with whom to partner. Our experience has been that most are interested to learn about human rights, if not already personally committed.
That said, there are challenges of partnering with these technical experts, though they are probably not unique and stem from their lack of formal training in human rights standards and mechanisms, the domestic context, and the lack of focus given to human rights in their work. These challenges include:
lack of understanding about what 'human rights' mean in principle and in practice;
the difference between 'human rights', and 'social justice' and 'development';
a fear that involvement in 'human rights' may be perceived as political;
lack of time to commit to human rights work considered separate from their core activities; and
the need for greater conceptual and practical guidance in how to incorporate human rights into scientific research, teaching and administration.
The benefits of working with this community are great and include:
greatly expanding the community of individuals and organizations knowledgeable about human rights;
helping strengthen human rights research and documentation through the application of rigorous scientific methods and development of credible and testable results;
incorporation of human rights standards into the practice, policies and procedures of scientists and the organizations that represent and support them;
bringing the voice of educated individuals to domestic, regional and international policy and legal discourse about human rights.
Have you faced similar challenges in engaging your allies? If so, I'd be interested to learn how you've overcome them? And, do you have any thoughts on other ways we may benefit in our partnerships with scientists, engineers and health professionals?
TracyLBaumgardt
Defining "nontraditional" allies
A key aspect of Peace Brigades International's (PBI) work in creating space for human rights defenders (HRDs) to safely carry out their legitimate work includes creating spaces for dialogue between members of the human rights community and key stakeholders.
In the context of PBI's work, nontraditional allies are often those perceived as the perpetrators, instigators or those complicit in human rights abuses, including select authorities, businesses or community leaders. They can also simply be those whose motives are sometimes questioned or whose work is perceived as negatively influenced by outside actors or "Western interests". Therefore, the term "nontraditional allies" can be relative; for example, building off of what Jan wrote, while partnering with a LGBTI organization seems like a natural initiative to PBI, others within the defined human rights community may perceive it as "nontraditional". The same could be said while working in any human rights community that has ethnic or political divides among its members. Therefore, PBI must be cautious and strategic when developing relationships with any actor in order to maintain our credibility as a non-partisan organization.
Our approach does pose numerous challenges. There is often a lack of understanding of PBI's mandate; while PBI maintains principles of non-partisanship and non-interference, this does not mean we are neutral toward human rights abuses. This distinction is a fine line and we have to be careful that our engagement with "nontraditional allies" does not translate into "taking sides" or an indifference to human rights violations.
Like AAAS, we also confront a lack of understanding of human rights and human rights movements. In engaging actors outside the human rights community, we are confronted by questions, such as, "Why are working with those people who take the side of criminals?" or "who are trying to stir up trouble?"
Furthermore, when PBI shares information with nontraditional allies about partnering with specific human rights organizations (at their request), we have to be careful that PBI's support is not viewed as "parenting" or influencing the aim or work of HRDs. This could damage not only our credibility, but also the credibility of the partner human rights organization.
At the same time, we find many benefits in engaging such actors, including greater understanding of the work of HRDs, as well as more generally the responsibilities and duties of all actors involved to enable a safe environment for HRDs.
By openly engaging all stakeholders, PBI reinforces its principle of non-partisanship and thus our reputation as a trustworthy actor. We also lend legitimacy and international solidarity to those marginalized within the human rights community. In addition, with a cooperative approach that erodes the traditional "us vs. them" dynamic, we are able to facilitate greater space for dialogue and improved cooperation within the community. Furthermore, we indirectly reinforce the idea that the international community is watching, acting as a deterrence against human rights abuses.
I would be very curious to hear if anyone has examples or lessons learned when trying to create connections or dialogue between their traditional and nontraditional allies.
Connecting different types of allies, an example from Austria
Thanks for sharing these points, Tracy! I wanted to try to respond to your question at the end of the comment:
New Tactics has an interesting case study from Austria about connecting police and migrants. It's probably not exactly the type of examples you're looking for, but you may find it interesting. After some pretty awful confrontations between the police and migrants in Austria back in the 90s, the MInistry of Interior needed to find a way to create connection and dialogue between these two communities. The International Centre for Cultures and Languages (ICCL) proposed seminars and trainings to promote and improve intercultural understanding. It was a very successful training program and both police and migrants left these training with new respect understanding for each other.
Regarding lessons-learned, the case study highlights program elements (page 16) that need to be carefully considered:
Selecting participants
Finding community members willing to pair w/ police officers
Providing compensation
Preparing migrants
Creation of an effective setting
Building Tandem Program Pairs
Project management and facilitation
Providing information learning situations
The picture of the two people on a bike on the main page of this discussion comes from this case study! So hopefully now that picture will make a little more sense. :)
edna.aquino
'non-traditional allies": where and how does one draw a line
HI Tracy - will you kindly clarify PBI's definition of "nontraditional allies (being) often those perceived as the perpetrators, instigators or those complicit in human rights abuses, including select authorities, businesses or community leaders."
I am finding this very problematic - it triggers in my mind the question: where does one draw a line? how can they be 'allies'? what if they were proven to have committed human rights abuses? Is a distinction being made between 'engagement' and 'alliance' work". From where I stand - there is a vast difference between the two.
I have worked with Amnesty International which has a very strong 'non-partisanship' policy but I could not recall an instance where it considers those perceived as 'perpetrators' or 'complicit' to human rights as 'allies'. It had projects in certain countries like Brazil where it prvided human rights training to the police force or it engages with the military and police through human rights dialogues as part of its advocacy work and there are indvidual members of the mlitary and police who were (or still are ) members of AI but they don;t represent their respective institutions when they speak as part of AI voices. The standards in engaging with such forces or institutions are very high. How is it with PBI?
Engagement vs. creating allies
Hi Edna,
Thank you for your question; I think it presents a great opportunity to present some of the approaches to our work. I'd be happy to elaborate and would like to emphasize the word "perceived" in my statement. To take an example of a "nontraditional ally" as an authority, I will speak specifically to my experience in Nepal with PBI to provide some context to my post but first I'll speak more generally about how PBI engages with authorities as a support network.
PBI strives to engage authorities along multiple levels of the chain of command structure to identify those who are human rights friendly and demonstrate a genuine commitment to support or provide protection to at-risk members of the human rights community. PBI is thus not necessarily allying with an institution but with individuals. Nonetheless, some members of the community may perceive these individuals merely in their role as an authority, a part of an adversarial institution, and thus not as a potential ally.
We have been able to call upon these individuals for their support against specific threats to human rights defenders or when an individual further down their chain of command may be blocking the legitimate work of a HRD. For example, there have been times when a HRD calls PBI because perpetrators from a case they are working on have surrounded their house, threatening to attack them. The HRD may be unable to contact the local police or believe they will be unresponsive to their call for help so PBI will call upon their allies within the chain of command to alert them of the situation. This approach has proven successful in getting a timely and effective response to the protection needs of select HRDs.
With those individual authorities that have, over time, demonstrated they can be relied upon to positively respond to cases of human rights violations, I personally would describe them as an ally. Of course, there are times we also confront those who are likely the perpetrators of human rights abuses and I would thus not consider them an ally. We may, however, in certain cases decide to engage in such a way that exerts pressure to cease the violation. You are correct in stating that there is a vast difference between the two.
Thus, within institutions that are often generalized wholly as an adversary, we have found both allies and perpetrators. Had we chosen to take an approach that makes assumptions about the guilt or legitimacy of a party, we likely would not have created those allies and missed opportunities to deter attacks against HRDs.
When PBI first began conducting regular field visits to Eastern Nepal we found common generalizations that labeled authorities as adversaries to human rights, whereas members of the human rights community, as well as local political parties, were labeled trouble makers attempting to interfere in the work of local police or utilizing their position within the community for financial gain. PBI felt that in order for HRDs to work on human rights issues in a safe environment, support from authorities and political parties was critical. HRDs in the region also raised the need for a platform to communicate their concerns with authorities and other relevant stakeholders in order to improve the situation and tackle criminal activities. Thus, PBI facilitated the organization of two roundtables in the region attended by various HRDs, journalists, political parties, authorities, police, youth leaders and representatives of marginalized communities to create a space for dialogue, identify the roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders, and to obtain a commitment to promote and protect human rights. Because PBI had established a reputation of non-partisanship and a collaborative approach, we were able to help bring together actors whom would likely have not come together on their own.
In each of the roundtables a concept note, which outlined the human rights situation, challenges, roles and responsibilities, was presented for the participants to openly discuss and raise concerns on the issues contained therein. Authorities present in both roundtables admitted government failure to implement human rights policies effectively. However, they expressed their commitment to cooperate with, and support the work of HRDs, as well as called upon other participants to extend cooperation. As a show of commitment, one Chief District Police Officer proposed to hold jointly monthly hearings with the human rights community on service delivery, while another stated, "if HRDs have difficulties visiting villages please let us know, even if there is a problem of transportation to collect information and evidence related to human rights cases." Members of the human rights community later shared with us that they welcomed the oral and written commitments from the authorities and political parties and the opportunity to create new connections and identify common goals with the participants. While time will tell if these commitments will be implemented in a meaningful way they at least provide a new basis of accountability.
For more information about our work in Eastern Nepal and the roundtables outlined above, you can read the newsletter here.
Challenges in engaging 'non traditional' individuals as allies?
Thanks for this great explanation, Tracy. I especially like the examples! Your post made me think of a few questions:
I can see how other human rights groups might be a little confused about the allies you work with. I wonder how PBI (and other groups if anyone else can reply) explain their approach to building partnerships with key individuals and not institutions to other human rights groups. I would imagine that Edna is probably not alone with her questions and concerns about working with allies in the field who are often seen as the adversary.
Any examples of when one human rights org is targeting an individual to shame or pressure them into doing something, at the same time that you are trying to engage them as allies?
And building on that, are there any examples of when this approach backfired? Any examples of these relationships being abused by the individuals you had believed were your allies? Any lessons that you can share about building these kinds of relationships with 'non traditional' allies?
Transparency and clarifying the mission
Hi Kristin,
Thanks for your questions; I'll do my best to respond to each. I should start out by explaining that PBI's broad mandate, to create space for HRDs to safely carry out their work, and unique model is only suitable in select human rights contexts in which PBI's international character can be utilized to deter attacks against HRDs. We therefore conduct a rigorous risk and needs assessment before we decide to open or maintain our field projects. In the countries in which we work HRDs generally understand or expect that as internationals we will have influence and weight with institutions and actors that they generally consider adversarial and perhaps unapproachable on their own. As such, I have almost always encountered a positive reception from HRDs to our alliances and engagement with non-traditional actors and indeed, our team was often requested by HRDs to speak to these actors on their behalf when they found their security under threat.
For example, a women human rights defenders group requested that PBI contact a local district police chief and encourage him to provide protection to a colleague of theirs who was being threatened by members of the community for housing a woman that had escaped from an abusive forced marriage. Their own efforts to pressure the police had proven futile, allegedly because the perpetrators had their own allies within the police and because they shared the community's perception that the woman should return to her husband. Our team conducted an assessment of our impact and determined it was reasonably safe and appropriate to respond to their request and relay their concerns to the police chief and our allies within the chain of command. Ultimately, the at-risk WHRD was extended protection until the WHRD group found a resolution with the community concerning this particular case.
With the HRDs I have encountered, I've found they may not make a distinction between an individual ally and the institution that they work for. As has been mentioned by others, transparency is key in building trusting relationships, as well as regularly clarifying our mission and methods of working. From meeting one, we make a great effort to clearly explain to HRDs that we strive to engage all stakeholders in the protection of HRDs, which includes authorities and security forces. We emphasize confidentiality; we would never share any information about the HRD, or their work, without their strict request that we do so. We explain that we meet with state actors to remind them of their responsibility to protect citizens and their right to carry out human rights work, as well as our willingness to collaborate where possible in this regard.
Before engaging with any actor, particularly those traditionally seen as adversarial, we contemplate much of the same questions as outlined by Edna, as well as carry out our own actor mapping and version of a SWOT analysis to determine whom to approach and our strategy in doing so. When creating formal partnerships with HRDs, we utilize Memorandums of Understanding to create clear expectations of the partnership, which are reviewed every 6 months to a year, both internally and along with the partner HRD.
Regarding your question of examples in which this approach has backfired, I personally do have examples of nontraditional allies resulting in further threats to HRDs after our engagement. However, I have only served with two PBI projects, in Nepal and Kenya, and PBI has been operating in countries in Latin America, North America, Asia and Africa for over 30 years so I imagine there have been times when this relationship has been abused by such allies. From my personal experience, I have more often encountered purported HRDs, who by no means represented the norm, who have attempted to utilize their relationship with PBI as a means to gain financially or gain the trust of victims who they themselves take advantage of.
One of the first things we are told when starting with PBI is that every decision and step we take has risks. This is the nature of our work and nothing can be done that is 100% risk free. Building off the contributions of others in this conversation, we too strive to maintain a 'do no harm' approach and take great care in exercising caution and conducting regular risk analyses for all our allies and activities, to minimize the risks.
If others have additional methods or examples of approaches that have minimized the risks associated with engaging non-traditional allies I would be really interested in learning more.
Are LGBT orgs non-traditional partners?
I try to elaborate a bit on the questions Kantin is putting forward:
(i will formulate thoughts about the undocumented migrants and asylumseekers in another comment)
theoretically LGBT activists are partners and the references on human rights at a global and multi lateral level are enough elaborated and inclusive to conclude so. Altough in hostile countries and within the UN there is a constant pressure to exclude 'same-sex rights' and 'same-sex relational rights' from the international framework and to consider 'traditional values' as prevailing.
That's why i explicitly mention the grassroots and local activists. In countries where corruption is high, local NGO's, and especially local development NGO's often count a lot on 'priviliged relationships' with the local authorities, that facilitates the freedom of networking, acting and moving in the region and is in the interests of a smooth realisation of the project cycle. Associating with local LGBT groups is often seen as 'impossible' because this would infrindge that priviliged relationship. So 'discretion' and 'invisibility' become a part of the requirements put forward to make the alliance possible.
Furthermore there are classical human rights professions such as lawyer and attorney, which are not at all open to defend 'offenders' under an anti-same-sex law if they do not deny the fact of being homosexual. In Nigeria for example, to find a lawyer to defend your case once arrested is almost impossible if you do not agree to plead unguilty (and evt. to bribe out yourself.) Making jurisprudential progress is hardly possible if there are no affirming cases known. I once visited the offices of Lawyers Without Borders in Brussels, with a gay-rights activist from cameroon, Lawyers Without Borders has different Cameroonian lawyers that worked for them inside Africa, but they never discussed the defense of LGBT- anti-same sex law offenders and they admitted in consensus that it was a topic for which young academics are hardly willing to dedicated a dialogue, let's stand to be involved in the defense of victims of arrestation pleading 'homosexual'.
I annualy give a course for general practicioners in the Institute from Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, all participants from over the world are very intrested in the topic of Aids/HIV prevnetion, which is the theme of the course, but when it comes to homosexuality, it's easy to feel how mucht academics has not been prepared to work inclusive and from a human rights equality-based approach once it comes to be confronted with persons identifying as LGB(T).
So maybe it is rather the 'traditional schooled' professionals in our law-enforcing and justice systems that are the non-traditional alies (did we overlook that being inclusive is not an evidence in some regions), and that comes close to the remarks Jessica Wyndham posted here.
I do believe that an appeal to the core values of the profession often open doors, but some attitudes has never been touched and remained as implicit as they are in society, the attitudes related to taboos such as homosexuality, read sodomy, because thats how people would define it.
In those contexts LGBT are alies, but they are experienced as non-traditional because they can quickly provoke very emotional and enflameable reactions because it touches a taboo in society.
caitlin@urgenta...
On allies, risk, and reward
I wanted to pick up on the thread here and distinguish a few different ideas that have been raised:
Jan and others have noted that in some contexts organizing for LGBT human rights is more difficult or threatened than organizing for some other issues. Correctly, they point out that this not only because of social attitudes but because of unjust laws. At Urgent Action Fund, we find this to be true as well, the security requests made to Urgent Action Fund primarily come from two groups of activists, activists organizing on LGBT/SOGI rights issues, and women's rights activists that are organizing against sexual violence and gender-based violence. From casual observation of the requests we receive, human rights defenders working on these two issues do seem to be in a riskier position than others.
However, we see LGBT groups as very important allies to women's rights groups and vice versa. In a way, the threats to each occur because both are challenging traditional gender norms. In particular, we see the potential of feminist groups acting as allies to transgender rights groups. Certainly, the struggles and experiences of women's rights defenders and transgender rights defenders are not the same, but both seek to take apart the boxes that societies want to place men and women into and both experience backlash because they challenge those norms.
Cross-issue or cross-movement work, like LGBT and women's rights defenders working together, or environmental and labor rights coming together on the issues of "green jobs", etc. , doesn't always happen and can be difficult, but I think it can be particularly powerful when it does.
Whether we are talking about cross-issue partnerships or work with "non-traditional allies" - these seem to be relationships that are difficult to pursue, but potentially very powerful. Human rights issues gain greater visibility when more diverse constinuencies get behind them, but the negotiation to find common ground is difficult. CSOs/NGOs are also usually given little incentive to invest in these kind of partnerships. Funders support single organizations, and too rarely fund collaboration that actually emerges from social movements themselves. We are all under pressure to the show "the impact of our organization" and anything done collaboratively becomes, by its nature, difficult to credit to any single organization (as it should be.) We know it is through this time of collaboration that real change happens, but our systems don't yet support or reward it.
Are undocumented migrants and/or asylumseekers non-traditional?
At least we have to note that
undocumented migrants and asylumseekers can not excercise all rights similar to settled activists, including travelling, working and housing (free choice of...), subconsequently their possibilities to engage in alliances are limited, in Belgium for example the law forbid volonteering work by asylumseekers when they have no working permit,
undocumented migrants and asylumseekers does not benefit from any protection against persecution (of family members) by their home-countries, thats why the Geneva convention and thenprotective refugee status is a key-element. You cannot expect from someone to take risks and for example to speech and speak out publicly about an issue before he's duely protected, even witnessing in a private context about human rights violences before being protected can be experienced as a huge challenge,
resources to protect an individual outside of the official system, through documents and e.g. refugee status are very limited for NGO's and many does not provide budget for legal protection of their resources when it comes to document human right violences by resources 'on the move' and 'in exile'. Some of those families or ondividuals are subject to 'orders tp leave the country' and live with a permanent fear to be repatriated.
Thus engaging with this group, experts in exile, is a huge challenge.
I remember situation in which small activists-groups make an alliance with one person to witness about a situation in the home country at different moments, and then after some time, this one person, or family becomes on itself the project of the small group, because their situation is so precarious and vulnerable, and it blocks the wings of the group to really do anything substantial for the home country of the involved victims. -
Are human rights activists in exile non-traditional alies?
they are, for sure, when engaged for their expertise and netwprk, even before their own status is settled to protect them. Considering them as evident alies has harmed on both sides of the alliance.
they are when engaged after obtaining the refugee status, empirically is must say they are because of the followinf reasons: In my twenty years of work with refugees i have been triggered to show intrest in many different human right violences and all kind of conflicts from over the world, and i have heard so many dramatic and horrible stories of human roghts violences and threats lived by individuals before ending up in exile. Now amongst the thousands of stories receiving protection at the end of the asylumprocedures, not to talk about migrants, none of those throuroufhly checked and examined stories ends up in human rights reports, not through UPR not through other mechanosms. So we cannpt say we considsr these people as alies if we only protect them, and then, we just let them walk around with the feeling that none of the atrocities they have experienced are worth being reported, even if the Commissionner General for rRefugees has examined them and found them credible. The independence, neutrality and discretion of refugee status determination bodies is holy, so they are not to blame, but i don't know any country with a system in place that give a chance to individuals to contribute to reporting after the positive decision. I try to put it in place - with an up-to-international-standards-reporting for lgbt-recognised refugees in Belgium, and you can guess how 'non-traditional' this approach is seen. We are now in the stage of negotiating the permission to inforù recognosed refugees about the option to do so.
Another aliance that was experienced as very non-traditional was held in Brussels in oktober 2010, with the workinggroup on international solidaroty with LGBT and Merhaba, we organised a training to give insght in the life space of lgbt-asylumssekers before being in exile and when in the reception centers during the determination procedure. A group of 30 lgbt set up a training of half a day for 90 staff members of asylumreception centers and services, it was completely steered and filled by themselves and included play back scenes, traditional dance, interviews (with secretary of state for equality), video-fragments, etc. It was the biggest eye-opener for years, but when we came up with the idea of doing it with this public, reactions were like 'this can never work, the group is to vulnerable, everybody is concentrated on its own case, etc.' Afterwards we could not do anything different then concluding that it was a great empowerment, as less then two months later the same bunch of people started their own self-organisation. The training was all about equality, non-discrimination, gender and protection, it was far from being a folkloristic afternoon and it deeply touched the participants.
working with non-traditional allies : where to begin
Apologies for coming in late - I had some technical hiccups.
I view the question of engaging with 'non-traditional allies' as requiring a multi-dimensional approach:
1. The need to be strategic. Here are some questions that are familiar when we map out our alliance -building and building of partnerships but which are useful to revisit again
what do you need it for
why do we want to engage with them?
what purpose and objectives would it serve?
what criteria would one use in selecting whom to work with?
what skills and resources would it require from you - as certainly ' non-traditional' implies 'out of the ordinary or one's comfort zone' and may require new skills and resources and most especially, sensitivity on your part
use the SWOT analysis tool to map out your internal positioning and the external environment where this engagement is to take place
2. Be sensitive and understand power dynamics. This is most essential when dealing with forces that are perceived as traditionally 'adversarial' to your cause. Do a power analysis. Here is one useful tool for those working with communities.
3. Visualise/ imagine: why would these 'non-traditional allies' work with you? What's in there for them?
4. Have an exit / worst scenario strategies in place as you are entering what is probably an unchartered territory.
MonaC
power dynamics and allies
Edna,
you are speaking my language. I wanted to jump off the comment you made about power dynamics because I think it is very important for us to be aware of the impact power has in our movements. I think that as we build a bigger tent of allies it is critical to for us to work to make sure that those dynamics aren't replicated to the day-to-day campaign. I think this is important not just in being aware of those who, as you say, are traditionally adversarial to our cause, but also of the social power dynamics (I'm thinking of issues of race and gender) that so easily translate into movements. It means part of the work is to deconstruct those ism's around us within our work.
How do we do this? I would love to hear other tips/examples from y'all, but here are a few things we have tried:
1. training for staff and volunteers - there are many anti-opporession training models and great facilitators who will work with you to develop a training for your team.
2. be transparent that this team/campaign will not be business as usual and try not to be shy about reaching out to individuals who bring unwanted actions/words in the space.
3. Engage with your campaign team about how you want to model your values - this could also be a good opportunity to find some common ground with various actors.
ajong
Dear all, because of internet connection problems in my region, I could not join the conversation earlier. Thank God we are together.
In the enforcement, protection and promotion of Human Rights, every individual is important! However, there is no gainsay that there do exist traditional and those perceived as non-traditional allies in the daily pursuit of the minimal respect of Rights in our communities. In our practice, we have been able to identify those generally perceived as non-traditional allies to include but not limited to; Top Government Functionaries, Law enforcement Officers, Warders(Prison Administrators) and members of the armed forces. We are equally agreed that, this is and remains only a perception for, when they are engaged, we generally discover that those perceived as non-traditional allies only suffer from some limited degree of ignorance.
As President of the Fako Lawyers Association (FAKLA) based in the South West Region of Cameroon, we have taken up issues as to the respect of the rights of Prisoners as enshrined in International Conventions and Municipal Laws in prisons located in our region. We had discovered that the number of persons in prison "awaiting trial" virtually tripled the number of those convicted after due process this, notwithstanding the fact that there is local legislation limiting the length of remand awaiting trial.
Initially, we thought of engaging only the services of the National Human Rights Commission to investigate this peculiar problem by identifying the detainees, reason for their detention, length of detention without any process and whether they had legal advice. The Commission is generally considered to be a traditional ally. However, upon a second reflection, we decided to engage the prison administrators who are perceived as non-traditional allies. Our first contact was that of total acrimony when we sought to gain access to the prison records of the detainees. But after expatiating on the benefits of a decongested prison to the administrators and the fact we could equally advocate for the improvement of their working conditions, there was a 360 degree turn of the reception reserved us by our hosts(to be the subject of another write up on personal experience).
It is my humble opinion that Human Rights activists should never shy from engaging those perceived as non-traditional allies in the protection and promotion of Human Rights.
AJONG STANISLAUS
Working with prison administrators in order to protect prisoners
Thanks for sharing this, Ajong! This is a great example of finding common ground to build relationships from, as Mona pointed out on Monday. And this example reminds me so much of the example shared by Shari earlier today on how EJUSA works closely with the political right in the USA to change the death penalty policies. Thanks so much for sharing!
I also just wanted to mention that you might be interested in an online conversation that we hosted a few years ago on Monitoring Prisons to Prevent Abuse. There's a summary posted on that main dialogue page. I hope it's useful! In many places, working with prison administrators to protect prisoners is not an easy task. But it's important and powerful.
Looking forward to learning more from your experiences, Ajong!
Kristin Antin, New Tactics Online Community Builder
Addressing assumptions and misconceptions
It's wonderful to hear of the breadth of 'non-traditional allies' with which we all work. Thinking of all these groups and the search for common ground among us reminds me of an exercise we went through early on in our own work to build the AAAS Science and Human Rights Coalition, a network of scientific and engineering membership organizations that recognize a role for science and technology in human rights.
As a preliminary exercise we mapped out the assumptions that one community has about the other and then considered how best to address those assumptions in our work, particularly in our outreach to scientists who we wanted to engage in human rights. As part of that exercise we even had to consider the meaning of simple terms like 'science', 'rights'. What does one group think these means? How does the other group understand them?
Before engaging in any sort of partnerships across sectors, I highly recommend this sort of exercise. Has anyone else tried something similar? What was the result?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


A job accident is already credible on a resume; don't highlight it.
A job accident may be traumatic, but it doesn't accept to wreak calamity on your resume. Back crafting your resume, abstain too abundant information: The time for explanations is during the account process. Use your resume to highlight your abilities and experience, alienated absolute acknowledgment of your job loss. Since your resume lists the dates of your employment, a job accident that leads to a aeon of freelance assignment or a aeon of unemployment will artlessly advance to questions that you can acknowledgment face to face.
Your resume includes your assignment experience, including both alpha and end dates for anniversary job. Be honest about back a job ended, as lying about application is a battlefront breach back you get your new job and will about consistently apparent during a advertence analysis or later. If the aeon of time amid jobs is lengthy, you'll accept a adventitious to explain this during the interview. In best circumstances, actuality laid off is aloft your control, so it doesn't beggarly that gaps in your application history automatically stop the recruiting process.
If your time amid jobs becomes lengthy, abstract your resume to highlight your abilities and acquaintance in a anatomic format. Move your application history to the bottom, aloft your apprenticeship and awards. With this approach, you accent what's best important — what you accept to action a aggregation — rather than absorption on a job loss. Use your awning letter to explain, actual briefly, your affairs and point out how your abilities bout the company's needs for the position.
When you're ambidextrous with a job accident on your resume, don't accommodate too abundant information. Your resume is your sales apparatus and abode on the job accident alone draws absorption to it. If you were accursed for cause, altercate it briefly during the interview, advertence acutely what you abstruse from the situation. If you were laid off, explain how the company's action differs from the one from which you were laid off, authoritative your abilities added applicative to the new company.
If your job accident leads to an continued aeon of unemployment, ample the gap with advance assignment applicative to the industry. For example, if the Web aggregation for which you formed folds, advance with a nonprofit accumulation to advice redesign their Web interface. This not alone fills your resume with applicative experience, but additionally provides a adventitious to convenance and brightness your abilities while benefiting the account the alignment supports.
Carolyn Williams began autograph and alteration professionally over 20 years ago. Her assignment appears on assorted websites. An ardent traveler, swimmer and golf enthusiast, Williams has a Bachelor of Arts in English from Mills College and a Master of Business Administration from St. Mary's College of California.
Williams, Carolyn. "How to Explain a Job Accident on a Resume." Assignment – Chron.com, http://work.chron.com/explain-job-loss-resume-2604.html. Accessed 28 October 2018.


With proper prior planning, it is possible to upgrade existing scale-out network-attached storage without the process having a negative impact on overall performance.
of these three elements can upset the performance balance of the system as a whole, not just during the initial installation phase, but on an ongoing basis.
For example, adding additional networked-attached storage boxes to a switch might slow down some important primary NAS-based storage data flows. "Rationalizing" files over to the new NAS scale-out boxes may cause serious short-term congestion. Avoiding these problems needs some statistical analysis and careful preplanning.
Looking at average and peak traffic on the network links to NAS will identify any hotspots. These are switches to avoid for the new NAS scale-out gear. This might come into conflict with the desire to localize storage to computing, minimizing backbone traffic. If there are hotspots within the rack, consider more links to the top-of-rack switch or even moving to 40 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) for the storage boxes.
A good rule of thumb in storage is that access gets slower as the appliance fills up. File structures become more complex and parsing them slows things down. NAS is particularly prone to this because it lends itself to data sprawl. NAS tenants often have no inclination toward cleaning up unwanted data, while duplication can run rampant. It's a good idea to clean up data, but that can be a big task.
Some ways to get at the data issue include identifying warm and cold data, and moving the latter to cheaper, slow storage -- which might include the cloud. Doing this manually is very time consuming, even in small installations, so some automated alternative is required. One solution might be to archive every file older than a certain date -- by applying exceptions for known active files or directories -- and then turn on auto-tiering that includes the archive.
Assuming the NAS pool is cleaned up, further growth might still be in order. The first priority is to look at the economics of compression and deduplication versus adding raw capacity. Compressed data will load much more quickly than raw data, and it saves network bandwidth, but software usually isn't free.
The next issue is to choose the NAS scale-out system to use. Just buying a clone of an existing NAS box isn't a good idea. The useful life of the box is effectively ended when the older boxes are forklifted out, while technology is moving at such a pace that the gear is probably obsolescent technically. It's better to buy the state of the art. If your NAS software can't cope with heterogeneity, look very hard at alternatives, because vendor lock-in, together with the buying of outdated designs, can be very expensive.
A good rule of thumb in storage is that access gets slower as the appliance fills up. File structures become more complex and parsing them slows things down.
Product designs have improved rapidly every year in the last half-decade, driven by flash technologies. Flash-based caches can make storage appear much more energized, improving bandwidth and latency dramatically. Remember that this faster speed is network-limited, so it might be necessary to use 40 GbE links into the network backbone for the new scale-out NAS, which means a partial network rebuild, at least.
Drive capacity is a second reason to pick newly-designed kit. Drives in the 4 TB to 8 TB range are now mainstream and this will soon extend to 10 TB. While this means fewer NAS boxes for any given effective capacity, performance can suffer if there are fewer, but larger HDD spindles. The answer to this usually lies in the NAS software, where adding a couple of journal files is supported to speed up write operations. Data from these is spread over multiple drives and NAS boxes in a background mode. Making these journals based on solid-state drives is a good idea. Writes complete in microseconds not tens of milliseconds, and if the software supports auto-tiering, the SSDs can also act as a fast cache.
Some applications benefit enormously from having cloning capabilities in NAS. When many copies of the same data have to be delivered to clients, doing so from flash makes things move much faster. The cloning approach allows a single copy to deliver all these images, saving precious cache space.
Within a couple of years, we'll see all NAS systems being delivered on SSDs. This will boost speeds dramatically, even with SSD capacities in the 20 TB or higher range. This means fewer boxes to deliver both on terabytes and IOPS, but the network loads will increase substantially. We are lucky that Ethernet development is running on a new, fast pace, with 25 GbE due this year and 50 GbE in 2018. Backbone versions with 4, 8 or even 12 lanes are in the pipe, giving capacities out to 0.6 terabits per second in 2018 or so. Without this improvement, your NAS scale-out system plans would be hampered by a network that can't keep pace.
What worries you the most about upgrading your scale-out NAS system?


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text:
Professor Michael Irwin
Home/Professor Michael Irwin
Professor Michael Irwin	asa_nsc_admin	2018-05-18T05:02:56+00:00
Michael G. Irwin, MB ChB, MD, FRCA, FCAI, FANZCA, FHKAM, is the Daniel CK Yu Professor and Head, Department of Anaesthesiology, University of Hong Kong, Chief of Service in Anaesthesia and Critical Care at Gleneagles Hospital. Past President of the Society of Anaesthetists of Hong Kong and of the Hong Kong College of Anaesthesiology, where he is also a member of the education and examination committees. Prof. Irwin has published over 260 articles in peer reviewed scientific journals (h index 39) and is a regular invited journal reviewer. He is an editor of Anaesthesia, Perioperative Medicine, Expert Opinion on Pharmacotherapy and senior editor of the HK Medical Journal. He is on the Faculty of Evidence Based Perioperative Medicine (EBPOM) and was Chairman of the organising committee for the World Congress of Anaesthesia 2016. Research interests include intravenous anaesthesia, pharmacology, enhanced recovery and organ preconditioning.
Abstract: Taking on TIVA


Microsoft Enterprise Developer and Solutions Conference (EntDevCon) Live Streaming today!
Are you stuck behind a Firewall with no access to Twitter? Here's the juicy bits in case you missed it!
Windows Vista – does PERCEPTION become REALITY?


text:
Michael Abels
Composer / Conductor
From: Phoenix, Arizona. LA Opera: composer of Homies and Popz (2000, debut); composer/conductor of Get Out with Live Orchestra (2022); composer of Omar (2022, mainstage debut).
Michael Abels is a two-time Emmy-nominated composer of music for film, media and the concert hall, often incorporating elements of folk, classical and bluegrass music.
He is known for his genre-defying scores for the Jordan Peele films Get Out and Us, for which Abels won a World Soundtrack Award, the Jerry Goldsmith Award, a Critics Choice nomination, and multiple critics awards. The hip-hop influenced score for Us was short-listed for the Oscar, and was even named "Score of the Decade" by The Wrap. Other recent media projects include the films Bad Education, Nightbooks, Fake Famous, and the docu-series Allen v. Farrow. Current releases include Beauty which premiered at the Tribeca Festival and is now streaming on Netflix, and Breaking (formerly 892) which premiered at Sundance and opened in theaters in August of 2022. Abels' third collaboration with Jordan Peele, Nope, opened in theaters in July of 2022.
Abels' creative output also includes many concert works, including At War With Ourselves for the Kronos Quartet, Isolation Variation for Hilary Hahn, and the opera Omar co-composed with Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Rhiannon Giddens, which opens at Los Angeles Opera in October 2022. His scores have been performed by the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the Los Angeles Master Chorale and many others. Some of these pieces are available on the Cedille label, including Delights & Dances and Winged Creatures. Current commissions include a work for the National Symphony, and a guitar concerto for Grammy-nominated artist Mak Grgic.
Abels is co-founder of the Composers Diversity Collective, an advocacy group to increase visibility of composers of color in film, gaming and streaming media.
His compositions include the one-act opera Homies and Popz, with a libretto by Bernardo Solano, commissioned by LA Opera and premiered in 2000.
Born in Phoenix, Arizona, Michael Abels attended the University of Southern California where he studied with James Hopkins and Robert Linn. Later on in his collegiate career, he studied West African music with Alfred Ladzekpo at the California Institute for the Arts. He currently serves as Director of Music for New Roads School in Santa Monica.


emorley: Feel free to swap the priorities of work items in the spreadsheet if you like, depending on what you want to work on now.
emorley: I'd be delighted if it got entirely done, but even having it 50-75% done with a checklist for remaining items would be grand.
emorley I was planning to do a prod push today - does that work for you?
treeherder-internal list just got an alert.
hey camd, I have some prs I want to get pushed to prod today. Do you have time to do quick reviews this morning/early afternoon?
camd I was thinking of doing a prod push soon. Did you want to test out anything on stage?
Are you going to do the honors?
great, do I need to check with sheriffs or do you save that for major UI changes to TH?
It's just a judgement call. I don't know that anything changed that would really hit their workflow unless somehow major things broke.
camd do you have to do anything else to initiate the prod deploy after pushing to master:production?
ah, where can you see it?


The components of a Steelsmith metal building system are engineered and fabricated at the manufacturing facility, and shipped to the job site as a complete package. This allows for significantly faster construction than other building methods. Because the components are made from high quality American steel, a Steelsmith metal building is virtually maintenance-free.


text:
title: I've been taking photos all my life
date: 2014-05-20T08:46:30.000Z
layout: quote
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> I've been taking photos all my life. Long before i had a camera.

-- Sabrina

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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I actually have a sign in my laundry room that says that. Don't get me wrong, I love when my house is clean and in order—I just seem to have a hard time keeping it that way. It's not because I mind actually cleaning, either, other than there are so many more fun things to do instead. It's never bothered me to tackle a dirty toilet or soap-scum filled tub. What bothers me is that no matter how clean my house might be one day, the tendency is to fall back into chaotic disorder the next. Phyllis Diller was quoted as saying, "Cleaning your house while your children are growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing." Yep. Our family is a little apathetic when it comes to clutter. Or at least more tolerant of it than most.
Consequently my desk has lots of writing books, cool notebooks/journals, tons of pens along with things I am not supposed to forget to do—like bills to pay and field trip permission forms to return. If I "put it away", it's a pretty safe bet that it will be gone forever—or at least until it's past the time I was supposed to take care of it. I've tried different systems to keep it to a minimum, like having a special folder for all my ongoing projects, but then I still need to have the folder where I can see it!
But, hey, I know where my stuff is. As does everyone else who visits.
What I've learned is that a mess won't go anywhere. In fact, it seems to multiply. The kitchen island is a great example. It starts with a piece of mail I want to make sure my husband notices, so I put it on the island. He comes home, eats, doesn't notice the mail and I forget to tell him about it. It stays on the counter and is joined by a few other "husband pile" items, like safety glasses and an odd screw I found on the kitchen floor that might be important. In the meantime, the kids notice that there's empty, horizontal surface space on the counter and add their school papers to the mix. It's amazing how little time it takes for the paper monster to grow.
The worst part of being tolerant of a mess is that most of the people I admire are naturally organized or admittedly OCD about cleanliness. At any given time I could drop by their homes and probably eat off their bathroom floors. They suffer from the inability to leave a mess or aren't able to sleep knowing there are dishes in the sink that didn't fit in the load in the dishwasher. They alphabetize their spice racks. There's no such thing as a junk drawer. I need my junk drawer.
I like to think that my friends and family understand this about me and think it's one of my cute, quirky characteristics. Or that dog hair dust bunnies are a new trend I'm experimenting with in my décor. Thankfully I do not have to remind them that they shouldn't attempt eating off my bathroom floors. After all, they'd have to fight with my dogs if they did that. I have to hope that they love me anyway, even if my philosophy on housework is more Erma Bombeck than Martha Stewart.
I've read & collected many books, articles, or websites about cleaning, organizing, and loving my home & myself… My favorite term that fits me is the "flat/open surface abuser". I can't seem to leave my coffee table, nightstands, or lamp side tables clutter free very long, either. Things reproduce there when no one's looking, like the "wire hangers" in closets theory?
I suppose it's a comfort thing, to want my "stuff" around me. I too like seeing/knowing what I need is w/in hand's reach. George Carlin, the comedian, had a bit on people needing "stuff" to feel at home. Staying at a Hotel? Unpack, & not happy unless some of your "stuff" is on each surface… Very funny take on open surface abusers.
At least we don't have to "mark" our stuff like my dogs do. Then, I'd really think we have a problem!
I really enjoy reading your musings or inspirations of the "day", Amy. Your inspiration, humor, and outlook always leaves me feeling a little better (or a lot) than before I read them. Keep this going – It's one of your many gifts to share! Remember, "Amy", means bright or happy in those name books? You're little "Amy Sunshine" spreading little rays of "Happiness" with each article!
Thank you, Kristin. You just made my day!


Notes: Almost every time I stayed overnight at her house, my Nana would make me "an egg in a nest" (which should really be the proper name for this dish: you don't get eggs from a hole ; you get them from a nest ) and I always loved it.
As an adult, I know differently, but as a kid, I thought she invented this dish herself, because no one else ever made it and I never heard anyone else ever mention it. Even to this day, part of me still thinks this dish as being something only my sister and I know about.
So, the added step of deglazing the pan with vinegar (in this case, I used white wine instead of sherry) seemed more than a little sacrilegious. But still, I made it as described.
Wow. That is one unphotogenic dish, eh? Yipes.
I still had my doubts about the vinegar deglazing. I took a tentative bite.
I ate the entire thing just standing there at the counter.
The vinegar was absolutely genius. It combines the remaining butter and eggy bits in the pan, and the heat mellows it out until almost all its sharp bite is gone. It's amazing.
Oh my gosh. I have to try this now after such a glowing review. And here I thought eggs in a hole were so good they couldn't be improved upon!
We always called them Hole-in-Ones. Oh, and made them with rye bread. Yumm.
I tried this today..and it was oh so yummmi :9. I have a new fave for breakfast!
my ex-boyfriend's mom used to make us "eggs in a basket" for a quick week-night dinner. i haven't made this in ages…thanks for reminding me. and i'm totally with rebecca on the rye bread.


text:
Benny Snell 'Thankful' For Every Opportunity On Field, 'Can Never Be Too Down Knowing What I Can Do'
By Matthew Marczi
Posted on December 2, 2022 at 6:20 am
One of the stars of the game for the Pittsburgh Steelers earlier this week was veteran running back Benny Snell Jr., a man who hadn't had a touch all season biding his time behind Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren only to be called upon due to injuries to step up and then proceeding to do so.
While his workload was not overly demanding, he finished Monday night's game with 62 rushing yards on 12 carries, including the game-winning touchdown, along with one reception that picked up six yards. He also held up well in pass protection on top of that.
None of this comes as a surprise to him, however, his self-confidence a source of comfort for him as he pushes forth with whatever the coaching staff asks him to do, even if it is to grind it out on special teams while staying ready for offensive work. He takes pride and pleasure in all of it.
"I'm thankful to be in the position I am, to have such good teammates, being able to play for the Steelers, to be with a good offense," Snell told reporters yesterday, via the team's website. "And I'm very aware of what I'm capable of. I know my self-worth, my value, so I can never be too down knowing what I can do."
A fourth-round draft pick out of Kentucky in 2019, he lost the backup running back role earlier this offseason to Warren, a college free agent who really came on and impressed during training camp and the preseason and who has even been eating into Harris' workload.
Snell came out of college in the bell-cow mode, known for being a hard-nosed runner whose strength is in the game of attrition. Historically, his numbers in the NFL show that there is a correlation between the number of touches he gets in a game and the quality of performance he displays.
He had not gotten many opportunities, however, since 2020. In fact, he had over 100 carries in each of his first two seasons, although the key factor there was playing behind a starting running back in James Conner who had a pattern of getting nicked up and thus missing time.
Harris also came out of college in the workhorse mode, and that's how the Steelers used him as a rookie, logging an NFL-high 381 touches last year. While they shifted away from that model in 2022, it was largely because of gaining trust in Warren to supplement him.
A pending free agent next year, it is unclear whether or not Snell is in the Steelers' future beyond the remainder of this current season. He has been a steady contributor on special teams since his rookie season, something that he continues to do even now. He is unlikely to have much of a market otherwise.
With Harris still nursing an injury and uncertainty over whether or not he will play on Sunday, it's possible that he gets another opportunity to get work on offense, however. Warren appears to be on track to return, but the two, along with Anthony McFarland Jr., would likely be asked to share the load.
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When tracking or analyzing accounts receivable, it's common to use categories based on how many days past due, such as 1-30, 31-60, 61-90, 91-120, and 120+ days past due. This can be done with an Access query. A row with totals can even be displayed at the bottom, just as you would sum columns of numbers in Excel.
Consider a query that has columns for DateDue, AmountDue, and DaysOverdue. DaysOverdue is a calculated field and can be used in expressions for other calculated fields. The formula for DaysOverdue is: DateDiff("d", [DateDue], Date()). DateDiff finds the difference between two dates and returns the result in the specified time interval, such as days, months, or years. Date() returns the current date and is like the TODAY function in Excel.
To see if DaysOverdue is between 1 and 30, we'll use the IIf (Immediate If) function, which can be used anywhere you can use an expression and works much like the IF function in Excel. Three parameters, or parts, must be specified—the condition to test, the value if true, and the value if false—using the syntax IIf(condition to test, value if true, value if false). Each part can be an expression.
Even though IIf returns only one value, both the true and false value expressions are evaluated. It's important to consider the possibility that one of the expressions might result in an error. If that's the case, the formula won't work even if the other expression would be the one applied. For example, if one formula might result in a division by zero, you can't ignore it because you think it won't be used and that the other part will apply. Nesting IIf statements or other functions, such as Nz (null to zero, or specified optional second parameter) and IsNull (a logical function that indicates whether an expression contains data), can be used to help avoid errors.
With the query open in Design view, click in the Field cell of an empty column and open the Expression Builder to create the expression shown in Figure 1: Due30: IIf([DaysOverdue] Between 1 And 30,[AmountDue],Null).
The name of the calculated field, Due30, is before the colon. If a name isn't assigned, Access will use an arbitrary placeholder such as Expr1. When choosing a name, it's best to start with a letter, avoid using spaces or special characters except underscores, and make it sensible and related to the field's use.
The function tests the value in DaysOverdue to see if it falls within 1 and 30, inclusively. If it does, then the function returns the value in the amount due field (AmountDue). If it doesn't, then no value (Null) is returned. If you want a zero when there's no value, either use a 0 in its place within the formula or set the Format property of the column to show Null as zero. (While in the column, press Alt+Enter to open the property sheet.) An advantage of returning Null rather than 0 is that when values are counted, those with no value are excluded.
In the same way, Due60, Due90, and Due120 can be calculated by changing the "Between 1 And 30" range in the formula to 31 and 60, 61 and 90, and 91 and 120, respectively. For amounts older than 120 days, use Over120: IIf([DaysOverdue]>120,[AmountDue],Null). To calculate the receivables that aren't overdue, use DueCurrent: IIf([DaysOverdue]<1,[AmountDue],Null).
If the amount is due today, Date() – DateDue will be zero. If the due date is in the future, then the result will be negative. Rather than displaying a negative number, you can specify a custom number format code on the Property Sheet for the column. Like Excel, custom number format codes have different "zones," as Bill Jelen has called them in Strategic Finance's Excel column. Others might call them "parts," "sections," "arguments," or "parameters." The first zone defines how positive values will look (if only one zone is specified, it will be used for all numbers). Additional zones can be specified. They are delimited with a semicolon. The second zone is for negative values, the third is for zero, and the fourth for Null.
Named formats that follow Windows region settings also can be used, such as Fixed (at least one digit), Standard (include the thousand separator), Percent (multiply by 100, display percent sign), Scientific (standard scientific notation), Currency (include the thousand separator, display currency symbol), and General Number (display as entered).
To add the Totals Row below the records, open the query in Datasheet view. On the Home tab, click the Totals icon in the Records group. This toggles the Totals row for aggregating values on or off. Turn on the Totals row.
In each of the columns that show an amount, click in the Total cell. From the dropdown, which displays the list of aggregate functions, choose Sum (see Figure 2). If you choose Count, only the records that aren't Null will be counted.
While a query can only show one row of totals, a report can show multiple rows, like if you want to show both Sum and Count as well as other statistics, such as Maximum and Minimum.
Download this month's database: sf-1706-Aging_Database.