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UMaine Research
Office of Research Development (ORD)
Research Development Services:
Office of Research Development Staff are available to meet with faculty on a 1:1 basis to develop a grant funding plan to advance your research and scholarship agendas. Please contact Jason Charland for more information.
Please visit the ORD website periodically for updates on funding, training, and resources.
Highlighted Funding Opportunities
NSF EHR Core Research Program
Due Date: October 3, 2019
The EHR Core Research program (ECR) invites proposals for fundamental research (basic research or use-inspired basic research) that advances knowledge in one or more of the three Research Tracks: Research on STEM Learning and Learning Environments, Research on Broadening Participation in STEM fields, and Research on STEM Workforce Development.
ECR supports a wide range of research activities. ECR seeks to fund fundamental research that could involve the collection of new qualitative or quantitative data, secondary analyses using extant datasets, or meta-analyses. In addition, ECR supports research to develop innovative research methods, metrics, and conceptual models to measure existing and emerging phenomena, and to test theories that inform core scientific questions about STEM education and learning.
The three levels of funding should align with the maturity of the proposed work, the size and scope of the empirical effort, and the capacity of the team to conduct the proposed research:
(1) Level I proposals: have a maximum award size of $500,000 and a maximum duration of 3 years;
(2) Level II proposals have a maximum award size of $1,500,000 and a maximum duration of 3 years;
(3) Level III proposals have a maximum award size of $2,500,000 and a maximum duration of 5 years.
Agriculture and Food Research Initiative – Foundational and Applied Science Program
Due Dates (Vary By Program): June to December
Synopsis: The AFRI Foundational and Applied Science Program supports grants in six AFRI priority areas to advance knowledge in both fundamental and applied sciences important to agriculture. The six priority areas are: Plant Health and Production and Plant Products; Animal Health and Production and Animal Products; Food Safety, Nutrition, and Health; Bioenergy, Natural Resources, and Environment; Agriculture Systems and Technology; and Agriculture Economics and Rural Communities. Research-only, extension-only, and integrated research, education and/or extension projects are solicited in this Request for Applications (RFA).
Contact the Office of Research Development if you are interested in submitting a proposal or joining a research team.
More Funding Information
Check out our grant funding opportunity website! It is internal to the UMaine research community, and updated weekly with a curated list of grant solicitations. Postings include funding opportunities that are relevant to UMaine's Signature and Emerging Areas.
Bookmark the page so that you can easily check each week for new relevant opportunities!
Requests for funding opportunities in specific topic areas to be posted and suggestions for website enhancements can be directed to Allyson Hammond (allyson.hammond@maine.edu).
UMaine provides access to a powerful grant-seeking database, PIVOT. This is an excellent tool to identify funding prospects and to match research activities with appropriate sponsors. PIVOT can be used to customize searches based on individual research and scholarship interests.
Allyson is available to assist faculty with setting up a PIVOT profile, conducting searches for funding, and starting the proposal development process.
Future Opportunities from AAUW - Open in August 2019
Research Grant in Engineering, Medicine, and Science
https://www.aauw.org/what-we-do/educational-funding-and-awards/research-publication-grant/rpg-application-instructions/
• Awards range from $10K to $35K. Closing date is December 1, 2019
• Grants are open to women scholars conducting basic research in engineering, medicine, or physical or biological sciences. AAUW follows the National Science Foundation's definition of basic research: "activity aimed at acquiring new knowledge or understanding without specific immediate commercial application or use."
• The grantee must plan to publish this research in a scholarly scientific publication within six months of the end of the grant year and be listed as the sole author, senior author, first author, or an author of equivalent significance.
• Applicants must hold a doctorate degree in engineering, medicine, or the physical or biological sciences.
• Tenured professors are not eligible. The grants are for tenure track, part-time, and temporary faculty, as well as new and established researchers at universities.
American Fellowships Short-Term Research Publication Grant
https://www.aauw.org/what-we-do/educational-funding-and-awards/american-fellowships/af-research-publication-grants-application/
• Award amount is $6,000. Closing date is November 1, 2019
• American Fellowships are open to women scholars in all fields of study.
• Short-Term Research Publication Grants applicants must hold a Ph.D., Ed.D., D.B.A., M.F.A., J.D., M.D., D.M.D., D.V.M., D.S.W., or M.P.H. at the time of application.
• Tenured professors are not eligible. The grants are for tenure-track, part-time, and temporary faculty, as well as new and established researchers at universities.
• Scholars with strong publication records should seek funding elsewhere.
• Time must be available for eight consecutive weeks of final manuscript preparation. While many recipients, especially full-time faculty members, will use the awards during the summer, recipients may use the funds at any time during the fellowship year.
• All applicants must demonstrate that the support will result in a reduction of their ongoing work-related activities.
• The grants are not for preliminary research. Activities undertaken during the grant period can include drafting, editing, or modifying manuscripts; replicating research components; responding to issues raised through critical review; and other initiatives to increase the likelihood of publication.
American Fellowships Post-Doctoral Research Leave Fellowships
https://www.aauw.org/what-we-do/educational-funding-and-awards/american-fellowships/af-postdoctoral-research-application/
• Award amount is $30,000. Closing date is November 1, 2019.
• American Postdoctoral Research Leave Fellowship applicants must hold a doctorate classified as a research degree (e.g., Ph.D., Ed.D., D.B.A., D.M.) or an M.F.A at the time of application.
• Tenured professors are not eligible.
• An AAUW American Fellow is expected to pursue her project full time during the funding period (July 1–June 30). However, Fellows may work up to 15 hours per week, or teach one section of one course per semester or term, with prior written approval from AAUW.
• The AAUW American Fellowships stipend must be larger than any other single award or remunerative position (excluding sabbatical support or support from a program that is the functional equivalent of sabbatical leave) received during the fellowship year and must be acknowledged as the major award.
• American Postdoctoral Fellowships funds are not available for
• Purchase of equipment
• Indirect costs
• Research assistants
• Previous expenditures, deficits, or repayment of loans
• Publication costs
• Institutional (overhead) costs
• Tuition for dependent's education
• Tuition for additional coursework
For more information please contact Deborah Smith (deborah.smith@maine.edu).
Research Quicklinks
Commonly Used Forms
Maine Impact Week
Submit Research Stories
Research Faculty Appointments
Funding Opportunities, Services and Deadlines
Monthly Grants Awarded Report
Follow UMaine Research on Twitter
5703 Alumni Hall Orono, Maine 04469
Tel: 207.581.1506	Fax: research@maine.edu


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Amazon now has more than 100 private label brands, some without the name Amazon even remotely attached, for product categories like clothing, dog food, and furniture. Yet AmazonBasics, and the Amazon Essentials clothing brand, remain the company's biggest weapons in its war against offline retail. Just as Walmart, Target, and other stores launched their own private label brands for virtually every product imaginable, the company has done the same. (In 2015, it also launched an official Etsy competitor in the form of Amazon Homemade.)
In March 2015, it was reported in The Verge that Amazon will be removing non-compete clauses of 18 months in length from its US employment contracts for hourly-paid workers, after criticism that it was acting unreasonably in preventing such employees from finding other work. Even short-term temporary workers have to sign contracts that prohibit them from working at any company where they would "directly or indirectly" support any good or service that competes with those they helped support at Amazon, for 18 months after leaving Amazon, even if they are fired or made redundant.[190][191]
Jump up ^ "Pitch Perfect". On The Media. January 1, 2010. Archived from the original on 2010-01-09. Retrieved 2010-01-16. He figured out that he could build brand recognition by blanketing the airwaves with cheap direct-to-consumer commercials, and then take the product into retail stores where he slapped an "As Seen On TV" logo on them, which he designed himself. It's a very lucrative formula, he told me, so that's what he's been doing ever since.
World-famous action movie and television star Chuck Norris has stood behind the Total Gym exercise machine for more than 30 years. The Total Gym provides a complete exercise experience in one simple product. Because the product is able to fold out to become different machines, this gym allows a person to stay in peak physical condition without wasting a lot of money. Norris himself is world famous for his physique and has used the Total Gym for decades to maintain that condition.
We've got fashion dresses that are flirty, casual, and chic. Whether you are looking for just the right dress to wear to work, school, prom, homecoming, a party, a special event, or a date, we feel confident that you will love our women's dresses. We carry a full range of women's dress lengths, styles, colors, and cuts so that every woman can choose what makes her feel beautiful. We also have a full range of sweaters, blazers, scarf wraps, and jackets that will help you cover up your dress for fall and winter wear.
Sign up for Amazon Family and a Prime account to get special offers, coupons and discounts on family-oriented items. If you aren't a Prime member, you'll get a 5% discount on baby food and diaper subscriptions. Prime members get an additional 15% off with five or more active subscriptions. Get a 15% discount code and a free Welcome Box when you sign up for the Baby Registry.
In 2014, Amazon expanded its lobbying practices as it prepared to lobby the Federal Aviation Administration to approve its drone delivery program, hiring the Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld lobbying firm in June.[210] Amazon and its lobbyists have visited with Federal Aviation Administration officials and aviation committees in Washington, D.C. to explain its plans to deliver packages.[211]
The main con is obviously the cold, crowds, and chaos. But just because Black Friday traditionally means in-store shopping, doesn't mean that many retailers won't offer sales online. Last year, online sales hit 19.62 billion over the five-day period from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday. So if you don't want to wake up in the middle of the night to battle crowds and wait in long lines, check with your favorite stores to see if you can do it all from the comfort of your home.
Amazon was founded in 1994 around Bezos' desire to start an internet-based business, with the goal of selling items online emerging as an early and obvious inroad into the dot-com boom. A former Wall Street worker with electrical engineering and computer science degrees, Bezos zeroed in on books as a viable initial product category for his online store due to the universality of literature, the existing stock of print books, and the relatively low price of each unit. Bezos briefly considered naming his company Relentless.com — an early sign of the man's tenacious business mindset — but friends and family suggested it was too malevolent sounding. Relentless.com, which Bezos bought roughly 24 years ago, still redirects to Amazon.com. The company now controls almost half of all print book sales in the US.
Before you can sell your goods on Amazon, you need to create a store through Seller Central. As a seller, you have the choice of creating either an individual or professional account. While individuals can list their goods for free, selling as a professional costs $39.99 a month plus additional fees based on the value of the final sale. Individuals typically pay $0.99 per item sold in addition to variable fees based on an item's category.
Alex Ikonn and his wife Mimi launched Luxyhair.com after they realized how hard it was to find great hair extensions in the marketplace. This hair extensions ecommerce retailer has built their business on the fan audience they've attracted through YouTube tutorial videos. They have a serious following, which is exactly what has enabled them to grow their business to seven figures since 2010!
Looking for an amazing gift for a birthday or holiday, or perhaps a treat or new gadget for yourself? The As Seen On TV collection from HSN features some of our most incredible items from a wide range of categories. From premium cosmetics and grooming supplies that will have you looking stunning on date night, to handy electronics that will make everyday tasks easier, to gear for both working out and relaxing, there's literally something for everyone in this innovative selection of As Seen On TV products.
You should never share your debit or credit card password with any Amazon seller unless you are at the checkout page requiring you to enter these details. And besides, the only card password you'll need aren't any passwords you set up online - the three digit pin that can be found on the front or back of the card are those digits you'll need to input for the purchase to be sent out Amazon's door.
A 2015 front-page article in The New York Times profiled several former Amazon employees[192] who together described a "bruising" workplace culture in which workers with illness or other personal crises were pushed out or unfairly evaluated.[11] Bezos responded by writing a Sunday memo to employees,[193] in which he disputed the Times's account of "shockingly callous management practices" that he said would never be tolerated at the company.[11]
In 2015, Amazon surpassed Walmart as the most valuable retailer in the United States by market capitalization.[11] Amazon is the third most valuable public company in the United States (behind Apple and Microsoft),[12] the largest Internet company by revenue in the world, and after Walmart, the second largest employer in the United States.[13] In 2017, Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market for $13.4 billion, which vastly increased Amazon's presence as a brick-and-mortar retailer.[14] The acquisition was interpreted by some as a direct attempt to challenge Walmart's traditional retail stores.[15]
Now when you shop with Amazon.com, a portion of your purchase will help support the work of the American Institute for Cancer Research. Through AmazonSmile, a website operated by Amazon, you can enjoy the same wide selection of products, low prices, and convenient shopping features as on Amazon.com. The difference is that when you shop on AmazonSmile, the AmazonSmile Foundation will donate 0.5% of the purchase price to AICR.
Amazon.com's product lines available at its website include several media (books, DVDs, music CDs, videotapes and software), apparel, baby products, consumer electronics, beauty products, gourmet food, groceries, health and personal-care items, industrial & scientific supplies, kitchen items, jewelry, watches, lawn and garden items, musical instruments, sporting goods, tools, automotive items and toys & games.[citation needed]
Bezos and those he's hired over the years have been prescient about a vast number of shifts in how people spend money, buy products, and use the internet. But none of their predictions may have panned out quite as lucratively as Amazon Web Services, the company's cloud computing division that loans server space and other computing resources at massive profit margins.
On May 5, 2014, Amazon unveiled a partnership with Twitter. Twitter users can link their accounts to an Amazon account and automatically add items to their shopping carts by responding to any tweet with an Amazon product link bearing the hashtag #AmazonCart. This allows customers to never leave their Twitter feed and the product is waiting for them when they go to the Amazon website.[146]
The infomercial industry is huge and is worth a staggering $250 billion as of 2015. It all started back in the late 40's and early 50's when major sponsors of serial television programs were soap manufacturers (i.e. Proctor & Gamble, Lever Brothers and Colgate-Palmolive), which is how "soap operas" got their name. There is some controversy although the first infomercial is thought to have been for a blender either made by VitaMix or Waring Blenders and aired in 1949 or 1950. Time limits for commercials were imposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) not too long after this which halted the growth of infomercials until 1984 when those limits were removed.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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HRSS may refer to:

 Croatian Peasant Party (Croatian: ), former name of a political party in Croatia
 HRSS (cryptography), an instantiation of NTRU cryptography used in CECPQ2

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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(new user)
Front PagePeopleRecent ChangesARTwalk
ARTwalk is a trail meandering through Rochester's Neighborhood of the Arts (NOTA), essentially an independent museum without walls, exhibitis coming from the cultural institutions, schools, artists' studios, merchants and entertainment venues in its path. It currently includes the stretch of University Avenue between the George Eastman House (at Russell Street) and the Memorial Art Gallery (at North Goodman Street), with hopes to expand to adjacent streets.
In March of 2000, ARTWalk was awarded a state grant for $232,800.
It has since been recognized through numerous publications and received the following awards:
First Place in the U.S. Conference of Mayors "2003 City Livability Award"
Uncommonly Good Award, the Common Good Planning Center - Winter 2003
The 2008 event scheduled for September 14, 2008
Along ARTWalk you can find various pieces of public art, be it visual works, or practical things such as park benches or bus stops which are artfully designed. Art is even imprinted into the sidewalk!
ARTWalks' mission statement:
"ARTWalk is a unique outdoor museum. Our Mission is to strengthen, connect and unify the community through increased engagement with and support of the arts."
ARTWalks' Vision statement:
"The ARTWalk Vision is to be a thriving, spirited and passionate model for positive change and economic revitalization of urban spaces everywhere through its delivery and promotion of compelling and engaging outdoor arts and cultural programs."
Map (PDF)
Except where otherwise noted, this content is licensed under a Creative Commons License. See Copyrights.


To book over the phone, call us on 01279 771815. You can also download a booking form and post it to us with your deposit.
Prices ranges from £400 - £550 per week inclusive of all bills. For shorter or longer lets, please telephone for availability and pricing.
N.B. Dogs incur an extra charge of £20.00 per week or £15.00 per short break – please see terms and conditions.
Horses can also be stabled with prior arrangement.
We require a 50% deposit to secure the cottage and then payment in full 4 weeks prior to your arrival date. Payment by cheque or cash only.
Click here to download the form in Word format, you can fill it in and email it back to us.


1. What is a tessellation?
A tessellation is created when a shape is repeated over and over again covering a plane without any gaps or overlaps. Another word for a tessellation is a tiling.
And yes, here is another gallery of tessellations worth looking at!
A tessellation is created when a shape is repeated over and over again covering a plane without any gaps or overlaps. I learned the hard way how easily triangles can get flopped and rotated, so I came up with a numbering process that eliminated that problem.
1. Start off with a 8cm (or larger) square of heavy card stock paper, scissors, tape, and drawing paper.
2. Make a diagram on a board that follows the steps illustrated to the right.
a. Number the corners as shown.
b. Cut the bottom two corners off and move up to the top. With edges touching and not overlapping, tape in place. The numbers should stay right reading.
c. The students are to draw a triangle on the back side, label "H" for head, and move to the right top and tape in place to make a bird shape.
3. Using the bird as a tracing template, they are to align it with the side of a drawing paper, and trace one stacking column. Then, if they move the bird to the right and interlock the head shapes, they can make another column that interlocks with the first. Continue tracing columns until the paper is filled.
4. Lastly, pencil lines are traced with a marker and the shapes are colored in. This artwork uses crayon, but jovis, felts or gel pens would look good too.
You are now ready to make your own tessellation. It's doesn't have to be an animal but I suggest that's what you start off with.


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Pixels Isn't The Worst Film Ever Made … It's Merely Bad – Adam Sandler's Latest Reviewed
Scott Sawitz | August 4, 2015 | Film, Reviews, Theatrical Reviews, Top Story | No Comments
Bad but not terrible
After a solid opening weekend the one thing to come out of Pixels was that it was the worst film ever made. That's a regular thing with Adam Sandler films as of late; everyone is in such a rush to condemn them that it's a battle of who can be the angriest, most obnoxious and hate filled film reviewer on the web. It was the same thing with Mad Max: Fury Road when a men's rights website went after the film's feminist tone and everyone en masse responded by raving about its feminist tone.
It's something I wrote about in a column, actually, and the extended backlash to Pixels was expected. Negative reviews often have an avalanche effect; people want to be on the "right" side of things more often than not. Thus Pixels has come and holding steady, as Sandler is still a box office draw to some degree, but here's the thing. Pixels isn't the worst film ever made in the history of film. If you by a ticket to it you aren't contributing to the decline of western civilization in any way. Adam Sandler isn't the Typhoid Mary of cinema, infecting everything in his grasp with awful that you helped perpetuate by buying a ticket to his movie. In the internet age of discussing film we often forget that not everything is the worst thing ever created, invented or discussed and Pixels has lent itself to this sort of discussion merely for existing, it seems.
In the end … you just bought a ticket to a bad film that treads on nostalgia to the point of insult.
Sandler plays himself, once again, as a TV installer who was once an arcade game world champion. Josh Gad does, as well, as he plays his usual sort of creepy weirdo and Kevin James as the bumbling, overweight President that Saturday Night Live would make of New Jersey governor Chris Christie. Peter Dinklage also shows up as Sandler's childhood rival, complete with a mullet. They have to pool their resources together as aliens invade, taking the form of early 1980s arcade games. Together they lead the counter attack to save Earth.
And to be fair this isn't a good film. This is a film that treads on nostalgia for 1980s video games that really isn't there anymore. There never was, to be fair, as the terrible video games are now a novelty you can play on your phone for a couple weeks before moving back to Candy Crush or Boom Beach. It is pandering to the generations that grew up in the brief era where video game arcades were the only place to play video games with everyone in the local area. For a film designed to entertain those not old enough to drive, but too old for Disney, it's an interesting strategy because this is a film that should be designed towards people over 30 who remember the days of making sure you had enough quarters to beat "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" with three of your friends.
This is a film who's subject matter would lend itself to those for whom The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters evoked a trip down memory lane. Yet it's trying to appeal to a generation that was raised on "Halo" … it's as if someone took an r-rated film about '80s video games that was inexpensively budgeted and amped the budget up while making it fit a PG-13 rating instead. There's something interesting going on here, revisiting an era long since gone, and there's an interesting story about childhood glory leaving its mark on mediocre adults.
It's baffling on any number of levels, the final execution, because the overall arc of the film has something to it. You can see it, and feel it once or twice, but the film feels as if it's been gutted for simple gags and relentless callbacks to nostalgia that makes one wish they could wipe the 1980s out of the collective memory of everyone who lived through it. The film uses nostalgia for 1980s arcade games like a 20 something uses a "1980s Best of" for a theme party. They may think "Your Love" by the Outfield is an amazing song, and properly song at Patriots games, but they forgot that they had multiple albums of forgettable songs that weren't that good as well.
Pixels isn't even the worse film of the calendar year, much less of all time, but the backlash towards it is overkill at worst and profoundly unnecessary while being hilariously over the top to the point of absurdity. It's just a bad film that panders towards the 13 year old in all of us and fails for the most part, nothing more.
Director: Chris Columbus
Writer: Tim Herlihy and Timothy Dowling
Notable Cast: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Michelle Monaghan, Peter Dinklage, Josh Gad, Brian Cox, Sean Bean
Tags: adam sandler, Brian Cox, Josh Gad, Kevin James, michelle monaghan, Peter Dinklage, Pixels, Sean Bean
Scott Sawitz
Scott Sawitz is an Inside Pulse original. He's also been featured on The Ultimate Fighter.com, Fox Sports.com, Nerdcore Movement.com, CagePotato.com, Inside Fights.com and Film Arcade.net (among others). When Scott isn't writing about film he's making his own. Check out Drunk Justice Productions right here.


This week at the annual Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) conference in Long Beach, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang surprised attendees and media with the announcement of a new graphics card targeted at artificial intelligence and machine learning developers. The "NVIDIA TITAN V" might look like a traditional graphics card used for gaming, but under the hood this new product offers a different level and type of performance.
With the launch of the Xbox One X today, Microsoft reclaims the title of highest performance gaming console on the market, taking it from Sony's PlayStation brand. The PS4 Pro, released earlier in the year, was a modest upgrade in hardware and performance capability, but the Xbox One X, previously known as Project Scorpio, offers a more significant performance increase. This will allow for 4K support, better image quality in current and upcoming games, as well as a faster and smoother console experience.
Today Intel announced a new product family for its 8th Generation Core family that combines a 35-watt processor and AMD Radeon graphics chip on a single package in order to create a new class of gaming notebook solution. It hasn't been assigned a brand yet, that will likely occur with a formal announcement at CES this January. This announcement has significant impact because it solidifies a partnership between competitors AMD and Intel for a product in a space both compete in.
Earlier this week, Samsung announced that it would begin ramping up production of its 8GB HBM2 technology in order to address the rapidly expanding need for high-bandwidth memory in the market. HBM2 is used in high performance processors used for artificial intelligence, HPC (high performance compute), graphics, gaming, networking, and enterprise servers because of its low power, high throughput capability. HBM technology uses stacked memory dies that are vertically connected by TSVs (through silicon vias) to improve density and capacity, while also preventing overheating to guarantee higher reliability.


In rural areas people often have to make the best use of what they have and share this with their families and neighbours. An example of this is a scheme in the Netherlands where farmers share large machinery which would not normally be used for long periods of time. This is a machinery ring or syndicate.
Other resources are also becoming expensive and scarce . Energy and transport are 2 examples of valuable resources in rural areas which are being threatened. Distances are long and public transport inadequate.
Resources is a broad term, it includes access to information, access to services (such as medical care, cleaning, libraries, schools) and access to work or infrastructure (ICT, broadband etc).
We need to find ways to make the best use of these limited resources.


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Q: Can an Expression> variable be reliably used as key in a dictionary? I have a function that currently uses a Func<T1, T2> as argument.
I want it to use an Expression<Func<T1, T2>> as argument so that I can traverse the expression tree in certain circumstances.
For every call I want to use the function, so I would need to Compile() the expression.
In order to not having to recompile all of the expressions, I would like to put them in a dictionary.
The calls to my method looks like this:
var foo = MyFunc(x => x.Field);

Is the following solution correct with regards to the usage of Expression as a dictionary key?
static Dictionary<Expression<Func<T1, T2>>, Func<T1, T2>> s_functions = new Dictionary<Expression<Func<T1, T2>>, Func<T1, T2>>();

public T2 MyFunc(Expression<Func<T1, T2>> selectorExpression)
{
    if (!s_functions.ContainsKey(selectorExpression))
    {
        s_functions.Add(selectorExpression, selectorExpression.Compile());
    }

    Func<T1, T2> selector = s_functions[selectorExpression];
}

EDIT
What would be a good way to solve it from a performance perspective?

A: Unfortunately not, but the problem will only manifest as a performance bug.
The issue is that Expression<TDelegate> does not implement IEquatable<Expression<TDelegate>> so the default equality comparer used by the dictionary will only do reference equality. This means that different instances of the same expression will not compare identical, which will lead to cache misses that should have been hits. On the other hand instances of different expressions will always compare different, so there's no logic bug.
You can fix this problem by providing a custom equality comparer for the dictionary, but there's also the small matter of having to write one -- it's going to be a tall order.
On the bright side, it might be possible to write a comparer that has the same performance bug as the original implementation (but reduced in scope) in exchange for convenience -- the reduction in scope might account for all or most the cases you are actually going to encounter! For example, you might want to try comparing based on equality of ToString() representations. As long as the comparer does not produce any false positives there is only room for improvement.

A: Use selectorExpression.ToString() as key. It is not perfect since equivalent expressions using different parameter names will yield different strings, but it's a very simple approach.
Test:
Expression<Func<int,int>> expr = x => x * x;
MessageBox.Show(expr.ToString()); // ==> "x => (x * x)"

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Molly Lasagna
Senior Program Officer – Expand Postsecondary Education in Prison
Partnering with current and potential grantees and other funders to elevate opportunities for learners from low-income backgrounds so they can better achieve their postsecondary education and career goals.
Molly Lasagna is a senior program officer. She is responsible for strategic grantmaking in support of Ascendium's Expand Postsecondary Education in Prison focus area, which seeks to identify and scale effective strategies for ensuring that incarcerated learners have access to and success in high-quality postsecondary education. She joined the organization in 2022.
Molly comes to Ascendium with 10 years of experience working in service of incarcerated communities. In her most recent role, Molly served as executive director of the Tennessee Higher Education Initiative (THEI), a nonprofit organization that brings degree-bearing college programs to prisons in Tennessee. She was at the forefront of efforts to build a collective of Southern postsecondary education in prison programs and led the creation and growth of a statewide network of state agencies and institutions of higher education called the Tennessee Prison College Coalition. Prior to her role at THEI, Molly worked as a policy analyst on the educator quality team of the American Institutes for Research (AIR), where she co-authored the book "Improving Teacher Quality: A Guide for Education Leaders."
Raised in New England, she earned a Master of Divinity degree from Vanderbilt University, a Master of Arts degree in urban education policy from Brown University, a Master of Teaching degree in secondary English education from the University of Virginia and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature from Columbia University.
< Back to Meet Our Team
mlasagna@ascendiumeducation.org


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Confident song production for artists and songwriters.
You wanna make an awesome record.
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You've got some brilliant songs, but aren't sure how to make it sound the way you want. I've got the experience to bring them to life.
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I've got all the systems in place to make collaboration and producing your song easy, even if we live on opposite sides of the world.
YOUR SONGS, YOUR WAY
I specialize in helping pop and rock artists finish their music with specially-tailored, high-quality production.
Whatever state your songs are in, from worktape to fully produced mix, there is a life hidden in your music. I can help you find what that is, fully realize it with you, and enable you to release music that you are 1000% proud of, and nothing less.
I believe the music creation process should be organic, collaborative, emotionally honest, a little weird, and super fun! There are no bad ideas, creativity is your rocket fuel, happy accidents are as valuable as laser-focused intent, and your song determines its own destination.
If you feel the same, I'd love to chat with you about your project!
Let's chat about your music! Fill in your project details with this form and I'll get back to you so we can set up a time to chat on the phone or Zoom!
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Songwriting/collaboration
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Would you like to chat over Zoom?*
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BE CONFIDENT IN YOUR ART.
I'm Brian Skeel, and I understand the power of music. I believe that a good song has the potential to stand out on its own, but I also believe that strong song production and mixing can elevate a good song and make it stand out in a world where there is no shortage of new music.
I've worked with hundreds of artists, songwriters, musicians, and vocalists take their iPhone demo and turn it into something you'd hear on the radio, Spotify, or on a TV show.
Many of the productions I've worked on over the years have found their way into major productions, such as HBO series, Google ads, movie trailers for Universal, and Victoria Secret product launches.
I've seen too many artists with huge catalogs of unreleased music that they've been "working on" for years. These artists will revisit these tunes again and again, tweak a sound or two, then it will sit on the hard drive until it is time to tweak it again.
I believe a huge reason why that music sits on the hard drive without an audience is not because the song isn't good, but because in its current state, the song isn't inspiring confidence in its creator.
My goal to give you the confidence you need to put your music out into the world. And I do that with a vast knowledge of production, recording, engineering, and music trends, as well as my years of experience collaborating with artists from all over the world.
If any of this resonates with you, send me a message, and let's chat about your dreams!
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Copyright 2022 Brian Skeel Productions


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Spy wars: the Evil Empire strikes back
These are the years of malware - spyware, not-quite viruses, adware, that kind of stuff - which, if not cleaned out regularly, eventually clogs up your system, apart from reporting your every action back to various sites and popping up embarrassing windows in the middle of a surf. At least I think they do. The conventional advice is to run the free Spybot and AdAware (find local sites on Google and download) once a week. You do, of course, have your firewall installed and your anti-virus virus software subscription up to date, don't you?
But now, that estimable source of computer wisdom Fred Langa, at www. langalist. com, points out that the Evil Empire has a new anti-spyware application called? erm? AntiSpyware, which isn't half bad at its job. It's actually an existing application that Microsoft acquired when it bought software house Giant. You first have to prove your Windows operating system was truthfully acquired, but that won't be a problem, will it? Check it out at www. microsoft. com/athome/security/ spyware/software/default. mspx. It's a Beta version that expires in the middle of the year but Langa, who knows far, far more about this stuff than I ever will, calls it a 'very promising tool'. Incidentally, he also swears by SpywareBlaster. Find a local download site on Google.
The thing is that none of these malware detectors/eradicators will pick up every single case, so you have to run a couple every week - and change the order in which you do. Think of it like doing the washing. But hold on there - don't just download any old software that promises to clear your system of spyware or which, bidden or unbidden, does a quick check and reports unknown horrors that only its software will cure.
I'm afraid even real anti-spyware sellers sometimes try this trick.
Talking of tricks, take a look at this piece in The Register on the real price of Apple's new $500 (£269) Mac Mini:
www. theregister. co. uk/2005/01/14/ macworld_2005_roundup.
sutherland. lyall@btinternet. com
Rogers Stirk Harbour profit plummets
24 June 2019Greg Pitcher
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP) has suffered a 27 per cent fall in pre-tax profit, its latest annual accounts have revealed
Proposed demolition of Milan's San Siro stadium prompts outcry
3 July 2019Richard Waite
Plans to flatten the San Siro stadium, the iconic shared home of AC Milan and Inter Milan, have been met with outrage
York practice designs major Roman visitor attraction for city
3 July 2019Greg Pitcher
Local practice DC Architecture has drawn up plans for a Roman visitor attraction in York alongside more than 200 flats, a hotel and retail outlets


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Nitel Welcomes Jason Dishon as EVP Sales and Marketing
Telecom Industry Leader Joins Nitel to Accelerate Sales Success and Expand Market Reach
CHICAGO – April 10, 2017 – Nitel, a leading nationwide managed telecom service provider, announced today telecom industry leader
Jason Dishon has joined the company as Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing. In this new role, Dishon leads Nitel's sales, marketing and sales operation strategy and efforts. He is also working closely with the company's leadership to advance Nitel's employee and business development programs, expand distribution alliances and further enhance the partner and customer experience.
"Jason is highly-respected throughout the telecom industry as a forward-thinking, results-driven executive with a proven track record for leading high-performing sales and marketing teams to execute on growth opportunities in both established and emerging markets," said Rick Stern, CEO, Nitel. "We are thrilled to welcome Jason to our team, and look forward to leveraging his experience and connections within the industry to drive greater success for Nitel and our partners."
With more than 16 years of sales and marketing experience in the telecom industry, Jason joins Nitel from Windstream where he held several leadership positions within their channel and indirect sales organization, most recently serving as Channel Chief and Vice President of Channel Sales. Prior to Windstream, Jason worked for telecommunications provider, NuVox in sales and operations. He proudly served in the United States Marine Corps and carries those core values of commitment and honor with him in business.
"2016 was a game-changing year for Nitel with our channel-first sales approach leading to record growth," continued Stern. "We are continuing to invest in the resources our channel partners need to deliver an exceptional customer experience. With Jason leading our sales and marketing efforts, we will capitalize on the demands of enterprise IT organizations and continue to expand our reach and relevance within the telecom and IT channels."


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Home Books Nonviolent Struggle and the Revolution in East Germany (1993) by Roland Bleiker
Nonviolent Struggle and the Revolution in East Germany (1993) by Roland Bleiker
9th Jun 2019 communism history geopolitics politics subversion germany revolution government non-violence east germany berlin wall
Roland Bleiker
Nonviolent Struggle and the Revolution in East Germany (1993)
We were more afraid of the people than the people had reason to be afraid of us.
(Statement by a member of the much feared Stasi, the East German State Security Service)
"We are the people" was the main battle cry of the nonviolent struggle that swept away the East German Communist regime in 1989. "We are the people," echoing hundreds of thousands of times through the streets of East Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, and Karl-Marx-Stadt, came to symbolize the protest of the people against an alienated government and the power of these unarmed masses to overthrow their tyrannical rulers.
The East German revolution is more than a watershed event in European history. The crumbling of the authoritarian regime also contains seminal instructive value, since it can provide us with insight into the nature of power as well as the potential and limits of nonviolent struggle. This monograph examines the events in East Germany with this particular interest in mind.
Many causal aspects, preconditions, and contextual influences were responsible for the specific course of evolution in East Germany. Yet, two factors must be singled out as having played a key role in causing the downfall of the oppressive regime, namely large-scale popular demonstrationsand massive waves of East German citizens leaving illegally for the West. These so-called "voice" and "exit" forms of protest are classic examples of nonviolent direct action and were mentioned explicitly as such in Gene Sharp's influential 1973 study of the subject.
The stunning impact of these two methods of nonviolent action can be understood better with the help of a parsimonious insight about the nature of power, first proposed almost half a millennium ago by Etienne de la Boetie. As a young student at the University of Orleans, he hypothesized that any form of government, no matter how despotic and violent its nature, is always dependent upon the tacit consent of the population. De la Boetie further argued that since this consent rests upon voluntary grounds, it can be withdrawn at any time, which subsequently would lead to a disintegration of the existing authoritarian societal structure.
The events in East Germany confirm certain elements of this bold premise. The impact of "voice" and "exit" forms of protest illustrate that (1)an authoritarian regime cannot generate and maintain its own power base through coercive means alone, and that (2) because this power base is also dependent upon popular support, the population can, through active withdrawal of cooperation, undermine the sustenance of the existing repressive system.
However, an analysis of the German revolution that stops at an affirmation of the power contained in nonviolent struggle remains incomplete. The events in East Germany are too complex to be assessed entirely through a theory of power that locates social dynamics on a dualistic axis between oppressor and oppressed. The fall of the Communist regime warrants an idiosyncratic analysis of the complex power relationships and structural influences that allowed nonviolent direct action to show its might. Needless to say, this monograph cannot do justice to such a complex task. I will only draw attention to two of these crucial contextual factors, namely the evolution of internationally, intranationally, and domestically conditioned restraints on popular resistance as well as the extent to which the efficacy of a nonviolent struggle is dependent upon the interaction between the state and civil society.
This monograph is divided into three sections. The first section provides a brief chronological overview of resistance and revolution in East Germany. The second section examines the role that "exit" and "voice" forms of protest played in the collapse of the Communist regime and then derives from this analysis a few theoretical implications for the dynamics of nonviolent struggle. The third section places the East German nonviolent struggle in the societal context that allowed it to emerge in its particular form and exert the power-devolving effect that de la Boetie and others credit it with. A concluding section draws on this case study to present a few tentative theoretical and methodological suggestions for the future study of nonviolent direct action.
Downloads and Links
Download Nonviolent Struggle and the Revolution in East Germany (1993) by Roland Bleiker - PDF (2.0 MB) - 61 pages.
Originally downloaded from the Albert Einstein Institute free-books section, with the PDF metadata now corrected.
Read Nonviolent Struggle and the Revolution in East Germany by Roland Bleiker on The Internet Archive and download in different formats
Web search for the book by ISBN:9781880813072
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AXA Insurance has underlined its commitment to the schemes market with the appointment of John Heaney to the newly created role of Head of Schemes.
John Heaney, who has also served as Global Underwriting Officer for package business at AIG, joins AXA on 22 January. Prior to working for AIG, Heaney led the UK Retail Commercial Underwriting at Hiscox.
Heaney will report to Deepak Soni, current Director of Commercial Intermediary eTrading, who will lead the revamped schemes unit as part of a new, expanded role within the commercial leadership team.
In addition, AXA has appointed Tim Yorke as Director of Transformation. Yorke, who has held a number of previous roles including Chief Operating Officer for ERS, will take up his new post on 22 January.
As part of the role, which is for an initial 12 month period, Yorke will lead the delivery of the transformation programme for AXA's commercial lines business, with overall responsibility for the change and operations teams.
The appointments, which are in line with AXA's wider Ambition 2020 plans, follow the promotion of Gareth Howell, Executive Managing Director of AXA Retail, Jon Walker, Executive Managing Director of AXA Commercial and Waseem Malik, Executive Managing Director of Claims, to the board of AXA Insurance. Heaney, Yorke and Soni's roles sit within AXA Insurance's commercial intermediary business.
"Schemes business is a vital element of our future growth and I am delighted that John has joined AXA to help spearhead our efforts. John has significant experience in developing strong books of schemes business and will work closely with Deepak in his new role to deliver the same at AXA.
"In tandem, securing the expertise of Tim is a huge statement of intent and confirmation of our determination to continue evolving and meeting the demands of brokers. He brings diverse, hands-on experience of delivering strategic change and in 2018 will help us to deliver a step change in the delivery of our modernisation programme.
Read more about our Corporate Reponsibility Strategy and our SRI ratings.


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The Prison Schooling Program was established in 2016, constructing on over 10 years of collaboration between the University of Oregon and the Department of Corrections to offer credited classes via the Inside-Out Program. The classes supply individuals with a novel combination of sensible lessons, insightful displays, delivered by renowned visitor audio system, providing fascinating local and worldwide study cases sourced from world's leading business schools, through group and sophistication discussions, and including newest articles and research material from related fields.
Small wind turbines may be used for a variety of applications including on- or off-grid residences, telecom towers, offshore platforms, rural colleges and clinics, remote monitoring and different functions that require energy the place there isn't a electric grid, or the place the grid is unstable.
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Q: PHP format text after strip_tags() I'm parsing an html text to get the plain text with strip_tags() and works really fine. But the resulting text has not spaces after commas and dots
Example of result:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,consectetur...adipiscing elit.
How can I turn that, to this:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur... Adipiscing elit.
I think to use
str_replace(',', ', ', $text);

But to detect one or multiple dots i don't think this is the best solution. Is any way to convert to upper case the first letter after a dot?
I'm searching for a function to format the text but cant get lucky.
Thanks!!

A: Here is a function to uppercase after a dot
function sentence_case($string) {
    $sentences = preg_split('/([.?!]+)/', $string, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY|PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);
    $new_string = '';
    foreach ($sentences as $key => $sentence) {
        $new_string .= ($key & 1) == 0?
            ucfirst(strtolower(trim($sentence))) :
            $sentence.' ';
    }
    return trim($new_string);
}

print sentence_case('HMM. WOW! WHAT?');

// Outputs: "Hmm. Wow! What?"


AkzoNobel announced details of the capital repayment and share consolidation approved by shareholders on Nov. 13, 2018.
The record date for shareholders holding common shares will be at the close of trading hours for Euronext Amsterdam on Jan. 23, 2019. A share consolidation ratio of 9:8 will be effective on Jan. 24, 2019, and shareholders will receive a capital repayment of €8.78 per common share on Jan. 25, 2019.


The RADEN data bank is designed for compilation of experimental researches and ab initio calculations of the RADiative and ENergy parameters defining the distribution of intensity in electronic and vibrational spectra of diatomic molecules.
A free database of commercially available solvents searchable by many properties. Compiled by National Center for Manufacturing Sciences.
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services charged under the Superfund Act to assess the presence and nature of health hazards at specific Superfund sites.


An environmental impact statement (EIS) is a detailed written statement required by section 102(2)(C) of NEPA for a proposed major Federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment.
Environmental impact statements for recent HUD-assisted projects are listed below. Additional information on filing requirements can be found in resources on the right.


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Vibrissina buckelli är en tvåvingeart som först beskrevs av Charles Howard Curran 1926.  Vibrissina buckelli ingår i släktet Vibrissina och familjen parasitflugor.

Artens utbredningsområde är British Columbia. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Parasitflugor
buckelli


Starting from the electromagnetic software package, FEMPAR from the ISV CIMNE, the challenge was to develop and implement the capabilities of the code to calculate magnetic, electric and current density fields, mechanical and thermal properties including temperature, stress and strain fields. An important part of this challenge was to compare the calculations from the enhanced FEMPAR with those from commercially tested solvers in order to verify the results obtained.
ICMAB-CSIC is a public research institute integrated in the Spanish National Agency CSIC. It is involved in new materials with a wide interdisciplinary basis.
The Superconducting Materials and Nanostructures at Large scale Department is working on superconducting materials, nanostructures processing and characterization as the design and development of Large Scale applications of superconductivity.


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Berty Reads Books
I Really Loved These
The Killer Angels
Michael Shaara
What a great way to start the reading year. A well-known book that pretty much everyone but me has read. If only all books about history could be like this. In the words of the author, "this is the story of the Battle of Gettsyburg, told from the viewpoints of Robert E. Lee and James Longstreet and some of the other men who fought there." One reviewer wrote, "An approach so fresh it is stunning." If you haven't read this book, just go to the library and check it out, or, better yet, go buy it from Amazon, or from whatever bookstore you frequent. Totally awesome.
Read more info on Amazon.
It was dark all around him. There was one small gray area of the sky still aglow in the west; the rest was blackness, and flashes of lightning. At the moment a fine rain began to fall and he heard it come toward him, seeking him in a light patter up the slope. He had dust all over him, a fine pulverized powder from the shelling, dust in his hair and eyes and dust gritty in his teeth, and now he lifted his face to the rain and licked his lips and could taste the dirt on his face and knew that he would remember that too, the last moment at Gettysburg, the taste of raw earth in the cold and blowing dark, the touch of cold rain, the blaze of lightning.
I Liked These A Lot
Dr. Eckener's Dream Machine: The Historic Saga of the Round-the-world Zeppelin
Douglas Botting
I bought this book in the discount rack of Barnes & Noble for a buck and thought it would be worthless. It was great! It's a fabulous account of the Zeppelin airships, from the beginning with the flights that barely got off the ground, to the end with the tragic fire and crash of the Graf Hindenburg.
To prove that airship travel was feasible, Hugo Eckener executed a round the world flight carrying several dignitaries and newspaper reporters. This book describes that flight as well as most of all the other notable accomplishments of the Zeppelin airships.
The Graf Zeppelin's record of twenty-one days, five hours and thirty-five minutes total elapsed time round the world beat Magellan's first-ever circumnavigation time by 1103 days, eighteen hours and twenty-five minutes, and its flying time of twelve days and eleven minutes beat that of the US Army round-the-world planes of 1924 by three days, five hours, fifty-two minutes, and the 1928 circumnavigation record of Mears, Collyer and Tailwind by two days, twenty-one hours and forty-six minutes.
The voyage set other records, including the fastest flight across the Atlantic, the fastest flight from New York to Paris, the fastest flight from Berling to Tokyo, the longest non-stop flight ever made (Friedrichshafen to Tokyo, around seven thousand miles), the first non-stop flight across Siberia, the first non-stop crossing of the Pacific by air and the first aerial crossing of the Pacific by a woman.
The Fortunate Pilgrim
Originally published in 1964, The Fortunate Pilgrim has been described as "a brilliantly crafted novel about two decades of Italian immigrant life in New York City in the 1930s and 1940s" and considered by some critics to be Puzo's best written work. I wouldn't be able to say that. I've only read one book of his (right now my father-in-law just had a heart attack). I liked it! It's kind of like Angela's Ashes with Italians. Being exposed to relatives from "the old country," I had to laugh at some of the descriptions of the widowed Italian ladies and how families interacted around the dinner table.
Lucia Santa outdid herself. On Sunday morning she broke a wooden spoon over Gino's head, parting enough skin to let in common sense, and convincing him it was wise not to go out in the street to play stickball. She then made sauce fit for a kind of Naples and rolled out wide macaroni from homemade dough. For the green salad she opened the bottle of almost sacred oil sent from Italy by her poor peasant sister—oil impossible to buy, first blood of the olive.
Revolution in the Head, The Beatles' Records and the Sixties
This is the third edition of a book that attempts to provide background information and an assessment of every song in The Beatles catalogue. The author briefly describes what the social scene was like during the Beatles era of music, and then takes every song, in chronological order, and evaluates its structure, lists who wrote it/sang it/performed in it, provides some insight to why it was written, and hints at what a few of the lyrics might mean. There were some interesting facts that were revealed. For example, McCartney was hesitant about the song 'Yesterday' for several months, playing it to friends and asking them, 'Is this by someone else or did I write it?', unable to believe that it hadn't been around for at least a generation. One thing is for sure, Lennon dropped a hell of a lot of acid. And 'Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds' is not about LSD.
One of Lennon's dreamier songs, LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS circles lazily on melodic eddies in an iridescent stream of sound. Taking its title from a pastel drawing by his four-year-old son Julian and its atmosphere from a hallucinatory chapter in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass , it was naturally assumed to be a coded reference to LSD. In fact, no such code was intended and, though the lyric explicitly recreates the psychedelic experience, The Beatles were genuinely surprised when it was pointed out to them.
Read The Beatles: Classic and New Writings on The Beatles, Their Legacy, and Why They Still Matter
edited by June Skinner Sawyers
The back cover blurb claims that this book is "a comprehensive collection of journalism about the legendary band, together and apart." That's a pretty good description. I felt like I was reading the history of the Beatles as they grew in popularity, became controversial, and then broke up. The book includes excerpts from popular biographies, copies of articles written about them during their time of fame, and interviews of the different members of the band. I liked it and would recommend it.
After reading two books that made me think too much I wanted something that would distract me from everything and spoonfeed me. Grisham's pretty good for that and I enjoyed this one. It's pretty typical for Grisham; big rich corporation with overpaid lawyers does a bad thing, small husband and wife law firm risks everything and fights them to protect the rights of an impovershed client who lost a husband and child due to their negligence. Except this book focuses not on the trial but the verdict and then the appeal, with an interesting journey into tampering with state supreme court elections. I'd recommend it.
They sat around the plywood table, sipping the same bad coffee they were now addicted to, and listened with smiles as Mary Grace did her recap. "There will be the usual post-trial motions," she was saying. "Judge Harrison has scheduled a hearing in thirty days, but we expect no surprises."
"Here's to Judge Harrison," Sherman said, and they toasted him with their coffee.
It had become a very democratic firm. Everyone present felt like an equal. Anyone could speak whenever he or she felt like it. Only first names were used. Poverty is a great equalizer
Web Standards Creativity: Innovations in Web Design with XHTML, CSS, and DOM Scripting
Adams, Boulton, Clarke, Collison, Croft, Featherstone, Lloyd, Marcotte, Rubin, Weychert
Great stuff from a bunch of great geeks who like to share information about web design. The book is actually broken into three different sections; Layout Magic, Effective Print Techniques Applied to CSS Design, and DOM Scripting Gems.
There were a ton of great tips, with a bunch of code and markup examples. It's a good buy. Friends of Ed rocks.
There is nothing like learning from the masters, and this is where Web Standards Creativity comes in. This book picks up where my book [CSS Mastery - Andy Budd] left off, with a series of advanced case studies for you to dissect. Here, some of the best standards-based designers in the world will show you how they take a project from inception to completion (be it an entire web-site design or a cool technique or widget they've developed).
These Were Okay
I've loved all of Connelly's books until I read this one. It's still a good read, but when I picked it up and started reading it I thought something was missing. It even seemed shorter and smaller than most of his other books. After reading the "About the Author" section, I found out that he originally created this book as a sixteen-part series for the New York Times Magazine and then expanded it for the book version. If you want to read Connelly, pick up one of his other ones first.
The call came at midnight. Harry Bosch was awake and sitting in the living room in the dark. He liked to think that he was doing this because it allowed him to hear the saxophone better. By masking one of the senses he accentuated another. But deep down he knew the truth. He was waiting.
Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, John Higgins
It's been a while since I've read a graphic novel. The movie of this DC Comics series will hit the theaters in a few months and I wanted to read the book before I went and saw it. I thought the story was fantastic, but the art didn't totally wow me, and the ending was a little weak. This is a groundbreaking novel (view the editorial by Mark Thwaite on Amazon to get an idea) and totally different than your typical superhero comic book. In fact the main characters (other than Dr. Manhattan) don't really have any special powers. They are just vigilantes dressed up in costumes and figthing crime. It will be interesting to see how the movie turns out…I don't see how they are going to do it. The storyline is pretty complex and doesn't really lend itself to a movie format.
One of Time Magazine's 100 best novels.
"Watchmen is peerless" — Rolling Stone
The greatest piece of popular fiction ever produced. — Damon Lindelof
Remarkable…The would-be heroes of Watchmen have staggeringly complex psychological disorders. — New York Times Book Review
Brad Thor
I was tired of the computer books that I've been randomly skimming, and wanted a mindless read that was entertaining. So I picked up a paperback from the lounge at work (there are about 30 different used paperback books that people drop off after they're done reading them). The premise of the book? Former Navy Seal former White House secret service agent and current CIA operative/terrorist-hunter Scott Harvath must prevent a shadowy organization from using a deadly ancient weapon against the United States and the rest of the world. It's a book full of guns, knives, C4 explosive, babes, bad dudes, terrorists, sleazy politicians and really cheesy dialogue. It was a fun and entertaining read, but not one that I'd say to go out and buy.
After the flames dissipated, Harvath checked himself to make sure he hadn't been injured. Deciding everything was okay, he stood and noticed the rest of the team hadn't been so lucky. Based on the condition of the demo officer in front of him, he could see that they all had been riddled with shrapnel. Either someone had tossed a grenade into the stairwell or the Special Warfare unit had triggered some sort of antipersonnel device.
Make Me An Instrument of Your Peace: Living in the Spirit of the Prayer of Saint Francis
Probably one of the most moving things I have read in a while was linked to by a popular blog. It was Kent Nerburn's The Cab Ride I'll Never Forget
I purchased this book after reading it, thinking every story would be as inspirational. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, but it wasn't a total loss.
Nerburn takes that Prayer of Saint Francis line by line and tries to provide a life story or lesson that exemplifies that section of the prayer. Though folks have said that some of the chapters come across as filler (they do), for the most part the book is a mildly inspiring read that may just change the way you look at things.
At the very least, do yourself a favor and grab a tissue or two and read Nerburn's Cab Ride.
"I wrote the book about a decade ago as a kind of spiritual meditation. I took each line of the prayer and tried to find some exemplification of it in my own or other peoples lives. My thinking was simple: St. Francis, of all the religious figures of the past, is perhaps the most universally beloved. He is beyond sectarianism, beyond doctrine. And though he was thoroughly Christian some would say, too Christian for the church of which he was a part something in his deep humanity has resonated down the centuries and transcended theological differences. I felt that I could do myself some spiritual good by engaging in an extended meditation on the prayer that may be the most universally beloved on the planet."
The Faithful Spy
A CIA operative goes deep undercover, infiltrates al Qaeda, and finally returns home. The CIA scrambles to determine if he's on our side or their side, while al Qaeda plans a major assault on America. One critic said it is "one of the best espionage books of all time." Uhhh, not sure about that. It was interesting and entertaining, but I wouldn't go that far.
The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film
J. W. Rinzler
Yes, I am totally a geek. This book could be a boat anchor…it weighs close to six pounds and is an oversize hardcover edition at roughly 12 x 11 x 2 inches. "Using his unprecedented access to the Lucasfilm Archives and its trove of never-before-published 'lost' interviews, photos, production notes, factoids, and anecdotes, Star Wars scholar J. W. Rinzler hurtles readers back in time for a one-of-a-kind behind-the-scenes look at the nearly decade-long quest of George Lucas and his key collaborators to make the 'little' movie that became a phenomenon."
It has most of the stuff a Star Wars geek would want. Just don't plan on carrying it anywhere.
The Christmas Sweater
A book that has been compared to Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven , this one makes you think about what Christmas is all about. Though it is uplifting, it's also a little bit of a downer. A good story that deals with more than just Christmas. Don't read it if you're depressed.
I was trying to trap him, hoping he would lash out at me. It would have been easier for us both if we'd just stopped talking, but Grandpa wasn't going to be played that easily. "Eddie, we can't control what happens to us, but we can control how we react to it. We are all meant to be happy. Even you, Eddie, as hard as it is for you to believe sometimes, you are meant to be happy. If you're not happy, it's not God's fault, it's not my fault, or anyone else's fault. It's your own."
Visual Design for the Modern Web
Penny McIntire
"In Visual Design for the Modern Web , Penny McIntire shows novice web designers how to use their tools—including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript—in conjunction with the principles of aesthetics and usability to become masters of their craft." I really liked some chapters, especially the one on color theory, but otherwise thought the book was a little weak. I don't think a novice web designer will become master of his craft if he reads this. I haven't.
One stunning day a number of years ago, I was chatting with my boss, Rod Angotti, Chair of the Department of Computer Science at Northern Illinois University. I complained that some faculty member in our department, any faculty member, needed to create a web design course, because I really wanted to take it. I said, in a fit of pique, "Well, if someone doesn't develop a web design course soon, I'm going to be forced to do it myself!"
These Were Not My Thing
Many Worlds In One: The Search for Other Universes
I was duped. Wandering through the book store with no intention of buying anything, I came across this book on an end cap and read the following in the Prologue: "His sensational bestseller...describes a new cosmological theory that says that every possible chain of events, no matter how bizarre or improbable, has actually happened somewhere in the universe—and not only once, but an infinite number of times!...The most controversial aspect of the book is the claim that each of us has an infinite number of identical clones living on countless earths scattered throughout the universe." Wow! An infinite number of identical Bertys living on countless earths. Tell me more! So I bought it and struggled through 205 pages of "...the number of ways in which a finite number of particles can be distributed into a finite number of cells is also finite. Hence, the material content of our O-region can only be in a finite number of distinct states..."
Now don't get me wrong. Vilenkin is an incredibly smart dude and did a great job of dumbing down the concepts of how the Universe may have been created and has a brilliant theory for an explanation of the big bang that started it all. He makes you think. Unfortunately, I'm not that great a thinker and was looking forward to something a little more like The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension , but with universes.
I don't know what the hell I was thinking. The book got great press, and it even won the Pulitzer Prize. Some parts were great, but others just bored the crap out of me. If you think it's great, it's probably because you like to read stuff like "Some farming populations make it even easier for their own fecal bacteria and worms to infect new victims, by gathering their feces and urine and spreading them as fertilizer on the fields where people work."
Don't believe me? You don't think this book can be a little too in-depth. I will now conduct an experiment and choose one of the 471 pages at random, skip to the third paragraph and quote what it says: "Equally puzzling is the failure of people to domesticate flax in its wild range in Western Europe and North Africa, or einkorn wheat in its wild range in the southern Balkans." There you have it. Another really boring sentence…unless you're into that kind of thing. Einkorn wheat and flax are not exactly my first topics of interest.
I now have a few new rules I will follow before buying a book. (1) Think twice about buying one that wins the Pulitzer Prize — that probably means it is way above my intelligence level. (2) Don't buy a book written by any type of professor. (3) Randomly open the book and read the third paragraph.


The tactic reared its ugly head again.
A new banning just took place. There's a Facebook page called "The Antivaccine Wall of Shame" (AVWOS) It has been taken down. Allison Hagood (one of the co-authors of 'Your Baby's Best Shot") has banned from Facebook for 7 days.
(she then gives the URLs for this post and others, which I need not give here to avoid moderation).


text:
Obituary Ivo Molenaar (1935 - 2018) - VVSOR - VVSOR
Vereniging voor Statistiek en Operations Research
Statistica Neerlandica
Obituary Ivo Molenaar (1935 – 2018)
The board of the VVSOR sends their condolences and sympathy wishes to family and friends for the loss of a loved one, and eminent statistician.
Ivo Molenaar was born in 1935 in Den Haag. He studied mathematics at the University of Amsterdam and graduated in 1962. He then worked at the Mathematical Centre (CWI), led by David van Dantzig. Under the supervision of Jan Hemelrijk and Willem van Zwet he obtained his PhD degree in 1970 on the topic 'Approximations to the Poisson, Binomial and Hypergeometric Distribution Functions'. After a year of being a visiting assistant professor at Pennsylvania State University he came back to the Netherlands to become Professor in Statistics and Measurement scaling theory at the Social Sciences Faculty at the University of Groningen.
He was actively involved in statistics and psychometrics on national and international level. He was the organizer of courses in advanced statistics topics at the Groningen Summer School for Social Sciences. Within the VVSOR Ivo Molenaar was actively involved too. He was not only an active visitor (and organizer) of 'de Statistische dag', he was the also the organizer several times. Furthermore, he was the editor of Statistica Neerlandica and president of the society from 1991 to 1993. His active involvement the dissemination of statistics was a sufficient reason to become honorary-member of the VVSOR from 2002 and onwards.


The Improved Cook Stove Programme in Lao PDR aims to contribute to poverty reduction through the production of sustainable and efficient Improved Cook Stoves (ICS). The distribution of the ICS contributes to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The current phase of the programme commenced in February 2013 with a partnership between the Association for Rural Mobilization and Improvement (ARMI) and SNV Netherlands Development Organisation with support from The European Union, Oxfam, and The Blue Moon Fund.
The annual multi-stakeholder meeting this year was organized in Champassak province, at the Pakse Hotel on September 10th 2014. The purpose of the meeting is to showcase the achievements and the lessons learned over the 2013-2014 implementation period.
Delegates from the Ministry of Science and Technology, The Renewable Energy and New Materials Institute (RENMI), The Asian Development Bank (ADB), The Lao Women's Union, representatives from the Department of Science and Technology as well as other members from civil society groups and cook stove producers from four target provinces attended.
The ARMI Champassak Team Leader Mr. Sithisak Didouangphet as well as other project partners presented the achievements of the ICS programme. As of July 2014, there are 21 stove producers and 202 retailers working with the programme. The programme has established partnerships with the Lao Women's Union who have implemented promotional activities in four provinces. Three stove testing laboratories are functioning in three provinces under the RENMI and the Department of Science and Technology, who endorse the production of the ICS with the issuance of the ICS blue sticker to stoves that have passed quality standards set by the programme. To date, the programme has produced 14,546 ICS and is on track to meet the target of 100,000 stoves by the end of 2016.
The main challenges of the ICS Programme are the supply shortage to the market and low levels of awareness of the ICS and its benefits in Champassak and Vientiane provinces. Mr. Amphone Souvannalath, Director of ARMI said, "There is a need for the program to scale up promotional activities so that customers nation-wide are aware, understand and are willing to use the new improved stove, which is durable, saves fuel and contributes to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions." Discussions held in the meeting seek to address these challenges to improve future implementation of the programme. 95 people attended, including 46 women.
Empowering women with disabilities by offering training in income generating activities is a common vision shared by the Lao Disabled Women's Development Centre (LDWDC) and the European Union-funded Improved Cook Stove (ICS) programme. The new collaboration under ADB's Gender and Climate Change project is developed to provide income opportunities for women, while at the same time opening up the market for improved stoves.
On 3rd September, 23 disabled women from LDWDC visited an ICS production workshop in Khokxay Village, Hadxayfong District, to observe the cook stove production process. A lack of reliable and skilled labourers is often a bottleneck for improved cook stove production, however the potential involvement of LDWDC may help address this issue. Mr. Siew, owner of the improved cook stove workshop, was very impressed by the strong spirit and willingness to learn shown by the women when making their first stoves.
Bastiaan Teune, head of the renewable energy sector of SNV Lao PDR commented: "We have made an important first step in what may become one of the largest improved cook stove centers in Laos. This initiative supports the participation of disabled women in a green economy, and for households the stoves save 25% of time and money. Moreover, it reduces pressure on the environment." Since 2013, 15,000 improved cook stoves have been sold, which are recognizable by their distinct blue label.


text:
Archie Karas: The Legend who was Worth 40 millions Now Banned from All Nevada Casinos
Anargyros Karabourniotis better known as Archie Karas has been assigned to the Nevada's "Black Book", a list referring 33 person excluded from all Nevada's casinos.
The legendary poker player Archie Karas has gained success between 1992 and 1994 when the man now aged 64 year old turned 50$ into more than 40 million playing high-stakes poker. At that time, "the Run" as he was called, beat the best poker players in the world from Chip Reese to Stu Ungar.
But unfortunately for him success didn't last and he lost in three weeks at Baccarat what he had won at poker.
Since 1998, the gambler has already been arrested four times for cheating in casinos in California and Nevada. The last time he committed an offense was in September 2013 at the Barona Casino of San Diego when he was arrested for cheating at Blackjack using a well known process: marking cards.
He was taken into custody at his Las Vegas home and then extradited to San Diego to face cheating charges at the court. He pleads not guilty but the investigations of the Gaming Control Board and the videos recorded at the San Diego casino are not in his favor.
He could have face up to four years of jail and eventually received three years of probation and being assigned to the "Black Book" by the Nevada Gaming Commission which means he won't be able to enter in a Nevada's Casino for the rest of his life.
"Archie Karas is a threat for the gaming industry", said enforcement chief of the Nevada Gaming Commission Karl Bennson.
In spite of the $205,000 won during his poker career and seven cashes at the WSOP, Karas has no more chance to take part in one of the most renowned poker tournament of the world…
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While I agree with the counsel and coaching for leaders to focus predominately on developing and utilizing their strengths, if a leader does not move a weakness to at least average, the weakness will become a debilitating one that overshadows the strong points of the leader. A debilitating weakness will cause the leader to lose an essential trait that leaders initially possess—credibility.
Johnny is an extremely gifted teacher of the Bible. The student ministry grows quickly under his leadership. Relationally he excels. The students and the adult leaders love him. But behind-the-scenes, he is an administrative mess. Important details are continually missed. He knows it is a weakness; He even jokes about it frequently. But he wrongly assumes it does not matter or that someone will always be there to pick up the pieces because, after all, "he is not a detail guy." Instead of seeking to raise his administrative skills to a point where he could be conversant with someone he recruits to help, he shrugs off the problem. And in time, credibility suffers. Sadly his strengths are perceived as less strong and are less appreciated.
Jenny runs a division in her company. She was put in the role because of her precise planning, her systematic thinking, and her ability to effortlessly manage seemingly hundreds of details at once. But relationally she really struggles. She does not have the hearts of those she leads because she is unable to connect. Instead of developing her ability to converse with her peers or her team, she over-relies on her superb planning skills. And over time the team loses trust in their leader.
As a leader, you likely know your weaknesses. If you have led for any period of time, you already know what aspects of your role don't come as easily to you. What you need others to help you determine is if any of your weaknesses fall into the category of "debilitating"—meaning, do your weaknesses overpower your strengths?
While you don't need to excel in all areas related to your role, you at least need to be conversant so that you can effectively work with others who are strong in the areas in which you are weak.
When you know your weak spots and are able to converse openly with others about them, you can share/hand the work off to other capable leaders. You can truly delegate instead of merely dumping work on others.
So don't invest your development time attempting to turn your weaknesses into strengths. But if you have a leadership weakness that is a debilitating one, it is extremely unwise to only focus on your strengths.


By the mid-seventies, Rajesh Khanna's hold over the box office had begun to slip, increasing his insecurities and causing further rifts between him and his wife Dimple Kapadia.
Hanif Zaveri, author of Mehmood's biography, told me that the late actor and comedian Mehmood used to address Rajesh Khanna as Kathor (translating to 'heartless' in English) in a friendly way. He signed Rajesh for a home production Janta Hawaldar, a major portion of which was to be shot at his own farmhouse. The entire production unit along with Rajesh was staying at Mehmood's farmhouse. Problems started when one of Mehmood's sons greeted Rajesh with a friendly hello. Rajesh took the boy's casual attitude as an insult, because he felt it did not contain the respect he thought he deserved. He showed his displeasure and his starry tantrums took a turn for the worse.
It can be questioned whether this incident points towards the increasing loss of respect for Rajesh Khanna in the industry. Had his starry tantrums overstayed their welcome? Did he script his own downfall by alienating people who could have helped him?
According to Hanif Zaveri, 'Rajesh Khanna didn't know how to maintain interpersonal relationships. Now look at Jeetendra, he wasn't a very good actor, but he knew how to keep good relations, and see how far he went. Jeetendrasaab told me once that he doesn't know how to cry. If a scene demands crying, then he hides his face with his hands and cries.' But Rajesh Khanna knew how to cry. He knew how to die, how to love, how to sing, how to emote, how to laugh and how to be angry . . . on screen. What he did not know perhaps was how to communicate well off-screen.
This lack of communication affected all his personal relationships, especially the one he shared with Dimple, his wife of nine years. Not only had the film industry started speaking against Rajesh, but so had his in-laws. The Kapadia family always believed that eventually Rajesh would relent and allow Dimple to get back to films. But when it became evident that this might not be the case, the Kapadias began to rant against their son-in-law. Towards the latter half of the 1970s Chunnibhai Kapadia became the prime source of stories against Rajesh's behaviour towards Dimple. This led to the gossip columnists coining the term CIB: Chunnibhai Information Bureau. He gave ample fodder to keep the gossip columns aflow with titbits from the personal life of Rajesh and Dimple. This was not to the liking of the ex-superstar. Journalist Ingrid Albuquerque wrote about this cold war in a piece called 'Rajesh vs. the Caucus of Four' ‒ the 'four' being Dimple, her parents and her sister, Simple.
Time and again Dimple would walk out, threaten divorce and emotionally blackmail Rajesh, but she would always come back to him with the kids. Gossip magazines wrote about how every second month Dimple would leave Aashirwad only to come back in some time, suggesting that it all was a publicity stunt. 'Fear drove Dimple back to Kaka, not love. My daughter lacks the guts of a Raakhee to stand up for herself,' stated an agitated Chunnibhai Kapadia.
With both his in-laws and the media taking potshots at his tempestuous marriage and declining career, Rajesh's self-confidence deteriorated every day. Lots of new and younger men had come into the industry after him and were now standing at par with him or had overtaken him altogether. One can imagine his battered state of mind ‒ he was alone, irritated, frustrated, and fighting a losing battle with a slowly expanding inferiority complex. Every day he tried to drown the inner turmoil of loss with alcohol, but it would just fuel the fire. Even alcohol couldn't take away the sting of his now-absolute downfall.
Hearing his screams his wife Dimple and the house staff came running to the terrace. He was crying terribly. He couldn't forget this night for the rest of his life. One can imagine the drama and pathos of that night. It must have been a deadly cocktail: alcohol, depression and the crushing humiliation of failure. Perhaps he also felt betrayed by his fans who had written him off. Perhaps the pain he felt stirred other anguished memories from his past. Perhaps the fact that he had been pushed this far truly frightened him. One wonders if Rajesh was struck by the bizarre realization that he had recreated scenes just like this in his movies so many times before. He was a protagonist then. He was the protagonist now. Reel to real. It all played out like notes of the same melody, as though he was destined to live his roles. The actor who showed luminous dreams to millions of fans was faced with life's brutal realities that night. But he was struggling to comprehend and accept this reality. Perhaps he did not wish to learn how.
Excerpted with permission from Rajesh Khanna: The Untold Story of India's First Superstar, Yasser Usman, Penguin Books India.


What is it that distinguishes a run-of-the-mill wedding ceremony from one that is beautiful, romantic and meaningful which you and your family will remember for years to come?
Consider the difference between the enthusiastic but novice musical attempts of a child playing Chopsticks and the elegance of a classical song like Nocturnes written by the masterful Chopin; both are played on the piano using many of same notes but they are worlds apart in respect to their grandeur and elegance because of the craft and artistry of the master composer.
While most wedding ceremonies contain similar elements; vows, readings and unity ceremonies, the skills of an artful and gifted Officiant sets apart the weddings they develop and deliver for their clients. The Officiants of our group, Arizona Wedding Pastors, pride themselves in creating signature ceremonies that reflect the unique characteristics and values of each couple we are privileged to serve. We accomplish our craft by taking the time to facilitate an in-depth dialogue with every couple we serve and then, from that interview, we weave together the elements they choose into a memorable ceremony that we deliver with masterful timing, well developed vocalization and great passion!
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The Most Important Part of Your Wedding!
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