text:
FATHER HYACINTHE ON THE DUTY OF READING THE
BIBLE. OFTEN as the walls of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, in Paris, have reverberated with the brilliant and burning words of the most eloquent Roman preacher of modern times, never perhaps did his transcendent talents shine with a more surpassing lustre than when he recently startled and surprised his audience by enforcing, in powerful and positive terms, the duty of reading the word of God. All honour to M. Hyacinthe for his noble words on so momentous a duty; but, invidious as the task may seem, we feel constrained to ask-Do M. Hyacinthe's words actually represent or adequately convey the mind of the Roman Church, or do they at all belong to the dominant ideas that are current in that system ?
One of this orator's assertions in particular we Protestants cannot accept without reserve. He tells us that it is a calumny on the Roman Church to say that she interdicts the reading of the Bible. Now we do not, of course, mean to affirm that either Popes or Councils have ever dared to promulgate an absolute prohibition against the word of God: But, while the Reformers bestowed special honour on the reading of the word of God, and their descendants at this day rival or even outstrip these holy men in disseminating that word, is it not a patent and palpable fact that tridentine Rome has always exhibited a morbid dread lest the reading of the Scriptures should influence the religious opinions and life of her people? Fragments of the Bible carefully selected and expurgated of all that might damage
the authority of the Pope, or infringe upon certain of her practices -yes, Rome will allow this; it is even to be found in her books of law or devotion—a strange medley indeed. The Bible in Latin !-yes, of course she recommends that; but the whole of the Bible or even of the New Testament in the language of the people, when and under what form has that Church authoritatively permitted or encouraged such reading in Roman Catholic countries, although, in partibus infidelium, she has been shamed more or less into the show of a permission ? Has she not continually pointed the finger of reproach at the reading of the Scriptures as a pernicious act? Is, we would ask, the Pope himself at all at one with his eloquent curé of Paris ? On the contrary, we challenge contradiction, when we affirm that the very centre of Popery, Rome itself
, is the city of all others in visible Christendom where the sale of the Bible is seldom or never witnessed. Is it not, alas ! a matter of public notoriety, that no one is suffered to read the Bible in the vulgar tongue? And what was the opprobrious title given by the Pope's Syllabus to the Bible Societies? It pronounced them public nuisances. But to come only to last month. The very journal that published the eloquent sermon of M. Hyacinthe furnishes at once the most striking proof how the case stands with the Roman Catholic religious world as to the reading of the Bible. The Semaine Religieuse of January 2nd, the very number that gives the sermon of M. Hyacinthe on the duty of reading
the Bible, devotes a dozen pages to advertising religious books and New Year's presents. Here, then, we find everything else, books of offices (of prayer), lives of saints, books against Protestantism, religious romances, statues, images, chaplets, medals, &c., &c., but not a single advertisement of the Bible, nor of any book that would promote or pro
duco in any way the study of God's Word. Now let any one take
the Rock, and the contrast is striking indeed.
Rome may not, perhaps, have forbidden in so many words the reading of Holy Scripture, but she has never favoured, she has never fostered that paramount of Christian duties; on the contrary, she has destroyed the taste for the Bible in her dread of seeing her people using the Bible. In fact, nothing in the world would be more astonishing than to see Roman Catholics habitually reading the Bible, and still remaining Roman Catholics.
A WORD TO THE PROTESTANTS OF ENGLAND.
"Can ye not discern the signs of the times ?"—Matt. xvi. 3.
O ZION, mourn, let tears bedew thy cheek;
Let sorrow rend thy heart, let anguish speak
Thy deep contrition for thy people's sins (Joel ii. 15—17),
Ere judgment at the House of God begins (1 Peter iv. 17).
For though in love He long restra His wrath,
Yet with a curse, for sin, He'll smite the earth (Mal. iv. 6);
Unless to Him, in penitence we turn,
Humbly confess our sins, forsake and mourn (1 John i. 9).
For who can tell but that He may withhold
His indignation, as in days of old,
When Nineveh, repenting, turned again (Jonah iii. 9, 10)
To Him 'gainst whom they'd sinned, nor turn'd in vain ?
So, Christians, let the warning voice be heard,
Give heed in time to God's most holy word;
Mix faith with it, and test your ev'ry thought
By that unerring Rule, and not as taught
By human tradition, insisted on (Col. ii. 8)
By Romish Prelates, who make bold to own
Succession from th' Apostles, but teach not
The doctrines which they taught; nor have they got
The faith which they possess'd; it works by love;
A gift frecly and divinely given, prove (Eph. ii. 8)
Its origin from God, whose Spirit taught
The truths reveal'd and effectually wrought (Acts xiv. 3)
Within their hearts, and thence upon their lives
A holy influence which none derives
From Popish error, or from Priestly pow'r,
Which seeks to gain admission in this our
Once enlighten'd but now beclouded land.
For dimly burns our light, on ev'ry hand
Error and infidelity abound (1 Tim. iv. 1).
Alas! in Protestant England is found
The spirit of alliance with that foe,
Which seeks our nation's final overthrow,
Already works that subtle, lying fiend,
Though in false colours, which better serves the end
Rome has in view; with her, the Church is all
Outside her pale, anathemas must fall
On ev'ry soul who dares maintain the right
•Of conscience to self-judge, as in God's sight,
And that according to His word of truth.
The Bible's not the people's Book, forsooth.
Saith Rome, How can unlearned man presume
T' interpret Scripture? which the priests assume
Only to themselves, rightly to divide.
Thus by these means the Lamp of Life's denied
To all Rome's followers, who pin their faith
To Romish doctrines, or what her priests saith.
who bear the name of Protestant,
Are ye prepared your doctrines to recant?
And to forego your much-prized liberty,
To succumb to Rome, whose emissary
Is the Ritualism of the present day,
Which now within th' Established Church bears sway?
The leaven works, and soon it will appear
That Protestants a foreign yoke must wear ;
Whether the Church be severed from the State
Or not, her downfall hastens, and how great
The fall will be! Oh, woe to England then!
For hierarchy in confusion will reign
While Rome exerts her pow'r within this realm,
And Antichrist, usurping, guides the helm.
But not for long; another pow'r will rise (Rev. xvii. 10)
To subdue the pow'r of the Beast; surprise (Rev. xiii. 3)
Will seize the wicked then, who dream of peace,
Will find too late their troubles fast increase.
The foolish virgins, too, will look about (Matt. xxv. 8)
For oil to trim their lamps, their light gone out
Will fill them with confusion and dismay;
Then will they know that they have miss'd their way.
But, О ye saints of God! 'tis not for you
To take your ease, as mere professors do (Luke xxi. 36).
Arise, and trim your lamps, go forth in faith,
In readiness to meet your Lord, who saith,
Behold, I quickly come!" The time draws near (Jas. v. 9);
Are ye prepared before Him to appear (Matt. xxv. 32),
When He shall come to gather in His own,
Faultless to stand before the Father's throne (Rev. vii. 15) ?
Portentous are the signs; they loudly call
For watchfulness and pray'r, to Christians all.
Oh, then, ye saints, betake you to your tow'r (Hab. ii. 1);
In secret wait, till the decisive hour (Isa. xxvi. 20),
When God shall arise, and make bare His arm,
To defend His own from the direful storm
Which threatens now to overspread the land (Luke xxi. 28);
And none but those its fury shall withstand,
Who are safely hid in Christ the smitten Rock,
Secure are they 'gainst ev'ry earthly shock (Gal. iii. 3);
For Christ is theirs, and they are ever His,
Their Strength, and Shield, and Hiding-place He is (Isa. xxxii. 2),
In whose loved presence they shall ever dwell (Rev. xxi. 3),
With whom in time and evermore 'tis well.
Oh, then, " be faithful even unto death (Rev. ii. 10),
And I will give a crown of life," He saith.
"A little while," and He will surely come (Heb. x. 37),
To claim His Bride, to be with Him at home,
To share His glory, and be like Him too (1 John iii. 2),
Clad in a garment which is ever new (Isa. lxi. 10),
With Him to reign, to sit upon His Throne (Rev. iii. 21),
When He the kingdoms of this world shall own (Rev. xi. 15).
What eye can picture, or what heart conceive (1 Cor. ii. 9),
The glory that awaits those who believe (1 John v. 1)!
Believing love, and loving much adore,
Though now unseen, shall see Him evermore (1 Pet. i. 8).
Inglisham.
E. B.
Passing Ebents.- Montbly Note
. A A
The threatened war between Greece and Turkey has, we are thankful to say, been averted, the governments of both countries having accepted the terms proposed to them by the Conference.
Spain has been greatly excited by a cruel murder committed at Burgos. The governor of the city went into the cathedral to take an inventory of the treasures which it contained, and whilst there was attacked by a furious mob-at the instigation, it is said, of the Roman Catholic priests-and barbarously murdered. The people also are very indignant because the Papal Court has refused to recognize the Spanish envoy. A monster indignation meeting was held in Madrid, and an immense crowd assembled before the palace of the Nuncio. They tore down and burnt the Papal arms, and afterwards went to the official residence of the Minister of Public Worship and demanded the immediate removal of the Nuncio. The Under-Secretary of the Ministry appeared, and declared that the Government had already suppressed the salary paid by Spain to the Papal Nuncio, and withdrawn the powers granted to him by former Governments. An event also, unprecedented in the history of Spain, has taken place at Madrid. A Protestant temple has been inaugurated there by the celebration for religious service in public. The ceremony, we are told, passed off in the most orderly manner, and no kind of insult was offered. The priests and their followers are, of course, excessively angry, and a protest against the progress of religious liberty has been signed by 15,000 ladies; but such opposition will probably have little effect; Rome is evidently losing her hold over Spain. May the glorious Gospel and undefiled religion take her place!
We have had sad tidings lately from New Zealand. The Maories have risen again, and massacred thirty-five persons, men, women, and children indiscriminately, together with several friendly natives. The settlers were living in their scattered homesteads in peace, without the slightest apprehension of danger; they believed that the rebels were miles away, and on retiring to rest they spoke hopefully of their plans for the morrow. Without the slightest warning the rebels came upon them, massacred them, destroyed their flocks and herds, burned their dwellings, and entirely devastated one of the finest districts in the country. But this sad affair will not end here; a terrible retribution will in all probability be inflicted, and we already hear of the rebels being attacked and defeated in two engagements with severe loss, and of other means taken for their chastisement. Thus many innocent beings, as well as the guilty, will have to suffer. But are we not, as a nation, verily guilty respecting these things? We very much fear that we are. We fear that we have not treated these poor savages with the kindness and consideration that become a professedly Christian people; hence the trouble which they have given us, and this shedding of innocent blood.
An extraordinary exposure of the doings in modern convent life has just taken place. Miss Saurin, a nun belonging to a convent in Hull, has brought an action, in the Court of Queen's Bench, against the Lady Superioress for alleged ill-treatment. If her story is to be believed and
— there seems little reason for doubting it-the treatment she received was
shameful. She had to be up at three in the morning, and immediately adjust her movements by a minute " distribution," which, besides the usual services, meditations, teachings, and so forth, included sweeping the schools and passages on her knees with a hand-brush. The violations of discipline incident to such a course appear to have been innumerable. If the poor lady complained that the broom was worn out, or filthy with scullery use, that was a sin to be confessed and atoned for. So, also, if she sat down, or rested her knees on a bench during a long, weary schoolingif she could not eat mutton, especially when fat or lukewarm-if she did not relish the broth or swallow the mouldy bread-if a biscuit was found in her drawer-if she cut up one tunic to mend the rest of the halfdozen—if she used a pennyworth of calico lying about, and, for the occasion, a pair of scissors within reach—if she exchanged a single word with a passing sister during the hours of silence—if she read something too fast, or rang a bell three minutes too late-if she wrote to her brother, mother, father, or uncle, or only wanted to do so-if she wished to hear from them, or to open their letters when they came-if she wished, in a word, to have a thought of her own, a friend, or a moment's liberty of action—it was sin, sin pardonable if public amends were made with suitable acts of contrition, such as licking the floor-sin unpardonable if not covered by these penances. According to her narrative, she was subjected for some months to miseries such as one expects only to find in the treatment of some idiot by his unnatural parents-or some other victim of uneducated brutishness. The correspondence of her friends, who could not account for her long silence, and were full of dire misgivings, was intercepted, hidden, or destroyed; so she avers she found out. When she carried her point so as to write a slip of intelligence, she was made to insult her brother in the address of the letter. She had to pass winter weeks in a bath-room without fire, or in a garret, also without fire, never allowed to leave the latter for any purpose whatever. She had to lie on a board, the mattress being taken away. Broken scraps of food were thrown to her, with the comment that in eating them she was robbing the poor. Her religious habit that she had worn for two years was taken away while she was asleep, and she was compelled to resume a secular dress. She was not allowed to change her under-garment more than twice or thrice in a whole winter ; and, finally, she was reduced to a skeleton suit, fitting her body close, and made in the convent for the purpose. "Indeed," as a leading paper observes, "feminine ingenuity seemed almost to exhaust itself in devices for doing that which a Nero or a Tiberius would have done more terribly, but yet in a day." We hope that this case may have a salutary effect upon those deluded persons who imagine that Popish institutions are not nearly so objectionable now as they were in days gone by. The tendency of such institutions is the same as it always was, because human nature is the same; and, wherever men or women are shut up in an unnatural state, there we may expect the same consequences will ensue—the indulgence of evil passions, the display of cruelty, indolence, and vice.
The Ritualists have sustained another defeat. In December last they fought a hard battle with the Evangelical members of the Christian Knowledge Society in the endeavour to get a portion of its funds diverted to the furtherance of the particular objects of their party. They were defeated, although they used most strenuous efforts to gain their point. Since then they have attacked the Society in another way. Seeing the advantage


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First head-to-body transplant supports bizarre Mars whistleblower claim
April 11, 2015 science and technology
RT reported on April 10 that a Russian man suffering from a rare genetic muscle-wasting disorder will undergo the world's first head-to-body transplant. The Russian man volunteered to have his head transplanted to the brain-dead body of an otherwise healthy donor. The surgery will be conducted by what RT describes as "renowned Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero." Dr Canavero is a pioneer in the field of neurosurgery with many medical accomplishments, and gave a TED talk on the pioneering head-body transplant procedure in Dec 30, 2014 titled: "Head Transplantation: The Future is Now."
Britain's Daily Mail in contrast refers to critics who view Canavero's planned head-to-body transplant as "pure fantasy" comparing him to an out of control Dr Frankenstein.
Dr Canavero describes the controversial procedure as HEAVEN which is an acronym for HEad Anastomosis VENture: Anastomosis is the surgical joining of two body parts. He sees the procedure as "comparable to space exploration," as he told RT News:
Russia sent Yury Gagarin into space with fair chances of dying. America sent Neil Armstrong to the moon with fair chances of dying. And the chances here are much, much better…
Canavero's space exploration analogy is not inappropriate since his pioneering HEAVEN technique supports the bizarre claim of an unlikely space exploration witness.
Randy Cramer (aka Captain Kaye USMC s.s.), claims to have spent 17 years on Mars in a highly classified space program protecting five civilian colonies from indigenous Martians. According to Cramer, innovative medical procedures are not uncommon in the classified programs as a result of alien battles on Mars.
In a recent newsletter describing his alleged activities on Mars, he described a new type of weapon that was used by him and others serving on the Mars Defense Force that led to decapitation:
For about 3 years, we had a rear shoulder-fired multi rocket that popped up over your shoulder and had 2 small drums, with 10 rockets each. You could fire spreads of 5, 10, or the whole 20 at once, and they were reloaded back at the ammo bulldog… It was bulky, but could really clear a path, and had HUD targeting, but was discontinued after too many instances of the ordinance being detonated psionically – often resulting in decapitation. I had my head blown off (separated from my shoulders) twice that way. [Emphasis added]
Incredibly, Cramer is here claiming that radical head-to-body transplant surgery is regularly used in a classified space program, and clearly has good survival rates since he has undergone the procedure twice, or so he claims!
When I first read Cramer's newsletter, I thought it must be a mistake, and emailed him for clarification. When I didn't hear back, I thought that something must be awry with his testimony. Possibly an implanted memory or something else was going on that cast a cloud over his claims of covert military service in a secret space program.
I was able to reach him by phone on April 10 to finally discuss his claim of twice surviving decapitation. He confirmed that he was indeed claiming that he had twice undergone a head-to-body transplant procedure as his newsletter suggested.
In an earlier newsletter and interviews, Cramer has described the advanced healing and cloning technologies used in the secret space program he served in which he called the Earth Defense Force. He says that cloning is a highly advanced science and that he saw clones of himself that could be used if needed for surgical procedures. That is indeed what he claims happened on the two occasions he was decapitated on Mars. His severed head was twice transferred to the body of a clone replica of himself. He said all that he could remember of the incidents were the explosions resulting in decapitation, and then waking up in a specialized medical unit.
It would be easy to dismiss Cramer as delusional in claiming that his head has been severed twice, and reattached to another cloned replica of himself. That certainly was the first thought that occurred to me, and raised questions of how much of his testimony was laced with delusional beliefs likely a result of implanted false memories.
Dr Canavero's head-body surgical transplant, however, is not science fiction, but something that will very shortly be attempted for the first time, publicly at least. There's a widespread assumption that any pioneering technology or techniques developed in the "white-world" of open source literature, has been secretly developed decades ago in the "black-world" of highly classified programs. This makes it highly likely that Canavero's head-to-body surgical procedure has been secretly developed and used in classified programs decades ago. Cramer's decapitation claim now doesn't sound delusional or so bizarre after all.
© Michael E. Salla, Ph.D. Copyright Notice
Mars whistleblower reveals more of his covert military service
Obama counsel admits to failed effort to declassify UFO files
Obama and top officials secretly briefed on extraterrestrial cover-up
Humans on Mars: Obama makes pledge in State of the Union
Curiosity Rover image of coffin on Mars goes viral
NASA reverses itself on methane and possible life on Mars
NASA image reveals secret base on Mars
March 29, 2015 science and technology
A Mars Global Surveyor image shows an artificial object on Mars that appears to be a base overlooking a canyon. The image was taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera sometime in the period from March-Aug 2000. The image was the subject of a Youtube video released on March 27 where it was described as a flying saucer shaped space craft. Scott Waring from UFO Sightings Daily also studied the image and today in a post claimed the object is a giant UFO disk. The position of the artificial object overlooking a canyon suggests another more likely explanation – a secret observation post on Mars belong to a base.
The image can be found on the Malin Space Science Systems website which designed the camera used by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor Orbiter. All Orbiter images through to Sept 2005 can be found on the Malin website which is affiliated with NASA. The image with the artificial object is located on its M13 through M18 page dating from March 2000 – August 2000
The object is symmetrical with what appear to be observation windows. According to Waring, these are windows from a UFO, however, a flying saucer craft left on the surface of Mars would over time be subjected either to damage from atmospheric conditions, or from its initial impact. The structure does not appear to be damaged at all, and shows no telltale signs of atmospheric wear and tear. The object has a smooth contour with polished edges. This suggests the structure is currently in use. Its position overlooking a canyon raises the strong possibility that it is an observation post belonging to or attached to a nearby base. If so, then the image is startling evidence of a secret base found on Mars. The obvious question that arises is who does it belong to?
A number of whistleblowers have come forward to reveal their experiences regarding secret bases on Mars. Randy Cramer (aka Captain Kaye) claims he spent 17 years on a secret military base on Mars protecting five corporate run bases called the Mars Colony Corporation. He claims that he served with the Mars Defense Force and protected the civilian bases from Martian indigenous life forms. Cramer says that Mars has a thin breathable atmosphere that is capable of sustaining indigenous life – two of which are capable of attacking the civilian colonies.
More recently, another whistleblower using the acronym GoodETxSG has stepped forward claiming to have served with up to three separate secret space programs run by covert multinational alliances and/or corporate conglomerates with bases on the Moon, Mars and elsewhere in the solar system. He further claims that between 5-7 secret space programs exist that are affiliated with ancient Earth civilizations. GoodETxSG says that Mars has a thin breathable atmosphere with indigenous life forms, and secret military and corporate installations.
The 2000 Mars Global Surveyor image is hard evidence of an artificial structure found on the Mars. The most likely explanation is that it is part of a base belonging to a secret space program. The image supports whistleblower claims of secret space programs operating in deep space, with bases on various celestial bodies in our solar system.
Whistleblower reveals multiple secret space programs concerned about new alien visitors
ExoNews TV: Whistleblower claims he served 17 years at secret Mars military base
Whistleblower reveals serving for 3 years on secret space fleet
Reagan records & Space Command antigravity fleet
Methane breathing aliens on Titan possible according to Cornell scientists
February 28, 2015 science and technology
A team of scientists from Cornell University have developed a sophisticated model that suggests extraterrestrial life may be found in the methane oceans of Saturn's largest moon Titan. Their model was published in the academic journal, Science Advances on Feb 27. Just as marine life on Earth can extract oxygen from oceans to fulfill basic biological needs, so too life on Titan could extract methane from the oceans to reproduce and metabolize.
According to a public release by Cornell University, the model suggests that methane-breathers of Titan would be able to flourish in very cold environments:
Taking a simultaneously imaginative and rigidly scientific view, chemical engineers and astronomers offer a template for life that could thrive in a harsh, cold world – specifically Titan, the giant moon of Saturn. A planetary body awash with seas not of water, but of liquid methane, Titan could harbor methane-based, oxygen-free cells.
The surprising breakthrough in modelling radical new forms of life by Cornell University scientists gives support to an unlikely source of information about extraterrestrial life. Alex Collier claims that he was contacted by extraterrestrials from the Andromeda constellation and was told that methane life forms exist throughout the galaxy.
In a 2002 lecture interview discussing galactic history according to the Andromedans, Collier said:
Hydrogen ecosystems are much more abundant as is methane because they are not complicated ecosystems. O2 ecosystems are very complex, the most complex in the galaxy…. according to the archeological record, other life forms, sentient life forms, reptilian, human, plasmic, methane life forms all began to appear; and do appear in our galaxy in full form.
The Cornell university scientific model helps corroborate Collier's claims that methane-breathing life forms have appeared throughout the galaxy, and have developed high degrees of intelligence.
The recent Cassini mission to Titan showed that it is the only body in the solar system which, like Earth, has a rocky surface with liquid oceans. NASA released photographs of Titan in 2013 that enabled scientists to estimate the size and depths of its oceans. NASA is currently studying the possibility of sending a submarine to Titan to explore its methane oceans. According to Discovery News:
Envisaged as a possible mission to Titan's largest sea, Kracken Mare, the autonomous submersible would be designed to make a 90 day, 2,000 kilometer (1,250 mile) voyage exploring the depths of this vast and very alien marine environment.
If the Cornell scientists' model is correct, a future NASA mission to Titan may find life flourishing in its oceans. If Collier is correct, alien life on Titan may have reached a degree of complexity that will greatly surprise Earth scientists and lead to a radical new understanding of how different forms of intelligent extraterrestrial life may be flourishing throughout the galaxy.
NASA scientists say extraterrestrial life may be found on Ceres by Dawn mission
Swiss scientists confirm extraterrestrial life can survive in outer space
1976 life on Mars controversy resurrected in new scientific report
December 17, 2014 science and technology
Credit: NASA/JPL
Yesterday was a good day for those proposing that extraterrestrial life currently exists on Mars. In a Dec. 16 paper published in the journal Science, NASA says that significant methane levels were detected by the Curiosity Rover over a two month period suggesting that "Mars is episodically producing methane from an … unknown source." The "unknown source", as a number of mainstream media articles were quick to point out given what is known about the creation of methane, may be extraterrestrial life, The New York Times published an article titled, "'A Great Moment': Rover finds Clue that Mars May Harbor Life," The Guardian wrote "Methane 'spikes' fuel speculation of life on Mars." ScientificAmerican used as its subtitle: "New results suggest evidence for extraterrestrial life could be near at hand." This is not the first time that NASA has released scientific data pointing to life on Mars. On previous occasions, NASA scientists argued over the results. Judging from the number of authors to the Dec. 16 paper, there appears to be rare unanimity. Are we on the verge of a major NASA announcement that reveals life has been found on Mars?
The New York Times pointed out that NASA's announcement is a major reversal on the position it reached only a year earlier :
"the new findings … are a 180-degree flip from a year ago, when mission scientists said that Curiosity had found no signs of methane,"
The Curiosity Rover also found carbon-based organic molecules the significance of which the New York Times explained from comments given at a News Conference by NASA scientists at the American Geophysical Union:
The scientists also reported that for the first time, they had confirmed the presence of carbon-based organic molecules in a rock sample. The so-called organics are not direct signs of life, past or present, but they lend weight to the possibility that Mars had the ingredients required for life, and may even still have them.
NASA's announcement is good news for scientists that have claimed that previous scientific data from Mars suggested that life exists there in the form of microbes. The most famous was the "Labeled Release" experiment from the 1976 Viking mission that obtained positive results for evidence of Martian life. The experiment's designer, Dr Gilbert Levin, thought the results clearly indicated Martian life, but he was not supported by the NASA administration. In a 2012 reassessment of Gilbert's experiment, he was finally supported by an independent team of scientists who concluded:
The only extraterrestrial life detection experiments ever conducted were the three which were components of the 1976 Viking Mission to Mars. Of these, only the Labeled Release experiment obtained a clearly positive response…. We have applied complexity analysis to the Viking LR data….We conclude that the complexity pattern seen in active experiments strongly suggests biology while the different pattern in the control responses is more likely to be non-biological….These analyses support the interpretation that the Viking LR experiment did detect extant microbial life on Mars.
More controversial are the claims by Richard Hoover, a former NASA senior scientist who claims that in 2004, the Mars Rover, Opportunity photographed what clearly looked like the fossilized remains of a crinoid, a marine animal that looks like a sea lily. Hoover showed it to colleagues who immediately recognized the object as a crinoid. However, rather than examine the exciting possibility that Opportunity had photographed the fossilized remains of a living organism, Hoover said that less than four hours after taking the photo, Opportunity's rock abrasion tool ground the area where the possible fossil lay into dust. He asked David McKay, the former chief astrobiologist at the Johnson Space Center, why this had been done. The response Hoover received was less than satisfactory.
Gilbert's and Hoover's experiences suggest that there are those at a senior level in the NASA administration that have in the past deliberately prevented evidence of extraterrestrial life on Mars being accepted, and even destroyed. This makes NASA's reversal of its previous conclusions of methane levels on Mars significant, as is the emphasis that the New York Times gives to NASA's recent backtracking. Has NASA changed its policy on releasing evidence of life of Mars?
Possible support for a recent policy shift can be construed from no less than NASA administrator Charles Bolden who made a surprising statement about life on Mars in an Oct. 9 interview in London:
People always ask the question 'Why Mars?' Several reasons: One, Mars is very Earth-like, or least used to be Earth-like. It is a planet, a sister planet to Earth. It is the most likely planet in our solar system, um, that had life at one time… may have life now, and we feel can definitely sustain life.
Was this merely a coincidence, or was Bolden preparing the world public for some surprising future announcement regarding life on Mars? NASA may be simply driven by new scientific data gained by the Curiosity Rover as the Dec. 16 Science article suggests. Alternatively, it may be that there has been a recent policy shift in the higher echelons of NASA, and it is poised to release data finally confirming that life, at least in the form of primitive microbes, does currently exist on Mars.
Is that an elongated human skull on Mars?
NASA caught deleting data from Mars Curiosity Rover images
Is NASA muzzling scientific results from Mars Curiosity Mission?
Mystery signal from Rosetta comet confirmed by European Space Agency
November 11, 2014 science and technology
The European Space Agency (ESA) today confirmed that it was receiving a mysterious signal from Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. In a post on its live streaming website, it described the signal as a "mystery song" and uploaded a recording with the caption: "Hear our comet sing." The confirmation follows months of rumors that the Rosetta mission was originally sent to explore a radio signal from the comet first detected 20 years ago. The November 12 landing of the Rosetta mission's Philae probe will be live streamed to the world. The ESA's surprise announcement hints that the significance of the landing may go well beyond the historic first of humanity landing a probe on a comet.
Here is what the ESA said in its December 11 post:
Rosetta's Plasma Consortium (RPC) has uncovered a mysterious 'song' that Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is singing into space. The comet seems to be emitting a 'song' in the form of oscillations in the magnetic field in the comet's environment. It is being sung at 40-50 millihertz, far below human hearing. To make the music audible to the human ear, the frequencies have been increased in this recording…
There was a media frenzy back on September 29 from a UFO Sightings Daily post titled: "NASA Records Radio Signals Coming From Comet 67P For Over 20 Years!" The author, Scott Waring, cited an anonymous ESA whistleblower who wrote in an email that the mystery signal was detected 20 years ago by NASA and this was the true reason behind the Rosetta mission.
Waring and others making similar claims were criticized by many in the mainstream media who debunked the idea of a mysterious radio signal coming from comet 67P. Huffington Post writer, Michael Rundle, for example, wrote:
If the comet is emitting radio waves, why has no one else been able to tune it?… If the radio waves were picked up by NASA, why did they leave the space mission to investigate to the European Space Agency?
Well guess what? The ESA today confirmed that Waring was right and Rundle was wrong. The mystery signal is in fact "a song" being transmitted by the comet, presumably an oscillation in its magnetic field according to the ESA. The ESA did not say when it first recorded the song, but it does lend plausibility to the claims of the anonymous ESA whistlelower. The big question now is whether the song is a random composition of nature as the ESA implies, or was created by an extraterrestrial intelligence.
A September 10 photo from the Rosetta mission showed what appeared to be a radio tower and a possible UFO on the surface of Comet 67P. The photo was one among others held by the ESA that the anonymous ESA whistleblower referred to as revealing some of the mystery behind Comet 67P. Could the alleged tower be the source of the mystery signal, and does the UFO suggest an extraterrestrial intelligence is involved?
If the mystery signal today confirmed by the ESA was detected 20 years ago and led to the Rosetta mission, then it stands to reason that NASA and ESA believed that the signal was more than a random composition by nature. If extraterrestrials are wanting to announce themselves to a disbelieving world, transmitting a beautiful song from a remote comet does appear to be an elegant form of First Contact.
Rosetta comet radio signals and UFO claims spark controversy
New scientific study claims extraterrestrial fossil found in Sri Lanka meteor
Russians find extraterrestrial microbes on International Space Station
Extraterrestrial fossils found in meteorite according to scientific team (Photos)
NASA scientist claims conclusive proof of extraterrestrial life
UFO discovered collecting energy of sun on NASA live feed
Over a four day period up to November 9, NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) detected a strange area near the sun where solar activity was apparently being deflected or absorbed by an invisible object. According to two independent solar researchers in videos uploaded to Youtube on November 9 (see here and here), the affected area was due to a giant shield created by a UFO to protect itself from the sun's energy. An alternative explanation is that the immense spherical lens shaped field was part of an advanced technology based on the principle of a "Dyson Sphere." NASA's SOHO images appear to be evidence of the sun's energy being absorbed by a gigantic lens shaped solar collector whose approximate size is a mind staggering five times the sun's diameter!
The solar images used to identify the alleged "UFO shield"or solar collector can be publicly downloaded from SOHO's Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO). Video data from the LASCO C2 (orange) and C3 (blue) reveals that from November 6-9, an area to the lower right of the sun appears to not have any solar activity while areas around the rest of the sun do so. Either the sun's energy is being deflected back from the region by a "UFO shield" or absorbed by a giant lens of tremendous size – dwarfing the sun in comparison. The sheer size of the affected area, suggests that the hemispheric object was designed to absorb solar energy towards, rather than deflecting it away from, a UFO at the center of the hemisphere. A close inspection of the LASCO C2 (orange) film footage, in particular, suggests the sun's activity is actually being absorbed, rather than deflected, by a giant hemispheric lens of some kind.
The idea of an invisible giant hemispheric shaped solar collector is consistent with the development of a new generation of solar panel collectors that are spherical in design and use glass. One of these is called the "Rawlemon Spherical Solar Energy Generator" which is described as follows:
… the Rawlemon design uses a spherical lens to concentrate sunlight on a small photovoltaic panel and combines this with a dual-axis pivot that tracks the movement of the sun. According to the designer the transparent sphere is able collect and concentrate diffuse where traditional devices cannot and as well as providing an efficiency boost, they can be used in far more locations than their flat, fixed counterparts. It's also claimed that by concentrating the sun's light in one area, the Rawlemon design reduces the solar cell surface required to just 1 percent of that required by a traditional panel.
Could something similar to the "Rawlemon Generator" be designed on a much larger scale for collecting solar energy by an advanced extraterrestrial civilization?
According to Freeman Dyson, a celebrated astrophysicist, a Type II extraterrestrial civilization would have the advanced technology to harness solar activity on a grand scale. A Dyson sphere, for example, could be constructed around a sun to collect solar energy in ways similar to how humanity harnesses hydro power, through water channels and dams. While a Dyson Sphere is theorized to be big enough to encircle a sun, similar principles could be used for a giant "Rawlemon Generator" type solar collector where a spherical glass lens could be pointed towards a sun. This can be best described as a "Dyson Lens."
In an earlier live NASA streaming incident from August 2014 involving the STEREO A satellite, a UFO with an apparent spherical lens trailing behind it, is moving past the orbit of Venus. The UFO appears to be using the lens, which is approximately four times the diameter of Venus, to absorb the sun's energy over a six day period from August 3 – 9. The August incident provides stunning video evidence of what appears to be a "Dyson Lens" being used by a UFO belonging to a Type II extraterrestrial civilization. It supports the evidence that the object captured by SOHO over the August 6-9 period is in fact a highly advanced solar collector as much as five times the sun's diameter.
Over the last decade, live streaming from NASA and other national space agencies has provided remarkable evidence that we are not alone in the universe. UFOs have been regularly photographed and filmed in close proximity to the International Space Station, Moon, Mars and other celestial bodies, Rarely, however, has live streaming video captured evidence that answers the question, how advanced is the technology used by UFOs? Do we now have compelling data to answer this question? Is the answer much more than we ever bargained for, and preparing us to think in much bigger terms with our future inevitably leading to contact?
Moon size UFO near sun may be evidence of Type II alien civilization
Another UFO on NASA live stream suggests ISS is under alien observation
Crop circle accurately predicts solar storms
Did NASA live video capture extraterrestrial life during spacewalk?
October 23, 2014 exonews, science and technology
On October 22 during a spacewalk by two Russian astronauts, the International Space Station (ISS) live feed showed a luminescent UFO briefly fly nearby. The astronauts had just jettisoned two parts of the ISS that had been removed, and the live feed showed the objects slowing falling towards the earth. As the second object is jettisoned, the UFO appears and briefly maneuvers near it. The luminescent UFO does not appear to be space debris as it clearly changes direction several times. It appears to be under intelligent control suggesting either a luminescent life form indigenous to outer space, or an extraterrestrial vehicle of some kind.
The first possibility of an extraterrestrial life form that can survive in outer space was suggested in a brief video analysis of the UFO conducted by Third Phase of Moon. It was proposed that the UFO was some kind of insect. The idea of space bugs existing in outer space received a boost on August 19, 2014 after Russians scientists announced the results of a yearlong study of a strange substance that had been obscuring the windows of the ISS that had been collected by astronauts during a prior spacewalk. Russian scientists announced that the substance was a form of sea plankton growing on the windows of the ISS. Flying at an approximate altitude of 200 miles, it is extremely unlikely that sea plankton could be carried so high by air currents. Nevertheless, the sea plankton on the ISS was growing, suggesting that it was a form of plankton indigenous to outer space rather than carried into space from the Earth's surface.
Another possibility is that the luminescent object is an extraterrestrial spacecraft. If so, it would be yet another incident of spacewalking astronauts being monitored by extraterrestrial craft. October 7 was another incident of spacewalking astronauts being captured on the ISS live feed with a UFO nearby that appeared to be observing ISS activities. The UFO was elliptical in shape and stationary relative to the ISS.
The ISS live feed is clear evidence that something other than space debris was briefly captured on video during a spacewalking mission. The video is very suggestive of some form of indigenous space life, or an extraterrestrial vehicle, closely monitoring the ISS and the spacewalking astronauts.
Is a UFO monitoring astronauts during ISS space walk?
Is a giant cigar UFO hovering near the International Space Station?
Two cigar shaped UFOs appear near the International Space Station
10 mile spacecraft and 60 mile highway discovered in 1968 moon photo?
October 5, 2014 science and technology
A 1968 photo taken during a Lunar Orbiter mission to the moon shows what appears to be a spacecraft that is at least 10 miles (16 km) long resting inside the Crater Manlius. The photo was the subject of a Youtube video that was released on October 4 that shows various close ups and light contrasts of the apparent spacecraft. Most of the object is well illuminated by the sun, but the rest is in the shadows of the crater which is approximately 20 miles (34 km) in diameter, What appears to be a spacecraft cockpit is in shadows. According to an October 5 blog post on UFO Sightings Daily, the object is a UFO that was being secretly studied by NASA, and the real target for upcoming Apollo moon missions.
The apparent spacecraft was photographed by Lunar Orbiter III (frame 3073) that was sent in 1967 to map the moon for future Apollo missions. Prior to its October 2014 "rediscovery," the UFO in the photo was discovered in October 2007 and discussed on an online forum where the consensus was that it was a spacecraft of some kind.
One possible explanation of the object is that it is an optical illusion based on a depression in the crater, rather than a large spacecraft resting on the crater's surface. The contours of the object as it meets the shadow cast by the sun from the crater's rim, however, appears to rule out such an explanation.
What is perhaps even more solid evidence of something artificial on the moon's surface in the same Lunar Orbiter photo is what appears to be the remains of a road that is approximately 60 miles (100 km) long on the moon's surface. The apparent road is surprisingly straight and covers the entire width of the Orbiter photo suggesting it is even longer. This suggests that it is not a natural depression on the lunar surface. Even more surprisingly, the roadway was not discussed in either the Youtube video or the UFO Sightings Daily blogpost.
The object captured by the Lunar Orbiter III does appear to be a huge spacecraft that is at least 10 miles long resting on the surface of the Crater Manlius, rather than an optical illusion from a depression in the crater. A possibility of artificial structures on the moon that is harder to dismiss is what appears to be the remains of an ancient lunar highway that is at least 60 miles long.
Apollo 11 photo reveals base on far side of moon
Is the US Congress investigating alien bases on the moon? (Photos)
Neil Armstrong dies along with secrets of what he saw on moon
Did Neil Armstrong receive death threats to keep moon secrets?
Did the US Air Force try to nuke the moon?
Science, Politics & Spirituality of extraterrestrial civilizations [Updated]
September 4, 2014 exopolitics research, science and technology
Course begins on September 15, 2014
The discovery of exoplanets in the habitable regions of their suns, according to the world's leading astrophysicists, makes the existence of extraterrestrial life a foregone conclusion. Astronomical observations of exoplanets has stimulated scientific conferences questioning, for the first time, the societal and political implications of intelligent life existing somewhere in the far reaches of space. For example, a September 18-19 Symposium sponsored by NASA and the Library of Congress brings together some of the worlds leading astrobiologists to discuss ways of preparing the public for the discovery of extraterrestrial life. According to astrophysicists such as Stephen Hawking, extraterrestrials would most likely be predatory in nature and the best response to contact would be to equip the world's military to defend humanity.
For others, convinced that extraterrestrials have been visiting humanity since the dawn of the nuclear age, scientists are late comers to the party. A host of whistleblowers, experiencers and government documents have revealed, according to UFO and "exopolitics" researchers that extraterrestrials are already here. Not only have extraterrestrials been silently watching us, but advanced technologies have been developed to monitor, intercept and even shoot down their spacecraft. All this has been done secretly for national security reasons if the evidence is to be believed. So what would extraterrestrials be like? What would be their science, politics and spirituality?
There have been a few ad hoc attempts to answer such questions. As far as the astrophysics/astrobiological community is concerned, there have been conferences by the Royal Society and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences which tackled some of these questions. In a conference proceedings paper, the Royal Society's Dr Martin Dominik and Prof John C. Zarnecki endorsed studying the societal aspects of any discovery of extraterrestrial life. They stressed the importance of determining the possible motivations of extraterrestrial life:
The detection and further study of extra-terrestrial life will fundamentally challenge our view of nature, including ourselves, and therefore the field of astrobiology can hardly be isolated from its societal context, including philosophical, ethical and theological perspectives. With the detection of extra-terrestrial life being technically feasible, one needs to address whether perceived societal benefits command us to search for it, or whether such an endeavor may rather turn out to be a threat to our own existence
A popular online course on astrobiology asks at the end of a five week program: "What are the possibilities for intelligent life elsewhere? How would we deal with contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence and what would be the impact on society? Who would represent Earth?"
The best attempt to systematically address questions concerning the science of extraterrestrial civilizations has been undertaken by Professor Michio Kaku from Columbia University. Kaku has used a typology of hypothetical extraterrestrial civilizations based on energy consumption first developed by Soviet Astronomer, Nikoli Kardarshev in 1964. In the "The Physics of Extraterrestrial Civilizations" and "The Physics of Interstellar Travel," Kaku offers insightful analyses of how energy consumption of extraterrestrial civilizations reveals much about their possible science, and spacefaring abilities.
Kaku's and Kardashev's analyses, predictably exclude the extensive but controversial body of evidence examined by UFO/expolitics researchers that extraterrestrials are visiting us now. This is understandable if not without criticism by those seriously investigating such evidence. The astrophysics/astrobiological community only accepts data that can be scientifically tested and replicated in a way that leaves no doubt as to its veracity and of any conclusions drawn. Evidence that extraterrestrials are currently visiting us cannot be so tested and replicated according to normal scientific protocols; since it is subject to controversy, missing key data, government denial, witness accuracy, etc. However, what if the excluded evidence could tell us something about the politics and spirituality of extraterrestrials that could be matched up with the best scientific speculations over their science? Wouldn't it be worth examining such evidence even if it wasn't conclusive? There have been attempts to do so.
A 2008 conference presentation by the author did examine evidence of extraterrestrial visitation using the typology first developed by Kardeshev and later used by Kaku. The conclusions are startling. One can get a rough idea of the science, politics and science of extraterrestrial civilizations. The implications are enormous. Once we understand the science, politics, and spirituality of extraterrestrial civilizations, we can make informed choices about how to best resolve global problems. Furthermore, we can transform the Earth using advanced extraterrestrial knowledge and technologies. The video of my 2008 conference presentation is available here or below for free viewing.
For those wanting to dive deeper into the available literature and evidence concerning extraterrestrial science, politics and spirituality, then I recommend the following online course (click here) which starts on September 15, and is offered through the Exopolitics Institute.
The discovery of exoplanets has already transformed the astrophysics and astrobiological communities with physical evidence that the Earth is not the only habitable planet in our galaxy. If life can "spontaneously" develop here, then it could do so anywhere – perhaps on one of the exoplanets already discovered. Over time, intelligent life would evolve and like humanity, develop a keen interest in visiting other worlds. Learning a little about what extraterrestrial science, politics and spirituality could be like is a wise move even for those still skeptical that intelligent alien life exists.
[Updated: Sept 4, 2014.]
University course on extraterrestrial life goes global
Detecting extraterrestrial cities on exoplanets becomes possible
Kepler confirms first exoplanet in habitable region – the exopolitical impact
Galaxy is rich in small, Earth-like planets
Stephen Hawking launches exopolitics debate
Princeton University astrobiology certificate explores potential for extraterrestrial life
Mars Rover image of thigh bone sparks media frenzy & NASA response
August 23, 2014 science and technology
On August 14, the Mars Curiosity Rover photographed an object that appears to be a thigh bone on the Martian surface. When the photo was released by NASA's JPL affiliate a few days later, initial observers claimed that the object was a fossilized bone fragment. The first thigh fossil claims on August 20 generated much media attention and public controversy with coverage by major media outlets such as the Huffington Post and Britain's Daily Mirror In an unusually quick response, NASA replied to the growing controversy on August 21 by claiming that the object was little more than a rock. Today, Science.com released a story backing NASA's claim that the photo is nothing more than a rock. Not so according to a growing number of independent researchers that have uncovered past Curiosity Rover images of what appear to be different life forms on the Mars surface.
The image was taken by Curiosity Rover's Mastcam which provides high resolution panoramic color images of the Mars environment.  Among the first observers of the thigh looking object was the popular website UFO Blogger that released a post on August 20 claiming:
After fossilized spine and finger now NASA Curiosity on August 14, 2014 photographed fossilized thigh bone-like object on Mars.
As major media sources began giving UFO Blogger claims wide coverage, NASA quickly released a statement on August 21 dismissing the notion that the object is a thigh bone:
No bones about it! Seen by Mars rover Curiosity using its MastCam, this Mars rock may look like a femur thigh bone. Mission science team members think its shape is likely sculpted by erosion, either wind or water. If life ever existed on Mars, scientists expect that it would be small simple life forms called microbes. Mars likely never had enough oxygen in its atmosphere and elsewhere to support more complex organisms. Thus, large fossils are not likely.
While Space.com and other major media outlets appear satisfied by NASA's explanation, independent researchers disagree. In fact, past Mars Rover images show what clearly appear to be animals roving the Mars surface.
In August February 2013, for example, a Curiosity Rover photo showed what appeared to be a duck on Mars. Another Rover Curiosity image taken in February 2013, showed what looked like a lizard on the Mars surface. In yet another photo from Curiosity Rover captured on September 2012, a squirrel appears to be on Mars. Finally, in a series of five images captured by the Spirit Rover in 2009, an object clearly appears to have moved; curiously, NASA experts refused to comment.
NASA's explanation that all the above images are merely rocks appearing to be animals or fossils generates heated controversy not only in the general public, but among NASA scientists themselves. Richard Hoover worked for NASA as an astrobiologist for 46 years, and claims that in 2004, the Mars Rover, Opportunity photographed what clearly looked like the fossilized remains of a crinoid, a marine animal that looks like a sea lily. Hoover showed it to colleagues who immediately recognized the object as a crinoid. However, rather than examine the exciting possibility that Opportunity had photographed the fossilized remains of a living organism, Hoover said that less than four hours after taking the photo, Opportunity's rock abrasion tool ground the area where the possible fossil lay into dust. He asked David McKay, the former chief astrobiologist at the Johnson Space Center, why this had been done. According to Hoover, the answer he received was less than satisfactory. Hoover's conclusion was that senior NASA scientists were actively destroying evidence of Martian fossils.
If animals do roam the Martian surface, as Mars Rover photographs suggest, then bone fossils and bone fragments will also likely be detected on the Mars surface as Hoover claims. Photographic and whistleblower evidence suggest that NASA's explanations that Mars Rover images are nothing more than rocks, appear to be obfuscations designed to mislead the general public about the true composition of the Mars atmosphere and of life on Mars.
Is that a lizard on Mars – why is NASA silent?
Hard evidence of life on Mars that NASA doesn't want to discuss
More evidence of life on Mars?
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Mainframe Solution Business Case
Save Money With Mobile
Mobile Workload Pricing for the System z platform can save money as usage increases
9/17/2014 5:28:24 AM | By Alan Radding
Worldwide mobile payment transaction values reached $235.4 billion in 2013, a 44 percent increase from 2012 when they hit $163.1 billion, according to Gartner. "We expect global mobile transaction volume and value to average 35 percent annual growth between 2012 and 2017, and we are forecasting a market worth $721 billion with more than 450 million users by 2017," predicted Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner, in a report published last year.
How much of that action will hit your mainframe? Already, major banks report significant upticks in transactions generated from mobile devices, mainly smartphones and tablets. At some point, the volume of mobile transactions is sure to impact your peak workload pricing.
This is a good news/bad news situation. An organization publishes a mobile app and people start downloading it. Then they start using it. That's the good news. The bad news is that many of these transaction will drive up your workload volume, which you pay for, without directly generating revenue. People are using mobile devices to check balances or review statements or compare prices. Your workload volume goes up but your revenue does not increase commensurately.
And the situation is going to grow in the months ahead. IBM intends to roll out a series of business applications that are bound to drive transaction traffic to the mainframe. The new apps initially will focus on retail, healthcare, banking, travel and transportation, telecommunication, and insurance. These are back office, mainframe-intensive industries. Your workload volumes are bound to be impacted as the new mobile apps start gaining traction, probably in 2015. In addition, IBM expanded an existingpartnership with Monitise, a U.K.-based mobile banking solutions company. The goal is to create cloud-based mobile solutions for the financial services sector. Again, there likely will be a mainframe in the back office processing these transactions.
Mobile Workload Pricing
IBM responded by announcing Mobile Workload Pricing (MWP) for z/OS. According to IBM, MWP can reduce the cost of growth for mobile transactions processed by programs such as CICS, IMS and DB2 for z/OS. Consider it an enhancement to sub-capacity reporting that can reduce the impact of mobile workloads on sub-capacity license charges, specifically in the cases where higher mobile transaction volumes may cause a spike in machine utilization. MWP can normalize the rate of transaction growth and reduce the reported peak capacity values used for sub-capacity charges.
The key is to deploy the Mobile Workload Pricing Reporting Tool (MWRT) that, according to IBM, will subtract 60 percent of the reported mobile million service units (MSU) from a given LPAR in each hour, adjusting the total LPAR MSU value for that hour. Think of this as just a standard sub-capacity reporting tool (SCRT) report with a discount built in to adjust for mobile workload impact.
Setting up MWRT
Depending on your taste for the IBM z/OS pricing process, your comfort with Java and with whom you talk, this may or may not be complicated.
To begin, MWRT is a Windows-based Java tool to report sub-capacity MSUs and make adjustments to reported LPAR MSUs based on mobile transaction data. Basically, it uses standard SCRT methodology plus a new capability to adjust for mobile workload impact, explains Mike Perera, vice president, CICS, Transaction Processing Facility and WebSphere on System z at IBM. It will replace SCRT for those who take advantage of MWP.
You will have to do some homework to set this up. "You can set it up in different ways. We wanted to give some flexibility," Perera adds.
At a minimum you have to determine what to put on different LPARs and figure out how you are capturing CPU usage and get IBM to agree. Then it is a question of feeding data into the MWRT and letting it take it from there. It will make MSU adjustment and monthly peak calculations for billing. Most importantly, it will subtract 60 percent of the reported mobile MSUs from a given LPAR per hour and adjust the total LPAR MSU value for that hour.
Expected Payoff
It is early in the process. Customers are just starting to run real data through MWRT. "We don't really know enough to estimate how much customers will likely save," says Mike Shipman, manager, Mainframe Software Pricing Strategy at IBM.
Initially, the savings will be small unless your mobile apps already generate a sizeable proportion of your peak transaction volume. But jump ahead six months or a year and your mobile transaction volume could be climbing substantially each month.
If you're facing growing mobile transaction volumes and you take the trouble to set up MWRT, you stand to save serious money.
Alan Radding is a Newton, Mass.-based freelance writer specializing in business and technology. Over the years his writing has appeared in a wide range of publications including the New York Times, CFO Magazine, CIO Magazine and Information Week. He can be reached through his website, technologywriter.com.
Teaching Through Gamification a Winning Strategy
Mainframe Mike: The Game teaches school-aged children about IBM Z hardware and software.
The Right Direction
Ten students were named winners of the 2012 IBM Destination z Enterprise Computing Scholarship in January. The top honor went to Chris Richardson of the University of South Carolina.


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Threat of Danger (Mission Recovery Book 2)
byMarton, Dana
Carol Gray
5.0 out of 5 stars Full Circle
Threat of Danger is the second book in the series and is as good if not better than the first, Silent Threat. Years earlier the heroine and hero suffered at the hands of the evil living amongst them. Ten years on and with a full independent life lived under them events occur that culminate in them returning to their hometown with a chance to finally uncover who the serial psycho' is.
I enjoyed this story so much it was hard to put down. I loved the underlying theme of " what doesn't kill you makes you stronger". Definitely a 5 star book and one I will in the future read again.
TOP 500 REVIEWER
5.0 out of 5 stars Second chance romance
While I prefer the first book in the series, I still enjoyed this one. I'm a sucker for second chance romances. The heroine is a strong yet still feminine character backed up by the capable and sexy hero. Couldn't put this book down.
5.0 out of 5 stars A great addition to this suspense-filled, fast-paced, wonderful series. What an thrilling ride Ms. Marton takes readers on!
Jess Taylor and Derek Daley survived a harrowing experience at the hands of a serial killer, but in the end, both couldn't handle staying in their small Vermont town. However, when Jess's mom hurts herself, Jess returns home to take care of her. Yet, Derek is back in town too and Jess is determined to keep her distance. Except that's hard to do when bones are found, leading Jess and Derek to believe that the person that once hurt them is back too? Will they finally be able to put a stop to a serial killer or will the pair lose their second chance at happy ever after?
I've read quite a few of Ms. Marton's books, but this story is the best of the ones I've read. It was utterly captivating and thrilling due to the incredible main characters, the fast-paced plot that encompassed plenty of suspense and a good dose of romance, and extremely entertaining dialogue that had me reading quickly, determined to discover what the killer would do towards the end. The way this story started was exciting because of what the heroine is doing, but it was from the moment the hero and heroine come face-to-face for the first time where this story really comes alive, as being around Derek is a painful reminder of what happened in the past. Will Derek be able to win Jess over?
As for the dialogue, it was intense due to the main characters back stories and everything they go through when the inevitable confrontation with the serial killer occurs. Will they come out on top against the bad guy? Moreover, both the main characters have done well for themselves with the heroine becoming one of Hollywood's best stuntwomen and the hero being a former Navy SEAL turned best-selling author. Really, they haven't let what happened to them in the past hold them back, even though they're both still haunted by it with Derek being unable to protect Jess and feeling as though he let her down.
With the heroine, she's a fighter, resilient, courageous and I liked that she gave the hero a chance, even though it's not easy for her to be around him in the beginning because of everything that happened. I also liked the close relationship she has with the secondary characters, especially Kaylee, as she's the little sister Jess never had and she would do anything for the girl. While the hero, he's been through so much, but I liked that the good and the bad has made him the strong, formidable man he is. I also liked how determined he was to protect Jess this time around, even though she doesn't need protecting. She now knows how to protect herself and won't go down without doing everything she can to survive. Yet, what I liked most of all about the hero is his kind and caring nature and that he would do anything for those he cares about, which is proven by everything he does for various secondary characters as well as Jess.
Overall, Ms. Marton has delivered a highly entertaining and enthralling read in this book, which had me hooked from beginning to end and where the chemistry between this couple was as strong now as it was in the past; the romance was wonderful, as these two find their way back to each other; and the ending had me worried for the main characters, but had me liking how everything turned out for Jess and Derek because they're meant to be. However, it was the epilogue that wrapped this story up nicely because the hero and heroine have come so far, especially when it comes to their careers and their relationship. Certainly, Jess couldn't hold out on giving Derek the answer he wanted to a very important question. I would recommend Threat of Danger by Dana Marton, if you enjoy romantic suspense, second chance romances or books by authors Kat Martin, Laura Griffin, Trish Loye and Toni Anderson.
Silent Threat (Mission Recovery Book 1)
byDana Marton
Flash Fire (Civilian Personnel Recovery Unit Book 2)
Girl in the Water (Civilian Personnel Recovery Unit Book 3)
Broslin Creek Boxed Set (Books 1-3)
Forced Disappearance (Civilian Personnel Recovery Unit Book 1)
‹ See all details for Threat of Danger (Mission Recovery Book 2)


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Travel blogger Tanyka Renee knows how to find the best deals, here are her tips
By Cassidy Sparks | August 21, 2018 | 0
Travel blogger Tanyka Renee (Photo credit: Kareem Porter)
Tanyka Renee Henry is an international travel influencer who takes her 286,000 followers on a journey every time she shares her breathtaking content on Instagram.
The Brooklyn native who grew up in New Britain, Connecticut, began traveling as an escape from her mundane life but today it is her full-time job. As a professional world traveler, Henry has visited more than 60 countries, including Cuba, Kenya and Paris. People who value her expertise call on her to create itineraries and scout locations for elite celebrities, brands and influencers.
The travel enthusiast's goal is to inspire others to explore the world and give back. Henry shared with rolling out her guide to affordable travel so that everyone, but more specifically other Black women, can travel and see all that the world has to offer.
What was your introduction to travel?
When I was a kid, I liked adventure books and movies. I would jump on my bike and explore neighboring towns. As I got older, travel has always been my escape. No matter if I was stressed, depressed or happy, travel was always the answer. It's just something freeing about being in a foreign land amongst people, tasting, smelling and being visually stimulated. I started documenting my travels, sharing them on social media and built a following. Before I knew it, I was getting paid to travel.
What has been the best trip and why?
The best trips have been the most uncomfortable ones — the ones that have forced me out of my comfort zone and allowed me to grow.
I remember going to India on a buddy pass. Didn't know anyone there but didn't care. I wanted to experience it. I landed at the airport, got through customs and remember getting bombarded by taxi drivers. I was overwhelmed and felt a little uncomfortable. This old man walked up to me and in a thick Indian accent and says, "I respect women, and I'm safe. Please come with me." He took me to my hotel and informed me that I was staying in a dangerous area. He gives me his number and tells me to call if I need anything."
The next morning I gave the man a call to take me on a city tour of New and Old Delhi. I got to see some amazing temples and palaces. Although Delhi is one of the busiest cities with a lot of poverty, it's also one of the most beautiful. I've learned about the passion and love that was built into the Taj Mahal, met some amazing people and even got to experience The Holi festival. India was one of my best trips because it was a humbling experience.
Tanyka Renee in India (Photo credit: Instagram – @tanykarenee)
Why do you feel that it's so important for Black women to travel and see the world?
I grew up in America, a country where Black women are at the bottom of the totem pole. Everywhere we look we are consciously and subconsciously being told that we are ugly, scary, intimidating and below normal standards. We are constantly told we have to downplay who we are naturally to fit into other people's standards. It took traveling for me to realize that I am beautiful, I am strong, I am intelligent and I am valued. Traveling is an empowering, freeing and informing experience.
I remembering visiting Colombia and was amazed at how the Black locals would randomly address me as La Reina. They made me feel like a queen. When I was in Honduras, I saw a woman whose features resembled mine, and she told me I looked like her granddaughter. I've touched every continent on this planet and learned that Black people all over the world are connected. I felt loved everywhere I've gone.
I dare Black women to go and show our #BlackGirlMagic to the world. Travel will change you, it will empower you, and it will help you realize that you are not only loved but you are love in its physical form.
Please share three tips on affordable traveling.
Traveling on a budget requires sacrifice. I was amazed at how many of my friends want to travel and claim they can't afford it. A lot of them said they couldn't but spent money on Beyoncé tickets, hair, nails and clothes. Traveling can be affordable if you're willing to step outside your comfort zone and try new things.
Try a hostel. Hostels are budget-friendly and a great way to meet new people. You rent a bed in a dormitory, kind of like college living. I have seen beds for as low as $3 a night. Most hostels have lockers, internet, cheap meals and specials on tours and excursions.
Location, location, location. Pick locations where the cost of living is low and you get more for your coin. When money is tight, I recommend places like Thailand, Indonesia, Nepal, India, Vietnam or even Latin America. When I visited Thailand, I was spending less than $20 a day.
Do as the locals do. Skip the big fancy restaurants and pricey cabs or Ubers. Find out the local spots for some great food. Don't be afraid to try public transportation either. Yes, it may take longer, but this gives you a chance to learn a little about the language and meet new friends.
Tanyka Renee in Thailand (Photo Credit: Matthew Neal)
Tanyka Renee in Thailand (Photo Credit: Rodney Brown)
Tanyka Renee in the Honduras (Photo Credit: Shahid Daniels)
Tanyka Renee in the Bahamas (Photo Credit: Andre Musgrove)
Posted in Travel and tagged Black Women, blogger, featured, travel, travel blogger


text:
The Native South: New Histories and Enduring Legacies
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Acknowledged author wrote The Native South: New Histories and Enduring Legacies comprising 306 pages back in 2017. Textbook and eTextbook are published under ISBN 0803296908 and 9780803296909. Since then The Native South: New Histories and Enduring Legacies textbook was available to sell back to BooksRun online for the top buyback price or rent at the marketplace.
In The Native South, Tim Alan Garrison and Greg O'Brien assemble contributions from leading ethnohistorians of the American South in a state-of-the-field volume of Native American history from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century. Spanning such subjects as Seminole–African American kinship systems, Cherokee notions of guilt and innocence in evolving tribal jurisprudence, Indian captives and American empire, and second-wave feminist activism among Cherokee women in the 1970s, The Native South offers a dynamic examination of ethnohistorical methodology and evolving research subjects in southern Native American history.
Theda Perdue and Michael Green, pioneers in the modern historiography of the Native South who developed it into a major field of scholarly inquiry today, speak in interviews with the editors about how that field evolved in the late twentieth century after the foundational work of James Mooney, John Swanton, Angie Debo, and Charles Hudson.
For scholars, graduate students, and undergraduates in this field of American history, this collection offers original essays by Mikaëla Adams, James Taylor Carson, Tim Alan Garrison, Izumi Ishii, Malinda Maynor Lowery, Rowena McClinton, David A. Nichols, Greg O'Brien, Meg Devlin O'Sullivan, Julie L. Reed, Christina Snyder, and Rose Stremlau.


text:
Q: Can I find out who called a zsh script? Assume a script master.sh, which is called as
./foo/bar/master.sh

and contains the lines
#!/bin/zsh
. ./x/y/slave.sh

Is it possible to find out from within slave.sh, that the script which is doing the sourcing, is ./foo/bar/master.sh ?
I can not use $0 here, because this would return ./x/y/slave.sh.
I'm using zsh 5.0.6

A: one way you can achieve this is that for the child script to take as optional argument the name of the caller. Thus this would be accessible with `$1``
ex:
#!/bin/zsh
# master/leader
. ./x/y/slave.sh $0 # or hardcoded path

#!/bin/zsh
# slave/worker
echo "Here is my master $1"

(you can also do another custom protocol using a environment variable set by the master)
(this solution would also works on bash, and other shell)

A: The information can already be obtained in zsh right now (thanks to Bart Schaefer, who pointed out to me the existence of the variable functrace in the zsh/parameter module):
#!/bin/zsh
# slave/worker
zmodload zsh/parameter
echo "Here is my master ${functrace[$#functrace]%:*}"

The '%:*' is necessary, because the entries in the functrace array also contain the line number of the call.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The Canadian International School of Phnom Penh (CIS) is an accredited school that opened its doors on August 6, 2012 as a preschool and currently offers programming for students from nursery (18 months) to grade 8 for the 2018-2019 school year. CIS uses a Canadian curriculum from the province of Alberta. The Alberta curriculum is recognized throughout the world and students graduating with a diploma from an Alberta accredited international school have received acceptances from over 200 universities worldwide.


text:
The Tale Of The Shrewd CEO And The Legendary Astronomer
The late Fiat Chrysler chief and the late Carl Sagan were the forces behind the new 'Pale Blue Dot' ad for an electric Jeep.
Dale Buss
The new Jeep commercial, "Pale Blue Dot," makes a startling statement about plans for a plug-in hybrid by a brand that was one of the last to join the conversation about saving the planet via EVs.
But while appealing to the quick, the story behind the ad really comes from the dead: two voices from beyond the grave who were responsible for shaping a commercial that Americans just began seeing on television this week.
The two voices, of course, belonged to Carl Sagan and Sergio Marchionne. Sagan's unmistakably is the star of the advertisement. The renowned astronomer and Cosmos host narrates a famous passage from one of his books about the "pale blue dot" of earth that is visible from the last series of photographs that the Voyager 1 took in 1990 as it headed past Neptune to reaches beyond the solar system.
Marchionne, the late former CEO of Fiat Chrysler, is silent in the ad. But if he hadn't given the OK to "Pale Blue Dot" before his death in 2018 – and actually encouraged it – he might still be known only as an unmoving opponent of electric vehicles, instead of the visionary auto chief who simply didn't want an electric Jeep before its time.
The 90-second spot launched softly on YouTube earlier this month. It features the famous image of Earth shot by the spacecraft as a minuscule bluish speck against the black backdrop of space. Sagan's distinctive, even haunting, voice reads passages from his 1994 book, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, wherein he magically describes earth as "a mote of dust, suspended on a sunbeam." Celestially appropriate music borrowed from Philip Glass, and a montage of scenes of "life on Earth" – including some in Jeeps – round out the presentation effectively.
But the ad might not have happened at all.
Marchionne was famously slow to warm to the prospect of electric vehicles compared with his counterparts in the global auto industry. So the fact that the company plans to introduce the plug-in-hybrid Jeep Wrangler 4xe in early 2021 is remarkable in and of itself. And Marchionne's relationship with the ad is key.
"Pale Blue Dot" in its basic form emerged five years ago as one of two strong choices by Fiat Chrysler Chief Marketing Officer Olivier Francois for a TV commercial to run during the Super Bowl in 2016 that would commemorate Jeep's 75th anniversary. The other alternative developed by Francois was "Portraits," which used used a series of striking black-and-white photographs from throughout history of celebrities, soldiers, children, musicians – and Jeeps.
"I went to Sergio with the two ads and we decided we would run 'Portraits,' which turned out to be a good idea – it was the really anthemic commercial that we needed at the time," Francois told Chief Executive. "But he was like me and couldn't stop watching 'Pale Blue Dot.' We'd talk about it between meetings or having dinner. He'd say, 'How's 'Pale Blue Dot' going?'"
At that point, Francois would have to say, "Not fine." Because the owner of the rights to Sagan's intellectual property was Ann Druyan, Sagan's widow and long-time collaborator. She was a co-creator of Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, his 13-part series on PBS in 1980. Sagan, who died in 1996, also was an early and avid exponent of the idea of man-made climate change, based on his pioneering observations about the "runaway greenhouse effect" on Venus – and his fear even in the 1960s was that Earth might be beginning to suffer a similar warming.
Without an electric vehicle to go along with his request to borrow Pale Blue Dot messaging, it mattered little that Francois already had a commercial using it in the can when he approached Druyan in 2017, seeking her approval to use her husband's materials. He knew that she jealously guarded what she saw as a sacred trove of inspiration for humanity. She had only given similar permission once before, for a TV commercial for Apple's iPhone that mainly was comprised of images taken by people around the world using the device.
"Olivier wasn't the first agency or even car company to come to me," Druyan told Chief Executive. "Without hyperbole, I'm saying that for the last many years, there hasn't been a week in which there hasn't been some approach to our rights and permissions department for that piece. Many of them were commercial; some of them were creative. But it's been constant. People understand that the message is of this time, and is really urgent in this time."
Druyan turned down Francois that first time because, while he had a great commercial to show her, he couldn't show her an actual electric Jeep yet. Her "terms were devastating," Francois recalled. "'Yes, I'm sold. Now do an electric Jeep and call me back.' At the time, there was no talk of an electric Jeep.'"
Yet, as Druyan remembered it, "When we finished our first phone calls in 2017, [Francois] said, 'I'll be back.'" She said she understood that "it wasn't just me asking for solutions" to climate change, "so I never thought I was just standing alone. If it had been just me asking, [Wrangler 4xe] wouldn't have happened."
True enough. But "I went back to Sergio with the report of my first phone calls with Ann," Francois said, "and actually his reaction wasn't what I thought it would be. "he said, 'Look, I've been thinking about [an electric Jeep] for a while, and I think the brand is open to it." Mike Manley, who succeeded Marchionne as Fiat Chrysler CEOO, was Jeep-brand head at the time.
Francois explained, "Sergio was never against electrics. But he was an amazing, visionary businessman who understood that timing is everything when you make business decisions. And it's clear now that this hybrid was going to be expensive to develop and produce. So there was probably some business advantage for us to not pioneer but to come at the right time."
Manley pushed Wrangler 4xe to the finish line, and so Francois was able to go back to Druyan in late 2019 and report that the vehicle was imminent. "I was delighted," she said. "He called me up and said, 'Ann, we made you a car.' And I was very excited about the Jeep Wrangler electric vehicle. [Francois] knew that Carl wouldn't have countenanced using his iconic message for something that was just going to continue this very dangerous situation we had gotten ourselves into" with climate change.
Wrangler is "its own little ship of the imagination," Druyan said. "I thought, 'Wow, if there would be an electric Wrangler, we'd be accomplishing something.'"
As it happened, the TV ad introducing Wrangler 4xe debuted during the U.S. premiere of the sequel to the original PBS series, on Fox, Cosmos: Possible Worlds. Druyan is a lead producer. Each time the ad is viewed on Jeep's YouTube channel, the brand will make a contribution to the Coalition for Rainforest Nations and the Carl Sagan Institute of Cornell University.
Dale Buss is a long-time contributor to Chief Executive, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal and other business publications. He lives in Michigan.
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A simple stream of symbols whose values are represented as integers. This interface provides marked ranges with support for a minimum level of buffering necessary to implement arbitrary lookahead during prediction. For more information on marked ranges, see mark().
The value returned by LA() when the end of the stream is reached.
The value returned by getSourceName() when the actual name of the underlying source is not known.
Gets the value of the symbol at offset i from the current position.
A mark provides a guarantee that seek() operations will be valid over a "marked range" extending from the index where mark() was called to the current index().
IllegalStateException - if an attempt is made to consume the end of the stream (i.e. if LA(1)==EOF before calling consume).
Gets the value of the symbol at offset i from the current position. When i==1, this method returns the value of the current symbol in the stream (which is the next symbol to be consumed). When i==-1, this method returns the value of the previously read symbol in the stream. It is not valid to call this method with i==0, but the specific behavior is unspecified because this method is frequently called from performance-critical code.
i==-1 and index() returns a value greater than the value of index() after the stream was constructed and LA(1) was called in that order. Specifying the current index() relative to the index after the stream was created allows for filtering implementations that do not return every symbol from the underlying source. Specifying the call to LA(1) allows for lazily initialized streams.
LA(i) refers to a symbol consumed within a marked region that has not yet been released.
If i represents a position at or beyond the end of the stream, this method returns EOF.
The return value is unspecified if i<0 and fewer than -i calls to consume() have occurred from the beginning of the stream before calling this method.
A mark provides a guarantee that seek() operations will be valid over a "marked range" extending from the index where mark() was called to the current index(). This allows the use of streaming input sources by specifying the minimum buffering requirements to support arbitrary lookahead during prediction.
The returned mark is an opaque handle (type int) which is passed to release() when the guarantees provided by the marked range are no longer necessary. When calls to mark()/release() are nested, the marks must be released in reverse order of which they were obtained. Since marked regions are used during performance-critical sections of prediction, the specific behavior of invalid usage is unspecified (i.e. a mark is not released, or a mark is released twice, or marks are not released in reverse order from which they were created).
This method does not change the current position in the input stream.
The following example shows the use of mark(), release(mark), index(), and seek(index) as part of an operation to safely work within a marked region, then restore the stream position to its original value and release the mark.
For more information and an example, see mark().
This operation is guaranteed to not throw an exception if index lies within a marked region. For more information on marked regions, see mark(). The behavior of this method is unspecified if no call to an initializing method has occurred after this stream was constructed.
UnsupportedOperationException - if the size of the stream is unknown.
Gets the name of the underlying symbol source. This method returns a non-null, non-empty string. If such a name is not known, this method returns UNKNOWN_SOURCE_NAME.


text:
Code Climate
Engineering Intelligence
About Velocity
Understand & Diagnose Data is a universal language
Act & Optimize Data drives concrete improvement
Velocity for...
Product Leaders
Automated Code Review
How We Increased Productivity 83%, Improved Remote Collaboration, and Prevented Burnout by Dogfooding Velocity
Sasha Rezvina on Feb 6, 2019
Thousands of happy customers validated our software– but dogfooding Velocity validated our values.
A couple of years ago, our engineering leaders were anecdote-driven, like just about everyone else in the industry. We knew how much progress an engineer had made on a new feature because we asked. We knew why we missed a deadline for launching a new feature because we discussed it in our retros.
But we couldn't answer simple questions like:
Is our efficiency increasing or decreasing over time?
What work slows us down and where is the biggest opportunity to improve?
Which developers on my team are stuck, right now?
Even on a small development team, the insights that we had into our own productivity were limited.
Last year, we launched Velocity, an engineering analytics tool designed to help teams big and small with exactly the issue that we, ourselves, experienced. In the process of iterating and improving the platform, our Engineering Manager, Ale Paredes dogfooded our app. She used each feature from Velocity as soon as it was built and has experienced the benefits of data-driven engineering first-hand.
Armed with Velocity, she addressed burnout, improved remote collaboration, and helped restructure the engineering team. The result was an 83% increase in productivity, and a healthier, more engaged dev team.
Here's what dogfooding Velocity has done for Code Climate.
We Ditched Flat and Near Doubled Our Efficiency
Flat structure doesn't scale. There comes a point along every engineering team's growth where the same set up that once built camaraderie and a shared purpose now fuels disengagement and a lack of focus.
Ale first started noticing that disengagement during daily standups. Some people were zoning out; others were on their phones. Almost no discussion was happening. It was 20 minutes of engineers taking turns speaking, one by one. When she brought this up in her 1:1s that week, she found that the team was in unanimous agreement: meetings were inefficient and taking up too much time.
Ale checked her hypothesis against the metrics by looking at Pushes per Day over the last 6 months.
Velocity gave her confirmation that the team's efficiency had, in fact, been steadily decreasing over the past four months.
Ale took this insight back to the leadership team, and together, they decided it was time to ditch flat. Software development is inherently collaborative, and if engineers have too many co-workers to support, they can't feel invested in one another's work.
We decided to break up the ten-person team into groups of three or four engineers. We hypothesized that breaking up teams by Bezo's 2-pizza rule would help individual engineers focus on less tracks of work. As a result, meetings would suck up less time and be more engaging, as smaller teams only hash out problems relevant to the few people involved.
When Ale implemented this change, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Engineers were doing more of what they liked (coding), and less of what they hated (meetings). Over the course of several months, the metrics corroborated what the team was feeling: we started moving much faster.
We went from an average of 12 pushes/day in November to an average of 21 pushes/day in January, an 83% increase.
We Coached Remote Team Members for Better Collaboration
Agile software development relies on strong communication, and, in many cases, frequent face time, so managing team members that are an ocean and three time zones away is nontrivial. It's hard to perceive frustration through Slack. It's hard to understand workload through Zoom.
Ale made a concerted effort to check in with remote team members and find out what's going well and where they might be in need of coaching. But not everyone is an open book– many of her remote team members hesitated to bring up troublesome pull requests or bottlenecks during these meetings.
To find a starting point for these conversation, Ale started looking through a handful of contributor metrics on a weekly basis. She would pay particular attention at overall throughput (# of PRs merged), rework (how often developers work on their own recently merged code), and cycle time (how long it takes code to go from a developer's laptop to being a merged PR).
By putting together a chart in Velocity, she started noticing a pattern. Remote developers had a significantly higher cycle time than HQ team members.
Before a 1:1 with Legolas Greenleaf, Ale dug deeper into Velocity to see where, exactly, in the PR process contributors were getting stuck.
Ale discovered that Legolas was spending a lot of his time working on code on his laptop before opening up a Pull Request and getting his work looked over.
The next time they sat down, Ale discussed the trend she noticed. The remote team member was able to speak more specifically about what has been slowing him down and what challenges he was facing. In their conversation, she guided Legolas towards learning how he could've better approached some of the last few PRs.
Together, they discovered the heart of the problem was that his PRs were too big. Splitting up projects into smaller pieces was a work habit that the HQ team had heard a ton, but the distance between Ale and the remote workers meant they weren't aligned in terms of best practices. The data brought Ale's attention to the problem, and gave her something objective to work off for her coaching sessions.
We Prevented Burnout in our Engineers
Meeting deadlines and building great products isn't the only measure of a good team. We also want engineers to be engaged and not overworked, so that our pace is sustainable. Too often, however, burnout is impossible to sniff out until it's too late.
Last December, the team was on a tear. We were shipping features every other day, we had redesigned most of the pages in the application, and everyone was stoked about all the cool new stuff we were building. Everything seemed great.
During her weekly check-ins, however, Ale started noticing a trend.
Engineers were excited about their work, but everyone seemed to be feeling a lot of pressure to get features shipped– even though we were ahead of schedule. One senior engineer mentioned that he barely had time for code reviews. Other team members started neglecting pair programming in favor of spending more time getting stuff out the door.
Ale used Velocity to take a look at what the team had on their plate:
She noticed that some developers had so much activity, it barely fit in their row. In a few cases, we were even pushing on weekends, which is highly unusual for our organization.
Looking through all the PRs and reviews the engineering team was churning out, Ale became suspicious that people were working overtime. She put together a report using Velocity's Reports Builder to see how many pushes were made after 8pm each week:
During the last two weeks, the team had been working late hours more than they had in the previous three months combined. Ale brought this data to the leadership team and was able to successfully advocate scaling back work and giving the engineering team a well-deserved day off.
Now, Ale checks these dashboards regularly and sends out a monthly survey to check in on how work is distributed and how team members are feeling.
Measure and Mobilize
Metrics are not everything. Metrics didn't help Ale notice that engineers were disengaged during meetings, or that remote team members weren't voicing problems. Instead, metrics helped helped her check her intuition with more transparency into what's going on. They also enabled Ale to verify that the changes she made generated an improvement in our productivity.
This gut-check was invaluable in helping us move faster and communicate better, both inside the engineering team and with the organization as a whole.
If you want to learn more on how Velocity can let you see deeper into your team's work habits (and help you move at least 20% faster), sign up for a demo here.
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