How often do you pick up your cellphone or other electronic device to look up just one thing and before you know it you are surfing the internet browsing through YouTube, Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Twitter and Netflix? Have you ever surfed through so much information that you were too tired to finish a homework assignment, forgot about the boiling water on the stove or lost track of time and were late for a commitment? I know it has happened to me probably more times than I would like to admit and it has even resulted in one less pan in my kitchen!
I challenge you to click on the links below and surf some information that may give you the knowledge and the power to make a difference in the life of a friend, a family member or even yourself. If you're like me you may enjoy true stories, so let's start with Ashley's Journey. Ashley started tanning as a teenager to get a "base tan" for her prom and before vacations and she didn't take the risks of tanning seriously. Like most of us she thought she was invincible. Do you know someone that denies the risks of tanning? Is that someone you?
agencies due to the increasing number of cases. In fact, on August 16, 2018 legislation was signed into law prohibiting individuals younger than 18 years of age from using indoor tanning facilities in New York State. So what are we doing locally to protect our residents? In 2016 the Clinton County Sun Safety Initiative was established and sunscreen dispenser sites were setup at 15 locations within Clinton County. These dispensers allow residents to lather up with sunscreen while out and about. The Clinton County Health Department (CCHD) also permits and inspects the 11 tanning facilities in Clinton County.
To learn more about tanning and sun safety click here. Thanks for surfing with me and remember, tanned skin is not healthy skin.
Spring showers bring May flowers, but, combined with run-off from melting snow, they can also leave your private well water at risk for contamination. If you get your drinking water from a private well, here's what you need to know.
In Clinton County, 28% of residents get their drinking water from private sources, such as wells, which we (the Health Department) do not oversee. To assist these residents, we began offering water testing to homeowners in 2017. With funding from the Clinton County Soil & Water Conservation District, this program was able to continue in 2018. Of the 109 samples collected from private wells in 2018, one-third (36%) tested positive for total coliform bacteria.
Why does it matter? Even if your water looks, smells and tastes fine, the only way to know if the water in your home is safe to drink is by testing it. Contaminants, such as bacteria, viruses or other pollutants, may be getting into your water. Coliform bacteria are found in the soil, in water that has been contaminated by surface water, and in human and animal wastes. If coliform bacteria are found in water, it means that the water system is not properly sealed, and may be unsafe. In other words, if total coliform bacteria can get into your water, then other bacteria that can make you ill may also be able to get into, or already be in, your water.
Yearly for bacteria and nitrates.
At least every three years for other water contaminants to make sure nothing has changed. Long-term exposure to even low levels of contaminants can effect your health.
When you are expecting a baby.
When your water changes in smell, taste, or color. If this happens, drink bottled water and call us at 518-565-4870 to find out which tests you should do.
If you perform any maintenance on your water system, like install a new pump, new water softener or make other repairs. Test for bacteria after disinfecting and flushing.
If you put in a water treatment system to fix a problem. Test the treated water each year for that problem (contaminant) to ensure treatment is working properly.
Drilled Well with a sanitary cap.
What else? Spring is also a good time to assess the condition of your private well. Start by checking the area around your well—keep it clean and free of animal waste and other pollution. Check your well's cap—it should have a tight fitting sanitary (waterproof) cap in place. Make sure the well casing extends above ground level to prevent flooding of the well head. Lastly, keep possible sources of contamination, such as septic systems, manure storage piles, and fuel oil tanks, as far away from your well as possible.
If you are a homeowner and would like to have your well water sampled by CCHD, click here to sign up. We also created videos to help homeowners understand their wells, which are now available on our YouTube channel here.
Have you ever thought about all the amazing things you discovered to do in your first three years of life? As an infant or toddler, we learned how to roll over, sit up independently, crawl, stand, cruise, walk and use language to communicate. We all learned and developed at different points in those first 36 months. You may have figured out how to walk first, while your older sister may have learned to talk first. The same thing is happening right now with our own little ones…no two are exactly alike in terms of meeting those developmental milestones! Want to learn more?
The Children's Developmental Services Office at the Health Department offers FREE developmental screenings for children under 3 years old. A simple screening gives you an opportunity to find out if your child is on the right developmental track.
Sometimes a child's developmental progress doesn't go as expected and they might need some extra help in the form of early intervention to help them meet their milestones. The Early Intervention Program (EIP) assists parents in making the most of their child's development by offering free services and easy strategies to use at home.
If you have an infant or toddler who has not yet turned 3 years old and has one of the following, he or she is eligible!
Does My Child's Doctor Have to Refer Us?
No! Parents or guardians can make a referral directly by calling us at (518) 565-4848 and asking to speak with an Early Intervention Specialist. You do NOT need a doctor to refer you to the EIP.
For more information on your children's all important developmental ages and stages, please click here. And don't forget, you are your child's first and best teacher!!
We asked Clinton County Health Department (CCHD) staff for their advice on staying well during this long winter stretch. They answered the call in droves and we have created our top 10 Tips to Stay Well. Follow all of the tips or focus on one; they are as unique as we are!
Wet, Lather, Scrub, Rinse, Dry. Whether you are sick or not, wash your hands often, scrubbing for at least 20 seconds and avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth. Good hand hygiene can help protect you, your family and others against the spread of germs this flu season.
We spend 90% of our life indoors but getting outside can have a positive effect on our physical and mental health. Sunshine boosts your vitamin D levels and the light can improve your mood. Spending time outdoors may also help to improve your concentration. And you can't beat the view! Bundle up and explore the North Country this winter.
"I don't have time. It's too expensive. I'm tired. It's too cold" The excuses keep coming. Only half of adults are meeting the guidelines for physical activity. In addition to preventing chronic illnesses, exercise can improve your mental health and sleep patterns. This is especially important during the winter months, as we tend to be less active. Any amount of physical activity can benefit your health; move more, sit less. Drop your excuses – utilize breaks in your day, no matter how short, to get your body moving.
Drink plenty of water during the day whether at work or play. The amount of water you consume each day can play an important role in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Being dehydrated can lead to fatigue, decrease alertness and concentration. Pick out a fun, reusable bottle and start hydrating today!
Lifelong learning is good for your health. You should exercise your brain just as you would exercise your muscles. Keeping your brain active may help reduce your risk of developing dementia. Feeling stuck inside this winter? Pick up a new hobby, learn a new language or take a class that interests you.
A yearly flu vaccine is the first and most important step in protecting against flu viruses. Everyone 6 months or older should get a flu shot each year. Not only can it reduce flu illnesses, it also reduces doctors' visits, and missed work or school due to flu. If you haven't gotten yours yet, it's not too late! As long as the flu virus is still circulating, you can get yourself, or your family, vaccinated. Talk to your doctor today.
Eat a balanced diet with plenty of fruits and vegetables. People who eat more fruits and vegetables as part of an overall healthy diet may reduce risk for heart disease, stroke, obesity, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancers. Make sure to eat a rainbow; different colored fruits and vegetables contain different nutrients important to your body's overall health. These antioxidants, vitamins and minerals will help keep your immune system fine-tuned for fighting off all the germs circulating this time of year.
Laughter is the best medicine! It can brighten and lighten your day as well as relieve stress and soothe tension. Over time it can even improve your immune system and relieve pain. If life gets you down, try to find a bit of humor in it. Don't let the winter blues get you down. Surround yourself with positive people and reminders to stay positive.
Coughing and sneezing? Keep your germs to yourself by covering your mouth and nose with a tissue. If you don't have a tissue handy, cough into your elbow. Always wash your hands immediately after. If you do get sick, stay home to prevent spreading your illness to others.
Even during the winter, it takes only 15 minutes for the sun's ultraviolet (UV) rays to damage your skin. Snow reflects the sun's rays, which can increase your chance of getting burned. Apply broad spectrum sunscreen with at least SPF 15 before you go outside all year long.


Eight days before Hitler annexed Austria in March 1938, at a time when much of the world shrugged at the approach of Nazism, two prominent Jewish families in Vienna raced to a Swiss bank. Coolly realistic about the troubles facing them and determined to preserve their ownership of one of the country's largest sugar refineries, they set up a trust account to protect their ownership.
The attempt quickly unraveled. Within months the bank had violated the terms of the account, and the business was "aryanized" -- sold for a fraction of its value to a Nazi sympathizer. In a letter dated Dec. 22, 1938, a bank officer provided an explanation as blunt as it was chilling: "The situation has changed."
Yesterday, 67 years later, Edward R. Korman, a federal judge in Brooklyn, approved a $21.8 million award to surviving members of the two families, the Bloch-Bauer and Pick families, which owned the sugar company with other investors. The decision blamed the bank for the families' losses, but did not name the bank.
The award is believed to be one of the largest in the $50 billion restitution programs undertaken since World War II. It is by far the largest award in a claims process that is distributing $1.25 billion paid by Swiss banks in 1998 to settle a vast class-action suit. In that suit, the banks were accused of violating the trust of their Holocaust-era depositors to curry favor with the Nazis.
In a way, to the living descendents of those two families and to a world where the number of surviving victims of the Nazis and their collaborators is dwindling, the huge award is more than that. It provides a detailed trip back to a dark time, showing exactly how the banks' actions helped the Nazis, how lifetimes' achievements were lost in days, and how the process was masked in the language of ledgers, legalisms and banking.
Yesterday's ruling said the story of the Bloch-Bauers' sugar company was an example of the Swiss banks' "widespread betrayal" of their depositors during the Holocaust. Quite a tale it is, one that includes duplicity, a visit by the Gestapo, coercion, a sham tax investigation and what the decision referred to as the bank's "active participation in the confiscation" of the sugar company by the Nazis.
"Having marketed themselves to the Jews of Europe as a safe haven for their property," the decision said, "Swiss banks repeatedly turned Jewish-owned property over to Nazis in order to curry favor with them."
The 1998 settlement, in Brooklyn federal court, followed a heated international debate about the role of the Swiss banks during the Holocaust. The banks said that they did not help the Nazis in the widespread seizure of their depositors' assets and that much of the evidence of what happened to depositors' accounts was ambiguous.
Yesterday, Roger M. Witten, a lawyer for UBS and Credit Suisse, said assertions of systematic appropriation of the assets of Holocaust victims and other wrongdoing by the Swiss banks had been rejected by several commissions. "These allegations are false," he said.
Under the 1998 settlement, though, more than $250 million has been returned to more than 3,000 bank depositors or their heirs by a claims tribunal set up by Judge Korman. Until yesterday, the largest award was one issued in 2002 for $5.9 million to the family of a concert singer who was killed in a concentration camp and left behind several large Swiss accounts.
Yesterday's award stems from a claim filed for the extended Bloch-Bauer and Pick families, who are related by marriage. Maria V. Altmann, who is now 89 and lives in Los Angeles, filed the claim in 2001 as a member of the last generation of her family to come to adulthood in Vienna.
Mrs. Altmann has been fighting for years to recover hundreds of millions of dollars of property she says was stolen after the Nazi annexation of Austria. Last year, she won a decision from the United States Supreme Court in a separate case that will permit her to pursue a lawsuit against the Austrian government for the return of six paintings by Gustav Klimt, the Austrian Art Nouveau painter, that once belonged to her uncle, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer.
Mrs. Altmann said in a telephone interview that yesterday's decision sounded like a crime novel in its narrative of how the sugar company slipped from the family's control. "I am shuddering," she said. "It is unbelievable for me to grasp that there were people doing such things, and especially a bank."
The narrative began, in a way, with Maria's gilded wedding in Vienna in December 1937. "It was really the last Jewish wedding in Vienna, before Hitler came and everything changed," she said.
It was the Bloch-Bauers' last party, a gathering that included those who ran or were heirs to the sugar company. Maria's uncle, Ferdinand, ran the business. He and his wife, Adele, long dead by then, had had no children. Maria's father, Gustav, a lawyer, was Ferdinand's brother. Maria had a sister and three brothers. The Bloch-Bauers' partner in the sugar business was a wealthy Vienna industrialist, Otto Pick, whose daughter had married Maria's brother Leopold.
The refinery was in the riverside town of Bruck, outside Vienna. It supplied, the ruling said, one-fifth of the country's sugar, the sweetener for, among so many other things, Vienna's pastries. The company was called Österreichische Zuckerindustrie, or Austrian Sugar Industry. Its headquarters was on the top floor of Ferdinand's expansive Vienna home.
Life changed quickly after the wedding: Maria's husband, Fritz Altmann, was briefly held at the Dachau concentration camp in 1938.
The families' March 1938 visit to the bank that resulted in the trust account, the decision said, was an obvious effort to shield the company from the Nazis. The account gave the bank control over a block of stock but said the company could be sold only if the shareholders agreed unanimously.
But two days after the annexation of Austria, according to the decision, the Gestapo went to the sugar company's office and appointed a cashier, the only employee who was a Nazi party member, to run the business. That July, Maria's father died of cancer.
Maria's brother Leopold was arrested by the Gestapo and held until he promised to turn over his sugar-company stock. Nazi officials began a sham criminal tax proceeding against the company that was intended to depress the price that a Nazi purchaser would have to pay.
Soon, the decision said, Swiss bank officials wrote letters to family members, many of whom had fled Austria. The bank officials described an offer for the company made in Vienna by a Cologne businessman who was a Nazi sympathizer. The letters, found in archives, included an acknowledgement that the bank had been unable to get unanimous agreement to a sale as required by the trust. Some shareholders, a letter said, "did not find the Vienna offer worthy of discussion."
But, the bank's December 1938 letter said, "we should like to propose" that the trust agreement requiring unanimous agreement to a sale be dissolved. "If we have not received information to the contrary by 15 January 1939, we shall assume your approval."
The decision said the bank did not even wait for that deadline. Soon, the Cologne businessman with Nazi ties was the owner of the sugar refinery in Bruck.
The sale was illegal, the decision said, though it did not explain why the bank violated its agreement. But it did refer to a bank memorandum from that era that seemed to lay out a framework for such cases. It was uncovered in a 2002 report by a Swiss historical commission that studied the banks' Holocaust-era actions.
The memorandum, written in 1939, acknowledged that there could be legal and moral objections to transferring funds from a depositor's account when it appeared that the withdrawal request was being made under duress. But, the memorandum continued, that bank still had "important interests in Germany, and should avoid friction and unpleasantness whenever possible."
Mrs. Altmann and her husband ended up in Los Angeles. Her brother Leopold and much of the rest of the family went to Vancouver, British Columbia. Their mother, Theresia, Gustav Bloch-Bauer's widow, died in Vancouver in 1961.
In Canada, Leopold, with his wife's brother, a member of the Pick family, began a business that is today one of the world's largest lumber companies, Canfor Corporation. Almost as soon as he arrived in Canada in 1938, Leopold changed the family's last name from Bloch-Bauer to Bentley. "He made up his mind that this was permanent," his son Peter Bentley, 75, and the chairman of Canfor, said in an interview.
Leopold believed, Mr. Bentley said, that the anglicized last name, selected from a telephone book, would help in the family's adjustment to life far from the Vienna they left in 1938.
Some of the family's history has been forgotten. But recent scholarship and records uncovered in Mrs. Altmann's legal battles show memories stretched across generations of what some family members thought of as the looting of the family in Vienna. A 2003 book on the Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka, who, like Klimt, was a friend of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer's, included a 1941 letter from Ferdinand to Kokoschka. "They took away everything from me," he wrote from Zurich, where he was living alone.
"I am totally impoverished," he wrote, "and probably will have to live very modestly for a few years, if you can call this vegetation living." He died in Zurich in 1945.
Mrs. Altmann's Los Angeles lawyer, E. Randol Schoenberg, is a grandson of Arnold Schoenberg, the Vienna-born composer, who was also a Jewish exile from Nazism. In the scheme of the wrongs of the Holocaust, he said after learning of yesterday's award, the theft of a sugar refinery near Vienna long ago was a small injustice.
"But now, 70 years later," Mr. Schoenberg said, "this is one of the few wrongs you can actually remedy."


University Of Birmingham - Foundation Academic Merit Scholarships in UK, 2019 is offered for Bachelors degree in the field of Any course offered by the University. You can apply to this scholarship here. The deadline for the sending your application is 05 Aug 2019. This scholarship is provided by University of Birmingham and the value of this scholarship is Only tuition fees, Varied discounts towards tuition fees . This scholarship is open for: Open to all nationalities.
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Candidates must accept their Foundation offer from the University.
Candidates applying for the Academic Merit Scholarships University Of Birmingham, 2019 should not receive any other form of scholarship.
Must have the required academic credentials.
Students must commence their study activities in September 2019.
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The candidate should be able to fund the remaining costs of studies at the University.
Applicants of the Academic Merit Scholarships University Of Birmingham, 2019 are considered based on the information provided in the online application form.
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Most of the signs are exhibited in "The Boneyard" where they serve as inspiration to fascinated artists, students, historians and designers. It is home to some of the most treasured and world-famous signs of Las Vegas—Caesars Palace, Binions Horsehoe, Golden Nugget, Silver Slipper, and, most recently the Stardust. The three-acre Neon Boneyard houses more than 150 historic, non-restored signs.
Thanks sharing ! It is very informative !! Wish, my Dad is around, he would love to browse around old design history.


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1574: Charles de Mornay, sword dance regicide
Add comment September 4th, 2020 Headsman
On this date in 1574, the courtier Charles de Mornay was executed for an aborted plot against the Swedish king.
The French Huguenot had been a mainstay in the Swedish court for many years, and a favorite of King Erik XIV until that man was deposed in 1568.
From 1572, at the instigation of the French ambassador, de Mornay went to work on a plot to assassinate King John III — Erik's half-brother and successor. This Mornay Plot would have liberated Erik XIV from prison and enthroned in John's place either (it's not clear) this same Erik XIV or else their other brother, Charles.
What the plan lacked in subtlety it compensated in showmanship. The idea was to use the Scottish mercenaries present in Swedish service during a scheduled ceremonial performance of their sword dance in October 1573. It turns out that while wheeling around the sovereign twirling blades, it's a simple enough matter to just twirl one right through him.
Maybe that's what gave Shakespeare the idea for the big duel in Hamlet.
Apparently Charles de Mornay lost his nerve at the critical moment and didn't issue his dancing assassins the go-ahead sign — leaving John on the throne, and several folks involved in the plot in position to inform upon it. Indeed, we've brushed up against one such previously in these pages, for prior to de Mornay's exposure a Scottish officer who caught wind of a rumor of the coup became accused of leading it, and was unjustly beheaded as his rewarded for reporting it.
De Mornay was exposed a few months later. King John had Erik murdered in prison in early 1577.
2013: Sushmita Banerjee, Escape from the Taliban author - 2019
1799: Ettore Carafa - 2018
1964: James Coburn, George Wallace's first death warrant - 2017
1821: Jose Miguel Carrera, Chilean patriot - 2016
1946: Leon Rupnik, Erwin Rosener, and Lovro Hacin, for the occupation of Slovenia - 2015
1822: Francisco Javier de Elio - 2014
1951: King Abdullah's assassins - 2013
1778: Patrick McMullen, repeat deserter - 2012
1953: Miss Earle Dennison, the first white woman electrocuted in Alabama - 2011
1896: Chief Chingaira Makoni, Rhodesian rebel - 2010
1942: Bishop Gorazd of Prague - 2009
1638: Three (of four) English colonists for murdering a Native American - 2008
1574: Gabriel de Lorges, accidental regicide
1792: Jacob Johan Anckarström, assassin of Gustav III
1697: John Fenwick, bitter
1481: Michal Olelkowicz and Iwan Holszanski, Lithuanian princes
1600: The corpses of John and Alexander Ruthven, for the Gowrie conspiracy
1790: Johan Henrik Hästesko, Anjalaman
1517: Cardinal Alfonso Petrucci, plotter
Entry Filed under: 16th Century,Assassins,Attempted Murder,Beheaded,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Execution,History,Nobility,Notable for their Victims,Power,Soldiers,Sweden,Treason
Tags: 1570s, 1574, charles de mornay, coup d'etat, dance, erik xiv, john iii, september 4
1936: Vladimir Mutnykh, Bolshoi director
On this date in 1937, the director of Moscow's famed Bolshoi Theater was shot in the Gulag … even as Uncle Joe mangled his greatest commission.
Vladimir Ivanovich Mutnykh is the man whose suffering occasions this post but as with the Terror itself he will for us be a footnote to a different story.
Mutnykh ultimately fell prey to the chill that Stalin cast over Soviet arts — where come the 1930s the only fare liable to pass muster with the censors (or indeed, with the executioners) were creations of turgid doctrinal correctness or cautious revivals from the pre-Revolutionary literary canon.
The strictures on artists also reflected Moscow's abiding preoccupation with the cultural preeminence of Russia and of Communism.
Among the USSR's many and varied exertions towards the latter end during the 1930s, not least was a project to induce a return to the motherland by genius (and homesick) composer Sergei Prokofiev, who had been mostly living and working Europe since the Bolshevik Revolution.*
In the mid-1930s, Stalin's cultural ambassadors finally got their man.** And one of the plums that secured Prokofiev's permanent repatriation was a commission to create for Mutnykh's Bolshoi Theater a ballet version of the Shakespeare classic Romeo and Juliet.
Today, Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet is one of the best-known and most widely performed of all his considerable output.
Some might even call Romeo and Juliet Prokofiev's magnum opus. But Prokofiev wouldn't have called it that.
Having gone to such great trouble to lure back a revolutionary artist, Soviet cultural officers were predictably aghast to discover that he produced a revolutionary reimagining of the Bard. In Prokofiev's original composition, the star-crossed lovers get a happy ending and escape together instead of dying in the tomb. "Living people can dance, the dead cannot," Prokofiev explained, unavailingly. The idea is that their love transcends the shackles of their family rivalry; even, that they had transcended the backwards political order that made them enemies. But Soviet bureaucrats were positively hidebound when it came to fiddling with the classics, and the director was forced to return to the tragic ending.
Nor was this the end of the meddling.
In 1936, joyless cultural commissar Platon Kerzhentsev ransacked the Bolshoi leadership, including Mutnykh — who had given the initial green light to Prokofiev's first, heretical version.
For the next several years, the ballet with the checkerboard floor was twisted into shape by the Soviet bureaucracy, wringing change after change out of a frustrated but powerless Prokofiev. By the time it finally premiered — at the Kirov, not the Bolshoi — Prokofiev's collaborator dramatist Sergei Radlov disgustedly wrote to friends that "I take no responsibility for this disgrace."
"The version that's known and loved around the world is completely incorrect," said Simon Morrison, a Princeton professor. "There's an act missing. There are dances orchestrated by people against Prokofiev's wishes, and other stuff he was forced to put in there against his will."
In the course of researching his 2010 book on Prokofiev, The People's Artist, Morrison amazingly dredged up the original Prokofiev composition and documentary trails showing that the composer was forced to scrap three too-exotic dances, to "thicken" the orchestration, and to add elements like a group dance number and solos to show off the Kirov's talent.† The ballet didn't debut at the Bolshoi until 1946, when Stalin himself signed off it.
"Once the work was performed, Prokofiev was dismayed at a lot of things, including the sound of the orchestra. He wrote a long letter of protest but none of the changes were made to the score," Morrison told the London Independent. "It became the canonic version, a reorganised, torn-up work. It's a testament to how great the melodic writing is – it still became a great classic despite this mangling of it."
A few books by Simon Morrison on Prokofiev and his world
* Prokofiev was neither an exile nor a refugee; his departure from the USSR in 1918 was voluntary and legally blessed. He had had no problem in the intervening years coming back to Russia and leaving again.
** One immediate product of Prokofiev's return was the beloved 1936 children's production Peter and the Wolf.
He also in 1938 gloriously scored Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky.
† Morrison in 2008 staged performances of Prokofiev's original version of Romeo and Juliet.
1954: Jonas Žemaitis, Lithuanian Forest Brother - 2019
1766: John Clark and James Felton - 2018
1736: James Matthews and Elizabeth Greenley - 2017
2009: Hu Minghua and Su Binde, child abductors - 2015
1948: Hans Karl Möser, for rocketry - 2014
1933: Thomas Thurmond and John Holmes lynched in St. James Park - 2013
1678: William Staley, "the prologue to the bloody tragedy" - 2012
1937: Peljidiin Genden, former Mongolia Prime Minister - 2011
Daily Double: Stalinism east to west - 2011
1940: Jilava Massacre - 2010
1600: Hansel Pappenheimer, following his family - 2009
1849: Sheikh Bouzian, defending Zaatcha - 2008
1919: Felipe Angeles - 2007
1952: Night of the Murdered Poets
1940: Isaak Babel
1939: Mikayil Mushfig, Azerbaijani poet
1937: Pavel Vasiliev, peasant poet
1938: Vladimir Kirshon, Bulgakov antagonist
1937: Titsian Tabidze, poet
1939: Stanislav Kosior, Vlas Chubar and Pavel Postyshev
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Artists,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Execution,History,Russia,Shot,Treason,USSR
Tags: 1930s, 1936, ballet, communism, dance, josef stalin, music, november 26, purge, red terror, romeo and juliet, sergei prokofiev, shakespeare, stalin, vladimir mutnykh, william shakespeare
1937: Lev Karakhan, Marina Semyonova's husband
Add comment September 20th, 2016 Headsman
On this date in 1937, the dancer Marina Semyonova lost her husband to the Great Purge.
Semyonova was perhaps the premier Soviet ballerina in the interwar era before the ascent of Maya Plitsetskaya* but artistic genius conferred no safety from the purges.
Least of all was that so for family members who happened to be that choicest of Stalin's prey, an Old Bolshevik.
Semyonova's husband Lev Karakhan (English Wikipedia entry | Russian) was an Armenian revolutionary and former Menshevik who joined the Bolsheviks before the October Revolution. He spent the 1920s and 1930s in various foreign policy roles, right up until the end: just a few months before his death, he had been the USSR's ambassador to Turkey, when he received that ominous recall.
He even gave his name to a 1919 "Karakhan Manifesto", which was Moscow's attempt to get friendly with China.
Its author was more successful getting friendly with the Bolshoi's prima ballerina around 1930, when both were married to other people. Their affair turned civil marriage without hampering the career of either partner; indeed, Semyonova had the honor and terror of accepting the Order of the Red Banner from Stalin's own hands in June 1937, just a month after her husband had been arrested.
Semyonova just continued performing, because what choice did one have? She only recently died, in 2010, just shy of her 102nd birthday — as one of the legends of her craft.
* Maya Plisetskaya was also touched by Stalin's terror: in 1937, when Maya was only 11, her father was disappeared into the gulag and killed; her mother was arrested shortly after and survived a forced labor camp in Kazakhstan.
1547: Jan Olivetsky, Moravian publisher - 2020
1878: John Speer - 2019
1821: Corporal Chaguinha, Brazil's saint of freedom - 2018
1917: Herbet Morris, British West Indies Regiment deserter - 2017
1889: Thomas Brown, Fargo-Moorhead outlaw - 2015
1246: Mikhail of Chernigov, Miracle-Worker - 2014
1631: Anna Katharina Spee - 2013
1763: Gabriela Silang - 2012
2006: Clarence Hill, former last-minute reprieve beneficiary - 2011
1586: Anthony Babington and fellow plotters, Walsingham'd - 2010
1918: The 26 Baku Commissars - 2009
Themed Set: Counterrevolution - 2008
1803: Robert Emmet, "let no man write my epitaph" - 2008
1938: Seventeen former Bolshevik officials from the Trial of the 21
1936: Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev, Old Bolsheviks
1940: Mikhail Koltsov, Soviet journalist
1937: Peljidiin Genden, former Mongolia Prime Minister
1939: Alexander Kosarev, Spartak Moscow patron
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Execution,History,Notably Survived By,Politicians,Revolutionaries,Russia,Shot,Torture,Treason,USSR
Tags: 1930s, 1937, ballet, dance, joseph stalin, lev karakhan, marina semyonova, maya plisetskaya, stalin, the terror
1973: Mimi Wong Weng Siu, jealous hostess
1 comment July 27th, 2014 Headsman
On this date in 1973, former cabaret star Mimi Wong Weng Siu and her husband Sim Woh Kum were hanged for the murder of Wong's Japanese lover's wife.
"Overwhelmed by a consuming jealousy" (her prosecutor's words) for Hiroshi Watanabe, a land reclamation engineer from Osaka who was in Singapore working to prepare Bedok for development, Wong recruited her estranged husband to help her get rid of the competition. (Sim was just in it for the payment Wong promised him.)
On the evening of January 6, 1968, the two broke into the home when Ayako Watanabe was alone there. Sim threw bleach in the victim's eyes to incapacitate her, as Wong fatally gashed her neck and abdomen with a small knife.
The resulting 26-day trial riveted Singapore with the risque details of the dance hostess's adulterous trysts. (And said dance hostess's two courtroom fainting episodes.) But their manifest guilt plus their confessions — each vainly attempting to blame the other — assured their convictions.
While Sim situates as a side character of little lasting interest, Mimi Wong's hanging was among the few that would really stick with long-tenured Singapore hangman Darshan Singh.
The title character, if you like, of Alan Shadrake's Singapore death row critique Once a Jolly Hangman, Singh executed more than 850 people in more than four decades on the job and never wavered in his support for the policies that kept him occupied. Even so, Singh felt compassion for the individual humans he was called upon to kill; he was known to go out of his way to get to know condemned prisoners and to comfort them in their distressing situation.
According to an October 2013 AsiaOne profile, Singh had an unusually close pre-execution relationship with the first woman hanged in the only recently (since 1965) independent Singapore.
In prison, she was a difficult inmate who would at times strip naked and refuse to put on her clothes even when ordered by prison guards. She even threw urine at the wardens, said Madam Jeleha.
"Darshan was the only one who could control her. He would say 'Mimi, wear the blanket and cover yourself. Don't do this or you won't be beautiful any more', and she would listen to him," Madam Jeleha said.
The two forged an unlikely friendship and other prison officers even joked that Wong was his girlfriend. Mr Singh never minded.
Before her execution, Wong told Mr Singh they should be lovers in the next life and she wanted to take him with her.
"After he hanged Mimi Wong, he fell very sick for a month. He was in Toa Payoh Hospital for more than two weeks," his wife said.
Even when probed, he refused to tell his wife about Wong's final moments.
1942: Valentin Feldman, "Imbeciles, it is for you that I die!" - 2020
2019: Ali Hakim al-Arab and Ahmad al-Mullali, Bahrain opposition - 2019
1681: Donald Cargill, Covenanter rebel - 2018
1820: Stephen Sullivan, for murdering the Colleen Bawn - 2017
1734: Pierce Tobin and Walter Kelly, "a Spectacle both to Men and Angels!" - 2016
1676: Matoonas, a Nipmuc shot on Boston Common - 2015
1781: Francois Henri de la Motte, French spy - 2013
1916: Captain Charles Fryatt, illegal combatant - 2012
1990: Gideon Orkar, for a Nigerian coup - 2011
Special: One Thousand and One Nights for One Thousand and One Deaths - 2010
1582: Philippe Strozzi, corsair - 2010
1915: 167 Haitian political prisoners - 2009
1794: The last cart of the Terror, not including the Marquis de Sade - 2008
1945: Lena Baker
1955: Ruth Ellis, the last woman hanged in England
1551: Alice Arden, husband killer
1906: William Williams, the last hanged in Minnesota
1887: Ellen Thomson and John Harrison, lovers
1975: Olga Hepnarova, tram spotter
1995: Flor Contemplacion, OFW
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Entertainers,Execution,Hanged,History,Milestones,Murder,Sex,Singapore,Women
Tags: 1970s, 1973, ayako watanabe, cabaret, dance, dancers, darshan singh, hiroshi watanabe, july 27, love triangle, mimi wong
Feast Day of St. Vitus
Add comment June 15th, 2014 Headsman
June 15 is the feast date of the early Christian saint and martyr Vitus.
The 6th century roster Martyrologium Hieronymianum gives us "In Sicilia, Viti, Modesti et Crescentiae". From this nub grew a legend of the young child of a Roman Senator who turned to Christianity and would not apostatize, fleeing finally to Lucania with his tutor Modestus and his nanny Crescentia and eventually exorcising a demon possessing the son of the Christian-hunting, Empire-quartering Roman sovereign Diocletian. They were all — boy, tutor, and nanny — tortured to death for their troubles; that occurred either by means of or (manifesting God's customary disdain for the pagan persecutors) after surviving execution in a boiling pot, which has become Vitus's most typical iconographical emblem. (For example, as seen on the coat of arms of the Austrian town Sankt Veit im Pongau.)
The Martyrdom of St. Vitus, anonymous c. 1450 painting
This story doesn't have much historical merit, but shrines and chapels to Vitus date as far back as the 5th century so Vitus, whomever he was, had real importance to early Christians.
His cult became especially prominent in medieval central Europe. Prague's imposing Gothic cathedral bears his name, because Wenceslaus, Duke of Bohemia* allegedly retrieved for it the saint's arm in a reliquary.**
While many places are dedicated to St. Vitus in Germany, Hungary, and Croatia, the man has red-letter treatment in Serbia — owing to this also being the date in 1389 that the Serbs' Tsar Lazar was martyred by the Turks at the Battle of Kosovo. As a result, the feast date Vidovdan is a major celebration in Serbia (and to some extent Bulgaria and Macedonia), where it is observed on June 28th — the Gregorian date presently corresponding to the Julian calendar's June 15th.
The same Vitus who cheers Balkan nationalists trod a completely different path into medical textbooks.
For centuries, Europeans were known to break out in curious ecstatic mass dancing, even sometimes dancing themselves to death. Generally believed today to be psychosocial afflictions, these dancing manias became widely associated with St. Vitus (his patronage includes both dancers and epileptics), whose intercession would be sought to calm the capering souls.
Dancing manias stopped happening in the 17th century or so, but the link between Vitus and involuntary rollick gave the name St. Vitus's Dance to the condition Syndenham's chorea — which is characterized by uncontrolled dance-like movement.
* The very Good King Wenceslaus who looked down on the feast of Stephen.
** Speculatively, Sanct Vid might have been selected for Christian veneration in this area to facilitate replacement of the similarly-named Slavic god Svantovid. An active (albeit declining) pagan community persisted in Prague as late as the 12th century.
As with most Slavic deities, Svantovid's exact characteristics and the extent of his veneration are very poorly documented; however, in 1168, the Wendish fortress of Arkona was conquered by the Danes and the forced Christianization of its inhabitants is commemorated in Laurits Tuxen's late 19th century image of Archbishop Absalon casting down Arkona's idol of Svantovid. (It's also commemorated by the name of the neo-pagan Russian metal band Arkona.)
1704: Anna Ericksdotter, the last witch executed in Sweden - 2020
1779: Manuel, burned for witchcraft in the USA? - 2019
1944: Raymond Burgard, lycee Buffon inspiration - 2018
1820: William Holmes, Edward Rosewaine, and Thomas Warrington, pirates - 2017
1967: Moustapha Lô, failed assassin - 2016
1899: John Headrick and Carroll Rice, Missourians - 2015
1920: Triple lynching in Duluth, Minnesota - 2013
1915: 20 Hunchakian gallows - 2012
1648: Margaret Jones, the first witch executed in Boston - 2011
2004: Benjamín Altamirano lynched - 2010
1389: Saint Tsar Lazar, after the Battle of Kosovo - 2009
1945: Anicento Martinez, an American rapist in England - 2008
Feast Day of Saint Peter and Saint Paul
Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews
Feast Day of St. Cecilia, patron of music
Feast Day of Santa Barbara
Feast Day of St. James the Greater
Feast Day of St. Sebastian
277: Mani, dualist
Entry Filed under: Ancient,Arts and Literature,Boiled,Children,Disfavored Minorities,Execution,God,History,Italy,Language,Martyrs,Myths,Popular Culture,Religious Figures,Roman Empire
Tags: battle of kosovo, dance, dancers, june 15, medicine, paganism, st. vitus, st. vitus's dance, st. vitus's day, syndenham's chorea, vidovdan
1683: Yaoya Oshichi, fire horse
2 comments April 25th, 2014 Headsman
On this date in 1683,* Yaoya Oshichi gave her life for her red-hot love … and the want of a little white lie.
The greengrocer's daughter Oshichi (English Wikipedia page | Japanese) legendarily fell in love with a priest of the nearby temple while taking refuge there during one of Edo's many fires (Japanese link), and in a truly adolescent outburst proceeded to start another fire in the hopes of meeting him again. (Alternate version: it was Oshichi's gesture that actually started the linked conflagration.)
As a 16-year-old, Oshichi was just barely eligible to suffer the full weight of the law for a capital crime.
In an age of scanty documentation, however, the pitying magistrate (Japanese link) hearing her case is supposed to have asked her in a hinting sort of way, "you're 15, right?"
Either not catching his drift or else honest to a fault, Oshichi replied that, no, she was 16, thank you very much, and reiterated the point when it was followed-up … thus dooming herself to the stake.
Yaoya Oshichi's execution.
A few years after this outstandingly tragic demise, poet Ihara Saikaku popularized the tale in his Five Women Who Loved. She's been waxing immortal ever since in every manner of artistic interpretation, and remains a popular figure for joruri and bunraku and kabuki.
(When next in Tokyo, pay your own respects at her tomb.)
Meanwhile, Yaoya Oshichi's apparent birth in the zodiacal "fire horse" year of 1666 — fire horses are supposed to be an especially passionate, impulsive bunch — followed by her unfortunate fiery end helps make such cycles superstitiously inauspicious for prospective parents, especially prospective parents of girls.
The year of a fire horse only rolls around once every six decades; in the last one, in 1966, Japanese "fertility dropped by over 25%;" even "the fertility rate of Japanese Americans in California and Hawaii also dropped by 3.3% and 1.8%, respectively, in the same year."** The abortion rate in Japan for that one year spiked nearly 50% above expected without any other apparent cause.† It's something to watch for when the next batch of little fire horses are due, in 2026.
* "The 29th day of the 3rd month" is widely cited as "March 29", but it actually appears to refer to the 29th day of the 3rd month of the third year of the "Heaven's Blessing" era. That third month spanned the Gregorian dates of March 28 through April 26, 1683.
** Jungmin Lee and Myungho Paik, "Sex Preferences and Fertility in South Korea during the Year of the Horse," Demography, Vol. 43, No. 2 (May, 2006).
† Kanae Kaku, "Increased induced abortion rate in 1966, an aspect of Japanese folk superstition," Annals of Human Biology, Vol. 2, No. 2 (1975).
1328: Pierre de Remi, royal treasurer - 2020
1804: Hans Jakob Willi, Bockenkrieger - 2019
1827: Blue Jimmy - 2018
1859: Oscar Jackson lynched, precipitating the Wright County War - 2017
1952: Lloyd Edison Sampsell, the Yacht Bandit - 2016
1864: Thomas Dawson, manhood sealed - 2015
1900: Bill Brown, Sonnie Crain and John Watson - 2013
1945: Ewald Ehlers lynched - 2012
1938: Yakov Peters, Siege of Sidney Street survivor - 2011
1644: Looters in conquered Beijing - 2010
1649: John Poyer, the lucky winner - 2009
1792: Nicolas Pelletier, Madame Guillotine's first kiss - 2008
1871: The Paris Commune falls
1599: Beatrice Cenci and her family, for parricide
1676: Marie-Madeleine-Marguerite d'Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers
1431: Joan of Arc
1977: Princess Misha'al bint Fahd al Saud and her lover
1670: Claude Duval, gentleman highwayman
1594: Ishikawa Goemon, bandit
Entry Filed under: 17th Century,Arson,Arts and Literature,Burned,Capital Punishment,Children,Common Criminals,Death Penalty,Execution,Famous,History,Japan,Popular Culture,Public Executions,Sex,Women
Tags: 1680s, 1683, april 25, dance, edo, ihara, love, march 29, saikaku, theater, tokyo, yaoya oshichi

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Buster & Tim Kurkjian discuss the incredible potential of Max Fried, the plethora of Yankees injuries and much more (10:22). Plus, a fascinating conversation with Terry Francona (38:50) and Todd Radom's weekly quiz and Cap Talk (47:40).
Yankees SP CC Sabathia says it is still early and there is always a lot of pressure on young guys asked to fill-in for injured players.


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In 2002, Interpol was the forerunner of the wave New York rock bands that were influenced audibly through the post-punk and new wave of the early eighties. With The Cure-like guitars, voice synthesizers and gloomy, Ian Curtis reminiscent vocals Interpol managed to create a dark but catchy sound. The debut album Turn On The Bright Lights was quickly picked up by the young music lovers who previously… The Strokes and The White Stripes had embraced. The comparison is not with them at all. Interpol has a more artistic and less rocking approach than the acts.more
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Q: Python 3.5.2: Pygame Snake Apple location I made a basic eating apples snake game.
After the snake "eats" the apple it gains one more segment in its length and the position of the apple resets to a new random location on the screen.
My problem is that it is possible that the new random coordinates of the apple can be the same as one's of the snake's segments, therefore the snake gains one more segment in it's length without actually "eating" the apple.
How can it make it so that the new apple location does not coincide with one of the snake's segments ? I do not necessary need the code that will make it work, but the logic behind it. Can anyone help ?
Please note that the game is very basic. It does not have boundaries and the snake can eat the apple even thought the apple does not always "fit" its mouth (it only has to touch it).
import pygame,random

# --- Globals ---
# Colors
BLACK = (0, 0, 0)
WHITE = (255, 255, 255)
RED = (255,0,0)

# Set the width and height of each snake segment
segment_width = 15
segment_height = 15
# Margin between each segment
segment_margin = 3

# Set initial speed
x_change = segment_width + segment_margin
y_change = 0

class Segment(pygame.sprite.Sprite):
    """ Class to represent one segment of the snake. """

    # -- Methods
    # Constructor function
    def __init__(self, x, y):
        # Call the parent's constructor
        super().__init__()

        # Set height, width
        self.image = pygame.Surface([segment_width, segment_height])
        self.image.fill(WHITE)

        # Make our top-left corner the passed-in location.
        self.rect = self.image.get_rect()
        self.rect.x = x
        self.rect.y = y

class Apple(pygame.sprite.Sprite):

    def __init__(self,x,y):

        super().__init__()

        self.image = pygame.Surface([segment_width,segment_height])
        self.image.fill(RED)

        self.rect = self.image.get_rect()
        self.rect.x = x
        self.rect.y = y

    def update(self):
        self.rect.x = random.randrange(800)
        self.rect.y = random.randrange(600)

# Call this function so the Pygame library can initialize itself
pygame.init()

# Create an 800x600 sized screen
screen = pygame.display.set_mode([800, 600])

# Set the title of the window
pygame.display.set_caption('Snake Example')

apple_list = pygame.sprite.Group()

snake_group = pygame.sprite.Group()

allspriteslist = pygame.sprite.Group()

# Create an initial snake
snake_segments = []
for i in range(15):
    x = 250 - (segment_width + segment_margin) * i
    y = 30
    segment = Segment(x, y)
    snake_segments.append(segment)
    snake_group.add(segment)
    allspriteslist.add(segment)

m = random.randrange(0,800,15)
n = random.randrange(0,600,15)

apple = Apple(m, n)

apple_list.add(apple)
allspriteslist.add(apple)

clock = pygame.time.Clock()
done = False
score = 0

while not done:

    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            done = True

        # Set the speed based on the key pressed
        # We want the speed to be enough that we move a full
        # segment, plus the margin.
        if event.type == pygame.KEYDOWN:
            if event.key == pygame.K_LEFT:
                x_change = (segment_width + segment_margin) * -1
                y_change = 0
            if event.key == pygame.K_RIGHT:
                x_change = (segment_width + segment_margin)
                y_change = 0
            if event.key == pygame.K_UP:
                x_change = 0
                y_change = (segment_height + segment_margin) * -1
            if event.key == pygame.K_DOWN:
                x_change = 0
                y_change = (segment_height + segment_margin)

    # Get rid of last segment of the snake
    # .pop() command removes last item in list
    old_segment = snake_segments.pop()
    snake_group.remove(old_segment)

    # Figure out where new segment will be
    x = snake_segments[0].rect.x + x_change
    y = snake_segments[0].rect.y + y_change
    segment = Segment(x, y)

    # Insert new segment into the list
    snake_segments.insert(0, segment)
    snake_group.add(segment)

    apple_collide = pygame.sprite.spritecollide(apple,snake_group,False)

    for element in  apple_collide:
        apple_list.remove(element)
        score += 1
        print(score)
        apple.update()
        a = snake_segments[len(snake_segments)-1].rect.x
        b = snake_segments[len(snake_segments)-1].rect.y
        new_segment = Segment(a,b)
        snake_group.add(new_segment)
        snake_segments.append(new_segment)

    # -- Draw everything
    # Clear screen
    screen.fill(BLACK)

    apple_list.draw(screen)
    snake_group.draw(screen)

    # Flip screen
    pygame.display.flip()

    # Pause
    clock.tick(5)

pygame.quit()

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Reporting Emergencies
How do I report trespassers or other suspicious behavior on BNSF property?
To report suspicious behavior, call BNSF's Resource Operations Call Center at 800-832-5452 or your local police department.
BNSF has an internal police team that works closely with local, state and federal law enforcement on safety and security issues involving the railroad.
What should I do if hazardous materials are released?
If there is a hazardous materials release on the track or near a rail facility, local authorities will advise the public if any special measures are necessary. If you personally see what you believe to be a hazardous materials release, first move to a safe location.
Then you should notify BNSF's Resource Operations Call Center or local police as soon as possible. The BNSF emergency number is 800-832-5452.
Rail Crossing Safety and Train Horns
How do I report malfunctioning crossing gates and lights or a vehicle stalled at a crossing?
You should call BNSF's emergency number at 800-832-5452 to report any railroad emergency, including the false activation of gates and lights. This number will connect you directly to BNSF's Resource Operations Call Center, which is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If your vehicle has stalled on a crossing, exit the vehicle immediately, move away from the track and call BNSF's emergency number at 800-832-5452 to report the stalled vehicle.
What can be done to reduce the time I have to wait for a train to go through a crossing?
BNSF trains operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A wide range of factors can cause our trains' trip schedules to change. Those conditions may be related to equipment, track or weather events. As a result of those changing conditions and for security reasons, freight train schedules are not released to the public.
Nonetheless, at BNSF we do our best to limit the amount of time any crossing is blocked on a mainline track. Our business and our customers depend on BNSF to keep our trains moving. When our trains experience a situation that forces them to stop BNSF works to correct or resolve the situation as quickly as possible to resume the safe movement of trains.
What is the process for getting gates and lights installed at rail crossings?
Most public rail crossings are equipped with passive rail crossing warning signs, such as crossbucks, yield signs, stop signs and pavement markings. Any change from passive warning devices to active warning devices is determined by individual state agencies and the appropriate road authorities, which typically involves the state's department of transportation. Each state determines if it is appropriate to equip public rail crossings with active warning devices, such as gates and flashing lights.
Each state makes a determination on whether to use state or federal safety funds to help pay for the appropriate warning devices based upon the state's priority list of crossings for improvement. Once the location for a warning device is determined, the state reviews and approves the cost and enters into an agreement with the railroad to install the specified signals.
If you believe a railroad crossing near you is a good candidate for upgrading from a passive warning sign to an active warning, please contact your state's department of transportation. BNSF works cooperatively with the states on our network to install active warning devices on the public crossings that the state has determined are in need of such upgrades.
Find more information in the Public Projects Manual.
When is the train crew required to sound the horn, and how does a community establish a quiet zone?
Train horns save lives. The locomotive engineer has the responsibility and the discretion to sound the horn at specified times, or when a safety hazard is perceived. Too many Americans are killed each year while ignoring signals at grade crossings or while trespassing on railroad tracks. For background information about this problem, please visit the Operation Lifesaver website at www.oli.org.
Federal law requires the train crew when approaching a road crossing to sound the horn at all public crossings for the protection and safety of motorists and pedestrians regardless of whether crossings with gates and lights are present. Only crossings that have met Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) criteria for a Quiet Zone do not require the horn to be blown.
More details on our Train Horns page.
Who pays to upgrade grade-level crossings to overpasses or underpasses?
The decisions to build streets or highways at grade-level with the tracks were not made by the railroads but by the owners of the roadways crossing the track at any given location. In most cases that is a city or county.
When most communities built roads across rail lines, they had the option of building an overpass or underpass over, or under, the track. Most chose the less expensive option, which was to build the road at grade level with the tracks. Unfortunately, that leaves motorists in potential conflict with trains.
One of the great benefits of the federal interstate system is that there is not a single at-grade rail crossing on it. We are very much in favor of cities, counties and states pursuing similar improvements in public mobility for their roads and highways.
BNSF has a program to help eliminate crossings on our track, which actually pays communities to close crossings. Communities are free to use those dollars as they see fit.
In addition, in cases where construction of an overpass or underpass results in the closure of a crossing with gates and lights on it, the railroad involved is obligated by the federal government to pay for a portion (5 percent) of the construction of that overpass or underpass.
However, the decision to pursue such projects must be made by the owner of the road involved, not the railroad.
How do I report a rough railroad crossing?
You can report a crossing in need of maintenance or repair to BNSF through our Contact Us form. Please provide details of the issue and the location including street, city and state.
Who do I contact about the condition of vegetation and use of pesticides along railroad tracks?
You can report vegetation conditions or request information about pesticide use through our Contact Us form. Our Community Affairs team will direct your report to BNSF's Engineering Department, which is responsible for vegetation control.
Where can I learn more about employment opportunities and internships at BNSF?
You can find more information about potential careers and internships at BNSF, including a list of current openings, under the Work at BNSF tab on BNSF's website.
You can also visit our careers page on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bnsfcareers.
I didn't get the email I was supposed to get as part of the hiring process.
Please check your junk mail folder and make sure your email service is set up to allow emails from BNSF into your inbox.
You can email Staff RecruiterStaff%20Recruiter;staff.recruiter1;bnsf.com and request assistance if you still don't locate the message.
Products Shipped by Rail
What types of products are shipped by rail?
BNSF helps connect freight shippers and consumers in the global marketplace. For more than 160 years, BNSF has played a vital role in building and serving the nation's economy by delivering many of the products we use every day:
grain and other ingredients to produce the foods we eat,
raw materials to build our homes and operate our businesses,
finished electronics, clothing and consumer goods we use every day,
low-sulfur coal used to generate more than 10 percent of the nation's electricity.
Operating one of America's largest railroad networks, BNSF connects the communities we serve to the rest of the country and the world. Learn more about what you can ship by rail.
Do you move hazardous materials in my community?
Railroads are required by federal law to move hazardous materials. Most of these include products used by consumers every day such as paint, batteries, alcohol-containing products such as hand sanitizer and insect repellent, and household cleaning products.
The hazardous materials of greatest concern to emergency officials represent only about 0.3 percent of all rail shipments. BNSF helps train emergency responders across our system to ensure they are prepared to protect the public should such an emergency occur.
BNSF also has 160 emergency response personnel stationed around our network who are trained, equipped and prepared to monitor and respond to any emergency situation involving hazardous materials. More importantly, BNSF invests significant capital and effort working with our customers, employees and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to reduce the likelihood of such incidents.
Permits/Real Estate
To better facilitate the needs of prospective occupants of its railroad system, BNSF Railway Company (BNSF) has partnered with Jones Lang LaSalle Brokerage, Inc. (JLL), a company committed to providing professional Real Estate Services.
To begin the permit application process, please click here.
Permit Types Description
Pipeline or Wire Line
Installation of a pipeline for water, natural gas, sewage, oil or petroleum, etc. Electric supply line for voltage, circuits or electricity. Communication Line for fiber optic, phone or CATV.
*Are you claiming or do you intend to claim a right to the requested permit or a reduction or exemption from applicable fees pursuant to applicable law? If yes, click here.
Temporary Occupancy
Geotechnical study of the soil, survey, inspection or construction access. Laying cable along tracks or on property to test for seismic activity.
Private Crossing
Private crossing for vehicular/ pedestrian/ bicycle access over BNSF tracks.
Roadway Surfacing/Resurfacing
Surface/resurface/overlay existing road (not due to road widening).
General License
Culvert, drainage ditch or storm water fall-out. Encroachments, ex. fence.
House or Structure Crossing
Low-clearance vehicles and those in excess of state DOT height/weight standards. Ex. houses, boilers or transformers.
Selling property or a name change.
Environmental Soil sample or topographical survey for contamination, installation of monitoring wells.
This web site is intended to provide you with all the information you should need to apply for a permit to access BNSF's property. Additional questions can be directed to the applicable JLL representative for your state by clicking here.
How do I know if a certain parcel of land is BNSF property?
You can check with the local tax assessor or courthouse records.
How long does it take to get a land access permit from BNSF?
On average, it takes four weeks for a permit to be sent to you for your execution if there are no engineering issues or changes involved.
Once I return the executed permit to you, how long will it be before I can perform the work?
If the executed agreement is returned with all required fees and insurance, you should receive a fully executed agreement from JLL in about a week. Also, before entering the property, you must give at least 10 days advance notice to the appropriate BNSF Railway Scheduling Agent as outlined in your permit. Please click here for additional information regarding the permit process and timelines.
If I am applying for more than one (1) permit at a time, what is the processing fee?
There is an $2000 processing fee for each application.
What are the specifications for installations on BNSF property?
Please see the Utility Accommodation Manual regarding standard design specifications.
If I need to perform maintenance or repair to an existing crossing/line, what do I need to do?
If you have an existing permit with BNSF Railway Company and are performing maintenance or repair work, you must contact the BNSF Roadmaster and have a copy of your permit before entering BNSF property.
The Roadmaster's contact information is located on your permit. If you are unable to locate the contact information you may contact the respective JLL Manager.
How do I reach BNSF's Corporate Real Estate team?
2650 Lou Menk Dr.
Attn: Corporate Real Estate
Fort Worth, TX 76131-2830
Land Revenue Management & Property Records Contacts
Cary HutchingsCary%20Hutchings;CRED;bnsf.com
Director Real Estate
Property Management, Industrial Leases, Sales, Oil & Gas, Mineral & Water Rights Tel: 817-593-6917
Dean FerrisDean%20Ferris;CRED;bnsf.com
R.O.W. & Real Estate Management Tel: 817-867-0743
Rebeca OrtizRebeca%20Ortiz;CRED;bnsf.com
Sr. Manager Real Estate
Customer Agreements, Terminations & Assignments Tel: 817-352-6466
Joyia NevelsJoyia%20Nevels;CRED;bnsf.com
Manager Real Estate
Facility Leases (BNSF as Tenant) Tel: 817-352-6462
Melissa CannonMelissa%20Cannon;CRED;bnsf.com
Asst. Manager Real Estate
Acquisition & Development Contacts
Sandra ByeSandra%20Bye;CRED;bnsf.com
Director Acquisitions Tel: 817-352-2387
Charles KeltnerCharles%20Keltner;CRED;bnsf.com
Sr. Manager Real Estate Tel: 817-352-6464
Jimmy BallJimmy%20Ball;CRED;bnsf.com
BNSF History
Where can I learn more about railroad history?
You can find more information about BNSF and its predecessor railroads on the Our Railroad page.
Our Railroad in our Company History. There you will find historical summaries of BNSF's major predecessor railroads as well as links to other organizations that serve as useful resources. We also provide an online booklet containing a detailed history of our six major predecessors.
Additionally, you can join the Friends of BNSF website, which contains numerous historical photos and articles.
What is the Friends of BNSF program?
Friends of BNSF is a community website for people who have an interest in or have a connection to BNSF or its predecessor companies.
It was launched in September 2011 and it has more than 43,000 registered members. The site features historical articles and photos, a gallery of members' submitted train photos, and company updates and background information.
Friends of BNSF members can also opt in to receive occasional email newsletters. For more information and to join, please visit the Friends of BNSF website.
Why doesn't BNSF have a "heritage fleet" of locomotives in historic color schemes?
BNSF is proud of its heritage and its historic role in building the U.S. economy.
BNSF has chosen to celebrate its heritage in other ways, including BNSF Railway Foundation grants to support historic preservation activities, support of rail-related community events like National Train Day, railcars marked with the logos of some of our predecessor lines, and the Friends of BNSF project.
What is the purpose of the BNSF Railway Foundation?
The BNSF Railway Foundation primarily supports non-profits in communities located on our 32,500-mile rail network.
The Foundation has supported and helped improve quality of life for thousands of communities across the 28 states through which BNSF operates, and where BNSF employees live, work and volunteer.
Indeed, as the corporation's assets have grown, the Foundation's giving has expanded to help more and more communities.
For more information, please visit www.bnsffoundation.org.
How do I apply for a grant from the BNSF Railway Foundation?
Thanks for your interest in the BNSF Railway Foundation.
We are able to consider your request only if your organization has obtained 501(c)3 status under the Internal Revenue Code or your organization is a division of local government or your organization is a non-profit school or university.
Please visit our online application form.
Can BNSF help me ship my personal automobile or other personal effects?
BNSF does not offer one-time shipment services for items that will not fill an entire railcar or 40-foot container. To use rail for these types of shipments, you can contact one of the many transloaders available across our network using our Transloader Directory, or our sister company BNSF Logistics.
What is BNSF's position on photography of railroad operations?
BNSF appreciates its railfan photographers and thanks them for their interest in BNSF and its trains. For safety reasons, BNSF can't grant access to its property for photography purposes. Photography of BNSF operations must be done from a safe location outside of railroad property.
Encounters between BNSF police and photographers are generally casual in nature and not documented unless there is a criminal violation or circumstance that would warrant further law enforcement action or enforcement. BNSF Police reinforce guidance on this issue to officers in the field so that continues to be common practice.
We value the support the rail community provides to our officers and rely on their continuing understanding that the intent of any contact by police is part an effort to further the safety of our railway and the communities where we operate.
Does BNSF sell or donate cabooses?
We seldom have cabooses available for sale or donation. Most cabooses were donated or sold years ago. We have a long waiting list of requests for cabooses from communities across our network.
Requests sent in through our Contact Us form will be added to that waiting list.
A more likely way to secure an old passenger car or caboose would be to explore the secondary market for such equipment.
Where can I purchase BNSF and predecessor-branded logo merchandise?
You can visit the BNSF Store website at www.bnsfstore.com.
Who do I contact if I have questions not listed above?
You can contact the community relations contact listed for your state. Use of this contact form to help us direct your inquiry to the right person and track the progress of our response.
Learn how easy it is to become a BNSF customer. We will show you how to get a rate, ship, track and manage your account.
WHAT CAN YOU SHIP?
Our consistent and cost-effective service takes products of any size to customers where they need them.
WHERE CAN YOU SHIP?
BNSF's Rail Network can get you there – no matter where you're shipping your freight.
HOW CAN YOU SHIP?
You can rely on our best in-class services to deliver your goods in the most cost-effective manner.


The Piney Lakes Environmental Education Centre is a unique environmental centre that now offers the community access to education and demonstration facilities covering the environment alternative renewable energy technologies for waste treatment and water treatment. The building provides a working example of an educational facility serviced by sustainable technology.
One of the main features of the centre is the fact that it is not connected to Mains Electricity, water supply or sewage. All of these services are generated or supplied from renewable energy sources thus making the building truly "green".
practical demonstration of a sustainably designed facility in Australia.


-what's a beauty product you can't live without this summer?
-what do you like about my blog?
-what would you like to see more of on my blog?
The giveaway ends 11:59 pm (eastern time) on June 1st. Good Luck!
Disclaimer: These products were purchased by me with my own money except for the Salon Perfect Starter Kit, which I won in a giveaway.
Hi girl! Congrats on having your blog for 1 year, thats so awesome! :) Thanks so much for the great giveaway too, lots of great prizes.
What I like about your blog: your personality, you're gorgeous, your adorable son in the sidebar always makes me smile, and I think your beauty style and opinions!
Congrats for the anniversary! :D and Awesome giveaway!
and i love the Outfits you wear in your blog..
Hi girl, so sorry for not putting each in a separate comment, boy am I scattered brained or what lately! lol.
I would appreciate and advice or comments. If you like please follow. Keep in touch!
-How about more series makeup looks how tos :D We can all learn from each other.
The pretty design and your posts!
More posts, more hauls, reviews, and more pics, you're so pretty!
i love your OOTDs and i would def. love to see more of them!
I like how you talk about your outfits..
I follow your blog via google friend connect as Carmen Cánovas.
This summer I can't live without my l'oreal hydrafresh moisturizer, i love the sensation it gives to my face, really fresh.
About your blog, I like a lot how you write your posts, and they're very interesting.
I'd like to see more reviews of makeup.
what i like is the pic of style icons. so stylish with their own personality.
:) is it ok ?
One beauty product I cannot live without, I'd have to say bright finger nail polishes. I don't care who they're by, just about the brightness lol.
I can't live without No7 Lash Extension Effect Mascara.
I love that you've continued with your blog for a year and would love to see more make-up looks that you've created.
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cant live without ELF HD Powder because it sets my foundation all day, especially in this hot weather !
not sure what i like about your blog but i would love to see face of the day !
I can't live without my Make Up For Ever Foundation just because it is simply awesome!
I like your posts and the design is amazing as well.
I would like to see some hauls and reviews.
i can't live without lipgloss, expecially the newest chanel!! they were more wonderful with the tan!
and i would love to see more reviews.
-what would you like to see more of on my blog? tutorials!
1. This summer I can't live without my Nivea Sun Caring Sun Spray.
2. I like to read your tutorials and to see your hauls.
3. I would like to see more tutorials and reviews.
I follow you on twitter. My username is pnxara.
I have a link to this giveaway on my blog's left sidebar.
I'm an YouTube subscriber. My username is pnxara.
I'm actually not a big make-up person, but I can't live without my nail polish!!
I love your OOTDs and your hauls.
I can't live without sunblock!
I like your FOTD posts and I want to see more reviews!
Zoya Gaia nail polish is my current favorite.
I would love to see more nail art!
I follow you via google friend connect by the username 'Ezzy'.
what do you like about my blog? I love your makeup posts !!
Nail Polish, I'm so addicted!
More reviews and more OOTD!


text:
Byju's eyes $1 billion IPO for physical tutor chain Aakash
Manish Singh 3 months
Indian edtech giant Byju's is engaging with bankers to put together a plan for the initial public offering of its physical tutor chain unit Aakash, which it acquired last year, a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.
The Bengaluru-headquartered firm is looking to raise $800 million to $1 billion in the initial public offering of Aakash at a valuation of over $3.5 billion, the source said, requesting anonymity as the details are private. The startup may file the paperwork for the IPO as early as February, the source said.
The deliberations are at an early stage, so the terms of the deal may change or get completely abandoned, the source cautioned. Byju's and its founder, Byju Raveendran, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A plan for the IPO of Aakash, which Byju's acquired for nearly $1 billion last year, comes as the group firm has postponed its own listing plan amid the global market downturn.
Byju's seriously explored going public earlier this year through the SPAC route at a valuation north of $40 billion, but changed the plan after the market dramatically reversed most of the gains from the past 13 years of the bull run.
Raveendran told TechCrunch in an earlier interview that Byju's was watching the macro market conditions closely and will file for an IPO in nine to 12 months. "I don't think the markets will turn this year," he said at the time.
Byju's, which is the most valuable startup in India at $22 billion, spent over $2 billion in the past two years to acquire about a dozen firms, mostly outside of the South Asian market as it ramps up its offerings in the U.S. and Europe. With the group IPO away by over a year, the startup has raised nearly $1 billion this year. It unveiled the most recent tranche of that fundraise, $250 million, last month. That investment was raised on a convertible note with a cap on the valuation at about $22 billion, another source familiar with the matter said.
The startup has sought to cut its marketing budget and several other expenditures in recent months to become profitable by the end of the current financial year. Byju's also recently said that it will cut up to 2,500 jobs over the coming months.
Another reason why Byju's is considering listing Aakash on Indian stock exchanges is its apprehension about the consumer awareness of the Indian unit in the global markets, a person familiar with the matter said.
The 34-year-old Aakash runs a chain of physical coaching centres across India. Prior to the acquisition, the firm was planning to list in the country. Aakash, which has been profitable for years, is on track to clock a revenue of over $500 million by the financial year ending 2024, at a margin of 25%, the person familiar with the matter said.


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Q: Using constructor arguments with NinjectModule I have the following scenario for declaring export plugins for my application:
public abstract class PluginBase : NinjectModule
{
    protected PluginBase(IDataSource source)
    {
         // ...
    }

    public override void Load()
    {
         Bind<PluginBase>().To(GetType());
    }
}
public class RealPlugin : PluginBase
{
    public RealPlugin(IDataSource source)
    {
        // ...
    }
}

Unfortunatelly, Kernel.Load(AssemblyName) doesn't seem to detect RealPlugin as loadable element and the Load() method is never called. It works if I add an extra public constructor with no arguments to both classes. However, I actually don't want to do that because I don't want anyone to create an instance of RealPlugin without specifying the data source.
An ugly workaround seems to be to mark the parameterless constructors with [Obsolete], which at least prevents accidental usage of them.
Of course, I could also create separate classes deriving from NinjectModule to create the Bindings, but that requires another class for each of my Plugins, which is also not so nice (and prevents binding to the dynamic type of the instance, as seen above)
Anyone got an idea how such a plugin can be registered without having a public parameterless constructor?

A: In Reflection, by default, only "public" types are considered. Apparently ninject uses the default values. So you'll have to roll your own implementation which uses reflection to find all classes which match all of these criteria:

*

*inheriting from NinjectModule (also indirectly)

*not abstract

*has a parameter-less constructor

then these need to be instanciated and passed on to Kernel.Load(NinjectModule).
You could, just as well, look at the source code of Kernel.Load(AssemblyName) and copy and modify it according to your needs. Most likely the code making use of reflection will just require a false switched to a true in one or two places - or using a different method overload which considers non-public members, too.


text:
Pete Swabey
Negativity may not be the best way to encourage people to act in a more sustainable fashion
If the battle to protect the planet from the harmful impact of human activity requires shifts in individual behaviour, the question for policymakers, businesses and others is what tools can be used to change habits and what messages will prove most powerful.
What is becoming clear is that the fear factor is not effective in altering behaviour. Despite the success of Al Gore's documentary film An Inconvenient Truth, which presented terrifying images of the effects of climate change, shock tactics have had a limited effect.
For many, messages such as Gore's simply reinforce the view that climate change is a ruse to destroy western economies and diminish people's quality of life. And even those who are not climate sceptics can only take so many predictions of doom before switching off.
Instead, those working to "nudge" consumers towards more responsible consumption choices might look at how the corporate sector has started to approach environmental sustainability – as an opportunity.
Companies from GE and Nike to Unilever and Marks and Spencer have used sustainability strategies as a means of promoting innovation, cutting costs and creating new sources of revenue.
It is an idea that scientist, innovator and energy guru Amory Lovins, head of the Rocky Mountain Institute, has applied to climate change. Climate change, Lovins said, is actually "a lucrative business opportunity disguised as an environmental problem."
Lovins has argued, for example, that the US could wean itself off oil and coal by 2050 without requiring an act of Congress but through business-led investments, unlocking savings of $5 trillion.
So could a similar approach be harnessed in trying to change human habits and consumption patterns? Given the fact that consumers are often driven by price, the opportunity to save money is certainly one way to present more sustainable options.
This, for example, might mean demonstrating how much could be saved on energy bills by investing in better home insulation. It could involve showing families how to cut their household expenditure by improving meal planning, helping them reduce the amount of food they throw away.
Convenience is another incentive that can encourage more sustainable consumer behaviour. Witness the success of car sharing services and bike share schemes. These services ultimately take more cars off the road and encourage healthier lifestyles. For users, however, the attraction of these services is often the ability to access convenient, affordable alternative forms of transport.
A third approach that uses positive reinforcement, rather than scare tactics, to encourage sustainable behaviours revolves around the idea of an individual's environmental "handprint". In contrast to a carbon footprint, which represents the damage an individual has done to the environment, a handprint seeks to quantify the positive impact they make by changing their behaviour.
The idea was devised by Greg Norris, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr Norris is currently developing an app, named 'Handprinter', which allows users to calculate their environmental handprint and to improve it by sharing environmentally ideas through their social networks.
These examples show that there are many positive ways to encourage customers and citizens to behave in more environmentally sustainable ways. However, they still require governments and businesses to commit to driving that change.
This raises the question: how can activists and concerned citizens use positive reinforcement to encourage them to do so?
Do you think the environmental movement is too negative to change people's behaviour? Share your thoughts on the Future Realities LinkedIn group, sponsored by Dassault Systèmes.
What can you do? How businesses and governments can encourage sustainable b...
The next frontier in sustainability
Encouraging Sustainable Behaviour
Charting the course for ocean sustainability in the Indian Ocean Rim
Fixing Asia's food system
Food Sustainability Index 2016
Pete is the editorial director at The Economist Intelligence Unit's thought leadership division in EMEA; he is also global lead for the tech sector. He specialises in technology and has managed research projects on topics including digital transformation, the hyperconnected economy, the future of work and the evolution of marketing. He has presented this research at a range of conferences and has moderated discussions at a number of The Economist Group's own events.
Before joining The Economist Group in October 2013, Pete was editor of enterprise IT magazine and website Information Age and head of technology research for business-to-business publisher Vitesse Media. He holds a BSc in Experimental Psychology from University College London.


Riverside City College softball team defeated Orange Coast College and Allan Hancock College on March 16.
The crowd could not help but become completely engulfed in the game as runs were being scored, pop flys caught and RBI's made.
The Tigers added two more victories to their six game winning streak and are now 17-6 in conference.
As the first game against Orange Coast began, pitcher Riley Peckels stepped on the mound to start for the ninth time this season. In her previous outing she threw a no hitter against Golden West College.
Peckels' teammates cheered her on from the dugout with lyrics from radio hits varying from pop to rap and everything in between, she rolled over the first six batters and put the Tigers in a defensive lead.
As the game unraveled, so did the runs. Catcher Aeriel Carlson hit an RBI double to left field sending shortstop Kailee Gilbert and third baseman Terri Nava home giving them the lead.
The top of the seventh inning ended the first game with a 4-2 victory for RCC.
The Tigers maintained their momentum in the second game against Allan Hancock and scored 12 total runs, only allowing four.
Their offense was strong, ending the game with two errors but they won't let those slide. "Our goal is to have zero strikeouts and zero errors" said Terri Nava.
"Whether were winning or not we try to figure out our weakness and work on it," said head coach Michelle Daddona.
Tigers softball is looking to continue their seven game winning streak on March 23 at Cypress College.


text:
Oct 15, 2018 - Politics & Policy
Losing Mattis would be costly for Trump
Mike Allen, author of AM
Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images
President Trump has clearly soured on Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, and top Republicans and Democrats both tell me his departure would be particularly costly for the White House — and a disturbing sign for outsiders.
The big picture: A former aide who can read Trump like a book told me: "His tone on Mattis is really striking. ... Will be worth watching whether he's just brushing him back and moving on, or if he launches a sustained effort to get him to quit." And if Mattis departs on anything other than the most cordial terms, confirming a successor will be fraught.
But here's something aides may not have told the president: People who know Mattis tell me that he won't stay around to be abused and humiliated like Attorney General Jeff Sessions has.
If "Mad Dog" Mattis, as Trump calls him, is convinced that the president is shorting his stock, the retired four-star Marine general could leave abruptly.
After recent rumblings of frayed relations with Mattis, Trump's comments on "60 Minutes" last night sent a signal to the world — including allies who depend on the U.S. for their defense — that the Pentagon chief may be a short-timer.
Based on an early clip from CBS News, we told you yesterday about Trump's devastating remark to correspondent Lesley Stahl that Mattis is "sort of a Democrat, if you wanna know the truth. ... He may leave."
But it turns out there was more:
Stahl: "Is it true General Mattis said to you, 'The reason for NATO and the reason for all these alliances is to prevent World War III?'"
Trump: "No, it's not true. ... Frankly, I like General Mattis. I think I know more about it than he does. And I know more about it from the standpoint of fairness, that I can tell you."
Stahl: "I'm gonna try one more time."
Trump: "Lesley, you don't have to try again. I know exactly what you're saying. ... I will always be there with NATO, but they have to pay their way. I'm fully in favor of NATO, but I don't wanna be taken advantage of."
Be smart: Mattis is a linchpin of what we call the Committee to Save America — an unofficial alliance of officials who see it as their patriotic duty to protect Trump and the nation from disaster.
When I asked a well-wired Democrat how worrisome Mattis' departure would be, he replied: "Number one by far. Super scary."
Server error. Please try a different email.
Subscribed! Look for Axios AM and PM in your inbox tomorrow or read the latest Axios AM now.
Subscribe to Axios AM/PM for a daily rundown of what's new and why it matters, directly from Mike Allen.


Operating the Ceramic HPS lamp on an EYE HORTILUX ballast is the only way to ensure consistent performance and maximum plant yields as lamp/ballast compatibility is guaranteed between these two products.
The 600W Ceramic HPS Lamp Ballast Kit provides growers the flexibility to operate this popular lamp with their existing reflector.
The Ceramic HPS can take up to 20 minutes to get to full power, which is why it must be run on an EYE HORTILUX ballast. The EYE HORTILUX Silver Ballast, included in this package, is the same ballast used on the SE 600 Grow Light System. This ballast allows for the 20 minute sunrise feature, providing the lamp plenty of time to get to full power.
Only use with EYE HORTILUX e-Ballasts.
Long range igniter installed – Up to 15 ft.


text:
Q: Using Ping constantly to verify connection and display feedback on python tkinter I am trying to make a small app with python tkinter.
in which i will need a ping command to constantly check for connection to a certain device example '192.168.1.21' and tells me if the device is connected or not real time.
Nota: i am using ping3
this is my program:
root = Tk()
root.geometry("400x400")
label_1 = Label(root, text = "Not connected")
label_1.pack()

def testing(label):
    if ping('192.168.1.21', timeout=0.5) != None: #To test the connection 1 time
        label.config(text = "Connected")
    else:
        label.config(text = "Not Connected")

    label.after(500, lambda : testing(label_1))

def popup(): #A popup that does the same thing
    top = Toplevel(root)
    top.geometry("150x150")
    label_2 = Label(top, text = "Not connected")
    label_2.pack()
    label_2.after(500, lambda : testing(label_2))
    top.mainloop()

btn = Button(root, text = "Popup", command=popup)
btn.pack()

testing(label_1)

root.mainloop()

How can i make it not freeze and keep testing while letting the rest of the program run smoothly.
Thank you and sorry if I made mistakes in the code, i am still new to python in generale.

A: You can achieve this using threading. This allows the tkinter mainloop and the pinging to happen concurrently which means the GUI doesn't freeze.
import threading, time, sys

root = Tk()
root.geometry("400x400")
label_1 = Label(root, text = "Not connected")
label_1.pack()

current_value = None
continue_thread = True

def doPing():
    global current_value, continue_thread
    while continue_thread:
        current_value = ping('192.168.1.21', timeout=0.5)
        time.sleep(0.5) # 500ms delay before pinging again
    sys.exit() # Stop thread when window is closed

def testing(label):
    global current_value
    if current_value != None: #To test the connection 1 time
        label.config(text = "Connected")
    else:
        label.config(text = "Not Connected")

    label.after(500, lambda : testing(label))

def popup(): #A popup that does the same thing
    top = Toplevel(root)
    top.geometry("150x150")
    label_2 = Label(top, text = "Not connected")
    label_2.pack()
    label_2.after(500, lambda : testing(label_2))
    top.mainloop()

btn = Button(root, text = "Popup", command=popup)
btn.pack()

ping_thread = threading.Thread(target = doPing)
ping_thread.start()
testing(label_1)

root.mainloop()
continue_thread = False # end thread after window is closed

The program now uses a thread, ping_thread, which runs doPing. doPing calls ping, updates current_value and then waits 500ms before calling itself again. Then in the main thread testing updates the label every 500ms using the value of current_value. When the window is closed and root.mainloop has finished continue_thread is set to false so then sys.exit is called, stopping the thread.
There are 2 global variables current_value and continue_thread. The first allows you to access the return value of ping in testing and the second allows the main thread to tell the ping thread to stop when the Tkinter window is closed. Global variables are not good programming practice and I'd advise using classes instead. I've used them here for the sake of simplicity.


An unknown number of Vietnamese civilians were killed, wounded and raped by South Korean soldiers during the Vietnam War. There's no consensus on the number of victims — some say around 5,000; some say more, or less.
But are these complete and meaningful apologies if we are to go by the standards South Koreans apply in demanding full apologies from Japan over the latter's own war crimes against Korea?
Speaking to Korea Exposé, a Blue House spokesperson declined to comment on whether Moon was apologizing, and if he was even alluding specifically to Korean crimes in the Vietnam War.