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Could Refactoring (& Refuctoring) Help Us Test Claims About Benefits of Clean Code
One of the more frustrating things about teaching developers about code craft and "Clean Code" is the lack of credible hard evidence from respectable sources about the claimed benefits of it.
Not only does this make code craft a tougher sell to skeptics - and there was a time when I was one of them, decades ago - but it also calls into question whether the alleged benefits are real.
The biggest barrier to doing research in this area has been twofold:
1. The lack of data points. Most software engineering academic studies take data from a handful of projects. If this were, say, medical research, we'd never get our medicines on to the market.
2. The problem of comparing apples with apples. There are so many factors in software development that it's pretty much impossible to isolate one and rule out all others. Studies into the effects of adopting TDD can't account for the variations in experience and ability, for example. Teams new to TDD tend to have to deal with a steep learning curve before they become productive again.
When I consider some of the theories about what makes code harder to change - the central plank of the code craft thesis - some we have strong evidence to back them up, others... not so much.
I've had a bit of a brainwave in this area that might help researchers. Take a code base, then specifically vary it along a single dimension. e.g., refactor to remove duplication, or "refuctor" to introduce duplication (by inlining functions and modules). The resulting variants should all be functionally equivalent, but you could fine-grain the levels of variation. Then ask developers to make changes to the logic, and measure how much code had to be edited to achieve those changes. Automated acceptance tests would ensure that every change was logically equivalent.
I can easily envisage how refactoring (and it's evil twin, refuctoring) could be used to vary readability, complexity, duplication, coupling and cohesion (e.g., by moving methods between classes to introduce or eliminate feature envy), "swabbability" (e.g., by introducing dependency injection, or by reversing the dependency inversion by using explicit references to concrete implementations of interfaces) and a range of other code qualities. Automated tests could ensure that every variant still works exactly the same way on the outside.
And the tests themselves could be varied. For example, you could manipulate test suite execution time so that in some cases developers had to wait an hour for feedback, while others only need wait seconds for the same feedback.
I think I might be on to something. What do you think?
Code Smells · Complexity · Metrics · Refactoring · Software Craftsmanship · Test-driven Development • 0 Comments/Trackbacks
Software Development Doesn't Scale. Dev Culture Does
For a couple of decades now, the Standish Group have published an annual "CHAOS" reported, detailing the results of surveys taken by IT managers about the outcomes of IT projects.
One clear trend that emerged - and remains as true today as in 1995 - is that the bigger they are, the harder they fall. The risk of an IT project failing outright rises rapidly with project size and cost. When they reach a certain size - and it's much smaller than you may think - failure is almost guaranteed.
The reality of software development is that, once we get above a dozen or so people working for a year or two on the same product or system, the prognosis does not look good at all.
This is chiefly because - and how many times do we need to say this, folks? - software development does not scale.
If that's true, though, how do big software products come into existence?
The answer lies in city planning. A city is made up of hundreds of thousands of buildings, on thousands of streets, with miles of sewers and underground railways and electrical cabling and lawns and trees and shops and traffic lights and etc etc.
How do such massively complex structures happen? Is a city planned and constructed by a single massive team of architects and builders as a single project with a single set of goals?
No, obviously not. Rome was not built in a day. By the same guys. Reporting to one boss. With a single plan.
Cities appear over many, many decades. The suburbs of London were once, not all that long ago, villages outside London. An organic process of development, undertaken by hundreds of thousands of people and organisations all working towards their own unique goals, and co-operating or compromising when goals aligned or conflicted, produced the sprawling metropolis that is now London.
Trillions of pounds has been spent creating the London of today. Most of that investment is nowhere to be seen any more, having been knocked down (or bombed) and built over many times. You could probably create a "London" for a fraction of the cost in a fraction of the time, if it were possible to coordinate such a feat.
And that's my point: it simply isn't possible to coordinate such a feat, not on that scale. An office complex? Sure. A housing estate? Why not? A new rail line with new train stations running across North London? With a few tens of billions and a few decades, it's do-able.
But those big projects exist right the edge of what is manageable. They invariably go way over budget, and are completed late. If they were much bigger, they'd fail altogether.
Cities are a product of many lifetimes, working towards many goals, with no single clear end goal, and with massive inefficiency.
And yet, somehow, London mostly looks like London. Toronto mostly looks like Toronto. European cities mostly look like European cities. Russian cities mostly look like Russian cities. It all just sort of, kind of, works. A weird conceptual cohesion emerges from the near-chaos.
This is the product of culture. Yes, London has hundreds of thousands of buildings, designed by thousands of people. But those people didn't work in bubbles, completely oblivious to each others' work. They could look at other buildings. Read about their design and their designers. Learn a thousand and one lessons about what worked and what didn't without having to repeat the mistakes that earned that knowledge.
And knowledge is weightless. It travels fast and travels cheaply. Hence, St Petersburg looks like the palaces of Versailles, and that area above Leicester Square looks like 19th century Hong Kong.
Tens of thousands of architects and builders, guided by organising principles plucked from the experience of others who came before.
Likewise, with big software products. Many teams, with many goals, building on top of each other, cooperating when it makes sense, compromising when there are conflicts. But, essentially, each team is doing their own thing for their own reasons. Any attempt to standardise, or impose order from above, fails. Every. Single. Time.
Better to focus on scaling up developer culture, which - those of us who participate in the global dev community can attest - scales beautifully. We have no common goal, no shared boss; but, somehow, I find myself working with the same tools, applying the same practices and principles, as thousands of developers around the world, most of whom I've never met.
Instead of having an overriding architecture for your large system, try to spread shared organising principles, like Simple Design and S.O.L.I.D. It's not a coincidence that hundreds of thousands developers use dependency injection to make external dependencies swappable. We visit the same websites, watch the same screencasts, read the same books. On a 10,000-person programme, your architect isn't the one who sits in the Big Chair at head office drawing UMLL diagrams. Your architect is Uncle Bob. Or Michael Feathers. Or Rebecca Whirfs-Brock. Or Barbara Liskov. Or Steve Freeman. Or even me (a shocking thought!)
But it's true. I probably have more influence over the design of some systems than the people getting paid to design it. And all I did was blog, or record a screencast, or speak at a conference. Culture - in this web age - spreads fast, and scales rapidly. You, too, can use these tools to build bridges between teams, share ideas, and exert tacit influence. You just have to let go of having explicit top-down control.
And that's how you scale software development.
Agile Development · Architecture · Complexity · Small Teams · Software Craftsmanship • 0 Comments/Trackbacks
SC2016 Mini-Project: Code Risk Heat Map
Software Craftsmanship 2016 - Mini-Project
Code Risk Heat Map
Estimated Duration: 2-4 hours
Author: Jason Gorman, Codemanship
Language(s)/stacks: Any
Create a tool that produces a "heat map" of your code, highlighting the parts (methods, classes, packages) that present the highest risk of failure.
Risk should be classified along 3 variables:
1. Potential cost of failure
2. Potential risk of failure
3. Potential system impact of failure (based on dependencies)
Use colour coding/gradation to visually highlight the hotspots (e.g., red = highest risk, green = lowest risk)
Also, produce a prioritised list of individual methods/functions in the code with the same information.
PLEASE INSTALL ANY METRICS OR CODE ANALYSIS TOOLS YOU MIGHT WANT TO USSE *BEFORE* THE EVENT
Complexity · Events · Metrics · Reliable Software · Software Craftsmanship • 0 Comments/Trackbacks
The Small Teams Manifesto
So.... grrr.... arrrgh... etc.
Another week, another software project set up to fail right from the start.
What angers me most is that the key factors we know can severely damage our chances of succeeding in delivering software of value are well understood.
The main one is size: big projects usually fail.
We know pretty empirically that the development effort required to deliver software grows exponentially as the software grows. If it takes a team 2 hours to deliver 10 lines of working software, it might take them 4 hours to deliver 20 lines of working software, and 8 hours to deliver 30 lines, and so on.
There's no economy of scale in software development, and we know for a fact that throwing more bodies at the problem just makes things worse. A team of 2 might deliver it in six months. A team of 10 might take a year, because so much of their time will be taken up by being in a team of 10.
The evidence strongly suggests that the probability of project failure grows rapidly as project size increases, and that projects costing more than $1 million are almost certain to run into severe difficulties.
In an evidence-loaded article from 1997 called Less Is More, Steve McConnell neatly sums it all up. For very good reasons, backed up with very good evidence, we should seek to keep projects as small as possible.
Not only does that tend to give us exponentially more software for the same price, but it also tends to give us better, more reliable software, too.
But small teams have other big advantages over large teams; not least is their ability to interact more effectively with the customer and/or end users. Two developers can have a close working relationship with a customer. Four will find it harder to get time with him or her. Ten developers will inevitably end with someone having that working relationship and then becoming a bottleneck within the team, because they're just a proxy customer - seen it so many times.
A close working relationship with our customers is routinely cited as the biggest factor in software development success. The more people competing for the customer's time, the less time everyone gets with the customer. Imagine an XP team picking up user stories at the beginning of an iteration; if there's only one or two pairs of developers, they can luxuriate in time spent with the customer agreeing acceptance tests. If there are a dozen pairs, then the customer has to ration that time quite harshly, and pairs walk away with a less complete understanding of what they're being asked to build (or have to wait a day or two to get that understanding.)
Another really good reason why small teams tend to be better is that small teams are easier to build. Finding one good software developer takes time. Finding a dozen is a full-time job for several months. I know, I've tried and I've watched many others try.
So, if you want more reliable software designed with a close collaboration with the customer at an exponentially cheaper price (and quite possibly in less time, too), you go with small teams. Right?
So why do so many managers still opt for BIG projects staffed by BIG teams?
I suspect the reasons are largely commercial. First of all, you don't see many managers boasting about how small their last project was, and it's the trend that the more people you have reporting to you, the more you get paid. Managers are incentivised to go big, even though it goes against their employer's interests.
Also, a lot of software development is outsourced these days, and there's in obvious incentive for the sales people running those accounts to go as big as possible for as long as possible. Hence massively overstaffed Waterfall projects are still the norm in the outsourcing sector - even when they call it "Agile". (All sorts of euphemisms like "enterprise Agile", "scaling up Agile" etc etc, which we tend to see in this sector more often.)
So there are people who do very well by perpetuating the myth of an economy of scale in software development.
But in the meantime, eye-popping amounts of time and money are being wasted on projects that have the proverbial snowball's chance in hell of delivering real value. I suspect it's so much money - tens of billions of pounds a year in Britain alone, I'd wager - and so much time wasted that it's creating a drag effect on the economy we're supposed to be serving.
Which is why I believe - even though, like many developers, I might have a vested interest in perpetuating The Mythical Man-Month - it's got to stop.
I'm pledging myself to a sort of Small Team Manifesto, that goes something like this:
We, the undersigned, believe that software teams should be small, highly skilled and working closely with customers
Yep. That's it. Just that.
I will use the hashtag #smallteams whenever I mention it on social media, and I will be looking to create a sort of "Small Teams avatar" to use on my online profiles to remind me, and others, that I believe software development teams should be small, highly-skilled and working closely with customers.
You, of course, can join in if you wish. Together, we can beat BIG teams!
Complexity · Professionalism · Reliable Software · Small Teams • 0 Comments/Trackbacks
Taking Baby Steps Helps Us Go Faster
Much has been written about this topic, but it comes up so often in pairing that I feel it's worth repeating.
The trick to going faster in software development is to take smaller steps.
I'll illustrate why with an example from a different domain: recording music. As an amateur guitar player, I attempt to make recorded music. Typically, what I do is throw together a skeleton for a song - the basic structure, the chord progressions, melody and so on - using a single sequenced instrument, like nice synth patch. That might take me an afternoon for a 5 minute piece of music.
Then I start working out guitar parts - if it's going to be that style of arrangement - and begin recording them (muso's usually call this "tracking".)
Take a fiddly guitar solo, for example; a 16-bar solo might last 30 seconds at ~120 beats per minute. Easy, you might think to record it in one take. Well, not so much. I'm trying to get the best take possible, because it's metal and standards are high.
I might record the whole solo as one take, but it will take me several takes to get one I'm happy with. And even then, I might really like the performance on take #3 in the first 4 bars, and really like the last 4 bars of take #6, and be happy with the middle 8 from take #1. I can edit them together, it's a doddle these days, to make one "super take" that's a keeper.
Every take costs time: at least 30 seconds if I let my audio workstation software loop over those 16 bars writing a new take each time.
To get the takes I'm happy with, it cost me 6 x 30 seconds (3 minutes).
Now, imagine I recorded those takes in 4-bar sections. Each take would last 7.5 seconds. To get the first 4 bars so I'm happy with them, I would need 3 x 7.5 seconds (22.5 seconds). To get the last 4 bars, 6 x 7.5 seconds (45 seconds), and to get the middle 8, just 15 seconds.
So, recording it in 4 bar sections would cost me 1m 22.5 seconds.
Of course, there would be a bit of an overhead to doing smaller takes, but what I tend to find is that - overall - I get the performances I want sooner if I bite off smaller chunks.
A performance purist, of course, would insist that I record the whole thing in one take for every guitar part. And that's essentially what playing live is. But playing live comes with its own overhead: rehearsal time. When I'm recording takes of guitar parts, I'm essentially also rehearsing them. The line between rehearsal and performance has been blurred by modern digital recording technology. Having a multitrack studio in my home that I can spend as much time recording in as I want means that I don't need to be rehearsed to within an inch of my life, like we had to be back in the old days when studio time cost real money.
Indeed, the lines between composing, rehearsing, performing and recording have been completely blurred. And this is much the same as in programming today.
Remember when compilers took ages? Some of us will even remember when compilers ran on big central computers, and you might have to wait 15-30 minutes to find out if your code was syntactically correct (let alone if it worked.)
Those bad old days go some way to explaining the need for much up-front effort in "getting it right", and fuelled the artificial divide between "designing" and "coding" and "testing" that sadly persists in dev culture today.
The reality now is that I don't have to go to some computer lab somewhere to book time on a central mainframe, any more than I have to go to a recording studio to book time with their sound engineer. I have unfettered access to the tools, and it costs me very little. So I can experiment. And that's what programming (and recording music) essentially is, when all's said and done: an experiment.
Everything we do is an experiment. And experiments can go wrong, so we may have to run them again. And again. And again. Until we get a result we're happy with.
So biting off small chunks is vital if we're to make an experimental approach - an iterative approach - work. Because bigger chunks mean longer cycles, and longer cycles mean we either have to settle for less - okay, the first four bars aren't that great, but it's the least worst take of the 6 we had time for - or we have to spend more time to get enough iterations (movie directors call it "coverage") to better ensure that we end up with enough of the good stuff.
This is why live performances generally don't sound as polished as studio performances, and why software built in big chunks tends to take longer and/or not be as good.
In guitar, the more complex and challenging the music, the smaller the steps we should take. I could probably record a blues-rock number in much bigger takes, because there's less to get wrong. Likewise in software, the more there is that can go wrong, the better it is to take baby steps.
It's basic probability, really. Guessing a 4-digit number is an order of magnitude easier if we guess one digit at a time.
Agile Development · Complexity · Software Craftsmanship · Test-driven Development • 0 Comments/Trackbacks
My First, Last & Only Blog Post About #NoEstimates
I've been keeping one eye on the whole #NoEstimates debate on Twitter, and folk have asked me my opinion quite a few times. So here it is.
I believe, very firmly, that the problem with estimation stems from us asking the wrong question.
In fact, this is where many big problems in software development arise; by asking the customer "What software would you like us to build?"
This naturally leads to a shopping list of features, and then a request to know "How much will all that cost and how long will it take?"
If we asked instead "What problem are we trying to solve, and how will we know when we've solved it?" - together with accompanying questions like "When do you need this solution?", "What is a solution worth to you?" and "How much money do you have to invest in solving it?" - we can set out on a different journey.
I believe software development needs to be firmly grounded in reality, and the reality is that it's R&D. At the start, the honest answer to questions like "What features are needed?", "How much will it cost?" and "How long will it take?" is I Don't Know.
Pretending to know the unknowable is what lands us in hot water in the first place. We don't know if we can solve the problem with the budget and the time available.
In the management quest for accounting certainties, though, nobody wants to hear that, and no developer with a mortgage to pay wants to admit it. So we go with the fairy tale instead.
Once we're in the fairy tale - where we know if we deliver this list of features, it will solve the customer's problem, and we can predict how long and how much it will take - it's almost impossible to get out of it. Budgets are committed. Deadlines are agreed. Necks are on chopping blocks.
So, what we do instead, is we wait for the reality to unfold, and then when it no longer matches the fairy tale, there's a major shitstorm of blame and recrimination. Typically, the finger is pointed at everyone and everything except that first mistake; the original sin of software projects: pretending to know the future.
After getting their fingers burned once, the customer's and manager's instinct is to "fix" the problem by "improving" estimates next time around. This is fixing the fairy tale by inventing an even more elaborate fairy tale, to try and disguise the fact that's it's fantasy. This is the management equivalent of sacrificing virgins to make it rain.
The only way out of the estimating nightmare is to call "bullshit" on it, and publicly accept - indeed, embrace - the uncertainty that's inherent in what we're doing.
Yes, you might lose the business if you start out saying "I don't know", but consider that the business you're losing is the same old Death March teams have been suffering for decades. That's not work. That's just passing the time for money.
By all means offer a guess, so the customer can budget realistically. But you must be absolutely 100% crystal clear with them that, at the end of the day, we don't know. We just don't know. It's a punt.
Sell yourself on what you do know. What's your track record as a team? What have you delivered in the past? How much did that cost? How long did that take? And - most importantly, but regrettably least asked - did it work?
When a movie studio hires a director, the director makes no guarantees that this new film will be a commercial success, or that it will cost no more than budgeted, or be completed dead on time. The history of cinema is littered with amazingly good, and often very successful, movies that cost more and took longer than planned. But somehow, James Cameron seems to have no trouble getting movies off the ground. That's because of his track record, not his ability to accurately predict production costs and schedules.
Studios gamble with huge sums of money, and - yes - they do ask for estimates, and things do get hairy when schedules slip and costs overrun, but fundamentally they know what game they're in.
It's time we did, too.
Agile Development · Complexity · Reality-driven Development · Requirements • 0 Comments/Trackbacks
Non-Functional Tests Can Help Avoid Over-Engineering (And Under-Engineering)
Building on the topic of how we tackle non-functional requirements like code quality, I'm reminded of those times where my team has evolved an architecture that developers taking over from us didn't understand the reasons or rationale for.
More than once, I've seen software and systems scrapped and new teams start again from scratch because they felt the existing solution was "over-engineered".
Then, months later, someone on the new team reports back to me that, over time, their design has had to necessarily evolve into something similar to what they scrapped.
In these situations it can be tricky: a lot of software really is over-engineered and a simpler solution would be possible (and desirable in the long term).
But how do we tell? How can we know that the design is the simplest thing that a team could have done?
For that, I think, we need to look at how we'd know that software was functionally over-complicated and see if we can project any lessons we leearn on to non-functional complexity.
A good indicator of whether code is really needed is to remove it and see if any acceptannce tests fail. You'd be surprised how many features and branches in code find their way in there without the customer asking for them. This is especially true when teams don't practice test-driven development. Developers make stuff up.
Surely the same goes for the non-functional stuff? If I could simplify the design, and my non-functional tests still pass, then it's probable that the current design is over-engineered. But in order to do that, we'd need a set of explicit non-functional tests. And most teams don't have those. Which is why designs can so easily get over-engineered.
Architecture · Complexity · Continuous Inspection · Metrics · Requirements • 0 Comments/Trackbacks
Continuous Inspection at NorDevCon
On Friday, I spent a very enjoyable day at the Norfolk developer's conference NorDevCon (do you see what they did there?) It was my second time at the conference, having given the opening keynote last year, and it's great to see it going from strength to strength (attendance up 50% on 2014), and to see Norwich and Norfolk being recognised as an emerging tech hub that's worthy of inward investment.
I was there to run a workshop on Continuous Inspection, and it was a good lark. You can check out the slides, which probably won't make a lot of sense without me there to explain them - but come along to CraftConf in Budapest this April or SwanseaCon 2015 in September and I'll answer your questions.
You can also take a squint at (or have a play with) some code I knocked up in C# to illustrate a custom FxCop code rule (Feature Envy) to see how I implemented the example from the slides in a test-driven way.
I'm new to automating FxCop (and an infrequent visitor to .NET Land), so please forgive any naivity. Hopefully you get the idea. The key things to take away are: you need a model of the code (thanks Microsoft.Cci.dll), you need a language to express rules against that model (thanks C#), and you need a way to drive the implementation of rules by writing executable tests that fail (thanks NUnit). The fun part is turning the rule implementation on its own code - eating your own dog food, so to speak. Throws up all sorts of test cases you didn't think of. It's a work in progress!
I now plan, before CraftConf, to flesh the project out a bit with 2-3 more example custom rules.
Having enjoyed a catch-up with someone who just happens to be managing the group at Microsoft who are working on code analysis tools, I think 2015-2016 is going to see some considerable ramp-up in interest as the tools improve and integration across the dev lifecycle gets tighter. If Continuous Inspection isn't on your radar today, you may want to put it on your radar for tomorrow. It's going to be a thing.
Right now, though, Continuous Inspection is very much a niche pastime. An unscientific straw poll on social media, plus a trawl of a couple of UK job sites, suggests that less than 1% of teams might even be doing automated code analysis at all.
I predicted a few years ago that, as computers get faster and code gets more complex, frequent testing of code quality using automated tools is likely to become more desirable and more do-able. I think we're just on the cusp of that new era today. Today, code quality is an ad hoc concern relying on hit-and-miss practices like pair programming, where many code quality issues often get overlooked by pair who have 101 other things to think about, and code reviews, where issues - if they get spotted at all in the to-and-fro - are flagged up long after anybody is likely to do anything about them.
In related news, after much discussion and braincell-wrangling, I've chosen the name for the conference that will be superceding Software Craftsmanship 20xx later this year (because craftsmanship is kind of done now as a meme). Watch this space.
Code Smells · Complexity · Continuous Inspection · Events · Legacy Code · Metrics · Refactoring · Test-driven Development • 0 Comments/Trackbacks
Intensive TDD, Continuous Inspection Recipes & Crappy Remote Collaboration Tools
A mixed bag for today's post, while I'm at my desk.
First up, after the Intensive TDD workshop on March 14th sold out (with a growing waiting list), I've scheduled a second workshop on Saturday April 11th, with places available at the insanely low price of £30. Get 'em while they're hot!
Secondly, I'm busy working on a practical example for a talk I'm giving at NorDevCon on Feb 27th about Continuous Inspection.
What I'm hoping to do is work through a simple example based on my Dependable Dependencies Principle, where I'll rig up an automated code analysis wotsit to find the most complex, most depended upon and least tested parts of some code to give early warning about where it might be most likely to be broken and might need better testing and simplifying.
To run this metric, you need 3 pieces of information:
* Cyclomatic Complexity of methods
* Afferent couplings per method
* Test coverage per method
Now, test coverage could mean different things. But for a short demonstration, I should probably keeep it simple and fairly brute force - e.g., % LOC reached by the tests. Not ideal, but in a short session, I don't want to get dragged into a discussion about coverage metrics. It's also a readily-available measure of coverage, using off-the-shelf tools, so it will save me time in preparing and allow viewers to try it for themselves without too much fuss and bother.
What's more important is to demonstrate the process going from identifying a non-functional requirement (e.g., "As the Architect, I want early warning about code that presents a highr risk of being unreliable so that I can work with the developers to get better assurance for it"), to implementing an executable quality gate using available tools in a test-driven manner (everybody forgets to agree tests for their metrics!), to managing the development process when the gate is in place. All the stuff that constitutes effective Continuous Inspection.
At time of writing, tool choice is split between a commercial code analysis tool called JArchitect, and SonarQube. It's a doddle to rig up in JArchitect, but the tool costs £££. It's harder to rig up in SonarQube, but the tools are available for free. (Except, of course, nothing's ever really free. Extra time taken to get what you want out of a tool also adds up to £££.) We'll see how it goes.
Finally, after a fairly frustrating remote pairing session on Wednesday where we were ultimately defeated by a combination of Wi-Fi, Skype, TeamViewer and generally bad mojo, it's occured to me that we really should be looking into remote collaboration more seriously. If you know of more reliable tools for collaboration, please tweet me at @jasongorman.
Architecture · Codemanship · Code Smells · Complexity · Continuous Inspection · Education · Events · Refactoring · Reliable Software · Software Craftsmanship · Test-driven Development • 0 Comments/Trackbacks
Why Distribution & Concurrency Can Be A Lethal Cocktail For The Unwitting Dev Team
Picture the scene: it's Dec 31st 1990, a small town in upper state New York. I'm at a New Year's Eve party, young, stupid and eager to impress. The host mixes me my first ever Long Island Iced Tea. It tastes nice. I drink three large ones, sitting at their kitchen table, waxing eloquent about life, the universe and everything in my adorable English accent, and feeling absolutely fine. Better than fine.
And then, after about an hour, I get up to go to the bathroom. I'm not fine. Not fine at all. I appear to have lost the use of my legs, and developed an inner-ear problem that's affecting my normally balletically graceful poise and balance.
I proceed to be not-fine-at-all into the bathroom sink and several other receptacles, arguably none of which were designed for the purpose I'm now putting them to.
Long Island Iced Tea is a pretty lethal cocktail. Mixed properly, it tastes like a mildy alcoholic punch with a taste not dissimilar to real iced tea (hence the name), but one look at the ingredients puts pay to that misunderstanding: rum, gin, vodka, tequila, triple sec - ingredients that have no business being in the same glass together. It is a very alcoholic drink. Variants on the name, like "Three Mile Island" and "Adios Motherf***er", provide further clues that this is not something you serve at a child's birthday party.
I end the evening comatose on a water bed in a very hot room. This completes the effect, and Jan 1st 1991 is a day I have no memory of.
Vowing never to be suckered into a false sense of security by something that tastes nice and makes me feel better-than-fine for a small while, I should have known better than to get drawn like a lamb to the slaughter into the distributed components craze that swept software development in the late 1990's.
It went something like this:
Back in the late 1990's, aside from the let's-make-everything-a-web-site gold rush that was reaching a peak, there was also the let's-carve-up-applications-that-we-can't-even-get-working-properly-when-everything's-in-one-memory-address-space-and-there's-no-concurrency-and-distribute-the-bits-willy-nilly-adding-network-deficiencies-distributed-transactions-and-message-queues fad.
This was enabled by friendly technology that allowed us to componentise our software without the need to understand how all the undrelying plumbing worked. Nice in theory. You carve it, apply the right interfaces, deploy to your application server and everything's taken care of.
Except that it wasn't. It's very easy to get and up and running with these technologies, but we found ourselves continually having to dig down into the underlying detail to figure out why stuff wasn't working the way it was supposed to. "It just works" was a myth easily dispelled by looking at how many books on how this invisible glue worked were lying open on people's desktops.
To me, with the benefit of hindsight, object request brokers, remote procedure calls, message queues, application servers, distributed transactions, web services... these are the hard liquor of software development. The exponential increase in complexity - the software equivalent of alcohol units - can easily put unwitting development teams under the table.
I've watched so many teams merrily downing pints of lethal-but-nice-tasting cocktails of distribution and concurrency, feeling absolutely fine - better than fine - and then when it's time for the software to get up and walk any kind of distance... oh dear.
It turns out, this stuff is hard to get right, and the tools don't help much in that respect. They make it easy to mix these cocktails and easy to drink as much as you think you want, but they don't hold your hand when you need to go to the bathroom.
These tools are not your friends. They are the host mixing super-strength Long Island Iced Teas and ruining your New Year with a hangover that will never go away.
Know what's in your drink, and drink in moderation.
Architecture · Complexity · Multithreading · Reliable Software · Software Craftsmanship • 0 Comments/Trackbacks


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Q: Запрос из двух серверов Как выбрать данные из двух таблиц разного сервера используя inner join?

A: Вообще чтобы я вам рекомендовал:
Конечно, linked server, с некоторыми оговорками:

*

*вы можете обращаться к данным связанного сервера через [server-name].dbname.schema.table и джоинить их.

*или сделать на стороне связанного сервера хранимую процедуру которая будет возвращать вам данные, которые вы уже в последсвтвии будете джоинить, через временную таблицу или табличную переменнуб, но выполняться такая процедура будет на на стороне связанного сервера.

И что еще важно, существует возможность создать связанный сервер с другими СУБД, такими как: Oracle, PostgreSQL и даже Excel или Access.
Подробнее:

*

*EXEC AT

*Создание связанных серверов

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


I like editing pictures and reading today on the Freebiesui website about an iPhone app (Glitché) that offers an editing rarely or never found in apps like Kirakira app, Dalgona app, Afterlight 2 and the like.
What makes this app so much better than regular photo filters ala instagram is the ability to create real artwork. Some effects appear immediately and others require you to overcome your image. For some effects, you can first drag a finger to create the right angle and then press "Share" with your other hand. Double tap causes all your changes to disappear.
The "Scene" effect creates, for example, A depth in the image, which you can adjust using multiple fins. You can zoom and rotate the object created, choose light or dark background. The same goes for the "Grid" effect and for several of the other effects, drag the image to create more than just a photo filter. With these effects, you can also see how a picture looks "backward" (mirroring that gives a fake 3D experience).
Download the app today and be able to edit your photos to artworks. All your friends and acquaintances will be surprised. With just a few clicks on the screen, you can apply multiple filters and effects. If you're tired of seeing the same photos and you are creative persona and wanting to express yourself in an original and innovative way through your videos and social networking pictures, this app is right for you. Developers who develop this and other similar applications for iOS and Android guarantee that you will be able to transform your media files in seconds.


text:
DRBA may refer to:

 Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, an international Buddhist organization based in the United States
 Delaware River and Bay Authority, a bi-state government agency operating bridges and airports in Delaware and New Jersey
 Dopamine antagonist (or Dopamine Receptor Blocking Agent), a type of drug which blocks dopamine receptors by receptor antagonism

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


For more than 100 years Vallourec has been supplying China with large quantities of increasingly sophisticated tubes and pipes primarily serving the power generation and oil & gas markets as well as process, mechanical and structural applications.
On the power generation market, Vallourec is a recognized and experienced expert of solutions for nuclear and conventional (supercritical and ultra supercritical) power plants. As an example, we delivered our first premium tubular solutions for supercritical plant project of Qin Bei in 1995.
In oil & gas, Vallourec offers a wide range of premium tubular solutions as drill pipes, OCTG, risers, line-pipes and offshore structures, delivering products to the most demanding and critical fields in China such as Tarim basin (deep wells with critical geological conditions), Sichuan basin (extreme drilling conditions wells with high content of H2S and geological difficulties) as well as Bohai and Nanhai Seas (performance products for drilling deep water wells and complex extended reach wells).
Vallourec is heavily committed to research and development, particularly in the energy market. Thanks to our 6 R & D centers worldwide, our effort is focused in three main areas: manufacturing processes, new and improved products and new services.
Over the last two decades, the Vallourec Group opened numerous plants in China.
as star and advanced enterprise by the city of Changzhou.
dedicated to the power generation market (boiler and piping system) and other industrial applications.
Premium tubes and connections to the Oil and Gas fields located in China.
growing Chinese nuclear power program.
Sales Offices of Vallourec Tubes are located in Beijing.
Service technicians will be sent to the site to better answer the customer's needs.


The following lecture slides in PDF format are available for purchase: Scroll down for a full description. The Arabian Parts, The Elements & their Rulers, Palmistry, Planetary Hours, Timing Events using Horary Astrology, Astro-Palmistry.
Timing Events – Will & when will it happen?
Will I be rich? Indicators of Wealth in the Horoscope.


This entry was posted on Monday, January 30th, 2012 at 1:49 am	and is filed under railfanning, service alert. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


A.T.E., an engineering group offering solutions in manufacturing, industrial sales, distribution, and services, has launched an automation division under its TEG (Textile Engineering Group) business unit. The division has been launched as a direct response to customer's requests that A.T.E. help them improve the performance of their installed machines.
A.T.E., endowed with deep domain knowledge in textile engineering and textile processes, has built-up a team of experts to undertake automation and upgrade projects. Machines are upgraded using modern retrofits and the latest software, resulting in significant improvement in the performance of these machines, both in terms of productivity and quality, the company said in a media statement.
A.T.E. can undertake machine upgrade/automation of textile machines like weaving preparatory like sizing and warping machines; processing like Stenter/merceriser/dyeing ranges/pad dry/pad steam; denim processing lines, and POY/FDY winders, extruders, PSF lines, bale press, chip conveying, and drying for synthetics.
Apart from custom machine upgrade/automation, the automation division has also in its portfolio some productised solutions, such as a fancy yarn system, Fancy Spin, to add value to yarn, which would help mills realise higher value for their yarn. Another such productised system is the pre-reduced indigo dosing systems for denim manufacturing (bulk as well as portable). These dosing systems help in maintaining consistent quality without any shade variation along millions of meters of denim produced and also help in reducing the load on the wastewater treatment plant.


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Altomatic
The Rise of our Masters – Post 2 – Rothschild Family – Master of Europe
Posted May 4, 2011 by Altomatic
"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws" – Mayer Amschel Rothschild
For the people that are working in the finance/banking industry but does not know the "Rothschild Family", it is comparable to a military officer that has not heard of Napoleon or a physicist that has not heard of Einstein. The Rothschild Family has had such an enormous impact on today's world and yet it has managed to stay largely invisible to the general public.
Strict family control, total black box operation, precise like clockwork, always know better than the market, completely rational thinking, endless hunger for money, and amazing ability to predict, these traits has made the Rothschild family invincible in the past 200 years through all the turmoils of war, politics and finances, they built the largest financial empire known to the world, their total asset is estimated to be 30 trillion dollars today, in another words, they are worth about 100 Microsoft in terms of market cap, 15 China or 2 United States in terms of total annual GDP.
1. Waterloo for Napoleon, Triumph for the Rothschild
Nathan Rothschild was the 3rd son of Mayer Rothschild and possibly the bravest of the family. In 1798, Nathan was sent by his father from Frankfurt to England to begin building the Rothschild banking empire in England. Using his amazing financial talent and unpredictable methods. By 1815, he has became the largest banking power in London. During this time, Mayer Rothschild's 1st son Amschel Rothschild has stayed in Frankfurt to manage the Rothschild empire headquarters (M.A. Rothschild ans Sons), 2nd son Salomon Rothschild was sent to Vienna, Austria to start another family banking empire (S.M. Rothschild and Sons), 4th son Calmann Rothschild was sent to Naples, Italy to start another bank, 5th son James was sent to Paris, France to start a bank in Paris (Messsieus de RothschildFeres). Rothschild Family built the first international banking system in the world. But in 1815, all 5 brothers focused on the Napoleon war in Europe.
This is a war that will decide the fate and future of the European Continent. If Napoleon achieve final victory, France will become the sole master of the continent. If Wellington defeats the French army, then England will become a major influence on the European countries. Long before the war, the Rothschild family has built a huge, fast and efficient intelligence network. They built a large network of agents, these "spies" were called "children". They were stationed in all major European cities, trade centers and political centers. All sorts of intelligences were passed between Paris, Naples, London, Vienna and Frankfurt. The efficiency, speed and precision of the system is outstanding, far surpassing any official intelligence network in terms of speed. Their competitors were left in the dust in this regard. All these factors has made the Rothschild banks highly competitive in almost all international markets.
"Rothschild's spies are all over the city streets, they have money, mail and information. But no information are as valuable as the result of the waterloo battle."
on June 18th, 1815, in the suburbs of Brussels, the armies of Napoleon and Wellington met in the battlefield, but this is also a battle between thousands of investors, the winner shall obtain enormous wealth and the loser will lose it all. The stock exchange in London is filled with tense air, everyone was eagerly waiting for the result of Waterloo. If England loses, English Bonds will become worthless. If England wins, the English Bond will rise through the roof.
As the two armies met in battle, the spies of Rothschild are busy recording all information and intelligence. When the battle was overwhelmingly not in Napoleon's favor, a spy named "Rothworth" recorded this information, got on a horse and rode to Brussels, then to Ostende port. The English channel was very turbulent on that day, after paying 2000 francs he found a sailor that is willing to take him across the channel. He arrived at the shores of Folkstone, England in the morning of June 19th. Nathan Rothschild was already waiting at the shore. Nathan quickly opened the envelope, saw the result of the battle and rode to the London stock exchange.
As Nathan stepped into the exchange, the crowd became quiet immediately. Every person was staring at Nathan. Nathan slowed down and sat on his seat, emotionless. The trading floor is unusually quiet, every one was trying to get some information from Nathan's eyes. After a short while, Nathan gave a deep look to a Rothschild trader, all Rothschild traders ran to the exchange desk and started to sell English Bonds. The trading floor became uneasy, some people started to whisper, most just stood still. At this time, half million dollar worth of English Bonds were dumped onto the market, the bond price started to decline and then huge sell orders were thrown in the market one after the other, Bond price start to fall rapidly.
Nathan was still sitting in his seat, emotionless. Someone in the trading floor screamed "Rothschild knows!", "Rothschild knows!", "Wellington lost!". The trading floor went wild, confusion became fear. When people lose the ability to think rationally, following the action of others become an instinct. Everyone was dumping their English Bonds since it has became worthless. After several hours of dumping, the English Bonds has been trashed, only retaining less than 5% of its original value.
At this time, Nathan secretly gave another look to his traders, but this time it is with a different means. His traders started to buy any English Bonds they could find. At 11pm June 21st, the messenger from Wellington finally arrived at London, gave the news that Napoleon was defeated after 8 hours of battle, he lost over 1/3 of his men, France is doomed.
Nathan's intelligence was early by an entire day. During this day, Nathan Rothschild's wealth has increased 20 fold, more than Napoleon and Wellington's spoils of war added together during the entire war.
The battle of Waterloo made Nathan the single largest debtor to the English government, and therefore has influenced English Bonds ever since. The bank of England was basically under Nathan's control. English bonds is a debt guaranteed by future tax revenue of the English government, the taxes paid by the English citizens are basically levied by the Rothschild bank. All of English government's spending relies on issuing bonds, in another words English government lost the power to issue new money, they must first borrow it from a private bank, paying 8% interest. When Nathan control the vast majority of English bond, he in fact determine the price of the bond, determine the supply of English currency, England's finances were tightly controlled by the Rothschild Family ever since.
Nathan Rothschild has conquered England: "I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England to rule the Empire. The man who controls Britain's money supply controls the British Empire and I control the British money supply."
2. The Rise of the House of Rothschild
"The few who could understand the system (cheque, money, credits) will either be so interested in its profits, or so dependent on its favours(politicians), that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests." – The boastful statement by Rothschild Bros. of London.
Mayer Rothschild was born at a time when industrial revolution was rapidly spreading and financial industries was booming unprecedentedly. New financial experiments and ideas was spreading from Holland and England to all of Europe. With the creation of "Bank of England" in 1694, a complex concept of money has been created by adventurous bankers.
February 23rd, 1744, Mayer Rothschild was born in the Jewish Ghetto of Frankfurt. His father Moses was a traveling goldsmith and loan shark, mostly doing business in eastern Europe. Before Mayer was born, Moses decided to settle down in Frankfurt. Mayer has showing incredible intelligence at a young age, so his father spent significant amount of resources and time in Mayer's education, systematically teaching him money, loans and business. After a few years, Moses died, the then 13 year old Mayer Rothschild became a apprentice in a bank with the support of his relatives.
Mayer Rothschild using his amazing intelligence and diligence, quickly mastered all aspects of the banking industry, in 7 years Mayer was promoted to a junior partner of the Bank. He met many valuable clients and it is at here he realized loaning money to princes and kings is much more profitable than loaning to common people, this is because no only the loan amount is huge, it is guaranteed by future tax of the country. Mayer became a friend of Prince William of Germany. On September 21st, 1769, Prince William appointed Mayer as his official agent, Mayer put the royal coat of arms on his business sign and wrote "M.A.Rothschild, agent of Prince William". After that, Mayer's reputation gained significantly and brought him much more business. Mayer was very dedicated in serving Prince William and gained his trust.
In 1803, Napoleon declared to purge Prince William's family from Germany and invaded Germany with his army. William was expelled to Denmark, before he left he gave Mayer 3 million dollar worth of cash for safekeeping. This 3 million became the basis of Mayer Rothschild's financial empire and brought him unprecedented wealth and power. After Mayer received the 3 million from William, he sent is 5 sons to the 5 major cities of Europe. 1st son Amschel stayed in Frankfurt, 2nd son Salomon to Vienna, 3rd son Nathan to England, 4th son Calmann to Naples and 5th son James to Paris. The 5 brothers all succeeded in establishing a formidable presence in their respective country, some have gained control of the country's finances.
3. The Rothschild Financial Empire
"As long as your brothers band together, no bank in the world can compete with you, hurt you or profit from you. Together you have the power larger than any bank in the world"
When Mayer Rothschild died in 1812, he made a very strict will:
1. All top management positions will be strictly given to family members, no outsiders allowed. Only male members of the family can participate in the family business.
2. Marriage can only occur within the family, to prevent the dilution or loss of wealth. (This rule was enforced strictly at first, later was amended to include other Jewish banking families)
3. Never reveal the details of the family's enormous assets.
4. Never allow attorneys to interfere with inheritance.
5. The 1st son of each sub-family will become the head of the household.
6. Anyone who disobey this will, lose all inheritance rights.
By mid 19th century, England, France, Germany, Austria, Italy and most other European country's currency supply was controlled by the Rothschild family, "the power of kings were replaced by the power of money". At this point, the prosperous American continent has became the Rothschild's next target.
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I've invested in the tools, skills, and people to create almost anything artistic or technological. Especially things the don't exist yet.
So, with all of these potent possibilites available, my studio also builds other people's ideas.
If you're interested in creating amazing things the don't exist yet, please do say hi on my contact page.
Ayo Okunseinde and I created many of the technologies used in two of Pierre Huyghe's recent, major works. These included sensors to track ants, mice, peacocks, and flies; actuation of hacked HVAC systems, a freight elevator, a fishtank, and robotic pyramids; and computer vision software to track the proliferation of living cancer cells.
Ayo Okunseinde and I also collaborated to create the technologies behind the wonderful literary technology behind Call Me Ishmael. Ordinary book lovers call in to leave thoughtful messages about their favorite books. The best messages are amazing and rival anything on NPR (IMHO). And you can listen to this great stuff on any of the specially-created Cal Me Ishmael phones.
These phones can be found at bookstores, libraries, or anywhere book lovers are likely to be found. The technology enables each phone's owner to curate its content from an ever-growing library, track stats, and even ring it to play something for a passing stranger.
My studio and I designed a complex electromechanical jukebox that plays 45s and also performs the Stella Artois pouring ritual. One song, one beer.
The finished design included dozens of stylistic sketches, general plans for mechanisms, and a detailed choreography that intermingled the dances of the automatic record player and the complex and formal pouring ritual.
The sketches here tell only part of the story. Please do enjoy the full choreography below.
On ony three week's notice, my studio created the motion control system for a holiday window for Barneys featuring sculptures by brilliant artist and choreographer Nick Cave.
This was a test of the scope, skills, and availability of my network of talented friends.
The system of nine actuators had to be precise, powerful, and beautiful. We used my usual design philosophy and hid all of the technology in plain sight by making it harmonious with the artistic components.
The movements were cancelled at the last minute because of creative differences outside of the scope of our work. Still, it was wonderful to meet and work with Nick Cave.


Gadi Bleicher gives Israelis "between a six and a seven" for their English skills.
Gadi Bleicher is stepping down from a position that, over the past 10 years, has provided him a bird's-eye view of how Israelis relate to the English language, and to how "Anglos" teach it here. After being Berlitz Israel's district director from 1997 to 2002, and then its CEO for the past five years, he gives Israelis a grade of six out of 10 for their English proficiency. His competitors in English language instruction, including the formal education system, fare much worse in his estimation: somewhere between 1 and 2. Bleicher shoots in all directions, blaming the formal education system for only teaching children how to read and write in English, but not to speak, saying this hampers Israelis as they seek their fortunes overseas. He slams his main competitors ("Wall Street Institute's gimmicks don't impress"); and Hebrew ulpanim ("It's very difficult to learn how to speak Hebrew in an ulpan these days"). Bleicher rejects accusations that Berlitz's pay scale and working conditions are not good enough to attract high-quality new immigrants ("Show me one other organization that absorbs as many olim as we do"). When Bleicher, 40, joined Berlitz in 1997, the company had three schools in Israel. Ten years later there are nine, teaching mostly English, but also Chinese, Japanese, Italian, German, Arabic and many other languages, including Hebrew. Berlitz is also the exclusive supplier of language-teaching services to various state and corporate bodies, including the Foreign Ministry and several of the security services. He also developed live instruction through the Internet at Berlitz Israel, something that has been adopted by Berlitz worldwide. Bleicher spoke with The Jerusalem Post recently at the end of this impressive tenure, summing up his time at Berlitz and giving his opinions about how the English language instruction industry is faring in Israel. You've been a manager at Berlitz for the past 10 years, the first five as a district director and the last five as its CEO. What is your impression of the Israeli who walks into your school for the first time to learn a language, specifically English? "Israelis are characterized by assertiveness and self-confidence. I think that in general Israelis feel comfortable using the amount of English they have acquired. Other people from other cultures may feel less comfortable using their English abroad or among other English speakers, and they would feel less confident about speaking and making mistakes. Israelis don't mind so much if they talk with mistakes. I believe that you can see this confidence when you look at how many Israeli start-ups there are and how global they go. "Israelis are in general daring and motivated to learn. This is also evidenced by the fact that Berlitz Israel has more lessons per capita, by far, than any other country in the world that has Berlitz schools. We're in countries with vastly larger populations than Israel, but per capita, we teach more here than anywhere else in the world. This shows you that Israelis are motivated to learn languages, for a variety of reasons, including the ability to do business on the global stage. "Because Israel is so small - it is not Germany with over 70 million people - Israelis are always trying to export their skills, companies and services. And this requires knowledge of languages. In the 1970s Israel exported a lot of agricultural innovations and products. After that there were all sorts of industries being exported. And now the big export is hi-tech." What have you learned and seen from the other Berlitz schools you have visited all over the world? Is there anything unique in the Israeli experience? "The experience varies from country to country. One thing that stands out in Israel is that the Berlitz centers here innovate all sorts of pedagogic techniques and ideas on average more than in other places. I've already mentioned the high ratio of lessons per capita. I would say that things here are more intensive than in most other countries." What grade would you give Israelis as a whole on their level of English? After some reflection, Bleicher responds, "A six. Between a six and seven. Many people here speak English, in many cases it's bad English, but they speak. I very much respect that Israelis take what little English they know and stretch it as far as they can when they travel and when they do business." How do you rate the level of English taught at state schools? "Israeli children are not taught to speak at school. They are taught grammar and comprehension, but they cannot speak in English, even after they matriculate. That's a mistake. They are just not taught to speak in English. When you put 40 kids in a class, it's really hard to teach them how to talk. It's easier to teach them reading, writing and comprehension. Besides that, Hebrew and English are vastly different. Even with all the exposure to English through channels like MTV and films, you can't expect Israeli children to be able to absorb all that language and be naturally able to speak it." What do Israelis tell you about their feelings toward the English language? "Most Israelis that I come across who enter our language school say they want to learn, that it's important to them, that they need it. I'm generalizing here, but the majority of them come to learn English as a goal that they have set themselves." What feedback are you getting from people who study at your school? "We've carried out three major surveys in the past decade, and we've found that 44 percent of the people who have studied at Berlitz got there through word of mouth. Many of our students study several levels of a language, and this takes time. In many cases people come to learn from anywhere between six months to one year, two or three times per week for several hours a day. The feedback I get is that people tell me the lessons have helped them immeasurably in their lives, that it has opened doors for them, that they enjoy their trips abroad more, those kinds of things. Sixty-five percent of those coming to Berlitz come to learn English." Some people complain of poor working conditions and low salaries at Berlitz schools. Others say Berlitz misses a huge opportunity to hire new immigrants as teachers, especially those from Anglo countries, because the pay is low compared to salaries back home. "In 1992, Berlitz Israel opened up as a subsidiary of Berlitz worldwide. We have anywhere between 400 to 500 teachers, some who work part-time and some who work on a full-time basis. A very large percentage of these teachers are now, or were at some stage, new immigrants. About a quarter of them have been with us for over 10 years. I have quite a few teachers who have been with Berlitz for 14 years. Most of the top Berlitz managers have been with us for over five years. We've had good times and we've had bad times, but many people have chosen to stay with us. "Secondly, what you earn as a teacher depends on what you teach, how often you teach, and how well you perform as a teacher. I have more work for an English teacher than I have for a Korean teacher, because there is more demand for English. It's quite possible that a teacher of Korean won't have many classes and I can't pay him much." Yes, but many Anglo immigrants come to Israel and say they won't take a job with Berlitz because the wages are too low. "I don't think I have a problem with finding work for Anglo immigrants. I would even venture that Berlitz is one of the leading immigrant-absorption organizations in Israel with regards to employment. All of our teachers are people who arrived from overseas, with either a first or second degree, and they teach their mother tongues. I can't think of even one other organization in this country that absorbs dozens of immigrants every year for employment. "It's also one of the few places that teachers can, if they load their schedule appropriately, earn the same salary as salespeople. If a teacher says he or she is available five days a week, they will earn more than someone who works less, obviously. If a teacher is only available for two afternoons per week, we can find him or her a job, but they won't earn much." Bleicher declines to say just how much Berlitz teachers earn, reiterating only that the salary depends on how much they teach, how long they've been teaching and on their performance. Teachers undergo one week of training, after which Berlitz has them sign a contract promising that if they leave before nine months have passed, they must pay a penalty of more than NIS 1,000. Starting pay ranges from NIS 29 to NIS 32 per 45-minute lesson unit, depending on the location of the school. After a few months, teachers can earn a few shekels more per unit. If you "do charter," that is work outside of the center, at community centers, for example, it's slightly more. English teachers at the competing Wall Street Institute are paid between NIS 25 and NIS 29 per one-hour lesson unit to start, with opportunities for bonuses. A nine-month commitment is also mandatory, as well as a two-week training seminar at NIS 20 an hour. Working five hours per day, five days a week, a starting teacher at a Wall Street Institute school earns roughly NIS 3,000 per month. Several former and current Berlitz Israel employees contacted by the Post this week had a range of comments about their place of employment. Some praised the flexible nature of the job, while others complained that even if one were to work full-time, the salary would not be enough to support a single-income household. Several new immigrants said they were depressed at the low salaries offered at the language schools. Many former Berlitz and Wall Street English instructors now teach privately. Teachers' wages in the state education system are the lowest in the industrialized world, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, with starting educators earning NIS 2,400 [$600] per month. "I'm not comparing salaries in the education system to salaries in hi-tech," Bleicher says. "You should compare salaries within the education sector. People at Berlitz earn salaries that are at least double, and in some cases triple, what someone in the government education system earns. In comparison to my competitors and the formal education system, people at Berlitz earn respectable salaries. "We also offer people interesting career paths. All Berlitz positions are first made available to those already inside the system. Employees who have started with us as teachers went on to become regional sales agents, pedagogical managers, language school managers and so on. They moved on to management positions without ever having any management education or experience, and I think Berlitz is unique in that it provides its employees opportunities like those. We also have positions for cultural consultants that advise businesspeople on the intricacies of foreign cultures and codes before they embark on business overseas." Why do you think more new immigrants don't want to work at Berlitz? "Unfortunately, Berlitz Israel can only offer a limited number of positions; I wish I could offer more. I wish there were more places like Berlitz that could absorb more immigrants. Most of the people who work at Berlitz now, and in the past, were at some stage new immigrants. You can only teach your native language at Berlitz." Why do you teach Hebrew? Aren't ulpanim much more popular and effective? "It's becoming increasingly difficult to learn how to speak Hebrew in ulpanim these days. Many people go to ulpan and don't learn. For new immigrants, the government pays for ulpan, and naturally private language schools are better. "In an ulpan, you sit with a lot of people in the class, and among the set of four skills [reading, writing, comprehension and speaking], what you're not going to learn is how to speak. And what you want to do as a new immigrant is learn how to speak. It's not critical if you're a new immigrant to be able to read and write at a high level, you'll find that immigrants continue to read in their own languages. But to talk is critical: You want to talk to people, to communicate and connect, and this is the first thing you're taught to do at Berlitz." What's the average level of English displayed by a teenager who comes to learn at Berlitz? "It depends. Some parents who have just returned from overseas postings [private or state] bring their children to us so that they can maintain and build on their level. These kids usually have strong English. "Other parents want to give their kids a head start in English, something beyond what they get in the formal education system with 40 kids in a class. They want their kids to learn how to speak the language with confidence. In our kids' programs, 95% of the lessons are English. For the adults, it's somewhere around 70%. But I think our formal education system is undergoing some necessary changes." What is your opinion on your competitor, the Wall Street Institute, and its practice of speaking only English from the minute a student walks into their school? "We don't have any real competition that gives all the services that Berlitz gives. There is competition in specific markets like children and business clients, but nobody that provides all around services. Wall Street competes with us only on the consumer sector and only in English." The Wall Street Institute is a large concern, with 420 learning centers in 23 countries, teaching about 200,000 people. [Berlitz has 450 centers in 60 countries]. Wall Street has nine language centers in Israel and claims to be the largest school for the instruction of the English language in the country. Repeated requests to speak with a Wall Street Institute representative were unsuccessful. What's the state of the English language teaching industry in Israel today? "The English language instruction industry in Israel is well developed, but very fragmented. There are many private English teachers, many of them. There are students who teach English. There are many small, localized teaching companies. There are companies that teach only children, or only corporate clients." That sounds like a healthy industry, wouldn't you say? "Like everything, there are advantages and disadvantages. One of the disadvantages is that with this much fragmentation and people doing their own thing, it is very hard to set even a minimal standard of instruction, let alone a unified standard. As a result of this, you have a lot of people who are learning the language with unqualified teachers. One of the basic things that you need to look for when you decide on a place to study is to make certain that it has well-developed teaching materials, a solid teaching system, a recognized teacher-training program, and that the place has experience and a good reputation. Berlitz is the only company in the field of language instruction in Israel that has the ISO [International Organization for Standardization] certificate, which is only granted after your institution has undergone intensive examination by your local government standards authority. "Now if you study at a language school that is not particularly good, and you come out of there without successfully learning the language, you're most likely to blame yourself. This is not good, and it's a pity, because you may have the potential to learn languages but you've just chosen the wrong place to go study. In this regard, because there are so many players in the field at so many different levels, I see the industry fragmentation as negative."


In March, their second album "Pataphysical Freak Out MU!!" was released by PSF. Includes guest appearances by HACO (ex. After Dinner, HOAHIO), Tsuyama Atsushi.
From April to June, the group toured America and Europe. During this tour, Tsuyama Atsushi joined the group on bass. This completed the current live line-up for the group. On this tour, they headlined the Deep Heaven Festival in Boston, but due to a large amount of law enforcement, the festival was forcibly closed down. The group headlined at the first day of the Fete de l'Humanite in Toulouse, France.
In November the group released their soundtrack to the Russian underground film "Wild Gals a Go-GO" on the Acid Mothers Temple label.
"Live in Occident," a double album, was recorded to document the 1999 tour of the US and Europe. It was released by the Detector label(USA).
On April, the group played their first gig in seven months, headlining at the Psychedelic Festival in Osaka. The line-up was the same as last year's touring unit.
12" LP of covers of Occitan traditional song "La Nevia" was released from Eclipse (US) on October, and the group's official third album "Troubadours From Another Heavenly World" was also released from PSF (Japan) in October.
A double LP, "Absolutely Freak Out (Zap Your Mind!)," was released by Static Caravan-Rsonant (UK). The 4th official album, "New Geocentric World of Acid Mothers Temple," was released on the Squealer Music (USA).
In March, the group played with Stockhausen & Walkman in Nagoya. This was the first gig to feature Ichiraku Yoshimitsu (Otomo Yoshihide's ISO), as well as the groups the first live appearance in Japan in over a year.
The "Master of the Universe" commemorative tour double-EP was released on the UK label, Static Caravan-Resonant. "La NÊvia" was reissued on CD by Swordfish Records. The "Grateful Head" US tour EP was released on the US label, Wabana.
The UK tour EP, "My Guitar Wants To Kiss Your Mama" was released on the Static Caravan-Resonance.
Eclipse Records (USA) released an LP of the AMT cover of the Terry Riley's track "In C".
The picture 12" LP "41st Century Splendid Man" was released on tUMULt (USA). The 2nd album, "Pataphysical Freak Out MU!" was reissued as a double LP on Eclipse Records (USA).
The 5th album, "Absolutely Freak Out (Zap Your Mind!)" was reissued, this time as a double CD with the addition of a 45 minute bonus track. The live album "Born To Be Wild in The USA 2000" was released on Wababa (USA).
Squealer Music (USA) reissued the AMT cover of the Terry Riley's track "In C" as a 12"LP.
In March and April, the group toured the US and UK/Ireland. The group appeared at South by Southwest Festival in Austin, TX and they were selected as one of the best three groups at the festival. They also performed an improvised soundtrack to the film "Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend" at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall.
Earworm Records (UK) released 3CD Acid Mothers Temple Family compilation "Do Whatever You Want, Don't Do Whatever You Don't Want!!"
Squealer Music (USA) reissued "New Geocentric World of Acid Mothers Temple" as a double LP.
The group released 4 new albums and 2 EPs from September to November. Alien8 Recording (Canada) released the 7th album, "Electric Heavyland." The Acid Mothers Temple label released the live album "Live in Japan."Fractal Records (France) released the 6th album, "Univers Zen ou de Zuro õ Zûro" and the "Electric Love Machine" EP. The group released "St. Captain Freak Out & The Magic Bamboo Request" on Ektro Records (Finland). This album was an AMT-style trip opera based around the adventures of a character called St. Captain Freak Out. The Scandinavian tour EP, "The Tombstone Phantom Drifter" was released on Verdura (Finland).
Kawabata Makoto and Cotton Casino joined Daevid Allen's Gong.
Important Records (USA) released 3 titles of 3"CD-singles "Magical Power From Mars series" between January and March, also the label reissued a 1CD of "Magical Power From Mars".
Galactic Zoo Disc (USA) released the live album "The Day Before The Sky Fell In America Spt.10.2002."
Fractal Records (France) reissued the 6th album, "Univers Zen ou de ZÙro õ ZÙro" as a 4LP set with one bonus disc of unreleased live-recordings.
The Acid Mothers Temple label released the live album "Last Concert in Tokyo."
Funfundvierzig (Germany) released a split CD entitled "A Thousand Shades Of Gray" with Escapade.
ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE mode HHH (Kawabata Makoto, Tsuyama Atsushi and Yoshida Tatsuya of Ruins) toured Europe (Norway, Sweden, Poland, Austria, Germany, UK, Netherland, Belgium, France, Spain, Switzerland, Greece, Italy) as part of Japanese New Music Festival tour in October and November. They performed an improvised soundtrack to the Ira Cohen's film "The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda" at Kill Your Timid Nortion festival in Dandee Scotland. Also they performed at Newton Festival di Musiche Contemporanee in Latina Italy.


text:
Le passeport de citoyen russe (en , souvent appelé aussi en ), à ne pas confondre avec le passeport russe, est un ancien document d'identité valable sur le territoire de la fédération de Russie.

Il a été délivré entre 2007 et 2015. À partir de 2015, il est remplacé par une carte d'identité électronique. Néanmoins, les passeports de citoyen russe délivrés avant cette date restent valables jusqu'à leur date d'expiration, pour les derniers jusqu'en 2030.

Histoire

L'Empire russe puis l'URSS utilisaient la Propiska.

Après l'effondrement de l'URSS en 1991, la Propiska continue à être délivrée jusqu'en 1993. EIle est ensuite remplacée par le passeport intérieur russe.

Le passeport de citoyen russe a été délivré entre 2007 et 2015 aux citoyens russes à partir de 14 ans.

À partir de 2015, ce passeport cesse d'être délivré. Il est remplacé par une carte d'identité électronique. Néanmoins les passeports de citoyen russe délivrés avant cette date restent valables jusqu'à leur date d'expiration, au plus tard en 2030.

Description
Le passeport est en langue russe, mais selon les entités autonomes, une langue locale officielle peut être utilisée à côté du russe.

Les renseignements que contient ce document sont :
 le prénom ;
 le nom ;
 le patronyme ;
 le sexe ;
 la date de naissance ;
 le lieu de naissance.maternité

Sur demande, le groupe sanguin avec Rhésus est également indiqué, ainsi que le numéro d'imposition.

Législation
Le passeport intérieur est délivré par le bureau du FMS (Service Fédéral des Migrations) du lieu de résidence du citoyen.
Pour l'obtenir ou  pour le  renouveler, celui-ci doit présenter les documents suivants :
 un formulaire de demande de passeport dûment rempli ;
 un certificat de naissance ;
 deux photographies d'identité en noir et blanc ou en couleur de 35 sur 45 millimètres ;
 des documents confirmant la citoyenneté russe ;
 des  documents précisant l'état de certaines exigences en matière d'information contenues dans le passeport (service militaire, certificats de naissance des enfants, preuve d'enregistrement de la résidence du citoyen) ;
 une confirmation de paiement de la taxe d'État.

Si la loi dispose que le citoyen russe est formellement obligé de toujours avoir son passeport sur lui, il est aussi précisé que ce document doit être « gardé en sécurité ». C'est pourquoi de nombreux Russes portent avec eux des photocopies de leur passeport intérieur.

Le passeport intérieur est valide de 14 à 20 ans, de 20 à 45 ans, puis de 45 ans jusqu'à la mort.

Enregistrement du lieu de résidence
Tout citoyen  russe se trouvant sur le territoire de la fédération de Russie est tenu de faire enregistrer son lieu de résidence habituel auprès du FMS de son lieu d'habitation, au plus tard sept jours après son installation dans les lieux.

Par lieu de résidence habituel, on entend :

Les citoyens russes résidant plus de 90 jours dans un lieu qui n'est pas leur lieu de résidence habituel, doivent s'enregistrer auprès du FMS de
leur lieu de résidence temporaire.

L'enregistrement d'un citoyen se matérialise par l'apposition d'un tampon (propiska) sur le passeport intérieur.

Les citoyens qui déménagent sont tenus de se faire désenregistrer de leur précédent lieu de résidence habituel.

Notes et références

Droit en Russie
État civil
Identification personnelle
Document officiel


Centuries-old spiritual ceremonies helped unlock Tom's buried past and propelled him to a healthier, more centered life.
The signs were always there. Tom's life looked fairly normal. He married young, had three kids, fell into a career in construction, and then management. With a natural talent for almost everything he tried, he began interpreting the world through photography. But something was wrong. He felt haunted. The world seemed a mysterious and confusing place. Everything was heavy. Anger simmered just below the surface.
Driving through the New Mexico desert, his relationship of 17 years unraveling, Tom came apart.
He sought answers in spiritual ceremonies involving ayahuasca, a traditional Amazonian plant-based medicine. An inner door opened and revealed the terrible truth behind his lifelong fear of an old barn beside his childhood home: Tom, over fifty years later, remembered the horror of being abused in this barn. After five decades of hiding, came a commitment to face, feel, and speak the truth. Today, Tom lives in a way he could not even have previously contemplated. Following his inner compass, he feels more whole, more healthy, more centered than ever before. He is embarking on a journey, stepping into the abyss.


BYRON — Fire officials say crews are battling seven vegetation fires that have spread across 484 acres between Contra Costa and Alameda counties.
The flames are burning along Byron Highway near Clifton Court Forebay, a reservoir in the San Joaquin River Delta region.
As of Thursday evening, Cal Fire reports the wildfires, which have been collectively called the Grant Fire, were 100 percent contained.
Into early Thursday morning, the fire was tough to control because of strong winds.
Cal Fire said the Grant Fire was originally one small fire that quickly turned in seven different fires in the same area because of the 35 mph wind gusts. Eventually, the fires destroyed one trailer home and several barn-like structures.
The East Contra Costa Fire Protection District says in a Facebook post that Alameda County Fire is also helping fight the blazes that started Wednesday afternoon. A Cal Fire helicopter is also assisting with water drops.
"The winds the last day and a half have been extraordinary and have really caused some difficulties in fighting the fires," said East Contra Costa Fire Protection Public Information Officer Ross Macumber.
On Thursday, Macumber said his crews were keeping the wind on their minds, even though the Grant Fire was almost contained.
"Winds are still pretty high today," he said. "So we want to keep these units out here all day to make sure nothing flares up and that none of these fires flare up again."
People who live near the fires were told to prepare for an evacuation.
Jeff Hoogendoorn was enjoying lunch in Byron when he spotted something out the corner of his eye.
"I saw smoke and headed back out here and that's when I saw the fire," he said.
Hoogendorn loaded up his dog, Bandit, in his tractor and began creating a fire line along his property to protect his 1,200 acres of land. Hoogendorn lost about 50 acres but said he was more concerned about Bandit, who had run away during the fire.
"Finally when I found him his face was all tore up. You can see the scratches like he went through a barbed wired fence," Hoogendoorn told FOX40.
Around 3 p.m. Wednesday, Alameda County Fire officials ordered a shelter in place for students and staff at Mountain House School. Everyone was able to leave the school safely.
Byron Highway was reopened to traffic at 8 p.m. Mountain House and West Grant Line roads are expected to be closed until 5 p.m. Thursday.
"This is just a great reminder for everyone throughout the area that fire season's here. Fires are occurring and the time to prepare for that is now," Cox cautioned.
Cal Fire told FOX40 the investigation into what sparked the fire is under investigation.


A new study shows that people are willing to pay significantly more for those milky swirls.
Science has now confirmed what supple-wristed baristas have known all along: People are suckers for latte art. According to a new study published in the Journal of Sensory Studies, customers both expect and are willing to pay more for coffee drinks with a frothy finishing touch.
The study—whose authors include Oxford experimental psychologist Charles Spence and three-time U.K. Barista Champion Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood—consisted of a series of experiments. In the first, participants were shown photos of cappuccinos with and without milk-based art and asked to rate the likability and the expected price of the drinks. Survey respondents expected to like the embellished drink better—and also to pay 11 percent more for it.
These results were supported by a second experiment, which took place in the coffee shop environment. While participants did not report liking the drink with latte art better, they did say they'd be willing to pay up to 13 percent more for it.
Of course, it's no secret that people love latte art; the proof is in the heftier tips baristas tend to receive for these skill-intensive drinks. But now that this truism is backed up by science, should we expect coffee shops to charge extra for the artistic flourish?
Superficial as it seems, that frothy cloud of concentric circles (or hand-etched portrait, as the case may be) is the last-mile gesture that embodies all the care, attention, and plain hard work that came before. "Latte art exists within a context of caring about presentation," says Giuliano. In that sense, it's as integral to a cappuccino as plating is to a restaurant dish.
For Giuliano, the study affirms that baristas can, with a practiced flick of the wrist, increase the way customers value coffee. "Latte art is just one of those symbols that shows that the barista cares," he says.
*CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post misstated Giuliano's position at Counter Culture. He was a co-owner but not a founder.


Ah, dear Louis. He went from abolishing the death penalty to calling for the King's head in two short years.
——Marquis de Sade on le Peletier, 1793.
Louis-Michel le Peletier, Marquis de Saint-Fargeau (1760 – 1793) was a French politician during the French Revolution and a member of the Parisian Rite of the Templar Order. An advisor of Grand Master François de la Serre from a young age, he eventually sided with François-Thomas Germain and plotted against de la Serre. Le Peletier was responsible for casting the final vote that condemned King Louis XVI to death. On the night before the execution, le Peletier was killed inside the Palais-Royal by the Assassin Arno Dorian.
Le Peletier was born in Paris in 1760 to a noble family. At a young age, he became a member of the Parisian Rite of the Templar Order. A promising youth, he became a member of the Paris Parliament in 1779. Despite being under the age limit, he was admitted with special permission, most likely because of Templar involvement. By 1789, le Peletier had become an advisor for Grand Master François de la Serre along with Charles Gabriel Sivert, Marie Lévesque and Chrétien Lafrenière. Le Peletier and the others often disagreed with de la Serre, and all of them, excluding Lafrenière, held him in low regard and secretly coveted for themselves and their own families to take the mantle of Grand Master.
At some point around 1774, le Peletier's fellow Templar François-Thomas Germain was expelled from the Templar Order due to his radical ideas. Inspired by the writings of Jacques de Molay, Germain envisioned a capitalist society in which the nobility was stripped of its power, and the rising middle class would gain power. This way, the Templars would be able to exert control over the populace more subtly. Eventually, le Peletier secretly joined Germain's faction of the Order along with Lévesque and Sivert.
Le Peletier continued to rise in the Parliament until 1789, when he was elected to the Estates-General as a deputy for the nobility's Second Estate. Le Peletier abandoned his aristocratic origins, symbolically giving up his titles of nobility. Through supporting the Third Estate, he became an ardent defender of the people's cause. On 5 May that year, le Peletier attended the induction soirée of de la Serre's daughter, Élise, at the Palace of Versailles with Lévesque, Sivert and Lafrenière. During the soirée, Sivert and his fellow Templar, the Roi des Thunes, murdered Grand Master de la Serre in the palace gardens, framing the Grand Master's adopted son, Arno Dorian, for the murder.
As the revolution broke out, Germain had his followers create as much chaos as possible by exploiting dissatisfaction with the monarchy. However, they were not told about the purpose of their activities. Being a lawyer, le Peletier took part in writing a draft of a criminal code, including a point for the abolition of death penalty. Although the idea was dismissed, it led to le Peletier serving as the president of the National Constituent Assembly from 21 June 1790 to 5 July that same year.
On the evening of 31 March 1791, le Peletier and Lévesque went to the Hôtel de Beauvais to meet with Germain, who would explain the reason behind their orders. Since Lafrenière had discovered their betrayal of de la Serre, Lévesque feared that he would retaliate. Their fellow Templar Aloys la Touche informed them however, that Lafrenière had been killed hours earlier. Arno, now an Assassin, had been manipulated by Germain into killing Lafrenière, who had intended to strike at Germain's faction.
At the meeting, Frédéric Rouille presented evidence that King Louis had been plotting against the revolution. At Germain's request, le Peletier ensured that this evidence would become public. While a member of the National Convention, le Peletier worked covertly on a draft about education, suggesting that males and females were taught revolutionary ideas in state-run schools. Renouncing his opposition to the death penalty, he cast the deciding 361st vote for Louis' execution in 1793. While reporting back to Germain, he claimed to have voted in accordance with what he belived best for France, rather than the Grand Master's visions of de Molay.
Pleased with le Peletier's vote, Germain claimed that he looked forward to witnessing Louis' death. Le Peletier then assured the Grand Master that he would personally see to it that he was given a proper viewing spot at the execution.
So. I thank you at least for sparing my daughter the sight of this. All that I've done has been for the good of my country, my people, and my family. Ah. But you are unmoved. So be it. If it must be done, let it be done swiftly. Do it!
In celebration of the King's imminent execution, le Peletier attended a party at the Palais-Royal with his daughter, Louise-Suzanne, dining at the Café Fevrier. Unknown to him, Arno was also present. As le Peletier called for a bottle of wine, Arno placed a bottle cut with lead sugar at the bar. This bottle was served to le Peletier, who soon began to feel the effects of the poison.
Telling his daughter to find her nurse, le Peletier went into a hallway, where he was confronted by Arno. There, he told Arno that he was glad to see his daughter spared the sight of his death. He then claimed that all of his actions were done for the good of France, its people, and his own family. Noting that Arno was unmoved by this, he told the Assassin to kill him quickly. Arno complied, stabbing him with his Hidden Blade. The Assassin then saw a vision of le Peletier's memories, through which he discovered that Germain would be present at the Place de la Révolution the following morning.
Following his death, le Peletier was initially buried in the Panthéon of Paris as a national hero. Jacques-Louis David would also paint a portrait known as The Last Moments of Michel Lepeletier, which was later acquired and destroyed by Louise-Suzanne.
Le Peletier was unusual compared to the other Templars in Germain's faction in that he seemed to believe in the revolution and the execution of King Louis by their own merits, and not merely as a means of advancing Templar control over France as advocated by Jacques de Molay.
He could also be rather fastidious, insisting on clean windows in his office and hating drafty rooms. Aditionally, le Peletier was a loving father, sending his daughter Louise-Suzanne home when he was poisoned and showing relief in his final moments that she would be spared the sight of his death.
Le Peletier historically did not cast the deciding vote for the King's assassination. The votes had a majority of 387 for death over 334 against execution.
Le Peletier was in fact historically assassinated at the Palais-Royal on the eve of the execution of Louis XVI, by a royalist soldier, for voting in favor of execution.
Le Peletier and Germain are the only main targets in the game to speak with Arno and explain their motives before killed. It is entirely possible to kill le Peletier before he has the chance to confess, though.