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Federal election 2019: Vote Compass finds Australians are ready to back Indigenous 'voice to Parliament'
By Indigenous Affairs correspondent Isabella Higgins and the Specialist Reporting Team's Sarah Collard Updated Fri 3 May 2019, 7:33 AM AEST
Reconciliation Australia CEO Karen Mundine believes Australians stand ready to support an Indigenous voice to Parliament.
Supplied: Reconciliation Australia; Parliament House Art Collection
Support to change the Constitution and enshrine an Indigenous 'voice to Parliament' is now higher than the 'yes' vote achieved in 2017's historic same-sex marriage postal survey, Vote Compass data suggests.
In 2017, the Uluru Statement from the Heart called for the creation of an Indigenous body to advise Parliament
Then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said Australians wouldn't support constitutional change
Vote Compass finds a clear majority of voters now support the idea
Passing a referendum is a tough business in Australia: since Federation only eight of 44 attempts have been successful.
For decades there's been debate about how to acknowledge Australia's First People in the Constitution, a move which is seen as an important step towards reconciliation.
Now, Vote Compass data suggests public support for such a change is high.
Two in three voters support constitutional change
Overall, 64 per cent of voters support the idea of changing the Constitution to establish an Indigenous body to advise Parliament, while 22 per cent reject it.
The 'yes' vote in the same-sex marriage survey was 61 per cent, after weeks of advertising from well-funded campaigns.
External Link Voters support an Indigenous representative body
Where do you stand?
Find out how your views compare to Australia's major political parties. Simply answer a few questions via Vote Compass.
"It's really heartening to see that level of support, and shows broader Australia understands why this is so important," the chief executive of Reconciliation Australia, Karen Mundine, said.
The 'voice' concept has been years in the making but has at times struggled to gain political support and momentum, despite high-profile corporate backing. Its future remains unclear, dependent on the outcome of a future inquiry.
Government 'out of step' with community support
In 2017, at a historic gathering of hundreds of delegates at Uluru, Indigenous leaders agreed they wanted constitutional change to be more than a symbolic passage or preamble in the nation's founding document.
Instead they asked for an enshrined "voice to Parliament", a representative body that would advise our politicians on issues affecting Indigenous Australians.
Photo The Uluru Statement called for a new representative body.
ABC News: Owain Stia-James
But then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull unceremoniously rejected the idea, saying it would never gain the support of the public and citing his own experience as a losing campaigner in the 1999 republic referendum.
Vote Compass is the largest survey ever undertaken on the issue of the voice to Parliament, with these results reflecting the views of a representative sample of more than 360,000 Australians.
Tony Dreise, Professor of Indigenous Policy at the Australian National University, said the Government had underestimated the level of support.
"It appears that the Government's initial reaction was made in too hasty a fashion, when surveys such as this appear to show encouraging support for the concept," he said.
This year, under Scott Morrison, the Coalition has changed its stance, giving tentative support for the concept in a quiet one-line announcement on page 154 of this year's federal budget papers.
That support is dependent on a future 'co-design' inquiry that will examine the nuts and bolts of how a voice could operate, a process expected to take months or even years.
Voters' views mirror party positions
The Vote Compass data reveals support for the 'voice' varies along party lines, with Coalition voters the most divided. About 38 per cent of Liberal-National voters are supportive of the concept, while 42 per cent are opposed.
Labor and Greens voters are largely supportive of the concept, while One Nation voters are mostly opposed.
External Link Voters response to Indigenous "voice to parliament" depends on party affiliation
Labor has vowed that if it is elected it will progress a referendum on the issue in its first term. But just this week Labor leader Bill Shorten warned a vote can only be held on a "fully formed proposition".
"There would be a lot of work to do before it can be taken to a referendum with a view to its success," Mr Dreise said. "At the moment there is too much ambiguity around it."
"The last thing we need is a failed referendum."
He said while there has been strong consultation with First Nations people there needed to be greater awareness among the wider public.
"I think there is a lot of groundwork to do before that, by way of information campaigns, building awareness amongst the broader population about what exactly is being proposed."
Reconciliation Australia says its own polling confirms that Australians will support the concept, and it wants action taken now.
"If these are the kind of figures you're getting without any advertising campaign, the time is right for this, let's progress this now," Ms Mundine said.
"There's something that's really logical [about this concept], and I think that Australians are really practical people."
The ABC's Vote Compass asks 30 survey questions and then reveals how your views compare to the parties' policies.
Vote Compass responses have been weighted by gender, age, education and place of residence to match the Australian population, creating a nationally representative sample.
The sample size for this report is 368,097 respondents.
Find out more about the methodology in this explainer.
Posted Fri 3 May 2019, 4:58 AM AEST
Antony Green


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Q: Firefox sees element where PhantomJS does not when using Selenium-Webdriver I have been looking around for quite a long time now to find a solution to my problem, hope someone here can think of something that could help.
I have a working selenium script (in Python) working with the Firefox driver to connect on a website. When using PhantomJS as driver, it doesn't work anymore.
The form is generated by javascript and is on a https website. Here is the code of the user input :

Here is the part of the script looking for it : (working on firefox but not PhantomJS)
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC
import time

driver = webdriver.Firefox()

driver.get([MY URL])

print driver.page_source

driver.find_element_by_id("user").clear()
driver.find_element_by_id("user").send_keys([MY USER ID])
driver.find_element_by_id("pass").clear()
driver.find_element_by_id("pass").send_keys([MY PASS])
driver.find_element_by_name("login_btn").click()

html_source = driver.page_source

print html_source

driver.close()

And here is the error I get :
selenium.common.exceptions.NoSuchElementException

If I print the page_source just after reaching the page, Firefox shows the right source code, where PhantomJS only has :
Do you think of anything that could be the cause of this ?

A: I have solved my problem thanks to Artjom B. answer :
Just change in the code :
driver = webdriver.PhantomJS(service_args=['--ignore-ssl-errors=true'])

It was due to the ssl certificate I guess.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


There are many aspects of Software Quality. Matthew Wilson introduces us to some of the concepts.
It's been a few years since I stopped my column-writing (for C/C++ Users Journal and Dr. Dobb's), and I've rather gotten out of the habit of disciplined writing, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering Addison-Wesley editor. (Sorry, Peter, but this stuff will help with the coming books, I promise.) Anyway, I plan to get back into the swing and hope to provide material that will cause some of you to ponder further as you read your issue of Overload every second month, and I'd like to thank Ric Parkin for giving me the opportunity to foist my opinions on a captive audience once again.
So, what's the deal with 'Quality Matters'? Well, as the cunning linguists among you may have realised, the title is a double-meaning pun, which appeals to me greatly (and no less so to Ric). But the overloading is apposite. In one sense it means that quality is important. Which it is. The other is that what is to be discussed will be issues of quality.
But what is quality? For sure, when you drive a nice car, stay in a nice hotel, eat a nice meal, watch a nice film (or movie, if you will), read a nice book, or have a nice conversation, you can feel the quality. But defining it is exceeding hard; it takes more than just a subjective 'nice'.
In all my programming related activities - author, consultant, programmer, trainer - quality is crucial, and having spent enough years doing these things I am able to sniff out quality (and its absence). I am comfortable to go into any client's development team and poke around the codebase with confidence, invariably producing useful analyses of what I find. But when asked to pontificate about 'software quality' absent context of a codebase or design documents, I find myself coming up a little dry. At such times I wonder at the abilities of those who have, or at least appear to have, a software dictionary in their heads.
My eldest son and I have recently taken up fencing - the one where you attempt to disembowel your opponent with a sword, rather than the one where you hit lumps of wood into the ground with a hammer (although that would also be fun, I think) - and it has brought into clear focus just how much we rely on training for a great many things. I've been cycling for more than 20 years, and the act of moving about a bike in response to where I want to go seems entirely subconscious. At least I hope my subconscious is handling it, because I know I'm not! Similarly, I've been programming professionally for 15+ years (and unprofessionally for 25+ if we count Vic-20s, ZX-81s, BASIC and 6502 assembler), and by now a huge proportion of what I do is also subconscious. It's only when training other programmers, or (attempting to) write books and articles that I get to glimpse some of the other 90% of the iceberg of software lore that has been accreted into my programming super-ego.
Being a practical sort of chap - I'd rather write a software component than write a software component specification - the prognostications in this column will all be based around practical issues, usually, I predict, around some block of code that's offended or inspired me. I intend to examine successful (and some unsuccessful) software libraries and applications, and rip them apart to look at what has been done well, and what could be changed to improve them. I also plan to demonstrate how intrinsic and diagnostic improvements can be applied without damaging or detracting from the existing functionality, robustness or efficiency.
Despite these promises of greasy rags and dirty finger nails, we will need a theoretical framework on which to base the analyses. To that end I'm going to start the journey by identifying three groups of software quality related subjects, which reflect the method I bring to bear in my consulting work.
Most/all of the subjects mentioned in this introductory instalment will be given further treatment in later instalments.
There are a multitude of possible ways of slicing and dicing the software quality landscape, and a multitude of software quality metrics offered by different thinkers on the subject. There are terms such as adaptability, cohesiveness, consistency, correctness, coupling, efficiency, flexibility, maintainability, modularity, portability, reliability, reusability, robustness, security, testability, transparency, understandability, and on and on it goes. What do they all mean? Are they all useful?
In this instalment I'll flesh out the definitions of the first group, since they'll occupy much of my interest in the next few instalments. I'll also offer brief discussions of the second and third groups now, and go into more detail about the individual items in later instalments when they're relevant (and when there's the space to give them adequate treatment).
Each of these characteristics is innate to a given software entity. Regardless of whether its authors or users know or care about such characteristics, and regardless of whether anyone takes the trouble to measure/assess it in respect of them, every component/library/ sub-system has a level of robustness, efficiency, discoverability and transparency, etc. that can be reasoned about.
For everyone who has not managed to get further than the prologue of Extended STL, volume 1, I'll offer definitions of these again now. For those who have, you will probably benefit from reading them, as I've refined some ideas in the last couple of years.
Forgetting for the moment all the other issues about how fast it runs, whether it can be easily used/re-used/changed, the contexts it can be used in, and so forth, the sine qua non for any piece of software is that it must function according to the expectations of its stakeholders.
Battle-hardened software developers will (hopefully) have bristled at the vagueness of that last phrase 'function according to the expectations of its stakeholders'. But I am being deliberately vague because I believe that this area of software quality is poorly defined, and I hope to come to a better definition than any I've found so far.
Correctness is the degree to which a software entity's behaviour matches its specification.
Cunningly, the definition is able to avoid equivocation by passing off to the definition of 'specification'. And that's no small thing, to be sure. I am going to skip discussion of what form(s) specifications might take until the next article, for reasons that will become clear then.
I'm also going to skip out on discussing the issues of robustness and reliability, because there is a lot of equivocation on their definitions in the literature - I'm thinking mainly of McConnell [CC] and Meyer [OOSC] here, but they're not alone - and the only sense I can make of them is when dealing with the specification question.
I will, however, leave you to with something to ponder, which will inform the deliberations of the next instalment: I call it the Bet-Your-Life? Test (see sidebar).
Assume a perfect operating environment of unfailing hardware and perfect implementations of all layers of software abstraction below the ones at which the following software entities are written. Would you bet your life on them being able to be written to 'function according to the expectations of its stakeholders'?
Well, I'd bet my life, and those of my wife and sons, on my being able to implement (1) perfectly. I'd expect all of you to be comfortable to make a similar compact with your most precious lives.
Conversely, I can tell you that I definitely would not ever be prepared to bet anything of grave importance on the implementation of (4). This is despite my having used my implementation of it, seemingly entirely successfully, probably tens of thousands of time over the last several years.
Beyond those two definitive positions, I'm somewhat up in the air on the other two. Since I'm a programmer, I'm instinctively driven to believe that I could implement perfect implementations of both (2) and (3). And I have, in fact, implemented both before, numerous times in the case of strcmp(). And as far as I am aware, both are perfect. But I still wouldn't bet my life on it.
Obviously, the interesting part of this thought experiment is why I hold those different positions, and the criteria I have considered in forming them. The key is in understanding the difference between correctness and robustness and/or reliability, and between contract specification and testing, all of which will be discussed in the next instalment. In the meanwhile, I'd be keen to hear from readers on their positions.
The two characteristics have significant impact on the (uselessly vague and overly general, in my opinion) notion of maintainability. If something is hard to change, then the changing of it is going to be (i) unwillingly undertaken and (ii) of high risk. Furthermore, if something is hard to use, then its users will be poorly qualified to guide its evolution.
Efficiency is the degree to which a software entity executes using the minimum amount of resources. The resources we commonly think of are processing time and memory, but other resources, such as database connections and file handles, can be equally important, depending on application domain.
Doubtless we've all heard of Hoare/Knuth's 'premature optimisation is the root of all evil' quotation. The problem is, this has been misunderstood and seized upon by a generation of feckless and witless programmers who don't care about their craft and should instead be spending their days giving someone else's profession a bad name, egged on by commercially-driven mega-companies with giant frameworks and rich consulting services to be foisted on under-informed clients.
I've never worked on a commercial software project where performance was not important, and, frankly, I can't think of a serious software application where it would not be. The actual full quote was 'we should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil', which makes a whole lot more sense. It's not suggesting that programmers blithely ignore performance, rather it's an exhortation to focus on the most significant performance issues first, rather than to 'sweat the small stuff'. Now that makes a lot of sense.
As Herb Sutter has postulated [FREE-LUNCH], we have run out of the performance free-lunch, and it's time to start tightening our belts.
Expressiveness is 'how much of a given task can be achieved clearly in as few statements as possible' [XSTLv1]. Expressiveness is also known as programming power (or just power), but it's a poorer term for a variety of reasons, and I won't mention it further.
Here a C++ class - actually an STL Collection [XSTLv1] - combined with a standard algorithm is used to provide a significantly more expressive means of tackling the problem of removing all files from the current directory. It achieves this by raising the level of abstraction - all possible files are treated as a single entity, a collection - and by relying on language facilities - deterministic destruction to handle resources, and namespacing rules to define constants with natural names.
I hope it's clear that the expressiveness of class + algorithm engenders a substantial increase in the transparency of the application code. This is not measured solely in the reduction of lines of code, but also in the removal of pointers, the S_IF??? constants, and explicit resource management, and in the ability to read the second statement as 'for each item in entries, remove [it]'. However, before we get carried away, we must balance such gains in concision with the discoverability (or lack thereof) of the components. The first 'big thing to be known' is the use of STL iterator-pair ranges and algorithms. Certainly, to experienced C++ programmers this is now as straightforward as tying one's shoes. But STL is not, in my opinion, intuitive. Of less magnitude (since it's not a global idiom like STL collection + algorithm), but still significant, is the dialecticism of all abstractions, in this case the readdir_sequence class.
There's an obviousness to this that's teeth-grindingly painful to state, but it needs to be stated nonetheless. Every meaningful software component provides either a different interface or a different implementation, or both, to all others. If it doesn't, you find yourself the proud owner of a wheel the same size and specification as your neighbour, and there's precious little use in that.
If, as is the more common case, your component has a different interface to existing ones, then by definition you affect its discoverability. Users must familiarise themselves with the component's interface to be able to use it. The challenge in this case is to restrict the non-normative aspects to the minimum, without sacrificing other aspects of software quality or functionality. In the case of the readdir_sequence class, this is limited to the construction of instances, which involving specifying a search directory and/or search flags, and the collection's value type (which happens to be char const*). The rest of the functionality of the class adheres to the requirements of an STL Collection [XSTLv1] - it provides access to elements via begin() and end() iterator ranges - and therefore can be used in the same, idiomatic manner as any other STL collections.
Conversely, if your component provides a new implementation, you will have to reveal something about it to potential users, or they'll have no reason to use it. And like as not you'll have to reveal something more substantive than just saying 'it's faster', so you'll find yourself with a leaky abstraction [LEAK, XSTLv1]. Whatever information that must be leaked adds to the sum of knowledge that must be mastered for your component to be used properly - it affects its discoverability. An example of this might be a fast memory allocator that works by using a custom heap that ignores all free() calls and simply dumps the memory pool at an established known point. Users will have to abide by the rules of when/where to allocate in order to establish that point.
As if all that wasn't enough, there are even cases where expressiveness can detract from transparency. Consider the following three chunks of C# code, using the new '100%' rewrite of the recls [RECLS-100%] recursive file-system search library (Listing 3).
Thankfully no-one has to write code like that. Even in C# 1.0 you could let the compiler do some of the hard work for you, via foreach, as in Listing 4.
Such loops are idiomatic in the programming world, not just to C#, and I can't imagine anyone arguing that the increased expressiveness of the second form incurs a cost to discoverability or transparency over the first.
I don't think this improvement is quite so unequivocal. Certainly the concision appeals to C# power uses - it does to me - but I don't think anyone can argue, even when the use of lambda becomes second nature to all C# programmers, that such a statement is as transparent as the second loop.
I believe that expressiveness is a large factor in the preferences that programmers have for one language over another. It directly impacts productivity because programmers have to type less to express their intent and, importantly, read less when they come back to modify it. It also indirectly affects productivity by reducing defect rates, since many lower level defects simply don't occur. It's not just that housekeeping tasks are obviated: looking back to the file enumeration example, we see that there is no opportunity to forget to release the search handle (via closedir()) because readdir_sequence does it for us. It's also that the amount of distraction from the main semantic intent of code is reduced: in the C version, the call to remove() is that much less discriminated from the boilerplate than in the C++ version, wherein it takes centre stage.
It's no coincidence, therefore, that many of the major languages appear to be making substantial moves to improve their ability to support expressiveness.
Flexibility is 'how easily a [software entity] lets you do what you need to do, with the types with which you need to do it' [FF1].
Unit of Currency: the primary physical type with which client code represents a given conceptual type; the primary physical type by which a component or API communicates a given conceptual type to its client code.
Abstraction Dissonance: the condition whereby client code is written using units of currency that exist at a higher level of abstraction than those used by the libraries/APIs in terms of which the client code is written.
std::ifstream stm(path); // DOES NOT COMPILE!
That this does not compile, and the user is forced to pollute the client code with the damnable .c_str(), is nothing less than ridiculous.
Flexibility directly impacts expressiveness and transparency, and indirectly impacts discoverability, efficiency, modularity, and correctness/robustness. I intend to cover many instances of conflict/compromise between these characteristics in the coming articles.
There's been a long and inglorious history of poor modularity in the programming pantheon. Windows programmers will remember (or may still be using) the vastness of the MFC libraries. Java and .NET programmers still experience the deployment hassles of their respective virtual support machinery (though many seem not to realise the problems they, or their users, face). But those are all easy pickings. Modularity problems are also to be found in far more subtle, though no less problematic, situations.
The same goes for C++, with the considerable additional difficulties resulting from the vastly different interpretations and offerings of the C++ language facilities by the compilers currently available. As I've mentioned in previous writings, I reckon that 90%+ of the time I spend on my open-source C++ libraries is in making the code play nice with all the compilers. It's not cool, and it's not fun.
But things are hardly perfect in the virtual machine languages. I have had my fair share of Java's 'write once, debug everywhere' misery, not to mention the sad irony of C#, a formerly-mediocre/now-good/looking-like-becoming-great language bound to a basket-case family of operating systems. I look forward to some smart people separating the language from Windows and the .NET runtime: that would produce something very interesting.
Even when one exits the world of compiled languages entirely, portability is still imperfect, in part due to the leaking up of abstractions of the underlying operating environments. Two obvious ones are the slash/backslash shemozzle, and the lack of globbing in some command-line interpreters. But it can be more profound, such as the relative costs of starting new processes and new threads.
I could go on and on, but I won't. Suffice to say that there is no perfect portability, but there are definitely things that can be done to improve it.
Almost every one of the above characteristics is relative and/or subjective. That does not stop them being useful, but it does mean that we should try to qualify observations about a particular characteristic in terms of the things that we can assess absolutely and objectively.
For example, transparency is highly subjective, but we may attempt to quantify it by enumerating the points of lore and law that must be known to understand a given chunk of code. Similarly, we can make some rudimentary measurement of expressiveness by counting lines of code, and number of sub-expressions in each line. I have my own ideas on these things, and there's plenty of wisdom in the canon, but I'm keen to hear from readers any of their own opinions on the matter.
Programmers will always be biased towards one or more intrinsic software quality characteristics, although the particular characteristic(s) may differ in different contexts. When I'm doing C++ it's all about being 'fast', i.e. safe and quick. In Ruby it's all about expressiveness, and discoverabilty and transparency. But it's important to assess maturing components in terms of all relevant intrinsic software quality characteristics.
In many circumstances, just the act of examining a software component in terms of one or more intrinsic software quality characteristics can lead to easy changes that will enhance it in terms of others. It may also, obviously, highlight important deficiencies.
For example, I often find that a first version of a component will be written in terms of some other, useful, component from another library. But if it turns out that just this one piece of reuse incurs coupling to a large library that can cause substantial inconvenience (and hinder acceptance) in terms of modularity and portability, I will be inclined to eschew the third-party component and implement its functionality explicitly within the developed code.
But beyond incidental and independent improvements in respect of particular software quality characteristics, it is often the case that these software quality characteristics can be in conflict. I believe that these conflicts must be explicitly identified and considered, and documented for the benefits of authors (and future maintainers) and for its users.
Highest possible level of expressiveness that does not detract from 1-4.
Highest possible levels of discoverability & transparency that do not detract from 1-5.
Users are thus able to make a judgement as to whether they can avail themselves of FastFormat's performance, robustness and flexibility advantages or, if they require the highest possible levels of expressiveness (for width-formatting of numeric types), choose an alternative.
The foregoing characteristics are intrinsic. They are of the software, if you will. As we will shortly discuss, the next group are of the programmer(s). They are things done to (measure the) software by human beings, either entirely manually, or with the assistance of computers, or entirely by automated process but still operating as an agency of the programmer(s). In all cases, they are external to the software.
The Principle of Removability:When applied to contract enforcement, the principle of removability states: A contract enforcement should be removable from correct software without changing the (well-functioning) behaviour.When applied to diagnostic logging, the principle of removability states: It must be possible to disable any log statement within correct software without changing the (well-functioning) behaviour.
The same thing goes for code coverage constructs, and for static assertions.
Obviously, there's a bit of circularity here insofar as we've already established correctness as only being definable in terms of contract enforcements or automated testing, and now we've saying that contract enforcements can be removed from correct software. Well, what can I tell you? Somewhere we've got to take a stand.
This group of things are actions that are done by, or on behalf of, software developers, many of which are to be found as primary constituents of established development methodologies. More than half of the list is about testing.
Most of these should be well known to all competent and experiences programmers, and I don't need to say any more about them at this time.
The one thing I will comment on now is the use of the term measure. Just like the title of the column, this meaning of the term is helpfully overloaded: a measure can be a metric/assessment, and also an approach/policy.
The third fact is the one with the most commercial bite, but I assure you that my mentioning it is more than mere grandstanding. (Well, there's some grandstanding in there of course, and if any potential clients out there want some magic no-fail pixie dust sprinkled on their codebase, by all means get in contact.) But the main point is that even though I have always prized software quality - even from before I was experienced enough to properly detect or apply it - it was still something of a pleasant shock to realise that we've never had a production failure. Given that the various software (sub-)systems have handled billions of dollars of transactions, that's a pretty comforting thought. And it's nice to be able to trumpet that on the company website. But why should that be of interest to me or you, gentle readers?
Well, it's of direct interest to me because it's quite an improbable achievement, and realising it gives me confidence to attempt the undertaking of writing this column. And I hope it's of interest to you in that it might give you some confidence that some of what I say might be worth a read (assuming you can stomach my grandiloquent loquacity).
Anyway, I won't attempt to offer further convincing on my qualification for the post. If I bodge it, Ric will give me the flick, and rightly so.
What of the relevance of the other two facts, pertaining to the relative 'popularity' of two pairs of my libraries. On the surface, the two popular libraries should be in the shadow of the two less-popular ones, and the consideration of why they're not has raised a number of issues in my mind pertaining to software quality. Let's look at some of the aspects of the puzzle.
The b64 library provides Base-64 encoding/decoding. The recls library provides platform-independent recursive file-system search facilities. The latter is surely more generally useful than the former.
Pantheios is a diagnostic logging API library. FastFormat is a formatting library. Although I will argue strongly later that it should not be so, I believe that formatting is to be found far more frequently than logging in C++ codebases.
b64 provides a C and a C++ API. recls provides C, Ch, COM, C++ (and STL), C#/.NET, D, Java, Python and Ruby APIs.
Pantheios and FastFormat are both C++ libraries, although Pantheios does provide a C-API for logging C programs.
I have not written any articles about b64, and beyond passing a link once or twice I have done nothing to promote it. Conversely, I wrote an extensive series of articles about recls for CUJ/DDJ in 2003-5. Unlike the other three, b64 doesn't even have its own domain, and just has a downloads page that hangs off an unremarkable, barely linked part of the Synesis website. Furthermore, apart from one commercial project, the only thing I've ever used b64 for is to implement the pantheios::b64 inserter class. And b64 is bundled with Pantheios, only adding to the puzzle of its (relatively) high independent downloads.
I have not (yet) written any articles about Pantheios, whereas I've written a recent series of three articles about FastFormat [FF1, FF2, FF3], where I pretty much prove its superiority over the existing alternatives.
Although not differing by orders of magnitude, the frequency of releases of recls is greater than that of b64, and FastFormat has been greater than that of Pantheios over the last few months. This serves to further highlight the disparity in ongoing level of downloads (and other activity) of the latter libraries.
Over the past couple of years, b64 downloads have been steady at around 2200 per year, whereas the average for recls is around 500 per year. Even though it's not a huge number per se, I find it remarkable, given that Base-64 conversion is a niche area of functionality.
Similarly, Pantheios downloads tends to be several hundred per week, whereas FastFormat is around 50-80. And the SourceForge rankings, based on downloads, web page hits, forum and tracker activity, are similarly different: Pantheios tends to be in the top two hundred, FastFormat around 2000.
Satisfiction. There are several, very well-established formatting libraries available for C++ programmers, so FastFormat has a lot of mindshare to capture. Users of the existing libraries are satisfied with what suffices, in an effect I've previously called satisfiction [XSTLv1].
Green pasture. In contrast, Pantheios has no serious competitors as a logging API library: the existing (and impressively feature-rich) logging libraries have APIs that are manifestly unfit for purpose.
Language. I believe that, all other things being equal, a library implemented in C (such as b64) will be far more popular than one implemented wholly or partly in C++ (such as recls), due to concerns (well-founded or not) of performance, portability, and transparency.
Modularity. b64 does not have any dependencies, not even on the C runtime library. FastFormat, Pantheios and recls all depend on the STLSoft libraries, which cause users more effort (even though, as 100% header-only, the effort involves nothing more than downloading and setting an environment variable).
Doubtless there's more to the situation than I have divined here, but it's enough to inform the analyses of these libraries that will start in the next instalment. I'm keen to hear opinions from readers their thoughts on this issue.
I don't know about you, but I find it very difficult to understand, or remember, concepts that are presented without examples. Similarly, I find it hard to write about concepts without using examples. So, the instalments of this column - except this first one - are going to be rich with example libraries, programs and code.
For most of these I'll be using my own code, largely because I am able to criticise it as much as is necessary without offending anyone else. The precise material will depend on what is uncovered as the articles progress, but I am confident we'll start in some of my open-source C and C++ libraries, and then move to particular algorithms, components and programs, including those in other languages. For example, I'm currently working with a colleague in updating the Synesis Software .NET libraries (and some .NET forms of several open-source libraries) for C# 2 and 3, and we're cooking. The contrast of what's superior and what's inferior to C++ is very thought-provoking.
Attracting real users: It's the coupling, Stupid!
Naturally, some of the material discussed will be a cheap rip-off from that already included in my books. The several in-progress book projects will likely overlap too. But the limited size and broad scope of the column will mean that there's plentiful opportunity to have unique content in each medium.
As ably discussed in Code Complete [CC], organisations are only able to significantly improve their software quality by a combination of measures. Importantly, the combination has to involve both automated measures and human measures.
[RECLS-100%] I'm in the process of rewriting the recls library as 'recls 100%', whereby each implementation of recls for a given language will be implemented 100% in that language, rather than recls 1.0-1.8 where each language had a thinnish binding to the underlying C-API. See http://recls.org for progress.


text:
K Factor Podcast
Shua Werd
"Getting Ahead: A Discussion with Chabad Women in Business
"One-third of the entrepreneurs who approach us for advice are women," says Rabbi Yehoshua Werde, director of Crown Heights Young Entrepreneurs, a full-service, business resource center tailored to the unique needs of the Crown Heights Jewish Community.
Women have many of the same, yet different requirements when starting a business," says Rabbi Werde. "We created the 'Getting Ahead," event to address the specific issues women face when entering the workforce.
Moderated by Mrs. Chaya Abelsky, panel speakers included Mrs. Julie Gniwisch, President of Delmar Jewelrs, Mrs. Devorah Halberstam, Director of Government Services at the Jewish Children's Museum, Mrs. Malka Waronker, Associate Counsel at Consolidated Edison, and Devoree Axelrod, General Manager at AJ Madison.
It takes confidence and bravado to move up the corporate ladder or bring a business to the next level of financial success. Hearing insights and stories of Lubavitch women who have made it, so to speak, in their respective fields, can offer insight and inspiration to Chabad women who are wondering how they can get ahead.
Mrs. Abelsky, an executive coach, started the evening with a story of a man collecting money from passersby. One day he decided to open the trunk he had sat on while begging for 20 years. The trunk was filled with treasure. "The message is that he was sitting on his own wealth," says Mrs. Abelsky.
The first panelist to share her career journey was Mrs. Axelrod, who started at AJ Madison in the customer service department ten years ago. Mrs. Axelrod noticed customer calls were in the hold queue for 30 to 40 minutes—longer than any customer wanted to wait when they had dialed the operator. Reducing the wait time for callers was Mrs. Axelrod's first initiative.
"When I first started I saw there was little infrastructure in the company," says Mrs. Axelrod. "I wasn't brought in a management role, but I realized there were some quick, small changes I could implement that would make a big difference."
One concept that has helped Mrs. Axelrod navigate tough work situations is "Success is the only option." When a longtime vendor was not able to ship to a large customer with many stadiums in California, she researched a different option, offering the customer a full refund if they did not like the new equipment. The risk paid off, and the company was able to retain the client. Mrs. Axelrod encourages entrepreneurs to speak to people for advice, yet follow your gut. On the management side, she advises leaders to be clear about what they expect from their employees.
"I'm proud and thankful for the opportunity I've had to grow with the company," says Mrs. Axelrod, who joined AJ Madison when she was single. She has since not only married, but had children and has managed to balance her career with her family responsibilities by staying "very organized."
Becoming a lawyer was a lifelong dream for Mrs. Waronker, who came to New York from South Africa for law school. Now she's a proud wife and mother of six children who has been able to climb the corporate ladder by standing firm and proud in her Lubavitch lifestyle and values. Her colleagues introduce her as the "mother of six kids" and look at her if she has "three heads," but Mrs. Waronker said her differences work to her advantage. "Every aspect of my life is filled with G-dliness and holiness. They do see me as a religious women with a large family, but most corporations are pushing for diversity." There is no need in Mrs. Waronker's experience to be shy about being frum or being a woman. In fact people respect that she has "interests outside the corporate doctrine.
Mrs. Waronker's message: "Have a goal and work backwards to do what it will take to reach that goal. There is no easy road."
Mrs. Halberstam's life changed irrevocably March 1, 1994 when her son Ari was murdered in a terror attack on the Brooklyn Bridge.
"From the moment Ari was shot, there was a strength that rose up within me that nothing in this world could stop," says Mrs. Halberstam, who became an expert on terrorism in her quest to ensure justice was served in her son's court case. She lobbied to have a sign placed on the bridge in Ari's memory. She also raised $35 million and served as a government liaison to build the Jewish Children's Museum in Crown Heights.
"I'm focused on where I'm going and what I want to accomplish. I love my people, I love being a Jew, I love being a woman. I feel I have to stand up and make a difference," she adds. "You maybe surprised what one person can do in changing the world."
Her main goal after her son's death was to get the government to acknowledge the truth that Ari's murder was a terrorist act. "I was raised n a home where my father only spoke emes," says Mrs. Halberstam. "People have to search for truth, but that's all I saw."
At first Mrs. Halberstam would stand on line for hours to speak with government officials who saw her only as a grieving Jewish mother. Within a year she was invited to an event at the mayor's mansion, where she was able to negotiate a city contract for $7.5 million for the museum. 9/11 and the mayoral election brought challenges in finalizing the contract for the museum to receive the grant money. Mrs. Halberstam raced around the city by cab to get her contract registered before Mayor Bloomberg took office January 1, 2002. She got the city controller's signature just in time. At his inaugural speech Bloomberg announced that any contracts that were not registered would not receive the grant money.
"Wait until tomorrow and you might miss the boat," Mrs. Halberstam cautions.
Her persistence in changing the ruling from murder to terrorism paid off as well. Ari's was the only case ever changed by the Justice Department before or since. "It took a tedious long time," she says. "I never did give up. If you want to do something, just believe in yourself, and in G-d, and I promise you will accomplish it."
Mrs. Gniwisch was a kindergarten teacher when she and her husband took out a loan to help an old friend save his business. They lent the man $25,000 to rejuvenate his jewelry business. The Gniwisch's had six kids in school at the time, but were moved to help a fellow Jew. Three months later, the business failed. The man was unable to pay back the money so he sent the jewelry to Montreal. Mrs. Gniwish traveled around selling the merchandise. Mrs. Gniwish never did recoup the money from that transaction, but discovered her talent for designing and selling jewelry.
"Most well-to-do businesses started by chance—meeting a person at a certain time, having lunch, just being in a certain place, the Aibishter takes you by the hand and leads you to where you need to be," says Mrs. Gniwisch.
A defining moment for the business was when she and her husband had traveled from their home in Montreal to New York to find a special pearl supplier. "He didn't want to sell to me because I wasn't important enough," says Mrs. Gniwisch. She told her husband they should go to Japan – where the pearls were sourced. "I was chutzpah'dik," Mrs. Gniwisch says. "I walked into the Japanese supplier and said, 'I know nothing about pearls, but I want you to teach me because I am going to be your biggest client." And she did become the supplier's biggest customer.Mrs. Gniwisch gives tzedaka generously. She has seen with her own eyes that whatever she gives, she gets back even more in myriad ways. In business over 40 years she has learned to focus on the positive when things get tough. "The customer is always right, but there are times you need to put your foot down, take your losses and smile."
Mrs. Gniwisch and her husband both survived the Holocaust, so family is paramount. "Children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren," says Mrs. Gniwisch. "That's what we pray for."
Questions from the audience addressed how to compete in a man's world, how to start a business without capital, and then take it to the next level.
Mrs. Abelsky wrapped up the night with inspiration. "No matter what, you have the koach to get ahead."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFwrIaQK7sk
200 frum Jews from Crown Heights, Flatbush and elsewhere gathered to hear tips and tricks from a group of real estate veterans.
Biz Plan Winner Receives 20K Prize
7188740100Info@CHYE.Info
Copyright Crown Heights Young Entrepreneur | Site by AW Designs
All rights reseved

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


I stumbled upon that interesting geekhack thread again today, the one about the thumb cluster on the Ergodox keyboards. There's some good ideas there, for sure. Moving thumb keys closer to the rest of the board is a great idea, I'm actually using a couple of the lower keys as thumb keys as well. And positioning the cluster differently in 3D space is really interesting too, though it makes for more difficult builds, and pressing down with thumbs really isn't that bad.
But then, most of that stuff becomes really personal really fast. Everyone's hands and fingers are different, so trying to make a one-size-fits-all solution is going to be sub-optimal for everyone. The only real solution here is to design your own setup, for yourself.
Hell, I don't even really use the top row of my Ergodox EZ, and there's lots of keys I only use for one specific binding that's easily moved somewhere else. Layout-wise, there's lots of optimization to be done still, and then, maybe I want to move onto tailoring the hardware to fit that exactly.


Hospitals and Universities often have large extensive campuses with many types of buildings that must accommodate a multitude of people. The vast network of buildings and tenants creates a substantial demand for heated air, hot water, and electricity. It is common for these institutions to possess a central plant with a large package water tube boiler that generates steam to serve some or all of the aforementioned needs. Halgo Power has a proven track record of successfully engineering, managing, and installing package water tube boilers for Hospitals and Universities throughout the southern United States.


text:
package group

import (
	"testing"

	"github.com/stretchr/testify/assert"
)

func TestUnsupportedLookupID(t *testing.T) {
	gid := "0"
	name := "root"
	grp, err := LookupGroupID(gid)
	assert.NoError(t, err)
	assert.NotNil(t, grp)
	assert.Equal(t, gid, grp.ID)
	assert.Equal(t, "", grp.Name)
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Poetry for the Poisoned es el noveno álbum de estudio de la banda de metal Kamelot. Fue lanzado en la etiqueta earMUSIC, una subdivisión de Edel, el 10 de septiembre de 2010 en Europa, y cuatro días más tarde en América del Norte por la propia etiqueta de la banda, KMG grabaciones. El lanzamiento fue el primero en función de Sean Tibbets en el bajo y el último de Roy Khan como vocalista.

Lista de canciones

Álbumes de 2010
Álbumes de power metal
Álbumes en inglés

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Dallas sport event date Monster Energy race Sunday, March 31, 2019 starting at 1:00 pm. Purchase tickets here best prices and seat selection. NASCAR race location venue Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas.


text:
DRYFT- A Dockside Concert Series
Come on board the SS VIRGINIA V for an intimate dockside concert hosted by DRYFT Productions via AirBNB Experiences. You'll join a group of fellow travelers and music-loving locals in a unique, intimate venue - Seattle's iconic S.S. Virginia V steamship - where you'll experience some of the most talented, up-and-coming singer/songwriters of all genres. You won't know who you're seeing until you arrive at the door - which is part of the mystique - but you're guaranteed an amazing experience with well-curated musicians. Produced by DRYFT.
Beer, wine, soda and light snacks available for purchase.
8:00 pm - Doors Open
8:30 pm - Show Begins
10:30 pm - Show Ends
11:00 pm- Vessel Closes
*Please note all musicians who perform are PAID for their performances.
For most of the year, the S.S. Virginia V is docked on the southern bank of Lake Union. Our home port is easy to find behind the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI) just past the antique steam clock.
DRYFT- A Dockside Concert Series Friday(February 7, 2020), 8:00 pm - 11:00 pm
Chantey Sing Friday(February 14, 2020), 8:00 pm - 10:00 pm
DRYFT- A Dockside Concert Series Friday(February 21, 2020), 8:00 pm - 11:00 pm
Register for Event: DRYFT- A Dockside Concert Series
Type Available Price Quantity Total
Member 55 USD 60 012345678910 USD
Non-Member 10 USD 75 012345678910 USD
Children (12 & under) 20 USD 30 012345678910 USD
Your ticket for the: DRYFT- A Dockside Concert Series


Athletic potential can be a tricky thing. On one hand, it can be an alluring temptress filled with promise and hope. On another, it can be unfulfilled aspirations that lead to regret and disappointment. We see this in every professional league in America during the annual drafts, and every year there are players picked based on their potential.
As this season has progressed, Allan Hancock College's Erik Kinnebrew displayed flashes of potential that would leave some Division One coaches lining up to recruit him. The 6-foot-6-inch tall freshman guard had double digit points and rebounds in a game against Los Angeles Pierce College in late December, and then he followed that up with a monster game against El Dorado College in mid-January. In the game against El Dorado, Kinnebrew had the first triple double for a Hancock player in recent memory. A triple double is when a single player achieves double digits in three statistical categories.
Kinnebrew was raised in Southern California and attended St. Anthony's High School in Long Beach. As a child, Kinnebrew was always around basketball. His father, Elbert Kinnebrew, is the director of the CalSparks AAU program. The elder Kinnebrew has been a girls' basketball coach in the LA area for years, and the CalSparks program is one of the top Nike sponsored programs in Southern California.
Yet despite the tutelage of his father and love for the game, Kinnebrew played just one year of varsity basketball in high school. Kinnebrew was only 5 feet 8 inches tall in high school and was not a highly regarded player on his own team. After graduation, Kinnebrew decided to enroll at Middlebrooks Academy, a prep school focused on basketball players in grades six through post-graduate. While at Middlebrooks, Kinnebrew hit a growth spurt that shot him up to his current height. Prep sensation Kobe Paras was a teammate and friend of Kinnebrew's during his time at Middlebrooks and is now the starting point guard for the Creighton Bluejays. During his time at Middlebrooks, Kinnebrew was able to use the program's top-notch facilities to assist in growing into his body and advancing his skills.


To view class registrations and duplicate cards, enter last name and date of birth then press Search.
Last Name search uses "like" matching OR Enter the first few letters of the last name and press the space bar to select name.
To narrow results, enter the first few letters of first name. Otherwise, leave first name blank.
Last name and date of birth are required for search.
If unable to locate your record, contact the regional Florida Hunter Safety Program Office in your area to request a duplicate card.


text:
– gatunek charakterystyczny dla japońskich dzieł, głównie mangi i anime. Jest to podgatunek okruchów życia, przedstawiający postacie żyjące spokojnym życiem w uspokajających środowiskach i mający na celu wywołanie kojącego wpływu na publiczność. Słowo iyashikei może oznaczać w języku japońskim "gatunek leczący" lub po prostu "leczący".

Początki
Iyashikei po raz pierwszy pojawił się jako odrębny podgatunek w 1995 roku, w następstwie trzęsienia ziemi w Kobe i ataku w tokijskim metrze. Te traumatyczne wydarzenia, w połączeniu z recesją gospodarczą, doprowadziłyby do tego, co uczony Paul Roquet nazywa trendem iyashi lub boomem leczącym. Trauma, jakiej doświadczyła japońska opinia publiczna, zapewniła "emocjonalny kontekst dla powstania dochodowej i atrakcyjnej formy spokoju".

Przykłady

Przypisy

Terminologia z zakresu mangi i anime


text:
import React, {PropTypes} from 'react';
import EggView, { EGG_IMAGE_WIDTH } from './egg';

const EGG_IMAGE_WIDTH_SMALL = EGG_IMAGE_WIDTH / 3;

class BasketView extends React.Component {

  static propTypes = {
    basket: PropTypes.shape({
      label: PropTypes.string,
      alleles: PropTypes.arrayOf(PropTypes.string),
      sex: PropTypes.number
    }),
    id: PropTypes.string,
    index: PropTypes.number,
    eggs: PropTypes.arrayOf(PropTypes.object),
    isSelected: PropTypes.bool,
    onClick: PropTypes.func
  };

  handleClick = (evt) => {
    const { basket, index, onClick } = this.props;
    if (onClick)
      onClick(index, basket);
    evt.stopPropagation();
  }

  render() {
    const { basket, id, eggs, isSelected } = this.props,
          classes = 'basket' + (isSelected ? ' selected' : '');

    function eggsDiv() {
      if (!eggs || !eggs.length) return null;
      let eggViews = eggs.map(function(egg, index) {
        return (
          <EggView egg={egg} key={`basket-egg-${index}`} isSelected={true}
                            displayStyle={{size: EGG_IMAGE_WIDTH_SMALL}} />
        );
      });
      return (

          {eggViews}

      );
    }

    return (

{basket.label}

        {eggsDiv()}

    );
  }
}

const BasketSetView = ({baskets, idPrefix='basket-', selectedIndices=[],
                        eggs, animatingEggIndex, onClick}) => {

  let basketViews = baskets.map((basket, index) => {
        const id = `${idPrefix}${index}`,
              isSelected = selectedIndices.indexOf(index) >= 0;
        let eggIndices = (basket && basket.eggs) || [],
            displayEggs = [];
            eggIndices.forEach((eggDrakeIndex) => {
              const eggIndex = eggDrakeIndex;
              if (eggDrakeIndex === animatingEggIndex) return;
              if (eggs && eggs[eggIndex])
                displayEggs.push(eggs[eggIndex]);
            });
        return <BasketView basket={basket} id={id} key={id} index={index} eggs={displayEggs}
                        isSelected={isSelected} onClick={onClick} />;
      });

  return (

      { basketViews }

  );
};

BasketSetView.propTypes = {
  baskets: PropTypes.arrayOf(PropTypes.object).isRequired,
  idPrefix: PropTypes.string,
  selectedIndices: PropTypes.arrayOf(PropTypes.number),
  eggs: PropTypes.arrayOf(PropTypes.object),
  animatingEggIndex: PropTypes.number,
  onClick: PropTypes.func
};

export default BasketSetView;


text:
Tom Rocks Russia
28 Oct 2020|Tom Crawford
Home / Blog / Tom Rocks Russia
And now for something completely different. Breaking away from the usual – and of course fantastic – Teddy Hall blog posts, in true Tom Rocks Maths style, I thought I'd try something a little more 'outside of the box'. Last summer I was invited to ITMO University in St Petersburg, Russia, and here is a written/video diary of my stay.
It didn't start well. A 5am wake-up for an early morning flight, which was subsequently delayed just enough for me to miss my connection and have to spend 6 hours trapped in the labyrinth that is Frankfurt airport, is not my idea of pleasant. But undoubtedly the worst part was missing the boat tour of St Petersburg, scheduled to leave just as I was landing at the airport… Fortunately, things did indeed only get better.
The first day saw our group of assorted journalists/academics/communicators taken to the restoration workshop of the Hermitage Museum – the second largest Art Museum in the world and undoubtedly one of the jewels of the metaphorical Russian Crown. We began with a tour of the photograph restoration laboratory, before we ascended to the upper level and the home of damaged ancient artefacts. Surrounded by priceless objects in the form of mosaics, tapestries and even an Egyptian sarcophagus, the incredible attention to detail in the work of the restorers was a work of art in and of itself. Talking to a proud restoration veteran of over 40 years, the group was in utter disbelief on hearing how she had spent the past 5 years working on a single mosaic no larger than an A3 piece of paper. Patient is not the word.
After a short pit-stop for a traditional Russian lunch of Borscht (what else), we headed to ITMO University and the Museum of Optics. Now, before you form a (most likely unflattering) image of the museum in your mind, let me just say that this was quite possibly the best interactive museum that I have ever visited. The key word here is interactive, and this place was an adult's playground. Create a 3D hologram of yourself? Check. Watch a light display using glass made from almost every element of the Periodic Table? Check. Look at priceless jewellery and artwork normally locked away from the public eye through holograms so real that you wouldn't know without reading the label? Check. And all of this was housed in the former mansion of a Russian merchant who fled the country during the revolution for fear of his life, complete with hidden doors and secret passageways. I really cannot recommend this place highly enough.
Day two had a lot to live up to, and whilst nothing could top the high of the Museum of Optics (in case you haven't realised yet, I really liked it there), our visits to two corporate giants of Russia did not disappoint. We began at Gazprom – if you watch Champions League football you'll know them as the main programme sponsor, otherwise think of the Russian version of BP/Shell. After an opening address from an entire team of senior management, we heard from several scientists working at the company about the ground-breaking new technologies being used by the company out in the field to extract more, and better-quality oil than ever before. Our attempts to question the environmental impact of their practices were, let's say, lost in translation, but for the copious amounts of corporate stash we received the visit cannot be classed as anything other than a success.
Next on the agenda was JetBrains. I imagine you've never heard of them (neither had I), but if I mention the programming language 'Kotlin' then perhaps things are a little more familiar. First released in 2016, it is the fastest growing programming language in terms of users with the total number now standing at over 2 million, and in May 2017 it received the gold standard from Google when it was officially announced as a first-class developer language for Android. In other words, it's the current hot topic in the world of programming. Not only were we treated to a tour of their brand-new purpose-built office building overlooking the bay, I also had the chance to interview the man behind Kotlin, Andrey Breslav, on what it was like to work on such an exciting project from the very beginning. You can watch the video here.
The third and final day saw a return to ITMO University for a whirlwind tour of the labs, featuring everything from robotic strawberry pickers controlled by a mobile app, to spiders mined for their silk to make new super-strong nanomaterials with possible applications in lightweight body armour. An afternoon tour of the city before an evening at the ballet to watch 'Giselle' rounded off a highly successful trip with our fantastic hosts. I hope to return next year to teach a module as part of their Science Communication Master's Programme – the only one in Russia – but in the meantime I'll keep rocking Russia Maths.
To end, here's a short video featuring some of the visual highlights of the trip:
Category: Research
Library, Arts & Archives
Dr Tom Crawford is a Early Career Teaching and Outreach Fellow in Mathematics at St Edmund Hall with a mission to share his love of maths with the world. His award-winning website features videos, podcasts, articles and puzzles designed to make maths more entertaining, exciting and enthralling for all. Whether he's performing live as the Naked Mathematician with Equations Stripped, telling you the fun facts about numbers that you didn't realise you've secretly always wanted to know with his Funbers series on the BBC, or getting another maths tattoo (6 and counting), it's safe to say Tom is always finding new ways to misbehave with numbers!
You can find more maths-based fun on Tom's award-winning website and follow him on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram @tomrocksmaths for the latest updates.


This fun little frenzy of a fighting game is reminiscent of the Final Fight arcade game from the '80s. Remember beating up garbage cans and getting food for extra life? Or kicking the heck out of a car for a bonus? This game has got all that in 3D glory.
Along your way, you will stumble upon a bunch of baddies who are trying to stop you from reaching the end of the level. Use your simplified martial arts expertise and kick their butts.


text:
using UnityEngine;

// ReSharper disable once CheckNamespace
namespace UnityTools.Collections
{
    public class DictonaryTester : MonoBehaviour
    {
        public DictionaryStringInt Items = new DictionaryStringInt();
    }
}


Woo Hoo! It's the fifth Wednesday of a month and you know what that means. We're having an Anything Goes challenge. Terrific news, right?
So, what do we expect for an "Anything Goes" challenge? Well, really, anything. You can see from the wonderful samples created by our Watercooler Artists that some have made cards, Gail has made a card and a decorated candle, and Heidi has decorated a fan. Surprise us! As usual, just click on the name under the project to discover all the details. We begin with Marsha's beautiful card.
Simply use the link-up below to share your project. This Linky will close on Monday, September 4th at 5:00 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time. Winners will be posted on Tuesday, September 5th at 5:00 p.m. MDT.
It's Tuesday and time to announce the Rock Star and Rockers for Penny's "All About Christmas" Challenge. But first, we'd like to thank everyone who played along with with us. Your entries were wonderful and it made our choices harder. The Watercooler Artists enjoyed visiting your blogs to see all of your great designs.
Penny's choice for her Watercooler Rock Star is Sherri Lee's adorable snowman card. Following the winner are the Watercooler Artists choices for the Watercooler Rockers.
Penny's Winner: I absolutely adore this acetate snowman card. Beautifully coloured and lots of texture.
Congratulations, Sherri! Here is your badge to proudly display on your blog designating you as our Watercooler Rock Star!
Now it's time for the Watercooler Artists to share their choices for our Watercooler Rockers. But before we do, I'd like to mention that one of our team members, Libby Fens, is not with us this week. She is one of those impacted by Hurricane Harvey. Our hearts are with her as she copes with the aftermath.
Kath's Choice: I love the elegance.
Marsha's Choice: I love Darnell's clean and simple design. Those 3-D candy canes look real enough to eat!
Gail's Choice: It's festive, traditional and nostalgic. Great job combining all the patterns in a way that really works.
Judy's Choice: This card is just absolutely adorable! I love those Christmas bears!!!
Heidi's Choice: Love the combination of stamp sets as well as the lovely watercolouring. Great job stamping the envelope to match.
Fiona's Choice: I love cardinals and love the way this one has been coloured.
Crystal, Darnell, Jan, Lorraine, Jennifer and Andrea, congratulations. Here is your badge to proudly display on your blog designating you as our Watercooler Rockers.
And, there you have our Rock Star and Watercooler Rockers for this week! Be sure to come back tomorrow, August 30th, for our next Watercooler Wednesday Challenge. You won't want to miss out on all the wonderful designs by our Watercooler Artists.
Woo Hoo! Penny Hanuszak is hosting a fabulous "All About Christmas" challenge this week. Time to add to that stash of Christmas cards you're steadily working on.
You can get some terrific ideas for those Christmas cards by checking out the wonderful samples created by our Watercooler Artists. Remember, you just have to click on the name under the card to get to the appropriate blog post for all the details. We begin with Penny's elegant white, blue and silver creation.
Simply use the link-up below to share your project. This Linky will close on Monday, August 28th at 5:00 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time. Winners will be posted on Tuesday, August 29th at 5:00 p.m. MDT.
It's time to announce the Rock Star and Rockers for Marsha's Masculine "Anything Goes" Challenge. But first, we'd like to thank everyone who played along with with us. Your entries were wonderful and it made our choices harder. The Watercooler Artists enjoyed visiting your blogs to see all of your great designs.
Marsha's choice for her Watercooler Rock Star is Sue's beautiful alcohol ink landscape card. Following the winner are the Watercooler Artists choices for the Watercooler Rockers.
Marsha's Winner: The landscape Sue designed using using alcohol inks is beautiful. Her smooshing with a straw made for a very realistic background.
Congratulations, Sue! Here is your badge to proudly display on your blog designating you as our Watercooler Rock Star!
Heidi's Choice: This is an amazing creation, beautifully thought out and well crafted. Excellent choice of embellishments.
Libby's Choice: It's clean and simple and to the point, pun intended!
Kath's Choice: I like the layout and image. Very masculine!
Judy's Choice: I love all the techniques and color on this!
Penny's Choice: The oxide blend in the background and the black oxide image of the jaunty young males out for a night on the town really captured and held my attention. Great card!
Gail's Choice: I love all the different shades of blue and the die with all those angles and lines I think would really appeal to many men.
Fiona's Choice: I love the construction of this card and the little envelope detail on the front.
Jolanda, Jan, Heather, Julie, Harriet, Andrea and Maria congratulations. Here is your badge to proudly display on your blog designating you as our Watercooler Rockers.
And, there you have our Rock Star and Watercooler Rockers for this week! Be sure to come back tomorrow, August 23rd, for our next Watercooler Wednesday Challenge. You won't want to miss out on all the wonderful designs by our Watercooler Artists.
It's time to announce the Rock Star and Rockers for Kath's "All About Birthdays" Challenge. But first, we'd like to thank everyone who played along with with us. Your entries were wonderful and it made our choices harder. The Watercooler Artists enjoyed visiting your blogs to see all of your great designs.
Kath's choice for her Watercooler Rock Star is Aileen Ryan's adorable birthday card. Following the winner are the Watercooler Artists choices for the Watercooler Rockers.
Kath's Winner: I love the sweet little girls and how well the water coloring was done!
Congratulations, Aileen! Here is your badge to proudly display on your blog designating you as our Watercooler Rock Star!
Marsha's Choice: I love this design as well as the colors and those flowers. A beautiful clean and simple design.
Libby's Choice: I LOVE the colors! Simply done.
Penny's Choice: I love the diagonal background and the beautiful colouring on the little bear. It's so adorable.
Gail's Choice: 'Cause it made me laugh!
Judy's Choice: I adore this dinosaur and the dimensionality of this card!
Heidi's Choice: The incredible mix of colours in the background simply makes the white die-cuts "pop". Both cards are gorgeous but the balloons are my favourite against those wonderful colours.
Fiona's Choice: I love those rich colours and the simplicity of the cut out in the foreground.
Julia, Caroline, Michele, Chris, Louise, Darlene and Robyn congratulations. Here is your badge to proudly display on your blog designating you as our Watercooler Rockers.
And, there you have our Rock Star and Watercooler Rockers for this week! Be sure to come back tomorrow, August 16th, for our next Watercooler Wednesday Challenge. You won't want to miss out on all the wonderful designs by our Watercooler Artists.


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Is "stale" a big reason for "male and pale" boards?
Here is the lede from this WSJ article: "A stubborn paradox reigns across U.S. boardrooms: Companies are appointing more women to board seats than ever, yet the overall share of female directors is barely budging." In comments to the WSJ, the managing director for corporate governance research at the Conference Board indicated that, in "the last two decades, there's been a sweeping revolution in the field of corporate governance…. Yet if you look at the composition of the board, at its core, it remains the same at many public companies and quite resistant to change.'" Why is that? It's not, as some have suggested, a lack of qualified women board candidates. Rather, according to the Conference Board, it's that "average director tenure continues to be quite extensive (at 10 years or longer), board seats rarely become vacant and, when a spot is available, it is often taken by a seasoned director rather than a newcomer with no prior board experience."
According to a new study from the Conference Board, looking at SEC filings in 2018, half of the Russell 3000 and 43% of the S&P 500 companies did not disclose any change in board composition. With low board turnover, the opportunities for increasing board diversity are necessarily more limited. As reported in the WSJ, the study found that, for companies in the Russell 3000, "the average director stays in the job for 10.4 years and about a quarter of them step down only after 15 years. The upshot is that boardrooms remain the preserve of older, mostly white men: Only 10% of Russell 3000 directors are 50 or younger, while about one-fifth are older than 70…." According to the study, the industries with the longest average director tenures were financials (13.2 years), consumer staples (11.1 years) and real estate (11 years). But even the shortest average tenure was just over eight years (healthcare industry).
Another impediment to increasing board diversity, the study found, is the continuing preference for selecting directors with prior board experience to fill empty board seats, Given the historic data regarding women on boards, this preference obviously narrows the pool of candidates. According to the study, only 25% of companies nominate a new director without prior public company board service. Interestingly, however, larger companies are more likely to nominate a newbie: the study showed that companies with annual revenue of at least $20 billion "are twice as likely to elect two first-time directors as those with an annual turnover of $1 billion or less (7.3 percent versus 3.2 percent)."
A Conference Board initiative advocates "a system where every other corporate board seat vacated by a retiring board member should be filled by a woman, while retaining existing female directors. However, even though women are elected as corporate directors in larger numbers than before, almost all board chair positions remain held by men (only 4.1 percent of Russell 3000 companies have a female board chair)."
Notwithstanding all the clamor for increased board gender diversity, including by institutional investors such as BlackRock and State Street Global Advisors, the study found that "a staggering 20 percent of firms in the Russell 3000 index still have no female representatives on their board." While progress has occurred, as noted above, it has been slow. According to a recent study from Equilar, the percentage of women on the boards of the Russell 3000 increased from 18.0% to 18.5% in the fourth quarter of 2018, pushing the Equilar Gender Diversity Index to 0.37 (with 1.0 representing board gender parity). At that rate, gender parity would be expected by 2034.
The policies advanced by a number of large institutional investors have spurred some companies to enhance board diversity. For example, the voting guidelines regarding board composition issued for 2018 by BlackRock (reportedly the largest asset management firm) made clear that BlackRock expected "boards to be comprised of a diverse selection of individuals who bring their personal and professional experiences to bear in order to create a constructive debate of competing views and opinions in the boardroom. In addition to other elements of diversity, we would normally expect to see at least two women directors on every board." (See this PubCo post.) BlackRock is certainly not the only asset manager to try to tackle this issue. For example, State Street Global Advisors, which initiated its "Fearless Girl" campaign in 2017, has announced that, starting in 2020, it will vote against the entire slate of board members on the nominating committee if a company does not have at least one woman on its board and has not engaged in successful dialogue on board gender diversity for three consecutive years. More generally, in its survey of over 60 institutional investors with an aggregate of $32 trillion under management, the EY Center for Board Matters reported that, among investors' top priorities for companies in 2018, board composition, particularly gender diversity, was a top priority for 82%. About half of respondents reported that they consider board diversity in voting, while a quarter do so in the context of proxy contests and shareholder proposals. The driver appears to be the "interest in effective board composition, given the wide range of studies demonstrating the benefits of diversity, including how diverse perspectives enhance issue identification and problem-solving ability and impede 'group think.'" (See this PubCo post.)
Two practices that are often viewed as accelerants of board change are well-structured board succession or refreshment policies and board evaluations. But the Conference Board study showed that only about a quarter of the Russell 3000 use mandatory age-based retirement policies to facilitate board turnover. With regard to board evaluations, the study indicated that "even though many board members consider the performance of at least one fellow director as suboptimal, in the Russell 3000 index, only 14.2 percent of companies disclose that the contribution of individual directors is reviewed annually."
The Report of the NACD Blue Ribbon Commission on the Strategic-Asset Board has recommended that renominations of directors "should not be a default decision, but an annual consideration based on a number of factors, including an assessment of current and future skill sets and leadership styles that are needed on the board." In addition, according to one NACD Blue Ribbon commissioner in 2016, instead of just waiting for directors to notify the nom/gov committee if they plan to leave, "'[w]e need to shift the expectation from 'serve as long as you want' to 'serve as long as you are needed.' This 'shift' includes setting appropriate tenure expectations with any directors new to the board, as well as having what can be difficult conversations with longer-tenured directors if their experiences are no longer additive to the board."
The Conference Board study also faulted the prevalence of staggered boards at smaller companies (under $1 billion in revenue) as an impediment to progress on board diversity. The study found that almost 60% of smaller companies have staggered boards, which means, of course, that only 1/3 of the board is up for election each year. Other culprits identified by the Conference Board were plurality voting standards (the standard for 51.5% of directors in the Russell 3000). The study also pointed to the low adoption rate of proxy access (15.5% of the Russell 3000), which might seem a little curious given that proxy access is not really used even at companies that have it.
An earlier study from consultant Spencer Stuart showed that, in 2018, 71% of boards of S&P 500 companies disclosed a mandatory retirement age. But the ages set for retirement in those policies "continue to climb. Of the universe of S&P 500 companies with retirement age policies, 43.5% set the age at 75 or older, compared with 42% last year and just 11% in 2008. Three boards have a retirement age of 80. More than half mandate retirement at age at 73 or higher." As result, 56% of the directors who left these boards last year were 70 or older, and 36% served on the board for 15 or more years. For all directors that left boards of companies in the S&P 500 last year, the average age of departure was 68.4 and the average tenure was 12.7 years. Accordingly, the study concluded that, "[a]bsent changes in boardroom trends and refreshment practices, future turnover rates of S&P 500 boards will remain low. Only 16% of independent directors on boards with age caps are within three years of mandatory retirement[, and with] mandatory retirement ages rising, many have a long runway until they reach the age cap." This article in the WSJ explained that the tendency to retain board members began around 2008, as a result of the financial crisis: according to an executive at Spencer Stuart, this "'shift emerged during the financial crisis in 2008, when companies wanted to maximize stability and retain directors who knew their business well, … adding that a copycat mentality took over. Corporations watch each other's policies closely, and what starts as an action taken by a few companies can quickly become an entrenched practice among a broader universe of firms.'" (See this PubCo post.)
A new factor that is expected to fuel a greater effort toward board gender diversity is California's new board gender diversity mandate. That legislation, signed into law on September 30, 2018, requires that public companies (defined as corporations listed on major U.S. stock exchanges) that have principal executive offices located in California, no matter where they are incorporated, include a specified number of women on their boards. Under the new law, each public company will be required to have a minimum of one woman on its board of directors by the close of 2019. That minimum increases to two by December 31, 2021, if the corporation has five directors, and to three women directors if the corporation has six or more directors. (See this PubCo post.) The new law, while the first of its kind in the U.S., may not be the last. According to Bloomberg, "New Jersey and Massachusetts are considering similar legislation. Other states have passed non-binding guidelines, often as a precursor to legal action." (See this PubCo post.) With the new California mandate in mind, Equilar looked at the GDI of California-based Russell 3000 companies for the fourth quarter of 2018. Equilar found that, currently, "18.1% of California directors are women—this positions the California GDI at 0.36, slightly lower than the entire Russell 3000. Additionally, 17.5% of companies headquartered in California do not have a women on their board, while 15.8% of all Russell 3000 boards have zero women."
Posted in: Corporate Governance
Tagged in: board gender diversity, board tenure
Commissioner Jackson takes on non-GAAP comp targets
A nugget about conflict minerals reporting


Description: The CAMEO House Program of the Washington County Health Department is a state funded residential program whose primary purpose is to serve the treatment needs of alcohol and other drug dependent pregnant women and/or women with children on a state-wide basis. The Maryland Office of Health Care Quality certifies the CAMEO House Program to provide American Society of Addiction Medicine Level III.3, Clinically Managed Medium-Intensity Residential Treatment and Level III.1, Clinically Managed Low-Intensity Residential Services to the patients who voluntarily enter treatment. The program offers to the persons served and family an opportunity to engage in a treatment program tailored to meet their specific needs. CAMEO House is a 24 hour residential treatment center. Length of stay is a maximum of twelve months.
How to participate/enroll: Call Admission Screening at 240-313-3325.
What to bring: Birth Certificate, Social Security Card, Medical Insurance card for applicant and each child requesting admission as well as photo identification for applicant and immunization records for each child.
How long does it take: Admission is based on the availability of an open bed. Applicants can be referred to another comparable facility within the state if no beds are readily available. Applicants will receive interim services and resources from the Community Health Specialist while awaiting admission.
Cost: Maryland Medicaid and Federal Grant funds will cover most of the expense of treatment. Inability to pay is never a barrier to care.


The move by WIN comes at a time when regional networks Prime, WIN, Southern Cross Austereo and am i better off with childcare vouchers or new scheme Imparja have been campaigning under the slogan Save Our Voices, to change existing TV rules that prevent any station from broadcasting to more than 75 per cent.
Federal Communications Minister Mitch Fifield weighed into the debate when he spoke on ABC Radio.
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She said she had asked Mr Lancaster why the changes were happening in the electrical showroom voucher code Ballarat at the same time MPs were being lobbied about the reach rule and shrinking regional resources.February 19th, 2017 3 comments, press releases are flying thick and fast claiming victories in Canberra Illawarra.Under the plan, Ballarat-based presenter Bruce Roberts will read Victorian local bulletins from existing production facilities in Wollongong, with reporters expected to shift to a new Ballarat office without a studio.Topics: media, regional, television-broadcasting, ballarat-3350.
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It's hard to see them as separate when these sorts of things occurred Ms King said.
Channel Seven has already announced it will stream its content on the internet, and Channel Nine is expected to announce it will stream all three of its channels.Email, calls for the Federal Government to scrap its regional media ownership laws are gaining momentum as WIN television network announces plans to close its studios in Victoria.According to the Save our Voices website, in the past 15 years television newsrooms have been closed in Griffith, the Gold Coast, Newcastle, Wollongong, Canberra, Orange, Wagga Wagga, Mildura and Albury.Mr Fifield said he had been meeting with key industry stakeholders to see if a broad consensus could be reached to reform the laws to reflect the world today.Read more, march 6th, 2017 4 comments, march 2nd, 2017 4 comments, the claims in regional news battles are ramping.Read more, august 8th, 2018 3 comments.


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text:
« HELP RESTORE 'BURROUGHS' BY HOWARD BROOKNER
THE DANCE OF REALITY CAST & CREW – CONFIRMED BY BRONTIS JODOROWSKY »
TOP TEN FILMS OF 2012 – TOM COTTEY (EDITOR)
December 26, 2012 by Tom Cottey
1) ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA (DIR. NURI BILGE CEYLAN, TURKEY)
Nuri Bilge Ceylan's study of the emotional lives of men is both a both an astute meditation and a cinematic spectacle. In its sweeping portrayal of a police procedural in the Turkish steppes, the film brings to mind the road trips of Abbas Kiarostami and the ecstatic natural world of Tarkovsky. Ceylan's towering poetic achievement eloquently tackles the fascinating existential question: How do we live in a world where beauty and horror co-exist?
2) MARLEY (DIR. KEVIN MACDONALD, USA)
Kevin Macdonald gives Bob Marley well deserved biographical treatment in this superb and emotionally engaging documentary. Marley narrates Marley's life story, while looking intelligently at his impact on a socio-political level. The film questions Marley's role as a husband and a father, while examining his desire to help the public at large. The film is particularly keen in its take on Marley's mixed race heritage, helping us to understand his broad appeal, which transcends race to offer a redemptive quality and a profound sense of joy.
3) SIGHTSEERS (DIR. BEN WHEATLEY, UK)
It is often assumed that Britain is too small to accommodate for the road movie genre. Not so, for up and coming director Ben Wheatley, who's Sightseers traverses the north of England from the Tram Museum in Crich to the Ribblehead Viaduct. The story, which begins as a mere caravanning holiday, ends up in a bloody massacre to rival True Romance; the results are as hilarious as they are sickening. As well as great performances and cinematography, the soundtrack is the best of the year, with artists ranging from Frankie Goes To Hollywood to Popul Vuh.
4) LE HAVRE (DIR. AKI KAURISMAKI, FINLAND)
In spite of its melancholic exterior, Le Havre was the most heartwarming film of 2012. Picking up the story of Marcel Marx from director Aki Kaurismäki's 1992 film La Vie de Bohème, the film sees the ex-bohemian turned shoe shiner help a young African boy immigrate illegally to London. Despite being set in France, the film exudes Kaurismäki's authentic Finnish style, with immaculate set decoration, high contrast lighting and perfectly timed ironic humor.
5) HOLY MOTORS (DIR. LEOS CARAX, FRANCE)
While not necessarily the most subtle film of the year, Holy Motors was the most original piece of work. Recalling the most hilarious of Luis Buñuel's features, Holy Motors is riotous surrealist fun. Denis Lavant's performance is an extraordinary feat of physical acting, showcasing his vast emotional range. Kylie Minogue and Eva Mendes feature in radically unusual cameos, while the director himself appears at the beginning, to usher in his wild cinematic dream.
6) THE RAID (DIR. GARETH EVANS, INDONESIA)
Tackling screen violence with the upmost craft, Gareth Evans' The Raid was a brutal showcase of the Indonesian martial art Pencak Silat. With expert martial artists Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian as the opposing forces of good and evil, Evans choreographs his camera with a poetic, yet ultraviolent eye. Through pure physicality The Raid transcends the action genre and digs sincerely into the human impulse for discipline and mastery, be it violent or otherwise.
7) THE MASTER (DIR. PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON, USA)
Paul Thomas Anderson's provocative sixth feature included the finest performances from not one but two of Hollywood's best actors in 2012. Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman portrayed each other's ying and yang, as the PTSD sufferer Freddie Quell (Phoenix) and cult leader Lancaster Dodd (Hoffman). As well as the fine performances The Master was perhaps the greatest technical achievement of the year's art-house releases, with Anderson shooting the film on 65mm film, for stunning projection on 70mm.
8) MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE (DIR. SEAN DURKIN, USA)
One of the most striking debut features out on general release in 2012 was Martha Marcy May Marlene by Sean Durkin. Durkin honed his filmmaking skills with his company Borderline Films, where he produced features for his colleagues and directed shorts and music videos. His experience paid off, as Martha Marcy May Marlene exhibits a skillful handling of dual narratives and a distinct shooting style, making superb use of natural light. The film also features a beguiling and career defining lead performance by Elizabeth Olsen.
9) BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD (DIR. BENH ZEITLIN, USA)
The low budget Beasts of the Southern Wild was perhaps not the most perfectly formed film of 2012, but it had a rough edged mystical quality that hints at greatness. The film's rough edge almost recalls Werner Herzog's Aguirre: Wrath of God, as a Delta river community attempt to survive a colossal storm. Quvenzhané Wallis stars as six-year-old Hushpuppy, the young girl at the center of the drama, with an utterly sensational performance that spans reality and fantasy.
10) SKYFALL (DIR. SAM MENDES, UK)
With so called 'left-field choice' Sam Mendes at the helm, Skyfall became the best James Bond film in decades. The film looked to Britain to establish high-stakes on Bond's home turf, while also allowing for stunning action sequences (particularly in the London underground and Scottish highlands.) Mendes' decision to cast the acclaimed Javier Bardem as the villain gave Craig's bond a heavyweight opponent with which to spar. Lensed by industry leading cinematographer Roger Deakins, the film is a rounded, politically conscious and artful piece of popular entertainment.
Posted in Britain, Finland, France, Indonesia, Turkey, USA | Tagged Beasts of the Southern Wild, Holy Motors, Le Havre, Marley, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Once Upon A Time In Anatolia, Sightseers, Skyfall, The Master, The Raid | 1 Comment
on December 27, 2012 at 9:14 am | Reply TOP 10 FILMS OF 2012 « Tom Cottey
[…] are my Top 10 Films of 2012…. what do you think folks? reflectonfilm.co.uk/2012/12/26/top… […]


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Q: Astronauts Shot Down, hidden by SF fans Read in the late 1990s in e-book format; don't remember the acquisition source.
A new ice age has started, and the ice is down to roughly the US/Canada border. The US government - and by implication, much of the rest of the world - is essentially controlled by the Greens, and most of what we would consider modern technology is considered unacceptable (though some is "acceptable" to the extent that it allows the government to keep control over the populace). Science fiction, while not actually illegal, is taken as a sign of viewing "unacceptable" technology favorably, and can lead to "re-education" (in a distinctly Soviet style).
A pair of astronauts is attempting to scoop atmosphere to sustain their space habitat, and get shot down, landing on the ice. They are rescued by some "underground" SF fans, and the story centers around the attempts to keep the rescued astronauts out of the government's hands - and eventually morphs into a project to get them home to the space habitat, in spite of the government. There is a "Fen underground railway" of sorts, with signs that fen will recognize but non-fen wouldn't, which are references to what I'd consider 'classic' SF.
I never actually finished the book; that's as far as I'd gotten before a computer crash took out my copy of the e-book. Thus I ask...
What book was I reading?

A: Fallen Angels by  Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn.
From here:

IT ALL HAPPENED SO FAST
One minute the two space Hab astronauts were scoop-diving the
  atmosphere, the next they'd been shot down over the North Dakota
  Glacier and were the object of a massive manhunt by the United States
  government.
That government, dedicated to saving the environment from the evils of
  technology, had been voted into power because everybody knew that the
  Green House Effect had to be controlled, whatever the cost. But who
  would have thought that the cost of ending pollution would include not
  only total government control of day-to-day life, but the onset of a
  new Ice Age
Stranded in the anti-technological heartland of America, paralyzed by
  Earth's gravity, the "Angels" had no way back to the Space Habs, the
  last bastions of high technology and intellectual freedom on or over
  the Earth. But help was on its way, help from the most unlikely
  sources ....

A: Think this is what you're looking for.
Fallen Angels, by  Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn

From Wikipedia:

Astronauts from the orbital society fly a modified scramjet, redesigned to harvest nitrogen from the Earth's atmosphere. Government policy declares that these ships are responsible for the ice age, so the scramjet is shot down with a surface-to-air missile. The pilot and copilot, an Earth-born American named Alex MacLeod and a space-born Russo-American named Gordon Tanner, are forced to crash land in Canada atop the glaciers.
Upon hearing of this, the fan underground embarks on a rescue mission - a group of fans rides north through the Dakotas to rescue the astronauts before they can be apprehended by the Government.
[...]
Upon finally reaching their van, the rescuers flee to a small science fiction convention of some 50 fans at a mansion owned by one of their own.

I recalled this story from memory.