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Category Archives: Richard Armitage
REVIEW: CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER
Posted on September 1, 2019 by proxyblue57 Standard	Reply
Chris Evans (The Losers)
Hayley Atwell (Cinderella)
Sebastian Stan (Spread)
Tommy Lee Jones (Batman Forever)
Hugo Weaving (The Matrix)
Dominic Cooper (Dracula untold)
Richard Armitage (The Hobbit)
Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones)
Samuel L. Jackson (Jackie Brown)
Toby Jones (The Hunger Games)
Neal McDonough (Arrow)
Derek Luke (Glory Road)
Kenneth Choi (The Terminal)
Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones)
David Bradley (The Young Messiah)
Jenna Coleman (Doctor Who)
Amanda Righetti (Friday The 13th)
Simon Kunz (City of Ember)
Anatole Taubman (Taken)
Laura Haddock (Guardians of The Galaxy)
In the present day, scientists in the Arctic uncover an old, frozen aircraft. In March 1942, Nazi officer Johann Schmidt and his men steal a mysterious relic called the Tesseract, which possesses untold powers, from the town of Tønsberg in German-occupied Norway. In New York City, Steve Rogers is rejected for World War II military recruitment because of various health and physical problems. While attending an exhibition of future technologies with his friend, Sgt. James "Bucky" Barnes, Rogers again attempts to enlist. Overhearing Rogers' conversation with Barnes about wanting to help in the war, Dr. Abraham Erskine allows Rogers to enlist. He is recruited into the Strategic Scientific Reserve as part of a "super-soldier" experiment under Erskine, Col. Chester Phillips, and British agent Peggy Carter. Phillips is unconvinced by Erskine's claims that Rogers is the right person for the procedure but relents after seeing Rogers commit an act of self-sacrificing bravery. The night before the treatment, Erskine reveals to Rogers that Schmidt underwent an imperfect version of the procedure and suffered permanent side-effects.
Schmidt and Dr. Arnim Zola harness the energies of the Tesseract, intending to use the power to fuel Zola's inventions, mounting an offensive that will change the world. Schmidt discovers Erskine's location and dispatches assassin Heinz Kruger to kill him. Erskine subjects Rogers to the super-soldier treatment, injecting him with a special serum and dosing him with "vita-rays". After Rogers emerges from the experiment taller and more muscular, an undercover Kruger kills Erskine and flees. Rogers pursues and captures Kruger, but the assassin avoids interrogation by committing suicide with a cyanide capsule. With Erskine dead and his super-soldier formula lost, U.S. Senator Brandt has Rogers tour the nation in a colorful costume as "Captain America" to promote war bonds while scientists study him and attempt to rediscover the formula. In 1943, while on tour in Italy performing for active servicemen, Rogers learns that Barnes' unit was MIA in a battle against Schmidt's forces. Refusing to believe that Barnes is dead, Rogers has Carter and engineer Howard Stark fly him behind enemy lines to mount a solo rescue attempt. Rogers infiltrates the fortress of Schmidt's Nazi division Hydra, freeing Barnes and the other prisoners. Rogers confronts Schmidt, who removes a mask to reveal a red, skull-like visage that earned him the sobriquet "the Red Skull". Schmidt escapes and Rogers returns to base with the freed soldiers.
Rogers recruits Barnes, Dum Dum Dugan, Gabe Jones, Jim Morita, James Montgomery Falsworth, and Jacques Dernier to attack other known Hydra bases. Stark outfits Rogers with advanced equipment, most notably a circular shield made of vibranium, a rare, nearly indestructible metal. Rogers and his team sabotage various Hydra operations. The team later assaults a train carrying Zola. Rogers and Jones succeed in capturing Zola, but Barnes falls from the train to his assumed death.[c] Using information extracted from Zola, the final Hydra stronghold is located, and Rogers leads an attack to stop Schmidt from using weapons of mass destruction on major cities around the world. Rogers climbs aboard Schmidt's aircraft as it takes off, and during the subsequent fight the Tesseract's container is damaged. Schmidt physically handles the Tesseract, causing him to dissolve in a bright light. The Tesseract burns through the plane and is lost in the ocean. Seeing no way to land the plane without the risk of detonating its weapons, Rogers crashes it in the Arctic. Stark later recovers the Tesseract from the ocean floor but is unable to locate Rogers or the aircraft, presuming him dead.
Rogers awakens in a 1940s-style hospital room. Deducing from an anachronistic radio broadcast that something is wrong, he flees outside and finds himself in present-day Times Square, where S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury informs him that he has been "asleep" for nearly 70 years. In a post-credits scene, Fury approaches Rogers and proposes a mission with worldwide ramifications. Overall, I enjoyed the immersion into the era that Captain America: The First Avenger takes you back into. The performances are capable and Johnston's vision is convincing, and it makes for entertaining viewing.
REVIEW: THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES – EXTENDED EDITION
Posted on May 15, 2019 by proxyblue57 Standard	Reply
Martin Freeman (Black Panther)
Ian Holm (Alien)
Ian McKellen (X-Men)
Richard Armitage (Hannibal)
Luke Evans (Dracula Untold)
Orlando Bloom (Pirates of The Caribbean)
Evangeline Lilly (Ant-Manand The Wasp)
Lee Pace (Guardians of The Galaxy)
Graham McTavish (Outlander)
Ken Stott (Fortitude)
Aidan Turner (Beautiful Darkness)
Dean O'Gorman (Young Hercules)
Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange)
Manu Bennett (Arrow)
Mark Hadlow (King Kong)
Jed Brophy (Heavenly Creatures)
Adam Brown (The Emoji Movie)
John Callen (The Rainbow Warrior)
Peter Hambleton (A Twist In The Tale)
William Kircher (Shark In The Park)
James Nesbitt (Jekyll)
Stephen Hunter (Blue World Order)
Cate Blanchett (Hanna)
Christopher Lee (Star Wars – Episode II)
Sylvester McCoy (Doctor Who)
John Tui (Power Rangers SPD)
Billy Connolly (The Man Who Sued God)
Stephen Fry (V For Vendetta)
Ryan Gage (Outlaw)
Mark Mitchinson (Mortal Engines)
Sarah Peirse (Heavenly Creatures)
Reaching the finish line of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit Trilogy is an accomplishment for both viewer and director. The film picks up seconds after The Desolation of Smaug ends: The great, fire-breathing dragon (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) descends upon Laketown, bathing its residents in a sea of fire. Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) and the dwarves watch in horror from Erebor, while Bard the Bowman (Luke Evans) battles the dragon in Laketown, earning the respect of its people. Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) remains the captive of the Necromancer – aka Sauron (also voiced by Cumberbatch) – as Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) and Elrond (Hugo Weaving) conspire to free him. Soon Thorin, like Smaug before him, becomes obsessed with the Lonely Mountain's treasure, and incites a war with the elves, led by Thranduil (Lee Pace) and trailed by Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly). Also approaching is Azog's orc army, which threatens to overpower any one of the protagonist armies. If you're counting armies, that's the dwarves, elves, men from Laketown, orcs, and wild wolves, who also show up to claim the Arkenstone. This extended cut adds approximately twenty minutes of new footage, much of which is incorporated into the battle sequences. This version actually earned an R rating, which again proves that the MPAA is scared of its own shadow. Other than some CGI blood splatter and an over-the-top scene where Legolas decapitates a couple of orcs while hanging upside down, this is decidedly PG-13 material. The opening battle at Laketown is the film's most exciting, as the circling, taunting Smaug remains a visually and narratively compelling character thanks to Cumberbatch and some incredible visual effects. This extended cut does provide a few welcome character moments that improve the film. Jackson really underwhelms with the too-brief Gandalf/Sauron fight he previewed in An Unexpected Journey, but at least that is given a bit more screen time here. Better are added moments between Bilbo and Bofur (James Nesbitt) and extended scenes where Thorin contemplates whether or not to engage in battle against the elves and men. We also see the annoying Alfrid (Ryan Gage) die on screen, so there's that to look forward to. At the end of this epic, This film stands as a decent conclusion to Peter Jackson's epic trilogy. the film is presented here with 20 minutes of additional footage. Fans will no doubt want to own this extended edition, which offers fantastic picture and sound quality and hours upon hours of extras.
REVIEW: THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES
The Battle of the Five Armies proves to be an accurate title for the last entry in the series. This entry picks up directly where The Desolation of Smaug left off with the impending doom of Laketown because of the approaching dragon Smaug. The people of the Laketown struggle during their confrontation with Smaug and try to defeat the dragon. It is ultimately up to the heroic Bard (Luke Evans) to try and stop Smaug from obliterating everything in the path and save Laketown. Thranduil (Lee Pace) now seeks the sacred jewels of his people and arrives with the elves to get them back from the dwarf kingdom. The humans of Laketown seek shelter and gold so they can rebuild their town. The dwarves, having been without their home for so long, unite and fight to protect the reclaimed mountain kingdom. Increasing chaos ensues as the orcs arrive and bring with them bats bred for war and goblins. The threat of the rise of Sauron (the Necromancer) looms in the background. As the story progresses, it becomes clear a war is brewing in Middle Earth between the dwarves, the elves, the orcs (under the separate commands of Azog and Bolg), and the men of Laketown (who are fighting alongside Bard). Gandalf (Ian McKellen) must try and prevent the battle that looms but is faced with escaping the grasp of the necromancer with the help of Galadriel (Cate Blanchett). Upon arriving outside of the dwarf kingdom before the battle begins, Gandalf tries uniting the men, dwarves, and elves as he senses the impending war approaching with the orcs and wants the armies strengths combined so they can defeat the orcs. Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) also tries to unite the divided armies of men, dwarfs, and elves. Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) continue to be an aid to the dwarfs as needed and are thrust directly into the ensuing battle. Dwarf leader Thorin (Richard Armitage) has become obsessed with finding the Arkenstone: the heart of the mountain. It is kept by Bilbo Baggins as he dislikes the way that power and greed has overtaken Thorin's mind. Bilbo tries to remind Thorin of his important duties to those in need. Thorin, blinded by gold and the rage of his past, has to overcome his demons to fight as a hero once more before the war has ended. Bilbo, a true friend to Thorin, remains by his side as he faces a inner struggle to regain his sanity and to fight for what is right. Following An Unexpected Journey and The Desolation of Smaug, The Battle of the Five Armies is easily the most action-packed of the three films. The entire film serves to act as a concluding act to the series. It concludes the story that was established in the first Hobbit film and brings additional closure to the entire six-film saga as it creates a bridge between series. With great adventure, action, and dramatic closure, The Battle of the Five Armies is another excellent experience in the cinematic land of Middle Earth. The performances are impressive across the board in this film. Martin Freeman serves as a sort of anchor to the proceedings with his lovable performance as Bilbo. Richard Armitage brings dramatic weight to the character of Thorin with his remarkable performance. As always, the great Ian McKellen makes Gandalf one of the series most beloved characters. Rightfully so. Evangeline Lilly does a superb job in the role of Tauriel. She brings her best to the part and makes an excellent action-hero. It's a lot of fun to see Orlando Bloom bringing the character of Legolas back. Cate Blanchett is as good as always and Luke Evans brings something uniquely special to the film with his role as Bard. These performances mesh together remarkably well and help the film to succeed during both moments of spectacle and dramatic events occurring between the characters.
REVIEW: THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG – EXTENDED EDITION
Stephen Ure (Deathgasm)
Peter Vere-Jones (Xena)
Ed Sheeran (Game of Thrones)
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug 3D Blu-ray delivers stunning video and reference-quality audio in this exceptional Blu-ray release.We Return to Middle Earth where the dwarves, along with Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf the Grey, continue their quest to reclaim Erebor, their homeland, from Smaug. The 3D Extended Edition release of The Desolation of Smaug includes five BD-50 discs: two for the 3D version of the 186-minute feature film (with a break midway through the extended cut), one for the 2D version of the EE (with no breaks or disc swaps to be had), and two more discs devoted to more than ten hours of high definition bonus content. Thankfully, both the MVC-encoded 3D and AVC-encoded 2D presentations are virtually identical in quality; to each other and to their April 2014 Blu-ray counterparts. Similar to the palette shift that occurs when moving from The Fellowship of the Ring to The Two Towers, The Desolation of Smaug is a much darker, bleaker film than An Unexpected Journey. The same goes for Warner's 1080p/AVC-encoded 2D and MVC-encoded 3D video presentations. Shadows are greedier, the cloak of night more oppressive, delineation less forgiving, and crush a bit more of a nuisance than before. Even so, the two transfers are excellent examples of the benefits high definition affords; each one rich in detail, lovely to behold, and utterly faithful to Jackson and cinematographer Andrew Lesnie's dramatic digital color grading. Skintones are perfectly saturated (or desaturated, as is typically the case), black levels are satisfying (albeit a touch muted in Mirkwood and Erebor), and contrast is spot on, with very little in the way of distractions. (The few that do arise trace back to the filmmakers and/or the FX.) Clarity is also remarkable in both 2D and 3D, with crisp edges free from aliasing and ringing, refined textures that capture every last subtlety of the film's production design and costumes, and a pleasing veneer of grain that doesn't hinder the image in any way. In 3D, the experience is perhaps even more stunning, with a level of depth and dimensionality reserved only for the best of the best 3D releases. The aforementioned bleakness and darkness doesn't take a toll on the MVC-encoded 3D presentation, nor does it muddle Jackson's imagery in any way. Orc swords pierce the screen. Forests extend into the distance. Mountains spill back to the horizon. Rivers rage as barrels race to safety. Elves leap overhead. Spiders lunge at the viewer. Drawn bows point arrows beyond the bounds of the film. The streets of Laketown snake into the city. Dwarven monoliths tower above Bilbo and the Company. And Smaug looms larger and more menacingly above the fray. Then there are the veils of cobwebs, sea of trees, canopy of leaves and butterflies, crowds of onlookers, sheets of dragon scales, oceans of gold, and columns that allow one to sense the vastness of Erebor's halls. All of it is convincing and oh so immersive, with wide vistas boasting as much 3D oomph as the most intimate close-ups. Add to that a lack of significant aliasing, shimmering, ghosting or other issues associated with 3D and you easily have what's already one of the finest 3D releases of the year. Better still, artifacting, banding and other significant enemies of the crown are held at bay; again, both in the 2D and 3D presentations of the film. There are a few negligible instances of banding and artifacting, but nothing that takes a serious toll, and nothing that will be noticed by anyone who isn't scanning the shadows, smoke and fog looking for something to overreact to. (A half-dozen unsightly, lower definition GoPro Camera shots pepper the barrel escape sequence, and irritate me every time I watch the film. But each one only appears for a split second and, again, should be laid at Jackson and Lesnie's doorstep, not Warner's.) All told, The Desolation of Smaug is gorgeous regardless of which version you choose to watch. Jackson's rabid fans will be rewarded for their allegiance.
REVIEW: THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG
The tales are still unravelling and a lot of the characters are still telling their backstories. However, Peter Jackson and co. don't allow this picture to go without any action. The orcs continue to follow the protagonists from one place to the next, with the intention of killing each one of them. As this danger comes upon each village, audiences are introduced to a batch of insanely entertaining action sequences. One of the most impressive happening down the rapids of a fast-moving stream. Even through the more subtle scenes, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug has a much better sense of pacing that keeps it moving. Gandalf explores numerous environments, as he ventures the darkness of the curses that threaten the entire world. This team of writers don't need to have constant battles in order to keep their audiences engaged. While some of the dialogue is intentionally cheesy, the majority of it holds its own fairly well. As expected, the film is humorous when it wants to be. There are a lot of gags against the stereotypes of dwarves that will surely gain some laughs from moviegoers. This works extremely well in bringing a change of tone to the picture every now and then. While the team continues to fight towards the mountain in which Smaug is underneath, they encounter a wide variety of different people and creatures. It's all a matter of being able to tell the difference between friend and foe. Of course, a lot goes wrong along the way. Despite having Smaug's name in the title, he's the antagonist held for the third act of the feature. This dangerous dragon makes for a meaty portion of the running time, as Bilbo attempts to sneak around the beat's chamber without being detected. Once the group is faced with the task of fighting off the dragon, they're forced to draw deep inside themselves in order to find the bravery and courage needed to at least put up a fight. There's plenty of running around and fighting here, but Smaug gets quite a bit of time to speak with Bilbo before things start spinning out of control. Not only is the dragon threatening in size, appearance, and name, but is actually rather witty in his dialogue. This makes for a great final act that pulls everything together.
REVIEW: THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY – EXTENDED EDITION
Hugo Weaving (V For Vendetta)
Elijah Wood (Sin City)
Andy Serkis (King Kong)
Christopher Lee (Lord of The Rings)
Barry Humphries (Finding Nemo)
Jeffrey Thomas (Hercules: TLJ)
Jarred Blakiston (Power Rangers Dino Charge)
The release of the three Lord of the Rings Extended Editions were something of a revelation a decade or so ago, particularly for J.R.R. Tolkien fans that wanted to immerse themselves even further in the cinematic landscape of Middle-earth. The nature of the LOTR novels dictated that the film adaptations would be packed to the brim with characters and locations while still excluding a wealth of material that couldn't possibly be included in the movies, so introducing more material made for a fuller experience. Peter Jackson and company have taken a similar approach with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Extended Edition Blu-ray release, but the new cut of the film doesn't feel like the definitive version that the LOTR extended cuts did. Instead, a movie that is already stretched too thin simply becomes longer, feeling like an indulgent director's cut rather than a noteworthy superior cut. All of that being said, An Unexpected Journey Extended as a Blu-ray release is still a worthwhile purchase for fans of the movie or the universe. The real selling point is the continuation of the Appendices, which even pick up the numbering from the LOTR Extended Editions so that this set holds Appendices 7 and 8. Spread across two different discs, the documentary material is just as rewarding to watch as the LOTR Appendices were, spanning about nine hours of in-depth production footage and interviews. The Appendices cover all aspects of building Tolkien's world, from returning to the original LOTR sets to casting the new characters to developing the culture of the Dwarves to the score and even the early involvement of initial director Guillermo del Toro. For fans of Middle-earth or just the process of making a film, these Appendices stand as the most thorough documentation of blockbuster movie-making in recent memory. But perhaps the most engaging part of the behind-the-scenes footage is the depiction of the friendships and bonds forged in the trenches of making a movie of this stature. For such a large scale production, seeing these relationships blossom in this footage is inspiring. The only downside to the Appendices is that unless you opt for the "Play All" option from the beginning, each segment will kick you back to the main menu after it ends rather than just continuing on from where you begin. The commentary track from Peter Jackson and Philippa Boyens is insightful and entertaining, even if a lot of the same content is covered in the Appendices at various points. Still, their rapport was amusing enough to keep me engaged throughout the length of the movie. The other special feature included on the movie disc is the "New Zealand: Home of Middle-earth" featurette that's a holdover from the initial Blu-ray release of the movie. The first Hobbit Extended Edition feels bloated as a movie, but the bountiful supplemental content and absolutely stunning audio/visual presentation
REVIEW: THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is Peter Jackson's return to the land of middle earth, and it's another epic adventure that is sure to delight moviegoers of all ages. The story of The Hobbit takes place before The Lord of the Rings. It connects some of the dots to Jackson's earlier trilogy and it's once again an adaption of the beloved writing of J.R.R. Tolkien as brought to cinematic life. This is one journey you are absolutely going to want to make because this is one of the most exciting motion pictures released in the fantasy genre since this film adventure began with The Lord of the Rings. The story takes place before the events that unfold in The Lord of the Rings.
Things start to unfold in flashback style through the storytelling of a much older Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm), reflecting upon his earlier adventures as he reminiscences with Frodo. We learn about how a powerful dragon named Smaug destroyed much of the land where Dwarfs lived, and claimed their Dwarf Kingdom, leaving the dwarfs without a place to call home. Flash forward and onto the beginning encounter between young Bilbo (Martin Freeman) and Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellan) who informs the merry hobbit that he'll be going on an adventure and that he needs to prepare. Before the evening is even over with, Bilbo is joined at his quiet home with the presence of thirteen dwarves, including the warrior leader Thorin (Richard Armitage). The company is quick to make themselves at home, feasting and celebrating, and all before Bilbo learns of their journey to reclaim the Dwarf kingdom known as Erebor. Reluctantly at first, Bilbo eventually joins the ranks of the team as their "thief" and journeys with them on an adventure he never expected in the first place. Gandalf saw something in him that he couldn't even see for himself.
As the perilous journey continues, they face great danger against Trolls, Orcs, Goblins, and other obstacles on their way to Erebor. What no one expects is that Bilbo will accidentally stumble upon a small golden ring, and that there would be a chance encounter between Bilbo and a creature named Gollum. The rest of the history of Middle Earth waits from here. There was so much anticipation for this film that it is nearly unparalleled in the history of film. It sounds like an exaggeration to state that there was that much hope and anticipation surrounding this film, but the fan-base surrounding this production is unlike anything else out there. The fan base is so dedicated and enthralled in the works of Tolkien and in director Jackson's vision for bringing these stories to life. There is a lot of dedication from the fans and from those who are involved with making the films happen. How many big-budget films are given a prequel treatment that is massively enticing to loyal fans and the masses at large? The only film to compare it to is that of Star Wars's prequel The Phantom Menace. Unfortunately, we know the results of that prequel film and series was disappointing for many fans. So the question soon centers upon whether or not fans felt the same way about The Hobbit on film. Luckily, the comparisons can end there, because while some viewers may quibble over sentiments that express disappointment that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey isn't exactly on the same precise level of filmmaking found in The Lord of the Rings trilogy it's clear this film isn't underwhelming, even if for some it failed to live up to the built-up anticipation. The Hobbit is also a revolutionary film that changes the game of filmmaking. This is the first production of films to be filmed with 48fps (frames per second) technology. The entire idea behind it was to make these films take full advantage of 3D technology so as to remove the effects of motion-blur commonly found and to increase the overall resolution and clarity. It wasn't something the studio had in mind. This was all a part of Jackson's vision for how to impact the future of filmmaking. Theaters projecting The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and future installments had to upgrade their theater equipment just to project these films in the best format possible and that still isn't realistic as a possibility for many theaters. Yet consider the fact that this is the first film ever produced with 48fps. And it was all because Jackson wanted to do something even greater; something audiences hadn't even had the opportunity to experience before. The industry standard of 24fps won't disappear anytime soon (especially considering the higher costs associated with the technology of 48fps cameras) but at least it seems Jackson wasn't all alone in wanting to advance the filmmaking game as James Cameron has already announced plans to film his next motion-picture with the same 48fps frame-rate. This is really quite the accomplishment. Almost everyone involved with The Lord of the Rings films creation in prominent roles came back to work with Peter Jackson in making The Hobbit films. This is perhaps one of the most notable elements of the entire production. Howard Shore has crafted another score that is just essential to the backbone of the film. Although it is highly enjoyable it is also a bit repetitive compared to earlier outings, with the greatest accomplishment in this entire outing being the stellar Misty Mountains song. Director of photography Andrew Lesnie is also back to being brilliant as the official photographer of Middle Earth and New Zealand. Speaking of returning individuals, not only does Andy Serkis return to reprise his legendary performance of Gollum but he receives a promotion to second unit director. He continues to prove that he deserves a special Academy Award for outstanding acting in an uncomfortable outfit and suit thingymagig. Of course, he's also brilliant all around and a real asset to these films (and now apparently in several ways). While Jackson also keeps things interesting for the adults in the audience he clearly seems to keep in mind that the story needed to be a more jubilant one and the results are the funniest and most simply enjoyable film in the series to date. It's the kind of film you could simply put on and get lost within for a few joyful hours. The whole family can share in enjoying this adventure story. The journey continues with an unlikely team of heroes that have set out to reclaim Erebor, their homeland, from the all-powerful Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch). Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) is the hobbit that fits the role of the thief to steal from the living dragon. Little does the rest of his team know that he's in possession of the mysterious and magical ring that he took from Gollum. The leader of their team, Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) goes off course in order to fight the very darkness that threatens the world. They soon realize that they will need the help from every race, and more, if they ever hope to defeat the great darkness that will soon overtake all of the lands.


We had so much success on the legislative front in 2018! Here's to an even better 2019!
As an AFGE member, you have tremendous power over our union's future.
Did you know he was the first to give federal employees a meaningful voice at work?
Nearly 420,000 federal employees will have to work without pay if President Trump decides to partially shut down the government on December 22.
Every year, thousands of health care and social service employees are either injured or killed by their own patients, clients, or their family members.
Federal correctional officers applaud Congress for passing the bipartisan sentencing and prison reform bill that will reduce the federal prison population while improving safety for officers, inmates, and those outside the prison walls.
Our Field Services and Education Department is offering a variety of online training courses in 2019!
Nearly 420,000 federal employees will have to work without pay if President Trump decides to shut down the government on Dec. 22.
From the hiring freeze to the illegal executive orders targeting workplace rights, the Trump administration's repeated attacks on federal employees and unions have taken their toll.
Surveys show TSA officers' morale is constantly the lowest or among the lowest in the federal government.
As the year comes to a close, we'd like to celebrate our members' and staff's fighting spirit and revisit crucial moments that define who we are as unionists.
Nearly 72,000 federal employees will begin receiving higher locality payments in January.
On Dec. 6, the House and Senate passed, and President Trump signed, a short-term stopgap bill that funds the government through Dec. 21.
Dozens of women working at Bureau of Prisons (BOP) gathered in Savannah, Ga., for the Council of Prison Locals - Council 33's first ever women's conference.


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Kodambakkam est une banlieue résidentielle de la ville de Madras en Inde, dans l'État de Tamil Nadu.

Elle est connue pour avoir une forte concentration de studios de cinéma, qui contribue à ce qui est identifié comme le cinéma de « Kollywood ».

Madras
Cinéma indien

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


In 2005 I was sent to the West African nation of Niger. A country that vies for the bottom spot on the UNDP's Human Development Indicator, it remains one of the world's most impoverished countries. It has one of the lowest childhood survival rates in the world. Women give birth to seven or eight children, and it's commonplace to find women who have lost two or three children to malnutrition and disease. Although official figures are hard to come by, it's estimated tens if not hundreds of thousands of children die each year from malnutrition, disease, the lack of public health care, and poor child care practices such as nutrition and hygeine.
In 2005, a combination of crop failure due to poor rains and locusts, skyrocketing prices and predatory merchant behaviour led to a widespread food shortage across the nation. Niger is largely made up of desert and dry scrub, with a thin band of land in the south of the country which flourishes during the rainy season, and has just a single growing season. The main cereal crop, millet, is low in nutrients essential to strengthen young children. Hundreds of thousands of children were malnourished, and several million people were considered to be at risk. A large humanitarian operation was launched, ostensibly to respond to the 'famine' that was touted in the media, although in actual fact this was not a famine, but a nutrition crisis that targeted the very young (in fact not a single case of excess adult mortality was recorded due to food shortages during this time). Feeding centres were established and tens of thousands of food aid was transported into the country.
I was stationed in Maradi for the first few months of my deployment, a small town on the Nigerian border (note the confusable adjectives- Nigeria/Nigerian; Niger/Nigerien), working as a program officer, helping to set up and support the running of some of our relief projects. I was then moved to the capital, Niamey, and when our response manager left shortly before Christmas, I took his position.
It was a difficult time, professionally and personally, but one rich in experience. I did a fair amount of writing at the time, and I thought I would post some of my pieces here. Although they're a little out of date, they fit the bill of travel pieces and observations on the aid world.
The first of these I've already posted. The next few I'll publish over the coming weeks. I hope you enjoy reading through some of my memories.
As always, living and working in Africa is a swirling series of irreconcilable dichotomies; a strange blend of privelage and want, of elation and exhaustion, of adrenaline and bitterness. I have found this before during my shorter visits, but living in one of the world's very poorest countries, one of the most dysfunctional, frustrating, fascinating and enchanting places I have come across, I find these feelings enhanced and confused.


text:
Tag Archives: Sanchez
Is Sanchez in a Sleeper?
In an election cycle where arguably 150 House races are at least moderately competitive and 90 campaigns are legitimately in play, sleeper contests are few and far between. One such situation may be in Anaheim, Calif., however, where seven-term Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA-47) has apparently fallen into a dead heat with her GOP opponent, Assemblyman Van Tran, according to a new Public Opinion Strategies poll (for the Tran campaign, 10/11-13; 300 likely CA-47 voters; Sanchez and Tran tied at 39%).
Though Tran's challenge to Sanchez has been on the board for more than a year, few believed it would become hotly contested. The district is decidedly Democratic and the Congresswoman normally wins with percentages right around 60%. What makes the seat a potential GOP conversion opportunity is the turnout history here – CA-47 has the lowest voter participation rate of any in the Golden State – and its demographic complexion. Though the seat is more than 65% Hispanic, it is also 14% Asian and features an extremely large Vietnamese community, of which Tran is a member. He's won three elections to the state Assembly, in a political division more than half the size of CA-47, proving that he has a strong political base. In a seat that routinely records fewer votes than most members receive by themselves, anything can happen, particularly in an election year that may evolve into a political wave. This is definitely a race to watch.
For more details, insights, to sign up for my daily email updates, or to sign up to track specific issues or industries, please email me @PRIsm@performanceandresults.com.
Posted in House and tagged California, Sanchez, Tran on October 21, 2010 by Jim Ellis.	Leave a comment

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Finnair on 07-Oct-2015 took delivery of its first A350 XWB, becoming the third operator overall – after Qatar Airways and Vietnam Airlines – and the first in Europe. The aircraft brings needed benefits to the airline: lower operating costs and an improved passenger product. The A350s also mark the start of more growth for Finnair's home base, Helsinki Airport, which is expanding its terminal to support Finnair.
After replacing A340s, the A350s will permit growth, with Helsinki Airport telling CAPA it expects each aircraft to open one or two new destinations a year. Finnair's strategy is to link Europe with Asia, focusing on Northeast Asia. Helsinki Airport has many of the main Asian markets covered, leaving open the opportunity for increased frequency – slots permitting – or exploring secondary cities. Finnair has announced Fukuoka and Guangzhou for new destinations in 2016.
Helsinki would like more North American routes, which Norwegian could consider. The LCC is testing longer flights from Helsinki with a Dubai service. Gulf carriers are absent from Helsinki – as are other long-haul operators excluding Japan Airlines. Helsinki Airport's challenge now will be to benefit from Finnair and attract new airlines.
Finnair A350 growth to focus on Northeast Asia – which markets?
Finnair's first A350 arrived in Helsinki on 07-Oct-2015, a few days delayed. The aircraft was due to start commercial flights (short-haul) on 05-Oct-2015. Finnair has 19 of the type on order. They are due to replace its seven A340-300s and then provide growth, with Finnair using about one aircraft a year for long haul growth. (Finnair also operates eight A330-300s.) This is to help Finnair achieve its goal of doubling its Asian traffic between 2010 and 2020.
Helsinki Airport anticipates its largest volume growth through the end of the decade will come from Asia.
Orders include those placed directly by the operator and by lessors assigned to the operator, from 2-Oct-2015 onwards.
Helsinki Airport's strongest Asian destinations already have Finnair service. In Northeast Asia, this is mainland China (Beijing and Shanghai in addition to Chongqing and Xi'an), Hong Kong, Japan (Nagoya, Osaka and Tokyo) and Korea (Seoul). In Southeast Asia, Finnair serves Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh and Singapore in addition to seasonal service to Krabi and Phuket.
Bangkok and Hong Kong receive at least daily service (there is double daily in peak periods). All other services are daily or less. Helsinki anticipates the opportunity to grow frequencies. However, slots are congested at most of Finnair's major ports.
Secondary cities can be challenging in terms of an untested market or low yields, especially in China where secondary cities mostly have leisure demand. Finnair is one of a number of intercontinental carriers in Chongqing, but was the only carrier in Xi'an (seasonal only) until United Airlines announced service for 2016 (seasonal only as well). There is a wealth of secondary Chinese cities to consider, but the challenge is profitability, even with generous local incentives. Busan would be the only other logical point to consider in Korea, but Korea is trying to dissuade long haul service into Busan in order to boost Seoul Airport operations and fortify the national hub.
Finnair already has one of the widest networks in Japan in terms of destinations and will expand with a service in 2016 to Fukuoka, its fourth point in Japan. KLM had a service to Fukuoka but plans to cancel this in 2016. There are strong Dutch links to Fukuoka, and KLM was hoping these would contribute to success. This may mean that if KLM cannot make it work, there are weak prospects for other long haul carriers.
Alternatively, this may free up space for Finnair to enter with a smaller aircraft (KLM used a 777-200) and potentially wider connecting market since Helsinki is not as far inland in Europe as is KLM's Amsterdam hub. But it is likely Finnair's decision to enter Fukuoka was made before KLM's recent announcement to exit the market, giving a boost to Finnair.
Finnair's Fukuoka announcement was made during its celebrations for A350 deliveries. Finnair also announced in 2016 it would open service to Guangzhou in southern China, near Hong Kong.
Finnair opened three weekly flights to Guangzhou in 2005 but closed the service in 2008, citing limited Northern European corporate demand in Guangzhou. Finnair hopes that growth in the Chinese market as well as Finnair's internal changes (connectivity strategy, European feed, cost reductions) will give it a second shot in Guangzhou.
Of European carriers in Guangzhou, Finnair joins Aeroflot, Air France and Turkish. Gulf connecting carriers Emirates and Qatar also serve Guangzhou. Other foreign long-haul operators into Guangzhou are Egyptair, Ethiopian Airlines, Iraqi Airways, Kenya Airways, Mahan Air and Saudia. Finnair has not announced frequency for Fukuoka and Guangzhou.
Looking at Asian flights by European city, London is clearly the largest followed by Paris and Frankfurt.
Amsterdam is smaller but ahead of the next pack, which includes Helsinki, Munich and Zurich. For the 24th week in 2015, Helsinki is the fifth largest airport in Europe for Asian flights, according to a Finavia presentation.
American Airlines had offered seasonal Chicago-Helsinki service, but this has been picked up by Finnair. Finnair joined the American/British Airways/Iberia trans-Atlantic JV. This has left all trans-Atlantic flying to Finnair.
Scheduling changes in Sep-2015 indicate Finnair will increase Chicago service, make Miami a year-round destination and discontinue Toronto service.
Helsinki would like more North American carriers and service to Los Angeles and San Francisco. Its lack of North American carriers is not uncommon but Helsinki's situation is less competitive than peer Scandinavian carriers. In 2015, Copenhagen saw service from Air Canada and Delta while Stockholm saw service from Delta and United and Oslo service only from United.
United is now following Delta in making flights seasonal only. Helsinki's situation is further disadvantaged compared to Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm as those three carriers see service from SAS in addition to Norwegian. However, Helsinki hopes Norwegian will consider Helsinki as a future long-haul base.
Norwegian is embarking on what could prove a very important experiment. The LCC will launch a daily Helsinki-Dubai service on 19-Nov-2015. Although this will be operated with a 737-800, with a six hour flying time it gives Norwegian exposure to the Helsinki market's appetite for longer flights on a low cost platform. Helsinki Airport hopes Norwegian's Dubai service could lead to widebody services, such as to the US. The service will be operated by Norwegian Air International, which operates the group's long haul services.
The comparison between the Dubai service and future long haul flights may not be so clear. The Dubai service operates overnight, allowing Norwegian to utilise an aircraft that would otherwise have sat not flying for much of the night; a long haul 787 service will carry a higher capital cost. As for passenger willingness to fly a LCC long haul, a narrowbody six hour service may be viewed less positively than a widebody service on a longer flight.
Norwegian's long haul services – to Bangkok and US points – depart from Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm and recently London Gatwick.
These departure points are unsurprising: they are Norwegian's four largest bases. At these points Norwegian has a local presence, bringing market familiarity and connecting opportunities.
This concentration of long haul services reduces station and other overhead costs. Helsinki is Norwegian's next largest unserved long haul base after Bergen (Bergen has seen limited long haul services).
Helsinki calculates it is the largest market in Europe that Gulf carriers do not serve. The lack of a single flight from Emirates, Etihad and Qatar contrasts to Copenhagen, which will be the first destination for Emirates' 615-seat A380. Qatar Airways is responding to Emirates' growth by increasing its frequencies. Overall, the Copenhagen-Gulf market will grow 43%.
See related report: Copenhagen Airport's Gulf and Asian growth: 615-seat Emirates A380, soon Cathay and Air India?
Gulf carriers are hesitant about Helsinki – although they and Helsinki airport see a service as inevitable. They see Finns as having very strong loyalty to Finnair, as well as travel preferences to Northeast Asia and Thailand.
Helsinki-Northeast Asia connections are too circuitous via the Gulf. Southeast Asia is the signature market for Gulf carriers from Europe, but Gulf carriers reckon Finnair is holding a competitive enough position.
In peak periods Finnair has two flights a day (on average: 1.4 a day across the year) to Bangkok, as well as to Krabi and Phuket. Finnair also serves Dubai, which is a growing destination (and not just transfer point) for some Europeans.
When Qatar Airways was in discussions to join the oneworld alliance, it was only Finnair that persisted with reservations. Finnair was concerned about Gulf impacts on its Asian traffic, on which Finnair has effectively pinned its central strategy. Finnair was eventually placated and Qatar joined the alliance, so the continuing lack of Gulf presence in Helsinki provides some relief to Finnair. But Gulf carrier presences in Finnair's transfer markets nevertheless mean Finnair still feels their competitive impact.
It is not just Gulf carriers that are absent from Helsinki. Helsinki receives very limited service from Thomas Cook and Thomson to assorted beach markets: seven flights for all of 2015 to Jamaica's Montego Bay, six flights in 2015 to Mauritius.
The only other major long-haul operator at Helsinki is Japan Airlines, which in 2013 commenced a service from Tokyo Narita that is now daily with the 787-8. Helsinki Airport says JAL's service sees a similar share of traffic connect beyond Helsinki (70-80%) as Finnair's long-haul services do. There is prospect for JAL to up-gauge Helsinki from a 787-8 to 787-9, but probably not to increase frequency. JAL's daily service compares to Finnair's daily service to Tokyo Narita and daily service to each Nagoya and Osaka Kansai (in winter they decrease to five weekly).
Finnair in Oct-2015 has an 82% share of the Helsinki-Japan market; however British Airways, Finnair and JAL participate in a Europe-Japan JV.
With JAL's service demonstrating the need for onward connections – a position Finnair dominates – Helsinki Airport is naturally looking towards oneworld airlines as they would be better positioned to partner with Finnair.
Finnair accounts for 67% of seat capacity at Helsinki (the next carrier, Norwegian, is at 13%). Finnair's oneworld alliance accounts for 70% of seat capacity. The next largest group is not SkyTeam or Star, but unaligned carriers (influenced by Norwegian's large presence) with a 16% share.
Although Helsinki would like a service from Cathay Pacific, it sees that being unrealistic given Finnair's existing coverage of Hong Kong (and mainland China). Finnair offers a daily Hong Kong service with supplementary flights during the peak season. A service from Malaysia Airlines would expand Helsinki's Southeast Asian network and would be nice, but again Helsinki sees the challenge, this time of Malaysia Airlines restructuring and decreasing long haul services.
To boost connectivity, Helsinki offers the lowest transfer passenger charges of major European airports.
Helsinki Airport is undertaking an expansion programme to add widebody gates and terminal space to support Finnair's growth. With its connecting traffic focus, Finnair's long haul services are naturally coordinated around scheduling banks.
Finnair tries to operate long-haul services within a 24 hour window, allowing an aircraft to depart Helsinki and return within a day. Some points including Hong Kong and Singapore are exceptions due to longer distances and the market's demand for overnight services in both directions.
Helsinki's Terminal one is for Schengen services, and the greater number of these services means frequency is spread throughout the day, although there are clear peaks and troughs.
The concentration of Finnair's Asian network is evident in the graph below showing arriving and departing flights to/from Asia.
Finnair has a main bank consisting of afternoon arrivals and evening departues (to mainland China, Japan, Korea and Thailand). A smaller bank sees departures in the late evening for Hong Kong and Singapore. These flights return in the morning.
While the non-Schengen terminal may be quiet during certain parts of the day, the concentration at peak hours requires the facility to be expanded. Helsinki operator Finavia will add eight widebody gates by 2020, first by expanding the terminal's finger by 2017 and then completing the remainder of the expansion programme around 2019/2020.
There is one widebody gate that can be accessed from the Schengen side. Finnair deploys a widebody on select weekly frequencies to Brussels and London Heathrow in order to facilitate cargo transfer. Cargo volumes in 2014 declined for the second year in a row, although still above their previous 2011 peak. This downwards trend is continuing in 2015.
Passenger traffic is a stronger story, with 3-4% growth in 2013 and 2014. 8M2015 traffic is up 1.9%. Helsinki is heavily reliant on Finnair, which has been restructuring but unable to lower costs to match yields.
Even if or when Finnair finds a firmer financial standing, growing in Asia comes with challenges; doubling traffic over a decade will require dedication and some luck. This is Finnair's – and therefore Helsinki's – main market.


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Iran Lobby
Exposing the Activities of the lobbies and appeasers of the Mullah's Dictatorship ruling Iran
Current Trend
National Iranian-American Council(NIAC)
Bogus Memberships
Iranians for International Cooperation
Defamation Lawsuit
People's Mojahedin
Trita Parsi Biography
Parsi/Namazi Lobbying Plan
Parsi Links to Namazi& Iranian Regime
Namazi, NIAC Ringleader
Collaborating with Iran's Ambassador
The Appeasers
Gary Sick
Flynt Leverett & Hillary Mann Leverett
Baroness Nicholson
Why Iranians Have Little to be Thankful For
With Thanksgiving looming in the U.S., millions of Americans will gather around family dining rooms to enjoy holiday traditions such as consuming enormous quantities of food, watching football games on television and parents chiding their children for spending all their time posting on social media or surfing the internet.
It's a time that reinforces the American traditions of family and freedoms that many others around the world do not get an opportunity to enjoy; namely ordinary Iranians living under the brutal repression of the Iranian regime.
Since the ruling mullahs stole the prospect for democracy away from the Iranian people after the Shah was deposed and the revolution turned into a religious theocracy, Iranians have simultaneously lived two lives: One in the public spotlight where the mullahs demand obedience to their strict religious views unable to express themselves; while they live another life in secret where Iranian women ride bicycles and teenagers post selfies on Instagram disobeying strict dress codes.
The normal everyday pleasures and freedoms Americans take for granted are almost universally restricted in Iran under the rule of the mullahs, which is why it has been important for American policy to make a distinction between the plight of the Iranian people and the policies of the oppressive regime.
The Iran lobby, led by such staunch advocates of the regime such as the National Iranian American Council, have always sought to portray American policies towards Iran as being harmful and punitive towards the Iranian people.
This was never more exemplified than in the long debate over U.S. sanctions aimed at Iran because of the regime's support for terrorism and its secret nuclear development program.
NIAC leaders such as Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi went out of their way to try and link the suffering of the Iranian people of the alleged hardships imposed by these economic sanctions.
Fortunately, history has a way of clearing up the facts from the fiction and in the case of the Iranian regime's conduct, the last several years have shown the truth about the regime's oppressive policies and the dramatic impacts it has had on the lives of its citizens.
Nothing demonstrates that more clearly than the complete ineptitude with which the mullahs run their government.
Iran has regularly placed near the bottom of rankings for lack of transparency in government and public corruption. The mullahs and their allies in the Revolutionary Guard Corps control virtually all of the major industries and siphon enormous amounts of profits into family bank accounts to live lavish lifestyles or divert it away from the economy for proxy war efforts in Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen.
The draining of capital has slowed the Iranian economy to a snail's pace over the years and widened the gap between the privileged and the impoverished. A startling and shocking photographic essay recently revealed the depths of Iranian misery in showing how many of Tehran's poorest and most destitute have resorted to making homes in the empty plots at nearby cemeteries.
The mismanagement of water policy has led to record droughts and the evaporation of historic lakes and turned verdant farmland into desert wastelands, while the lack of available jobs to women has wiped out nearly half of the available workforce for a country struggling with deep unemployment; especially among young people who are often drafted to serve as cannon fodder in the mullahs' wars.
Even recent natural disasters such as the massive earthquake striking the Iran-Iraq northern border killing over 530 people and wiping out 30,000 homes are a testament to how badly run the regime's emergency response is to this day.
Seven days after the earthquake took place, regime's top mullah, Ali Khamenei, visited the devastated areas and expressed that he was "not satisfied" with the response and said officials needed to "redouble their efforts." This was considered widely an attempt to respond to the wide spread anger against the mullahs' carelessness in the aftermath of the earthquake.
His remarks are ironic given how he personally controls much of the Iranian economy, as well as personally selects many of the top provincial officials who have so far badly bungled the disaster response.
In many ways, the Iranian people ought to be viewed with admiration since they have suffered incredibly, but still find ways to voice their discontent in a myriad of ways that displays the optimism and hope they all have for a free Iran in the future.
In a nation where public dissent of any kind is often a sure sentence to prison and even a public hanging, ordinary Iranians resourcefully find ways to express their dissatisfaction.
During the recent presidential elections which unsurprisingly saw Hassan Rouhani re-elected, most Iranians simply stayed away from polling places to express their unhappiness; forcing the regime to manufacture fake ballots to justify election returns.
Some of the more daring among the population even took to unfurling banners and signs on overpasses and the sides of building expressing support for banned leaders of the outlawed Iranian resistance movement such as Mrs. Maryam Rajavi of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, an umbrella group comprising several dissident groups.
Ultimately, the message that Americans will celebrate this week with Thanksgiving, may soon be a message that will resonate throughout Iran when a future comes that allows for peaceful regime change and the downfall of the mullahs at the hands of the Iranian people who have grown tired of their restricted freedoms, unpleasant economic future and constant war-footing.
Laura Carnahan
Filed Under: Blog, News Tagged With: Featured, hassan rouhani, Iran Earthquake, Iran Human rights, Iran Lobby, Iran Mullahs, Iran sanctions, Khamenei, Reza Marashi, Sanctions, Trita Parsi
National Iranian-American Council (NIAC)
Parsi Links to Namazi & Iranian Regime
NIAC Trying to Gain Influence On U.S. Congress
While Iran Lobby Plays Blame Game Iran Goes Nuclear
Iran Lobby Jumps on Detention of Iranian Newscaster
Bad News for Iran Swamps Iran Lobby
Iran Starts Off Year by Banning Instagram
© Copyright 2020 IranLobby.net · All Rights Reserved.


text:
/**
 * The external dependencies.
 */
import React from 'react';
import PropTypes from 'prop-types';

/**
 * The internal dependencies.
 */
import ContainerBase from 'containers/components/container/base';
import ContainerNonce from 'containers/components/container/nonce';

/**
 * Render a plain version of the container.
 *
 * @param  {Object}        props
 * @param  {Object}        props.container
 * @return {React.Element}
 */
const ContainerPlain = ({ container }) => {
	return <ContainerBase container={container} fields={container.fields}>
		<ContainerNonce container={container} />
	</ContainerBase>;
};

/**
 * Validate the props.
 *
 * @type {Object}
 */
ContainerPlain.propTypes = {
	container: PropTypes.shape({
		fields: PropTypes.array,
	}),
};

export default ContainerPlain;

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


The winning team of the Cincinnati competition will win TBD! for each team member (maximum team size of four).
In addition, winning teams of all cities will participate in a video chat presentation on Tues. March 12 at 5 PM EST. Winner will recieve 2019 MLB.TV Premium subscriptionfor each team member (maximum team size of four) and major bragging rights!
The runner-up team of the Cincinnati competition will win TBD! for each team member (maximum team size of four).
Come join us, March 9!
Baseball Hack Day is an annual on-site, in-person hacking event (also known as hackathon, hack fest, code fest, or code party) where area baseball fans come together and create baseball-related projects to compete in a fun, friendly, one-day competition. Come with your laptop computer and your ideas or open mind!
Born in Boston spring of 2012, Baseball Hack Day is a grass-roots, open-sourced movement, held at the same day at different locations all around the world. The goal of the day is to bring creative tech minds into one room, and see what they can produce within a limited time. The project could be (but is not limited to) a tool, simple web app, mobile app, web site, or data visualization.
This event is based on the principal of the original the Hack Day Manifesto and will always be free to attend, thanks to our generous sponsors. We are run by volunteers, pro bono, labor for love, and we'll never be for-profit. We follow contributor-covenant-style code of conduct.
First and foremost, this event will be a success if everyone has a good time. That is why we have a Code of Conduct. All attendees, sponsors, partners, volunteers and staff at our hackathon are required to agree with it. We want a safe, fair and fun environment for everybody.
We are using a hack submission service called DevPost. In order to win, you need to submit the hacks through it. It helps organizers keep track of the teams and the projects they create.
Hacks could be (but are not limited to) a tool, application, software, website, or data visualization and may be built using any programming language and platform that you choose. Teams can be of any size, but awards are only given to up to four individuals. Hacks will be judged for 1) Creativity/Originality, 2) Design/Presentation, and 3) Execution/Functionality.
The majority of your coding must happen during the event. Some work done prior to the event is allowed, but it should be disclosed at your demo. Ideas that are compact and executable in one-day format are encouraged, and we will reward teams that recognize this time constraint.
When time is up, you will have short show-and-tell and demo time (3 to 5 minutes, depending on how many projects there are). Judges also will come around during the event and you are encouraged to tell them about your projects at that time.
Prototypes/mockups for demo are OK, but working websites or mobile apps are strongly encouraged.
Get Baseball Hack Day updates and announcements!


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1890 Schiedmayer (Fully Rebuilt)
Restored and rebuilt German Schiedmayer overstrung upright piano with medium responsive touch and full rounded tone. A large, ornate instrument with beautiful Burr Walnut case, perfect keys, and built by Schiedmayer in 1890, a highly regarded maker of upright and grand pianos.
The case was stripped back, refined, and then resprayed, giving the instrument a surface that enhances the appearance of the wood grain and the swirl patterns in the Burr Walnut veneer, but is also the easiest type of finish to keep clean, requiring no maintenance from the owner. Brassworks throughout were brought back to their original shiny finish and the all felts on the casing and music stand were replaced. The pedals are unusual, ornate, and back to their original finish. The piano has candle holders, we have left them out of the images, but come with it should you like them.
Internal mechanism called the 'action' was stripped, reconditioned with new tapes, felts, and springs, regulated, realigned, and the pins/strings removed and replaced. The original ivory keys are cleaned and buffed and in perfect condition. Piano is tall with large soundboard and very long strings for greater depth of tone, volume, and presence. To play, it's versatile for its age, and performs at its very best due to the amount of work carried out on it. The piano has a strong, potent Tenor and Bass register, with an even pure tone that is mellow sounding, and overall is dynamic for its age. A good looking piano built to last centuries if tuned at least once a year.
Tuning is €100 per year.
New Adjustable Matching Stool
Complementary Tuning on Arrival
Free Nationwide Delivery & Set Up
1 Year Extendable Warranty (Renewed annually once tuned)
Width: 152cm, Height: 130cm, Depth: 65cm


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Q: How to optimise change history data for MySQL The previous table this data was stored in approached 3-4gb, but the data wasn't compressed before/after storage. I'm not a DBA so I'm a little out of my depth with a good strategy.
The table is to log changes to a particular model in my application (user profiles), but with one tricky requirement: we should be able to fetch the state of a profile at any given date.
Data (single table):
id, username, email, first_name, last_name, website, avatar_url, address, city, zip, phone

The only two requirements:

*

*be able to fetch a list of changes for a given model

*be able to fetch state of model on a given date

Previously, all of the profile data was stored for a single change, even if only one column was changed. But to get a 'snapshot' for a particular date was easy enough.
My first couple of solutions in optimising the data structure:
(1) only store changed columns. This would drastically reduce data stored, but would make it quite complicated to get a snapshot of data. I'd have to merge all changes up to a given date (could be thousands), then apply that to a model. But that model couldn't be a fresh model (only changed data is stored). To do this, I'd have to first copy over all data from current profiles table, then to get snapshot apply changes to those base models.
(2) store whole of data, but convert to a compressed format like gzip or binary or whatnot. This would remove ability to query the data other than to obtain changes. I couldn't, for example, fetch all changes where email = ''. I would essentially have a single column with converted data, storing the whole of the profile.
Then, I would want to use relevant MySQL table options, like ARCHIVE to further reduce space.
So my question is, are there any other options which you feel are a better approach than 1/2 above, and, if not, which would be better?

A: First of all, I wouldn't worry at all about a 3GB table (unless it grew to this size in a very short period of time). MySQL can take it. Space shouldn't be a concern, keep in mind that a 500 GB hard disk costs about 4 man-hours (in my country).
That being said, in order to lower your storage requirements, create one table for each field of the table you want to monitor. Assuming a profile table like this:
CREATE TABLE profile (
    profile_id INT PRIMARY KEY,
    username VARCHAR(50),
    email VARCHAR(50) -- and so on
);

... create two history tables:
CREATE TABLE profile_history_username (
    profile_id INT NOT NULL,
    username VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL, -- same type as profile.username
    changedAt DATETIME NOT NULL,
    PRIMARY KEY (profile_id, changedAt),
    CONSTRAINT profile_id_username_fk
        FOREIGN KEY profile_id_fkx (profile_id)
        REFERENCES profile(profile_id)
);

CREATE TABLE profile_history_email (
    profile_id INT NOT NULL,
    email VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL, -- same type as profile.email
    changedAt DATETIME NOT NULL,
    PRIMARY KEY (profile_id, changedAt),
    CONSTRAINT profile_id_fk
        FOREIGN KEY profile_id_email_fkx (profile_id)
        REFERENCES profile(profile_id)
);

Everytime you change one or more fields in profile, log the change in each relevant history table:
START TRANSACTION;

-- lock all tables
SELECT @now := NOW()
FROM profile
JOIN profile_history_email USING (profile_id)
WHERE profile_id = [a profile_id]
FOR UPDATE;

-- update main table, log change
UPDATE profile SET email = [new email] WHERE profile_id = [a profile_id];
INSERT INTO profile_history_email VALUES ([a profile_id], [new email], @now);

COMMIT;

You may also want to set appropriate AFTER triggers on profile so as to populate the history tables automatically.
Retrieving history information should be straightforward. In order to get the state of a profile at a given point in time, use this query:
SELECT
    (
        SELECT username FROM profile_history_username
        WHERE profile_id = [a profile_id] AND changedAt = (
            SELECT MAX(changedAt) FROM profile_history_username
            WHERE profile_id = [a profile_id] AND changedAt <= [snapshot date]
        )
    ) AS username,

    (
        SELECT email FROM profile_history_email
        WHERE profile_id = [a profile_id] AND changedAt = (
            SELECT MAX(changedAt) FROM profile_history_email
            WHERE profile_id = [a profile_id] AND changedAt <= [snapshot date]
        )
    ) AS email;

A: You need a slow changing dimension:
i will do this only for e-mail and telephone so you understand (pay attention to the fact of i use two keys, 1 as unique in the table, and another that is unique to the user that it concerns. This is, the table key identifies the the record, and the user key identifies the user):
table_id, user_id, email, telephone, created_at,inactive_at,is_current

*

*1, 1, mario@yahoo.it, 123456, 2012-01-02, , 2013-04-01, no

*2, 2, erik@telecom.de, 123457, 2012-01-03, 2013-02-28, no

*3, 3, vanessa@o2.de, 1234568, 2012-01-03, null, yes

*4, 2, erik@telecom.de, 123459, 2012-02-28, null, yes

*5, 1, super.mario@yahoo.it, 654321,2013-04-01, 2013-04-02, no

*6, 1, super.mario@yahoo.it, 123456,2013-04-02, null, yes

most recent state of the database
select * from FooTable where inactive_at is null

or
select * from FooTable where is_current = 'yes'

All changes to mario (mario is user_id 1)
select * from FooTable where user_id = 1;

All changes between 1 jan 2013 and 1 of may 2013
select * from FooTable where created_at between '2013-01-01' and '2013-05-01';

and you need to compare with the old versions (with the help of a stored procedure, java or php code... you chose)
select * from FooTable where incative_at between '2013-01-01' and '2013-05-01';

if you want you can do a fancy sql statement
select f1.table_id, f1.user_id,
  case when f1.email = f2.email then 'NO_CHANGE' else concat(f1.email , ' -> ',  f2.email) end,
  case when f1.phone = f2.phone then 'NO_CHANGE' else concat(f1.phone , ' -> ',  f2.phone) end
  from FooTable f1 inner join FooTable f2
on(f1.user_id = f2.user_id)
where f2.created_at in
   (select max(f3.created_at) from Footable f3 where f3.user_id = f1.user_id
      and f3.created_at < f1.created_at and f1.user_id=f3.user_id)
 and f1.created_at between '2013-01-01' and '2013-05-01' ;

As you can see a juicy query, to compare the user_with the previews user row...

the state of the database on 2013-03-01
select * from FooTable where table_id in
   (select max(table_id) from FooTable where inactive_at <= '2013-03-01'  group by user_id
     union
    select id from FooTable where inactive_at is null group by user_id having count(table_id) =1 );

I think this is the easiest way of implement what you want... you could implement a multi-million tables relational model, but then it would be a pain in the arse to query it

Your database is not big enough, I work everyday with one even bigger. Now tell me is the money you save in a new server worthy the time you spend on a super-complex relational model?
BTW if the data changes too fast, this approach cannot be used...

BONUS: optimization:

*

*create indexes on created_at, inactive_at, user_id and the pair

*perform partition (both horizontal and vertical)

A: You can't compress the data without having to uncompress it in order to search it - which is going to severely damage the performance. If the data really is changing that often (i.e. more than an average of 20 times per record) then it would be more efficient to for storage and retrieval to structure it as a series of changes:
Consider:
 CREATE TABLE profile (
   id INT NOT NULL autoincrement,
   PRIMARY KEY (id);
 );
 CREATE TABLE profile_data (
   profile_id INT NOT NULL,
   attr ENUM('username', 'email', 'first_name'
        , 'last_name', 'website', 'avatar_url'
        , 'address', 'city', 'zip', 'phone') NOT NULL,
   value CARCHAR(255),
   starttime DATETIME DEFAULT CURRENT_TIME,
   endtime DATETIME,
   PRIMARY KEY (profile_id, attr, starttime)
   INDEX(profile_id),
   FOREIGN KEY (profile_id) REFERENCES profile(id)
 );

When you add a new value for an existing record, set an endtime in the masked record.
Then to get the value at a date $T:
 SELECT p.id, attr, value
 FROM profile p
 INNER JOIN profile_date d
 ON p.id=d.profile_id
 WHERE $T>=starttime
 AND $T<=IF(endtime IS NULL,$T, endtime);

Alternately just have a start time, and:
SELECT p.id, attr, value
 FROM profile p
 INNER JOIN profile_date d
 ON p.id=d.profile_id
 WHERE $T>=starttime
 AND NOT EXISTS (SELECT 1
   FROM prodile_data d2
   WHERE d2.profile_id=d.profile_id
   AND d2.attr=d.attr
   AND d2.starttime>d.starttime
   AND d2.starttime>$T);

(which will be even faster with the MAX concat trick).
But if the data is not changing with that frequency then keep it in the current structure.

A: if you try and put all occurring changes in different tables and later if you require an instance on some date you join them along and display by comparing dates, for example if you want an instance at 1st of july you can run a query with condition where date is equal or less than 1st of july and order it in asc ordering limiting the count to 1. that way the joins will produce exactly the instance it was at 1st of july. in this manner you can even figure out the most frequently updated module.
also if you want to keep all the data flat try range partitioning on the basis of month that way mysql will handle it pretty easily.
Note: by date i mean storing unix timestamp of the date its pretty easier to compare.

A: I'll offer one more solution just for variety.
Schema
PROFILE
    id INT PRIMARY KEY,
    username VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL UNIQUE

PROFILE_ATTRIBUTE
    id INT PRIMARY KEY,
    profile_id INT NOT NULL FOREIGN KEY REFERENCES PROFILE (id),
    attribute_name VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
    attribute_value VARCHAR(255) NULL,
    created_at DATETIME NOT NULL DEFAULT GETTIME(),
    replaced_at DATETIME NULL

For all attributes you are tracking, simply add PROFILE_ATTRIBUTE records when they are updated, and mark the previous attribute record with the DATETIME it was replaced at.
Select Current Profile
SELECT *
FROM PROFILE p
    LEFT JOIN PROFILE_ATTRIBUTE pa
    ON p.id = pa.profile_id
WHERE p.username = 'username'
    AND pa.replaced_at IS NULL

Select Profile At Date
SELECT *
FROM PROFILE p
    LEFT JOIN PROFIILE_ATTRIBUTE pa
    ON p.id = pa.profile_id
WHERE p.username = 'username'
    AND pa.created_at < '2013-07-01'
    AND '2013-07-01' <= IFNULL(pa.replaced_at, GETTIME())

When Updating Attributes

*

*Insert the new attribute

*Update the previous attribute's replaced_at value

It would probably be important that the created_at for a new attribute match the replaced_at for the corresponding old attribute.  This would be so that there is an unbroken timeline of attribute values for a given attribute name.
Advantages

*

*Simple two-table architecture (I personally don't like a table-per-field approach)

*Can add additional attributes with no schema changes

*Easily mapped into ORM systems, assuming an application lives on top of this database

*Could easily see the history for a certain attribute_name over time.

Disadvantages

*

*Integrity is not enforced.  For example, the schema doesn't restrict on multiple NULL replaced_at records with the same attribute_name... perhaps this could be enforced with a two-column UNIQUE constraint

*Let's say you add a new field in the future.  Existing profiles would not select a value for the new field until they save a value to it.  This is opposed to the value coming back as NULL if it were a column.  This may or may not be an issue.

If you use this approach, be sure you have indexes on the created_at and replaced_at columns.
There may be other advantages or disadvantages.  If commenters have input, I'll update this answer with more information.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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text:
Sooty and Sweet; the Departure of the Chattering Classes; Making Time to Smell the Daffodils and it's a Birthday Blog
Another blog, another torch-light discovery. A consequence I suppose of no TV to while away the dark evenings and the appearance of a new trial rabbit burrow amongst the snowdrops, primroses and hellebores.
The scourge of the gardener at this time of the year. A new rabbit burrow appears. The red label was placed to mark digging activity, in the centre of the hole. 1/03/12
Trying to spot the culprit, I nipped out on a chilly evening, and drawing a rabbit blank wandered round the rest of the garden looking at flowers and pulling off and squishing a few weevils which munch the leaves of some of our small rhododendron plants. Since they climb up from the leaf litter at night for their nocturnal feasts it seems that once plants get beyond a certain height the plants cope with the damage, but younger ones can get eaten to leafy skeletons.
Moths on Rhododendron 'Christmas Cheer' 29/02/12
Not much else was seen until I reached our small Rhododendron 'Christmas Cheer' which has flower buds just about to break. As I leaned over the plant a cloud of small flies flew up and around the torch-light, and I then realised there were nearly a dozen moths on the foliage. The question was why? I'd never seen moths on a Rhododendron flower before, and these weren't even open. None of the other twenty or so other cultivars we grow had any moths or flies on them on this evening. Was the plant warmer, or exuding some attractive material? Most of the moths were stationary on the leaves or buds and not obviously feeding. Having taken a few photos, I returned indoors and mused on the fact that the leaves of this small plant seemed to have a covering of a black sooty mould.
A moth caterpillar on a 'R. Christmas Cheer' leaf (And a couple of tiny insects ). The sooty mould leaf discolouration is also obvious. 29/02/12
This was more apparent by daylight, so I then researched the topic for images of moths and sooty mould on-line with no success. However, reading more about black sooty mould I discovered that it's always a secondary plant 'pathogen', usually on evergreen leaves, after the plant leaves are attacked by some smaller sap sucking insect – either scale insects or aphids. These tiny creatures suck plant tissue fluids or chew plant tissue and extract nutrients – particularly nitrogenous protein rich materials, and excrete much of the residual carbohydrate rich plant fluids after they've completed this digestive process. So, the plant gets left with a covering of sugar rich insect excreta, which in turn allows the sooty mould to colonise the leaf surfaces. It seems from my observation that this mould, or more likely the sugary excreta still remaining on the leaves also attracts the flies and moths I'd noticed.
Scale insects along the central vein of the Rhododendron leaf. And possibly a couple of aphids? The culprits responsible for the black sooty mould. 1/03/12
The following night was colder still, but two days later the insects were back in force and I was able to get this image of a Chestnut moth grazing or sucking using its proboscis on the mould covered leaf. Pretty clever recycling for insects on a cold night, refuelling from other insect's excreta.
Chestnut moth using its proboscis to lick or dab at the leaf surface, or sooty mould, or honeydew? 1/03/12 ( Poor quality screen capture from Camcorder, I'm afraid.)
And this is what the flowers look like, having just opened for the first time. Rhododendron 'Christmas Cheer' 6/03/12
I wondered about any human examples of such excreta recycling, and the first example which came to mind was that of the shamanic custom of some Siberian populations in collecting the urine of people who'd consumed Fly Agaric mushrooms, since they were aware that the urine concentrated and hence intensified the hallucinogenic properties of the mushrooms. And I seem to think that the most expensive grade of coffee bean comes from those collected from the droppings of a wild cat (luwak) which has eaten them, so maybe the moths are in good company with us humans on this subject.
Back inside, in between my night's observations of the sooty and sweet mould, the latest March edition of "The Garden" magazine arrived from the RHS and by chance had a small piece on cushion scale and black sooty mould, spotted by the eagle-eyed Fiona. But no mention here of the value of honeydew for other insects, rather the suggestion to blitz the affected plant with organic or chemical pesticides – so I guess that there might not be a wider appreciation in gardening circles of the value of honeydew as a late night 'Red Bull' equivalent, for shivering moths and flies.
Perhaps Samuel Taylor Coleridge was more aware of the interlinked magic of much of the natural world when he wrote in the last verse of Kubla Khan (or maybe it was just the result of an opium induced dream?):
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise. (lines 48-54)
(Actually its well worth reading a fascinating background to the whole poem by clicking here for Kubla Khan).
(As an addendum to my initial post I can add that after emailing the RHS with my observation, I received a reply from their chief entomologist, Andrew Halstead, who solved a conundrum that my blinkered brain hadn't been able to work out. How come if the scale insects are on the undersurface of the leaf, the sooty mould is only on the upper leaf surface? Answer – the insects' excreta simply falls from their bodies onto the leaf surface below. Oh dear, how obvious!)
The last week has also seen huge gatherings of starlings and then fieldfares in the trees outlining our fields. Readers of a previous blog will recall I'd spent a very chilly morning in February standing for an hour to film the commuting flock of starlings with no luck. On this particular evening they flew from the fields all around me as I pottered in the garden and grouped in the ash trees, pending flying off to their nocturnal roosts somewhere towards Llanybydder. I'd managed to film a few decent clips of vigorous starling chatter already, but always spoiled by vehicle or transatlantic jet noise high overhead, when as the light slowly ebbed away they regrouped in trees about 80 yards from where I was standing. I refocused the camcorder on just the top of one ash tree, pressed the record button and stood back and listened and watched.
A poor substitute for the video scene with sound, but it gives an idea of the huge numbers of starlings at the moment of departure. This was a small section of one tree out of several which were covered in starlings. 25/02/12
As the minutes ticked by, more birds flew in, in about 5 or 6 waves, and the clamour of chattering rose and fell, as the birds rejigged their positions on the branches. But as the numbers grew to thousands, I was willing them to make their final leaving flight and allow me to capture, even from this distance, the whoosh of all those wing beats, before a vehicle passed on the road and broke the spell. In the end, there was a sudden and synchronised pause in the cacophony of chatter (how do they do that?), and two seconds later the whoosh and take off from limbs by now creaking under the weight of extra bodies. YESSS. All recorded with no extraneous sounds in our valley's natural amphitheatre. And how long was this clip of disconnect from the material world? 13 minutes and 12 seconds. I know because I've just worked the last few seconds into the updated version of my video presentation "The Botany of Desire" which will get its first airing of 2012 to a local gardening club shortly.
The fieldfares repeated the event with somewhat smaller numbers, but still several hundred, and a noticeably less raucous and chirring chatter about three days later. By now they have probably gone, returning to Scandinavia since they are nearly all winter immigrants to the UK, and almost none of them hang around to breed in the UK. Which perhaps is just as well, since it would be difficult for any landscape, even a biodiverse one, to sustain such a population of hungry mouths for any length of time. (Fieldfare image from 3/03/12 below).
Finally, there were two notable dates this last week. Firstly living in Wales, St. David's day on March 1st. For us it's sometimes been a challenge having any daffodils in flower on this day – last year we managed a single 'Tête-à-tête'. This year we fared better after the milder winter, and I'm showing the 6 varieties which made it, just in time, in some cases.
A drift of Narcissus 'Tête-à-tête' for March 1st
Narcissus 'Topolino'. Now a firm favourite of ours, and an AGM cultivar 1/03/12
Narcissus 'February Gold', not really flowering for us in February but another mid height reliable cultivar here. 1/03/12
The Tenby daffodil, Narcissus obvallaris. Grows well, but seems to need a lot of sun to flower reliably with us, so not many flowers this year. 1/03/12
Unknown tall and early cultivar which came years ago in a mixed bag of daffodils. 1/03/12
Now our earliest daffodil, "Rijnveld's Early Sensation", and if it proves to be a reliable grower it will soon become a firm favourite with us. Short to medium height and lovely green smudging on the reverse of the flowers. 26/02/12
And a reminder that although none of these have much of a scent, it's still a good time of the year to pause and allow time for smelling the – daffodils 1/03/12
The second notable date for none save me, is that this blog has now passed its first birthday. Cause for celebration? Well maybe, in that I'm still here, and still blogging. Though perhaps not universal approval for the latter point! But I thought I'd allow myself the indulgence of mentioning just a few of the interesting posts out of the 42 of my last blogging year, with highlighted click-on-links if any of my more recent followers are interested in looking back at these posts. Apart from the slog of putting these pieces together the HUGE benefit for me is that I've learned so much of interest that I didn't know before I started this venture. I guess that if this journey of discovery continues, I'll continue to write about and photograph it.
Thermogenesis in snowdrops, since this is what got the blog going.
That we saw more bumblebees in our garden in 2 minutes in early April than we saw in 3 hours at Kew Gardens in London. Why?
Discovering that almost all bought tomatoes require the unique buzz pollinating ability of bumblebees to produce them. And that a clever Dutch firm's exploitation of this fact of this means that they're bred and posted out around the world as a disposable, branded product. 6 weeks, job done, so chuck 'em away.
It makes sense to know where to open your gob, and if in doubt, call in the experts!
My feeling that my crafted waxcaps will decay more gracefully, and over a longer period than I shall manage.
One of our last snowdrops to flower Galanthus 'Washfield Warham' 4/03/12
Making time to smell the daffodils…. a tweaked version for St. David's day.1/03/12
Now fully opened the lovely Camellia 'Waterlily' flower 5/03/12
This entry was posted in gardening, nature, photography and tagged black sooty mould and feeding moths, black sooty mould and honeydew, Camellia Waterlily, Chestnut moth feeding from honeydew, fieldfare flocks, galanthus washfield warham, Gelli Uchaf garden, honeydew and feeding moth image, Kubla Khan and Honeydew, Narcissus February Gold, narcissus rijnveld's early sensation, Narcissus Tete a Tete, Narcissus Topolino, Rhododendron 'Christmas Cheer', starling flocks, Tenby daffodil, the garden impressionists by thegardenimpressionists - Julian and Fiona Wormald. Bookmark the permalink.
4 thoughts on "Sooty and Sweet; the Departure of the Chattering Classes; Making Time to Smell the Daffodils and it's a Birthday Blog"
Richard Bramley on 07/03/2012 at 7:20 pm said:
Nice one Julian, could well become a regular addict
thegardenimpressionists - our garden blog on 07/03/2012 at 9:43 pm said:
Hello Richard, Glad you liked it. We're a bit bushed today after clearing up from 4 more big Norway Spruce taken down at the weekend. Still, nice to have some sun again, and a bit more of it inside the house!
See you soon,BW, Julian
Malou on 11/03/2012 at 6:40 pm said:
Lovely post, Julian! Your garden is very much in spring mode which must be a pleasure to spend warm evenings (if you have them now). I am no gardener (in fact, plants die on me, ha, ha, ha!) but I do love to take pictures of plants and flowers. I wish there are plants which require no maintenance. 😉
thegardenimpressionists - our garden blog on 12/03/2012 at 8:31 am said:
Hello Malou, and glad you enjoyed the post. I think we're fortunate in Carmarthenshire to live in a county promoted as "The Garden Of Wales", so it's pretty easy to grow things with our gnerally mild and wet weather….but we do miss out on the sunshine levels sometimes….like now! But I reckon that battling with what the climate and nature chucks at you to create a visually attractive garden for the whole 12 months is part of the starngely challenging and sometimes masochistic appeal of becoming a gardener, Best wishes


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text:
Home Meets
Clemson Track & Field
Track & Field Program Welcomes Outstanding Freshman Class
CLEMSON, SC – The Clemson track & field program added an outstanding freshman class to its 2011-12 roster for the men and women's teams. Director of Track & Field Lawrence Johnson announced the addition of his incoming classes Friday.
"As each year passes, the goal is to make each recruiting class better than the last one," Johnson said. "That's how we try to keep our edge. A lot of other teams in the league and our region are recruiting well, but as long as we stay one or two athletes ahead of them, it will continue to give us a pretty good foothold here and beyond."
The women's team ushered in a small, but dynamic group of student-athletes. The headliners of the Tigers' 2011 recruiting efforts are sprinter Dezerea Bryant of Milwaukee, WI and hurdler Keni Harrison of Clayton, NC. Harrison won national championships at the high school level as a senior in the 60 hurdles and 100 hurdles, and was a two-time All-American in the 400 hurdles as well. Bryant was a teammate of current junior sprinter Stormy Kendrick on the IAAF World Junior gold medal 4×100 relay in the summer of 2010. She had the No. 1 time in the U.S. this past winter in the 60-meter dash.
Caroline Bond (Johns Creek, GA) and Nia Fluker (Grand Prairie, TX) also signed with the women's program after decorated prep careers. Bond, the younger sister of former Tiger pitcher William Bond (2004-08), set the Georgia state high school record in the pole vault as a senior in 2011. Fluker is a multiple medal winner at the USATF youth level and will compete in the 400 and 800 for the Tigers.
Three incoming female distance runners are on partial scholarship. Brianna Blanton (Summerville, SC) was a two-time AAAA state champion in the 800 meters. Sara Manesiotis (Hilton Head Island, SC) was all-state in the 1600 the past two seasons. Taylor Miller (Fort Mill, SC) won AAA state titles in the 800 and 1600 this past spring for Fort Mill High School.
The men's team had one of its best signing classes in recent memory. The impact of the class could particularly be felt after football season, when two-sport athletes Mike Bellamy and Sammy Watkins join the team. Both have notified Johnson they intend to compete with the track team after football season. Watkins won the 200 dash at Florida's AA state championship meet as a senior, while Bellamy won the 100 dash as a junior and the 200 as a sophomore in the Sunshine State.
Johnson and his staff added four jumpers in Jameel Abdul-Mateen (Covington, GA), Shai Carpenter (Mauldin, SC), C.J. Davidson (Central, SC) and Torian Ware (Crawfordville, GA). Abdul-Mateen is a former New Balance Indoor All-American in the triple jump. Carpenter won the AAAA state title in the triple jump in 2011. Davidson, who attended nearby D.W. Daniel High School, finished sixth at the 2011 New Balance Outdoor Nationals in the triple jump. Ware comes to Clemson with a personal best 7-foot clearance in the high jump after winning the class A state championship in Georgia this year.
The Tigers added a pair of hurdlers to the roster as well in Elijah Britton (El Paso, TX) and Jaron Roberson (Atlanta, GA). Britton will compete in both hurdle events, while Roberson is slated for the open 400 and the 400 hurdles as well.
Three distance runners were added on the men's side. James Dwyer (Dunwoody, GA) won the 1600 at the Georgia Olympics in 2011. Kevin Ketner (Fort Mill, SC) was a four-time all-state performer in the 1600. Tim Tyler (Mt. Pleasant, SC) was third at the 2011 New Balance Indoor Nationals in the mile.
T.J. Christy joined the team in the throwing events. A native of Wauseon, OH, he was the state's Division II champion in the discus as a senior with a mark of 172'5″. Christy was all-state as a junior in the shot put and discus as well.
Hemmings Highlights Successful Friday for Track and Field
Tigers to Host Clemson Invitational
Meet Central: Clemson Invitational
Hemmings, Conwell Collect ACC Weekly Honors


text:
Q: Pika RabbitMQ Publish from a consumer I have a RabbitMQ consumer. I would like to have that consumer do some message processing, simulated by time.sleep(10), then publish a message to a different queue. I know the consumer callback has a channel that in theory could be used to do the publish, but this seems like a bad implementation because if the basic_publish() somehow manages for force close the channel, then the consumer dies. What is the best way to handle this?
import time
import pika

connection = pika.BlockingConnection(
    pika.ConnectionParameters(host='localhost'))
channel = connection.channel()

channel.exchange_declare(exchange='logs', exchange_type='fanout')

result = channel.queue_declare(queue='original_queue', exclusive=True)

channel.queue_bind(exchange='logs', queue='original_queue')

print(' [*] Waiting for logs. To exit press CTRL+C')

def callback(ch, method, properties, body):
    time.sleep(10)
    ch.basic_publish(exchange='logs', routing_key='different_queue', body='hello_world')

channel.basic_consume(
    queue='original_queue', on_message_callback=callback, auto_ack=True)

channel.start_consuming()

A: You can implement your consumer in a way that it automatically reconnects to the RabbitMQ server if the connection gets closed. Hope this helps(I didn't put much thought on the design part, feel free to suggest some!)
import time
import pika

reconnect_on_failure = True

def consumer(connection, channel):

    channel.exchange_declare(exchange='logs', exchange_type='fanout')
    result = channel.queue_declare(queue='original_queue', exclusive=True)
    channel.queue_bind(exchange='logs', queue='original_queue')
    print(' [*] Waiting for logs. To exit press CTRL+C')

    def callback(ch, method, properties, body):
        time.sleep(10)
        ch.basic_publish(exchange='logs', routing_key='different_queue', body='hello_world')

    channel.basic_consume(
  queue='original_queue', on_message_callback=callback, auto_ack=True)

    channel.start_consuming()

def get_connection_and_channel():
    connection = pika.BlockingConnection(pika.ConnectionParameters(host='localhost'))
    channel = connection.channel()

def start(reconnect_on_failure):
    connection, channel = get_connection_and_channel()
    consumer(connection, channel)
    # the if condition will be executed when the consumer's start_consuming loop exists
    if reconnect_on_failure:
        # cleanly close the connection and channel
        if not connection.is_closed():
            connection.close()
        if not channel.is_close():
            channel.close()
        start(reconnect_on_failure)

start(reconnect_on_failure)