text:
Efraín Villanueva (Barranquilla February 11, 1982) is a Colombian author. He has published the books Tomacorrientes Inalámbricos, Guía para buscar lo que no has perdido and Adentro, todo. Afuera… nada. His fiction has also been included in several anthologies such as El territorio ausente, Diario de la pandemia, Cuentos cortos para esperas largas, among others.

As a cultural journalist, Villanuevas has contributed, in Spanish and English, with media outlets such as Granta en español, El Heraldo, Literal Magazine, Arcadia, among others.

Villanueva holds an MFA degree in Creative Writing in Spanish from the University of Iowa and a post-graduate degree in Narrative Creation from Universidad Central in Bogotá. He currently lives in Germany.

Biography

Barranquilla and Bogotá
Efraín Villanueva was born on February 11, 1982, in Barranquilla, Colombia, to Efraín Villanueva and Beatriz Angulo. He became a fiction reader at an early age and since then cultivated the idea of becoming a writer. In 1998, his last year of high school at Colegio San José, he considered studying journalism and dedicating himself to the craft of writing. However, he studied Systems Engineering at Pontifical Xavierian University, in Bogotá, where he graduated in 2005. He complemented his studies in 2007 with a postgraduate degree in Systems Project Management at Del Rosario University. For almost ten years he practiced his profession in different positions and projects in various industries.

In 2011, Villanueva switched from Systems Engineering to writing. That same year, he co-founded Tertulia Alternativa, a digital portal in which he wrote opinion, current events and technology articles until the site was shut down in 2014. During that same period, he gained a position as blogger in El Heraldo in Barranquilla, the most prestigious and renowned newspaper of Colombia's North coast.

In 2012, he was accepted into the Narrative Creation's postgraduate at the Central University of Bogotá, where he took classes with writers such as Óscar Godoy, Isaías Peña Gutiérrez and Julio Paredes. Luz y oscuridad, his creative thesis project, was a collection of short stories supervised by Colombian writer Roberto Burgos Cantor. Among his most notable classmates is Constanza Martínez, a literary scholar and winner, in 2010, of the El Barco de Vapor Prize for Children and Young People's Literature. In 2013, he finished his graduate degree and definitively abandoned his career in Information Technology.

Iowa
From 2014 to 2016, Villanueva was enrolled in the MFA in Creative Writing in Spanish at the University of Iowa, where he received an assignment to teach Spanish to undergraduate students.  At the university, he attended fiction, poetry and nonfiction workshops, but also took classes in the MFA in Literary Translation  and the Writer's Workshop.

Together with his fellow classmates, he devised and organized Subtitulados. The project was a bimonthly reading series to promote and present the students' work in a largely English-speaking city. Among his most notable classmates are Mexican Author Andrea Chapela and Barranquilla author Giuseppe Caputo.

While in Iowa, Villanueva won his first contest: El Tiempo del Minicuento, sponsored by the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo. He was also a contributor of Iowa Literaria, the digital magazine of the Master's program, where he published book reviews and interviews. It was on this magazine where he debuted in non-fiction with the text Crucigramas, a remembrance of his childhood that he dedicated to his father. In 2016, he published Chucky, his first fiction text, in the anthology Tenemos Miedo by Matera magazine in Colombia.

His creative thesis project was Crucigramas, a collection of personal non-fiction texts, supervised by Honduran writer Horacio Castellanos Moya.

Dortmund
In Iowa City Villanueva met his future wife. After finishing his studies in 2016, the couple decided to relocate to Germany, her home country.

From September 2016 to August 2017, he participated in the International Exchange Program, organized by Professor Walter Grünzweig, at the Technical University of Dortmund. His studies focused on American literature.

Literary career

Books
Villanueva has written most of his literary work in Germany, but his focus has been on the Colombian and Latin-American markets. He has worked on creation and edition of textual content projects and translation, but he has mainly dedicated himself to cultural journalism. He has been a freelance contributor to various printed and online media, including Granta en español (Spain), the cultural magazines of El Heraldo (Colombia) and Literal Magazine (United States).

Tomacorrientes inalámbricos
This 2018's award-winning novel is clearly influenced by the first year of Villanueva's life in Germany. The book narrates the experiences of Alirio, a Caribbean man recently arrived in Europe, his impressions of the Old World and his encounter with Sabeth, a German photographer who is dealing with an existential crisis.

Tomacorrientes inalámbricos (Wireless Sockets) was awarded, in 2017, the Portafolio de Estímulos' Prize for Novel, an artistic support program of the Secretary of Culture of Barranquilla. The book was published by Collage Editores and debuted at the 2018 International Book Fair of Bogotá. That same year, the novel was presented at La Cueva, in Barranquilla, in a conversation between the author and journalist and writer Joaquín Mattos.

In a kind of public letter to the author, columnist Tulio Ramos Mancilla suggested that "the great merit of the book, Efraín, is to conceal the existence of its backbone, of its skeleton, of its rigidity, and yet to beat internal coherence, to give birth to order out of chaos, perhaps to represent - and this is my opinion - the way we from this small part of the planet [the Colombian Caribbean] deal with reality".

Guía para buscar lo que no has perdido
This book, awarded with the XIV National Short Story Book Contest of the Universidad Industrial de Santander and published by the university's publishing house in 2019, consists of 8 stories or daily-life characters facing daily-life situations. The collection was presented in March 2019 in a conversation between the author and literature professor and writer Óscar Humberto Mejía Blanco in Bucaramanga.

The award-winning Colombian writer Andrés Mauricio Muñoz said that in Guía para buscar lo que no has perdido (A Guide to Finding What You Haven't Lost): "Villanueva exhibits in this book of short stories his greatest skills, the craft of a decanted, meticulous, convinced storyteller, who does not give in to the characters that stalk him until he turns them into prose, certain that therein lies the only decorum that will redeem them from oblivion. The UIS Prize once again discovers a voice that will undoubtedly become a reference in our literature".

Adentro, todo. Afuera...nada
In 2020, when German citizens started hoarding toilet paper during the Covid-19 quarantine, Villanueva wrote a diatribe on social media that became a daily routine. This spontaneous exercise turned into a personal and detailed diary about the pandemic, in which Villanueva captures the Zeitgeist of what was happening in Germany, while at the same time keeping an eye on the events in his native Colombia. This book contains reflections, thoughts, poems and annotations that give an idea of how life changed because of the virus.

The diary Adentro, todo. Afuera...nada (Inside, All. Outside...Nothing) was published in 2022 by Editorial Mackandal, an indie publishing house from the Colombian Caribbean. The book was presented at La Cueva in Barranquilla in a conversation between the author and the journalist Ivonne Arroyo. With Afuera, nada. Adentro…todo Villanueva had his first reading in Germany: the book was presented at the Literaturhaus in Dortmund, in collaboration with the Technical University of Dortmund and the support of Professor Walter Grünzweig.

Anthologies

Tenemos miedo
Tenemos miedo (We Are Afraid) was a 2016 initiative by Matera Magazine, directed by Manuel Kalmanovitz. Villanueva contributed with the shorty story titled Chucky, who he also read during his graduation reading in Iowa City.

El Coi y otros cuentos
El Coi y otros cuentos (El Coi and Other Stories) is a 2017 compilation that includes the winning and finalist stories of the National Short Story Contest of the La Cueva Foundation, directed by Heriberto Fiorillo. Villanueva was a finalist with his short story Cinco cuadras a la redonda.

Cuentos cortos para esperas largas
Cuentos cortos para esperas largas (Short Stories for Long Waits) is a 2019 collection that includes the winning and finalist stories of the Short Stories for Long Waits Contest organized by the Pereira's Literature Festival and Casa Creative publishing house. Villanueva was the winner with his short story Nada de nada.

Especial Cuento Caribe II
Especial Cuento Caribe II (Caribbean Short Story Special II) is a 2019 compilation. It was an initiative of the Revista Víacuarenta of the Biblioteca Piloto del Caribe, directed and edited by Miguel Iriarte. It gathers voices of storytellers from the Colombian Caribbean, including Villanueva's short story titled Puerto Chimo.

Diario de la pandemia
In 2020, the Revista de la Universidad de Mexico, directed and edited by Guadalupe Nettel, compiled international testimonies from "some of the best writers of our time" about the COVID-19 pandemic. Villanueva participated in the anthology with his text Día 1455,  which would later become part of diary Adentro, todo. Afuera… nada.

El territorio ausente
Aluvión, "a literary criticism project" had a special issue to collect "migrant voices from the Caribbean" with an approach focused "more on the figure of the author and less on the genre". In 2022, Villanueva was invited for an interview with Farides Lugo, director and editor of the initiative. The anthology also includes excerpts from Tomacorrientes inalámbricos and Adentro, todo. Afuera… nada.

Works

Novels

 Tomacorrientes inalámbricos (2018)

Short story collections

 Guía para buscar lo que no has perdido (2019)

Non-fiction

 Adentro, todo. Afuera...nada (2022)

Anthologies

 Tenemos miedo. Short Story: Chucky (2016)
 El Coi y otros cuentos. Short Story: Cinco cuadras a la redonda (2018)
 Cuentos cortos para esperas largas. Short Story: Nada de nada (2019)
 Especial Cuento Caribe II. Short Story: Puerto Chimo (2019)
 Diario de la pandemia. Text: Día 1455 (2020)
 El territorio ausente. Text: various (2022)

Cultural journalism

Book reviews

 Quiero ser artista (USA, 2015), in Iowa Literaria
 Racimo (USA, 2015), in Iowa Literaria
 Lecturas para la Copa América, (Colombia, 2016), in Revista Arcadia
 La hora de la estrella (Colombia, 2017), in Latitud magazine of El Heraldo
 Queridos antifeministas (Colombia, 2017), in Latitud magazine of El Heraldo
 Un hombre puede ser destruido, pero no derrotado (USA, 2017), in Literal Magazine
 Macondo visto desde afuera (Colombia, 2017), in Latitud magazine of El Heraldo
 Esto es agua (USA, 2017), in Literal Magazine
 Relato de la inmigración (Colombia, 2017), in Latitud magazine of El Heraldo
 Flores rotas (Colombia, 2017), in Latitud magazine of El Heraldo
 'Tenía que probarlas': Bukowski y sus mujeres ficcionalizadas (Colombia, 2018), in El Dominical magazine of El Heraldo
 Desayuno en Tifanny's (Colombia, 2018), in El Dominical magazine of El Heraldo
 Un rayo de luz luminoso (Hiroshima by John Hesey) (Colombia, 2018), in El Dominical magazine of El Heraldo
 Desde esta cámara oscura (USA, 2018), in Literal Magazine
 Armas de destrucción matemática (USA, 2018), in Literal Magazine
 Leyendo a Lolita en Teherán (Colombia, 2019),in El Dominical magazine of El Heraldo
 Toda cultura es ficción (USA, 2019), in Literal Magazine

Essays, opinion columns, current events texts, and other articles

 Baloto de paz (Colombia, 2016), in Pacifista!
 La tierra es plana (Colombia, 2016), in Pacifista!
 Destripando historias (USA, 2017), in Literal Magazine
 De mudanzas, estantes y libros (Colombia, 2017), in Latitud magazine of El Heraldo
 Eligiendo al nuevo líder del mundo libre (USA, 2017), in Literal Magazine
 Fábricas de palabras (USA, 2017), in Literal Magazine
 Aprendiendo cómo (no) escribir (USA, 2017), in Literal Magazine
 The Dangers of 'Us' versus 'Them''' (USA, 2017), in Little Village Magazine Tsondoku (Colombia, 2017), in Latitud magazine of El Heraldo Álbumes de fotos de subrayados (Colombia, 2018), in El Dominical magazine of El Heraldo Cuando los refugiados eran alemanes (USA, 2018), in Literal Magazine
 De confusiones y extrañamientos (Colombia, 2018), in Genio Tropical Piedras en el camino (USA, 2018), in Literal Magazine AI Helped Me Write This Article (USA, 2022), in Literal Magazine Borrando palabras hasta encontrar poesía (USA, 2022), in Literal Magazine Profiles

 Sin lugar a dudas demente (Elizabeth Cochran) (Colombia, 2017), in Latitud magazine of El Heraldo Los libros son armas en la guerra de ideas (William Faulkner) (Colombia, 2017), in Latitud magazine of  El Heraldo El modernista (Álvaro Cepeda Samudio) (Colombia, 2017), in Latitud magazine of El Heraldo El genio de la pañoleta (David Foster Wallace) (Colombia, 2017), in Latitud magazine of El Heraldo Adiós al teórico de la modernidad líquida (Zygmunt Bauman), (Colombia, 2017), in Latitud magazine of El Heraldo Regresando a casa (Zelda Fitzgerald) (USA, 2018), in Literal Magazine A veces me pregunto cuál es mi verdadero nombre (Doris Lessing) (Colombia, 2018), in El Dominical magazine of El Heraldo El 'descubridor' que no supo lo que 'descubrió'  (Cristóbal Colón) (Colombia, 2018), in El Dominical magazine of El Heraldo En un bosque lejano y espeso (Los hermanos Grimm) (Colombia, 2018), in El Dominical magazine of El Heraldo El fin de una hermosa amistad (Vladimir Nabokov) (Colombia, 2018), in El Dominical magazine of El Heraldo El padre de la bomba atómica (J. Robert Oppenheimer) (USA, 2018), in Literal Magazine Debajo del iceberg (Ernest Hemingway) (Colombia, 2018), in El Dominical magazine of El Heraldo Propaganda de guerra (George Orwell) (USA, 2018), in Literal Magazine La voz de los ojos azules (Frank Sinatra) (Colombia, 2018), in El Dominical magazine of El Heraldo Tengo un sueño (Martin Luther King) (Colombia, 2018), in El Dominical magazine of El Heraldo Hitler, sexo y mujeres (Adolf Hitler) (Colombia, 2018), in El Dominical magazine of El Heraldo De objeto a sujeto (Elisa Mújica) (Colombia, 2018), in Latitud magazine of El Heraldo La excepcionalidad de Susan Sontag (USA, 2019), in Literal Magazine Las cápsulas de tiempo de Andy Warhol (USA, 2019), in Literal Magazine ¡Sonríe, Jamaica! (Bob Marley) (Colombia, 2019), in La cháchara El Artículo Ludwig (Edgar Allan Poe) (Colombia, 2019), in El Dominical magazine of El Heraldo El minimalista no era Carver (Raymond Carver) (USA, 2019), in Literal Magazine Bolívar en Europa (Simón Bolívar) (Colombia, 2019), in El Dominical magazine of El Heraldo El molde de Jane Austen (Colombia, 2019), in El Dominical magazine of El Heraldo El genio distraído que todo lo aplazaba (Leonardo da Vinci) (USA, 2019), in Literal Magazine Cien años de la Bauhaus (USA, 2019), in Literal Magazine El día en que Gabito conoció a su madre (Gabriel García Márquez) (Colombia, 2019), in El Dominical magazine of El Heraldo Adiós a Simone de Beauvoir (Colombia, 2019), in Las Artes La fotografía de Lewis Carroll (USA, 2019), in Literal Magazine Gertrude Stein: celebridad y genio (Colombia, 2019), in El Dominical magazine of El Heraldo Las lecturas de George Orwell (Colombia, 2019), in El Dominical magazine of El Heraldo El envejecimiento de Simone de Beauvoir (Colombia, 2019), in El Dominical magazine of El Heraldo Sembradíos de maíz (Flannery O'Connor) (USA, 2020), in Literal Magazine Del legado de Goethe, o cuando el mundo existe más allá de las narices (USA, 2022), in Literal Magazine

 Chronicles

 Donar por dinero (Spain, 2016), Granta en español Dolor de patria (Colombia, 2016), in Vice Colombia Dolor de patria (Colombia, 2016), in Pacifista! Costeñitas en Colombia (USA, 2017), in Roads and Kingdoms De azafatas y nazis (USA, 2017), in Literal Magazine Fish broth in Barranquilla (USA, 2017), in Roads and Kingdoms Refajo in La Calera (USA, 2017), in Roads and Kingdoms Das verlorene Paradies (USA, 2017), in Literal Magazine Tamal in Bogota (USA, 2017), in Roads and Kingdoms 17 Things to Know Before You Go to Barranquilla (USA, 2017), in Roads and Kingdoms Einfach ein Typ, der in ein anderes Land gezogen ist, weil er sich verliebt hat, (Germany, 2018), in Huffington Post Deutschland Día de confinamiento 1455 (Mexico, 2020), in Revista de la Universidad de México Día de confinamiento 1445 (Colombia, 2020), in La Cháchara Día de confinamiento 1438 (Mexico, 2020), in Revés Día de confinamiento 1442 (Colombia, 2020), in La Revista Actual Día de confinamiento 1440 (USA, 2020), in Literal Magazine Un día de trabajo (USA, 2020), in Literal Magazine Interviews

 'Ser escritor implica un descolocamiento perpetuo' (USA, 2015). With Roberto Burgos Cantor in cooperation with María Camila Vera in Iowa Literaria 'El ocio es la verdadera materia de la escritura' (Colombia, 2016). With Maximiliano Barrientos in Revista Arcadia La Feria del Libro de Bogotá, una apuesta por la paz (USA, 2016). With Giuseppe Caputo in Iowa Literaria 'La literatura es un espacio para la creación, no para la prohibición' (Colombia, 2016). With Giuseppe Caputo in Latitud magazine of El Heraldo Mentions in the media

 La mirada de las pequeñas cosas (interview), (USA, 2018), in Literal Magazine "El rompecabezas de Tomacorrientes inalámbricos" (review) (Colombia, 2018), in El Dominical magazine of El Heraldo Los cuentos del año (press release), (Colombia, 2018), in El Heraldo Ganadores VII Premio de cuento La Cueva (press release), (Colombia, 2018), in Fundación La Cueva Léase en silencio (review) (Colombia, 2018), in El Informador Efraín Villanueva y su 'Tomacorrientes inalámbrico' unen a Colombia con Europa (press release), (Colombia, 2018), en La Cháchara Las letras barranquilleras vuelan en la Feria Internacional del Libro de Bogotá (press release), (Colombia, 2018), in Alcaldía de Barranquilla Las plumas caribes de la Filbo 2018 (press release), (Colombia, 2018), in El Heraldo Guía para buscar lo que no has perdido (review), (Colombia, 2019), in La Cháchara Los cuentos de Efraín Villanueva, guía versátil y eficaz (review), (USA, 2019), in Literal Magazine Los cuentos de Efraín Villanueva, guía versátil y eficaz (review), (Colombia, 2019), in El Espectador Lecturas crossover (review), (Colombia, 2019), in Vivir en El Poblado
 Concurso de literatura UIS 2018 - El vicio de los ganadores es escribir (interview), (Colombia, 2019), in El Frente Efraín Villanueva, promesa unicentralista de las letras (interview), (Colombia, 2019), en Noticentral Awards and honors

 Winner of Concurso El Tiempo del minicuento (Colombia, 2015)
 Winner of Premio de Novela Distrito de Barranquilla (Colombia, 2017)
 Finalist of Concurso Zenda Un mar de historias (Spain, 2017)
 Finalist of VII Premio Nacional de Cuento La Cueva (Colombia, 2018)
 Winner of XIV Premio Nacional de Libro de Cuentos (Colombia, 2018)
 Honorable mention in X Concurso nacional de cuento breve y bueno (Colombia, 2019)
 Winner of Concurso de cuentos cortos para espera largas (Colombia, 2019)
 Finalist of Concurso Zenda Nuestros héroes (Spain, 2020)
 Winner of Concurso Zenda de reseñas (Spain, 2022)
 Finalist of Concurso Zenda Historias de mujeres'' (Spain, 2023)

References

Colombian writers
People from Barranquilla

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


GFM is a not-for-profit community radio station run entirely by volunteers. We broadcast 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with a potential audience of 37,000 listeners. Our programmes cover a variety of different genres, local business and community issues, the local landscape and heritage, as well as output for and by young people.
GFM provides a voice for individuals and organisations with over 60 different local community groups on air each year.
Our new transmitter has enabled us to offer an improved service to a wider listening audience.
Ian joined gfm as a volunteer presenter many years ago in response to an article in the paper asking for volunteers. He became a volunteer Director in 2015. His passion is supporting local musicians and being part of the community radio station. He brings his experience and expertise in local live music events to the Board of Directors, raising thousands of pounds for the station. Being a fan of music and trying to support local acts he also presents a show on the station promoting local music. Ian set up the gfm Songwriting Competition and Glastonbury Calling which raise funds for the station and he also supports and trains new volunteers.
Only in Glastonbury could a community radio station start life in a bowls club with several short term broadcasts (thank you Wirral Park) 2003 – 2007; use a black tin can at a football stadium to launch as a community radio station in April 2009 (thank you Glastonbury FC); follow that up with a move to a historic, derelict building, itself in the process of being transformed into a community hub (thank you Red Brick Building) and then decide not only to raise the money (£24,000) but also to build two studios and finally to improve transmission across the area (thanks to a grant from Mendip District Council). That's the story of GFM in a nutshell – and it is a nutshell.
Who'd have thought we would have our own stage at the Godney Gathering, an annual song writing competition, an outdoor stage at the Glastonbury Fringe: a presence at the Wells Moat Boat Race, Glastonbury Frost Fayre, Glastonbury Road run and many other community events. There's a lot to be proud of in what we've done. So many community groups, organisations and businesses have found their voice on the radio. Lots of volunteers have gained new skills, gained confidence and learned how to provide the many, varied and unique programmes that make up Gfm. That's the story so far.
Click here to view our key commitments.


There were some independent items worth noting in the California manufacturing employment narrative this week.
First the California Labor Market Information Department, in its monthly report this week, announced the loss of 1,600 manufacturing jobs in March. This decline brings California's manufacturing jobs growth to 3.4 percent since the recession, while the U.S. grew its manufacturing base by 7.4 percent.
In the same week came an announcement from a southern California manufacturer, General Magnaplate, who said they would be shutting down their manufacturing facility in Ventura because of a difficult business climate and an unwarranted stormwater lawsuit against them. Magnaplate is a small manufacturer with only around 25 workers in their Ventura facility, but that means nothing to their employees who are left looking for work. The good news is that families in Texas and New Jersey will likely gain employment because the company's facilities in those locations will pick up production. Just one example of the drips of manufacturing loss accumulating over the years in California.
Basically the AEE report tells us that if you raise prices on something you can get more people working on ways to reduce consumption. That is of course not a surprise. But when it comes to the entire economy, our collective data is telling us that our state is still lagging the country in manufacturing jobs and investment growth.
Update on MFG jobs vs the U.S.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics and California's Employment Development Department recently made their annual revisions to employment data. California manufacturing still lags behind the country in manufacturing job growth since the recession, though the state did see a little bump comparatively to the country.
On the month-to-month front, California lost 4,200 manufacturing jobs in January.
We ask you, is this reaching California's potential? Are we comfortable with this direction? The manufacturing renaissance is a tremendous moment of opportunity for California to leverage and grow opportunities for its middle class working families. As stated in this great National Association of Manufacturers video, "Nothing happens unless we hit that start button."
Last week we looked at recent investment levels of manufacturing across the country and found that California is still lagging the country in the ever-important category of new and expanded facilities. This week we took a look at the state's manufacturing employment levels since 2000 versus the country. The California trend continues with a larger percentage loss than the rest of the United States.


Want to get in touch? At Daydream Studios our friendly staff are here to offer you all the advice you need. If you are thinking about starting a new project or if you have an existing project you would like us to get involved with, we would love to hear from you!


Why to choose this trip?
It is one of the most popular trips in Fræna municipality. At the destination of this trip you can enter three separate limestone caves. The first one is around 40 meters long and leads to a spectacular waterfall. The second cave is accessible trough a ladder which leads to another waterfall. The third cave is difficult to find, but the map by the first cave will help you find it!
Where does the trip start?
After Moen you should drive toward Eide. In about 2 km there will be a big sign and parking on the left side of the road (Road 64).
You just follow the signs from the parking. You will go through a forest (expect some steep parts already) then through rocks and stones you follow all the way to the entry of the largest cave. Be careful with the wet and damp conditions and do not forget to bring waterproof shoes.
You need headlights or torchlights when entering the caves.
Molde and its surroundings provide the perfect environment for mountain hikes! Pack your backpack, check out our offer and get out there to enjoy the amazing Norwegian nature and the breathtaking views you can experience from the top of the mountains. Read some of our recommended hiking trips on our website to get all the necessary details for your hike! We recommend the following hikes: Romsdalseggen: This is one of the most popular hikes in Møre og Romsdal. The hike leads through the spectecular mountains between Isfjorden and Åndalsnes! From several peaks above a 1000 meter, you can see magnificent views over Åndalsnes and Trolltindan. Read more here. Sjurvarden: A hike nearby the Atlantic Ocean Road. From the top of Melen and Sjurvarden you can see the open Atlantic Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean Road and the mountains to the south. Read more hear. Trollkyrkja: This hike leads up to a system of thrilling limestone caves with curvy tunnels and astonishing waterfalls. Read more here. Midsundtrappene: This hike over Midsund is an exciting hiking destination, on the island west of Molde. Read more here. Jendemsfjellet: A popular hiking destination among people living in Molde, providing spectacular view over the Atlantic Ocean. Read more here. Urfjellet: Another popular hike, close by Molde. This is the second highest peak of Fræna municipality. Read more here. If you feel more comfortable with a guide, we can provide you the following options: You can book a guide only, who will meet you where the hike starts and lead you along the hike. The cost of a guide is NOK 4000. The maximum number of participants is 10. This option does not include transport. You can book a guide and transport. The total cost of such a trip is NOK 8000. Maximum number of participants: 8. The price includes: Transport from Molde centrum to the mountain – where the hiking takes place – and transport back to Molde. Guide, who drives and leads the hike. If you are interested in a guided hiking trip, please contact us beforehand, so we can arrange the details for the hike!


Coub web API allows you to search among coubs and channels. The API provides several methods to perform search among all the data, among channels or coub data, among coub tags.
This method makes a search among all available data.
total_pages (integer) — the number of all pages.
This method makes a search among channels data.
per_page (integer) — the number of entities per one page.
This method makes a search among coubs data.
order_by (string) — sets an order of the search result, accepts one of the following values: likes_count, views_count , newest,oldest, newest_popular.
This method makes a search among tags.
title (string) — the title of the tag.
value (string) — the title of the tag with escaped characters.


High oleic sunflower seeds are particularly important for our fine cooking oil. We are involved in a project aimed at providing organic farmers with a bee-friendly variety.
Wherever possible, we aim to source the ingredients for our fine products regionally. Some of the organic mustard seed for our medium-hot mustard thrives right on our doorstep.


text:
Q: How to interpret a long string into a csv format? I have a mytext.txt file which has the following inside it:
2016-08-13 00:54:02,1471049642,62,28,16 2016-08-13 00:54:03,1471049643,62,28,20 2016-08-13 00:54:04,1471049644,62,28,18 2016-08-13 00:54:05,1471049645,62,28,18 2016-08-13 00:54:06,1471049646,62,28,19 2016-08-13 00:54:07,1471049647,62,28,17 2016-08-13 00:54:08,1471049648,62,28,19 2016-08-13 00:54:09,1471049649,62,28,16 2016-08-13 00:54:10,1471049650,62,28,19 2016-08-13 00:54:11,1471049651,62,28,18

I have tried to do a while loop with BASH :
while IFS="," read -r f1 f2 f3 f4 f5
do
   echo -e "f1:$f1 f2:$f2 f3:$f3 f4:$f4 f5:$f5"
done < mytext.txt

to get the following output:
2016-08-13 00:54:02,1471049642,62,28,16
2016-08-13 00:54:03,1471049643,62,28,20
2016-08-13 00:54:04,1471049644,62,28,18
2016-08-.....

but the output I get is:
f1:2016-08-13 00:54:02 f2:1471049642 f3:62 f4:28 f5:16 2016-08-13 00:54:03,1471049643,62,28,20  2016-08-13 00:54:04,1471049644,62,28,18 2016-08-....

Where $f5 holds the rest of the read file.
How can I remedy this?

A: You can handle this easily with sed by replacing space before date with newline:
sed -E $'s/ ([0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2} )/\\\n\\1/g' mytext.txt

with gnu sed:
sed -E 's/ ([0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2} )/\n\1/g' mytext.txt

Output:
2016-08-13 00:54:02,1471049642,62,28,16
2016-08-13 00:54:03,1471049643,62,28,20
2016-08-13 00:54:04,1471049644,62,28,18
2016-08-13 00:54:05,1471049645,62,28,18
2016-08-13 00:54:06,1471049646,62,28,19
2016-08-13 00:54:07,1471049647,62,28,17
2016-08-13 00:54:08,1471049648,62,28,19
2016-08-13 00:54:09,1471049649,62,28,16
2016-08-13 00:54:10,1471049650,62,28,19
2016-08-13 00:54:11,1471049651,62,28,18

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Home Uncategorized Fashion's Night Out Events!
Are you wondering where to go and what to do during Fashion's Night Out in New York during the city's 3rd annual FNO festivities? Well, so were we! That is… until we found these events to attend! Here is what we rounded up!
If you would like Denimology to plug your Fashion's Night Out event (or any other denim business), please send Jessie an email.
J Brand has created an exclusive jean for FNO and will be selling the style for $227 at select retailers nationwide and online at jbrandjeans.com. 100% of the pant's net proceeds will be donated to the New York City AIDS Fund.
To celebrate Fashion's Night Out, Earnest Sewn will be offering SL cocktails and music from Randy Watson at their Meatpacking store in NYC.
Join Paige Denim as we celebrate the launch of our coated jean collection! Shop new arrivals while sipping refreshments & take a scoop of coated candy before you leave! Gift with purchase, while supplies last.
Previous articleWiz Khalifa Works the Brown Denim Trend!


text:
Q: How to zip folder content on Ubuntu without keep the folder structure(path) How can I compress a directory content without compress the full path folder structure too.
I am using this command to zip a folder content under var/www/ directory, but when I unzip the application.zip I got a 2 level folder structure
/var/www/my important files
zip -r /var/appbackup/application.zip /var/www/

I would like to keep only files without "var" and "www" folders. How can I do that?

A: cd /var/www
zip -r application.zip *

It should work fine.

A: if you're ok with using 7z instead of zip:
7z a -tzip -mx5 /home/"$USER"/Desktop/target_file.7z "/directory/to/be/compressed";

this yields a normal-compressed (-mx=5) zip (-tzip) archive. you can switch the parameters around by refering to the man file or this guide http://www.dotnetperls.com/7-zip-examples


This has been quite an eventful year for our clients and team at Planned Financial Services (PFS). We began the year celebrating our 20th Anniversary as a successful wealth management firm and will end the year as an even stronger team, providing enhanced capabilities as a result of welcoming the Plax & Associates Financial Services team to the PFS family in October 2014.
This year also provided an opportunity to spend time with many of you outside of our office. In June, we hosted our Sixth Annual Cleveland Economic Summit at Cleveland's Windows on The River where many of you gathered to gain insight from industry experts on the local and national economic climate and the rapidly changing oil and gas industry. We look forward to hosting our Seventh Annual Economic Summit in spring 2015 and will communicate the date for this event early in the New Year.
In September, we were honored to host our clients and friends for an evening of fun and entertainment at the English Oak Room at Tower City Center for our 20th Anniversary gala.
This was a tremendously enjoyable event for our team, and we are honored that so many of you were able to join us in this celebration. We are grateful to have had this opportunity to spend time with and thank our clients and centers of influence who we credit with our growth and success over the past two decades.
October culminated in the expansion of our team as we welcomed Elisabeth Plax, CFP®, her team, and clients to our growing family, as well as ushering in our enhanced trading platform. The new platform further streamlines our investment management capabilities and makes it easier to quickly manage investment changes for our clients. The platform also enhances our ability to tactically manage client investments through Riskalyze software. This industryleading software more accurately measures client risk, and then more accurately measures the risk of any given portfolio to align specific investments with client objectives.
To better help our 401(k) clients using our 401(K) Plus® program we introduced our "K card" which is designed similar to an insurance card. It will help participants understand their plan rules and where to get help with specific questions all conveniently packaged on a colorful plastic card they can keep in their wallet or purse. The feedback has been great.
While October's headlines have been monopolized by heightened concerns about Ebola and stock market volatility, we believe we are seeing a return to normalcy as the month winds to a close. The latest stock market pullback provided an unwelcome reminder that stocks do not always go up in a straight line. Even within powerful bull markets such as this one, pullbacks of 5–10% have been quite common and do not mean the bull market is nearing an end. It's important to put the pullback into perspective to avoid making shortterm or rash decisions that may not be in your best interests over the long term.
Below, we look beyond this latest bout of volatility and share our thoughts on the current bull market, compare it with prior bull markets at this stage, and discuss why we do not think the bull market is coming to an end.
Pullbacks such as this one, which has reached 5%, are not abnormal. Sometimes stocks get ahead of themselves. When they do, investor concerns can be magnified and profit taking might take stocks down more than might be justified by the fundamental news. We see this latest pullback as normal within the context of an ongoing and powerful bull market and do not see its causes (European and Chinese growth concerns, the rise of Islamic State militants, Ebola, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, etc.) as justifying something much bigger.
The S&P 500 has now experienced 19 pullbacks during this 5 ½ yearold bull market, during which the index has risen by 182% (cumulative return of 217% including dividends). The 1990s bull market included 13 pullbacks, and there were 12 during the 2002–2007 bull market. At an average of three to four pullbacks per year, we are in-line with historic averages since World War II.
To us, this looks pretty normal. Yet, we understand why it can be unsettling to many investors. When volatility has been so low for so long, normal volatility no longer feels normal. Investors have become unaccustomed to what we would characterize as normal volatility.
While most of the 5% drop came in a short period of time during the week of October 6-10, the level of volatility experienced that week is not at all uncommon within an ongoing economic expansion and bull market. Volatility tends to pick up as the business cycle passes its midpoint, which we believe it has. Reaching this stage just took longer than many had expected during the current cycle. Also, keep in mind that the 335 drop in the Dow Jones Industrials that we experienced on Thursday, October 9, 2014, is not as dramatic as it once was. That loss was less than 2%, with the Dow near 17,000 when it occurred, compared with 3-4% losses associated with that number of points on the Dow earlier in the recovery.
These pullbacks do not mean the end of the bull market is near, nor does the fact that we have not had a 10% or more correction since 2011. In fact, most bull markets since World War II included only one correction of 10% or more, and the current bull has already had two (2010 and 2011).
The economic backdrop in the United States remains healthy. Gross domestic product (GDP) is growing at above its long-term average, providing support for continued earnings growth; the U.S. labor market has created 2 million jobs over the past year; and the drop in oil prices may support stronger consumer spending.
Our favorite leading indicators, including the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index (LEI), the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) Index, and the yield curve, suggest that the bull market may likely continue into 2015 and beyond, with a recession unlikely on the immediate horizon.
The European Central Bank (ECB) is likely to add a dose of monetary stimulus to spark growth in Europe, the source of much of the global growth fears that have driven recent stock market weakness. China stands ready to invigorate its economy as well.
Interest rates, and therefore borrowing costs for corporations, remain low. The Federal Reserve (Fed) is in no hurry to raise interest rates.
Valuations have become more attractive. Price-to-earnings ratios (PE) have not reached levels that suggest the end of the bull market is forthcoming, based on history. We view PEs, which have fallen about 0.5 points from their recent peak, as reasonable given growing earnings and low interest rates.
The S&P 500 is marginally above its 200-day moving average at 1905. Historically, this level has proven to be strong support. Although the index may dip slightly below this level in the near term, we expect the range around that level (1900–1910) to provide strong support for the index again and would not expect it to stay below that range for very long.
There is no doubt that 2014 has been an exceptional year for our growing team and our clients at Planned Financial Services. As the holiday's approach, we remain grateful for the trust you have placed in your team at Planned Financial Services to help you pursue the Return on Life® you desire. We wish you and your family all of the joys of the upcoming holiday season and look forward to the year ahead as we continue to guide you through the changing economic and financial markets. As always, it would be our pleasure to provide the same level of caring service and guidance to any family members, friends or colleagues you feel may benefit from our advice and services. We are only a phone call away at 440.740.0130.
Life insurance can be a vital asset in planning for your family's financial well being, but determining which type of policy — term or permanent — better suits your situation can be challenging. There's no one-size-fits-all answer because different products fulfill different needs.
A term life insurance policy provides basic coverage. You pay premiums for a stated time period, and if you die within that period, the insurance company pays a death benefit to your beneficiaries. The contract is good only for the duration of the payment period, and it builds no cash value. In other words, if the policy expires before you die, you typically don't receive any cash back.
A term life insurance policy is meant to cover you when your need is the greatest — such as while you have a mortgage to pay or a spouse and young children to support. Because a term policy doesn't build value and is only in force for a specified period, the premiums generally are lower than those of a permanent policy. However, if the term expires and you want to renew your policy, you likely will face higher premiums because of your increasing age. Depending on your health at that point, you could even have become uninsurable.
A permanent life insurance policy protects you for your entire life (assuming you continue to pay the premiums). This coverage could provide you with extra peace of mind if, say, you have a special needs child who won't ever become financially independent. A permanent policy could also provide your heirs with liquidity to pay taxes on your estate if you expect its value to surpass the estate tax exemption.
The premiums can be considerably higher than those of a comparable term policy. Why? Because a permanent policy apportions part of the money toward a cash value, providing you with a built-in savings vehicle. In addition, premiums will remain level as you age and may even end at a point in time. And the policy will still cover you even if you become uninsurable.
A permanent policy offers tax benefits as well, with the earnings on your cash value accumulating tax-deferred. This may be attractive if you've maxed out other tax-advantaged savings vehicles such as 401(k) plans. You can make withdrawals tax-free by taking a "loan" from the policy, although doing so will reduce the net death benefit.
Some argue that you'd be better off buying a term policy and investing any premium savings elsewhere. In theory, by assuming a decent rate of return on your investments, such a strategy can look appealing. But, in reality, it's rarely that simple.
How do you expect to use the life insurance? If you're a high earner or in a high tax bracket, you may benefit from a permanent policy's tax savings. Or, as noted, you may need a policy that remains in force no matter how long you live and, regardless of your health, builds cash value for later withdrawal or provides liquidity for your heirs.
How likely are you to invest the difference? Good intentions won't support your family or help your heirs cover estate taxes. Be realistic about whether you'd actually invest the amount you're saving by buying term coverage.
How comfortable are you with investment risk? A portion of a permanent policy's growth is guaranteed by the insurance company, helping you be more confident about reaching the stated goal. A do-it-yourself approach means accepting market risk — the potential for the value of an investment to decline as markets fluctuate.
Beyond the basic concepts of term and permanent, life insurance products come in multiple variations, including hybrid products. Discuss your needs with your financial advisor to find the right combination of benefits for you.
Financial advisors always warn inexperienced investors of the possibility of stock market volatility, yet when the going gets rough, some react irrationally and begin selling when it isn't warranted. Seasoned investors use such tools as the Volatility Index (VIX) to better understand risk and follow strategies designed to lessen the effects of volatility on their investment portfolio.
VIX readings below 20 generally indicate a relatively complacent mood among investors, while levels above 30 are associated with heightened fear. In October 2008, soon after the collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers, the VIX soared to around 80. Although the VIX wasn't in existence on Black Monday (Oct. 19, 1987), when the U.S. stock market plunged more than 20% in a single day, the CBOE later calculated that volatility spiked to an all-time high of 172.79 on the following day.
Ideally, the VIX would provide advance notice of when the stock market is headed for trouble and when it's about to stage a recovery. However, there seems to be little consistency to extreme VIX readings. Each market cycle has its own particular dynamics, and perhaps the most you can glean from the VIX is a general sense of investors' level of anxiety at any given time.
In addition to the VIX, there are two lesser-known indexes that can gauge fear: The Nasdaq Volatility Index (VXN) tracks sentiment based on options on the Nasdaq-100 Index®, and the DJIA Volatility Index (VXD) fulfills a similar function for the Dow Jones Industrial AverageSM.
Despite the VIX's limitations as a predictive tool, you can take steps to help fortify your investment portfolio against volatility. Begin by acknowledging that periodic bouts of extreme volatility will occur. You can't predict what the market will do in the future. However, you can see what it's done in the past and use that information to your advantage. How you should react to significant market declines will depend on your risk tolerance, investment time horizon and financial goals.
Your advisor will likely suggest that you diversify your portfolio. Diversification can't prevent losses or guarantee profits. But spreading your equity investments among various sectors of the market and allocating a portion of your portfolio to fixed income, cash and possibly other asset classes can potentially help mitigate losses when the stock market heads south. Remember, the best time to think about greater diversification is before the market plunges.
Try to avoid market timing. Investors who attempt to time the market may end up boosting their allocations to stocks ahead of market downturns and lightening up near important bottoms — just the opposite of what would be ideal.
Finally, consider dollar-cost averaging. Using this technique, you invest a set dollar amount every week, month or quarter, regardless of how the market is doing. Many people do this by investing the same amount in a 401(k) plan every payroll period. Consequently, you end up buying more shares when prices are low and fewer when prices are high. Again, profits aren't guaranteed, and you need to consider your ability to continue to invest amid declining prices. But this method gives you a disciplined, steady way to help build your portfolio.
Risk and volatility are major parts of making investments. Investing in the market, specifically, can feel like a nonstop roller coaster ride. The good news is that you can take steps to help ease the extreme ups and downs. Your advisor can help you assess your situation and implement the best strategies designed to tame volatility.
An investment's performance is only as good as its after-tax return. That's why tax efficiency is important to your overall portfolio strategy.
Your tax liability on an investment generally is driven by two variables. The first is the tax treatment. It's determined by how the investment generates earnings. Common examples are long-term capital gains, qualified dividends, ordinary income (such as interest from bonds or bond funds, and short-term capital gains), tax-free income (think municipal bonds), or tax-deferred income (from investments held in many retirement-savings vehicles, for example).
The second variable is your personal tax situation, which includes your marginal tax rate, as well as specifics related to the investment — for example, its sale price, the adjusted tax basis and any capital gain or loss.
Maximize tax-advantaged retirement accounts. With an employer-sponsored plan such as a traditional 401(k) plan, you make contributions with pretax dollars, automatically lowering your current-year income tax burden. Additionally, your earnings grow tax-deferred, allowing you to sell securities without owing capital gains taxes. Distributions, however, are taxed at ordinary-income rates, not long-term capital gains rates. But, generally, this will be in retirement, when you may be in a lower tax bracket. With a Roth 401(k) plan, contributions are after-tax, but qualified distributions are tax-free.
Both traditional and Roth IRAs also grow tax-deferred. With a traditional IRA, these earnings, as well as amounts attributable to contributions, are taxed at ordinary-income rates upon withdrawal. However, qualified Roth IRA withdrawals are tax-free.
Contributions are also treated differently. Traditional IRA contributions may be tax deductible, depending on whether you or your spouse participates in an employer-sponsored retirement plan and your income level. Roth IRA contributions aren't deductible, and the amount you're allowed to contribute will be reduced or eliminated if your income exceeds certain levels. Another option is to convert some or all of your traditional IRA to a Roth IRA account. This may prove beneficial if you could be in a similar or higher tax bracket after retirement and you can afford to pay the taxes now, at conversion.
Consider tax-efficient investments. Municipal bonds' interest income is typically exempt from federal income taxes and, if you live in the state where the bond is issued, sometimes also from state and local taxes. Index funds may be more tax efficient than actively managed mutual funds because an indexing strategy tends to generate lower turnover of securities in the fund.
Consider the tax implications of selling an investment. An investment sold at a gain after it's been held for at least one year will be subject to the applicable long-term capital gains rate. This may be around 20 percentage points lower than your marginal ordinary-income tax rate, which applies to short-term capital gains. So holding on to an investment for more than one year can significantly increase your after-tax return.
An investment sold at a loss can be used to offset capital gains elsewhere in your portfolio, reducing your overall tax liability. In addition, you can offset up to $3,000 per year of ordinary income with net losses, as well as carry unused losses forward to future years.
However, tax-loss selling has some limitations, including the potential for higher taxes later on and a potential loss of value when substituting a new investment to maintain the same risk exposure. Also, be aware that the IRS's wash sale rule prohibits you from claiming a loss if you buy a "substantially similar" security within 30 days of the sale (before or after).
It's important to weigh tax ramifications within the broader context of your time horizon and risk tolerance. In some cases, the potential gains from an investment may be worth accepting a larger tax burden. Discuss the appropriate strategy for your situation with your tax and financial advisors.
Minimizing the tax burden on your retirement distributions helps you keep more of your income and reduce the risk of outliving your money.
Because of tax-deferred compounding, it's generally most tax-efficient to hold off on taking retirement plan distributions until they're required (generally after age 70½) and then to take only the RMD. But distributions — or larger distributions — in any year when your tax bracket is low (as long as it's after age 59½) may provide tax savings that outweigh the compounding benefits.


text:
Q: Is there a way that I can check if a data attribute exists? Is there some way that I can run the following:
var data = $("#dataTable").data('timer');
var diffs = [];

for(var i = 0; i + 1 < data.length; i++) {
    diffs[i] = data[i + 1] - data[i];
}

alert(diffs.join(', '));

Only if there is an attribute called data-timer on the element with an id of #dataTable?

A: You can create an extremely simple jQuery-plugin to query an element for this:
$.fn.hasData = function(key) {
  return (typeof $(this).data(key) != 'undefined');
};

Then you can simply use $("#dataTable").hasData('timer')
Gotchas:

*

*Will return false only if the value does not exist (is undefined); if it's set to false/null it hasData() will still return true.

*It's different from the built-in $.hasData() which only checks if any data on the element is set.

A: In the interest of providing a different answer from the ones above; you could check it with Object.hasOwnProperty(...) like this:
 if( $("#dataTable").data().hasOwnProperty("timer") ){
     // the data-time property exists, now do you business! .....
 }

alternatively, if you have multiple data elements you want to iterate over you can variablize the .data() object and iterate over it like this:
 var objData = $("#dataTable").data();
 for ( data in objData ){
      if( data == 'timer' ){
            //...do the do
      }
 }

Not saying this solution is better than any of the other ones in here, but at least it's another approach...

A: if ($("#dataTable").data('timer')) {
  ...
}

NOTE this only returns true if the data attribute is not empty string or a "falsey" value e.g. 0 or false.
If you want to check for the existence of the data attribute, even if empty, do this:
if (typeof $("#dataTable").data('timer') !== 'undefined') {
  ...
}

A: You can check by css attribute selection with
if ($('#dataTable').is('[data-timer]')) {
   // data-timer attribute exists
}

A: This is the easiest solution in my opinion is to select all the element which has certain data attribute:
var data = $("#dataTable[data-timer]");
var diffs = [];

for(var i = 0; i + 1 < data.length; i++) {
    diffs[i] = data[i + 1] - data[i];
}

alert(diffs.join(', '));

Here is the screenshot of how it works.

A: I've found this works better with dynamically set data elements:
if ($("#myelement").data('myfield')) {
  ...
}

A: Or combine with some vanilla JS
if ($("#dataTable").get(0).hasAttribute("data-timer")) {
  ...
}

A: All the answers here use the jQuery library.
But the vanilla javascript is very straightforward.
If you want to run a script only if the element with an id of #dataTable also has a data-timer attribute, then the steps are as follows:
// Locate the element
const myElement = document.getElementById('dataTable');

// Run conditional code
if (myElement.dataset.hasOwnProperty('timer')) {

  [... CODE HERE...]

}

A: if (typeof $("#dataTable").data('timer') !== 'undefined')
{
    // your code here
}

A: You can use jQuery's hasData method.
http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.hasData/

The primary advantage of jQuery.hasData(element) is that it does not create and associate a data object with the element if none currently exists. In contrast, jQuery.data(element) always returns a data object to the caller, creating one if no data object previously existed.

This will only check for the existence of any data objects (or events) on your element, it won't be able to confirm if it specifically has a "timer" object.

A: If you want to distinguish between empty values and missing values you can use jQuery to check like this.

So from the original question you'd do this.
if("timer" in $("#dataTable").data()) {
  // code
}

A: Wrong answer - see EDIT at the end
Let me build on Alex's answer.
To prevent the creation of a data object if it doesn't exists, I would better do:
$.fn.hasData = function(key) {
    var $this = $(this);
    return $.hasData($this) && typeof $this.data(key) !== 'undefined';
};

Then, where $this has no data object created, $.hasData returns false and it will not execute $this.data(key).
EDIT: function $.hasData(element) works only if the data was set using $.data(element, key, value), not element.data(key, value). Due to that, my answer is not correct.

A: I needed a simple boolean to work with. Because it's undefined of not present, and not false, I use the !! to convert to boolean:
var hasTimer = !!$("#dataTable").data('timer');
if( hasTimer ){ /* ....... */ }

An alternative solution would be using filter:
if( $("#dataTable").filter('[data-timer]').length!==0) { /* ....... */ }

A: var data = $("#dataTable").data('timer');
var diffs = [];

if( data.length > 0 ) {
for(var i = 0; i + 1 < data.length; i++) {
    diffs[i] = data[i + 1] - data[i];
}

alert(diffs.join(', '));
}

A: And what about:
if ($('#dataTable[data-timer]').length > 0) {
    // logic here
}


How can companies stamp out fraud?
Well that's what UK companies are unwittingly doing. The UK economy loses a staggering £193 billion every year, to fraud.
How can you establish surveillance and observation systems discreetly and at arm's length when you are out of your comfort zone?


text:
Accelerating AI with GPUs: A New Computing Model
January 12, 2016 by Jensen Huang
Yann LeCun invited me to speak at this week's inaugural symposium on "The Future of AI" at NYU. It's an amazing gathering of leaders in the field to discuss the state of AI and its continued advancement. Here's what I talked about — how deep learning is a new software model that needs a new computing model; why AI researchers have adopted GPU-accelerated computing; and NVIDIA's ongoing efforts to advance AI as we enter into its exponential adoption. And why, after all these years, AI has taken off.
For as long as we have been designing computers, AI has been the final frontier. Building intelligent machines that can perceive the world as we do, understand our language, and learn from examples has been the life's work of computer scientists for over five decades. Yet, it took the combination of Yann LeCun's work in convolutional neural nets, Geoff Hinton's back-propagation and Stochastic Gradient Descent approach to training, and Andrew Ng's large-scale use of GPUs to accelerate deep neural networks (DNNs) to ignite the big bang of modern AI — deep learning.
At the time, NVIDIA was busy advancing GPU-accelerated computing, a new computing model that uses massively parallel graphics processors to accelerate applications also parallel in nature. Scientists and researchers jumped on to GPUs to do molecular-scale simulations to determine the effectiveness of a life-saving drug, to visualize our organs in 3D (reconstructed from light doses of a CT scan), or to do galactic-scale simulations to discover the laws that govern our universe. One researcher, using our GPUs for quantum chromodynamics simulations, said to me: "Because of NVIDIA's work, I can now do my life's work, in my lifetime." This is wonderfully rewarding. It has always been our mission to give people the power to make a better future. NVIDIA GPUs have democratized supercomputing and researchers have now discovered that power.
By 2011, AI researchers around the world had discovered NVIDIA GPUs. The Google Brain project had just achieved amazing results — it learned to recognize cats and people by watching movies on YouTube. But it required 2,000 CPUs in servers powered and cooled in one of Google's giant data centers. Few have computers of this scale. Enter NVIDIA and the GPU. Bryan Catanzaro in NVIDIA Research teamed with Andrew Ng's team at Stanford to use GPUs for deep learning. As it turned out, 12 NVIDIA GPUs could deliver the deep-learning performance of 2,000 CPUs. Researchers at NYU, the University of Toronto, and the Swiss AI Lab accelerated their DNNs on GPUs. Then, the fireworks started.
Deep Learning Performs Miracles
Alex Krizhevsky of the University of Toronto won the 2012 ImageNet computer image recognition competition.(1) Krizhevsky beat — by a huge margin — handcrafted software written by computer vision experts. Krizhevsky and his team wrote no computer vision code. Rather, using deep learning, their computer learned to recognize images by itself. They designed a neural network called AlexNet and trained it with a million example images that required trillions of math operations on NVIDIA GPUs. Krizhevksy's AlexNet had beaten the best human-coded software.
The AI race was on. By 2015, another major milestone was reached.
Using deep learning, Google and Microsoft both beat the best human score in the ImageNet challenge.(2,3) Not a human-written program, but a human. Shortly thereafter, Microsoft and the China University of Science and Technology announced a DNN that achieved IQ test scores at the college post-graduate level.(4) Then Baidu announced that a deep learning system called Deep Speech 2 had learned both English and Mandarin with a single algorithm.(5) And all top results of the 2015 ImageNet competition were based on deep learning, running on GPU-accelerated deep neural networks, and many beating human-level accuracy.
In 2012, deep learning had beaten human-coded software. By 2015, deep learning had achieved "superhuman" levels of perception.
A New Computing Platform for a New Software Model
Computer programs contain commands that are largely executed sequentially. Deep learning is a fundamentally new software model where billions of software-neurons and trillions of connections are trained, in parallel. Running DNN algorithms and learning from examples, the computer is essentially writing its own software. This radically different software model needs a new computer platform to run efficiently. Accelerated computing is an ideal approach and the GPU is the ideal processor. As Nature recently noted, early progress in deep learning was "made possible by the advent of fast graphics processing units (GPUs) that were convenient to program and allowed researchers to train networks 10 or 20 times faster."(6) A combination of factors is essential to create a new computing platform — performance, programming productivity, and open accessibility.
Performance. NVIDIA GPUs are naturally great at parallel workloads and speed up DNNs by 10-20x, reducing each of the many training iterations from weeks to days. We didn't stop there. By collaborating with AI developers, we continued to improve our GPU designs, system architecture, compilers, and algorithms, and sped up training deep neural networks by 50x in just three years — a much faster pace than Moore's Law. We expect another 10x boost in the next few years.
Programmability. AI innovation is on a breakneck pace. Ease of programming and developer productivity are paramount. The programmability and richness of NVIDIA's CUDA platform allow researchers to innovate quickly — building new configurations of CNNs, DNNs, deep inception networks, RNNs, LSTMs, and reinforcement learning networks.
Accessibility. Developers want to create anywhere and deploy everywhere. NVIDIA GPUs are available all over the world, from every PC OEM; in desktops, notebooks, servers, or supercomputers; and in the cloud from Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft. All major AI development frameworks are NVIDIA GPU accelerated — from internet companies, to research, to startups. No matter the AI development system preferred, it will be faster with GPU acceleration. We have also created GPUs for just about every computing form-factor so that DNNs can power intelligent machines of all kinds. GeForce is for PC. Tesla is for cloud and supercomputers. Jetson is for robots and drones. And DRIVE PX is for cars. All share the same architecture and accelerate deep learning.
Every Industry Wants Intelligence
Baidu, Google, Facebook, Microsoft were the first adopters of NVIDIA GPUs for deep learning. This AI technology is how they respond to your spoken word, translate speech or text to another language, recognize and automatically tag images, and recommend newsfeeds, entertainment, and products that are tailored to what each of us likes and cares about. Startups and established companies are now racing to use AI to create new products and services, or improve their operations. In just two years, the number of companies NVIDIA collaborates with on deep learning has jumped nearly 35x to over 3,400 companies. Industries such as healthcare, life sciences, energy, financial services, automotive, manufacturing, and entertainment will benefit by inferring insight from mountains of data. And, with Facebook, Google, and Microsoft opening their deep-learning platforms for all to use, AI-powered applications will spread fast. In light of this trend, Wired recently heralded the "rise of the GPU."
Self-driving cars. Whether to augment humans with a superhuman co-pilot, or revolutionize personal mobility services, or reduce the need for sprawling parking lots within cities, self-driving cars have the potential to do amazing social good. Driving is complicated. Unexpected things happen. Freezing rain turns the road into a skating rink. The road to your destination is closed. A child runs out in front of the car. You can't write software that anticipates every possible scenario a self-driving car might encounter. That's the value of deep learning; it can learn, adapt, and improve. We are building an end-to-end deep learning platform called NVIDIA DRIVE PX for self-driving cars — from the training system to the in-car AI computer. The results are very exciting. A future with superhuman computer co-pilots and driverless shuttles is no longer science fiction.
Robots. FANUC, a leading manufacturing robot maker, recently demonstrated an assembly-line robot that learned to "pick" randomly oriented objects out of a bin. The GPU-powered robot learned by trial and error. This deep-learning technology was developed by Preferred Networks, which was recently featured in a The Wall Street Journal article headlined, "Japan Seeks Tech Revival with Artificial Intelligence."
Healthcare and Life Sciences. Deep Genomics is applying GPU-based deep learning to understand how genetic variations can lead to disease. Arterys uses GPU-powered deep learning to speed analysis of medical images. Its technology will be deployed in GE Healthcare MRI machines to help diagnose heart disease. Enlitic is using deep learning to analyze medical images to identify tumors, nearly invisible fractures, and other medical conditions.
These are just a handful of examples. There are literally thousands.
Deep-learning breakthroughs have sparked the AI revolution. Machines powered by AI deep neural networks solve problems too complex for human coders. They learn from data and improve with use. The same DNN can be trained by even non-programmers to solve new problems. Progress is exponential. Adoption is exponential. And we believe the impact to society will also be exponential. A recent study by KPMG predicts that computerized driver assistance technologies will help reduce car accidents 80% in 20 years — that's nearly 1 million lives a year saved. Deep-learning AI will be its cornerstone technology.
The impact to the computer industry will also be exponential. Deep learning is a fundamentally new software model. So we need a new computer platform to run it — an architecture that can efficiently execute programmer-coded commands as well as the massively parallel training of deep neural networks. We are betting that GPU-accelerated computing is the horse to ride. Popular Science recently called the GPU "the workhorse of modern A.I." We agree.
Looking for a crash course in AI? Check out our cheat sheet to find the top courses to learn AI and machine learning, fast.
A. Krizhevsky, I. Sutskever, G. Hinton. ImageNet classification with deep convolutional neural networks. In Proc. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 25 1090–1098 (2012).
K. He, X. Zhang, S. Ren, J. Sun. Delving deep into rectifiers: Surpassing human-level performance on ImageNet classification. arXiv:1502.01852 [cs] (2015).
S. Ioffe, C. Szegedy. Batch normalization: Accelerating deep network training by reducing internal covariate shift. In International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) 448–456 (2015).
H. Wang, B. Gao, J. Bian, F. Tian, T.Y. Liu. Solving Verbal Comprehension Questions in IQ Test by Knowledge-Powered Word Embedding. arXiv:1505.07909 [cs.CL] (2015).
D. Amodei, R. Anubhai, E. Battenberg, C. Case, J. Casper, B. Catanzaro, J. Chen, M. Chrzanowski, A. Coates, G. Diamos, E. Elsen, J. Engel, L. Fan, C. Fougner, T. Han, A. Hannun, B. Jun, P. LeGresley, L. Lin, S. Narang, A. Ng, S. Ozair, R. Prenger, J. Raiman, S. Satheesh, D. Seetapun, S. Sengupta, Y. Wang, Z. Wang, C. Wang, B. Xiao, D. Yogatama, J. Zhan, Z. Zhu. "Deep speech 2: End-to-end speech recognition in English and Mandarin," arXiv preprint arXiv:1512.02595 (2015).
Y. LeCun, Y. Bengio, G. Hinton. Deep Learning – Review. Nature (2015).
Categories: Autonomous Machines | Deep Learning
Tags: Artificial Intelligence | CUDA | GeForce | GPU | Jetson | NVIDIA DRIVE | Tesla

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


God cares no less for the old than the young – and the church must take an ageing population seriously when it comes to mission and growth.
That will be the message to CRE 2017 from Rev Dr David Hilborn of St John's College, Nottingham.
The biblical writers tend to see economic status, race and gender as of more concern to God than distinctions of age – and cut across generational lines.
In his seminar David will offer practical examples of intergenerational church and mission, alongside case studies of how it can be complemented by generationally-specific strategies.


text:
package dollar.internal.runtime.script.api;

import dollar.api.DollarException;
import dollar.api.Scope;
import dollar.api.Value;
import dollar.api.script.Source;
import dollar.internal.runtime.script.api.exceptions.DollarAssertionException;
import org.jetbrains.annotations.NotNull;
import org.jetbrains.annotations.Nullable;

import java.io.File;

public interface ParserErrorHandler {

    @NotNull
    Value handle(@NotNull Scope scope, @Nullable Source source, @NotNull DollarAssertionException e);

    @NotNull Value handle(@NotNull Scope scope, @Nullable Source source, @NotNull DollarException e);

    @NotNull
    Value handle(@NotNull Scope scope, @Nullable Source source, @NotNull Exception e);

    <T extends Exception> void handleTopLevel(@NotNull T t, @NotNull String name, @Nullable File file) throws RuntimeException;

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
A glimpse into how we help the rhino orphans and their caregivers
A glimpse into how we help the rhino orphans and their caregivers through the generous support of the public.To help...
Posted by Wild Heart Wildlife Foundation on Sunday, March 27, 2016
Rhino poaching still remains unacceptably high
Rhino horn trade being reopened will completely go against CITES recommendations
Rhino Poaching Numbers Have Fallen For The First Time In A Decade According To The Department Of Environmental Affairs In South Africa.
The poaching figures were released a day after the South African High Court dismissed the government's application to appeal an earlier ruling lifting a moratorium on the domestic sale of rhino horns.
South Africa's national rhino horn trade being reopened will completely go against CITES which urges all member countries to adopt comprehensive legislation and enforcement controls, including internal trade restrictions and penalties, aimed at reducing illegal trade in rhino horn, It will make it much harder for already overstretched law enforcement agencies to tackle illegal rhino horn trafficking.
Although South Africa reports small decrease in rhino poaching, Africa-wide, 2015 was still the worst on record.
In Namibia, 80 rhinos were lost to poachers in 2015 – up from 25 in 2014 and just 4 in 2013. In Zimbabwe, 50 animals were killed – more than double the previous year's total. These three countries are home to nearly 95 per cent of all remaining African rhinos.
South Africa's environment minister Edna Molewa said on Thursday that 1,175 dead rhinos were discovered during the country's annual census of poaching activities - 40 less than the 2014 record of 1,215.
During 2015' 124 rhino were translocated from the Kruger park to protect them from poachers. "These translocations to protected areas will continue in March 2016'" Molewa said.
"A lot of work was done and that spike was actually averted. It is undeniable that this is because of the efforts of our people in particular the concerted efforts of law enforcement and security agencies," Molewa said.
A total of 317 arrests related to rhino poaching at the Kruger National Park were made last year' and a total of 188 firearms were seized at the park in the year.
According to TRAFFIC data, Africa-wide rhino poaching totals reached 1,299 animals in 2014. The latest figure from South Africa means the continent-wide total in 2015 was at least 1,305.
Molewa has been reported to not giving up so easily. Her and her legal team will be going to the Supreme Court of Appeal, and once they have filed their application to appeal, the moratorium will go back into effect. Let's hope that DEA win this time..
Rhino Orphans Left Behind By Ruthless Poachers Deserve our Help
None so special as those who have everything to lose:
The Rhino Poaching Scourge in South Africa is an international Tragedy because of its horrific cruelty, and the absolute nonsensical demand for Rhino horn.
The silent victims who have no voice are the almost 100 rhino babies in sanctuaries in South Africa at present. They are the babies whose mothers were targeted in one of most barbaric of all criminal activities – poaching.
Most of the rhino are being poached inside the National Parks of South Africa, but once a baby gets rescued, it is in a kind of no-man's land, with the rescue centres receiving very little assistance from the Government. It is unlikely that this scenario will change in the near future, so ongoing support of legitimate rescue centres are needed. You can help by donating at: paypal.me/wildheartwildlife
Pictured below is WHWF delivering desperately needed supplies to The Rhino Orphanage.
One man and his team of dedicated carers are making a difference in the lives of precious rhino babies: Arrie Van Deventer started The Rhino Orphanage in 2012, with the sole aim of looking after and rehabilitating the victims of poaching. It was a world first, and many doubted that it would ever be needed as much as it is right now. But Arrie stuck to his dream, and with the help of his friend Paul Cilliers from Legend Lodges, the dream took a physical form. The Rhino Orphanage is a very special place, because no animal is turned away – Arrie's love for them runs way too deep.
With Limpopo's beautiful Hangklip Mountain silently watching over the rhino orphanage in the heart of the African bush, it is difficult to fathom the need for these sanctuaries. Man's greed seems to be a world apart from there.
The Orphanage is not open to the public, because the aim is to re-wild the babies into a safe haven once they are strong enough. Nobody here wants a petting zoo. Every true animal lover wants the rhinos to be free, wild, happy and safe (with their horns intact like nature intended). It's just that it is becoming increasingly challenging to get that done. Orphaned baby rhinos are often very weak, severely traumatized and dehydrated, because they refuse to leave their dead or dying mothers. They need intensive care and specialized treatment as soon as possible, and likely for a few months after being rescued.
Below are a few pictures of the babies successfully rescued and being cared for.
As soon as the Rhino Orphan gets a bit stronger, their constant human contact needs to be reduced, so that the human imprint can start fading. This is crucially important if there is any hope of them being truly wild and free to be released into a safe haven.
Rhino babies are split into different age groups, because they are so strong - they can easily hurt one another when different ages are grouped together. Unfortunately this also means that sometimes a baby can be lonely, having no-one in his or her age group for company. This is currently the case with Jaime, a two month old White Rhino baby. Babies like these need more human care than babies in pairs or groups.
Below we are delivering hundreds of meters of shade netting and Powdered milk for the babies.
The saddest part, Arrie says, is that we are only saving around 10% of the babies who fell victim to having their mothers poached. This means that only one in ten babies are making it to the orphanage to be cared for, the rest are not making it out of the reserves where they die from dehydration, starvation or injuries resulting from the poaching attacks. It is a heart-breaking statistic.
*Pictured above are the orphan Rhinos who are gradually being reintroduced back into the wild.
Wild Heart Wildlife Foundation continues with our Fundraising Drives for the orphanage. With the generous support of the public, we have been able to supply the orphanage with critically-needed supplies and capital items, to enable them to go about their important work of saving the rhinos. This included a generator for power outages, infra-red lamps to keep the babies warm, oxygen tanks along with desperately needed medical equipment and supplies, 500 liter water troughs perfect for thirsty rhinos, Hundreds of meters of shade netting and field fencing among loads of other necessities, all of which can be viewed on our "How can you help" web page. Somehow we manage to tick quite a few of the bigger items needed off the wishlist! These deliveries are part of WHWF's ongoing Project RhinoOrphanCare, and illustrates our commitment to Ethical Conservation. Because the needs of these babies are ongoing, they need continuous support, which we aim to provide to the best of our ability.
With our consistent support over the years, the babies Lunga, Faith, Kabelo, Kabira, Muffin, Matthew and Lesedi, among others, have grown into happy little rhinos, mostly spending their days in the bush, free and wild. They could be seen turning their well-fed little butts to our viewing vehicle, as they trotted away from us. It was a heart-warming sight, because they are learning to be rhinos, and will soon not need human assistance any more. Seeing them growing into wild beauties, is why we do what we do. It's the only way for them to be. And it is what we want for all our precious rhino. We have so much to lose…
WHWF also support the unsung heroes "The Anti-Poaching Rangers" who help protect our precious Rhino orphans and their caregivers. We are proud to have supplied equipment and uniforms to these brave men pictured below who are on the front line of poaching.
Paul Oxton, Founder/Director and the team at Wild Heart Wildlife Foundation would like to thank all who support us in our mission to help our precious Wildlife in need.
*Pictured above are Lunga, Faith and Matthew enjoying their days in the sun while gradually being reintroduced into the wild.
You can become part of #TeamWild, by joining us on our mission to Save Wildlife. You can help by donating on this page or at: paypal.me/wildheartwildlife


text:
Delphi Greece has long been a popular destination among locals, mainly thanks to its close distance to Athens. But not only because of this… Delphi is one of the most popular and interesting archaeological sites in Greece. Its fame can be traced back to the ancient times when the glorious sanctuary of the ancient Greek god Apollo was built there. Immediately upon arriving in Delphi, you'll be seduced by its mythical charm!
The sanctuary of Apollo also served as an oracle, where pilgrims from all over the Mediterranean would go to receive god's prophecy. Apollo would deliver his prophecies through the words of Pythia, the high-priestess of the temple.
The temple of Delphi is surrounded by treasury buildings which contained the offerings of the city-states to the oracle and by verdant mountains, which highlight its beauty.
During ancient times athletic competitions were organized every four years in honor of the god Apollo. The Pythian Games, as they were called, would take place at the stadium on the highest spot of the archaeological site. To get ready for the Games, the athletes would train at the Gymnasium, a gym on the southern side of the site. It's worth a visit!
Other places you must visit inside the area of the Temple of Delphi are the Ancient Theater, which is currently under restoration, and the Archaeological Museum, which hosts valuable exhibits from excavations carried out in Delphi.
Next to the temple sits the beautiful Delphi village. There, you'll find many Delphi hotels, restaurants and all the amenities needed for a relaxing stay. Having Delphi as your base, you can set off to explore nearby towns, such as Arachova, Itea, Galaxidi and other towns of central Greece.


He has no desire for guru status - only to have the joy of making a small contribution to helping the disciplines of effective spiritual practice become open to everyone. He wishes to remain anonymous, preserving a quiet life in practices. AYP is not about the author. It is about all who long for knowledge.
In a mass media culture that highly values grandiose images and worship of celebrities, AA and Yogani's quiet position of non-promotion certainly goes against the grain. Yet, there is great advantage in this style of transmission, because the knowledge is given freely in order to empower students in a way that does not bind students to the teacher. This kind of dissemination shifts the direction from vertical to horizontal. No longer is there a need for guru initiations or esoteric games to buy into. Instead, the open-source knowledge is now publicly available for our consideration.
To take the focal point off an individual and place it on the whole is paramount, clearly. But are there any weaknesses in anonymity, especially in regards to recovery? Well, it might be worthwhile to consider a few angles on the matter.
First, when we look at the recovery community surrounding AA, we might find an understandable desire for privacy. If "alcoholism" or being an "alcoholic" has negative, disease-like connotations, a person naturally wouldn't want to wear that identity badge on their sleeve. Furthermore, if such transparency threatened someone's professional reputation, that's all the more reason to guard against broadcasting such sensitive information. But how long can this confidential, hush-hush mentality last? Can we move beyond the shame created from a supposedly abnormal past and defective constitution?
We can, and we will, if we recognize and call upon the purity within our seed desire for transformation. We can shake off the extra baggage accumulated from social trends and fleeting norms. We can embody the AYP sutra "Akasha – Lightness of Air", which is without the heaviness of superimposed judgments and false assumptions. We can claim our birthright as divine beings, and live without the stifling shame of condemning our imperfect past. We merely have to rotate a few degrees on our axis (some more than others) and fine-tune our approach in accordance with our karmic destiny and intuitive devotion. A combination of flexibility and firm resolve.
Let Yogani have his privacy, and let the founders of AA have their anonymity, but for the next generation of recovering spiritual practitioners, let us shine to the extent we need to shine, however modest or ostentatious that may be.


98 WIRELESS - Thailand's most prestigious freehold residence, 98 Wireless condominium by Sansiri.
SANSIRI invites you to experience the luxury lifestyle of Bangkok.
Visit Thailand's most prestigious freehold residence, 98 Wireless.
the most luxurious condominium in Southeast Asia.
magnify its appeal as a long-term property investment opportunity.
98 Wireless is located on Bangkok's prestigious Wireless Road, where the metropolis' distinguished commercial, hospitality and diplomatic districts intersect.
Built from world-class materials, each unit is an example of excellent craftsmanship, with superior kitchen furnishings and appliances from world-renowned brands.
Rising land prices in the Wireless Road neighbourhood signal its growing importance and prestige.
The final amount will be based on the prevailing rates at the time of purchase.
Discover Bangkok's most prestigious freehold Condominium, 98 Wireless.
Register for your private viewing today.


text:
Texas Public Policy Foundation brings fishermen's lawsuit against Vineyard Wind
Kirk Moore
A legal team from the Texas Public Policy Foundation is representing Rhode Island fishermen in a lawsuit seeking to overturn permits for the Vineyard Wind offshore energy project. TPPF video image.
The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has so prioritized offshore wind energy development that it is bypassing real environmental review and failing to consider alternative sites that won't harm the commercial fishing industry, charges a lawsuit brought by the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
Filed Dec. 15 in federal court in Washington, D.C., on behalf of six fishing businesses in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York, the action challenges BOEM and other federal agencies on their review of the 800-megawatt Vineyard Wind project off southern New England.
The lead plaintiff, Seafreeze Shoreside Inc. of North Kingston, R.I., is a homeport and major processor for the Northeast squid fleet. Captains there are adamant they will not be able to fish if Vineyard Wind and other planned turbine arrays are erected in those waters.
Meghan Lapp, fisheries liaison at Seafreeze and a vocal advocate for its fishermen, said she had heard mention of the Texas Public Policy Foundation in conversation, "kind of along the lines of Pacific Legal Foundation which litigated for the fishing industry on the Northeast marine monument" fishing restrictions recently reinstated by the Biden administration.
Lapp said she looked at the group's website and read about their involvement on economic issues, healthcare including a case now before the Supreme Court, education and local government.
"It looked promising, so I contacted them through their website," several months ago, she said.
Meghan Lapp of Seafreeze Shoreside in North Kingston, R.I., contacted the Texas Public Policy Foundation seeking support for fishermen who will be displaced by the Vineyard Wind project. TPPF video image.
Along with putting a legal team on the case, the TPPF's media unit traveled to Rhode Island to interview and film fishermen for a short documentary now posted on the foundation's website and promoted through social media.
In addition to Seafreeze, the foundation is representing the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, the XIII Northeast Fishery Sector Inc. in Dartmouth, Mass., and family fishing businesses Heritage Fisheries Inc. and Nat. W. Inc., both in Westerly, R.I., and Old Squaw Fisheries in Montauk, N.Y. All rely on waters around the Vineyard Wind lease for most of their annual catch, the lawsuit says.
As defendants, the lawsuit names BOEM, the Interior Department, National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers which all play a role in the permitting process.
The lawsuit quotes one key observation in the BOEM record of decision, which was based on the Corps of Engineers' communications with fishermen: "While Vineyard Wind is not authorized to prevent free access to the entire wind development area, due to the placement of the turbines it is likely that the entire 75,614 acre area will be abandoned by commercial fisheries due to difficulties with navigation."
The BOEM process fails to account for impending conflicts at the start of its offshore leasing process, said Lapp. That was an argument presented in an earlier lawsuit against the Equinor Empire Wind lease off New York by the Fisheries Survival Fund, she recalled.
When that was rejected in court, "we said you guys (BOEM) have to start considering impacts up front…You need to de-conflict up front," she said.
In the case of Vineyard Wind, the process failed to account for the region's critical role in the longfin squid fishery, said Lapp. Agencies looked at major Massachusetts-based fleets in those waters, but "there's hardly any squid unloaded in Massachusetts. It's all in Rhode Island and New York," she added.
Based in the state capitol Austin, the foundation calls itself guided by "free enterprise, liberty, personal responsibility" and promotes a range of conservative and pro-business causes. Among its issues the group has opposed renewable energy programs and efforts to move away from fossil fuels, with financial support over the years by ExxonMobil, Chevron and the Charles H. Koch Foundation, whose industrialist founder has underwritten other challenges to climate-related government policies.
"In approving the Vineyard Wind project, the federal government trampled the rights of Americans to pursue its misguided goal of developing offshore wind energy at any cost," said Ted Hadzi-Antich, senior attorney for CAF. "In the process, it violated multiple federal statutes that protect the environment, national security, commercial fishing, and the nation's food supply. Our lawsuit aims to protect the communities that depend on fishing to support their families, as well as ensure the areas do not become wastelands for marine wildlife."
"The violations of the Federal Laws resulted from the Federal Defendants' unintelligent pursuit of their overarching governmental goal of increasing the capacity of renewable energy generation on the Outer Continental Shelf at any cost," the lawsuit asserts. "By indiscriminately pursuing that goal, the Federal Defendants disregarded their legal responsibilities.
"Accordingly, the Court should declare the issuance of the lease and the approval of the Construction and Operations Plan unlawful and enjoin further construction of the Vineyard Wind project."
A spokesman for Vineyard Wind said the developers do not comment on pending litigation.
The lawsuit's charges reach back to earliest years of federal offshore wind policy, criticizing changes to BOEM policy under the Obama administration, including the so-called "Smart From The Start" streamlining of offshore energy permitting.
Under earlier rules, BOEM had to subject lease development to four stages: planning and analysis; lease issuance; site assessment plan approval; and construction and operations plan approval, the lawsuit says.
"With regard to leasing, the 'Smart From The Start' policy merged the first three steps, leaving only one opportunity for public comment upon receipt of an unsolicited lease proposal, removing any prebid opportunity for public comment on the lease locations, and torpedoing any on-site evaluation of environmental impacts or existing 'reasonable uses,' including fishing, prior to lease issuance."
Back in 2009 to 2010, then-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar talked up that planning process in East Coast public meetings to enable wind development. The lawsuit says that change "purports to authorize BOEM to lease large areas of the Outer Continental Shelf to private companies without adequate process and without consideration of alternative sites."
The Deepwater Horizon oil platform explosion and spill in April 2010 distracted much of BOEM's offshore planning back then. Wind power planning remained in the agency's portfolio, and even gained some resurgence during the Trump administration.
One foundation subsidiary, the Fueling Freedom Project, defined its mission as making "the forgotten moral case for fossil fuels." It was led by Doug Domenech, who was tapped to lead the Trump administration's transition team at the Interior Department.
While opening more lands to fossil fuel development was a priority, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke also promoted offshore wind development during his 2017-2019 tenure. Former president Trump himself frequently mocked renewable energy, and as his administration drew to a close in December 2020 top Interior officials moved to derail any approvals for Vineyard Wind.
The developers had asked to withdraw and revise their application to use larger GE Haliade-X turbines, but BOEM announced Dec. 16, 2020 that it was terminating, not just suspending, that review process, the lawsuit notes.
Under the new Biden administration, BOEM in early 2021 then "resumed review of the terminated Vineyard Wind COP without requiring Vineyard Wind to update the agency with details describing studies, surveys, and other project specific information Vineyard Wind gathered during its 13-14 MW Haliade-X review between December 1, 2020 and January 22, 2021," the lawsuit says.
BOEM violated the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act "by approving the Vineyard Wind COP, which did not demonstrate that its proposed activity was safe by failing to ensure safe travel for commercial fishing boats, safe operation of bottom trawl vessels, or a safe environment for emergency rescue operations," the lawsuit says. "The project will interfere with marine navigational radar, increasing risks for all vessels in the area…BOEM failed to properly review and analyze Vineyard Wind's decision to increase its turbine size even though it made the project less safe—a willful lack of due diligence that puts every ship traveling through the Vineyard Wind project area at risk."
Associate Editor Kirk Moore was a reporter for the Asbury Park Press for more than 30 years and a 25-year field editor for National Fisherman before joining our Commercial Marine editorial staff in 2015. He wrote several award-winning stories on marine, environmental, coastal and military issues that helped drive federal and state government policy changes. Moore was awarded the Online News Association 2011 Knight Award for Public Service for the "Barnegat Bay Under Stress," 2010 series that led to the New Jersey state government's restoration plan. He lives in West Creek, N.J.
GE Haliade-X turbines planned for Vineyard Wind would stand more than 800 feet above sea level. A lawsuit challenging project approvals questions if the turbines can survive major hurricanes. GE image.
Fishing advocates sue over federal approvals for Vineyard Wind
Bonnie Brady, right, of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, speaks at a Jan. 20 panel hosted by the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Listening are Meghan Lapp of Seafreeze Ltd., and Texas state Rep. Jared Patterson. TPPF video image.
Texas wind power critics, Northeast fishing advocates meet at Austin forum
The trawler Virginia Marise from Point Judith, R.I., near the Block Island Wind Farm. Deepwater Wind photo.
Fishing advocates appeal BOEM Vineyard Wind approval
BOEM officials say a new partnership with the Army Corps of Engineers will speed the review of offshore wind energy projects, including the planned Kitty Hawk turbine array off North Carolina. BOEM map.
BOEM, Corps of Engineers team up to speed offshore wind planning


text:
Home News 20th annual HITH artist studio tour & sale starts on Nov. 18
20th annual HITH artist studio tour & sale starts on Nov. 18
Nov 7th, 2016 · by Scottsdale Independent · Comments:
Artist Pat Scheurich paints in the studio. Submitted photo.
The 20th Annual Hidden in the Hills, Arizona's largest and longest-running artist studio tour and sale, will be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday through Sunday, Nov. 18-20 and Nov. 25-27.
A signature event of the non-profit Sonoran Arts League, HITH features 188 artists in 47 studio locations throughout the scenic Desert Foothills communities of Cave Creek, Carefree and North Scottsdale, according to a press release.
The free, self-guided studio tour offers seasoned collectors and art enthusiasts a rare chance to observe artists at work in their private studios open to the public during the six-day tour. According to the release, each studio has one or more guest artists who will also display and sell their work.
All HITH artists are Sonoran Arts League members and several artists will come from different parts of the state to participate in the annual event. Many guest artists also set up to demonstrate.
"This year's Hidden in the Hills promises to be one of the best yet, with a wide variety of styles, mediums and price ranges," Pat Bell-Demers, Sonoran Arts League executive director and HITH event co-chair, said. "With our studio tour taking place the weekends before and after Thanksgiving, it's also perfect for holiday shoppers who want to find an original, unique gift."
Known for including both nationally-recognized and emerging artists, HITH has attracted 1,000s of patrons over the past two decades. For more information, call 480-575-6624 or go to HiddenInTheHills.org.
Artist Christopher Heede at work in the studio. Submitted photo.
Tags:Hidden in the Hills · Scottsale · Sonoran Arts League