text:
Unter dem Begriff Advanced Measurement Approach (AMA) oder auch fortgeschrittener Messansatz wird im Bankensektor ein Verfahren zur Messung des operationellen Risikos in einem Kreditinstitut verstanden.

Einordnung
 Für den AMA sind, im Gegensatz zum Basisindikatoransatz und dem Standardansatz, keine festen Verfahren zur Berechnung des operationellen Risikos vorgegeben. Anstelle dieser Vorgaben gibt es einen Anforderungskatalog, welcher gegenüber dem Anforderungskatalog für den Standardansatz eine umfangreiche Erweiterung darstellt. Um den AMA anwenden zu dürfen müssen alle Anforderungen des erweiterten Anforderungskatalogs erfüllt sein.
Der AMA gewährt jedem Kreditinstitut eigene Freiheitsgrade zur Gestaltung eines Berechnungsverfahrens für die Ermittlung der Eigenmittelhinterlegung. Dazu gibt es beispielsweise den Verlustverteilungsansatz oder Scorecard-Ansätze. Für die Anwendung eines ambitionierten Messansatzes muss eine mindestens 5 Jahre umfassende historische Zeitreihe des internen Verlusts vorliegen.

Die Ziele des AMA lassen sich nach den Zielen der Kreditinstitute und den Zielen des Basler Ausschusses unterteilen.

Ziele der Kreditinstitute
Für Kreditinstitute hat die Implementierung des "teuren" fortgeschrittenen Ansatzes in erster Linie sicherlich die Minderung des zu hinterlegenden Eigenkapitals, im Gegensatz zu der Anwendung "einfacher" Ansätze, zum Ziel. Einhergehend damit wird jedoch empfohlen, nicht nur die bankaufsichtlichen Hintergründe zu betrachten, sondern auch die vom Basler Ausschuss vorgesehenen, ökonomischen Aspekte zu nutzen.
Das beinhaltet beispielsweise eine möglichst risikoadäquate Eigenmittelhinterlegung, um ein optimales Verhältnis zwischen notwendigem Risikopuffer und Kosten für die Kapitalbindung herzustellen.

Ziele des Basler Ausschuss
Der AMA bietet Kreditinstituten eigene Spielräume bei der Messung Operationeller Risiken, in einem durch Anforderungskataloge definierten Rahmen. Der Basler Ausschuss verfolgt, nach eigenen Angaben, mit der Schaffung eines solchen Messansatzes das Ziel, Kreditinstitute aktiv an der Innovation auf dem Gebiet der Messung Operationeller Risiken, zu beteiligen:

An dieser Stelle lassen sich vorausschauend die Fragen stellen, ob und wann der Basler Ausschuss entsprechende Verfahren für den fortgeschrittenen Ansatz vorschreibt und welchen Einfluss eine solche Festlegung auf die Verwendung der einfachen Verfahren haben wird.

Kategorisierung des AMA
Wie bereits dargestellt, gibt es kein Standardverfahren für den fortgeschrittenen Messansatz. Dennoch bezieht sich der Basler Ausschuss auf Studien der Risk Management Group (RMG), in denen sie durch Befragungen von Industrieunternehmen  die verschiedenen Ansätze in drei Hauptkategorien zur Messung Operationeller Risiken eingeteilt hat:

Interner Bemessungsansatz
Beim internen Bemessungsansatz (Internal Measurement Approach, IMA) errechnen Kreditinstitute das zu hinterlegende Kapital für Risiken, auf Annahmen für erwartete Verluste aus operationellen Risiken. Das bedeutet, dass von einem beständigen Verhältnis zwischen erwarteten und unerwarteten Verlusten ausgegangen wird. Dabei kann sowohl von einem linearen Verhältnis als auch von einem nicht-linearen Verhältnis ausgegangen werden. Ersteres impliziert, dass sich die Eigenkapitalhinterlegung aus einem Vielfachen des erwarteten Verlusts ergibt, und Letzteres erfordert komplexere Funktionen zur Berechnung des zu hinterlegenden Eigenkapitals. Regelwerke nach dem IMA-Ansatze unterteilen die Risikogefährdung in Geschäftsbereiche und Risikoereignistypen. Das bedeutet, dass das Risiko je Geschäftsbereich und Risikoereignistyp einzeln quantifiziert wird. Typischerweise wird der erwartete Verlust durch Kombination von geschätzter Verlusthäufigkeit und geschätzter Verlusthöhe unterschiedlicher Geschäftsbereichs-Risiko-Kombinationen ermittelt.

Aufteilung auf 8 Geschäftsfelder und 7 Ereigniskategorien: 56 Felder umfassende Matrix: Gruppen von potentiellen Ereignissen. Bsp.: Verluste durch Betrug oder Sachschäden

Summe der mit  gewichteten kombinationsfeldspezifischen erwarteten Verluste ergibt die Gesamtkapitalanforderung für das operationelle Risiko des Kreditinstitutes.

Verlustverteilungsansatz
Der Verlustverteilungsansatz (Loss Distribution Approach, LDA) ist eine Erweiterung des internen Bemessungssatzes und versucht die Ableitung der unerwarteten Verluste aus den erwarteten Verlusten durch eine direkte Schätzung zu überwinden.
Bei dem Verlustverteilungsansatz schätzen Kreditinstitute für jede Einzelne oder Gruppen von Geschäftsbereichs-Risiko-Kombinationen die voraussichtliche Verteilung über einen zukünftigen Zeitraum.
Die Eigenmittelhinterlegung basiert hierbei auf eine hohe Wahrscheinlichkeitsdichte einer Verlusthäufigkeitsverteilung. Bei dem LDA, basiert die übergreifende Verlusthäufigkeitsverteilung auf Annahmen über die voraussichtliche Anzahl und Höhe auftretender Risikoereignisse. Es werden also sowohl die Verteilung der Anzahl als auch die Verteilung der Höhe von Verlustereignissen mit einbezogen. Dabei muss jedoch beachtet werden, dass beide unabhängig voneinander betrachtet werden, also jeweils eine eigenständige Verteilungsfunktion abbilden. Hierbei können unterschiedliche Verteilungsfunktionen für jede einzelne Annahme verwendet werden. Sinnvollerweise könnte hierbei eine Poisson-Verteilung (diskrete Wahrscheinlichkeitsverteilung) für die Anzahl und eine logarithmische Normalverteilung für die Höhe der Verlustereignisse verwendet werden.
Der Hauptunterschied zwischen dem LDA und dem IMA ist die Tatsache, dass der LDA eher auf eine direkte Abschätzung unerwarteter Verluste abzielt, während der IMA versucht die Verlustschätzung durch Annahmen über die Relationen von linearem Verhältnis und nicht-linearem Verhältnis, erwarteter und unerwarteter Verluste zu schätzen.

Scorecards
Beim Scorecardansatz (Scorecard Approach) setzen Kreditinstitute eine Startsumme von Eigenkapital für operationelle Risiken an und modifizieren die Höhe von Zeit zu Zeit auf der Basis von Scorecards. Das Ziel der Scorecards ist die Erfassung des Risikoprofils und des Risikosteuerungsumfeldes verschiedener Geschäftsbereiche und eine zukunftsbezogene Risikosteuerung zur Minimierung der Anzahl und Höhe zukünftig auftretender Risikoereignisse. Es handelt sich um eine qualitative Methode. Auf den Scorecards werden bspw. die veränderte Qualität des operationellen Risikomanagementsystems und zusätzlich eingerichtete Kontrollsysteme beurteilt. Die Scorecards zeigen die aktuelle Ausprägung von risikobeeinflussenden Indikatoren an. Auf diese Weise wird eine in die Zukunft gerichtete Komponente mitberücksichtigt.

Literatur
 Kaiser, T./ Köhne, F.; Operationelle Risiken in Finanzinstituten; 1. Auflage, Gabler Verlag, November 2004, Wiesbaden

Weblinks
 Working Paper on the Regulatory Treatment of Operational Risk; Bank for International Settlements, September 2001 (PDF-Datei; 223 kB)
 Petry, Markus; Bohlender, Christian; Kruse, Lars; Kunzelmann, Niels (10/2006): Quantifizierung operationeller Risiken, Marktstudie. (PDF-Datei; 699 kB)

Risikomanagement (Bank)


Jump on forward. Go on, jump!
The following days are spent wandering and recovering around the woods of Ithilien. Sam wants to see another oliphaunt. It ain't happening.
Gondor found out they were evil douchebags and killed them all.
Meanwhile, the army is made ready to travel back to Minas Tirith. They head down Anduin in boats near the end of May, and set up camp again outside the city, preparing for Aragorn's entry and coronation to coincide with the turning of the month.
We hear also that some forces drove into Mordor to attack strongholds that were still held by the enemy. Not sure why these didn't collapse along with all things built with the power of the ring, but whatever. At least this way it makes it a little bit more sense for the army to have lingered in that part of the world for so long.
Nevertheless, another chapter finds its end. Aragorn's planned entry into Minas Tirith is important because he declined to do so officially when he first came to the city. Remember, his trip to heal Faramir, Éowyn, and Merry was done in secret.
Wait now, I just remembered that Merry was left alone in Minas Tirith when Aragorn rode away to combat at the Black Gate. He must have recovered and come to the Field of Cormallen sometime recently! I get used to thinking in the movie's terms, where Merry is present at the Black Gate, but that isn't what happens in the text.


text:
Элизабет Сазерленд Левесон-Гоуэр, герцогиня Сазерленд (урожденная Сазерленд; ; 24 мая 1765 — 29 января 1839) — шотландская аристократка из семьи Левесон-Гоуэр, также бывшая 19-я графиня Сазерленд (1766—1839). Известна своим участием в Шотландском огораживании.

Биография
Элизабет родилась в Левен-Лодже близ Эдинбурга, в семье Уильяма Сазерленда, 18-го графа Сазерленда (1735—1766), и его жены Мэри (ок. 1740—1766), дочери Уильяма Максвелла. Её родители умерли от «гнилостной лихорадки» в Бате в 1766 году, через несколько недель после её первого дня рождения. Будучи младшим и единственным выжившим ребёнком, Элизабет унаследовала поместья и титулы своего отца. Её титул графини Сазерленд был оспорен сэром Робертом Гордоном, потомком 1-го графа Сазерленда, но был подтвержден за ней Палатой лордов в 1771 году.

Детство и брак
Леди Элизабет Сазерленд провела большую часть своего детства в Эдинбурге и Лондоне, где она получила образование в 1779—1782 годах. 4 сентября 1785 года, в возрасте 20 лет, она вышла замуж за Джорджа Гренвилла Левесон-Гоуэра, виконта Трентама (1758—1833), в приходской церкви Сент-Мэрилебон, Лондон . Он был известен как граф Гоуэр с 1786 года, пока в 1803 году не унаследовал титул своего отца маркиза Стаффорда. В 1832 году, всего за шесть месяцев до своей смерти, Джордж Гренвилл Левесон-Гоуэр был назначен 1-м герцогом Сазерлендом, а она стала известна как герцогиня-графиня Сазерленд.

Поместье Сазерленд
По условиям брачного контракта, контроль, но не право собственности на поместье Сазерленд перешел от Элизабет к её мужу на всю жизнь. Пара также приобрела дополнительную землю в Сазерленде между 1812 и 1816 годами, таким образом увеличив долю графства Сазерленда принадлежали им примерно на 63 % (если судить по стоимости аренды). Во время наследования поместья леди Сазерленд существовало большое количество вадсетов (тип ипотеки) на большей части земли — и другие вадсеты были взяты для финансирования, среди прочего, времени, которое леди Сазерленд и её супруг провели во Франции, когда он был там послом.

Шотландские огораживания

Другие интересы
Леди Сазерленд дважды создавала добровольческий полк «Сазерлендширские фехтовальщики» в 1779 и 1793 годах, который позже был развернут для подавления ирландского восстания 1798 года.

В 1790 году её муж был назначен послом во Францию, и она сопровождала его в Париж. Она смогла своими глазами увидеть революционные события и написала описания политических потрясений во Франции того времени. Леди Сазерленд и её муж с трудом получили разрешение покинуть Париж и окончательно отправились в Лондон только в 1792 году.

В 1790-е годы леди Сазерленд стала ведущей фигурой светского сезона в Лондоне. На её званых обедах и балах присутствовали члены королевской семьи, знати и ведущие политики, как иностранные, так и отечественные. Она и её муж подружились с Джорджем Каннингом, который считал её красивой, умной и очаровательной — мнение, которое не разделяли представители её класса и пола, считавшие её властной.

В свободное от публики время интересы леди Сазерленд включали переписку с сэром Вальтером Скоттом и, поскольку она была одаренной художницей, рисовала акварельные пейзажи побережья Сазерленда и замка Данробин, среди прочего. Она также была опытной художницей по маслу. Она нарисовала и запечатлела серию картин Оркнейских островов и северо-восточного побережья Шотландии, которые были опубликованы в 1805—1807 годах.

Леди Сазерленд много времени тратила на воспитание своих четверых детей. Она уделяла особое внимание максимизации богатства своих сыновей и (как это было принято в то время) получению наилучших браков для своих дочерей. Эрик Ричардс замечает, что она «доминировала над своими сыновьями и, вероятно, над мужем».

Незадолго до своей смерти в июле 1833 года её муж был провозглашен герцогом Сазерлендом, а леди Сазерленд стала герцогиней Сазерленд. После смерти мужа её шотландскими поместьями управляли от её имени. Она умерла в возрасте семидесяти трех лет 29 января 1839 года в Гамильтон-Плейс, Гайд-парк, Лондон. Она была похоронена 20 февраля 1839 года с большой помпой в Дорнохском соборе в Сазерленде. Её графский титул перешел к её старшему сыну Джорджу.

Семья
4 сентября 1785 года леди Сазерленд вышла замуж за лорда Джорджа Левесон-Гоуэра, и у них осталось четверо выживших детей:
 Джордж Гренвилл Левесон-Гоуэр, 2-й герцог Сазерленд (8 августа 1786 — 27 февраля 1861), старший сын и преемник
 леди Шарлотта София Левесон-Гоуэр (9 июля 1788 — 7 июля 1870), муж с 1814 года Генри Фитцалан-Говард, 13-й герцог Норфолк
 леди Элизабет Мэри Левесон-Гоуэр (8 ноября 1797 — 11 ноября 1891), муж с 1819 года Ричард Гросвенор, 2-й маркиз Вестминстер
 лорд Фрэнсис Левесон-Гоуэр, 1-й граф Элсмир (1 января 1800 — 18 февраля 1857)..

Примечания

Литература

Элизабет
Персоналии:История Шотландии
19

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


"The board meeting of GEN-Bangladesh was held today on January 27, 2019 at Daffodil International University premises.
Mr. Jonathan Ortmans, President of the Global Entrepreneurship Network in the United States was present at the board meeting as key presenter while Dr. Md. Sabur Khan, Chairman, BoT, Daffodil International University along with other distinguish key persons also remain present".


在这签 还有这 首字母签这里 Sign here, here, and initial here.好的 Okay, okay.我最近除了签合同就是在签合同了 Signing papers, that's all I've been doing recently, right?是啊 Yeah.
当然不会 Of course not.不会的 我们会竭尽全力 No, no, no, no, no, we'll do everything, right?去做任何能让乐团撑下去的事情 Everything we need to do to keep the orchestra going.
我 我在美世学院 I... I was just teaching带节课 所以 a lesson on Mercer, so...我正要去坐车 I was just walking to the train now.但你在这儿干什么 But what are you doing here?


KSCB has a robust business plan that identifies its objectives and priorities, how we will measure success, and who is responsible for taking action. Each sub group develops a more detailed version of the business plan for their specific area of responsibility.
KSCB's annual report provides a detailed evaluation of the effectiveness of what is done in Knowsley to safeguard children and promote their welfare. It covers the work done by KSCB, partners and Knowsley's Children and Families Board (KCFB). The report clearly identifies what has been achieved in the last year, and what challenges remain for the future.


text:
Il Morocco Tennis Tour - Meknes 2011 è stato un torneo professionistico di tennis maschile giocato sulla terra rossa. È stata la 4ª edizione del torneo, che fa parte dell'ATP Challenger Tour nell'ambito dell'ATP Challenger Tour 2011. Si è giocato a Meknès in Marocco dal 14 al 19 febbraio 2011.

Partecipanti

Teste di serie

 Ranking al 7 febbraio 2011.

Altri partecipanti
Giocatori che hanno ricevuto una wild card:
  Anas Fattar
  Yassine Idmbarek
  Hicham Khaddari
  Talal Ouahabi

Giocatori passati dalle qualificazioni:
  Victor Crivoi
  Gerard Granollers-Pujol
  Leonardo Kirche
  Franko Škugor

Campioni

Singolare

 Jaroslav Pospíšil ha battuto in finale  Guillermo Olaso, 6–1, 3–6, 6–3

Doppio

 Treat Conrad Huey /  Simone Vagnozzi hanno battuto in finale  Alessio Di Mauro /  Alessandro Motti, 6–1, 6–2

Collegamenti esterni

ATP Challenger Tour 2011


text:
Spotlight on: test item trialling
Feature 14 Oct 2020 5 minute read
Here we look at how test content is developed, tested and refined before it makes it into a trusted progressive achievement assessment.
The news is full of stories about medical trials which, until the COVID-19 pandemic struck, was an unlikely subject to be making headlines. Although the need for a vaccine is urgent, the process of careful testing – particularly in a situation in which lives are at stake – is vital in order to reduce risk and produce the best possible end result. Trialling is a significant part of the test development process too; although the stakes are admittedly lower, an equally rigorous process is applied to making sure that student assessments are reliable, valid and robust. So how does content make it into ACER's trusted progressive achievement assessments?
How is content developed?
ACER has designed and delivered countless assessments in its 90 years, in keeping with developments in assessment theory, methods of data gathering and analysis, and contemporary approaches to teaching and learning. In the process, we have developed an extensive pool of content (test items) that has been rigorously trialled to ensure it is valid, reliable and fit for purpose. Meanwhile, our expert team of test developers builds the content bank continuously, adding items that have been developed by panels of content specialists, proofread and reviewed for quality assurance purposes, in accordance with test development best practice.
How we trial content
Assessments often contain trial content mixed in with items already shown to be valid and reliable. We invite schools to take part in trials and, in this way, we are able to test the performance of content in a real-life setting to ensure it performs as expected, offering the right level of challenge to the students sitting the test and confirming it is appropriate to the assessment type and method of delivery.
Currently we are testing content for a new PAT Spelling (Foundation-Year 10) assessment and an exciting adaptive version of PAT Reading (Years 1-9). Schools play an invaluable role in helping us ensure that PAT continues to offer the best, most reliable student assessments available.
Validating that content is a complex psychometric process involving rotated cluster design, a representative sample of students and Rasch Measurement Theory. After trialling, the data is analysed by experienced psychometricians for fit, discrimination and difficulty, and selected for use in the final product. Rasch allows us to plot student ability and item difficulty on the same progression scale in order to ensure the assessment is targeted appropriately. By selecting items according to their position on the scale we are able to ensure that students are tested at a level that matches their ability in that subject area. In this way, assessments morph and change, and we effect continuous improvement.
Items that fail the test
Items that fail to meet the high standards required for inclusion in an ACER assessment, such as the following examples, are deleted from the pool.
This question was designed for inclusion in PAT Maths and was tested with Year 1 students.
The trial data revealed that a disproportionate number of low-performing students got this question correct and vice versa for high-performing students, which suggests that many students were guessing. The data also seem to suggest that the item contained mathematics that did not fit with other questions in the test. It may be that, despite being in the Year 1 curriculum, students did not have enough experience with maps to be able to engage with a map that is oriented upside down. They may also have struggled to remember left and right.
More students of all ability levels chose option C than the correct option (A). This suggests that the difficulty was in interpreting the map. In order to better match the ability levels of Year 1 students and prevent guessing, the question could be changed so that the map had the same orientation as the person looking at it, with 'Home' at the bottom; then the first turn could be more easily determined. Or perhaps the cognitive load could be reduced by providing an even simpler map with only one possible turn. Furthermore, an example could be provided so that children are required to engage with the map before answering a question; for instance, 'To walk from Home to Grandma's, Mindy turns left then left'.
The following PAT Maths item was tested with Year 7 students.
Two-thirds of students responding to this question answered it incorrectly, and those students had an average ability level similar to that of students who answered correctly. This suggests that students were guessing, which prevented us from being able to use this question to discriminate between high- and low-performing students.
Also, the question did not fit with the overall test content or the other questions.
Although this is covered in the curriculum by Year 7, perhaps students were not familiar enough with the concept by the time they sat the test to be able to extend their knowledge to new situations, which is what the question requires. They may have had too little exposure to probability to apply it, with limited scaffolding, to a context that also required finding the difference between numbers, and could not confidently construct their own response.
We are currently seeking students from Foundation to Year 10 – and particularly in Years 7-10 – to take part in online trials of content for PAT Spelling and PAT Reading adaptive. Incentives are on offer. Find out more!
progressive achievement

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Переопределить значение в функции, в библиотеке я использую библиотеку для рисования ограничивающих рамок:
from bounding_box import bounding_box as bb
bb.add(orig_image, int(box[0]), int(box[1]), int(box[2]), int(box[3]), f'{pred_classes[j]}-{score_percent}', config.BOX_COLOR)

Но дело в том, что add не принимает аргумент толщины. В исходном коде, в функции add есть такая строка:
def add(image, left, top, right, bottom, label=None, color=None):
    ...
    _cv2.rectangle(image, (left, top), (right, bottom), color, 2)

вот в этой строке, мне нужна 2-ка, которая и определяет толщину. Есть ли возможность на неё влиять, не переходя в исходный код библиотеки?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Welcome to Yoga Pod Boulder! If you are looking to join a yoga studio that welcomes students of all levels and prides itself as an inclusive community, Yoga Pod Boulder is the place for you. Located just a few blocks away from the University of Colorado at 1890 30th street, Yoga Pod Boulder is convenient for students and Boulder residents alike.
As the flagship Yoga Pod studio, Yoga Pod Boulder is committed to providing an environment where all yoga students can strengthen their practice, commit to self-care, and connect to a supportive community. We are locally owned and operated, so we know exactly what the Boulder area needs when it comes to a yoga studio.
We started this blog to provide information to current yoga students and anyone interested in developing a yoga practice. We will cover the benefits of yoga, answer frequently asked questions that beginner yoga students have, and explain different types of yoga. We hope that this blog is both informative and inspires you to unroll your mat at our Yoga Pod Boulder location.
What Sets Yoga Pod Boulder Apart?
It's one thing to say we're a welcoming community, but it's another thing to live and breathe this into our yoga studio. Our students come to their mats for a million different reasons, and we want our class selection to reflect the diversity of purpose and experience that our yoga students have.
podBASICS: podBASICS are designed to teach foundational tools and techniques for a safe yoga practice. These classes are aimed toward beginner yoga students, as they move at a slower pace and feature more instructor demonstrations. Expert yogis can still benefit from this return to basics and a renewed focus on safety and alignment.
podFLOW 1 and 2: podFLOW classes are a traditional vinyasa flow class, where we link one breath to one movement. In a podFLOW yoga class, you can expect to flow through a moving meditation set to music and with a knowledgeable instructor. These classes are suitable for all levels.
podHOT: True to the Bikram style of yoga, podHOT follows a set sequence in a room set to 105 degrees and 60 percent humidity. For anyone who wants to detox, build strength, and create balance in the body, podHOT classes are a great option. Just be sure to come hydrated!
podFIT: Think of this as more of a high-intensity training class. We work all muscle groups of the body, focusing on body weight exercises and cardio, and then finish with stretching and a cool-down. Be prepared to work hard in this vibrant, high-energy class.
YIN: YIN classes involve deep muscle stretching in a cooler room. Unlike active podFLOW and podHOT classes, yin classes work on your body's fascia, or connective tissue, by holding stretches for anywhere between 2-5 minutes. We provide straps, blocks, blankets, and bolsters to maximize your comfort during YIN classes.
These yoga class types are the staple of Yoga Pod Boulder, but we also offer specialized classes and workshops such as silent flows, Earth Ways yoga, and vin-yin (a vinyasa and yin combination).
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Tag Archives: DLA
What will the DWP do if a coroner says this mum died because her benefits were cut?
Inquest: did Philippa Day take her own life in despair after benefit assessment provider Capita cut her benefits and demanded that she attend an assessment centre – which was impossible due to her disability?
We've been here before, I think. As I recall, coroners tend to back away from criticising the Department for Work and Pensions when disabled benefit claimants die.
But – again, as I recall – questions have been asked about the validity of such inquests after claims were made that some of the relevant evidence was omitted.
This time, it seems very thorough preparations are being made to prevent this from happening; several pre-inquest reviews have been held to discuss the case of Philippa Day.
The mother, from Mapperley, Nottingham, is believed to have taken her own life after a long struggle to have her benefits restored.
When her Disability Living Allowance was converted to the new Personal Independence Payment in January 2019, the government slashed the amount she received from £228 per week to £60.
The most recent pre-inquest hearing centred on discussions between Ms Day, the DWP and private assessment provider company Capita before her death, and the decisions about her benefits that followed.
It seems Capita had demanded that she must attend an assessment centre in person – an impossibility due to her ill-health.
Ms Day was admitted to hospital in August last year – in a coma, according to her family. She never revived and died in October 2019, aged just 27.
The full inquest is due to take place in January.
Let's hope it makes more sense than some others we have heard recently.
Source: Coroner to examine death of Mapperley mum who died after her benefits were cut – Nottinghamshire Live
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn't beat justice.
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/
This entry was posted in Benefits, Death, Disability, Inquest, Justice and tagged allowance, capita, day, dead, death, Department, die, disability, disabled, DLA, DWP, independence, inquest, living, Mike, mother, mum, payment, Pensions, personal, Philippa, PIP, political, Sivier, Vox, work on December 18, 2020 by Mike Sivier.
Disabled comedian Rosie Jones shames Tories with damning verdict on disability law and benefits
I didn't see this when it was aired on the BBC's Question Time last Thursday – and I'm sorry because it was one of the few times that sad rag of a show would have been worth watching.
To mark the 25th anniversary of the Disability Discrimination Act, comedian Rosie Jones, who happens to have cerebral palsy, was asked to comment on what it has meant for herself and other people who have disabilities.
She didn't hold back. Her comments about the benefits Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and its successor Personal Independence Payment (PIP) were scathing.
And all through, Health Secretary Matt Hancock sat like a nodding dog. At the end, he was even smiling at the torment his government forces people to suffer:
If you didn't hear @josierones on #bbcqt last night, you missed this terrific and powerful speech about her experiences and government's treatment of disabled people.
"I was going to say that disabled people are overlooked, but they are not, they are deliberately ignored…" 👏 pic.twitter.com/1xmANgxxYO
— 𝙱𝚎𝚗 𝙲𝚕𝚊𝚒𝚖𝚊𝚗𝚝 💚 𝙹𝚘𝚒𝚗𝙰𝚄𝚗𝚒𝚘𝚗 (@imajsaclaimant) November 13, 2020
This entry was posted in Benefits, Conservative Party, Disability, Government, Law, Politics and tagged Act, allowance, BBC, DDA, disability, discrimination, DLA, Hancock, independence, Jones, living, Matt, Mike, nod, payment, personal, PIP, political, question, Rosie, Sivier, smile, time, Vox on November 15, 2020 by Mike Sivier.
Man with worsening brain injuries has benefits slashed while Duncan Smith gets a knighthood [VIDEO]
You're probably sick and tired of me banging on about the way the Tory government has been persecuting the sick and disabled – so I'll hand you over to one of the victims.
Andy Nicholson runs a video blog under the alias 'The Brain Damaged Baron'.
Doctors pronounced him lucky to survive a head-first fall down a partially-built stairwell in 1994.
The incident left him with a serious brain injury that means he is partially-sighted, has short-term memory loss, constant headaches, epilepsy and coordination issues, along with chronic fatigue.
These conditions have worsened over time but the Tories have twice pronounced him fit for work, in spite of medical evidence and, indeed, a court order.
Here he is to explain for himself:
It's powerful stuff; it shows that the Department for Work and Pensions, under the Conservatives, is determined to gaslight people into accepting an unreasonable view that brain injuries can be healed, just because an unqualified assessor says so.
These people have to suffer their way through unnecessarily-complicated appeal procedures, simply to keep the small amount of money they need to survive.
Meanwhile, the man who made to possible for this government department to lie so blatantly and brutally, simply for the sake of holding on to a few farthings, has been awarded a knighthood.
If you live in the UK, you live in a crazed, corrupt country. And if you voted Tory – count yourself among the crazies.
This entry was posted in Assessment, Benefits, Conservative Party, Disability, Employment and Support Allowance, People, Politics and tagged allowance, Andy Nicholson, Baron, brain, Conservative, Damaged, Department, disability, DLA, DWP, employment, ESA, Iain Duncan Smith, knighthood, living, Mike Sivier, Pensions, political, support, Tories, Tory, Vox, Vox Political, work on January 16, 2020 by Mike Sivier.
Tories launch court battle to strip severely disabled people of sorely-needed benefits
How can the Tories justify their determination to retain the discredited Universal Credit 'benefit' when the courts have ruled that it deliberately makes disabled people worse-off?
Not only that, but the courts also ruled that the Tory government lied to benefit claimants when they were told they wouldn't lose money.
Judges ruled that the uneven rollout of Universal Credit makes the benefit system a postcode lottery, with people moving into areas with the new system likely to be seriously disadvantaged.
And – possibly worst of all – why are the Tories determined to waste public money appealing against those rulings in court when it is clear that, in legal terms, they don't have a leg to stand on?
That is what the Tories are doing to two disabled men – known only as TP and AR.
They had been forced onto Universal Credit when they moved into a local authority area where the new system had been rolled out.
This meant they lost out on the Severe Disability Premium (SDP) and Enhanced Disability Premium (EDP), leaving them suddenly around £180 a month out-of-pocket, despite being repeatedly assured they would not be worse off.
A High Court judge found that this was unlawful because those that moved to a different local authority area were being treated differently to those who moved within their local authority area – the Tory government had created a postcode lottery.
Take note of this:
The judgment in this first case described a "striking" lack of evidence from the [then-] Secretary of State that she had understood or considered the far-reaching consequences for severely disabled people who moved into a different local authority and would be forced onto Universal Credit.
As a result of the case, the Tory government proposed that those who had already moved onto Universal Credit would receive transitional top-up payments – but at a rate of £80 per month rather than the £180 per month they had actually lost.
TP and AR again took the Tories to court, arguing that short-changing them was unlawful as they were being unjustifiably treated differently to those who had not moved onto to Universal Credit and would continue to receive the full amount of SDP and EDP. The High Court again found in their favour.
And now the Tory government is appealing against both decisions.
Rather than accept the self-evident facts that their flagship "benefit" system is deliberately depriving severely disabled people of the money they need simply to survive – and rectify the change…
The Tories are demanding that the courts rubber-stamp this act of governmental daylight robbery.
And they are currently campaigning to win a general election, with a claim that they will solve problems with Universal Credit, when in fact they are actively trying to make it worse.
These are all excellent reasons to vote Labour – that party will abolish Universal Credit once and for all.
Source: Court of Appeal to hear two Universal Credit claims
This entry was posted in Assessment, Benefits, Conservative Party, Disability, Justice, Law, Politics, Universal Credit and tagged appeal, Conservative, court, Department, disability, Disability Living Allowance, disabled, DLA, DWP, EDP, enhanced, High, Mike Sivier, Pensions, Personal Independence Payment, PIP, political, premium, SDP, severe, Tories, Tory, UC, Universal Credit, Vox, Vox Political, work on December 2, 2019 by Mike Sivier.
Disabled mother wins two-year PIP benefit battle. What happens to those who can't appeal?
Uncannily accurate: The Conservative government's genuine policy towards PIP claimants may as well be as it appears in this cartoon from 2017.
How do people survive for up to two years while they are fighting the Conservative-run Department for Work and Pensions's cruel decision to cancel their disability benefits?
That's what This Writer wants to know.
Maureen Ringland was lucky enough to have friends who helped her out – and who will be paid back with appropriate portions of the £13,000 payout she has received.
This is a woman with severe autism, Reynaud's Disease and Hypohidrosis – the last of which may cause hyperthermia, heatstroke and death. Her condition means she cannot cope with simple daily tasks.
But when she was tested for Personal Independence Payment in 2017, she was told her £83 per week daily care allowance and £58 per week mobility allowance was cancelled.
She had to go through the DWP's immensely convoluted procedure for challenging adverse benefit decisions – first a request for a "mandatory reconsideration", then an appeal before a tribunal.
It was two years before the government department relented, reinstated and backdated her PIP.
The DWP has claimed the decision was reversed because the family submitted new information.
But this is a transparent excuse; when anyone appeals against a disability benefit decision, they include as much information as possible. This may include medical details from their GP or a specialist doctor, for example, including the kind of details that they may not have believed was necessary when they submitted their original application.
When Mrs Mike was transferred from DLA to PIP last year, I recall we included everything but the kitchen sink (as the saying goes), with this in mind.
We may conclude that the DWP tried to cancel the money this grandmother needed to survive, in the belief that she would not be able to challenge the decision; either she would not be able to gather and provide the necessary information to mount a challenge, or her debts would mount to such a degree that she would have to abandon her claim.
That has not happened, it seems, because she has a capable husband and friends who were able to support her financially.
Few people can say the same.
In its own comments on the case, the DWP pointed out that only five per cent of PIP refusals have been overturned by a tribunal.
What the department's spokespeople do not say is that those five per cent also total 65 per cent of appeals that have been made.
All in all, an extraordinary 70 per cent of social security appeals are successful.
But only 10 per cent of PIP decisions are appealed – and 56 per cent of new claims, together with 28 per cent of claims by people who have been transferred from Disability Living Allowance, are refused.
With 1,542,000 reassessed DLA claims and 2,649,000 new claims handled between its inception and March 2019 (the most up-to-date figures available to This Writer), and 175,000 in progress, that leaves 1,585,000 rejections uncontested.
What happens to those people?
Source: Disabled mum wins £13k payout after two-year benefits battle
This entry was posted in Assessment, Benefits, Conservative Party, Disability, Politics and tagged appeal, Conservative, Department, Disability Living Allowance, DLA, DWP, Maureen Ringland, Mike Sivier, Pensions, Personal Independence Payment, PIP, political, Tories, Tory, Vox, Vox Political, work on December 1, 2019 by Mike Sivier.
Labour will hold an inquiry into all the benefit-related deaths overseen by Tories. VOTE LABOUR
Bring out your dead: This is how it has felt under the Conservative (and Liberal Democrat) governments since 2010. The death toll has been colossal. It is long past time the authorities who inflicted an early death on vulnerable, sick and disabled people were brought to justice. Labour has announced an intention to do so.
At least 130,000 people have died as a result of victimisation by the Department for Work and Pensions – on the orders of the Conservative government (helped by the Liberal Democrats during the Coalition).
That is the bare minimum as the Conservatives no longer respond to Freedom of Information requests on the subject and those responses we have are incomplete.
I have been writing about the deaths incurred as a result of Tory/DWP benefit denial, practically since I started This Site nearly eight years ago.
I knew there was never any prospect of an inquiry under a Conservative government – and to be honest, I despaired of seeing Labour promise it until Jeremy Corbyn was installed as leader. Remember when Rachel Reeves was shadow Work and Pensions secretary? Dark days!
It must be obvious that I'm leading up to this:
"A Labour government would set up an independent inquiry into the deaths of disabled benefit claimants linked to the actions of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and its private sector contractors."
The details are on the Disability News Service website and, by all means visit and read them.
But they don't really matter.
Under Labour, we may finally find out the real death toll – although I warn you now, it will probably be horrifying.
Under Labour, we might just be able to see those responsible for this years-long atrocity brought to justice.
So if you don't have any other reason to support Labour, do it for this.
The families and friends of the dead need this.
Vote Labour for justice.
Source: Election 2019: Labour pledges inquiry into seven years of DWP benefit deaths – Disability News Service
This entry was posted in Bedroom Tax, Benefits, Death, Disability, Election campaign, Employment and Support Allowance, Labour Party, Politics, sanctions, unemployment, Universal Credit and tagged allowance, bedroom tax, benefit, dead, death, Department, die, Disability Living Allowance, DLA, DWP, employment, ESA, IB, Incapacity Benefit, inquiry, Jobseeker's Allowance, JSA, Labour, Mike Sivier, Pensions, Personal Independence Payment, PIP, political, support, UC, Universal Credit, vote, Vox, Vox Political, work on November 28, 2019 by Mike Sivier.
Did you think the Tories would stop hurting children just because there's an election? Think again
Kori: This eight-year-old boy had a heart transplant last year, but his body is rejecting it. The Tory-run DWP doesn't care, though. It has cancelled his disability benefit and left him to fend for himself.
Say hi to Kori.
Kori is eight years old. Last year he had a heart transplant – but it wasn't a wonderful success.
His body is rejecting the new heart and he is fighting for his life in hospital.
And what have the Tories done?
They have cancelled Kori's claim for Disability Living Allowance and his family's Motability car.
Their reason: Kori is "as fit as any other child his age".
Take a look at the photograph. Do you think that's accurate?
Friends of Kori and his family have launched a crowdfunding page to help them cope with the loss of their means of support.
You can contribute to it by visiting this website.
Please do – you can be sure the Tories won't want to help at all.
They won't care what happens to Kori – despite the fact that they have a duty of care towards him.
They're too busy planning new tax breaks for their rich friends – if we're stupid enough to elect them again.
Read more on this Facebook page: Kori's Fight for Life
This entry was posted in Benefits, Conservative Party, Disability, Election campaign, Health, People, Politics and tagged allowance, cancel, car, Conservative, crowdfund, Department, disability, DLA, DWP, heart, Kori, living, Mike Sivier, Motability, Pensions, political, reject, Tories, Tory, transplant, Vox, Vox Political, work on November 26, 2019 by Mike Sivier.
Tories got HALF A MILLION sickness and disability benefit assessments wrong – in five years
Logical conclusion: The Tory-run DWP's persecution of benefit claimants has been implicated in the deaths of many thousands of people.
Research has shown that new benefit assessment techniques imposed by the Conservative government have led to more than 500,000 wrong benefit assessments in the last five years.
The evidence also shows that other measures introduced by the Tories have served to hide the facts from the general public.
The research covered benefits including Employment and Support Allowance, Disability Living Allowance and its replacement benefit Personal Independence Payment.
The good news is that appeals against bogus decisions are at their highest success rate yet – the article on Teesside Live (link below) shows an increase in successes in North East England from 41 per cent in 2013 to 63 per cent in 2018. Across the UK, the success rate stands at around 76 per cent.
But the number of appeals reaching tribunals has fallen massively since the Conservatives axed legal aid for such cases – pricing such action out of benefit claimants' capabilities.
The Labour Party has vowed to restore legal aid if it wins the election on December 12, to restore fairness to the system.
The research made it clear that the main reason for appeals against benefit decisions was "poor decision-making" and "obvious inaccuracies" by the private asessors hired to carry out interviews with claimants.
One way to challenge such issues is to record assessments, but it was recently revealed that the Tories have insisted on PIP claimants buying hugely expensive recording systems in order to do so – in what seems an obvious attempt to make it impossible. What benefit claimant has that kind of money?
Note also:
Daphne Hall, the vice chair of the National Association of Welfare Rights Advisers, said: "… The DWP tend to base their decision purely on these assessments and disregard other evidence sent in by the claimant."
Yet this evidence is always demanded – and further evidence is always demanded when a claimant appeals.
The DWP's claim that "appeals represent a small percentage of all benefits claim it handles" is unconvincing because of the obstacles the government has put in the way.
Since 2013, people seeking to overturn a benefits ruling must complete a written challenge within a month, known as a mandatory reconsideration. If unsuccessful, people can then appeal against the decision at tribunal.
The problem is that most people run out of money long before the initial process is concluded and are forced by financial necessity to seek an alternative benefit (usually the nightmare that is Universal Credit), even though it is entirely inappropriate.
The denial of legal aid means most people are left unable to navigate the UK's labyrinthine legal system. For most sick or disabled claimants, it may be impossible to gather together all the information required by a tribunal without help from a legal professional.
The DWP has claimed that any suggestion of a decline in appeals due to legal aid cuts is "pure speculation". It would, wouldn't it?
But its further claim that only four per cent of ESA decisions and five per cent of PIP decisions are overturned at appeal rings hollow in the knowledge that this constituted more than 70 per cent of all appeals.
Doubly hollow, in fact, in the knowledge that the number of appeals fell massively after the axing of legal aid.
This is darkly humorous, too: "It says it expects the 'highest of standards' from assessment providers and continually monitors performance, while PIP and ESA assessments are carried out by health professionals 'who receive a variety of training in physical and mental health conditions and have the right clinical experience'."
Oh really? And did the PIP assessor who happened to be a physiotherapist but ended up examining a person with multiple sclerosis have "the right clinical experience"? Of course not.
Oh, and: "It says PIP was introduced to ensure mental health conditions were given the same parity as physical conditions." Oh really? This seems strange, considering the fact the mental health conditions are not mentioned even once in the points-based system on which PIP awards are based.
As This Site has demonstrated many times before, the Tory benefit system is a mockery.
Labour has promised to reform the system, dissolving the DWP altogether and replacing it with a new Department of Social Security.
Labour also intends to pilot a Universal Basic Income scheme, in which everybody receives an amount of money deemed enough to support them – making assessment interviews unnecessary.
People with illnesses and disabilities would receive appropriate top-ups.
Considering the huge number of deaths that have been connected with bogus benefit refusals, this is to be welcomed.
So the choice for people claiming – or dependent on – benefits is between an ever-more-draconian Tory system that penalises those in genuine need – often to death, and a return to justice under Labour.
That isn't even a choice, is it? It has to be Labour all the way.
Source: DWP: Disabled Teessiders wrongly denied benefits are increasingly beating the government at appeal – Teesside Live
This entry was posted in Assessment, Benefits, Conservative Party, Disability, Election campaign, Employment and Support Allowance, Legal Aid, Politics and tagged allowance, appeal, Conservative, Department, disability, DLA, DWP, employment, ESA, legal aid, living, Mike Sivier, Pensions, Personal Independence Payment, PIP, political, support, Tories, Tory, Vox, Vox Political, work on November 18, 2019 by Mike Sivier.
How Tories have fun: Trying to starve and evict a disabled man
Christopher Brasil: The Conservative-run Department for Work and Pensions fabricated reasons to cut off his benefits and have him thrown out of his home, it seems.
This story tells you all you need to know about the benefit system under the Conservative government:
Just read about Chris, 54, who is going blind. He got an eviction notice after the DWP lost his sick note, stopped his benefits & deemed him 'fit for work'. His electric was cut off & had to go to soup kitchens. He worked all his life just for the Tories to treat him like shit.
— Rachael Swindon (@Rachael_Swindon) November 3, 2018
Rachael is right. The story of Christopher Brasil illustrates every cruelty that the Conservative government can inflict on you – and I mean you, because it could happen to anybody, given the fact that the trigger was an accident, and we can all be prey to them.
Check out the details, according to iNews:
Mr Brasil was a lorry driver for 30 years, until he fractured his hip after he was hit by bicycle four years ago. The incident left him relying on walking sticks, and diabetes caused his eyesight to deteriorate, so the DVLA revoked his heavy goods vehicle licence and his employers dismissed him on grounds of ill health.
Now, suffering from blurred vision, vertigo, poor hearing and epilepsy, he says he is "unemployable".
But the Department for Work and Pensions disagreed.
After three years in which he claimed first Disability Living Allowance and then Employment and Support Allowance, the DWP started messing with Mr Brasil.
First, Job Centre advisors lost his sick note and stopped his payments for four weeks. He says he brought it to the office in January, when staff took it off him and said they faxed it to someone else. But then he was told he had not provided it; it was not recorded on their systems. They imposed a four-week sanction.
The lesson for all benefit claimants who need to hand in sick notes to prove benefit entitlement is: Get a receipt for them, signed by the staff member you are booked to see.
One month later, he was made to take a work capability assessment, told he was fit for work and ordered to claim Jobseekers' Allowance.
He said the assessment report was "blatant lies." It said he attended the assessment on his own, but he was with a social worker from a charity. In addition, they report said he did not use walking sticks and was fit and capable.
Then he was told Universal Credit was being rolled out in his area and he was switched to it. This meant he was forced to endure the standard five-week wait for the first payment – meaning Mr Brasil was left without payments for a total of two months.
That is when Mr Brasil, who lives alone and has no family, was forced to go to a soup kitchen and food bank. With his gas and electricity cut off, he had taken out a credit card and considered resorting to pay day loans.
Finally, after his Universal Credit claim began in September, Mr Brasil was told he was no longer entitled to housing benefit. He ran up rent arrears and was served with an eviction notice.
Who's going to tell me all that is purely accidental?
I think this man was targeted. His sick note was deliberately mislaid; his work capability assessment was deliberately rigged.
The intention was to torment him. It didn't matter whether he became homeless, starved, succumbed to his illnesses or became suicidal and tried (or succeeded) in killing himself as a result (see this article for information on how this can happen).
The comment the DWP provided is formulaic rubbish. I doubt if anybody checked the details of Mr Brasil's case; they certainly would not have spoken about it or admitted any wrongdoing.
I wonder, though – what was the name of the Job Centre advisor who took Mr Brasil's sick note in January? What did they do with that sick note? And can either of them be traced?
This entry was posted in Assessment, Benefits, Conservative Party, Disability, Employment and Support Allowance, Health, Politics, sanctions, unemployment, Universal Credit and tagged allowance, Christopher Brasil, Department, Disability Living Allowance, DLA, DWP, employment, ESA, evict, hb, housing benefit, Jobseeker's Allowance, JSA, Mike Sivier, Pensions, starve, support, UC, Universal Credit, Vox Political, work on November 3, 2018 by Mike Sivier.
It doesn't matter which theory underpins Tory disability jobs strategy – they're both awful
[Image: Lisa Norwood via photopin cc.]
So the Tories have moved from trying to make people with disabilities believe their health problems are all in their mind to trying to make them believe society is stopping them from getting a job?
Neither seem helpful ways of getting these people to live a useful life, if you ask This Writer!
And to be honest, I don't see much effort made to get society to adjust to help people with disabilities. Look at Philip Hammond's comment that disabled workers were holding back productivity in the UK economy.
He was saying there's no point employing people with disabilities because the adjustments they require cancel out any usefulness they have.
How are we to expect employers to offer them any opportunities after that?
The Biopsychosocial model has been explored at length on This Site, and I am grateful to see that it is supposed to be discredited.
But I haven't seen any evidence that the questions in assessment interviews have changed, or that the decisions made by assessors are based on criteria that are any more sympathetic.
According to Welfare Weekly, more than 220,000 people have been awarded zero points after being assessed for Personal Independence Payment, in the last 18 months.
The same article claimed 180,000 people have been denied PIP after being told to transfer from Disability Living Allowance, again in the last 18 months, despite having been in receipt of the other benefit.
These are people who have been told that there is nothing wrong with them – or at least nothing that would justify them drawing benefit money to help them cope with their disabilities in everyday life.
That seems to bear out the claim that the BPS model is still being used, and people are still being told their disabilities are all in their minds – and blamed for it, rather than helped.
The civil servant who leads the government's work and health unit has sparked fresh concerns that the new disability employment strategy could be heavily influenced by the discredited "biopsychosocial" (BPS) model of disability.
Tabitha Jay told a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group for disability (APPGD) … that the social model of disability underpinned the strategy, which has an aim of seeing one million more disabled people in work over the next 10 years.
But she also appeared to suggest that the BPS model was "running in parallel" to the social model within the strategy.
The BPS model places blame for being unemployed on the individual disabled person and their supposed negative attitudes towards working, whereas the social model explains that it is the barriers in society – and not people's impairments.
Source: Civil servant sparks fresh concerns over ideological basis of jobs strategy
This entry was posted in Benefits, Disability and tagged allowance, biopsychosocial, Department, disability, DLA, DWP, independence, living, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, payment, Pensions, personal, PIP, social, theory, Vox Political, work on January 22, 2018 by Mike Sivier.
After another SERIES of 'free school meals' scandals, Rashford demands overhaul of the whole system
UK Jews feel safer post-Corbyn – because the anti-Corbyn media told them to


Astrid Koenig, née Scheuerhorst (1969), is a trained lithographer. She lives in Hamburg and works as grouphead DTP in an advertising company since 2001. She's married since 2007 and has a daughter - Anna. FF Call is her first type design.
Stefan Kisters (1959) from Hamburg, studied visual communication and graphic design and works in advertising as an art director and illustrator. With FF Call he has realized a long-time dream - inclusion in FSI's FontBook.
After ten years work for reknown advertising agencies (among others Springer & Jacoby, Scholz + Friends, Heye + Partner und Philipp und Keuntje) Maik has founded his first internet agency in Hamburg in 2002. Meanwhile he has his second online agency in Jesteburg called "Feinkost Lehmann Entertainment". In addition to concepts and designs Maik does the programming for online and mobile device projects, covering the complete broadcasting. All projects, facts and data can be found on http://www.FeinkostLehmann.de.


Wondering Where to Have Brunch?
On most days, we all have some sort of breakfast. This can range from eggs and toast for those who have time to a doughnut at work to the cold pizza from the night before. Some of us are ok with having a bite to eat, but others need a meal to get their day going. During the work week this may not be an option but every 7 days there is one magical time of day, brunch. It has been touted as one of the best meals of the day which is most likely because you get to choose between breakfast and lunch and also a delicious cocktail is involved. Here in the Pocono Mountains, we love brunch and many may be wondering where to have brunch while they are here. We at Ledges Hotel have the same answer for each visitor, The Settlers Inn. Let's have a look at our sister property and see why they should be at the top of your list when you plan on where to have brunch.
Located just a mile away from us at Ledges Hotel, Settlers Inn is our sister B&B that has another feel to it. For their guests, they offer a delicious breakfast but also offer brunch and dinner options to guests as well as locals. Whether it is brunch or another meal, there is one thing that is consistent about Chef Ben Sutter's dishes, they are simply amazing. Being here in the mountains gives us an ample source of ingredients and he uses them to the best of his ability. You can see this in the way the menu changes with not only the seasons but also with what is available at the time. This ensures that your meal is always fresh and as local as possible.
Blue Cheese Stuffed Olives, Dilly Beans, Pepperoncini, and Celery. It's nearly a meal in of itself!
As you can see, thinking of where to have brunch here in the Pocono Mountains is a no-brainer. When you do come to our area, consider staying with us at Ledges Hotel. Our modern and renovated hotel is perfect for those who are looking for a simple and stylish place to sleep. We have room sizes that accommodate travelers of all group sizes. When you are not enjoying one of the many area activities, we invite you to enjoy the view of the mountains and our gorge from our decks. If you are looking to enjoy a meal at The Settlers Inn as well, be sure to have a look at our packages which offer a stay with us and a meal with them. Contact us today and start planning your next trip to the Pocono Mountains.


The six months since the Mayoral election in May have seen tumultuous and unprecedented change, politically, economically and socially. What, however, have the ramifications been for our capital city? How has Sadiq Khan responded to the changing goalposts? What is in store for the next six months of his term?


text:
1995 and 2006 Restorations
Nosferatu's metamorphosis continues: two new versions, many new sets of intertitles
Both are equally complete and the only ones available on Blu-ray and HD digital video
They're very different and excellent overall, but both are still a long way from perfection
One thing is certain: more restorations will follow and Count Orlok will be reborn yet again
Count Orlok portrait by Daniel Crossland, 2010
1995 restoration
Photoplay version
Editing errors
Tinting variations
Premières:
France 17-28.5.1995, Paris Cannes Film Festival. Original Hans Erdmann score reconstructed for full orchestra by Gillian Anderson.
Italy 25.6.1995, Bologna Il Cinema Ritrovato. Score as above.
UK 19.11.1995, London Film Festival, National Film Theatre. Score as above.
"Black-and-white negative, based on the tinted print of the First French Version at the Cinémathèque Française (a first-generation print). Missing scenes and parts were completed by nitrate materials of the second French version (Cinémathèque Française), as well as from Die zwölfte Stunde. On this completed negative a new colouring scheme was applied; no filter tinting but colourising (B&W on monochrome film), mainly based on the tinted print of the first French version: yellow for sunshine, but also for lamps and candles; pink for dawn (but not always); nocturnal scenes in blue (especially outdoors) and blue-green (interiors, and for 'creepy mood')" – Enno Patalas
In 1995 Enno Patalas overhauled his earlier 1987 restoration completely, this time using a recently discovered original French print as the basis and retaining only the 1987's intertitles. Patalas used the recreated original German intertitles, made by Studio Pfenninger in 1981, for all four of his restorations up to and including 1995. They were based on those in a copy of an original German print, as were the intertitles of Berriatúa's 2006 restoration. Therefore, both sets of intertitles are accurately represented by the 1995 and 2006 examples below.
The 1995 restoration appears numerous times on home video but its original German intertitles only appear on three Spanish and German releases. While two are on VHS, the sole DVD's Spanish language option consists of translated intertitles that use the subtitle stream to cover the originals completely. It's an unusual technique and the only other examples I've come across are several DVDs of Pandora's Box (Die Büchse der Pandora, 1929). Do post in the comments if you know of any more!
Recreated original German intertitle created on film. 2003 Spanish Divisa DVD
New Spanish intertitle, uses DVD's subtitle stream to mask the German intertitles. 2003 Spanish Divisa DVD
UK 17.11.1997, London Royal Festival Hall. New orchestral score by James Bernard.
UK 1997, broadcast on Channel 4 as that year's entry in the Channel 4 Silents series. Score as above.
David Gill (1928–1997), Kevin Brownlow and Patrick Stanbury of Photoplay Productions added new translated English intertitles to the 1995 restoration and a new orchestral score. This version was then broadcast in 1997 on Channel 4 and is the one featured on the BFI's DVD and BD. The Photoplay version is unique among restored iterations of the film, in that it dispenses with the five-act intertitles altogether and is transferred at 19fps; all other versions retain the acts and run at 18fps. The very high quality intertitles replacing the remainder were created on film. Kevin and Patrick say they believe very strongly in replacing foreign language intertitles for domestic markets, as happened during the silent era. (Subtitling didn't become commonplace until the 1930s.) They went to a great deal of effort and expense to have the original German font replicated in English; where necessary having missing characters newly designed as carefully as possible. They then ensured their intertitles were exactly the same length, frame-for-frame, as the originals. I can't argue with the results: they're by far the best such modern recreations I've seen. In fact, the only criticism I have of them is that they look too pristine, contrasting very noticeably with the worn material surrounding them. They'd have benefited from having an artificial layer of grain and scratches applied, as David Shepard did with his versions, to help them blend in better.
New English intertitle created on film; 1997 Photoplay version. 2015 UK BFI Blu-ray
Meanwhile, for their 2002 DVD, Kino in the US opted for a new set of translated English intertitles created on SD video.
New English intertitle created on SD video. 2002 US Kino DVD
Première unknown (get in touch if you know!). All home video releases feature the Hans Erdmann score "reconstructed" for full orchestra by Berndt Heller.
In 2005/2006 a completely new restoration was supervised by film historian and preservationist Luciano Berriatúa for the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung (FWMS), again in conjunction with various archives. Except for the BFI BD, this version is the one featured on all BDs and DVDs from 2007 onwards. You can see a fascinating side-by-side, before and after comparison of the entire digital clean-up, which clearly shows the sometimes shocking state even some of the best surviving materials are in and just what an incredible job restorers really do.
This restoration was based on the 1922 tinted French print at the Cinémathèque Française. Missing scenes were taken from the Bundesarchiv's early 1940s B&W safety copy of a 1920s Czech export print and a print of Die zwölfte Stunde at the Cinémathèque Française. Intertitles were digitally scanned directly from those in the Bundesarchiv's B&W 1962 safety copy of the original 1922 German version and restored in high definition (HD). Missing ones were recreated using the same technique and have FWMS in the lower left corner. Additionally, new English-translated intertitles, in a fairly similar style to the originals, were prepared for some countries' BD and DVD releases.
Original German intertitle restored digitally in HD. 2013 UK Eureka/Masters of Cinema Blu-ray
New English intertitle created digitally in HD. 2013 US Kino Blu-ray
Composer Paul Hembree on his 2011 Nosferatu score:
"My favorite intertitle: "Nosferatu: Does not this name not sound like the deathbird calling your name at midnight? Beware you never say it – for then the pictures of life will fade to shadows, haunting dreams will climb forth from your heart and feed on your blood."
The last line is particularly telling. Is Nosferatu [sic: Count Orlok] a real person, a corporeal menace who murders his victims with claws and teeth? Or is he a dream, the product of a fevered mind, haggard from disease and the aftermath of war? Does he come from afar, with the gaunt countenance of a foreigner, or does he come from within – does he "climb forth from your heart?"
The idea that a part of Nosferatu is our own dark desires manifested is a driving force within this music. It is constantly searching, yearning for something which it cannot find."
Both the 1995 and 2006 restorations have many inconsequential editing variations in terms of missing frames and the exact placement of title cards, but they also have a trio of minor flubs between them:
In the 1995, Hutter is looking out of a window at Orlok loading a cart when a one-second-long shot of him appears too early. There's a cutaway to Orlok then back to Hutter, where said second repeats, this time in its correct place, before running as intended. On the BFI BD it's at 0:37:48.
The 2006 actually manages to invert a brief shot of Slovakian Jánošíkove diery (Janosik holes), which are usually incorrectly referred to as a waterfall. In the shot, the water is clearly running upside down! On the Eureka BD it's at 0:35:24.
The 2006 has a second editing error which is similar to the one afflicting the 1995. In a long shot of the town crier walking down the street, there is a jump and the image repeats itself momentarily. On the Eureka BD it's at 1:16:24.
In early 2016 Patrick revisited Photoplay's version to perform some additional clean-up. As a result of this article, he also fixed the editing error! The improved version is now being used for their DCP and will be used for any future streaming versions, and replace the version currently on the BFI BD and DVD, should they ever be reissued. I must emphasise that these errors range in length from a split second to a couple of seconds. You're unlikely to spot them without being forewarned and even then they're likely to pass you by unnoticed. In no way will they mar your overall enjoyment of either restoration.
Greta Schröder not enjoying her day at the beach. UK BFI Blu-ray.
Regarding their respective colour schemes, though they both use the same tinted original print for reference, for technical reasons they vary hugely. Silent film tints are primarily used to denote the time of day and setting of individual scenes. The most commonly used tints, most of which would apply to Nosferatu, are:
Yellow: exterior daylight
Blue: interior night-time
Amber or sepia: night-time exterior and interior artificial light
Pink or lavender: dawn and dusk
Green: outdoor rural scenes and intrigue or suspense
Red: fire, anger, explosions
The tinting varies greatly between the 1995 and 2006 restorations but in both versions there are several baffling, as well as annoying, choices made that defy all logic. The 1995 has two similar minor ones in that Hutter's darkened hotel room is already tinted in an amber shade, indicating indoor light, seconds before the innkeeper's wife enters bearing a lit candle. Later on, this happens in reverse: the wind from an open window blows a candle out and there's a split second delay before the room goes dark. In the first instance, in the 2006 the room is initially tinted in green, denoting darkness in this case, before changing to amber at the correct moment. Conversely, elsewhere the 2006 reintroduces old mistakes or makes many new ones. The only other tinting oddities of the 1995 are scenes of Knock in his cell in the final reel being tinted blue for night, while intercut with everywhere else that's pink for dawn. But that's it. For the rest of its length the tinting choices are entirely logical and pleasing. The 2006, on the other hand, borders on maddening, with its sins being far more egregious due to their utter lack of variation. It only has pink dawn/dusk tinting for a total of four minutes; then believe it or not, the rest of the film is divided wholly between the amber and green shades in the screenshots below. Therefore it gets quite confusing when being given contradictory messages as to what time of day (or night) it is, which unfailingly takes one out of the film.
One thing is for sure: the 2006 is not the last word in restoration and Orlok will be comprehensively made over again. In fact, circa 2010, it very nearly happened.
"Your wife has a beautiful neck…" Max Schreck (L) and Gustav von Wangenheim. UK Eureka-Masters of Cinema Blu-ray.
Additionally, all pre-2013 DVDs featuring each restoration differ from the colours of their BD counterparts. Martin H. Larsen, 13th November 2016:
"The tints differ for three reasons: 1) Different conclusions made by Patalas and Berriatúa regarding the original tints, 2) the choice between keeping to the original (but illogical) tints in one scene or correcting it, and 3) different methods of applying the tints to the final prints and digital versions.
1) The tinted original 1922 French release print, used for reference, has all its different colours varying in hue. Patalas made the assumption that the colour for night-time, varying from blue to an almost blue-green, was supposed to be two different colours; blue for night exteriors and green for unlit night interiors. Berriatúa concluded that the variations in hues were merely due to the printing and dye tinting techniques used, and that there was only supposed to be one hue of each colour. Hence night exteriors and unlit interiors were all supposed to be the same, namely greenish blue.
2) In the tinted French print, the section where Hutter leaves the inn and travels into the mountains does not really make sense regarding the tints. Hutter leaves the inn at dawn (pink, normally used for dusk and dawn), travels into the mountains at dawn (pink), remarks that the sun is setting (whereafter the film changes to yellow, normally used for daylight!) and arrives at the castle at night (greenish blue). Patalas saw this as an error in the French print and chose to correct it in the 1995 restoration: Hutter leaves the inn during daytime (yellow), remarks that the sun is setting (change to pink) and arrives at the castle during night (blue, as per Patalas' conclusion about night-time exteriors). For his 2006 restoration, Berriatúa agrees that the original tinting is illogical but chose to leave it as was, since it could not be determined for certain that there was an error in the print.
3) Another difference in tinting is the saturation of the colours. When producing tinted 35mm positive prints of both the 1995 and 2006 restorations for theatrical release, the Desmetcolor method was used, meaning that exact colour replication is not achieved. This resulted in both sets of prints having overly saturated colours. For DVD versions of both the 1995 and 2006 restorations the tints were applied digitally, using (over saturated) tinted positive prints for colour reference. For Blu-ray versions of the 2006 restoration the tinted French print was used for colour reference, meaning that they represent the colours most accurately."
"He's creepy and he's kooky…" Max Schreck as Count Orlok, up to no good as usual. UK Eureka-Masters of Cinema Blu-ray.
Tags Collectors' GuideGillian AndersonKevin BrownlowNosferatuPatrick StanburyPhotoplay Productions
September 28, 08:30 Reply
Did the 1995 version with the editing fix that was done in 2016 ever get released on Blu Ray?
Alfred Hitchcock Collectors' Guide: The White Shadow (1923)
Alfred Hitchcock Collectors' Guide: The Mountain Eagle (1926)


text:
Cardiophorus georgioui is een keversoort uit de familie kniptorren (Elateridae). De wetenschappelijke naam van de soort is voor het eerst geldig gepubliceerd in 2003 door Preiss & Platia.

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text:
7:48 pm, Thursday, June 26th, 2008
(Warning: The first half of this post is mostly bitching. Skip towards the end for game and movie talk.)
Getting into my new house is taking longer than expected. Amazingly enough, the only obstacle I'm dealing with at the moment is $3.00 worth of fees. In the piles and piles of documentation I've given the mortgage people, the one thing that's given them pause is the fact that my garbage bill accrued $3.00 in late fees over the course of 1 year and 4 months. My other three lines of trade are spotless and I've never, ever been late with the rent at the last two places I've lived. But I have been a little lazy with my $16/month garbage bill, so obviously lending me umpteen dollars is a dubitable gamble even if the loan is secured by a house of greater value. Well, whatever; my mortgage broker says he can massage the lender into ignoring that single blemish.
Heritage Realty (of Pullman, WA, for any curious googlers) tried to screw me again. It was especially underhanded this time. I had to get them to fill out some "verification of rent" form and, in this document, they noted that my account was in arrears. I was, of course, incredulous. When I asked why they wrote that, the girl produced a letter that said they had not received payment for the month of April. "Why didn't you notify me?" I asked. She said they did, that they had mailed me that letter. Liar!
Fortunately, I know better than to trust these dishonest people: Every month I come down to their office in person to give them the rent check. I do this so I can get a signed and dated receipt (usually in the form of a photocopy of the check with a handwritten note from their staff). Paranoid enough for you? Anyway, I ran back to the apartment, snatched April's receipt and showed it to their managerial person. Here's where they really ticked me off. I'll try to present the exchange as accurately as I can remember it:
"So here's a photocopy of the check that your staff made, and here's your employee's signature and the date. That red 'received' stamp is yours too."
"Uh huh." She scrutinizes the paper for nearly twenty seconds, obviously suspicious.
"You can see the date on the check is the same as the date your staff wrote on it. April 3rd."
"Mm." She's sure it must be a forgery. She just can't figure out how I made it in less than ten minutes. "And this check was good?"
"What? Yeah, of course. I checked my bank statement; you guys never cashed it."
"Well you should have made sure of that."
"That's not my responsibility."
"It is your responsibility to make sure your checks clear."
"What? I guarantee there was enough money in that account. I did everything I was supposed to to pay you."
"That's not what I'm saying."
"What are you saying? That I'm supposed to make sure your paperwork is in order?"
"No. But you have a responsibility to make sure your checks are clearing."
"So I'm supposed to monitor my account and notify you if you're late cashing my check? That's ridiculous. All I'm required to do is give it to you on time and make sure there are sufficient funds–"
"You're not understanding me."
"You do realize I've been living in a flood damaged apartment for six months, right? Which I've repeatedly asked you to fix. And you're criticizing me for being irresponsible? This is not my fault." By this time I was livid and Brett touched my arm to remind me to calm down. (I wanted a witness there in case they tried to destroy my only copy of the receipt.)
"Forget it. It was a joke." Really? Why would you even joke with someone who knows, who has documented proof, that you're screwing them? I'm nearly certain she only said this because she realized how absurd it sounds to blame a tenant for the landlord's incompetence in losing a rent check.
I asked them to correct what they'd written on the form and they eventually complied. We had to wait ten minutes though while the managerial hypocrite did something in the back office. And then, when they finally gave me the form back, they acted as though they were doing me some huge favor by not committing fraud. Heritage Realty (of Pullman, WA) is, by far, the worst company I've ever had to deal with.
Incidentally, after this event they started showing my apartment in the mornings. On the notices, they requested two hours instead of one and a half as they had before. A couple times they cancelled the showings and only notified me afterwards.
Okay, so I saw a bunch of new movies (well, new to me) during my fifteen days of non-blogging. Here are my pico-reviews: Wild West Comedy Show (good; the documentary aspect makes the two bad comedians bearable; Caparulo was great), The Hoax (decent; surprisingly lacking in depth, but entertaining), Lars and the Real Girl (very good; might be too schmaltzy for some people, but I liked it), The Happening (horrible; I'm convinced Shyamalan deliberately set out to make this a bad movie, and I say that as someone who actually liked every movie of his from the Sixth Sense on), The Incredible Hulk (awesome), Be Kind Rewind (mildly bad; surprisingly disappointing; I liked the premise and the Jack Black/Mos Def pairing), Walk Hard (good; loved the music in it), Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs (awesome; as good as the first movie, loved the old-timey black & white intro).
Speaking of Beast with a Billion Backs, a bunch of us got together for a screening of it at Adventures Underground on Tuesday night. I brought the projector and my laptop, Logan and Amanda provided everything else (including pizza). We used a different wall as the screen this time; I think the picture had a diagonal of about 14 feet. Worked well. We had to wait for some people to show up, so we watched a season 2 episode of Code Monkeys before the actual feature.
Got (and played) a few new games recently: Pandemic, Ticket to Ride: The Card Game, and Metropolys. Pandemic is really novel; not so much for its mechanics, but because it's truly cooperative. You work with the other players to cure these four diseases and prevent outbreaks. We lost our first game, but only because we ran out of player cards one turn before we could cure the last disease. (BTW, the diseases in the game are named after their colors. In the rulebook, they have an illustration with the caption, "Here we see an outbreak of black in Algeria." I don't know if that's intentional, but it's funny in a not-sure-I'm-allowed-to-laugh kinda way.)
Ticket to Ride: The Card Game is good. It's more like the board game than I'd have thought possible. I like the addition of the "train-robbing" mechanic (which lets you deprive other players of a particular color). Points are more secret in this than in the board game though; it's pretty hard to tell who's winning until the game ends.
I liked Metropolys, though not as much as Brett and Amanda. Everyone but me seemed to prefer it to Manhattan. It's sort of a bidding/secret objective/path-planning game. It's a little hard to describe. I need to play it more to figure out how much I like it.
We had a couple big Risk games recently. Jones won Mission Risk and I won a six-player Global Domination game. It was epic. On my last turn I was supposed to receive 135 reinforcements.
Oh, and I picked up the Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition Player's Handbook. There're hundreds of better-written reviews and analyses of it on the web, so I'll just sum up my opinion very briefly: Initially, I was repulsed. Making tieflings and eladrin core races (while eliminating gnomes and half-orcs) seemed retarded to me, but I'm getting used to it now. Splitting the wizard spells into easy powers and more-complicated rituals was really clever. And I love that humans now get +2 to any single attribute (main reason I never played 'em before). The multiclass restrictions are lame. Overall, I think it's turning into a simplified tactical wargame with a much thinner veneer of mechanics aimed at actual roleplaying. Which is okay, I guess. That's fun for a while. People interested in real roleplaying are probably using more sophisticated systems anyway.
Yeesh, this was a long post.
9:21 am, Tuesday, June 10th, 2008
I just took these pictures from our front door. It's snowing here in Pullman. In June.
I scanned and printed so many documents today. Stuff for the mortgage. I probably saved like seven bucks by not going to Kinko's. Worth it? Yes, but only because I had Panic at the Disco's new album on looped shuffle. Man, it's nothing like their first album but I love almost all of it. She Had the World is such an awesome song.
I downloaded Metal Slug: Super Vehicle-001 for the Wii virtual console yesterday. Unfortunately, every time I tried to play it my TV would act like it was changing inputs and I'd get nothing but a black screen or, at best, a very faint outline of the opening menu. Sound worked fine, but no display. I called Wii tech support and, after a lot of menu navigation (why is there no clear option for "my virtual console game doesn't work"?) I got a very friendly, competent Canadian. ("Zed" instead of "zee.") Turns out some of the Neo Geo games run at 240 lines of resolution which some TVs can't handle in HD/EDTV mode, so they blank out. But there's a secret fix to force the game to display at 480 lines: Start the game. Once it's loaded, press the home button and select Operations Guide. At this screen, plug in a nunchuk attachment and press Z+A+2 at the same time. Bam, 480-line mode!
Anyway, Metal Slug is very cool. Great graphics and animation. Can't believe I'd never played it till now.
Last Friday I was pretty bored. Jones was sick and Logan and Amanda were tied up with the Friday Night Magic tournament as usual (too many interruptions for proper gaming), so I went to see a movie. I had to choose between Kung Fu Panda and Zohan; the Rotten Tomato scores were 84% and 34%, respectively, so I went with the panda movie even though it looked pretty lame to me. I think the ads grossly misrepresent it — it was much, much better than I was expecting. Not quite as good as Horton Hears a Who!, but very close. There's an exceptionally awesome three-minute 2D-animated opening sequence where the panda fights off entire armies of evil dark things. That alone was worth the price of admission.
The rest of the movie is great, but I don't think it made as big an impression. My only major complaints are that Dreamworks cheats a little with their modeling — Po's patchwork pants that behave like neoprene, complex objects represented by elaborate textures on simpler forms — and some of the voice acting choices were too weird. Like, why was Monkey voiced by Jackie Chan? He says five words in the whole movie and the accent is jarring since he's literally the only character that has one. And David Cross as the crane just felt surreal. Jack Black was great though.
I also watched Michael Clayton on DVD. It was meh/okay. Decent, I guess. They dribbled out the clues a little too slowly for my liking.
A couple pics:
On the left, buffalo (well, bison) steak and a baked potato. This is all from the co-op in Moscow. I wasn't really wowed by the freshness or quality of anything except the sour cream. I got this weird organic brand that I hadn't seen before. The stuff is fantastic; it's more like cream cheese, really. Kind of sweet, very light. On the right, yet more house progress! (Anyone sick of hearing about this yet?) It's all in the Flickr set. It's amazing how much quieter the house is with the carpets installed.
Boy, gas has shot up lately. It was $4.14 at the Road 68 Shell station when I left Pasco. Pullman still has to catch up; the Safeway has it at $4.05. I think last week was the first time I had personally seen prices higher than $3.99. Hard to believe it was like $1.15 when I was in highschool.
Been catching up on my comics. Jack of Fables vol. 2 was awesome. KoDT #137-139 less so. Still have the latest Fables and Incredible TPBs to get through. Walking Dead vol. 8 is taking forever to come out.
Here're some neat images that caught my fancy on the imageboards today:
Gotta get up early tomorrow. Heritage wants to show the apartment again in the morning. Also have a metric buttload of packing to do.
5:24 pm, Friday, June 6th, 2008
I'm briefly in the Tri-Cities again. I swapped my car for my parents' big truck on the last trip; managed to get Brett's dresser, the big recliner, a bookshelf, a TV and lots of boxes transferred down here. Moving is always awful, but this isn't as bad as the Fed Way/Pullman move was.
The house is practically finished. All they need to do now is finish the sliding doors on the shower, take the paper off the skylight, clean up their messes, fix a vent cover, adjust the cabinet doors (uneven in spots), put on the pulls and knobs, etc. Minor stuff. I'd post pictures, but the computer I'm on doesn't have an SD card slot.
Heritage Realty has started showing our apartment to people. You have to love that they notify you only twenty-four hours in advance via notices taped to your front door. Classy. I hope the prospective tenants get a good look at the room with all the flood damage. It's been six months and Heritage, in true slumlord fashion, still hasn't fixed it. I posted a little notice of my own to remind them; nothing libelous, just facts. "This is the room that flooded in December 2007. It's been preserved just as your contractor left it, right down to the torn up carpet. I've repeatedly asked you to fix it but nothing has been done."
Anyway, I've been building computers and doing insurance stuff. Turns out Newegg has an exceptionally awesome return policy; can't believe this is the first time in four years and forty-eight orders that I've ever had to RMA something with them.
5:12 pm, Monday, June 2nd, 2008
I've been in the Tri-Cities all week, so I don't have any food pics to share. But here's a cool dune buggy I saw in the parking lot of the Pasco Wal-Mart:
Last Saturday we played games at Adventures Underground. One of the Magic players, Scott, joined us. We did Catan (Scott won, though we messed up the rules a little due to all of us being so rusty), Ticket to Ride (I trounced everyone with 131 pts.), and Streetcar (I won, but it was extremely close). Pics:
House stuff: All the linoleum flooring is in (bathrooms, utility room, kitchen/dining), counters are in, cabinets/drawers are in, carpets are on site (but not installed), and appliances have been delivered. As usual, here are a couple highlights. (Everything else, in full five-megapixel glory, is in the Flickr set.)
Been working on this major upgrade at the clinic. New hardware for all the non-DR computers, much OS updating, a new wireless network, and a significant update for the practice management software. Also sorted out some of our biometric timeclock trouble. Funny story about the big database migration: The developer promised it'd take less than five hours; it ended up taking more than three days. Also, a workstation died shortly after its upgrade (dead mobo or CPU), so I get to fix that when I next return. Anyway it's all been a ginormous PITA.
Saw a bunch of movies. Here're my pico-reviews: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (decent; neat special effects, way too long, annoying CG mice), Nine Months (okay; basically a crappier, '90s version of Knocked Up), Four Weddings and a Funeral (great movie, but Andie MacDowell is a feckless slut and I thought it was lame that Hugh Grant chose her at the end), Diary of the Dead (very mediocre; horrible acting, clichés upon clichés), Meet the Fockers (meh, but Blythe Danner's always awesome), and Cloverfield (really awesome).
(The preceding blog stuff was written two days ago. I couldn't post it because I was getting funky MySQL errors. I'm still getting the errors on some things, but it looks like I can post anyway now. The following text was written today.)
Alright, I'm just about to head back to Pullman. Today's been wicked busy. Some good news on the house though: My home owner's insurance is going to be much less than I was expecting — with all my deductions and a $1,000 deductible, it'll be about $25/month. I thought it'd be around $80; even my mortgage guy projected $35 (which I thought was extremely optimistic).
I saw Horton Hears a Who! last night. I wasn't expecting much because a lot of reviews I'd been exposed to talked about it "dragging" and being a little dull but worthwhile, etc. But it was fantastic. I think it might be the second or third best movie I've seen this year. The animation is all wonderful. I love how they shorthand the detail where it's unnecessary, like on dirt paths, leaves, and the sides of buildings, but build it up into something absurdly overwrought where it pays off, like with the molting feathers on Vlad the vulture. I also loved the Avery/Jones-ish elasticity of the characters; that's one thing Dreamworks seems to do better than Pixar, IMO. 'Course, that's probably easier to do when you're working with people like Jim Carrey who's practically a cartoon already. Oh, and the two 2D sequences were great. It's so cool when movies mix media like that — like the brownie song in Reefer Madness or the rhino story in The Ten. Anyway, I don't think it dragged at all. Every minute of it was enjoyable for me.
Oh yeah, the IMBC ended yesterday! Congratulations, Dennis Lever! We're having a trophy made. We'll be doing those every year from now on, though who knows if the design'll stay consistent. I'll post pics when it's ready (and hopefully Dennis will give us a victory shot with it after we ship it to him). Anyway, thanks to Tim for helping organize the 2008 IMBC and Beefy and Jones for serving as auxiliary organizers!
Okay, I gotta go. Lots to do. I'll try to blog more in Pullman.
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But here's an FYI: You're all gonna die screaming / All we want to do is eat your brains


This is the story of a man and a woman. A Danse Macabre unfolding in a world where common reality and the realm of myth are blurring; where the borders separating in- and outside are becoming obsolete.
This is the story of their alter-egos, caught up in a limbo and no-man's land, waiting, stuck on river Styx.
Neither here anymore, nor yet beyond.
This is her story. She, the one to cross that passage, being pulled.
This is his story. Losing and winning her at the same time.
And as events take their course, we can't be quite sure who is playing whom and who is calling the shots.


Texas Sunday Service 2018-02-18-How do you want to be judged by God?
How do you want to be judged that day when you stand before the Lord?
The decision to believe Jesus comes from your heart.
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged.
Peace is the cessation of war between man and God.
Jesus Christ is true and good to His Word.
Going backwards will never get you ahead.
Our way is to justify ourselves and find fault with others.
Embrace the Gospel of His grace and mercy and get over yourself.
Minister the Gospel in humility and meekness to those who oppose themselves so they can get free.


Gain and maintain commercial acceptance.
Evaluation: of existing QA/QC programs and client needs.
Design and Implementation: of new QA/QC programs.
Training: of the client's production staff.
Management: ongoing QA/QC oversight, troubleshooting and reporting.
Development of a Quality Management System begins with a general understanding of the customer's operation. This may be accomplished by observing the operation, visiting the plant or facility, reviewing specifications and other materials, understanding the project goals, organization, and using our knowledge of the product or service to develop a preliminary outline of the basic Quality System. We will develop policies and procedures that will reflect the specifications, code and standard requirements consistent with the customer needs. Programs are written to comply with Nationally Recognized Standards, and the customer's specifications.
Quality Programs should be periodically verified and audited to assure the system is implemented and adequate to serve the present needs.