text:
Building a World for Treasure-Seeking Campaigns
April 13th, 2019 by Oren Ashkenazi
This will definitely be worth a +1 sword.
Venturing out into the unknown and digging up treasure has a long history in RPGs, stretching back to the beginning of Dungeons and Dragons itself. For decades, players have delved dungeons, defeated dragons, and been rewarded with glittering gold pieces for their trouble.
While this type of adventure was originally inspired by prose stories, there are a number of special considerations that RPG settings require if you want to keep the treasure flowing in. Most older games never bothered with this kind of robust worldbuilding, treating gold pieces as something that just spawned out of the earth for no reason, but you're going to do better.
Where Did the Treasure Come From?
The first thing your world needs is a reason why there's so much treasure lying around. How much, you ask? Enough that the PCs can credibly find some every session. This kind of treasure distribution is practically unheard of in real life, where even successful treasure hunters often go years between finds. That won't work in an RPG. If the players have to wait more than a couple sessions before finding something valuable, they'll quickly get frustrated and lose interest.
So why is there so much treasure lying around? It's always possible that the treasure is from a natural phenomenon. Maybe an enchanted meteor exploded in the atmosphere, showering the land with magically charged fragments. But if you're following the steps of classic RPGs that came before, the treasure is probably artificial. You get better variety that way too, since your PCs can find coins with the emperor's head one week and creepy jewelry the next.
So who made all this treasure, and why aren't they around anymore? For best results, you'll want a group that was powerful enough to make a whole bunch of valuable treasure and that inhabited a large area. And it always helps if they were more technologically or magically advanced* than whoever is around today. That way you have an excuse to create elaborate ruins far beyond anything the PCs have ever seen.
You can certainly have more than one source of treasure, but each source adds complexity to the setting, making it that much harder for your players to remember the world's history. In most cases, it works best to have one primary source of treasure, with a few smaller sources that show up occasionally to add novelty. If most of your treasure comes from a ruined elven civilization, you can really get players interested by having them find an artifact that predates even the elves.
Once you've decided who created all this treasure, you have to decide what happened to them. In most cases, you want a fast apocalypse, something that destroyed the ancients but left many of their valuables intact. A slow decline doesn't usually work, as in that scenario, the ancients would have had plenty of time to take their treasure away. Conquest by a foreign enemy is also a difficult option, as you'd expect the conquerors to strip away anything of value they could find. Alternatively, if the ancients were really advanced, it's possible that even their trash would be valuable to the PCs. This gives you more options for what happened to them but also requires a big technology gap.
My preferred method is to craft an ancient empire that controlled a large area, then have some kind of magical cataclysm occur in its central provinces. That way, I can justify whatever level of destruction I need for each adventure. This session, the PCs go to a town where the buildings are completely intact, but the people were vaporized instantly. Next session, they'll visit a castle that was teleported underground!
Why Haven't People Taken the Treasure Before?
Treasury of Atreus by Klearchos Kapoutsis used under CC BY 2.0
This may shock you, but humans don't usually leave piles of valuable treasure just lying around. If the treasure is at all accessible, we'll take it. If the treasure isn't accessible, we'll tunnel through rock walls to make it accessible. That's why the discovery of intact Egyptian tombs is so rare; they were plundered for their wealth long ago.
To keep your setting credible, you'll need a reason why there are still enough goodies to give the PCs new loot every couple sessions, and there are basically two options.
Your Characters Have a Rare Ability
In this scenario, the treasure is inaccessible to most people, but the PCs have an unusual quality that lets them access it anyway. Sometimes this is straightforward. If the treasure-filled ruins are surrounded by invisible force fields, only a party with one of the six legendary pass-stones can get through. Or the treasure might be in another plane of existence, and the PCs just happen to have a teleportation spell.
Alternatively, the rare ability can be a little more subtle. If all of the treasure is protected by high-level monsters, only the few adventurers who reach high level can go after it with any hope of success. This often feels more natural, but be careful. If the PC's ability is less tangible, it may seem that others should have found a way to substitute for it by now. High-level adventurers might be rare, but surely a wealthy monarch could send in an army and get the same effect.
This option's main advantage is that it provides a stable, easy to explain reason why there will always be shiny loot to fill the PCs' packs. It hasn't been taken because no one else can get to it! The downside is that such limited access can seem a little contrived and make it harder to build a holistic world since so much of it obviously centers on the PCs.
Something Has Changed in the Setting
If you want an explanation that doesn't make the party feel like a bunch of chosen ones, you can craft a situation where something has recently changed in the setting to make the treasure accessible. Perhaps the ancient ruins used to have such a high level of ambient radiation that just walking into them was deadly, but now the rads have come down enough that exploration is possible, with special protection of course.
Advancements within the setting are also a good option. Maybe all the treasure is on another continent, and for centuries no one has been able to build ships sturdy enough to reach it. But now someone's had the bright idea of putting these newfangled steam engines on a boat, and it's actually possible to reach those distant shores.
You can even focus on social and economic shifts, if that's your cup of tea. Perhaps treasure hunting was too dangerous to make a serious occupation in the old days, but now the ruling elite are squeezing the lower classes so hard that risking death in ancient ruins is a sound investment.
The setting-focused option is the inverse of the character-focused one. It makes the world feel more alive, but it's also more difficult to explain. Be sure you've got a simple version ready, or you'll find your players' eyes glazing over as you try to explain why an increased wealth disparity has led farmers to abandon their land for the high-risk, high-reward job of treasure hunting.
What's Between Your Characters and the Treasure?
Yeah, that'll do it.
Once you've figured out where your treasure comes from and why it's still there, you'll need a steady supply of obstacles to make the PCs work for their gold. These obstacles are essential to any treasure-seeking game, but they're also a potential failure point. If it feels like monsters and enemies have been thrown in without much thought, players start to ask questions.
Hazards and Monsters
Environmental hazards are a major staple of RPGs, so you have a lot of inspiration to draw on here. The main thing to keep in mind is how these hazards actually fit into their surroundings. While spiked pits and rolling death stones may have worked for D&D and Indiana Jones, these days artificial traps are likely to come off as hokey and unrealistic. Players will wonder how such elaborate mechanisms could possibly still function, and if your adventurers go anywhere other than sealed tombs, they'll also wonder why the ancients would build death traps in areas they had to use every day.
It's possible to explain both issues, but it's often less work to use natural hazards instead. Fortunately, there's rarely any shortage of these, especially if the adventure takes place underground. Cave-ins or structural collapse are always a serious concern, and even minor ones can be really dangerous. You can also make use of poisonous gas pockets, flooding, smoke, fire, and even mold! Your options get a lot broader when you add in the effects of magic or malfunctioning technology. Of course the ancients didn't mean for their lab to be filled with portals to a hell dimension, but that's what happens when you leave the portal generators unattended for a few centuries!
Then you get into monsters, which I define as any threat that's alive but non-sapient.* Contrary to popular belief, monsters don't have to be violent in order to be threatening! Insects can carry diseases, while small burrowing creatures might pop up out of the ground to steal the party's food.
But eventually, you'll probably want to break out the kind of monster that breathes fire and devours 1d3 adventurers per round. In that event, keep in mind what these creatures do when there aren't PCs around to fight. What do they eat? Does anything eat them? Are they hostile because they see the party as food, because they're defending their territory, or for some other reason? Remember that most animals will retreat from a losing fight if they can. At the same time, many players won't love the idea of killing more animal-like monsters, so it's useful to have noncombat options for resolving those conflicts.
You don't need to explain all of this to the players, but knowing it will help your world feel consistent, since there won't be a giant predator roaming around with nothing to prey on.
Intelligent Opposition
Sooner or later, monsters won't cut it, and you'll want some sapient antagonists to threaten the PCs. Intelligent enemies have a lot more agency, and they can even become major NPCs if you play your cards right. The main issue is where this opposition comes from.
In D&D-style games, the answer is often that orcs, goblins, gnolls, or other "monstrous races" just happen to live wherever the treasure is, and they'll try to stop the PCs from getting it. Except in that scenario, your PCs are breaking into someone else's home, killing them, and taking their stuff. The only justification most games offer is that the orcs are just "inherently evil," which has really racist implications. That's pretty terrible, and a growing number of players are not into it.
One way to avoid that problem is to have the intelligent opposition come from other treasure-seekers. Nothing like a little competition to spice things up, and it's the work of a moment to craft evil adventurers who will happily snuff the PCs out for a bigger share. You can also get a lot of mileage from semi-intelligent creatures like golems and robots. They have the smarts to match the PCs on tactics, but they don't have a living society for the party to disrupt.
If you're set on using intelligent enemies who live where the treasure is, you'll need to consider the context very carefully. For example, if your PCs are exploring the ruins of a fallen empire, and the enemies are a battalion of immortal imperial soldiers, that doesn't have the same connotations as the party's slaughtering a family of orcs. Much of the imperial treasure was likely plundered from the PCs' homeland in the first place, and if the immortal soldiers have plans to establish the empire, then they've got to be stopped anyway!
Finally, if you're set on using fantasy classics like orcs and goblins, consider flipping the script a little. Maybe the orc village will offer the PCs some treasure in exchange for clearing out a local monster infestation, or maybe they need someone to transport cargo through dangerous tunnels. Most options will be better than turning your party into a bunch of murderous burglars.
How Long Will the Treasure Last?
Roman_Ruins_at_Schönbrunn
Unless there's something actively replenishing the treasure in your setting, a time will come when it inevitably runs out. You have some flexibility in that timeline, since this is all an abstraction and you're not actually keeping track of each gold piece, but eventually your players will wonder how there can possibly be more stuff left.
How long this will be depends on your world's setup. If you're using an option where only the PCs can get to the treasure at all, then it could last for a very long while. If you've gone with a societal explanation, then it's only a matter of time before you get a gold-rush situation and the best stuff is picked clean.
A lot of campaigns won't go long enough for this to be an issue, but if it comes up at your table, you have a few options. First, you can switch to a different setting, or at least switch to a distant area of the same setting. Sure, the Highlands of Grell might be done, but the Planes of Erenthu await! This often requires rolling up new characters.
If you want to keep the campaign going in the same area, you can add new sources of treasure, but this has limits. The players may accept that there's a second layer of deeper ruins underneath the first, but once you mention a third layer, the side eyes will come out. A more reliable option is to change the style of play.
If your campaign started as a treasure-seeking adventure but you've run out of credible reasons for finding treasure, consider transitioning into a political or military game. All the free resources have been gobbled up, and now the people in power will try to consolidate and expand their control.
This kind of transition often works extremely well. The treasure-seeking portion of the game gets players invested in the world through the immediately understandable goal of getting treasure. Once you have that investment, you can move on to more abstract plots, like what kind of government your setting will have or which god is the best god.
Treasure-seeking campaigns are an important part of the RPG milieu and a great premise for your game. Players love the feeling of shiny copper pieces in their inventory, and the quest for new treasure can carry your party into all kinds of fun adventure. Just be sure you've built the world properly, or else your PCs will feel like they're picking up fairy gold that will vanish come sunrise.*
Treat your friends to an evening of dark ritual murder. In a fictional game scenario, of course. Uncover your lost memories and save the day in our stand-alone game, The Voyage.
Read more about Game Master Tips
Or both!
Including less intelligent artificial life like golems and robots.
Which, to be fair, could also be a fun campaign premise.
Great article, Oren. Lots to think about. Thinking through the implications of the artifacts, what type of people made them, and what happened to them, would be the key to making things more believable and interesting.
Another reason for why the treasures haven't been looted, could be time and ignorance. The old civilization died out centuries before the new one arrived on the scene. The roads and most of the buildings would be demolished by nature and there are few, if any, people living nearby. The legends tell of an advanced country far to the west. People think it means across the sea, when in fact it's just the next mountain range over. Travel was slower in the old days, so no one thinks it could be that close. Most people don't go wandering into the deep wilderness, so the chances of running across the leftover ruins would be very small.
Again, great article. Thanks for taking the time to write it. It's an example of why this site is so awesome.
Reply to Erich
Glad you liked it! Yeah, if no one knows about the treasure, that would make a good explanation. Though of course once the PCs start bringing gold back, the rush will be on!
Maybe the locations of old dungeons are recorded in texts rather than maps, many of which are written in a language that has only just been redeciphered. Phase one of the expedition is finding out if the dungeon's really there.
GeniusLemur
"While spiked pits and rolling death stones may have worked for D&D and Indiana Jones"
I'd also point out that it wasn't a even a universal thing in Indiana Jones: The Well of Souls wasn't boobytrapped, and neither was the map room.
Reply to GeniusLemur
Hey Oren, would you be willing to write a world-building article on monster creation? Specifically, I want to learn how to make monsters that the players don't feel bad about going all "medieval" on. I'd like some pointers on how to make monsters the players can fight without feeling racist, essentially.
I certainly include creatures/monsters with more human-like traits in my games, but it feels like a Pandora's box, where now everything can be negotiated with. Sometimes I just want a zombie to be …a zombie. And I don't know how to delineate that line clearly to players without just stating it outright, which can almost feel like railroading.
Thanks for writing, it gave me a lot to think about.
Reply to Ty
Hmm, you know at first I didn't know if I had enough to say on the topic but I think I might, so I'll add that to the list of ideas.
For now, if the issue is mostly with intelligent enemies, have you considered making them part of an expansionist empire? My own PCs aren't super into the idea of going into a dungeon and killing orcs, cause those orcs live there! What have they ever done to the party? But when I made the enemy a conquering elven army who wanted to take the PCs homes, they were super into it.
Yeah. Orcs pillaging the local farms and doing so as a prelude to war as ordered by the Orc emperor, does have a bunch of advantages.
It explains why the army hasn't fixed the orc raider problem (too busy with other matters).
It explains where the gold came from (stolen from people in the local area).
It removes the issue of civilian orcs and the Geneva convention.
It explains why the locals haven't organised a posse (these orcs have military issue weapons & armour and all passed the orc physical and orc bootcamp).
I believe that might be lake Geneva!?! Not sure.
Reply to Michael Campbell
Jenn H
You could make the main villain in the dungeon a human (or whatever the dominant species is). Especially one with links to one of the PCs. If they're sufficiently bad then the players won't have issues fighting them, and they could have all sorts of evil minions working for them (doubly good if the minions are created by magic and have no will of their own).
Reply to Jenn H
One way to have players feel that their characters are "chosen ones" is to have actual PC death be a real possibility within the game.
"Three of our nine PCs didn't make it out alive.
That explains why farmer Jones didn't give adventuring a try.
And our six remaining PCs survived.
Therefore the PCs must be special."
You do know, that you used the image of artificial ruins, wich where considered stylish in the 18th century (Roman_Ruins_at_Schönbrunn)?
Reply to Felix
A number of years back RPG.net had a thread about coming up with original purposes for apparent death traps: https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/necro-game-why-do-we-even-have-that-lever.600529/
Many of the answers are humourous, but some are serious, and some of the jokes might still lead to some inspiration (eg why have a throne trapped so as to strike people with lightning – originally it was a test, because the true king was blessed by the god of thunder).
There are lots of good options out there, especially when you move away from standard dungeon designs.
One thing I will add is that the source of treasure may not necessarily be ancient. A town may have been overrun with monsters only a few years ago, the survivors willing to let the adventurers take anything they find in payment for reclaiming their home. A powerful wizard recently died and the race is on to find where his rumored secret treasure horde is. A dragon has hired the party to test the security on his new lair, etc.
In one game I played in we found a town and fortress that was full of unlooted coins and jewelry. Suffice to say, we quickly discovered exactly why nobody had looted all this treasure, and left most of it behind.
Now I'm curious … why did you guys leave the loot? None of the groups I have played with would leave massive amounts of treasure behind. It. Is. Just. Not. Done.
Everything was cursed, especially the treasure.
The biggest danger though was the skeletons that were lying around everywhere. If someone got too close they would magically suck the life out of that person and start to reanimate. We couldn't find a way to neutralise them, they seamed to just absorb magic. The entrance to the fortress next to the town was barricaded from both sides, which is not a good sign.
We figured out what had killed everyone. The general in the fortress was so determined not to surrender the town that he used a stolen magical artefact to kill everyone (including himself) and reanimate them as undead that would protect the place (and all the treasure). We did manage to swipe a few unguarded things though.
Kenneth Mackay
How about forms of treasure that have only just become valuable?
The wine cellars of the ruined castle were filled with the produce of the local vineyards – not worth much. But since the war that ruined the castle also destroyed the vineyards, now, a generation or two later, that local wine has matured into a rare and sought-after vintage.
The kingdom's mithril mine is playing out – but there are legends of ancient mithril mines that were abandoned as too perilous (they delved too greedily and too deep – you know how it goes) and a fortune awaits anyone willing to brave the crumbling mine-workings and clear out whatever nameless horrors that have taken up residence, so the mines can be re-opened.
The plague ravaging the land has a cure – but the vital ingredient is a rare lichen only found among the caves and peaks of the mountainous wastelands. Someone must bring back a supply – and quickly!
The latest must-have delicacy at all the court's most prestigious soirees is the migratory dungeon truffle – gathered from the unplumbed depths of the deepest dungeons, of course…
In each case something that was commonplace, or at least known to exist, has suddenly rocketed in value – making the risk worthwhile.
Reply to Kenneth Mackay
Those are all excellent ideas for treasure. I think the issue you might run into is difficulty with repeating them. One of the things that defines most RPG campaigns is you need to produce new content every week, and if you're depending on a bunch of different scenarios to make formerly common items into valuable treasure, it might be hard to justify after a while.
You won't need a new type every week – the newly valuable goods will probably stay valuable for some time, at least enough for a few dungeons.
A real-world example:
In the opening years of the Kalgoorlie Gold Rush in western Australia (1893), the gold rushers kept finding so much calaverite (a silvery-gold metal) that they had mistaken for "Fool's Gold" (iron pyrite) that they used the rocks containing it for building purposes and filling in potholes.
A few years later, it was realized that calaverite was actually a combination of tellurium and gold – and the next phase of the gold rush began as people tore down buildings and dug up roads to get it.
One ought to be able to adapt this to a fantasy setting without any real difficulty…..
Reply to Richard
True – even if I could keep coming up with ideas for "suddenly valuable" treasure it would be obviously contrived. I was thinking of these ideas as something to mix in every so often with other forms of treasure-seeking – a change of pace, rather than a regular occurrence.
Maybe the local nation has fallen into a period of several contesting factions. Artefacts from the old ancestral empire weren't previously valuable to risk expeditions into dungeons for, but now there are many nobles who will pay dearly for the historical legitimacy they provide.
In my D&D campaign, The adventurer's found a portal to another plane of existence. The people who inhabited that plane have all mysteriously died (or have they? wink wink) and they left a ton of treasure and magic swag. Plenty of treasure, a reason it was left there, plenty of monsters guarding it, nobody to take it, and potential mystery.
Reply to Matthew
That sounds like a good explanation and a solid mystery! Will the PCs have rivals who can also open portals or all they all alone?
On the subject of Dungeon Murder:
I remember way back in the early 80's my D&D group was playing AD&D Against the Giants module series. We came on an area with giant children and their caregiver/nursemaid. The rules said to treat the kids as hobgoblins and bugbears for stats. There was never anything in the written module that questioned the assumption that these giant kids were there for being murdered for XP.
We had a paladin in the group. He didn't question it. None of the players (we were middle school age at the time) questioned it until I brought it up. We basically came to the conclusion that it's just a game, and we killed the children. But it did bother me.
I'm glad we've progressed in RPG philosophy since those days.
Reply to Greg S
Yikes, that's especially brutal. Most adventures I played back in the day just pretended the orcs living in this dungeon had no families. So glad we're starting to move on from that.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


I remember the first time I made a decision to do something for myself and my Fibromyalgia. "Self-care" my therapist called it. Giddily I took a nap with my new body pillow, a great way to be able to lay on my side but avoid the pain of pressure caused by my knees being one on top of the other, and the ache that came with no support for my upper arm and shoulder.
It sounds so simple, this kindness to myself. Somehow gravity had joined in the efforts of my Fibro to make even resting more painful, and I was feeling pretty sorry for myself.
Getting a pedicure had been my biggest idea previously for Self-Care, or buying higher quality dark chocolate. But doing something that would directly influence my constant companion in a positive way? This was a new thought! When Invisible even to yourself, it doesn't come naturally to pay attention to your body enough to think that far. Especially if the main thing you're feeling toward yourself comes with a big boo-boo lip.
I tend to hang out in the Mental/Emotional party room, trying to pick up pointers on how to stay out of the way of oncoming trains, or to accept and love myself flaws and all, yet I need to work on the rest.
While I was perusing the interweb, I found a simple yet profound explanation of these areas on the University of Texas at Dallas student counseling site. I may not know the Texas Two Step, but at 62 I find I'm still a student at this whole life thing.
Self-care is a necessary and vital part of maintaining emotional, physical and spiritual well-being. It's more than an occasional manicure or special treat. Self-care is a way of living each day incorporating behaviors that help you feel refreshed, replenish your motivation and help you grow as a person. Building reliable self-care habits now can affect your quality of life now and in the future.
Like anything else it takes practice. Here's the rest of the article listing ideas.
The BringYourOwnBeverage conversation: what area of your own life is the most difficult to practice self-care? What's one small thing you could introduce to your day to deal with the stress of this area?
Waaambulance?? Yes. Love that! One thing I do to try to be nice to myself is to put easy items on my to-do list (like eat breakfast or take a shower). That way I can cross things off and start to feel like I'm getting some things done. I try to help others (when I'm at my best) and make their lives a little easier and more positive, so I'm learning to do that for myself, too. The other thing I'm trying to do is to take the time to take walks, both for my health and my centeredness. Sometimes, when I'm being hard on myself, I feel like I don't have time for walks and I should be working instead. Such a lie.
And Waambulance is from the Bruce Willis movie The Kid.


There are 2 Credit Union locations in Reidsville North Carolina. Of those, one is a branch location and one is a Main Office. If you haven't found what you're looking for you can find all of the Credit Unions In North Carolina here.


text:
ILADS
ILADEF
Pioneer in Lyme Award
Leading Research
Physician Training Program
Lyme Disease FAQ
How to Handle a Tick Bite
Chronic Lyme Dos and Don'ts
About ILADEF
ILADEF > About ILADEF > Privacy Policy
The International Lyme and Associated Diseases Education Foundation is a sister organization of ILADS. Its missions are to train physicians in the diagnosis and treatment of Lyme and tick-borne disease, and to support research scientists investigating tick-borne diseases. The ILADEF Physician Training Program directly addresses challenges to properly diagnosing and treating Lyme and other tick-borne diseases, and provides physicians the opportunity to study with clinical experts in tick-borne diseases. By supporting ILADEF, you make it possible for physicians and scientists to provide better, life-changing research and care for patients with tick-borne disease.
The International Lyme and Associated Diseases Education Foundation is a sister organization of ILADS. Its missions are to train physicians in the diagnosis and treatment of Lyme and tick-borne disease, and to support research scientists investigating tick-borne diseases.
Please review our Privacy Policy to learn more about how ILADS and ILADEF use any information you provide about yourself.
Copyright © 2021 ILADEF
Contact ILADEF
2 Wisconsin Circle, Suite 700
Chevy Chase, MD 20815-7007
E contact@ilads.org
Connect with ILADS


text:
/**
 * Script for fast importing the csv data into DynamoDB online. Written for the DestinationSA project.
 *
 * ** Notice before using this script ***********
 * Temporarily set a larger number of write capacity units  (in my case the peak WCU was 18)
 * in provisioned capacity, otherwise some write requests might be throttled. Please notice
 * that request throttling MAY STILL happen if auto-scaling is enabled, since scaling up takes
 * time on AWS side. Make sure the minimum WCU is high enough, and double check on the cloud side to
 * confirm that all items are put to the database. If the total number is incorrect, it might be
 * helpful to check the write capacity metrics to determine the ideal WCU for this upload.
 *
 * See README.md for more information.
 *
 * FYI AWS provides a more reliable paid data import service called Data Pipeline.
 * **********************************************
 *
 * -- CSV format ---------------------
 * longitude,latitude
 * 138.4xxxxx,-34.9xxxxx
 * ...
 * -----------------------------------
 *
 * -- Format of data put to table -----
 * id (primary key, hashed): String,
 * agency: 'DPTI',
 * is_dynamic: 'true',
 * longitude: Number,
 * latitude: Number
 * ------------------------------------
 *
 * My regards to Hassan Siddique for providing a good starting point:
 * https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32678325/how-to-import-bulk-data-from-csv-to-dynamodb
 *
 * @author Stephen Tse <Stephen.Xie@sa.gov.au>
 * @version 1.0.2
 */

'use strict';

const fs = require('fs');
const csvParser = require('csv-parse');
const crypto = require('crypto');
const async = require('async');

const AWS = require('aws-sdk');
AWS.config.update({ region: 'ap-southeast-2' });
const dynamo = new AWS.DynamoDB.DocumentClient({ convertEmptyValues: true });

// ** Set up variables here ********************************
const csv_filename = 'devices.csv';
const table_name = 'Device';

// additional properties to be included
const agency = 'DPTI';
const is_dynamic = 'true';
// *********************************************************

const rs = fs.createReadStream(csv_filename);
const parser = csvParser({
    auto_parse: true,
    columns : true,
    delimiter : ','
}, function(err, data) {
    const max_reqs = 25;  // maximum put requests for one batchWrite() allowed by AWS
    let itemSet = {};  // the raw csv dataset contains duplicates; used this as a hash set to detect duplicates
    let jobStack = [];  // a stack of request parameters for batchWrites
    let itemCount = 0;  // total number of items processed
    let duplicateCount = 0;  // total number of duplicate items

    // construct job stack
    while (data.length > 0) {
        // parameter template for batchWrite()
        const params = {
            RequestItems: {
                [table_name]: []
            }
        }
        // extract 25 items from start of data, then create a new job with 25 put requests
        data.splice(0, max_reqs).forEach((item) => {
            let id = item.longitude.toString() + item.latitude.toString() + agency;
            let hashedId = crypto.createHash('md5').update(id, 'utf8').digest('hex');  // create hashed id as per requirement

            if (!itemSet[hashedId]) {  // this is a new item
                params.RequestItems[table_name].push({
                    PutRequest: {
                        Item: {  // ** Also modify item schema here **********
                            id: hashedId,
                            longitude: item.longitude,
                            latitude: item.latitude,
                            agency: agency,
                            is_dynamic: is_dynamic
                        }  // ************************************************
                    }
                });
                itemSet[hashedId] = true;  // add this item to the set
                itemCount++;
            } else {
                duplicateCount++;
                console.log(`Duplicate item found: long = ${item.longitude}, lat = ${item.latitude}; skipped.`);
            }
        });
        jobStack.push(params);  // push this job to the stack
    }

    let chunkNo = 0;  // number of each batchWrite operation

    // issue batchWrite() for each job in the stack; use async.js to better handle the asynchronous processing
    async.each(jobStack, (params, callback) => {
        //console.log(JSON.stringify(params), "\n");
        chunkNo++;
        dynamo.batchWrite(params, callback);
        //callback();
    }, (err) => {
        if (err) {
            console.log(`Chunk #${chunkNo} write unsuccessful: ${err.message}`);
        } else {
            console.log('\nImport operation completed! Do double check on DynamoDB for actual number of items stored.');
            console.log(`Total batchWrite requests issued: ${chunkNo}`);
            console.log(`Total valid items processed: ${itemCount}`);
            console.log(`Total number of duplicates in the raw data: ${duplicateCount}`);
        }
    });

});
rs.pipe(parser);  // pipe the file readable stream to configured csv parser

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


The goal of LEVERANO HORIZON TOWER competition is to make the most of the landscape of Arneo by promoting the projecting of tower observatories located close to rural tracks and roads leading from Leverano to the sea, able to reinterpret in a modern way the tradition of the typical towers of Salento. The new observatories will have the double function of new privileged observation points of the local landscape, allowing the visitor to have a 360° complete vision on the referred territory, and of stop areas (rest zones, selling points for local products, shops for sustainable means of transport) hosting services for tourists going to the sea.
The main objective is to encourage a new idea of touristic development for the territory, thanks to an innovative model of accommodation facility crossing and regenerating the territory in all its aspects (villages, rural ares, coast). We remain at your disposal for any further information.


Difference between revisions of "Color Codes"
Use of colors in the pages of the Jesus Database is intended as a shorthand way to express the historical and theological judgments reported by Fellows of the Jesus Seminar. As with the schema used by John Dominic Crossan (+, -, ±) these assessments are indicative only, and should not be taken as prescriptive.
This page was last modified on 13 September 2013, at 14:59.


text:
BLOCKFREI
PARTICIPANTS – CURATORS' AGENDA: VIENNA 2019
Curators' Agenda: VIENNA 2019, News, Particiants
Chiarina Chen (China/USA, 1990) is a New York and Beijing based curator and producer. She explores relational systems in posthuman paradigm and constructs interactive projects that evoke the linkage between human and multi others by merging technology and multi art forms, such as video-photography, AI narrative writing, cyborg activities, sound installation and theatrical performance. Throughout the practices she's been actively applying curatorial methods to pedagogic fields, too. Chen is affiliated with the Asian Institute of Innovative Education, American Society of Media Photography (ASMP), Posthuman Research Group (NY), she is also the founder
Curators' Agenda: VIENNA 2018, Particiants
Camilla Cole (UK, 1985) studied History of Art at UCL and Curating at Goldsmiths, London. She has worked in commercial galleries and private collections and managed the organization of international exhibitions. Camilla specialized in temporary site-specific group exhibitions taking place in disused spaces and showcasing emerging as well as established artists. At the moment, she is working independently, focusing her research on developing and future technologies and their influence on culture and nature. Most recently, she coordinated the exhibition Invasive Behaviour, which explored ideas of downloaded personalities, emotions constituted by
Bahar Ahu Sağın (Turkey, 1984) is working as an exhibition projects specialist at Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Istanbul. She holds a BA degree in Economics from Koç University and is completing her MA degree in Arts Management at Yeditepe University. She is currently conducting her thesis research on collaborative art practices. Her main research is concentrated on media and performance arts. She is also a collaborator in the amberplatform, which explores the possible affinities between the fields of art and technology. Ilaria Goglia (Italy, 1982) is an art historian and emerging
Adelina Luft (Romania/Indonesia, 1991) is a freelance curator, art manager and writer based in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. She is specialized in Southeast Asian Contemporary Art with a Master in Visual Art Studies. Her current research revolves around curatorial practices in biennials from a peripheral country in the context of art globalization. Aviya Cohen (Israel, 1987) is a writer, scholar and curator working in Jerusalem with a focus on philosophy of technology and theory of art. Cima Azzam (Palestine/Jordan, 1986) is a graphic designer and emerging curator. Azzam currently works at Meem Gallery in
Participants – Critics' Agenda: VIENNA 2017
Critics' Agenda: VIENNA 2017, Particiants
Andrey Shental (Russia) is an art critic and curator based in Moscow. He holds a BA in Art Criticism at the Moscow State University (Russia) and MA in Critical Theory at Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at the Kingston University (UK). He is a contributor to several publications including Artchronika, Colta, Art Territory, IDEA, MetaMute, Art Leaks, Little Joe, Frieze, Raznoglasiya, Aperto as well as catalogues, where he publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on art, culture, philosophy and politics. He has worked as a senior editor at Theory
Particiants
Cima Azzam (Palestine/Jordan) Aviya Cohen (Israel) Mahzabin Haque (Bangladesh) Liudmila Kirsanova (Russia) Theresa Kneppers (USA/UK) Adelina Luft (Romania/Indonesia) Erika Martin (Costa Rica) Raffaella M. Matrone (Italy) Evelin Pál (Hungary) Lorena Parada (Colombia) Katarzyna Sobucka (Poland/UK) Gabriele Tosi (Italy)
Aidan Li (China/Australia) Alexandra Nitschke (Australia) Bruna Grinsztejn João (Brasil) Federica Brigo (Italy) Inês Jorge (Portugal) Lorena Moreno Vera (Mexico) Sophie Wallace (New Zealand) Ângela Susana Rodrigues (Portugal) Teja Rot (Slovenia) ← Curators' Agenda: VIENNA 2015
Participants – Curators Connection 2013
Curators' Connection: VIENNA – BUDAPEST 2013, Particiants
Ashlee Conery (Canada) Holeng (Singapore) Jordana Franklin (Canada) Kimi Kitada (USA) Roberta Palma (Italy) Roland Ramos (USA) Ya'el Santopinto (Canada) ← Curators Connection: VIENNA – BUDAPEST 2013
BLOCKFREI is an independent cultural organization based in Vienna. It was established in 2013 as a platform for innovative cultural praxis, with the goal to support the cooperation between cultural groups from Austria and South-Eastern Europe. BLOCKFREI embodies the concept of mobility of artists and cultural professionals, strongly believing that multicultural projects are of the highest importance and inevitability part of the global cultural and geopolitical sphere.
BLOCKFREI – Verein für Kultur und Kommunikation
info@blockfrei.org
Authorized representative:
Nevena Janković
ZVR - Zahl: 750501749
BIC/SWIFT: GIBAATWWXXX
small donation - a good start
midsize donation - keep the ball rolling
Give a Custom Amount
Make this an anonymous donation
Acceptance of any contribution, gift or grant is at the discretion of the BLOCKFREI.
BLOCKFREI will not accept any gift unless it can be used or expended consistently with the purpose and mission of the BLOCKFREI.
BLOCKFREI will refrain from providing advice about the tax or other treatment of gifts and will encourage donors to seek guidance from their own professional advisers to assist them in the process of making their donation.
BLOCKFREI will accept donations of cash or publicly traded securities. Gifts of in-kind services will be accepted at the discretion of the BLOCKFREI.
Certain other gifts, real property, personal property, in-kind gifts, non-liquid securities, and contributions whose sources are not transparent or whose use is restricted in some manner, must be reviewed prior to acceptance due to the special obligations raised or liabilities they may pose for BLOCKFREI.
BLOCKFREI will provide acknowledgements to donors meeting tax requirements for property received by the charity as a gift. However, except for gifts of cash and publicly traded securities, no value shall be ascribed to any receipt or other form of substantiation of a gift received by BLOCKFREI.
BLOCKFREI will respect the intent of the donor relating to gifts for restricted purposes and those relating to the desire to remain anonymous. With respect to anonymous gifts, the BLOCKFREI will restrict information about the donor to only those staff BLOCKFREI will not compensate, whether through commissions, finders' fees, or other means, any third party for directing a gift or a donor to the BLOCKFREI.
Donation Total:	€10.00


These pretty flower in a pot party favors are perfect for birthdays, weddings, showers, and more! Keep reading to learn how simple they are to make.
My middle daughter turned 15 a few weeks ago. When she was younger, it was easy. I would have a birthday party themed to whatever her favorite cartoon character was that year. We did Blues Clues, Dora the Explorer, the Little Mermaid, and many other cartoon themed birthdays over the years.
Now that my daughter is a teenager, she is well past the age of themed birthday parties. However, I still like to do something special for her. So this year I made a bunch of these small flower pot favors for her and her friends. They were a big hit!
These flower pot party favors would look so cute sitting on the table at each place setting. Or you could put them all on a separate table so guest can grab them on the way out.
You can find mini flower pots for favors at any large craft store. You want the 2 inch ones. I found mine in a six pack at Michaels, but I am pretty sure Hobby Lobby has them too. Or if you don't have them in your area, you can get them on Amazon with free Prime shipping.
If you would prefer a video showing how to make these flower in a pot favors, you can just press play on the video above.
The first step for making these flower pot party favor is to stamp the flower images. You can use any of the designs in the Flower Shop stamp set or you can make a mixture of all of them. For my sample, I used Berry Burst ink, but you can use any color that matches your party decorations.
For each of the flower in a pot favors, you will need 1 or 2 stamped pansy images. If you don't care if people just see the stick on the back, then 1 flower per favor is fine. If you want the favor to look the same from the front and back sides, then you will need an additional stamped flower to cover the stick on the back side.
Next you need to cut out all your stamped flower images. The Pansy Punch makes quick work of this, but you can fussy cut the flowers if you don't have the punch.
Use a wood coffee stirrer for the flower stems. Alternately, you can use Wilton Lollipop sticks. I prefer the wood coffee stirrers though because they are flat.
If you are using the 7 inch coffee stirrers, then you will need to cut off about 2 inches from one of the ends. No need to measure, just eyeball it. Wood coffee stirrers cut easily with scissors.
Use mini glue dots to stick the flower image(s) to the coffee stirrer. If you want the flower themed party favors to look the same from both sides, be sure to add a flower to the backside of the coffee stirrer too. You might need to rotate the flower around a bit until it matches the shape of the front flower.
Please note that these flower shapes are not symmetrical, so you are never going to get the shapes to line up perfectly. If that bothers you, only put a flower on the front side.
For these small flower pot favors, you will need a plastic bag of some sort to hold your candy. Terra cotta pots are not food-safe. So you want any candy inside a plastic bag.
I didn't have any small cellophane bags on hand and didn't feel like running to the store, so I made do with plastic sandwich bags. Sandwich bags worked just fine and are inexpensive. You will need to cut them down a bit though.
You will want to cut the corner out of the sandwich bag to hold your candy. I cut up from about halfway across the bottom edge and then I cut across about 2/3 of the way up the bag. This gives you a nice little pouch to hold your candy.
Insert the bag into the mini flower pot, pushing all the way down to the bottom. Fill with small candies like M&M's or Sixlets. You want to fill the pot all the way up to help hold the stick in place later.
Insert the stick with the flower on it into the candy. Then bunch the bag around the stick.
Cut a 12 inch length of 1/4″ ribbon and tie it into a bow to close the candy bag. I used 1/4″ Daffodil Delight Double-Stitched Ribbon for my daughter's flower in a pot favors. However you can use any color you like.
The only thing you need to do to finish these flower in a pot party favors is add a glitter enamel dot to the center. I used yellow to match the ribbon.
My daughter and her friends really enjoyed these small flower pot favors. I got so many nice comments about them from all the girls.
In addition to birthdays, these flower themed party favors would work well for wedding favors, bridal showers, sweet sixteen parties, or baby showers. You could even make one up to give to a friend or co-worker to brighten their day. The possibilities are endless!
If you enjoyed this Flower Pot Party Favors Post, be sure to check out the rest of my party favor ideas.
If you make any of these flower in a pot favors, you will have to come back here and let me know how they turned out. I would love to hear from you! So tell me… have you made any party favors lately?
What a cute project! I love the flower stamps. Thanks for linking up at the Ultimate Pinterest Party last week! Your post was featured on my co-hosts page today for the new party. Can't wait to see what you share this week!
Visiting from Create Link Inspire. These are really cute. They will make great place settings this spring. Thanks for sharing.


Congratulations to "Kai" and "Mary P", the winners of Winter's giveaway. Thank you to all who participated!
When my agent and I were getting ready to submit my series we wanted to come up with a series title that fit all four books. So, while she was painting her rental house and I was doing some research online, we texted back and forth with ideas. Taking the concept that it was a novel series that held focus on police procedure, I wanted something that portrayed that point. And we both knew the series would progressively get darker with the content. As we tossed ideas back and forth my agent eventually hit on the name; Degrees of Darkness. Degrees to represent the degrees of murder charges. And Darkness, well, because of the dark factor.
Satisfied with the series title we ran with it. Thereafter, my publisher Crimson Romance, picked up the whole four book series. To date books 1-3 are available, and 4 is set to release at the end of March 2014.
A ghost returns. An Assassin with an unholy connection to Remy's past. And this time there's more at stake.
As Remy closes in on the nameless faces who have controlled his life for too long, his ability to save himself and those closest to him is tested, putting everyone he cares for and loves in grave danger. And this time, Cody may face the reality of his death.
Some dark secrets are best left in the past, but in order to move on with her new life, Cody must face the one deadly secret that took her mother's life.
For the weekend to 2 lucky winners I'm giving away 1 copy of the winner's choice of books 1-3 of the Degrees of Darkness, Relentless, Retribution, or Revenge.
Giveaway ends 11:59pm EST Jan. 12th. Please supply your email in the post. You may use spaces or full text for security. (ex. jsmith at gmail dot com) If you do not wish to supply your email, or have trouble posting, please email maureen@JustRomanticSuspense.com with a subject title of JRS GIVEAWAY to be entered in the current giveaway.
It looks like an exciting series and that was a good title. I do like romantic suspense with a dark story since it is balanced by the romance.
Wow! This looks like a terrific series but I really want to read Retribution.
This sounds like a great series Winter. I also like your titles! Please enter me in your draw.
The series title does seem most appropriate. The books look like exciting reads.
This sounds like a very exciting series.
This series sounds and looks good. I am most interested in Retribution. Love the book description. Thanks for the book description and the interview.


Media Misters are permanent, acid free and transparent professional grade misters. Can be used alone or over Media Fluid Acrylics. Use with or without stencils an masking materials to create unique cards, scrapbook images and background washes. Colours are intermixable and can also be layered for multidimensional effects.


text:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/xhtml;charset=UTF-8"/>
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=9"/>
<meta name="generator" content="Doxygen 1.8.4"/>
<title>Game Engine July 2013: GameEngineJuly2013.Code.PronounSet Class Reference</title>
<link href="tabs.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>

<link href="navtree.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>

<link href="search/search.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>

<link href="doxygen.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

Game Engine July 2013
    0.0.0

Yet another attempt. This one will *totally* work!

Main Page

Packages

Classes

          <input type="text" id="MSearchField" value="Search" accesskey="S"
               onfocus="searchBox.OnSearchFieldFocus(true)"
               onblur="searchBox.OnSearchFieldFocus(false)"
               onkeyup="searchBox.OnSearchFieldChange(event)"/>

Class List

Class Index

Class Hierarchy

Class Members

 All Classes Namespaces Functions Enumerations

Public Member Functions |
Static Public Member Functions |
List of all members

GameEngineJuly2013.Code.PronounSet Class Reference

A set of pronouns to be used for people.
 More...

Public Member Functions

string 	GetSubjectForm ()

 	Accessor for the subject form of the pronoun set.  More...

string 	GetObjectForm ()

 	Accessor for the direct/indirect object form of the pronoun set.  More...

string 	GetPossessiveForm ()

 	Accessor for the possessive form of the pronoun set.  More...

string 	GetPossessiveObjectForm ()

 	Accessor for the possessive direct/indirect object form of the pronoun set.  More...

string 	GetReflexiveForm ()

 	Accessor for the reflexive form of the pronoun set.  More...

Static Public Member Functions

static PronounSet 	GetMaleSet ()

 	Accessor for the set of masculine pronouns.  More...

static PronounSet 	GetFemaleSet ()

 	Accessor for the set of feminine pronouns.  More...

static PronounSet 	GetNeuterSet ()

 	Accessor for the set of gender-neutral pronouns.  More...

static PronounSet 	GetPluralSet ()

 	Accessor for the set of plural pronouns.  More...

static PronounSet 	GetSecondPersonSet ()

 	Accessor for the set of second-person pronouns.  More...

Detailed Description

A set of pronouns to be used for people.

Member Function Documentation

          static PronounSet GameEngineJuly2013.Code.PronounSet.GetFemaleSet
          (
          )

static

Accessor for the set of feminine pronouns.

Returns

the set of feminine pronouns

          static PronounSet GameEngineJuly2013.Code.PronounSet.GetMaleSet
          (
          )

static

Accessor for the set of masculine pronouns.

Returns

the set of masculine pronouns

          static PronounSet GameEngineJuly2013.Code.PronounSet.GetNeuterSet
          (
          )

static

Accessor for the set of gender-neutral pronouns.

Returns

the set of gender-neutral pronouns

          string GameEngineJuly2013.Code.PronounSet.GetObjectForm
          (
          )

Accessor for the direct/indirect object form of the pronoun set.

Returns

the (in)direct object form of the pronoun set

          static PronounSet GameEngineJuly2013.Code.PronounSet.GetPluralSet
          (
          )

static

Accessor for the set of plural pronouns.

Returns

the set of plural pronouns

          string GameEngineJuly2013.Code.PronounSet.GetPossessiveForm
          (
          )

Accessor for the possessive form of the pronoun set.

Returns

the possessive form of the pronoun set

          string GameEngineJuly2013.Code.PronounSet.GetPossessiveObjectForm
          (
          )

Accessor for the possessive direct/indirect object form of the pronoun set.

Returns

the possessive (in)direct form of the pronoun set

          string GameEngineJuly2013.Code.PronounSet.GetReflexiveForm
          (
          )

Accessor for the reflexive form of the pronoun set.

Returns

the relfexive form of the pronoun set

          static PronounSet GameEngineJuly2013.Code.PronounSet.GetSecondPersonSet
          (
          )

static

Accessor for the set of second-person pronouns.

Returns

the set of second-person pronouns

          string GameEngineJuly2013.Code.PronounSet.GetSubjectForm
          (
          )

Accessor for the subject form of the pronoun set.

Returns

the subject form of the pronoun set

The documentation for this class was generated from the following file:

Code/Meta Classes/PronounSet.cs

GameEngineJuly2013

Code

PronounSet

Generated on Tue Jul 2 2013 10:41:32 for Game Engine July 2013 by

     1.8.4


text:
Home › Industry›People
Trevor May Named VP Purchasing, US & Canada For D&H Distributing
May's duties expanded to oversee purchasing and inventory-based duties across North America
TWICE Staff ⋅ Published: January 21, 2020
Trevor May, Vice President of Purchasing, US & Canada, D&H Distributing
D&H Distributing announced it has promoted Trevor May to the position of Vice President of Purchasing, US & Canada today. May joined D&H in 2017 as Executive Director, Vendor Management to oversee D&H's housewares and consumer electronics business, after a decades-long career with several major national retailers.
"I'm thrilled to continue leveraging my skills as part of the talented team at D&H, extending my role across both the IT and CE markets, and also across North America," said May in a statement. "I look forward to seeing that translate to greater value for the company's community of partners."
"As Trevor's tenure has progressed at D&H, we've been impressed with his ability to optimize purchasing operations, to deliver products to our customers on-time and when they need it, resulting in an industry-leading customer experience," said Tim Billing, senior vice president of vendor management and purchasing at D&H in a statement. "We're happy to see his position continue to expand as D&H grows, and as we work to create more superior business experiences for our partners."
Most recently, May was overseeing D & H's company-wide purchasing team, implementing tools to assist in exceeding customer fill-rate requirements and being first-to-market in delivering the newest products and technologies to thousands of D&H's loyal customers. He is tasked with further improving the partner experiences and ease-of-doing business with D&H.
D&H partners can call (800) 877-1200 or visit www.dandh.com to speak to their account representatives and for information about the company. For details on D&H's new, expanded headquarters at Tech Drive in Harrisburg, visit www.dandh.com/techdrive.
See also: D&H Distributing Announces 2020 Trend And Product Focus
Tags ⋅ D&H ⋅ D&H Distributing ⋅ distributors ⋅ People ⋅ Trevor May
By TWICE Staff
First Look At D&H Distributing Headquarters
Q&A With D&H Distributing's Senior VP Jeff Davis
D&H Sees 15 – 20% Growth In Retail Sales Since May
Oct. 16 Celebration Scheduled For New, Expanded D&H Distributing Headquarters
D&H Distributing Announces 2020 Trend And Product Focus
D&H Distributing Holding Hershey Tech Show Next Week
D&H Distributing Receives "Samsung Smart Signage" Award For Best Distribution Growth
Hershey Kisses D&H Distributing
Kim Named LGE Marketing VP
Lageyre Joins SED As Sr. VP U.S. Purchasing


text:
FashionBeautyArts & LifestyleCatwalkNewsVideo
Paris Jackson Opens Up
By Naomi Pike 26 January 2017
In her first long-read interview, model and actress Paris Jackson has opened up about her personal struggles and discussed in depth the path her life has taken since the death of her father Michael Jackson in 2009.
"It's obvious. All arrows point to that," the 18-year-old told Rolling Stone, alluding that the cause of her father's death might have been deliberate. "All real fans and everybody in the family knows it," she continued. "It was a setup."
Her father, often known as the "king of pop", died of an acute propofol and benzodiazepine overdose and his doctor, Conrad Murray, was given a two-year sentence for involuntary manslaughter in 2011.
While his death was a shock to the world, one person that Paris revealed it might not have been a shock for was Michael himself. The LA-based teen shared that her father was often suspicious of those closest to him. "He would drop hints about people being out to get him... And at some point he was like, 'They're gonna kill me one day.'"
The interview - which hit newsstands in the same week that Paris attended the couture shows in her namesake city and was photographed on a shoot set in head-to-toe Chanel - also revealed the struggles that she has faced in her formative years.
Struggling with "self-hatred" and "thinking that I couldn't do anything right, not thinking I was worthy of living anymore", Paris tried to take her own life aged 15, so headed to a therapeutic school in Utah to recover.
This wasn't the first time. Years of self-harm, previous suicide attempts and drug abuse have taken their toll on her body. Now, she uses body art to conceal the scars boasting 50 tattoos - nine of which are dedicated to her father.
© Paris Jackson/Instagram
She also chose the cover interview as the platform to share that she was sexually assaulted aged 14 by a "complete stranger" a lot older than herself. "I don't wanna give too many details," she said of the attack. "But it was not a good experience at all, and it was really hard for me, and, at the time, I didn't tell anybody."
Now in her late teens, Paris is living in one of her father's studios and is dating drummer Michael Snoddy and is "happier than she has ever been." Just take a look at their recent trip to the city of lights: serious couple goals.
Miss VogueMiss Vogue What's UpParis Jackson
Adut Akech Opens Up About Struggling With Depression In A Candid Instagram Post
By Hannah Coates 3 January 2020
What Really Matters To Facebook's Nicola Mendelsohn Following Her Diagnosis With Incurable Cancer?
By Susan Devaney 18 November 2019
Zoë Kravitz Shares Photos From Inside Her Summer Wedding In Paris
By Kerry McDermott 1 January 2020
CN TravellerGlamourGQHouse & GardenJohansensLoveTatlerVanity FairWiredWorld of Interiors


text:
Q: Check enter and leave Preferences I'm using a PreferenceFragment and some headers to manage my application settings like in this official tutorial: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/settings.html#Fragment
You can call Preferences by the ActionBar in several Activities.
Now I want to detect, if a user enters oder leaves the preferences. How can I do that?
My approach is using the lifecycle methods like: onCreate, onResume, onPause ....
But is there another solution like a listener or something else?

A: You can override onBackPressed on PreferenceFragment to call a interface method that is implemented on your caller/s activity.
That way you can notify what you need to your activitys.
public interface PreferenceInterface
{
   public abstract void preferencesClosed();
   public abstract void preferencesOpened();
}

I hope this is what you are looking for.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


They had the winds for a while. Didn't think of doing any really good video stuff. Then when I looked at it... I was sorry I didn't do a better job. Hope you guys like, I surely appreciate what they are doing.
They are bad.... Vertigo out !!
Vert..... i love your hair - its s&%#*.
Did the kite boarders take your spot?
That's my alternative spot when the beach is jammed. They took it... In those winds they could have it..
Danno..nothing about nothing,but the word is the Solus is going into production. Since you are looking at a WM and vented you need to know. I flew my WM with all the wind blown out last Wednesday winds were strong. Mamba's had flaps... the Solus was being flown with 4 marks to go. I was shocked to find this out. I was on 100lb 125' on Std WM... Devon was flying 100' 150lb. lines. When we swtiched I was shocked.
I am nobody to comment on a good kite or bad one. This is what I found out to be true. The NEW "Solus" fly's like a Widow Maker in low or very high Winds. It really dominates the WM in high end winds.
It'll be going in full swing soon! Whenever Jon gets back into the shop hopefully!
Thanks for sharing. I really enjoy watching kite surfing. But, got to say the hair was the best part.
Hey Vert - thanks for the heads up - mostly inland type wind here - but we're very close to the mountains - so higher winds do come through. Thats why i was looking at the talon vent (and i f'ing love my talon ul) as it still has a decent low end.
Your hair looks like my Avitar (is that what they call my pic?).
Maybe if you didn't hold you Light Saber so close to you noggin your hair would behave. (see video at 0:12 sec in to understand).
Danno I flew the "Solus"again today.... Order one today ... High wind flyer as well as low winds. This kite is a must for people with high wind trouble. It also fly's in low wind. I was flying Ocius sul Devin was flying "Solus"...Winds picked way up later on in the day. No problem we kicked wind out. One notch. Still had three more adjustments. The bridle has more adjustments that WM.
I wish I had one for you to try. I was thinking about a Vented one for sale in the swap. A Mamba vented GREAT price. I have a Mamba but if the wind is high I fly my WM. I can kick the wind out. But No comparison on the two WM vs. Solus. They fly the same exactly ... except on it's high end ...forget it.
It just feels heavy but it has to in order to fly that high end.
He loves to fly right next to you. He demands you fly as close to his kite as possible. I use to be afraid to fly close to him,but he makes you get over fear.. If we crash so what...We fly and do what we want but must watch out of the side of your eye for Devin's kite. He'll move it qucikly enough. But right next to him watching and being pushed is a rush. Drill Sgt. Devin..little creep -O.
We had a great time Wednesday and today.. That Solus is the first production model we also are flying the heck out of the proto... BTW........ Devin has helped in the design of this kite with Jon and Wayne.. everybody getting a paid day on this one.
That Solus was the first sail from Mike&Pam and we just are testing to see if it flys different from the sail Jon sewed. Hopefully will have another one by next weekend. Btw joe, I think you need to have a hairday like that for KOBC bahahha.


In the late 1800's, Horatio Spafford planned to travel to Europe with his wife and four daughters. Having just endured great financial loss because of the Great Chicago Fire, he was delayed in his ability to leave at the same time as his family. Not wanting to deter their original plans, he sent his wife and four daughters ahead of him.
However, as his wife and daughters were crossing the Atlantic, their ship sunk. His wife, Anna, the lone survivor of their family, sent him a telegraph with two words: "Saved alone…." All four of their daughters had drowned.
Can you imagine the emotions Horatio felt, when sailing through the same spot that he lost all four of his daughters and saying "it is well with my soul"? Horatio's strong faith and thankful spirit to God were his only source of strength in writing such powerful words!
As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving with our family and friends, it is easy to thank God for the blessings in life such as a working car, a new baby, a raise at work, a bountiful harvest or a clean bill of health.
But what about when troubles and hardships come our way? Do we thank God for the trials that He gives us? Do we encounter a setback and sing to God "it is well with my soul" like Horatio?
Not usually! Let's be honest, it is downright unnatural to thank God in troublesome times! How do we react when our bank accounts are drained and we are unsure of how we will pay our bills? Our natural inclination is not to thank God!
What about when we are experiencing marital problems or when we are sitting on the side of the road because our car broke down again? Do we thank God when the doctor tells us the cancer has returned? Again, our natural inclination is not to thank God, right?
What is our natural inclination? We shake our fist at God and demand why me, why us, why now? We are no different than the Israelites in the Old Testament. Despite God having delivered them out of Egypt and providing for them along the way, what did they do? They complained and grumbled. What did Moses say in response to all the complaining? He tells the Israelites that their complaints are not against him but against the Lord!
Our family has had several major car problems in the last few months as well as multiple kitchen appliances that have decided to call it quits. To be honest, my first inclination was not to thank God when these things happened! I'm pretty sure I mumbled and grumbled complaints about why us, why now.
When we have an unthankful heart it is the Lord we are complaining against. (The car doesn't care if we yell at it!) In our thanklessness, we are telling God that we don't believe that He is in control of ALL things. We are communicating to God that we think we know what's best for us more so than He does!
While I was thinking about writing this article, my husband and I had a disagreement about something. Heated words were exchanged and I wasn't too happy with my husband. Later in the day, I went for a walk down to the Mississippi River with my daughter. As I was sitting looking out at the beauty of the river, I started to think about what I was trying to encourage other people to do – to thank God in difficult times.
I actually smiled because I knew what I should do but didn't want to do! I didn't want to thank God for the test in our marriage. I stumbled and choked out a muffled "thank you God for this trial." It was extremely difficult to say out loud!
But the Bible has a lot to say about thankfulness. When things are going well, we praise God and thank Him for it. That's the easy part. But when things quickly spiral out of our control and problems sprout up, we quickly forget to acknowledge that God is sovereign (in good times as well as bad) and in control of every area of our lives.
Think about David in the Bible. As King Saul sought to kill him, David wrote, "But I have trusted in Your mercy; My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me." (Psalm 13:5-6) David experienced hard times throughout his entire life and yet we read over and over again in the Psalms his thankfulness to God in all things.
Do you share David's thankful heart? Do you only thank God for the pleasant parts of life or do you thank Him for EVERYTHING?
As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving with our loved ones, let us remember to have thankful hearts at all times, in all circumstances. May we rejoice in ALL things because we know our Heavenly Father knows what is best for us! May the hard times we experience make our faith pure as we rely on God for all things!
Want To Get Our New Audio Adventure St. Bartholomew's Eve For FREE?


Back in July I presented a program on loons at the Lake Fairlee association annual meeting. We lined this up last year after a summer of consistent loon activity on the lake and after a rescue of a loon that had ingested fishing line. Increasing the level of awareness about what loons and loon pairs need to be successful is one of first steps to assist loons on busy lakes, especially if there is a future nest attempt. And "busy" just begins to describe the activity on Lake Fairlee with at least 3 residential summer camps, a public beach, a very active boat access area, and a highly developed shoreline with all the associated activities. In May and June, however, the waters are fairly peaceful and it can be relatively quiet during the mid-week in July. Loons could reside here as a pair but it would be challenging.
A week prior to the Lake Fairlee meeting, we discovered a failed loon nest on Fairfield Pond in northwest Vermont. For the past two summers, lake residents have noted an increase in loon activity. Last summer I took a tour of the pond and looked for potential nesting habitat and pointed out the main island and a marsh at the south end. This year's first ever nest attempt was on the island. Fairfield Pond is also a busy place, although maybe a notch below the activity on Lake Fairlee. However, the island is a favorite spot for boaters, swimmers, and anglers and will require a major shift in human behavior if the loons are to be successful there.
The day before heading down to Lake Fairlee, I learned that Fairfield Pond was having their annual meeting on the same day. I added this meeting to my agenda to plant the seed about staying off the island until early to mid-summer if the loons try to nest there again. Thus, I had the day of the Fair-Ponds.
Both meetings went well with lots of enthusiasm from the lake residents. We still need to contact the owner of the island on Fairfield Pond as a next step. Loon activity on Lake Fairlee has not been constant this year, so it is doubtful we have a pair forming yet. Building support and reaching people who might not otherwise receive information about loons and lake habitat takes time, and these were some good early steps in the process.


Despite its name, the Galapagos shark is not endemic to the Galapagos Marine Reserve, but it is a common sighting at many dive sites in Galapagos.
The Galapagos shark is a species of requiem shark – a family of migratory, live-bearing sharks found in warm waters. Despite its name, the Galapagos shark is found all over the world, but it was first discovered in what is now the Galapagos Marine Reserve. They are quite large for their genus, and have the stereotypically slender, streamlined shark-shaped body. They have 14 rows of serrated teeth that are triangular on the top and sharper on the bottom. Galapagos sharks closely resemble reef sharks and dusky sharks, making them difficult to identify in the field. However their skeletons are very different – the Galapagos shark has 58 vertebrae, whereas dusky sharks have 86-97 vertebrae, and grey reef sharks have 110-119 vertebrae.
Galapagos sharks eat primarily benthic bony fish, but in Galapagos they also predate fur seals and sea lions. They have also been known to be cannibalistic, therefore young shark pups tend to stay in shallow inland waters, away from groups of adults. Adult Galapagos sharks are very inquisitive, often showing aggression towards fishermen who try to scare them away. Once they become excited, they are difficult to deter, and when they go into a frenzy they may attack anything floating on the surface of the water. Conversely, they often feel threatened in the presence of divers and some other species of shark, taking on a hunched position.
Where to see them: They are found at depths of around 100m in worldwide tropical oceans. In Galapagos, they are particularly seen in the waters off of Wolf and Darwin islands.
When to see them: They tend to be seen throughout the year around the Galapagos Islands as the water there is ideal for them. Their mating season is between January and March, so for about a month after March juvenile sharks may be seen in the shallow waters along the coastline.
Threats: Adult Galapagos sharks are too large to be eaten by most predators in their geographical range, therefore humans are the major threat to their population. Local fishing depletes numbers through bycatch, and populations tend to recover slowly due to their slow reproductive rate. They may also be purposefully caught in some areas, with their fins being used to make shark fin soup, and their oil, teeth, and bones used in traditional medicines and jewellery.
Conservation action: In some locations around the world, the Galapagos shark is a targeted commercial species and in some locations it is thought to have gone locally extinct. Shark fishing inside the Galapagos Marine Reserve is outlawed, however illegal long-line fishing does still occur. They are not currently listed on any CITES appendices.
Help us to protect the Galapagos shark today by donating to our Endangered Sharks of Galapagos programme!
Learn more about the sharks of the Galapagos Marine Reserve.


Voir dire (to question) is underway. The video is an interview of Ted Wayman, a former WBZ News anchor in Boston who was summoned for jury duty in the Tsarnaev case and excused because of his substantial job related contacts with Judge O'Toole, federal prosecutors and law enforcement officers who will be testifying at the trial. The interview was conducted by Adam Reilly, a reporter for Greater Boston.
Q: What did you make of his demeanor, when he came in? Were you watching him closely?
A: Everybody, all eyes, once he came in, were on him, like almost gasped within the courtroom. Oh my gosh! That's the defendant. Uhm, unresponsive. Really uninterested in the whole process. Had very little contact with his defense team. He was sitting in the middle of them. Uhm, really didn't look at the jury pool. Didn't look at the media that was there. Didn't look at the judge when he addressed the defendant. He was uninterested in the whole process.
This is a terrible way for the defense to start jury selection. First impressions matter, a lot, and if I were a member of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's defense team, I would be extremely concerned about the ability of the rest of the 200 or so prospective jurors, who witnessed that not-so-grand entry, to be fair and impartial jurors.
Another tell is Wayman's reference to Dzhokhar as 'the defendant.' He's not thinking of him as a person; he's thinking of him as a thing. That means he has already decided that Dzhokhar is guilty. Fortunately for the defense, they will not have to use a peremptory challenge to get rid of him.
I always made a point of humanizing my client throughout the trial by referring to him by his first name, touching him, and conversing with him in an effort to provoke a smile. At almost every moment of a trial, at least one juror will be watching the client. Trials are a form of theater. Nonverbal conduct is a form of testimony. Most jurors can detect insincerity. Therefore, the lawyer must avoid scripting the client's behavior and instead provoke the desired genuine response with the right word or gesture at the right time. This skill is not taught in law school and cannot be found in a book. Yet, if performed at the right time in the right way, it can make the difference between a conviction and an acquittal or a life sentence and a death sentence.
I am a pool reporter* for this session of #Tsarnaev jury selection. He just re-entered from lunch, says hello to lawyers by name.
*Today is the second day of voir dire. The reporters were segregated yesterday in a room watching a live feed video of voir dire. Technical difficulties resulted in a change in procedure. Two reporters are now permitted in the courtroom to report on the proceedings. They share their work product with the other reporters outside the courtroom and are replaced by another two reporters and so on per each session.
Welcome to the Tuesday Evening Open Discussion where off topic is on topic.
A jury of 12 with two alternates has been selected in the #TheodoreWafer porch-shooting case. Two black females, two black males, one Arab male, two minority females, three white females and four white males. Don't know anything else about them because jury selection was not televised or live streamed.
I am frustrated by the decision not to broadcast jury selection because that is where most trials are won or lost.
Opening statements will commence at 10 9 am EDT tomorrow. They will be livestreamed as will the rest of the trial.
Many people have compared this case to the Zimmerman case, but I believe it more closely resembles the #OscarPistorius case because the defendants in both cases are claiming self-defense after shooting through locked doors at people whom they say they believed to be an intruder (OP) or potential intruder (TW).
This is our 1149th post.
The SCOTUS prohibited the use of peremptory challenges, for which no reason must be given, to systematically exclude blacks from juries in criminal trials of black defendants in Batson v. Kentucky.
Batson permits the use of peremptory challenges to exclude blacks from juries so long as the party challenging the juror has a race neutral reason for asserting the challenge.
The Batson rule applies to all cases, whether criminal or civil, and it has been extended to prohibit the use of peremptory challenges to systematically exclude jurors based on gender or religious affiliation.
Unfortunately, a smart lawyer usually can come up with a race neutral "reason" to exclude a black juror, however unlikely, to pass judicial scrutiny.
The reverse side of that racial injustice is the acquittal by all white juries of guilty white defendants who murdered black victims.
We saw that in the Zimmerman trial.
Justice Thurgood Marshall realized games were being played in the aftermath of Batson. He wanted to solve the problem by getting rid of peremptory challenges.
I quit practicing law ten years ago and it has taken me this long to finally change my mind and acknowledge that Justice Marshall was right.
We should not be excluding anyone from serving on a jury without a valid reason. By eliminating peremptory challenges, we would be requiring lawyers to present a convincing case for disqualifying a juror, convincing in the sense that opposing counsel would have an opportunity to rehabilitate a challenged juror.
This is how courts handle challenges for cause. Unless unopposed, each challenge for cause becomes a mini trial decided by the judge after each side gets an opportunity to question the challenged juror.
By forcing lawyers to support a challenge with an evidence based reason, instead of a hunch or a prejudice, we would do no more than subject them to the same standard to which we routinely hold police officers when they arrest a suspect. Such a rule would only improve our system of justice.
Day 1 of jury selection in Michael Dunn case ended today with 36 people excused for cause with 46 reporting back tomorrow at 1 pm and 30 new people will be brought in at 8:30 am to fill out a questionnaire and be individually questioned by counsel and the court.
The public and the media have been prohibited from being in the courtroom until after jury selection is concluded and counsel are ready to make their opening statements.
The reporters have been placed in a separate room with audio of the hearing piped in. The audio did not work very well. At times counsel's questions could not be heard and at other times juror responses were inaudible.
All in all, this was exactly the wrong way to dispel suspicions that the outcome of this trial is rigged.
After the dreadful result in Trayvon's case that was due in no small part to screwed up jury selection by the prosecution regarding B37, I expected Angela Corey would insist on openness to defend her reputation and the reputation of her office.
For those who are inclined to believe that the fix in, you probably do not need any additional evidence.
Nevertheless, there is additional evidence. I refer to Dunn's jailhouse phone calls.
Corey has effectively buried them for the time being, despite an order from the Court of Appeals to disclose them.
This is our 874th post. Please make a donation. We need money to keep going.


He gives grace and peace. The Father's free gift of grace, salvation through His Son, which leads to peace. There can be no peace without grace!
The one who gives grace and peace is the one "who is and who was and who is to come" (v. 4). He is the Alpha and Omega (v. 8), the First and Last. The Eternal God is the God of Our Eternal Praise! And He is first and last in power as well, the Almighty (v. 8). The omnipotent, all-powerful God is the God of Our Eternal Praise.
The one who gives grace and peace is Triune, three in one. The eternal Father (who is is and who was and who is to come, v. 4a); the Holy Spirit (the "seven spirits" are thought to either refer to the Holy Spirit's work among the seven churches to whom John is writing, or simply to the manifold, complete nature of the Spirit's work among the Church, v. 4b); and the Son, Jesus Christ (v.5), the supreme revelation of God (Hebrews 1:1-2): in His incarnation the true and "faithful witness" to the nature of God; the "firstborn from the dead," who has demonstrated His authority over life and death in the resurrection; the one who as "ruler" reigns in heaven and will one day reign on earth. The God of Eternal Praise is coming again to establish a new heavens and new earth in the glorious reign of the Lord Jesus Christ (v. 7).
John sees the glorified Christ in verses 12-18. What a picture of glory! And this picture is one we need to reminded of in an age when the emphasis in worship is on being relaxed, and informal, and even casual. If the Lord Jesus were to physically appear in our worship service, He would likely not be dressed in blue jeans, but in shining white robes as we see here.
We need to remind ourselves, over and over, that the focus of Sunday worship must be upon the living Christ among us. In truth, if Christ were bodily present and we could see him with more than our soul's eyes, all our worship would become intentional. If Christ stood on our platforms, we would bend our knees without asking. If we could hear His voice leading the hymns, we too would sing heartily; the words would take on meaning. The Bible reading would be lively; meaning would pierce to the marrow of our souls. If Christ walked our aisles, we would hasten to make amends with that brother or sister to whom we have not spoken. We would volunteer for service, the choir loft would be crowded. If we knew Christ would attend our church Sunday after Sunday, the front pews would fill fastest, believers would arrive early, offering plates would be laden with sacrificial but gladsome gifts, prayers would concentrate our attention.
Yet, the startling truth is that Christ IS present, through His Holy Spirit, in our churches; it is we who must develop eyes to see and ears to hear Him.
In worship we respond to God, the eternal One, the Almighty, the giver of grace and peace; we give thanks for the gift of life in the Son, the mighty resurrected One and coming King. When we look further into the book of Revelation and study some of the amazing scenes of worship in chapters 4, 5 and 7, that Eternal Praise is the only appropriate response to the greatness of God and the wonder of His grace gifts through Christ.
Jesus loved us, and loves us. He is not ashamed to call us "brethren" (Hebrews 2:11). He is infinitely and eternally committed to our well-being.
He has freed us. We are free! Freed from the need to strive for acceptance by God. Freed from the fear of judgment before a holy God.
We are citizens of His Kingdom. That is true of believers the world over; not matter our ethnic or cultural difference, we all belong to one Kingdom!
We are priests. That is, we are worshipers and worship leaders. We have the privilege of facilitating our congregations, week in and week out, in lifting up the name of the Lord.
And as we again see those great scenes of worship in revelation, it is important ot remember that our earthly praise is not just a preparation for a future of joining in with that praise that always goes on around the throne of God in heaven; but rather that even now, as citizens of heaven (Phil 3:20), we have the privilege of entering in with that Eternal Praise, to be part of the continuing and unending chorus of worship. You see, we don't begin worship when we come to church, and don't end it at the conclusion of the service; but rather for a short time we corporately jump into the flow of Eternal Praise, and become part of the heavenly choir.
Posted by ronmanwri on June 30, 2018 in .


text:
Q: How to title-case specific characters So I created my dictionary and then thanks to the help of some nice fellows in this site I managed to have the keys printed to the users in a nice way. Then on my own I figured how to order the dictionary by values so that I could print the only the keys in an ordered fashion.
Here is where I'm at:
diff_dict = {'easy':0.2, 'medium':0.1, 'hard':0.05} # difficulty level dict

from collections import OrderedDict

diff_dict = OrderedDict(sorted(diff_dict.items(), key= lambda x: x[1], reverse\
 = True))

print ('\nHere are the 3 possible choices: ', ' - '.join(diff_dict))

Which outputs:

Here are the 3 possible choices:  easy - medium - hard

So my first thought was to make it even nicer by formatting those keys like so:
print ('\nHere are the 3 possible choices: ', ' - '.join(diff_dict).upper())

Here are the 3 possible choices:  EASY - MEDIUM - HARD

Better, how about I try capitalizing only the first letter? So I looked into it and my first thought was to find some formatting to specify the first letter. I couldn't find a solution or better said, I found one that left me with some more questions:
print ('\nHere are the 3 possible choices: ', ' - '.join(diff_dict).title())

Here are the 3 possible choices:  Easy - Medium - Hard

So that's exactly the output i was looking for, But I'm the curious kind so I wanted some feedback on things such as:

*

*What if I wanted to achieve the same but with string formatting such as str.upper?

*What if I wanted to change specific characters not just the first? (replace, case, whatever)

A: You don't need to use an OrderedDict for this. Much easier with a list comprehension:
options = [o.title() for o in sorted(diff_dict, key=lambda k: diff_dict[k], reverse=True)]
print('\nHere are the 3 possible choices: ', ' - '.join(options))

The [expr for var in iterable] list comprehension applies the .title() method to each string we get from sorting the keys of diff_dict. This way, you can format each word separately, instead of applying .title() to the already joined whole.
This prints:

Here are the 3 possible choices:  Easy - Medium - Hard

If you want to see why this works, here are some of the constituent parts:
>>> sorted(diff_dict, key=lambda k: diff_dict[k], reverse=True)
['easy', 'medium', 'hard']
>>> [o.title() for o in sorted(diff_dict, key=lambda k: diff_dict[k], reverse=True)]
['Easy', 'Medium', 'Hard']
>>> ' - '.join([o.title() for o in sorted(diff_dict, key=lambda k: diff_dict[k], reverse=True)])
'Easy - Medium - Hard'

Hopefully that gives you some ideas on how to manipulate each option string with other methods.


text:
SURROGATE BABY ROW
Couple faces legal battle to take babies out of India
Twins are stuck in their birth country until Spain can confirm that their adoption is legal
Pol Pareja
Madrid - 27 Aug 2013 - 16:21 UTC
José Luis Vidal and Ana Coto with Lucas and Carmen in Mumbai.
What seemed as though it was a mere formality for Ana Coto and her husband, José Luis Vidal, has turned into a nightmare. The couple had traveled to Mumbai to collect a pair of twins born a month ago through a surrogate mother. The children, Lucas and Carmen, have passports from Spain. They were issued by the consulate, given that Vidal's sperm was used in the fertilization process, thus making the twins Spanish nationals. However, just 12 hours before catching their return flight to Madrid, Coto and Vidal wandered into a legal minefield.
On presenting the passports at an office of the FRO, the Indian police department responsible for authorizing the children's travel, they were told that a new law had been passed in India a month ago and that a letter from the consul or ambassador confirming the adoption process is legal in Spain would be required. However, current legislation in Spain does not cover paying a surrogate mother to obtain an adoptive child.
It is on this matter that Coto and Vidal, on the one hand, and the Foreign Ministry, on the other, disagree. The couple said that they were aware of the new law but that it was not applicable in their case because the pregnancy preceded it. "The FRO asked us to certify that the pregnancy was prior to the law and that the consul confirm the subrogation," says Coto.
A ministry spokesman told this newspaper that what Coto and Vidal are asking is that the consulate certify that this type of adoption is legal in Spain. "We cannot ask [the consul] to accredit a practice that is illegal in our country."
There is a legal vacuum, for which we are seeking a solution"
The result of the impasse is that the children, despite being Spanish nationals, cannot leave India. "There is a legal vacuum, for which we are seeking a solution," says the ministry spokesman. "They are avoiding me like the plague," says Coto, who accuses the consulate of lying to her and not handling her case as it should have done.
Ana Coto has been in Mumbai since June 19 and has no idea when she might be able to leave. She even took a flight to New Delhi to see if the Spanish Embassy could find a solution, but without success. In the meantime, her expenses keep piling up: on top of the 50,000 euros it cost to hire the surrogate mother were the 12,000 euros spent on a Spanish lawyer to act as intermediary and another 13,000 euros for return flights, accommodation and living expenses in India.
Vidal has already had to return to Spain to work at the transport company he runs. His wife, who is self-employed, remained in India with her mother and a helper to wait for a solution to the situation.
Paying a surrogate mother to carry a pregnancy through is permitted in some states in the USA, India, Israel and Ukraine. In Spain, although the practice is forbidden by law, there is a certain amount of institutional tolerance for families who cannot conceive and who turn to a paid surrogate in a foreign country as the only way to have children, later to register them with the relevant authorities in their country of origin.


text:
Q: how to work out $14^{293}-12^{26}\pmod{13}$ How can I work this out without a calculator?
$$14^{293}-12^{26} \pmod{13}$$
I just couldn't figure out a way to do this.

A: $14\equiv 1\mod 13$ and $12\equiv -1\mod 13$
$14^{293}\equiv 1\mod 13$ and $12^{26}\equiv (-1)^{26}=1\mod 13$
$(14^{293}-12^{26})\equiv 0\mod 9$


text:
import React from 'react';
import {
  View,
  ScrollView,
  StyleSheet,
  Navigator
} from 'react-native';
import {connect} from 'react-redux';
import {CSHeader} from '../../components/CSHeader';
import CSInputList from '../../components/CSInputList';
import CSSettingCell from '../../components/CSSettingCell';
import CSTextInput from '../../components/CSTextInput';
import {setSetting} from '../../redux/actions';

type Props = {
  account: {
    [name: string]: any;
  };
  navigator: Navigator;
};

function OverviewScreen(props: Props){
  const {location} = props.account;

  return (
    <View style={styles.container}>
      <CSHeader
        leftItem={[{
          icon: require('../../components/img/back.png'),
          onPress: () => props.navigator.pop()
        }]}
        title="Overview"
      />
      <ScrollView
        keyboardDismissMode="on-drag"
      >
        <View style={{marginTop: 20, marginBottom: 20}}>
          <CSInputList
            style={styles.inputList}
          >
            <CSSettingCell
              title="Countries I've visited"
              value={'None'}
              onPress={() => {}}
            />
            <CSSettingCell
              title="Countries I've lived in"
              value={'None'}
              onPress={() => {}}
            />
            <CSSettingCell
              title="Languages I'm fluent in"
              value={'None'}
              onPress={() => {}}
            />
            <CSSettingCell
              title="Languages I'm learning"
              value={'None'}
              onPress={() => {}}
            />
          </CSInputList>
        </View>
        <View style={{marginTop: 40, marginBottom: 40}}>
          <CSInputList
            style={styles.inputList}
          >
            <CSTextInput
              placeholder="Hometown"
              onChangeText={(text) =>
                props.dispatch(setSetting('location', text))}
              value={location.description}
            />
          </CSInputList>
        </View>
      </ScrollView>
    </View>
  );
}

const styles = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
    backgroundColor: '#ecf1f2'
  },
  inputList: {
    borderTopWidth: 1,
    borderTopColor: '#CCCCCC'
  }
});

export default connect(
  state => ({account: state.account})
)(OverviewScreen);