text:
Background Checks, News
CA Parents Question Why Background Checks Did Not Work
I don't think I have ever heard of a school administrator terminating an entire staff but that is exactly what happened this week at Miramonte School in Los Angeles. Two teachers were arrested for child sex abuse that has allegedly occurred over many years. Teacher Mark Berndt, who taught at Miramonte for more than 30 years, has been charged with felony molestation of 23 children ages 6-10. Police said they have 40 photographs of Berndt allegedly committing lewd acts on children.
What is probably most troubling is Berndt was fired in January 2011. Yes, a year ago but was only arrested on January 31, 2012.
Why is that troubling? Well, because another teacher, Martin Springer, was arrested on February 3, 2012 on suspicion of committing lewd acts on children. More than 12 months after Berndt was fired but no disclosure had been made to parents or staff.
Both of these teachers were hired when the background screening requirements were much less stringent. So would it make sense for a school to be conducting ongoing background checks?
I think what some parents are really asking is why did it take more than a year for them to find out about this former teacher? And did Springer harm any children during this 12 month period of silence?
There is no indication from law enforcement that Springer and Berndt were working together. However, a simple disclosure to parents might have lead to a conversation between parents and children. Detective James McLaughlin, Keene, NH Police Department, who is recognized expert on child sex abuse has said that the disclosure rates for child sex abuse exploded in Keene shortly after he became a detective and started speaking to every civic group that would allow him to speak.
How did that impact report rates? Parents went home and talked to their children. And children that had been threatened and intimidated into remaining silent finally broke the silence.
Yes. We realize that a criminal background check alone only reveals if someone has a criminal record. So with Springer and Berndt that would not have revealed anything. It requires more than just a criminal record check. Law enforcement agencies generally conduct ongoing background checks that include both criminal records AND reference checks.
So the lesson for employers is our responsibility to provide a safe work environment is an ongoing process.
I also wanted to let you in on a little secret…. There is a new automated reference checking program coming soon. It will go a long way to helping expose the Springer and Berndt's of the world.
Tagged: background checks
Newer PostHow to Select an Employment Background Screening Firm
Older Post"Ban-the-Box" Legislation Will Impact Employment Background Checks


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Q: Orsoncharts chart3D surface rendering not working I am using orson chart's Chart3D to make a surface plot, and for some reason the graph isn't properly coloring the gradient.  The code is below:
@SuppressWarnings("serial")
Function3D function = new Function3D() {
    @Override
    public double getValue(double x, double z) {
        double xKey = Math.round(x * 100) / 100;
        double zKey = Math.round(z * 100) / 100;
        if(plotValues.containsKey(new Point2D(xKey,zKey))) {
            return plotValues.get(new Point2D(xKey,zKey));
        } else {
            return 0;
        }
    }
};

String xTitle = factorSweepComboBox.getSelectionModel().getSelectedItem();
String yTitle = outputComboBox.getSelectionModel().getSelectedItem();
String zTitle = factorSweep2ComboBox.getSelectionModel().getSelectedItem();

// Create surface plot
Chart3D chart = Chart3DFactory.createSurfaceChart(
        "",
        "",
        function, xTitle, yTitle, zTitle);

XYZPlot xyzplot = (XYZPlot) chart.getPlot();
xyzplot.setDimensions(new Dimension3D(10, 10, 10));
ValueAxis3D xAxis = xyzplot.getXAxis();
xAxis.setRange(xLow, xUp);
ValueAxis3D zAxis = xyzplot.getZAxis();
zAxis.setRange(zLow, zUp);
ValueAxis3D yAxis = xyzplot.getYAxis();
yAxis.setRange(yLow, yUp);
SurfaceRenderer renderer = (SurfaceRenderer) xyzplot.getRenderer();
renderer.setColorScale(new GradientColorScale(new Range(yLow, yUp),
        Color.BLUE, Color.YELLOW));
Chart3DViewer chartPanel = new Chart3DViewer(chart);
chartPane.getChildren().addAll(chartPanel);

plotValues is a hashmap mapping a (x,z) 2D point to a double y output value. xLow, xUp, etc. are range values and are all being set correctly. yLow and yUp are what I want them to be. However, when I run the code my surface is all one color, there is no gradient at all even though the key looks correct. I have also tried:
SurfaceRenderer renderer = new SurfaceRenderer(function);
renderer.setColorScale(new GradientColorScale(new Range(yLow, yUp),
                                Color.BLUE, Color.YELLOW));
xyzplot.setRenderer(renderer);

and the result is the same. Here is a link to a screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/F2iYFh1.png

A: I found the problem. It was due to my function only return real values on discrete x and z values, which works if the set of (x,z) matches the set in my own data hash. However, the surface renderer uses the mid-point between two "x" and "z"'s in the dataset when it plots the surface to determine the color, and because the middle point isn't in the hash it returns 0, making the whole surface one color.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


What should I return if the client sends me "sales_tax" (instead of the expected "tax"). Currently, I'm returning a 400. But, I've started questioning myself on this. Should I really be returning a 422? I mean, it's JSON (which is supported) and it's valid JSON, it's just doesn't contain all of the required fields.
400 Bad Request would now seem to be the best HTTP/1.1 status code for your use case.
and the request you describe is syntactically valid JSON encased in syntactically valid HTTP, and thus the server has no issues with the syntax of the request.
Now, some will object that RFC 4918 is about "HTTP Extensions for Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV)" and that you (presumably) are doing nothing involving WebDAV so shouldn't use things from it.
Given the choice between using an error code in the original standard that explicitly doesn't cover the situation, and one from an extension that describes the situation exactly, I would choose the latter.
Furthermore, RFC 4918 Section 21.4 refers to the IANA Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Status Code Registry, where 422 can be found.
I propose that it is totally reasonable for an HTTP client or server to use any status code from that registry, so long as they do so correctly.
But as of HTTP/1.1, RFC 7231 has traction, so just use 400 Bad Request!
Behaviorally both 400 and 422 response codes will be treated the same by clients and intermediaries, so it actually doesn't make a concrete difference which you use.
The HTTPbis spec clarifies the intent of 400 to not be solely for syntax errors. The broader phrase "indicates that the server cannot or will not process the request due to something which is perceived to be a client error" is now used.
422 Is specifically a WebDAV extension, and is not referenced in RFC 2616 or in the newer HTTPbis specification.
For context, HTTPbis is a revision of the HTTP/1.1 spec that attempts to clarify areas that where unclear or inconsistent. Once it has reached approved status it will supersede RFC2616.
400 Bad Request is proper HTTP status code for your use case. The code is defined by HTTP/0.9-1.1 RFC.
422 Unprocessable Entity is defined by RFC 4918 - WebDav. Note that there is slight difference in comparison to 400, see quoted text below.
This error condition may occur if an XML request body contains well-formed (i.e., syntactically correct), but semantically erroneous, XML instructions.
To keep uniform interface you should use 422 only in a case of XML responses and you should also support all status codes defined by Webdav extension, not just 422.
it's a mistake to try to map each part of your application "deeply" into HTTP status codes; in most cases the level of granularity you want to be aiming for is much coarser. When in doubt, it's OK to use the generic status codes 200 OK, 400 Bad Request and 500 Internal Service Error when there isn't a better fit.
Before everyone jumps all over me for saying that there is no right or wrong answer here, let me explain a bit about how I came to the conclusion.
In this specific example, the OP's question is about a JSON request that contains a different key than expected. Now, the key name received is very similar, from a natural language standpoint, to the expected key, but it is, strictly, different, and hence not (usually) recognized by a machine as being equivalent.
As I said above, the deciding factor is what is meant by syntax. If the request was sent with a Content Type of application/json, then yes, the request is syntactically valid because it's valid JSON syntax, but not semantically valid, since it doesn't match what's expected. (assuming a strict definition of what makes the request in question semantically valid or not).
If, on the other hand, the request was sent with a more specific custom Content Type like application/vnd.mycorp.mydatatype+json that, perhaps, specifies exactly what fields are expected, then I would say that the request could easily be syntactically invalid, hence the 400 response.
In the case in question, since the key was wrong, not the value, there was a syntax error if there was a specification for what valid keys are. If there was no specification for valid keys, or the error was with a value, then it would be a semantic error.
What Is 422 Unprocessable Entity?
A 422 status code occurs when a request is well-formed, however, due to semantic errors it is unable to be processed. This HTTP status was introduced in RFC 4918 and is more specifically geared toward HTTP extensions for Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV).
There is some controversy out there on whether or not developers should return a 400 vs 422 error to clients (more on the differences between both statuses below). However, in most cases, it is agreed upon that the 422 status should only be returned if you support WebDAV capabilities.
A word-for-word definition of the 422 status code taken from section 11.2 in RFC 4918 can be read below.
Bad request errors make use of the 400 status code and should be returned to the client if the request syntax is malformed, contains invalid request message framing, or has deceptive request routing. This status code may seem pretty similar to the 422 unprocessable entity status, however, one small piece of information that distinguishes them is the fact that the syntax of a request entity for a 422 error is correct whereas the syntax of a request that generates a 400 error is incorrect.
The use of the 422 status should be reserved only for very particular use-cases. In most other cases where a client error has occurred due to malformed syntax, the 400 Bad Request status should be used.
Firstly this is a very good question.
e.g. The authorization header or content type header. Which is absolutely required by the server to understand the request. This can differ from server to server.
422 Unprocessable Entity - When the request body can't be parsed.
This is less severe than 400. The request has reached the server. The server has acknowledged the request has got the basic structure right. But the information in the request body can't be parsed or understood.
e.g. Content-Type: application/xml when request body is JSON.
Your case: HTTP 400 is the right status code for your case from REST perspective as its syntactically incorrect to send sales_tax instead of tax, though its a valid JSON. This is normally enforced by most of the server side frameworks when mapping the JSON to objects. However, there are some REST implementations that ignore new key in JSON object. In that case, a custom content-type specification to accept only valid fields can be enforced by server-side.
In an ideal world, 422 is preferred and generally acceptable to send as response if the server understands the content type of the request entity and the syntax of the request entity is correct but was unable to process the data because its semantically erroneous.
Remember, the response code 422 is an extended HTTP (WebDAV) status code. There are still some HTTP clients / front-end libraries that aren't prepared to handle 422. For them, its as simple as "HTTP 422 is wrong, because it's not HTTP". From the service perspective, 400 isn't quite specific.
In enterprise architecture, the services are deployed mostly on service layers like SOA, IDM, etc. They typically serve multiple clients ranging from a very old native client to a latest HTTP clients. If one of the clients doesn't handle HTTP 422, the options are that asking the client to upgrade or change your response code to HTTP 400 for everyone. In my experience, this is very rare these days but still a possibility. So, a careful study of your architecture is always required before deciding on the HTTP response codes.
To handle situation like these, the service layers normally use versioning or setup configuration flag for strict HTTP conformance clients to send 400, and send 422 for the rest of them. That way they provide backwards compatibility support for existing consumers but at the same time provide the ability for the new clients to consume HTTP 422.
This confirms that servers can send HTTP 400 for invalid request. 400 doesn't refer only to syntax error anymore, however, 422 is still a genuine response provided the clients can handle it.
You should actually return "200 OK" and in the response body include a message about what happened with the posted data. Then it's up to your application to understand the message.
The thing is, HTTP status codes are exactly that - HTTP status codes. And those are meant to have meaning only at the transportation layer, not at the application layer. The application layer should really never even know that HTTP is being used. If you switched your transportation layer from HTTP to Homing Pigeons, it should not affect your application layer in any way.
You forgot to write a street name. You will receive an unopened letter back with a message written on it saying that the address is malformed. You screwed up the request and the receiving post office is unable to handle it. That's the equivalent of receiving "400 Bad Request".
So you fix the address and send the letter again. But due to some bad luck you totaly misspelled the name of the street. You will get the letter back again with a message saying, that the address doesn't exist. That's the equivalent of receiving "404 Not Found".
You fix the address again and this time you manage to write the address correctly. Your girl receives the letter and writes you back. It's the equivalent of receiving "200 OK". However, this does not mean that you will like what she wrote in her letter. It simply means that she received your message and has a response for you. Until you open the envelope and read her letter you cannot know whether she misses you dearly or wants to break up with you.
In short: Returning "200 OK" doesn't mean that the server app has good news for you. It only means that it has some news.
PS: The 422 status code has a meaning only in the context of WebDAV. If you're not working with WebDAV, then 422 has exactly the same standard meaning as any other non-standard code = which is none.
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged rest http-status-codes or ask your own question.
What HTTP status response code should I use if the request is missing a required parameter?
Correct HTTP status code for login form?
JAX-RS — How to return JSON and HTTP status code together?
What is the appropriate HTTP status code response for a general unsuccessful request (not an error)?


text:
Argentina beat Croatia 3-0 in the FIFA World Cup semi-final thanks to Messi brilliance
A brilliant Lionel Messi inspired Argentina to a World Cup final. In today's crucial win over a stubborn opponent, Messi was again the watchword, but it was Messi's talent that ultimately prevailed. A 7-time Ballon d'Or winner, he is playing better than ever at 35. In addition to converting a penalty, Messi had a spectacular role to play in the other two goals by Julian Alvarez. This secured his team's place in the final against the winner of tomorrow's tie between France and Morocco.
The 2022 FIFA World Cup entered its final four on Tuesday, as Argentina handily defeated Croatia 3-0 at Qatar's Lusail Stadium in the tournament's first semifinal match. Argentina will now play either France or Morocco in Sunday's final, while Croatia will play Saturday against the loser of the match between France and Morocco in the third-place game.
Lionel Messi has reached the World Cup final for the second time in his career. Argentina scored a quickfire double late in the first half to book their place in the World Cup final. Later, they added a third for a comfortable 3-0 win. Despite seemingly suffering from hamstring problems during the first half, Lionel Messi scored from the spot before Julian Alvarez added an insurance goal. Lovankovic clattered into Alvarez in the box, giving Messi the penalty.
At halftime, Croatia made changes to try to counter, but Messi then set up Alvarez to seal victory. Messi has taken the Golden Boot lead from Kylian Mbappe with a goal and an assist. However, this game is as much about Messi's supporting cast as it is about him. With Erdling Haaland at the helm, Alvarez has had to wait his turn at Manchester City, but has burst onto the scene at the World Cup. As a result of his brace on Tuesday, Alvarez has now scored four goals for Argentina. The penalty he won and his defensive pressing won't show up on the stat sheet, but it's so pivotal to Argentina's victory.
FDA approved lung cancer drug created by Mirati to cost $19,750 for 180 tablets
Vaping trend grows in New Zealand amid tobacco sales ban for next generation
Pakistan suffers major power outage following failure of the…
DP World and Maersk ink a long-term partnership at Jebel Ali

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Jean McGivney-Burelle from the University of Hartford and Ann Stewart from Hood College ran the Friday afternoon workshop, Teaching with Classroom Voting and Clickers. The Banquet Address Knights, Knaves, Normals and My Nephew was given by Jason Rosenhouse of James Madison University. The Saturday Morning Address Proving the Impossible was presented by Maryland's Professor of the Year John Hamman of Montgomery College and the Saturday Afternoon Address Surviving an Outbreak of Zombiism was given by Robert Allen from the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse.
Congratulations to Adrian Rice of Randolph-Macon College the 2013 winner of the John M. Smith Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching!
Abstract: This minicourse will provide participants with an overview of classroom voting pedagogy in a wide range of college mathematics courses. We will discuss the logistics of classroom voting as well as recent research on this type of pedagogy. We will also share our thoughts on writing effective voting questions. Participants will play the role of students in a voting demonstration, explore an online library of over 2300 classroom voting questions, and prepare a lesson with voting questions for use in one of their own courses.
Jean McGivney-Burelle is an Associate Professor of Mathematics and Chair of Education at the University of Hartford. She received her M.S. from Northeastern University and her Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut. Her research interests involve investigating how to use technology to improve the teaching and learning of mathematics in secondary and post-secondary classrooms. She serves as senior personnel on the NSF-funded Project MathVote.
Ann Stewart is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland. She uses classroom voting in many of her courses and she is also interested in connections between mathematics and music. Ann earned her Ph.D. in mathematics from the Johns Hopkins University. She also serves as senior personnel on the NSF-funded Project MathVote.
Abstract: : Puzzles about liars and truthtellers have a long history, but they were elevated to a high art by Raymond Smullyan. In books like What is the Name of This Book?, The Lady or the Tiger and Forever Undecided, Smullyan shows how elementary logic problems can lead the reader gradually towards sophisticated ideas like Godel's famous theorems. I first encountered Smullyan's writing in elementary school, and his books have had a major influence on me. I was recently invited to edit a tribute volume in his honor, and my work on this project afforded a welcome opportunity to reread his numerous books. In this talk we shall discuss some elementary features of these sorts of puzzles, develop a basic theory for thinking about them, and eventually build up their use for explaining difficult ideas in logic. Most of the talk will be readily accessible to students.
Biographical Sketch: Jason Rosenhouse received his PhD from Dartmouth College in 2000, and is currently an associate professor of mathematics at James Madison University. He is the author of the books The Monty Hall Problem: The Remarkable Story of Math's Most Contentious Brainteaser, and Among the Creationists: Dispatches from the Anti-Evolutionist Frontline. With Laura Taalman, he is the coauthor of Taking Sudoku Seriously: The Math Behind the World's Most Popular Pencil Puzzle. All three books were published by Oxford University Press. When not doing mathematics, he enjoys playing chess and reading locked room mysteries.
Abstract: From some of the earliest proofs in mathematics to some of the most important modern results, mathematicians have sought to demonstrate that some things cannot be done. We will consider such proofs from pre-Euclid to post-Gödel, with a few stops in between. However, instead of simply focusing on the results themselves, we will consider the language used in these proofs. The way we choose to describe mathematics can have a profound impact on our relationship to the content and can affect how non-mathematicians view it. This is particularly true when the result in question is a proof of impossibility.
Biographical Sketch: John Hamman is Professor and Chair of the Mathematics Department at the Germantown Campus of Montgomery College. He earned his bachelor's degree in Mathematics and Physics – Secondary Education from the University of Northern Iowa and completed a master's degree in mathematics there. In addition, he spent two years in the PhD program in Mathematics at Dartmouth College. In 2011 he won the Montgomery College Outstanding Service Award and in 2012 he was recognized by a NISOD Excellence Award and as the Maryland Professor of the Year. His interests include mathematics education, the language of mathematics, beekeeping and motorcycling.
Abstract: Since the 1930's zombies have played an important role in the American horror film genre. Have you ever wondered if a zombie apocalypse is realistic and/or inevitable? Can we use mathematics to help us fight off such an apocalypse?
In this talk I will discuss a series of models for the spread of a zombie infection through a human population. These models are based on the standard SIR model, modified to introduce various coping techniques as well as dynamical behavior. Although an outbreak of zombiism is "fictional", I will discuss how mathematics is used to study the spread of an infectious disease, and the work can be translated to studying "real" diseases such as cholera, chicken pox, H1N1, and HIV, for example.
Biographical Sketch: Robert Allen is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. He received his B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Virginia in 1994. After working as a software engineer in the Washington D.C. area, he received his B.S. in mathematics from George Mason University, his M.S. from the University of Virginia, and finally his Ph.D. from George Mason University (quite a tennis match.) His research interests range from operator theory to mathematical biology, and everything in between. In 2012 he was awarded the Outstanding Professor of the Year. When not working with students, he can be found singing karaoke, playing video games, or trying out new recipes.


The season came early this year and I've been enjoying every bit of it. A facebook friend even sent me the most precious delicious tasting mangoes all the way from Benue State. Oh i had a ball!
On the way back the Lagos from Ilorin, were my family and i spent our easter holiday, we stopped on the Ogbomoso highway to buy freshly harvested premium Ogbomoso mangoes.
I'm even brewing some Mango liqueur, which will be read in a few weeks and I'd be blogging about it.
Combine all the ingredients in a blender and blend to a smooth puree.


text:
Dawson: Police oversight review's focus on race inevitable, and welcome
Tyler Dawson • Ottawa Citizen
Dahabo Ahmed Omer, co-chair of The Justice for Abdirahman Abdi Coalition, an Ottawa-based coalition advocating for justice for the late Abdirahman Abdi and his family, speaks with Ottawa Police Service Constable Aza Huska, who is a member of the Outreach Liason Team formed by the OPS following Abdi's death, during a public consultation by the Independent Police Oversight review at the Wabano Centre in Ottawa on Wednesday October 26, 2016. Photo by Errol McGihon /Postmedia
The review of police oversight in Ontario, unavoidably and rightly, is confronting issues of race and policing.
With a quiet change last week to its order-in-council, the Ontario government moved to ensure the unfolding review — sparked after the death of a black man in Toronto — will include indigenous perspectives and that it will offer recommendations on how to "integrate cultural competence" into the three existing police oversight bodies in this province.
"First Nations communities and First Nations policing deal with a unique set of circumstances," said Attorney General and Ottawa MPP Yasir Naqvi told the Citizen on Wednesday night. "We need to make sure that these police oversight bodies have those reflections."
The senior counsel for the review, which was in Ottawa for a public consultation , said they had already been doing just that.
"Racialized and indigenous communities tend to have disproportionate contact with police," Jamie Klukach said. "It would be an egregious omission not to hear the voices of those communities."
The public consultation by the Independent Police Oversight review at the Wabano Centre in Ottawa on Wednesday October 26, 2016. Photo by Errol McGihon /Postmedia
Previous analysis has shown that indigenous people and African Canadians are overrepresented in SIU investigations. As well, indigenous Ontarians are vastly overrepresented in Ontario's prison system. Despite that, the review's initial mandate, from April, included no specific directions on race or minority groups, aside from whether or not demographic data should be collected in the future.
Justice Michael Tulloch and his staff have travelled the province widely. They have reached out to 134 Ontario First Nations, and have held public meetings in several cities, plus private meetings with specific groups.
In Ottawa this week, for example, they met with the Somali and Inuit communities and were to meet with Ottawa police Chief Charles Bordeleau. The SIU investigates serious injury, death and sexual assault involving police, is currently looking into the actions of Ottawa police officers over the death of Abdirahman Abdi in July.
About 75 people gathered at the Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health on Wednesday, discussing suggestions to reform the Special Investigations Unit, the Office of the Independent Police Review Director and the Ontario Civilian Police Commission.
"We do want to hear your stories and your experiences," review member Danielle Dowdy told those assembled.
The changes to the order-in-council, and the renewed focus on indigenous perspectives, is part of government efforts to broaden the depth of understanding agencies have of indigenous Canadians. If police are given cultural training, so too should the agencies that oversee them, the reasoning goes.
Justice Michael Tulloch speaks with Suzanne Labbe during a public consultation by the Independent Police Oversight review at the Wabano Centre in Ottawa on Wednesday October 26, 2016. Photo by Errol McGihon /Postmedia
After the death of 45-year-old Andrew Loku in Toronto, a massive public outcry forced the province to release the SIU investigation into his death. While the officer who shot Loku was cleared, the heavily redacted report (only nine of 34 pages were released) offered rare insight into the work the SIU does. One of the priorities of the current review, which announced at the same time, is whether or not the province should routinely release these reports. It's destined to be controversial, for privacy and legal reasons. So, too, are demands to release the names of the officers under investigation.
Over the course of Wednesday night, people from each table spoke poignantly and passionately about their experiences and beliefs about what needs to change. It was, more broadly, a discussion about policing (should police shoot to kill?) and not just police oversight.
Just as importantly – perhaps more importantly – the review members listened quietly, letting every speaker finish his or her thoughts, running over time to accommodate extra speakers.
In short, the people of Ottawa spoke on Wednesday. The review members, hopefully, will have paid attention.
More to the point, come the end of March next year, the lens will turn back on the government for its response to this process.
Will they listen to all they've been told?
tdawson@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/tylerrdawson
Ottawa's ethnic communities urge overhaul of police oversight


text:
Watch These 2 Transport Stocks With Hong Kong Set to Rally
Is the Hong Kong market poised to jump 40%? Its happened before. Transport stocks have suffered more than any due to the city's disruption, and would lead that charge.
By ALEX FREW MCMILLAN
Stocks quotes in this article: MTCPY, CPCAY
It's been a torrid time for transportation stocks in Hong Kong. There are rumblings, though, that private banks are advising clients to take heavy positions in the city's stocks, betting they will rally.
Perhaps no company has suffered more directly than the MTR Corp. (MTCPY) . Besides operating the subway, or Mass Transit Railway, it is also a major property developer, selling off the apartments above the stations that it builds, then operating the shopping malls below.
Protesters first targeted the system purely as a method of civil disobedience, keeping train doors open to cause mayhem at rush hour. But stations became direct targets after demonstrators blamed the company for delaying trains so that riot police could enter them and make arrests. The system also started closing early in what critics saw as a government-endorsed curfew, or a way of preventing protesters from returning home.
To be honest, stations were often forced to close, given the way turnstiles and ticket booths were torched, smashed or spray painted. Throwing debris onto the lines is another popular form of disruption.
The company has just put a dollar figure on the vandalization and decreased ridership it has experienced over the course of six months of protests. MTR says it will take a HK$1.6 billion (US$204 million) hit to earnings, thanks to damage, the drop in trips, and rent concessions to companies with stores in and around stations. Its shares, which are listed but still 75% owned by the financial secretary's office, have plummeted 20.7% since mid-July.
The stock has yet to show much sign of life. Amazingly, though, the company still expects to be in the black this year thanks to its real estate rental income and apartment sales, in the most expensive residential market in the world. Last year, it saw profits rise 7.1% to HK$11.3 billion (US$1.4 billion), so it can take this punch and still turn a profit.
Its shares are worth watching if the situation continues to improve in Hong Kong. There is a definite easing of tensions here since a pro-democracy landslide in district council elections on November 24. The police have also started to approve protest marches once again, which they had been banning again and again.
I suspect that's under orders from the top after the U.S. Congress passed the Human Rights and Democracy Act. One of the new law's stipulations for issuing sanctions against a Hong Kong official, which could freeze their U.S. assets and prevent their U.S. travel, is if they have curtailed human rights in Hong Kong. Freedom of assembly is one of those rights.
The Hang Seng benchmark index is also still in the black for the year, although only narrowly, with a 2.5% gain. It has had two heavy bouts of selling, first in May when the demonstrations got real, and then in July when they started to get violent.
It has also not recovered much. Yet. But bargain hunters are betting that it will. Many of the companies listed in Hong Kong generate the bulk of their revenues from China, so they would get an even bigger boost in the case of a trade deal with the United States eventually being agreed.
So there are a couple of reasons why investment banks are telling their clients, quietly, to get ready.
"This is the best buying opportunity that you've had since 2016," Mohammed Apabhai, the head of Asia Pacific trading strategies at Citi, told the Financial Times.
"Unless you believe this is the end of Hong Kong, and it's never coming back - and we don't - basically this means there's a very significant probability that the market can rally 40%."
The Hang Seng index skyrocketed 170% after the Asian financial crisis in 1997-98, albeit at a time the government bought a large chunk of the equity market to support it. After the SARS epidemic, which led into the dot.com bubble recession in early 2003, the Hong Kong market leaped back close to 70%.
Hong Kong stocks are cheap. The Hang Seng is currently trading at a price/earnings ratio of 10.5, at 26,500 points. It has consistently found support at the 26,000 level. The S&P 500 is double that, at 22.2. Japan's Topix sits at 14.9 times earnings.
Goldman Sachs has been advising its clients since last month to buy the MTR's shares. "We could expect a rather quick turnaround in its patronage trend," the bank writes in a client note. And indeed, the MTR is busier again already.
I've lived in New York City and in London, and I've got to say that the subway system here in Hong Kong is great. It's clean (unless vandalized!), simply designed, the carriages are new, and you rarely have to wait longer than five minutes for a train. The system carries around 5 million passengers per day, in a city of 7.4 million people. Ridership was down 27% in both October and November, compared with those months last year.
Hong Kong's flagship airline Cathay Pacific (CPCAY) would be another transport stock to watch if the territory's travails do continue to ease. It's off 24.9% since April.
Cathay messed up its hedging on fuel prices, which drove it to losses in 2016 and 2017. But it has gobbled up the city's competitor airlines, buying budget carrier Hong Kong Express from the troubled Chinese conglomerate HNA Group.
HNA has been having a fire sale of its assets after it came under scrutiny by Beijing of how it had funded an aggressive expansion plan. That forced it to offload Hong Kong Express for HK$4.93 billion to Cathay, a deal completed in July.
Now another HNA carrier, Hong Kong Airlines, is struggling to survive. The carrier, which offers cheaper fares than Cathay on routes mainly to North and Southeast Asia, has been slow in paying staff their salaries, and is being reviewed by the airline licensing authority, at risk of losing its license to fly.
HNA on Monday secured a HK$4.4 billion (US$562 million) loan from eight Chinese state-owned banks led by China Development Bank. But it's unclear how much of that money, if any, will go to the airline.
It's par for the course with mainland Chinese companies, which have very murky finances even if they're public and audited. Hong Kong Airlines staff were, however, suddenly paid their November pay this week. The CEO tells the South China Morning Post that he expects enough money to ensure the airline's operations throughout the holiday period to arrive "within one or two days."
It better come quick. The airline-licensing authority will make a decision tomorrow on whether or not it will ground the airline.
I'd hate to see Cathay lose another competitor. My ticket prices will go up. Besides buying up budget Hong Kong Express, Cathay also ate up Dragonair, now called Cathay Dragon, which had for years been its only competition based out of Hong Kong. Cathay bought a chunk of the carrier in 1990 but subsumed it entirely in 2006.
It's looking a lot like Cathay may feel as little competition as our subway operator, if it becomes the online line in town. In case of a substantial Hong Kong rally, MTR and Cathay would therefore be good to own.
At the time of publication, Alex Frew McMillan had no position in the securities mentioned.
TAGS: Investing | Markets | Stocks | Trading | Airlines | Transportation | China


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Weibo 101: What One Chinese Brand Can Teach The Luxury Industry About Digital Marketing
Chinese Jewelry Brand "IDo" Effectively Using Weibo To Target And Communicate With Young Shoppers
One of IDo's free "Irresistibly Appealing" bracelets
As major luxury brands intensify their efforts to use Sina Weibo as an effective digital marketing and communication tool, over the past month an event by the Chinese jewelry brand "IDo" has presented a valuable case study in successfully targeting young, tech-savvy shoppers solely via Weibo, one that the Louis Vuittons and Burberrys of the world shouldn't ignore.
A year and a half after creating its Weibo account, IDo now has more than 400,000 fans, most of whom started following the company in recent months. Initially, Hexun notes, like most brands IDo used its Weibo account primarily for displaying products and product information, then later established a Weibo forum with more in-depth content and two-way communications. At the end of last month, though, IDo launched its first Weibo promotional activity, "Irresistibly Appealing" (当时我动心了, literally "I was moved"), taking advantage of consumer insights accrued over the past year via its Weibo forum.
Currently ongoing, "Irresistibly Appealing" includes a daily lottery that gives fans the chance to win diamond rings and necklaces, and encourages fans to share their most romantic dreams, with IDo choosing one fan per week whose dream the company will make "come true." On the first week of the event, one fan was given the opportunity to meet actor and singer William Feng (冯绍峰), on week two a fan was given a luxury equestrian riding experience, and on the third week the chosen dream entailed a trip in a hot air balloon. As of this week, the event had attracted more than 100,000 participants and was shared by more than 80,000 Weibo users.
Aside from the fact that it involves online giveaways — always popular in China — one of the main reasons IDo's promotion is working is that it actually gets people into its stores. Recently, the company announced via Weibo and other social media that it would be giving away free bracelets at its store locations, giving those who signed up for an in-store raffle a chance to win a diamond ring. While the pink silicone bracelets aren't much to brag about, the announcement lit up Chinese social media platforms, and within three days IDo had given away tens of thousands of free bracelets, with the company announcing that it would have to produce several hundred thousand more. After giving away its first batch, IDo then encouraged Weibo fans to share photos of themselves wearing their free bracelets and leave comments about "their romantic dreams." Saccharine, yes. But in terms of engagement, very effective.
Irresistibly Appealing has created a massive amount of online buzz for IDo
Although more high-end brands are turning to microblogging platforms for marketing purposes, some remain hesitant, mostly because the egalitarian nature of the medium is counter to the concept of exclusivity that these brands extol. Still, with brands like Hublot, Burberry, Louis Vuitton and Gucci looking to get more involved with Weibo this year, it's clear that the platform can't be ignored by anyone in the luxury industry, and cases like IDo's ongoing promotion indicate that microblogging campaigns done correctly can build buzz better and more quickly than any other online resource in China. While we'd never expect to see brands like LV give away free bracelets, one needs only to look at the massive reaction on Weibo to the free Gucci folders included in the August issue of Vogue China to see how buzz can reach fever pitch (and drive sales).
There are still risks, however, both to reputation and to the bottom line. While IDo's "Irresistibly Appealing" event is, in Jing Daily's view at least, a success, one must consider that the company has already invested millions of yuan putting it on, and we have no sense of IDo's ROI as it currently stands. Nonetheless, over the past few months, IDo has succeeded in exciting its Weibo fans and spreading its name throughout the world of Chinese social media. While this kind of promotion isn't for every luxury brand, creative Weibo campaigns shouldn't be discounted, particularly by younger or smaller brands that don't have the name recognition or clout of Chanel or Hermès.
Events, Market Analysis, Tech
branding, burberry, digital marketing, engagement, giveaway, gucci, hermes, IDo, lottery, louis vuitton, marketing, sina weibo, twitter, weibo
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A root canal is a treatment used to repair and save a tooth that is badly decayed or becomes infected. Endodontic treatment is necessary when the pulp, the soft tissue inside the root canal, becomes inflamed or infected. The inflammation or infection can have a variety of causes: deep decay, repeated dental procedures on the tooth, or a crack or chip in the tooth. During a root canal procedure, the nerve (pulp) is removed using small files and the inside of the tooth is cleaned and sealed. Without treatment, the tissue surrounding the tooth will become infected and abscesses may form.
When you undergo a root canal the inflamed or infected pulp is removed and the inside of the tooth is carefully cleaned and disinfected, then filled and sealed with a rubber-like material called gutta-percha.


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Mummers Parade to feature both queens and kings
For a second year in a row, drag queens will sashay through the annual Mummers Day Parade on New Years Day — and this Jan. 1, for the first time, they will be joined by drag kings.
At a Dec. 17 press conference at the Mummers Museum in South Philadelphia, members of the LGBT "Miss Fancy" Brigade showcased the strides they have made in creating more of an LGBT presence in the Mummers Parade and announced details about 2014's return.
The Mummers formally invited the LGBT drag group to march in the parade in 2013. Brittany Lynn and the Drag Mafia led the string bands up Broad Street to City Hall and later performed at the Convention Center, between the Fancy and Brigade acts.
This year, 11 drag queens and six drag kings were selected from a variety of drag contestants to perform.
All 17 will take part in leading the front portion of the parade and will perform at the A Stand along the parade route. The queens will also perform at the Convention Center again, said Lynn, portrayed by Ian Morrison, a former PGN editorial assistant.
"It shows how great the city can be that they are allowing the LGBT community to partake in this tradition and that they are willing to put us in front of the parade," she said. "It is a higher honor. It is just great to work with the City Councilman [Mark Squilla] and get support from local government."
The inclusion of the drag-king performers, Lynn added, shows a unity within both the drag and LGBT communities.
"This year, we insisted that the whole community is represented. It is not always about the drag queens," Lynn said. "If we are a part of this community, then all our community can be represented as well. We are not ashamed of our own people. Drag kings take a step back from the limelight, but here in Philly, we all work together."
Although Lynn will not be performing with the drag contingent, she will march with them.
Lynn said that, last year, the Mummers made the drag group feel welcomed in the event, and she anticipates the same will happen again.
"Feeling that love and support, it was thunderous," Lynn said. "Everyone threw their kids at us and cops insisted on taking photos with us. Everybody couldn't be more supportive."
Having the LGBT acts participate with such support, Lynn said, sends a clear message both about and to the LGBT community.
"I think there has been so much going on in the Gayborhood that has been bad, that I think we need this, we need more support from the city. Maybe it will help that we are all here together. If they can accept us, it shows the city that we can come together."


The Alkcon MP32K gas processor is an industrial natural gas to propane conversion system, designed for the production of propane from petroleum well flaring gas. The MP32K can produce up to 32,000 kg (16,400 gallons) of propane per week from a low-sulfur, natural gas source with a flow rate of up to 200CFM (288 Mcf/day). An onboard CHP system provides process heat, electrical power and external auxiliary power (up to 10kW).
*Evaluation units are expected to be available 2Q 2016.


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Currently Pakistan holds fifth position in world's top ten remittance recipient countries. The transfers of remittances help the left behind families and community in broader context to improve their situations at many levels. Normally they send remittance for families to accommodate their daily needs and to allocate on some investment purposes. But in many cases the allocation of remittances remained focused on nonproductive activities. In the case of community development, the remittances are allocated to number of activities such as health, education, roads, sanitation, water supply etc. In the current locale, Karrianwala village (although by the size of population it could be pronounced as town), District Gujrat, the role of foreign remittances was evident in improving the community situation by installing water supply, pavement of roads/streets and sanitation during 1990s and afterwards. Although, these developmental activities were initiated by the committees comprising members from all major caste groups of village but it was also co-financed by the Gujrati diaspora living throughout the world. Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted to collect data from a set of respondents (1) from the member of village development committee, and (2) from the heads of left behind families having at least one active migrant member. In addition to this two key informant were also taken to get their detailed perspectives on the issue. The results showed a positive correlation between remittances and community development. The majority of migrants were strongly connected with the people at origin and they were very concerned about the problems faced by the left behinds.
Sarfraz Khan (Pakistan) 8439


Sealed completely weatherproof brass teleidoscope, the rest of scope is anodized steel. Comes with removable bowl inset for flowers and other objects. Let this scope add to the beauty of your garden. 60" high, 35" diameter sphere, 22" diameter bowl, sealed completely weatherproof brass teleidoscope, 13" long, 2.25" diameter, rest of scope is anodized steel, base is 21" x 21", weight 185 lbs. Shipping cost is may be over $600, shipping arrangements and quote to be determined after scope is ordered. (Does not qualify for free shipping). If you are in the area, contact us to arrange for pickup from the store (678-937-2673).


Farnborough International welcomed its key stakeholders and local VIPs to take a look at the construction progress of the new Hall 1.
Farnborough International welcomed its key stakeholders and local VIPs to take a look at the construction progress of the new Hall 1. The new 20,000sqm multi-purpose flexible event space is currently in week 33 of a 69-week build and is due to open in February 2018.
Attendees today included members from the unique funding consortium, comprising Enterprise M3 Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), Hampshire County Council, Rushmoor Borough Council and Barclays Bank together provided the £30m funding for the project. All were delighted to be able to see the development of the facility which is set to become the leading events venue for the South of England, outside London.
When completed, Hall 1 will continue to build on Farnborough International's firmly-established reputation as a business events destination and home to the world-famous Airshow.
Geoff added: "We are proud to have played a leading role in harnessing the partnership needed to fund this project and we are confident that it will make Farnborough an important hub for international business events in addition to the Airshow."
The new purpose built venue space will be flexible enough to cater for almost any kind of exhibition, conference, meeting, dinner or launch event thanks to 12,500sqm of exhibition space, conference space for up to 2,500 delegates and nine purpose-built function rooms.


Hiring is hard, but hiring for startups can be even harder. Understanding that the success of your startup depends on building a team of great people, what can you do to attract and retain top talent? Jeremy Johnson, Co-founder & CEO of Andela, a startup that builds and trains high-performing distributed engineering teams, joins us at the AWS Loft NYC to share how startups can build a solid recruitment strategy that attracts top players.
At END. we're constantly working to improve the way our engineering department operates. Our goal is simple: to empower the team so they can get stuff done without obstruction or interference. Anything to make things easier, faster, more reliable—and if that means tinkering with some new technology along the way, even better. Until recently, deployments were one of the biggest pain points for our engineers and with a two-person DevOps team we inevitably became a massive bottleneck when it came to go-live. We knew we needed to find a better way of doing things, and as existing AWS users, AWS Fargate seemed like the natural way forward.
Many enterprises are adopting cloud-based strategies as they initiate new projects or migrate from older, legacy systems. To meet demanding and rapidly changing business needs, they employ frequent code releases, increasingly use containers, and process and store data for compliance. It's an environment with a great deal of change and activity, but solutions like SIEMs and firewalls just can't provide the level of insight required—they aren't built for automation or scale.
PropTech, the convergence of property and technology, is changing the face of the real estate industry and enhancing the property ecosystem with efficient alternatives to traditional practices thanks to technological innovation–but to what extent? Founders and experts from Nestio, REX Real Estate, MetaProp, Compound Asset Management, and Corigin Ventures, met at the AWS Loft in NYC to discuss how the application of AI, automation, big data, and other emerging technologies can offer boundless opportunities and benefits for entrepreneurs looking to tap into the market. The panel also discussed predictive analytics, real estate cryptocurrencies, and other nuances in funding for PropTech startups.
Join us this week for an inside look into security startups building on Amazon Web Services! We are joined by some startups from the security industry to discuss how they got their start, their company missions, and how Amazon Web Services helped them accomplish their architectural goals.
Whether you have 1 or 1,000,000 users, building a scalable web application that can handle peaks and dips in traffic is vital to the long-term success of your startup. And, one that should be planned in advanced so that, as you grow, the correct scaling architecture is in place. But, as a new startup, how do you plan for high loads while also juggling a growing business? Eric Yip, Co-founder and CTO of adtech startup Track Revenue, recently joined us at the AWS Loft in San Francisco to share the mistakes and lessons learned along their journey to a scalable architecture. He unpacked the principles of developing high-performance applications as well as provided the audience with considerations and tips on building a well-designed application that's both resilient and scalable.
Join us for an inside look into Game Tech startups building on AWS! We will be joined by Blacknut and IGDB (Internet Game Database) to discuss how they got their start, their company missions, and how AWS helped them accomplish their architectural goals.
Maral Kalajian, Marketing & Communications Manager at Watty, talks about how the Stockholm, Sweden-based startup makes tools to help people understand what is happening in their home in real-time.
Join us for an inside look into Food and AgroTech startups building on AWS! We're joined by some startups from the food industry, including Parsley, to discuss how they got their start, their company missions, and how helped them accomplish their architectural goals.
London-based Unmade is an on-demand clothing manufacturing platform that offers businesses the ability to offer customization to their customers. Co-founder Kirsty Emery talks to us about how they utilize new technologies, how she met her two co-founders, and how they will take on the fashion industry.


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Home | Jodi | Gallery | Q Jewelry & Queen George | Media | Fan | Site
Role: Lionel Davenport
Release Date: Season 4 - July 2018
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Site Name: Jodi Lyn O'Keefe Daily
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Jodi Lyn O'Keefe Daily is a fansite dedicated to beautiful and talented actress Jodi Lyn O'Keefe. This is not her official website. All photos, videos and other media files are copyrighted to their rightful owners. No copyright infringement is intended. Please do not take any legal action. Any issues with material please contact me directly to be credited or have the item removed from the site. Removals do require PROOF that you are the original copyright owner of the material. Please email me before taking any legal action.
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Jodi Lyn O'Keefe (born October 10, 1978) is an American actress and model, who at age 17 portrayed Cassidy Bridges on Nash Bridges. She is also known for her role on Prison Break as Gretchen Morgan, a.k.a. "Susan B. Anthony".
O'Keefe was born in Cliffwood Beach, New Jersey, the daughter of Noreen, a homemaker, and Jack O'Keefe, a director of labor relations for Merck. She has Czech, Irish, Polish, Swedish and German ancestry. O'Keefe has two older sisters, Jenna and Heather.
She began modeling at the age of 8 after seeing her eldest sister Heather modelling. She modeled for various companies such as Gitano Jeans and DreamPhone. When she reached her teen years she attended Saint John Vianney High School in Holmdel, New Jersey. After her sophomore year Jodi left school to star on the soap Another World (1964), where she played Marguerite Cory. After she left Another World she immediately landed the role of Cassidy Bridges on the hit CBS cop action/drama Nash Bridges (1996). She played Cassidy for all 6 seasons. While she was filming Nash Bridges she made her big screen debut in the 1998 Halloween sequel Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998). Jodi then hit the spotlight when she portrayed the snobby, popular and rich Taylor Vaughan in the 1999 hit teen flick She's All That (1999). She then starred in three more movies before she began to keep a lower profile.
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Q: kill my application process after the creation of backgroundservice i want to know please : if it possible to kill my application process after the creation of my service. which does not require the process to be in running mode to make my application light in memory  ?

A: By default your Service will run in same process as UI of your application, so it's not a good idea to kill main process of the app if Service is not moved to separate process.
If you really want to run Service in separate process, I'd suggest to don't try to kill main process of the application, if Android will decide to kill it -> it'll do it himself.
If device will run out of memory -> Android will unload your Activities (with saving state, of course), also Android can shutdown non-major services (see Foreground Service).


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https://www.the-american-interest.com/2020/05/02/a-sickness-unto-death/
Leonid Pasternak, "The Passion of Creation" (Wikimedia Commons)
The Literary Life
A Sickness Unto Death
Morten Høi Jensen
A new memoir by George Scialabba, an unsung giant of criticism, is a gripping portrait of life under the spell of depression—and also a model of true intellectual inquiry.
How to be Depressed
George Scialabba
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020, 224 pp., $27.50
In 2005, the literary and political critic George Scialabba suffered a major depressive episode that required him to take a three-month leave from his clerical job at Harvard University to undergo electro-convulsive therapy. Scialabba later described the experience as a kind of midlife crisis—he was 57 at the time—brought on by what he perceived to be his professional failures. Though a long-time contributor to publications like The Nation, Dissent, and the Boston Globe, for most of his career Scialabba has remained an unsung hero of the book review. He has never been on staff anywhere or held an academic post at a college or university; until 2006, he'd never published a book. It is only in the last decade or so that he has begun to enjoy something like a reputation, eliciting fulsome praise from James Wood, Vivian Gornick, and the late Richard Rorty, not to mention the admiration of a generation of younger writers. (In 2012, I was present at a gathering in a not-secret bookstore on Manhattan's Upper East Side when Scialabba, ensconced by young admirers like myself, was celebrated and interviewed by The New Inquiry).
The five volumes of Scialabba's essays published by Pressed Wafer, a now defunct small press out of Cambridge, Massachusetts, is the least expensive and most accessible crash course in modern intellectual history I know of. There are few ideas, thinkers, or writers that Scialabba does not engage with, even fewer philosophical concepts he hasn't mastered, and almost no major political or intellectual trend he doesn't address. And though he suspects that the ideal of "the intellectual as 'anti-specialist,' uniting political and aesthetic interests and able to speak with some authority about both," may now be obsolete, Scialabba's own essays prove otherwise. His lucid, expository prose and wide range of reference call to mind many of those anti-specialist intellectuals he writes about so penetratingly, from Lionel Trilling and Irving Howe to George Orwell and Dwight MacDonald. Yet far from being a throwback, Scialabba is a deeply engaged interpreter of the political present; a committed radical whose eloquence and erudition make him, or should make him, required reading even for those who may not share his political views (or his admiration for Noam Chomsky, say). When he won the National Book Critics Circle Citation for Excellence in Reviewing in 1992, he said in his acceptance speech that what he prizes above all in the writers he most cherishes is their disinterestedness. "I mean that rare and (for me, anyway) supremely difficult ability to care more for getting things right than for winning arguments, for understanding rather than for being admired," he explained. In a culturally and politically divisive time, Scialabba is a model of what intellectual inquiry should look and sound like. In a better world, he would merit the prestige and devotion heaped on flabbier thinkers.
All of which conspires to make his latest book, How to Be Depressed, such a mixed reading pleasure. On the one hand, one is grateful for the characteristically insightful and socially committed thought that Scialabba brings to the thorny issue of clinical depression. In the book's opening chapter, for instance, originally published as a standalone essay in The Baffler, Scialabba considers various ways in which a government could do more for its chronically depressed citizens, including giving them some form of financial assistance. "Chronic depression is very hard on lifetime earnings; and like many other people's, my retirement account is in trauma just now," he writes. I suppose one could question just how seriously Scialabba means us to take this—to put it mildly—naïve idea, but one is less likely to dismiss it out of hand given the description of depression that precedes it: "The pain of a severe clinical depression is the worst thing in the world. To escape it, I would do anything."
Yet the pleasure, if we can call it that, of reading How to be Depressed becomes more vexed in the book's second, and longest, chapter, "Documentia." It is an account of the author's mental life viewed through the treatment notes of the many psychiatrists and therapists he has been a patient of since 1969, when he experienced his first depressive episode. In an introductory note, Scialabba refers to these records as "a form of anti-writing," since they were never meant for publication and can hardly be said to have been written in any literary sense at all. Usually no longer than a paragraph or two, they oscillate between the impersonal and the personal, from referring to Scialabba simply as "Patient" to noting that "Mr. S had a new haircut, which also seemed to be a source of some anxiety."
From these medical missives the reader gradually begins to piece a life together. George Scialabba was born in East Boston, the son of Italian immigrants, and grew up a devout Catholic. He went on to attend Harvard, where he joined Opus Dei, a religious order within the Catholic Church whose orthodoxy ran contrary to Scialabba's burgeoning intellectual ambitions. In August 1969, while debating whether to attend Harvard Law School or Columbia University in New York, a religious crisis precipitated his first major depressive episode. Scialabba sought professional help and was described by a doctor at the Psychiatric Clinic at Harvard University as "often paralyzed by self-doubts and unable to be decisive." He went on to attend Columbia but soon suffered another breakdown and dropped out. Upon returning to Cambridge, he was pronounced "a very troubled man [with] borderline personality with obsessive-compulsive features."
Scialabba's next major depressive episode occurred in 1981, when he was a 33-year-old receptionist at the Center for International Studies at Harvard, as well as a contributor of book reviews for The Village Voice. A "neatly groomed, articulate young man," he was nevertheless anxious, sleepless, and occasionally impotent, not to mention "unable to decide about anything," including whether to continue with therapy. He feared that breaking with his religious upbringing had been a mistake, and worried that he had not accomplished enough, a source of anxiety that only intensified with age. By 1987, a doctor noted that Scialabba "has had a variety of low-level jobs and although he functions adequately in them, he is certainly not living up to his intellectual potential at all." He was often envious of friends who published in more prestigious magazines or taught at elite universities. In contrast to his peers, Scialabba saw himself as a "dabbler" and as "butterfly-like," floating from one thing to another without being able to commit. There was occasional talk of obtaining a teaching position or of writing a book, but nothing ever came of it.
Additionally, there are the many medications Scialabba's doctors have plied him with: Wellbutrin, Zoloft, Effexor, Parnate, Serax, Prozac, Ativan, Klonopin, Zyprexa, Valium. (In a later entry on drugs, Scialabba writes that the only people to have benefited from antidepressants are "pharmaceutical executives and investors," a disappointingly unjust claim.) For whatever reason, Scialabba has not had luck with any of them, and at age 57 felt that his depression was "worse than ever." A string of romantic relationships had gone nowhere and his professional career was stalled. Eventually, as a last-ditch effort, he signed up for electro-convulsive therapy treatment. It quite possibly saved his life. "If you are in unbearable distress, you should consider it," Scialabba later writes.
Such are the contours of Scialabba's mental life as seen through five decades of doctors' notes. I can't say it's something I particularly enjoyed reading, but I don't regret it either. It conveys an accurate sense of the sheer tedium of depression and the desperate and unwavering desire on the part of the sufferer to be rid of it. This will be familiar to anyone who has read the "classics" of the depression memoir genre, such as William Styron's Darkness Visible or Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind. What makes Scialabba's account stand out is that it shows just how incommunicable a disease depression is. It is an affliction that monstrously consumes narrative, making it almost impossible for the sufferer to explain his plight. There is no sense of narrative order in "Documentia," no beginning or end, no trajectory of progress or remission. There is just the aimless repetition of one day feeling awful and the other day slightly less awful, without hope of one day feeling cured.
But the human proclivity to narrative is irrepressible, and surely one way of dealing with depression is to counterbalance its incomprehensibility with, precisely, narrative. For Scialabba, that narrative begins with his religious crisis at age 21. In a conversation with his friend Christopher Lydon, which makes up the third chapter of How to be Depressed, he describes it in the following terms:
Before I left Opus Dei and the Church, I thought it was a great gain rather than a great loss. I thought I had discovered the truth about the universe, and that by leaving I would be placing myself in the ranks of a great army of liberation going all the way back to the first modern philosophers and especially the philosophes of the Enlightenment. I felt tremendously lucky and proud to be a drop in that great wave of progress and truth. And then, when I actually did it, walked out the door, I discovered that religion had been a kind of drug for me, or a safety net or scaffolding. And the reaction I felt was one of agitation and anxiety. Now I was to be on my own for a lifetime—and possibly eternity, just in case I happened to be wrong. I was terribly frightened.
In one of his essays, Scialabba describes the thrill of first encountering Kant's famous definition of Enlightenment as "humankind's emergence from its own, self-imposed minority," and as a progressive he is necessarily proud to be modern, if by modern we mean valuing democracy, individual autonomy, and the freedom to question tradition and authority. These achievements of modernity—not to mention more tangible ones like sanitation, agricultural innovation, and modern medicine—should not be taken for granted. But as Scialabba writes elsewhere, being a modern individual also brings its own difficulties: "In one perspective, modern intellectual history seems a kind of ascetic frenzy, a continual renunciation of consoling, structure-providing, community-creating illusions."
Scialabba is deeply sensitive to what is too often the exclusive province of conservative thinkers: religious belief, metaphysical suffering, and communal loyalty. (He writes brilliantly about anti-modernists like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Christopher Lasch.) In an essay on the Australian sociologist John Carroll, he goes so far as to entertain the idea that modernity may have been a mistake. During the second half of the 20th century, he writes, "an epidemic of spiritual emptiness descended: alienation, consumerism, and the loneliness of mass society. Perhaps, as a minority of modern thinkers have always believed, we cannot live by reason alone."
In other words, we may have acquired more freedom than we know what to do with. To be modern is to suffer from an abundance of choices (and I don't just mean choosing which movie to watch on Netflix). Making the difficult choice not to believe in one's childhood faith, as Scialabba did when he was a young man, is one of those modern choices, and without question one of the more difficult. The vacancy left by that decision, and the lifelong struggle to fill it, is felt, not just on every page of How to be Depressed, but on almost every page Scialabba has ever written. To say that this is to the benefit and enrichment of his readers will surely be scant consolation for the suffering author.
Is it going too far to suggest that Scialabba's depression could be interpreted, at least in part, as a response to the vertigo of modernity? Another way of framing the question might be: Is depression solely a matter of chemical imbalances or altered neural circuits? If so, one imagines treating it would be fairly straightforward, yet that is clearly not the case. (Anyone who has suffered from depression, or lived with someone suffering from it, knows that it is never simply a case of administering the right dose of medicine.) The afflicted is thus condemned to look beyond a strictly medical treatment, but what that means exactly remains stubbornly elusive for most. In the interview with Christopher Lydon, Scialabba quotes D. H. Lawrence: "Man has little needs and deeper needs. We have fallen into the mistake of living from our little need until we have almost lost our deeper needs in a sort of madness."
Whatever else Scialabba has achieved during these difficult decades, I can only hope the knowledge that he has taught his readers to live with greater awareness of their deeper needs has made at least some of that pain worth it.
Appeared in: Volume 15, Number 6 | Published on: May 2, 2020
Morten Høi Jensen is the author of A Difficult Death: The Life and Work of Jens Peter Jacobsen (2017).


Nothing much exciting rolls through Violet White's sleepy, seaside town… until River West comes along. River rents the guesthouse behind Violet's crumbling estate, and as eerie, grim things start to happen, Violet begins to wonder about the boy living in her backyard. Is River just a crooked-smiling liar with pretty eyes and a mysterious past? Or could he be something more? Violet's grandmother always warned her about the Devil, but she never said he could be a dark-haired boy who takes naps in the sun, who likes coffee, who kisses you in a cemetery…who makes you want to kiss back. Violet's already so knee-deep in love, she can't see straight. And that's just how River likes it.
A gothic thriller romance with shades of Stephen King and F. Scott Fitzgerald, set against a creepy summertime backdrop—a must-read for fans of Beautiful Creatures, The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, and Anna Dressed in Blood.
The conclusion to Between the Devil and The Deep Blue Sea, this gothic thriller romance with shades of Stephen King and Daphne du Maurier is a must-read for fans of Beautiful Creaturesand Anna Dressed in Blood.
The intrigue of The Raven Boys and the "supernatural or not" question ofThe Unbecoming of Mara Dyer coalesce in this young adult mystery, where nothing is quite as it seems, no one is quite who you think, and everything can change on a dime.


I always say at the beginning of my speeches "confession is the beginning of healing." There is no healing without confession. My name is Walid Shoebat and I was a Palestinian terrorist. I lived the life of a terrorist as I was growing up. Today, unfortunately we live in a world filled with ignorance and hate. Most people will say they have done something horrible in their life. I used to be a terrorist. I carried a bomb and tried to lynch an Israeli at a young age.
Terrorism is taught at a very young age. I was 6 years old, going to kindergarten, and the first song that we learned was "Arabs are beloved, and Jews are dogs." We were commanded to want to throw all the Jews in the sea.


The names on these lists represent those listed on the Memorial Room's permanent plaques. These are men and women with ties to New Hampshire who have lost their lives in service to their country.
What constitutes a "tie" to New Hampshire is interpreted broadly. Veterans may have been born in New Hampshire, spent a significant amount of their lives in New Hampshire, or were residents at the time of their passing. It is our goal to be inclusive in this list, but because of the nature of how we define a "tie" to the state, we sometimes miss people. If you feel that there is a name missing, or if you find any other error in these lists, please contact Ken Barrows in the MUB Administrative Office (ken.barrows@unh.edu).


We are state founded, comprehensive school, of 3 years of education (Years 10-12).
We are based in Wroclaw, the capital of the southwestern Polish province of Lower Silesia.
It is a 60-year-old school situated in the suburbian area of Wroclaw, conveniently located and it is very easy to come here by public transport. Trams (no. 2,4,10) and buses (no.145, 146) all make frequent stops near the school.
We are a medium sized school with about 450 students and 35 teachers.
The students are 16 to 19 years old.
The school year, devided into two semesters, starts at the beginning of September and ends the last week of June. The number of pupils in a class vary from 22 to 32.
Certain subjects, such as foreign languages, biology, chemistry, computer science are taught in groups between 10-16 students.
Every pupil has at least 30 workhours a week during 10th to 12th grades.
At the end of their studies secondary students take the national matriculation examination, which they must take in written and oral form choosing basic or extended level of difficulty.
The school building has gone through a thorough renovation and improvement in recent years. As a result, this is the first school in the area that has good access for the disabled and is now well-equipped for up-to-date teaching and learning.
School day: 6-7 periods, 45 minute classes, 10 min. breaks.
Marking periods: January and mid June (mid-term and final assessments for each course). April - for senior students.
In order for a student to be promoted to the next grade level, they need to earn a passing grade (at least 2) in all required subjects.
A course failed may be made up after the summer, by passing a remedial examination (wriiten and oral).
Many extra-curricular activities are held after school. The students can take an interest in aerobics, team games, drama, school newspaper, computers and chess during their leisure time.
Each student is obliged to study at least two of the free languages that the school offers: English, German and Spanish. Classes are small and formed in accordance with the students' level of competence. Students can choose advanced and basic courses.
Our school holds awards eagerly participating in european collaborative work.


Open to ALL NSC students!
Summary: Applications on a Time Crunch!!!
Description: If you have decided to apply to transfer for Fall quarter last minute, come to this session and we will talk about what you should prioritize on your application. There are still institutions that have rolling admissions to apply to in Washington State and plenty of options for you to transfer still!


As the fall leaves are changing I can't help but want to bring those beautiful colours into my home.
I don't do many crochet project for around this house but this one was so fun and useful I had to share. Happy Fall Everyone!
#5 Bulky Yarn (I used old scraps of Bernat Softee Chunky) Lions Pride Woolspun would be a good substitute.
Rnd 3: 2 dc in 1st st, 2 dc in each st around. (24) Join with slst to the top of 1st dc.
Rnd 4: Skip 1st st, *7 dc in next, skip next st, slst in next, skip next st* rpt from *to* 3 more times. 7 dc in next st, skip next st, slst next 3 sts.
Ch 4, slst into 2nd chain from hook and each chain made and last st of rnd 4.
Join with slst to next st and fasten off.
Lay finished crochet leaf on felt and trace with permanent marker.
Cut out leaf about 1/4" to the inside of traced shape of leaf.
Glue to wrong side of leaf and let glue dry according to directions on product.
I was actually wondering if I would be able to sell the finished product while mentioning where I got the pattern from? Thank you!
In point 1, I was only able to do 5 sc then the 3 hdc. The I structions say to fold the ch 3 and slst into 1st hdc, but when I watched that part of the video to figure it out, it went into the 3rd hdc. Its a lovely pattern and I paused in my pattern searchustso I could have a pretty maple leaf (in blue wool). Thanks!
Great pattern! I'll definitely be trying it. Thanks!
This is super cute! I wish I knew how to crochet.
Love the leaves 🙂 And you use such pretty colours! Would make a pretty garland too! And funny how everyone thinks the same – I designed one for Canada Day, but yours is a softer looking maple leaf!
Thank you! LOL Could it be the Canadian in us? I thought about a garland as well that would be really pretty!


text:
Kasson Crooker is an American electronic musician, a composer, and the artist behind Symbion Project, his solo moniker. His past bands are Freezepop, Splashdown, Larkspur, and Sirensong. DJ HMX, Komputer Kontroller, and Cosmonaut Zero were alias bands of Crooker used only for the videogames FreQuency and Amplitude.

Music career
In 1999, Crooker formed the synthpop group Freezepop with Liz Enthusiasm and Sean T. Drinkwater. While in the band he went by various aliases, starting as The Duke of Candied Apples, then briefly being known as The Duke of Belgian Waffles, and finally The Duke of Pannenkoeken. In September 2009, Kasson retired from Freezepop to focus his efforts on his work at Harmonix. He has made several guest appearances at Freezepop concerts since then, often also playing a Symbion Project set.

His main solo project is Symbion Project, with seven releases: Red (1998), Immortal Game (2003), Wound Up by God or the Devil (2006), Misery in Soliloquy (2009), Contrapasso (2011), Arcadian (2016), and Saturnine (2022). Several of his songs are featured in Johannes Grenzfurthner's films Die Gstettensaga: The Rise of Echsenfriedl, Traceroute and Glossary of Broken Dreams.

His other former bands include the dreampop band Sirensong and the more well-known Splashdown, whose albums include Stars and Garters, Halfworld (EP), Redshift (EP), and the unreleased full-length albums Blueshift (which was completed but never released by Capitol Records) and Possibilities (an album of remixes and demos).

In April 2017, Crooker teamed with Micah Knapp and Avielle Heath to create a 360 Virtual Reality music video for a single off of "Arcadian".

Video game development
Crooker was also a project director at video game developer Harmonix and was the project lead on Phase, Rock Band 2, Dance Central, and Dance Central 2 for Kinect/Xbox360. The music of Symbion Project and Freezepop has been featured in the Harmonix PlayStation 2 games FreQuency, Amplitude, the Karaoke Revolution series, Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero 2, Phase, Rock Band; the InCog-developed Downhill Domination; and one of the North American Dance Dance Revolution games developed by Konami, which publishes Karaoke Revolution. He and Eric Brosius took home the 2006 Game Developers Choice Award for Best Audio for their work on Guitar Hero.

References

External links
 Symbion Project Official Website
 Facebook
 Twitter
 Soundcloud
 Bandcamp (CD Store)
 Official website of Freezepop
 Nashville Review interview with Kasson Crooker

American electronic musicians
Living people
Freezepop members
Keytarists
Year of birth missing (living people)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
package mcjty.deepresonance.items.rftoolsmodule;

import mcjty.deepresonance.blocks.tank.TankSetup;
import mcjty.deepresonance.items.GenericDRItem;
import mcjty.deepresonance.radiation.RadiationConfiguration;
import mcjty.lib.varia.BlockTools;
import mcjty.lib.varia.Logging;
import mcjty.rftools.api.screens.IClientScreenModule;
import mcjty.rftools.api.screens.IModuleGuiBuilder;
import mcjty.rftools.api.screens.IModuleProvider;
import mcjty.rftools.api.screens.IScreenModule;
import net.minecraft.block.Block;
import net.minecraft.block.state.IBlockState;
import net.minecraft.client.util.ITooltipFlag;
import net.minecraft.entity.player.EntityPlayer;
import net.minecraft.item.ItemStack;
import net.minecraft.nbt.NBTTagCompound;
import net.minecraft.util.EnumActionResult;
import net.minecraft.util.EnumFacing;
import net.minecraft.util.EnumHand;
import net.minecraft.util.math.BlockPos;
import net.minecraft.util.text.TextFormatting;
import net.minecraft.world.World;
import net.minecraftforge.fml.relauncher.Side;
import net.minecraftforge.fml.relauncher.SideOnly;

import java.util.List;

public class RCLModuleItem extends GenericDRItem implements IModuleProvider {

    public RCLModuleItem() {
        super("rcl_module");
        setMaxStackSize(1);
    }

    @Override
    public int getMaxItemUseDuration(ItemStack stack) {
        return 1;
    }

    @Override
    public Class<? extends IScreenModule<?>> getServerScreenModule() {
        return RCLScreenModule.class;
    }

    @Override
    public Class<? extends IClientScreenModule<?>> getClientScreenModule() {
        return RCLClientScreenModule.class;
    }

    @Override
    public String getName() {
        return "RCL";
    }

    @Override
    public void createGui(IModuleGuiBuilder guiBuilder) {
        guiBuilder
                .label("Label:").text("text", "Label text").color("color", "Color for the label").nl()
                .label("Stats:").color("radcolor", "Color for the statistics text").nl()
                .choices("align", "Label alignment", "Left", "Center", "Right").nl()
                .block("monitor").nl();
    }

    @SideOnly(Side.CLIENT)
    @Override
    public void addInformation(ItemStack itemStack, World player, List<String> list, ITooltipFlag whatIsThis) {
        super.addInformation(itemStack, player, list, whatIsThis);
        list.add(TextFormatting.GREEN + "Uses " + RadiationConfiguration.RCLMODULE_RFPERTICK + " RF/tick");
        boolean hasTarget = false;
        NBTTagCompound tagCompound = itemStack.getTagCompound();
        if (tagCompound != null) {
            list.add(TextFormatting.YELLOW + "Label: " + tagCompound.getString("text"));
            if (tagCompound.hasKey("monitorx")) {
                int monitorx = tagCompound.getInteger("monitorx");
                int monitory = tagCompound.getInteger("monitory");
                int monitorz = tagCompound.getInteger("monitorz");
                String monitorname = tagCompound.getString("monitorname");
                list.add(TextFormatting.YELLOW + "Monitoring: " + monitorname + " (at " + monitorx + "," + monitory + "," + monitorz + ")");
                hasTarget = true;
            }
        }
        if (!hasTarget) {
            list.add(TextFormatting.YELLOW + "Sneak right-click on a RCL tank to set the");
            list.add(TextFormatting.YELLOW + "target for this module");
        }
    }

    @Override
    public EnumActionResult onItemUse(EntityPlayer player, World world, BlockPos pos, EnumHand hand, EnumFacing facing, float hitX, float hitY, float hitZ) {
        ItemStack stack = player.getHeldItem(hand);
        IBlockState state = world.getBlockState(pos);
        Block block = state.getBlock();
        NBTTagCompound tagCompound = stack.getTagCompound();
        if (tagCompound == null) {
            tagCompound = new NBTTagCompound();
        }

        if (block == TankSetup.tank) {
            tagCompound.setInteger("monitordim", world.provider.getDimension());
            tagCompound.setInteger("monitorx", pos.getX());
            tagCompound.setInteger("monitory", pos.getY());
            tagCompound.setInteger("monitorz", pos.getZ());
            String name = "<invalid>";
            if (block != null && !block.isAir(state, world, pos)) {
                name = BlockTools.getReadableName(world, pos);
            }
            tagCompound.setString("monitorname", name);
            if (world.isRemote) {
                Logging.message(player, "RCL module is set to block '" + name + "'");
            }
        } else {
            tagCompound.removeTag("monitordim");
            tagCompound.removeTag("monitorx");
            tagCompound.removeTag("monitory");
            tagCompound.removeTag("monitorz");
            tagCompound.removeTag("monitorname");
            if (world.isRemote) {
                Logging.message(player, "RCL module is cleared");
            }
        }
        stack.setTagCompound(tagCompound);
        return EnumActionResult.SUCCESS;
    }

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Suitable for traveling use or daily life.
Lockable cover design, more clean and convenient to carry.
The locking tabs prevent contents from spilling in traveling and there are no drain holes which prevents messy leaks, the soap will not slip out.
For the storage of one piece soap.


They say you can never be too careful. At the University of Minnesota, that goes double.
Through a unique partnership with the Dow Chemical Co., graduate students and postdoctoral researchers from the U departments of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and Materials Science (CEMS) are leading a campaign to improve and sustain the safety culture in chemistry and chemical engineering laboratories.
While Dow is not providing a financial donation for the initiative, it is sharing its best-in-class laboratory safety practices, examples, advice, and resources. Last spring Dow sponsored a two-day safety training for students and faculty at its facility in Michigan, and it has been providing advice to the students and postdocs since.
The safety partnership could help other universities across the country, as well.
"Dow's leadership in assisting universities to strengthen their commitment to safety will yield long-lasting benefits to the academic enterprise nationwide," says Frank Bates, head of CEMS.
"Dow's leadership in assisting universities to strengthen their commitment to safety will yield long-lasting benefits to the academic enterprise nationwide."
"The fact that it is being led by the graduate students and postdoctoral researchers is terrific," says William Tolman, chair of the chemistry department. "Their energy and creative ideas are already having a profound impact."
Graduate students and postdocs in the two departments have formed a Joint Safety Team (JST), comprising 62 laboratory safety officers (LSOs) and interested graduate students from the two departments. The JST's safety campaign focuses on improvement in four areas, summarized "CARE": compliance, awareness, resources, and education.
The JST has compiled a "guidebook" of recommendations for improving safety practices. Short-term items implemented this fall include posting new laboratory signs that emphasize personal protection equipment (PPE) requirements, potential hazards in the lab, and guidelines on how to make the labs safer places to conduct research.
The first round of LSO-led laboratory walkthroughs in November and December gave each principal investigator and 51 LSOs a report on how their labs performed, and the LSOs saw the safety concerns in other labs.
In January the first Cleanup Week, held in collaboration with the Department of Environmental Health and Safety (DEHS) for the chemistry department and CEMS, resulted in the safe disposal of 321 samples of unknown waste, saving thousands of dollars and improving safety in the labs.
A new website (www.jst.umn.edu) provides JST and safety related information to researchers and LSOs.
The first LSO training session, held January 16, attracted 51 of 52 LSOs.
Also, McGarry says, "safety moments" at the beginning of seminars are becoming popular and spreading.
"I heard from a University of St. Thomas professor that Professor [Thomas] Hoye included a safety moment in his recent visit to UST," she says. "The focus was on the chemical trimethylsilyl-diazomethane and the necessary safety precautions when working with this compound."
"The peer lab audits have been especially helpful," says doctoral candidate Nick Erickson, a former LSO from a CEMS lab and former member of the JST Administrative Committee. "Personally, this has given me the chance to see how solid hazardous waste is handled in other labs, and we've used that knowledge to improve our labs. [Also], having standard signage has greatly improved the use of personal protective equipment in labs. Having the hazards listed on the door of each lab, and how to safely avoid them, is a constant reminder to wear the proper safety equipment in each situation."
"The Department of Environmental Health and Safety is committed to learning from this innovative program and sharing what we have learned from this experience with others across the campus."
"The Department of Environmental Health and Safety is committed to learning from this innovative program and sharing what we have learned from this experience with others across the campus," says Craig Moody, director of the DEHS. "The students involved in this program should be very proud in knowing they will have an impact on the health and safety of thousands of students and staff in the years to come."


text:
Fangzhang () – w mitologii chińskiej górzysta rajska wyspa położona na wschodnim oceanie, stanowiąca miejsce zamieszkania nieśmiertelnych. Wyspa stanowiła cel wyprawy Xu Fu w poszukiwaniu ziela nieśmiertelności pod koniec III wieku p.n.e., zakończonej prawdopodobnie dopłynięciem do brzegów Japonii. Pod nazwą Fanghu (方壺) została wspomniana w traktacie Liezi, jako jedna z pięciu rajskich wysp. Współcześnie przypuszcza się, że Fangzhang oraz dwie inne rajskie wyspy, Penglai i Yingzhou, należy utożsamiać z archipelagiem Peskadorów.

Nazwą tą określa się także celę mniszą w buddyjskim klasztorze.

Przypisy

Mitologia chińska
Mityczne wyspy


Various 2001 Boxster S parts for sale.
996 GT3 Front Sway bar.
WTB: Passenger side Litronic head lamp.
Base Boxster wheels fot sale.
any brits on here parting boxsters?
Wanted:LED Headlights, Tail lights and indicator sets.
Anyone interested in a Zeintop?
Selling Complete Slate Grey 97-04 Boxster interior. Excellent condition!


Costa Rica is a peaceful haven in the umbilical cord of the Americas, a country of dense emerald jungle and amazing beaches.
If the country's ongoing policy of not having an army and putting those savings into education is anything to go by, then it's a clear indication of the ambience you'll get here.
Combine this with some top hotels (one in particular) and some adventurous experiences, then you have a destination made for a 2 centre holiday, either as a honeymoon or for a family with older children.