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Volume 1 Number I By Sam Polter and Edna Geist and Associates (Höre to Come') March 198?
worn by a former wizard.
campus has for yes men.
potent. The winning warlocks were Mr.
promoted to Chief Personnel Sorcerer.
Transcript itivity Borne of Repression T H E P E N T A G R A H Volume 1 Number I By Sam Polter and Edna Geist and Associates (Höre to Come') March 198? new FACULTY COVEN DESIGNS NEW WIT program will be --- ------------------ NESS PROTECTION PROGRAM FOR HARASSED FACULTY INFORMANTS By Ray Bolger According to reliable sorcerers, the TNCC Faculty Coven recently conjured up a pro— tection device for faculty members who are being harassed by the administration. The new device is a pair of ruby slippers discovered by TNCC's most prominent witch, Margaret Brandon, One resorceress reported that Mrs. Brandon and several of her familiars confiscated the slippers from the Wicked Witch of the North during a raid on Broome Community College. The ruby slippers are reported to have been stolen by the Broome witches and warlocks when they visited TNCC several years ago. The slippers have magic powers and are coveted by faculty everywhere. They were first discovered at TNCC several years ago when they were worn by a former wizard. The old wizard was relieved of his slippers in 1978 following a tornado over faculty promotions and grievance procedures. The storm finally caused the faculty to drop a house and a senate on the wizard. Faculty witches and warlocks then felt safe but kept the slippers just in case another evil wizard should arrive on campus. Unfortunately, such a wizard was sent to TNCC from Emerald City along with a host of munchkins from the north for his cabinet Disenchanted with their Oz-like campus, the Faculty Coven has been working on spells and incantations for protection. The ruby slippers will be on reserve in the TNCC LRC to fac ulty members in need of protec tion from such new administrative plans such as the new faculty development program. The called Learning by Inquisition and learning devices such as a rack are being installed in Fred Henney's office. ******************* * NEWS FOR ADMINISTRATIVE SORCERERS By Tom MacKubala Many of you are wondering about the long |range plans that I have conjured up for TNCC. In this article I hope to enlighten you so that those of you who will not be here much longer can find new jobs. As |you know, I want to eliminate some of the deadwood on campus and ¡create a new power structure. The new structure will eliminate such unnecessary ¡positions as Dean of Students, Division Chairmen, and Faculty Member. All classes will be taught by instructional assistants under the direction of the Dean of Instruction. Division Chairmen will be eliminated because there will be no faculty to chair. I do plan to double the number of administrators on the campus in order to fill the tre-mendouS'need that our campus has for yes men. *********************** Spells, Potions, W A R L 0 C K OF THE W E E K By Lucifer Smith Pentragram judges were deadlocked this this week when they met to choose the winner of the Warlock of the Week contest on campus. The Warlock of the Week award goes to the warlock with the most potent magic wand on campus. Potency is measured by the strength of spells cast by the warlock. The committee of judges decided to give multiple awards since there were so many deserving warlocks on campus and it was difficult to determine who was the most potent. The winning warlocks were Mr. Rhomie Heck who managed to get his secretary, Karen Warren, promoted to Information Officer and Mr. Ray Breen who managed to get his secretary, John Morgan, promoted to Clerk D and himself promoted to Chief Personnel Sorcerer. Ray earned the most points for his a-bility to keep faculty out of their personnel files and to misinterpret an< misapply EEO and Affirmative Action guidelines. ^ ***********************££*££££££££££££ PRESIDENTIAL SELECTION PROCEDURES PROPOSED BY FACULTY COVEN COMMITTEE The Faculty Coven Personnel Committee has designed a new presidential selec-fion method in the event that a new supreme warlock is to be sought for the campus. Committee members consulted warlocks and witches at Broome Community College and found a modern scientific method for TNCC*s next presidenfal search. In order to implement the new procedure, a bottomless pond must be constructed on the campus in the center of the pentagram-shaped sidewalks. The pond will be called the Presidential Selection Pond and it will be well-stocked with alligators. The selection method will involve throwing presidential candidates into the pond with their hands and feet bound,and observing whether they sink or surface. Candidates' w^° sfnk will be judged pure and would Mushrooms, Quality Newts have been hired if they had lived. Can-and Ins®cts of all binds didates who surface would, of course, be are available in the TNCC judged wicked and must he burned at the Merchandising Department stake after a grievance hearing where they will be found guilty as is everyone who^has ever appeared before a grievance panel at TNCC. The new method eliminates all candidates so that the campus will run-itself. ° — Wanted,,.Dead or Alive The Gang of 4 or More Send Info to MacKubala c/o Harrison Castle Reward offered.


Boy, was I ever wrong about Biscotti's, the friendly little restaurant located inside of Lewis' Gifts at 5807 Youree Drive in Shreveport. Prior to my recent visit, I thought of Biscotti's as a sandwich counter that was mostly there to provide a convenient place for local ladies to grab a bite before or after shopping at Lewis' Gifts. And, while it definitely is that, it's also a restaurant that is creating outstanding food using thoughtfully sourced ingredients.
Biscotti's will be offering lunch discounts on their shrimp and grits (among the best I've had in Shreveport-Bossier), shrimp po' boys and roast beef po' boys during 318 Restaurant Week, March 13-17, 2018. See their 318 Restaurant Week offer here.
Sign up for the 318 Restaurant Week E-Newsletter here.
No chef's coat required: Mike Lewis keeps a low profile, but he's creating some really fantastic versions of Louisiana classics at Biscotti's.
Biscotti's is run by Mike and Carrie Lewis. Mike, who completed culinary school at Bossier Parish Community College, has always wanted to cook professionally. He's a detail-oriented guy, which is what makes his version of shrimp and grits so outstanding; the dish incorporates andouille sausage made locally at Maxwell's Market as well as War Eagle Mills grits out of Arkansas, smoked Gouda cheese and big, plump Gulf shrimp. The end product is a profoundly rich and indulgent dish that, honestly, knocked my socks off. Normally priced at $12, Biscotti's shrimp and grits will be $10 during 318 Restaurant Week.
They also serve some pretty killer po' boys. The shrimp po' boy, which normally sells for $14, will be available for only $10 during 318 Restaurant Week. For my money, the roast beef is one of Shreveport-Bossier's best po' boys. Though it makes for a messy beast of a sandwich, the roast beef generously piled onto the buttered-and-crisped, fully dressed Gambino's loaf is as tender and flavorful as any roast beef in town.
Whatever else you choose to order at Biscotti's, take my advice: Eat dessert here. It's been a long time since I've seen old-school chess pies, amaretto cakes and coconut layer cakes like these. A self-taught baker, Lewis says that loyal Lewis' customers have given him family recipes for many of his most popular Southern desserts over the years. I believe him. If this isn't the outright best cake and pie in Shreveport, it's in the top three.
Follow Biscotti's/Lewis' Gifts on Instagram.
Like Biscotti's/Lewis' Gifts on Facebook.
A team member at Biscotti's shows off a strawberry layer cake made by Mike Lewis.


that the route be the North side of Wellington St W - then straight up Bathurst St.
that the start depth be approximately 9m. Vibration should be minimal.
The start time is likely 2008.
The start point is Clarence Square.
The first marshalling / entry point trench is the roadway on the North side of Clarence Square.
The next marshalling / entry point trench is Wellington (west of Bathurst) - since the tunnelling machine cannot make the 90-degree turn.


Fell is the new release by acclaimed literary novelist Jenn Ashworth (Sceptre 2016). On one hand it's a dark tale of love and loss narrated in first person plural and omniscient third person by the ghosts of those long dead. On the other it's an intense exploration of power and the struggle to attain and maintain it in interpersonal relationships. But, perhaps more than either of these, it's an elegy for a life unnoticed.
The story centres on the lives of Netty and Jack, who become undone both physically and mentally, and their relationship with a young man who provides a particularly aggressive form of hope. Desire and desperation meet and lay bare the raw howl of humanity.
The story dances in time and perspective but every leaf-like dart and flutter is clearly signalled; we always know where we are and who we are. Throughout the story runs the thread of decay in a beautifully handled metaphor of house and home and the dark and brooding destructive power of nature. This darkness can be overwhelmed but never removed – unlike the Sycamores which dominate the skyline – and it exists in every mixed motive and flare of ego, every doubt. Every character in this novel is uneasy and the unease grows in pace with the disease until we reach a fraught crescendo.
There is life after death, both literally and figuratively, but there is a sense of great cost.
Jenn Ashworth does a superb job of evoking the spirit of the age in this novel. The descriptive passages ground you in a very real world, against which backdrop the preternatural sings. The relationship between Netty and Jack is entirely believable and the strengths and weaknesses of each character lead to a carefully nurtured sense of emotional investment. The story may not be entirely born of its landscape but it breathes it, lapping at the edges of our perception like the tides. Grange-over-Sands and Morecambe Bay show an expanse of horizon which provides a counterpoint to the increasingly insular nature of the Clifford home.
There are wonderful moments of dialect- plooks, moider and mollycot – when one of the characters is 'gattered'. A moment of unguarded voice which raises the question of whether any public face is a true face. Is every voice a decision, an attempt to be accepted?
For some it will be the child, forever on the edges of the adult drama, putting aside her own voice out of duty and love. For others it will be the young man, at once observed and unobserved, damaged and damaging, desirous of anonymity and fame. Both, cursed with the same burden.
Jenn Ashworth's first novel, A Kind of Intimacy, was published in 2009 and won a Betty Trask Award. On the publication of her second, Cold Light (Sceptre, 2011) she was featured on the BBC's The Culture Show as one of the UK's twelve best new writers. Her third novel The Friday Gospels (2013) is published by Sceptre. She lives in Lancashire and teaches Creative Writing at Lancaster University.
Today I have the pleasure of heading up the Blog Tour for debut novelist Stephanie Butland.
'Letters to my Husband' is my first novel (it was originally released in hardback as 'Surrounded By Water'). It's the first of three novels set in a small town of Throckton, and it's a story about loss, love and the unexpected places that life can take us to. It begins when Michael, a well-respected police office, drowns, saving a teenage girl who had fallen into a lake on a cold January night. We follow his widow, Elizabeth, as she struggles to come to terms with his death, and the shocks and surprises that come to light in the aftermath of his death.
This novel had a prologued journey from my head to the page to publication. It began as a comic novel about a committee – I had made an impulse decision to take part in Nanowrimo in 2011 and hadn't really given a lot of thought to what I wanted the book to be about. 20,000 words in it stalled, and an insightful reader suggested that the committee – which I had thought would be a great way to bring together a group of diverse characters – might be holding the story back When I took the idea of the committee away from the book, I found that the real content was in Elizabeth's bereavement. So I started again, writing a series of interlocking first person narratives which told the story much better – although once the book was bought by Transworld, my editor suggested that a third-person narrative would be even more effective. She was right. But the letters of the title have remained unchanged since the very first draft.
I'm now writing my fourth novel. I've learned a lot about the writing process, and the way I write is now better organised, and less wasteful of words, which is a great relief ( there are few things more dispiriting than spending 6 hours working on a book and ending up with 18,000 words less than you started with). But 'Letters to my Husband' taught me something really important about writing, and it's this. Start somewhere. Write something. Keep going. If you do that, you'll get there eventually.
Letters to my Husband by Stephanie Butland is published by Black Swan 9/4/15.
After the first few breathless sentences you relax into the arms of a storyteller who knows his craft, not that this is a gentle ride. Thought darts like a swift, weaving and tracing an order in the blue. This novel is about order and pattern, the natural and the constructed, the concrete and the ephemeral. It is also about purpose and permanence. We are involved in a literary Brownian motion, skipping and colliding between stories, between lives. It remains to the reader to decide which if any of these lives is altered in the observing. The narrator asks the same question of his own observations. Does it ultimately matter?
Matter is dual intent. The writer is building a microcosm of experience for the purpose of understanding. He does this by deftly layering first person accounts of experience and bleeding them into each other, at first precisely and obviously, as if to teach us the rules of engagement, and then freely and with added pace. My suggestion would be to trust each wave, trust the flow of thought. It is taking you ever onward.
Flow is such a gentle term for what is, in places, a flood of thought.
Each of the minute glimpses of a life could be unfolded into a complete story. Something which won't surprise you if you are familiar with David's short story work. And although you may be tossed in the current but you won't be overwhelmed.
This is gifted, beautiful writing.
I defy you not to learn something.
Strange creatures, writers. You will seldom meet a group of people so acutely aware of the world, aware of the place where they fit or, more often, don't fit. We squeeze ourselves into boxes called genres because marketing likes a good box. They make things easier to package and shelve. They make them easier to sell… to describe.
I jest but it's a dark one, because, whatever you are as a writer, you are not a genre. You are not even who you were last year and you won't be the same person next year. You are Becoming.
What are you becoming? Well, I don't know it's your journey. You might pass through several phases of writing and many genres. And then you find a genre where you settle for a while and it will be the right one for who you are at the time, because you are not a genre, because you are Becoming.
It is part of the thrill of being alive to watch people Become. And who we become is influenced every day by who we want to be. We don't always get what we want and we seldom if ever get what we expect but we all get to change, to develop, to be new. I don't know the final destination of the journey. I haven't had the opportunity to peep at the last page of my story and I don't think I would want to. I am enjoying Becoming and I look forward to seeing you Becoming, for all the days of my life.


Join us for the Annual Egg Dive! This is a very popular Urbandale event, so come early. Children will be divided in age groups to dive for colored eggs in the pool. Each egg will be turned in for a prize! Diving will begin with the youngest age group and continue until all age groups have participated.
No pre-registration is needed. Bring a school supply item for a child in need from the approved list located on our website, and your admission is free! If you have an annual pass, you will receive a free pass to bring a guest sometime within the next three months. All supplies will be donated to the Urbandale Community School District.
Always wanted to know what it would be like to be a lifeguard and work at a pool? Come try out this camp! For ages 11-14 years old. Pre-requisites: swim 25 yards continuously of front crawl, 25 yards of breast stroke, 25 yards of elementary backstroke or backstroke, 1 minute treading water, float on back for 30 seconds, and swim under water 10 feet. You will learn basic water rescue techniques, water survival, how to assist in teaching kids how to swim, help with playing games at the pool, assist at the pool with scanning, and of course be able to swim all day for free. You will earn Junior Lifeguard and CPR certifications during the camp. Participants will also get a whistle, lanyard and t-shirt! Bring your own lunch and snacks for the day. Min 5 / Max 10.
This individualized class is designed for adults who want to either learn to swim or better their swimming skills. The instructor will spend time with each adult learner and give them things to practice while assisting other adult learners. Adults may partner up to assist each other through the class, so bring a friend. Friend will need to pay daily admission fee. Minimum 5; Maximum 10.
interview, ask questions, and meet some current staff, along with food and fun. Come during recruitment days and we will pay for your certifications to join our staff–a $200 value!
Lifeguards, managers, cashiers & water safety instructors.
All applicants must be at least 16 years of age.
This class is designed to increase range of motion, strength, balance and flexibility without discomfort from weight and gravity on joints and muscles. This is not a cardio class and adjustments will be made for individuals to meet their personal fitness goals. This is a great class to pair with other fitness routines or as a stand alone class. Minimum 5; maximum 20.
(Note: Participants will need to complete the Low Impact Senior Water Exercise class and/or have instructor approval to register.) This class is designed with the active senior in mind. This class will have some cardiovascular workout designed to individual's current fitness level, as well as improve flexibility, full range of motion, balance, strength and endurance. Minimum 5; maximum 20.
This class takes place in the deep end of the pool. Water belts are worn to assist you in maintaining the proper position needed to exercise in deep water. Take high intensity interval training to deeper waters to add challenge without impact to effectively target both cardio and core. The water adds unique resistance to achieve body sculpting and muscle conditioning. Minimum 5; maximum 20.
This is a challenging workout in the water approximately chest deep. The routine will offer a variety of different techniques such as weight resistance, drag equipment, cardio and strength endurance. The level of calorie burning, weight loss/fat burning, strength endurance and cardio-respiratory workout will vary depending on level of exercise and technique. Minimum 5; maximum 25.
This is a new and exciting class that is a tremendous workout on top of the water, involving stabilization, endurance, strength and fun! This safe and fun workout is designed to grow core and joint stabilization, improve over-all fitness level, and burn calories. Workouts will vary from High Intensity Interval Training, Core Workout, Pilates & Yoga! Holding a Yoga pose on top of the water will challenge your focus, strength, core and stability. Lose the pose and fall in the water! Pilates on a balance board in the pool takes it to the next level. Intervals involve squats, lunges, rows and more at a higher performance level than on land or water. Minimum 5; maximum 25.
*PARTICIPANTS WITH ANNUAL PASSES RECEIVE A 20% DISCOUNT OFF ALL WATER FITNESS CLASSES.


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Far-RightNewsRacism
U.N. Special Adviser Compares Modern Far-Right Surge the Rise of the Nazis, Criticises Boris Johnson
By Michael East	 On May 4, 2019 Last updated Apr 2, 2020
The United Nations special adviser on the prevention of genocide has said that the rise of far-right politics across Europe is reminiscent of the rise of the Nazis during the 1930s.
Speaking on Wednesday, Adama Dieng said that we can no longer tolerate the rhetoric from the right against minorities, urging the left to do more to combat the growing menace.
"We cannot allow human beings to be treated the way they are being treated. The signs of the '30s are resurfacing. Unless we are blind or of bad faith, we should admit that it's time to stand up, it is time to speak out."
Adama Dieng, United Nations special adviser on the prevention of genocide
Citing the damage done by "powerful states" withdrawing from their international commitments and the rhetoric from the likes of Matteo Salvini and Victor Orban, Dieng was sharply critical of the left playing politics instead of pushing back against the far-right.
While praising the likes of Germany's Angela Merkel and New Zealand's Jacinda Ardern, Dieng was sharp in his criticism of Boris Johnson and his comments on the burqa.
"This shows exactly how dangerous it is when someone who is in a position of leadership, who can influence, is using a discourse which can impact terribly on the lives, the security and the safety of human beings."
In was in August of last year that Boris Johnson made his now notorious comments on the face veil, stating in The Telegraph that the garment makes the wearer resemble a "letterbox" and "bank robber". The comments were widely condemned, with Baroness Warsi accusing him of "dog whistle" politics and Theresa May calling on him to apologise. However, the comments drew support from the hard to far-right, with Nadine Dorries arguing that the face veil should be banned entirely.
An internal Conservative investigation eventually cleared Johnson of any wrongdoing in December, stating that Johnson was "respectful and tolerant".
Michael East 385 posts 0 comments
Michael East is a United Kingdom-based writer and blogger specializing in politics and international relations. He is the editor-in-chief of Red Revolution Media and primarily writes on issues related to activism, human rights, imperialism, racism, and socialist politics.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Diversifying energy sources is 'pie in the sky'
The New South Wales government should refrain from prematurely closing down coal fired powered stations – as part of the state's new energy roadmap – due to the unreliability of renewable energy sources, says Nationals MP David Gillespie. Energy Minister Matt Kean announced four of five existing coal-fired power stations would be closed across the state, with the aim of increasing energy storage capabilities and renewable energy sources. "This idea of a distributed energy system from renewable energy sources is just pie in the sky," Mr Gillespie told Sky News. "Renewable energy has a part in the energy mix but to replace the baseload, that bit of energy that is pumping out all the time, the vast majority of that needs to be 100 per cent guaranteed. "And they're building it on a system that theoretically will need a whole new grid, solar is only available 20 per cent of the time, wind is only available 30 per cent of the time. "So go figure how that is going to work. "Once you start integrating more than 10 per cent and then 20 per cent and 30 per cent you get a very unstable grid because renewable energy sources are what's called asynchronised, they come and go with large surges."


Alli Jennings (left), a freshman majoring in theatre, asks Tommy Flemming, a junior majoring in theatre, for her pet snail back as he threatens to eat it in a scene for Commedus Interruptus. The improvisational comedy group performed nonstop for 24 hours in front of Bovard Auditorium on Thursday to raise money for the group.
Second Nature, the Merry Men and Commedus Interruptus amuse audiences.
Good Neighbors began at USC and has found success through touring and YouTube videos.


Ofcourse, that is the nature of the beast we are dealing with when we are gambling on horses. There are a thousand and one variables that can affect the outcome of a race and it could never be possible control all of those.
However, I can assess and prioritise all of those variables and come to a decision on the most likely result, in a controlled fashion – until, that is, luck intervenes !!
Each way betting can be considered a way of reducing the impact of luck; as can betting more (as this increases the sample size and therefore means luck should be more likely to even out).
That said, I would view both of these more as judgement calls, rather than luck managers.
I consider it my job, to try and find horses which can win races.
Of course, in order to win a race, you invariably need a little bit of luck – and that is the bit that I can't control.
However, if I can find horses which either win races – or go close to winning races – and we use the tools available to us to manage our luck, we should have a winning combination.
If a horse goes below 2 in-running on Betfair, then the market has decided that at that point in time, it is more likely to win a particular race than it is to lose it.
As the price of a horse crosses that '2' threshold on Betfair, it is like tossing a virtual coin, to decide whether or not you will win a race.
But the question is, why take that chance ?
As I said in my opening sentence, the thing I fear most about betting, is that element of luck.
And here we have an opportunity to greatly reduce it – so why wouldn't we take it ?
For roughly ten years now, that is precisely what I have done with almost every bet I have struck – I've layed it back on Betfair at a much lower price.
The reason for this is simple: I'm confident in my judgement – but I'm not so confident in my luck !
In a similar vein, I intend from now on, to quote my monthly numbers in both a 'raw' form (so reflecting how the tips passed the post) – but also in a form 'adjusted for luck' (so as if I had layed back the bet in-running at 2 on BF, to take half the profit whatever the outcome).
I suspect that most of you guys are gamblers and so I won't be at all surprised if you choose to continue without change.


text:
Many Global Organizations Still Lacking in Confidence to Fight Cyber Threats
More than one-third (36%) of global organizations still lack confidence in their ability to detect sophisticated cyber attacks, according to the annual EY's Global Information Security Survey 2015, Creating trust in the digital world.
The survey of 1,755 organizations from 67 countries examines some of the most important cybersecurity issues facing businesses today and finds that 88% do not believe their information security structure fully meets their organization's needs. When it comes to IT security budgets, 69% say that their budgets should be increased by up to 50% to align their organization's need for protection with its managements' tolerance for risk.
The most likely sources of cyber attacks: criminal syndicates (59%), hacktivists (54%) and state-sponsored groups (35%) retained their top rankings. However, compared with last year's survey, respondents rated these sources as more likely: up from 53%, 46%, and 27%, respectively, in 2014.
Ken Allan, Global Cybersecurity Leader, EY, said: "Organizations are embracing the digital world with enthusiasm, but there must be a corresponding uptick in addressing the increasingly sophisticated cyber threats. Businesses should not overlook or underestimate the potential risks of cyber breaches. Instead, they should develop a laser-like focus on cybersecurity and make the required investments. The only way to make the digital world fully operational and sustainable is to enable organizations to protect themselves and their clients and to create trust in their brand."
The survey found that companies currently feel less vulnerable to attacks arising from unaware employees (44%) and outdated systems (34%); down from 57% and 52%, respectively, in the 2014 Global Information Security Survey (GISS). However, they feel more threatened today by phishing and malware. Forty-four percent of respondents (compared with 39% in 2014) ranked phishing as their top threat; 43% consider malware as their biggest threat versus 34% in 2014.
The survey also finds that organizations are falling short in thwarting a cyber attack:
► 54% say they lack a dedicated function that focuses on emerging technology and its impact
► 47% do not have a security operations center
► 36% do not have a threat intelligence program, while 18% do not have an identity and access management program
More than half (57%) said that the contribution and value that the information security function provides to their organization is compromised by the lack of skilled talent available, compared with 53% of respondents in the 2014 survey, indicating that the situation is deteriorating, rather than improving.
Paul van Kessel, Global Risk Leader, EY, said: "Cybersecurity is inherently a defensive capability, but organizations should not wait to become victims. Instead, they should take an 'active defense' stance, with advanced security operations centers that identify potential attackers and analyze, assess and neutralize threats before damage can occur. It is imperative that organizations consider cybersecurity as an enabler to build and keep customers' trust."
KEYWORDS: cyber attacks cyber security
Top global security threats organizations will face in 2021
The fight against cyber threats requires a public-private partnership. Here's how to get it done.
Why so many cybersecurity attacks still start with an email
Solving Cyber Risk: Protecting Your Company and Society
Cyber Strategy: Risk-Driven Security and Resiliency
Intelligence in An Insecure World, 3rd Edition


text:
Q: Use boost::math::distribution within a class I have made a pretty simple program that is supposed to get the quantiles of different distributions. In my main file I create a class object for each distribution and then use a setup void inside the class to set the parameters for each distribution (for instance for the normal distribution I want to set the mean and variance). Then I want to the the quantile value by calling GetDraw with the confidence interval specified when I call the double.
I use the boost package for the distributions.
The problem is that I get different values for some distribution if I use the class instead of printing the value directly to the console (the first value is the value I get from the class, the second value is the value I get without the class):
Normal: 1.64485
Normal: 1.64485
Binomal: 1
Binomal: 422
Beta: 0.95
Beta: 1
exponential_distribution: 2.99573
exponential_distribution: 1.49787

Do you have any idea why I get this strange result?
This is my main.cpp:
#include <iostream>
#include <random>
#include <boost/math/distributions.hpp>

#include "Random.h"

int main()
    {
        double q;

        //NORMAL
        Normaldist RandomNormal;
        RandomNormal.Setup(0, 1);
        q = RandomNormal.GetDraw(0.95);
        std::cout << "Normal: " << q << std::endl;

        boost::math::normal dist(0.0, 1.0); //https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5565228/quantile-functions-in-boost-c
        q = quantile(dist, 0.95);
        std::cout << "Normal: " << q << std::endl;

        //Binomial
        Binomialdist RandomBinomial;
        RandomBinomial.Setup(509, 0.8);
        q = RandomBinomial.GetDraw(0.95);
        std::cout << "Binomal: " << q << std::endl;

        q = quantile(boost::math::binomial(509, 0.8), 0.95);
        std::cout << "Binomal: " << q << std::endl;

        //BETA
        Betadist RandomBeta;
        RandomBeta.Setup(1, 0.1);
        q = RandomBeta.GetDraw(0.95);
        std::cout << "Beta: " << q << std::endl;

        q = boost::math::ibeta_inv(1, 0.1, 0.95);
        std::cout << "Beta: " << q << std::endl;

        //Exponential
        Exponentialdist RandomExp;
        RandomExp.Setup(2);
        q = RandomExp.GetDraw(0.95);
        std::cout << "exponential_distribution: " << q << std::endl;

        const auto lbda = 2.0;
        q = quantile(boost::math::exponential_distribution<> { lbda }, 0.95);
        std::cout << "exponential_distribution: " << q << std::endl;

    return(0);
    }

This is my Random.h:
#ifndef RANDOM_H_INCLUDED
#define RANDOM_H_INCLUDED

#include <iostream>
#include <random>
#include <boost/math/distributions.hpp>

class DistributionClass {
            protected:
                boost::math::normal_distribution<> NormalDistribution; //https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5565228/quantile-functions-in-boost-c
                boost::math::binomial_distribution<> BinomialDistribution; //https://valelab4.ucsf.edu/svn/3rdpartypublic/boost/libs/math/doc/sf_and_dist/html/math_toolkit/dist/dist_ref/dists/binomial_dist.html
                boost::math::beta_distribution<> BetaDistribution;
                boost::math::exponential_distribution<> ExponentialDistribution;
        };

        class Normaldist: public DistributionClass {
            public:
                void Setup(double mean, double variance);
                double GetDraw(double r);
        };

        class Binomialdist: public DistributionClass {
            public:
                void Setup(double n, double p);
                double GetDraw(double r);
        };

        class Betadist: public DistributionClass {
            public:
                void Setup(double a, double b);
                double GetDraw(double r);
        };

        class Exponentialdist: public DistributionClass {
            public:
                void Setup(double lbda);
                double GetDraw(double r);
        };

This is my Random.cpp:
#include <iostream>
#include <random>
#include <boost/math/distributions.hpp>

#include "Random.h"

    void Normaldist::Setup(double mean, double variance) {
        boost::math::normal_distribution<> NormalDistribution(mean, variance);
    }

    double Normaldist::GetDraw(double r) {
        return(quantile(NormalDistribution, r));
    }

    void Binomialdist::Setup(double n, double p) {
        boost::math::binomial_distribution<> BinomialDistribution(n, p);
    }

    double Binomialdist::GetDraw(double r) {
        return(quantile(BinomialDistribution, r)); //boost::math::binomial(509, 0.8)
    }

    void Betadist::Setup(double a, double b) { //boost.org/doc/libs/1_51_0/libs/math/doc/sf_and_dist/html/math_toolkit/dist/dist_ref/dists/beta_dist.html
        boost::math::beta_distribution<> BetaDistribution(a, b);
    }

    double Betadist::GetDraw(double r) {
        return(quantile(BetaDistribution, r));
    }

    void Exponentialdist::Setup(double lbda) {
        boost::math::exponential_distribution<> ExponentialDistribution(lbda);
    }

    double Exponentialdist::GetDraw(double r) { //https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38201740/generate-a-exponential-distribution-for-a-set-of-data-using-boost-c
        return(quantile(ExponentialDistribution, r));
    }

    #endif // RANDOM_H_INCLUDED

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Seventy-five percent of consumers expect companies to provide a consistent experience across every channel. In fact, 52% of consumers are likely to switch brands if its communications are not personalized or relevant to them. Meeting these expectations can be a special challenge for companies that rely on a corporate marketing team to manage their brands and a widespread network of retailers or franchisees to execute them.
If you've ever walked into what you anticipate to be a familiar fast-food joint or retail store only to find a different menu, unfamiliar products, or steeper prices, you know how jarring and off-putting an experience it can be.
The same goes for digital communications. Disjointed digital experiences may cause consumers to question a brand's legitimacy, trustworthiness, and professionalism. Of the many particular marketing challenges that retail and franchise brands face, achieving consistency is an especially common and persistent one.
What is the answer to this conundrum? Enter Distributed Marketing from Salesforce.
How does distributed marketing help retail and franchise brands?
Corporate teams versed in the brand and with deep industry knowledge develop templates with consistent messaging and design. Individual franchise owners can then personalize these for their own particular audience, capitalizing on best practices without needing to get into the technical weeds themselves.
Using distributed marketing software, corporate brand teams create best-practice customer journeys — complete with on-brand design elements and messaging. They then share the templates with franchise owners, who can then personalize content without sacrificing the brand experience. With Distributed Marketing from Salesforce, these journeys are created, accessed, and managed within tools already familiar to marketers and franchise owners, like Salesforce Journey Builder and Salesforce Sales Cloud.
Achieve brand compliance across all your customer journeys.
Many franchise owners don't understand the importance of how a consistent brand can enhance customer experiences. Others who understand may not have the tools, knowledge, or time to make it a priority.
Distributed marketing extends the ability of the corporate team to manage the brand, while giving individual franchise owners access to the tools and templates to execute seamless customer journeys on their own.
Strike a balance between corporate and local knowledge.
While corporate marketing teams are well equipped to strategize and build consistent brand journeys, boots-on-the-ground franchise owners and retailers bring something equally valuable to the table: intimate knowledge of their local markets and customers.
To capitalize on this knowledge, it's important for them to have the ability to personalize preset journeys. The most effective distributed marketing strategies allow users to choose when and to whom to send communications and to customize the message they send.
What else does distributed marketing do?
Empower anyone to be a marketer.
Empower all of your franchise owners or dealers to become effective digital marketers by arming them with prebuilt journeys based on aggregate data and best practices. Prebuilt templates free them to focus on what they do best — directly managing relationships with their customers.
Gain deeper knowledge with multilevel analytics.
With multiple teams involved in the distributed marketing process, it's important to capture analytics at multiple levels, both individual and aggregate. Franchise owners can see how their individual customers are engaging, and corporate brand managers can see how journeys are performing across the entire business.
Learn how Salesforce can help you achieve brand consistency across all your communications. Check out Distributed Marketing from Salesforce.


text:
Q: Visual Studio 2010 - Favour Size or Speed for optimization I came across the option C/C++ -> General -> Favour Size or Speed.
I wanted to know if I choose the Speed option instead of size. Will their be any drawbacks to see other than the size. The default is neither. Will there be significant boost in speed of the application if I chooseFavor Fast Code /Ot

A: While I have no intimate knowledge regarding this compiler setting (I've generally favoured fast code and never thought about it again), I can see what this might affect:
On some processors, performing certain operations at certain times may incur stalls.  Things like accessing a full register (RAX) immediately after writing to part of it (AL), for example.  While modern processors can usually work around these stalls by reordering instructions, there are times when they are still unavoidable.
I suspect that through this setting the compiler may insert no-op instructions at times to try and prevent these stalls from occurring. Generally speaking, executing a few no-ops is still faster than stalling.
Obviously these no-ops will make your code larger, which may cause more instruction cache fetches (which could severely affect performance of very tight inner loops - but then again these are more likely to stall in the first place), but shouldn't have any other adverse effects.
The best advice I can offer to anyone with questions like this is to try different settings and run the code through a profiler and see if you're getting noticeably different results.

A: 1.If you want to optimize the code use relase build, If you are using the release build then Maximum speed(/O2) option is by default on and which is equivalent to Favour fast Code(/Ot)
2.Now, if you change Favor size or speed option to favor small code(/Os) which is bu default 'Neither', you could see drastic change in size of executable.
This might help https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8f8h5cxt(v=vs.90).aspx


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Mental Illness Awareness Week (MIAW) is an annual national public education campaign designed to help open the eyes of Canadians to the reality of mental illness. The week was established in 1992 by the Canadian Psychiatric Association, and is now coordinated by the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health (CAMIMH) in cooperation with all its member organizations and many other supporters across Canada.
One of MIAW's major initiatives is the Faces of Mental Illness campaign, a national outreach campaign featuring the stories of Canadians living in recovery from mental illness. Thousands of pieces of MIAW posters, brochures, and bookmarks featuring the Faces are disseminated to hundreds of organizations across Canada in an effort to raise awareness and end the stigma associated with mental illness.


T.H.Seeds® was established in 1993, making it one of the oldest seed companies in Holland. It began in the C.I.A. (Cannabis In Amsterdam), which was: a Cannabis information center, a world renowned seed shop,the first hemp store in Europe and, according to Robert C. Clarke (author of: Marijuana Botany, HASHISH!), "The epicenter of the Cannabis universe." T.H.Seeds® quickly gained an excellent reputation among the experienced growers who purchased T.H.Seeds®. Year after year, these growers return to buy more T.H.Seeds®. Most comment on how pleased they are with the consistency and quality of the T.H.Seeds® genetics. This positive feedback from the growers themselves is the solid foundation on which T.H.Seeds® has been built. T.H.Seeds® is a grower oriented seed company, we seek as much feedback from growers as possible. Since its beginning T.H.Seeds® has been on the cutting edge of the New School Canabis Genetics. Born at a time when almost everything in Amsterdam was a mix of Northern Lights, Skunk and Shiva in various proportions, T.H. Seeds® has worked long and hard to bring new stable varieties onto the market. T.H.Seeds was the seed company responsible for bringing the Original Bubblegum™ from the States, and was the first to sell the Bubblegum™ seeds (see New York Times, Feb. 1994). These Bubble Gum™ genetics helped numerous Coffeeshops win many High Times Cannabis Cups over the years.
SantYerbasi presents Underdawg OG from TH Seeds. Underdawg OG is the resulting hybrid from crossing OG Kush and Sour Diesel.
This is the feminized version from the popular Wreckage by TH Seeds. Wreckage is a hybrid resultant if crossing an OG Trainwreck and our unconfusable SAGE.
A-Train is one of the most productive strains from TH Seeds seedbank. A-train was born from a crossing between Trainwreck and Aghani. A strain that will let you wasted with you eyes coloured in red, you know what we mean. High medical values for this strain with quick flowering time, and medium yields.
Burmese Kush by TH Seeds,also known at dutch coffee shops as "BuKu", is an OG Kush hybrid, with quick flowering. Citrus taste, in a medium to high yields plant, perfect for small grow-rooms.
Darkstar from TH Seeds was born from the crossing between Purple Kush x Mazar I-Sharif. A strong effect plant, that gives you good yields, being easy to trim. Darkstar is an indica sui generis, perfect for those who need pain relief and appetite enhancement, wiz a medium size and a flowering time of 9-10 weeks.
SantYerbasi is pleased to present Kushage from TH Seeds seedbank. Kushage is a combination of two high class elements: OG Kush and SAGE. Kushage is a strain with increased yields compared to OG Kush, with longer effects (thanks to SAGE), and a medium to shor flowering time of 9 weeks.
MK Ultrais one of the strains with more interest inbetween TH Seeds growers. In addition to multiple cup winning, MK Ultra has a high medical value and the narcotic effect from its parentals. MK Ultra is a quick flowering plant, of only 8 weeks, that ends in a medium size.


How can I tell my boyfriend he's a bad artist?
I'm a 29-year-old gay man in a happy, loving relationship -- the relationship I figure on lasting, bar any unforeseen tragedies, until the two of us are racing our wheelchairs down the halls of the nursing home, making ribald comments on the assets of the male orderlies. He's my best friend, my partner in crime, the person whose every joy I feel more keenly than my own and every setback crushes me. That's why I'm writing to you.
In another life, I was a mess -- a broken, self-destroying art student simultaneously certain that I was destined to become the world's next Jean-Michel Basquiat and that every piece of work I created was an insult to the entire history of art in its intellectual bankruptcy and mediocrity. Reality, of course, was somewhere in the middle. But it didn't stop me loathing and denigrating every success my friends achieved, continuing to wound myself in the shadows, and creating a host of psychological demons who, even today, like to give me a call once every few months just to let me know they haven't forgotten me.
Eventually, after a complete nervous breakdown, I started working on myself -- learning to appreciate my abilities and successes and becoming genuinely happy for the accomplishments of my friends. It helped enormously that, concurrent with my getting better, I took a left turn and unexpectedly discovered my true vocation; graphic design. Now I have a stable and rewarding job in a field that is perfect for me -- there's still enough creativity to satisfy that art student inside, while the more concrete requirements of the business side of the field give me a meaningful rubric to judge my team's output by. Sometimes I still doodle a little here and there, but it's strictly fun these days, and I get a lot of satisfaction out of evaluating our other artists and interns and helping them do their best work.
Nonetheless, many of my friends are still artists, and it's through them that I met my boyfriend. He's the white elephant, the unicorn -- the artist who's not tortured by his muse, who lives clean and has a sense of humor, who is happy for everyone around him because he believes with utter certainty that someday he'll get his due. No 30-hour creative binges followed by weeks of despondency for him, either; every night, after his unrewarding desk job, he takes the train home and then for the rest of the night he's steadily and happily working away at his easel.
And he's not any good.
There, I said it. On our first date, two years ago, he showed me a few of his paintings on pictures on his phone. I figured the picture quality was bad, and if I'm honest I just really wanted to get into his pants. So I lied. What else do you do? And I've been living that lie ever since.
I've tried everything short of repainting his canvases for him. We've gone to free, life-drawing sessions together, we've spent countless hours at art museums. I've offered to buy him classes for birthdays and Hanukkah presents. I've even suggested the possibility of him going to grad school, though not without trepidation -- not because I'm worried about money, I'd cover us for as long as it took, but because I don't think he'd be accepted anywhere.
I've tried like hell to believe in him -- believe that it's not about talent, that he'll find an audience for his work. And as far as he or our friends or our families know, I do. I'm his biggest cheerleader, and if anyone ever makes snide comments I'm the first to spring to his defense. But in the privacy of my own head, I know I don't believe in him. If I'd never met him and he submitted his work to my team, I'd reject him without a second thought.
I can carry this burden till we're in that nursing home together, and if I have anything to say about it he'll go to his grave believing I thought he was the best artist in the world. This isn't about me. What scares me, what keeps me up at night, is the day that he no longer believes in himself. Like I said before, his emotional resources are astounding, and he's a resolutely grounded and sane artist in a way I never was. But everyone's got to have their limits, and we're getting older. Our friends are beginning to experience their first professional successes. Soon it's not going to be a bunch of artistic wannabes hanging out dreaming about their first big break. It's going to be artists on one side of the line, and him on the other.
When that happens, what do I do? I've been that artist, the self-destroying one, the one who knows with absolute certainty that their work is nothing, that THEY are nothing. The thought of seeing him in that kind of unassuagable pain ... it paralyzes me. I've tried to take his temperature on this, by using the "numbers game" argument (so many people who want to be artists, shrinking markets, etc.) to see if he's thought about what he'd do. His response is always the same: keep painting. He believes he'll find success someday -- and here's the kicker -- because God loves him.
Cary, I'm an atheist. What do I do on the day the man I love more than anyone in the world wakes up and says to me, "I'm not an artist, and God doesn't love me anymore?"
I don't think your lover is ever going to wake up and discover he's a bad artist because I don't think there is such a thing as bad art or bad artists.
There's stuff that makes me cringe and stuff that makes me wince and stuff that makes me groan. But I really don't think there's any such thing as bad art. There are aesthetic standards and codes, there are color mixes and mechanical skills and levels of attainment of those skills, but there's no such thing as bad art. There are degrees of sensitivity to light and color and line, and there are materials and how they hold paint and reflect light and there's human history and eye-hand coordination and various levels and intensities of light and combinations of the visible spectrum altered by various lighting implements and surroundings such as the color of walls and the kinds of windows the light goes through and the way the atmosphere colors the sun's rays but there's no such thing as bad art. There are influential writers and people who agree with them and there are powerful movements of capital both monetary and social that are nearly intoxicating and transformative in their complexity and depth and there are people who would die for a painting just as there are people who would die for a deity or an idea but there's no such thing as bad art.
There are pieces that get accepted and pieces that get rejected. There are pieces we remember and pieces we forget. But there is no bad art.
There's art that a consensus of viewers would indicate has a very low chance, like maybe .001 percent chance, of inducing a profound aesthetic experience in any viewer. But there's no bad art.
There's stuff that likely will never sell. There's stuff that certain people find it very hard to understand what in God's name the artist meant for to happen when we looked at it. There's stuff certain people find repellent. There's stuff certain people find laughable. But there's no bad art.
There's art that we understand in the context of who made it. There's kids' art, there's art by old people, there's art by developmentally challenged people, there's art by emotionally disturbed people, by psychotics, by sociopaths, by paranoid schizophrenics, by Wall Street traders. But there's no bad art.
There are career goals the attainment of which requires mastering a craft and mastering a social code. There are professional standards that allow anybody in a professional capacity to glance at a piece and know in two seconds if it meets certain professional standards. But when met with pieces that don't meet these criteria, rather than call them "bad art" we might better say, This lacks precise line, or, This lacks careful color choice, or, This subject matter is not relevant to our purposes, or, There is an unresolved conflict in the formal shapes, or too high a signal-to-noise ratio (you know, a little dirt is good, but too much obscures), or too many competing visual focal points. But there is no bad art.
So how do we learn to respond to our friends' "bad art" -- even though we agree there's no such thing? We look at it and say things we like that we can be honest about. We say, I like this figure here. We say, I like this color. I like this line.
We do the same thing we do in the Amherst Writers and Artists workshop. We identify things in the art that we remember, that we notice, that sticks with us. We say, "Wow, I really notice that red," or "Gee, that figure in the background really strikes me." It just strikes you. It might strike you in a certain way that you've been taught to call banal or incompetent but you don't say that out loud and after a while you don't even say that to yourself. You get in the habit of not denigrating human effort. You get in the habit of respect and surprise and discovery. You stop buying into the art world's game of capital masquerading as refined sentiment and superior knowledge.
But let's be honest. Some people start painting without acquiring certain skills, so what they paint doesn't look very good. That doesn't make it bad art. You keep working, just like you keep working on writing and you keep working on your instrument. You keep doing it because it is an ennobling human activity and an exploration of the spirit.
Not all our explorations of the spirit deserve to be hung on a stranger's wall. That's not why we're doing it. We're not doing it for that stranger's approval. We're doing it because it's our path. And what is it a path to? That's nobody's business frankly. It's a path.
And so it goes. There is no bad art. There are no bad artists. There are just people working toward something unseen.
We won't see it until they see it. It may take a lifetime. That's fine. Let it take a lifetime if that's how long it takes to see what must be seen. Meanwhile, when asked, when directed to take a look at the canvas, we take note of what we like, what we admire, what we notice and remember.
We don't lie but we don't attack. We just regard with balanced interest what is before us.


text:
Photographed by Caroline Tompkins
Meet Tina Battock, the Colorado Mom Dominating the Sport of Professional Bull Riding
By Corey Seymour
Photography by Caroline Tompkins
Outside Madison Square Garden, there's a riot in the works. It's not here just yet, not exactly—but it's coming. Dozens and dozens of bulls—each of them weighing nearly a ton and relentlessly trained to be as charismatically, energetically hostile as possible to anyone and everyone with the quixotic, seemingly unfathomable idea of, you know, riding them (what, like a show pony?)—are making their way from goosenecked bull-hauling trailers into their new temporary quarters in the bowels of the Garden, snorting, stomping, stalling, and staring along the way.
Backstage at the Garden, there's another parade happening, this one of big-hatted cowboys in starched and pressed shirts covered with sponsors' logos and neatly creased Wranglers and Ariat jeans (Ariat is a title sponsor of the weekend's festivities) stacked above well-worn and well-polished boots and fronted by big, shiny belt buckles. We're a couple hours away from the premiere night of competition as the Professional Bull Riders tour stops for a long weekend in Manhattan a quarter of the way through their annual barnstorming swing across the country. (By the end of the weekend, a PBR-record 38,000 fans will take in the madness.)
The assembled cowboys and cowboy wannabes encompass everyone from the bull riders themselves—making one last social stop before disappearing into their dressing rooms and onto their massage tables and exercise bikes, before they crouch and pray for their lives—to bull trainers and owners, PBR officials, retired legends (some of them mobile and healthy, others decidedly less so), and scattered family and friends. In short, there's XY-chromosome energy for days.
Sitting quietly but confidently amidst all of it is the person they've just honored as the PBR general manager of the year: Tina Battock, a wife and mother of two from the suburbs of Denver whose early work life centered around quilting, knitting, and sewing.
Tina Battock
"I started my career with quilting and will likely head off into the sunset with bull riding," says Battock, who's 54. Somewhere along the way, she's adopted the uniform here—she's wearing a tan fringed suede jacket, jeans, and boots, and while a cowboy hat isn't always atop her long blonde hair, it's usually nearby. "It's a strange world, but it's all come quite naturally. A long time ago, someone told me: Be the water, not the rock. I've tried to keep that in mind."
During last year's inaugural PBR Team Series—essentially the second half of the PBR season, with the first focused solely on individual competition and the latter centered around eight teams in eight cities, each with five competing riders, battling each other for points, money, and glory—Battock's Nashville Stampede team staggered into the finals in Las Vegas in last place. "And then we pulled off a Cinderella story," Battock says, beaming. "We ended up winning the thing."
Growing up in Littleton, Colorado, where she attended Columbine High School (before it became famous for all the wrong reasons), Battock planned to be a psychologist before she simply ran out of patience. "I wanted to get into the action, not go to more school," she says. So she got into the media business instead, first running a series of magazines in the craft space before landing at Morris Communications in Fort Worth, which owns an array of titles, events, and businesses based around "the Western lifestyle," as Battock and assorted others, from cowboys to bull-breeding specialists, refer to it. "My whole career since then has been a combination of intentional and opportunistic. I'm kind of in the business of saying yes to things and trying them.
"There's been this renaissance with the Western lifestyle—there's been a few things in the culture, Yellowstone maybe biggest among them, that have drawn on this mystique," she continues. "I mean, the cowboy is the quintessential American icon, and that's true whether you're in rural Wyoming or midtown Manhattan."
Battock heads up Morris's media division—but when she heard about an opportunity for the company to buy into the nascent PBR Teams franchise at the ground level, she convinced Morris's board to go for it. "My colleagues joke that the bull riding thing is my side gig. Do I have a background in sports management? Absolutely not. But I've run businesses, and I know that the first thing you do is hire the people who know what you need to know. So we just started building our team. There was no road map."
Around the corner at the Garden, near the bullpens, I run into Cord McCoy, a retired pro rider turned rodeo stock contractor—he breeds, raises, trains, and sells bulls and bull "genetics" (we'll get to that in a bit)—and three-time contestant on The Amazing Race. I ask McCoy, 42, about his belt buckle, which seems ever-so-slightly larger and shinier than the others I've seen here.
"That's Riding Solo, the reigning-world-champion bull," says McCoy in his rich Oklahoman accent. (I look closer and, yes, see the bull's name splashed across the buckle. It's often overlooked, but at PBR events it's not just riders in competition but bulls as well: On each outing, the animal is scored for skill and ferocity.) "I mean, yeah," McCoy continues with a chuckle, "I wear a belt buckle that a bull won. He's a big pet at the ranch—my wife and my four-year-old daughter give him baths—but he knows his job, and that's bucking cowboys off his back." (McCoy's wife—Sara Best-McCoy, a women's world champion in bull riding—is competing today in Canton, Texas.)
McCoy knows of what he speaks: A rodeo competitor since the age of five, he spent a dozen or so wildly successful years riding bulls, saddle broncs, and bareback broncs; early in that stretch, he had his skull crushed by a saddle bronc and spent three days in a coma and eight months in rehab before saddling up again.
"You don't really have to set people down and explain to them how dangerous bull riding is," McCoy says. "You just let 'em watch it, and they can figure it out pretty quick. It's a dance—you're not going to be stronger than an 1,800-pound animal that's been trained and trained to be one of the best athletes in the world. If you're trying to anticipate his moves and you get a step ahead of him—or, God forbid, a step behind—you're going to be in trouble."
McCoy, who is sponsored by Ariat, is that rare cowboy deft enough to speak about "the Western way of life" and "the reach of social media" in the same sentence without batting an eye as he explains to me that while he's paid only $600 every time one of his bulls comes storming out of a chute at the Garden with fire in his eyes and hurt in his heart, "our real income is from selling genetics."
"We lease clones of bucking bulls with a strong pedigree to capture their genetics, and we sell embryos, we sell semen, we sell females—we've sold baby calves that have never been bucked for $25,000 each—half interest: You don't get to own them, you just pay for a piece of 'em."
While the concept might seem outlandish—I mean, whatever happened to that gol'-danged Western way of life?—it's not so far away from the world of thoroughbred horse breeding. In a high-stakes economy staked on competition, national and international exposure, and social media impressions, players are going to play, essentially.
We step out into the Garden itself, the center of it now transformed not by a basketball court, hockey rink, or concert stage but by 750 tons of brown dirt (stored locally and brought out again annually), where we ascend a few steps to the platform from which the riders climb into the chutes and fix themselves atop a bull with the goal of staying there exactly eight seconds once the chute gates open. Nearby, McCoy's bulls Red Mosquito and Viper look on, the former blasé, the latter seemingly ready to rumble. In the center of the ring, singer-songwriter Annie Bosko gives the national anthem a kind of dress rehearsal before performing it later that evening to a sold-out crowd.
Back in the dressing rooms, I spot the three-time world champion Silvano Alves in the hallway, dressed functionally but impeccably in a red shirt, black hat, and jeans. ("Riders are the cleanest and dirtiest people I've ever met," Battock had told me earlier. "They roll around, literally, in bull shit but keep their shirts and jeans starched and pressed clean and treat their hats like the most important things in their lives.") Like virtually every other professional bull rider, Alves—who was born in São Paulo (PBR riders mostly come from two countries, the US and Brazil, with the odd Canadian now and again) and has been riding bulls since he was 10—is polite, somewhat formal, and utterly unflappable.
Silvano Alves
"My grandpa rode bulls, my father rode bulls, and I really grew up riding bulls," he says. "And just like all my friends who played soccer dreamed of growing up and playing soccer in Europe, I dreamed of coming to the US and riding bulls here."
It was Battock signing Alves to the Nashville Stampede that gave her team the experience, the confidence, and the spur to turn their season around. Many of his teammates now train at his ranch in Decatur, Texas, where Alves has eight bucking bulls to practice on, along with a bucking chute and an arena—but if you're expecting any sort of alpha-male posturing from him, you'll be sorely disappointed.
"I just get out here and fight hard every single weekend," he says, before politely excusing himself as he and the rest of the riders begin their final pre-event rituals and preparations before the Garden is darkened, the dirt lit on fire in a kind of pyrotechnic ballet, the crowd starts screaming, and the whole death-defying circus is cranked up again.
Back around the corner, I had one last question for Battock—you know, the obvious one: What's it like, me and seemingly everybody else in her life wanted to know, being one of the only prominent women in a sport and a culture that, from its inception, has been raining men?
"I've never once thought about that," she says, flatly but firmly. "It's never occurred to me to qualify my performance based on the fact that I'm female—especially when what I do only requires my brain. I mean, I'll happily defer any heavy lifting to folks that are stronger than I am," she notes with a quick laugh. "I set out to be the best—I didn't want to be the best female or run the best female-run team. To me, the playing field is equal. I'm probably at something of an advantage because Western culture or cowboy culture is very polite, very manners driven. Occasionally there's some heated debate and some cursing going on, and I'll hear something quickly afterward: 'Pardon my language, ma'am.' I just say, 'Heard it!' And then I move along."
Then, a few minutes later—the crowd assembled, the fires lit, the anthem sung—the chutes open.
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sitting here in my northface i must say, i could stick out much more than i do. good middle school purchase that continues to be well worth it. working away in a seattle coffee shop, caffe fiore, where a little kid with a john deere hat just tried to sit at my table. precious.


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Panasonic Partners With ProGlove To Offer Seamless Rugged Wireless Barcode Scanning
Panasonic TOUGHBOOK and ProGlove smart scanning wearables are essential elements of modern voice picking solutions for the supply chain.
BRACKNELL, UK. 15th September 2020 – Panasonic today announced a partnership with ProGlove, the leader in ergonomic wearable technology for industry, to further enhance its solutions for the supply chain. As two of the toughest mobile computing solutions on the market, Panasonic TOUGHBOOK and ProGlove combine seamlessly as a stand-alone scanning solution or as essential elements of Panasonic's voice picking solutions for the supply chain, warehouse operations, inventory checking and retail.
ProGlove MARK is the first smart glove scanner for industry that prioritizes human-centered design. The lightweight, rugged wireless barcode scanner can reduce scanning time by up to 50% and reduce errors by 33%. Typically replacing wired or wireless handheld and ring scanners, the solution enables operators to remain hands free and with full dexterity to manage other tasks. The application is suited to static, semi-static, and dynamic workstations in production and logistics including assembly, material handling, quality control, inbound/outbound, picking and material transport.
ProGlove MARK 2 range fits seamlessly into Panasonic's flexible voice picking solution that combines the use of a bluetooth headset with its rugged TOUGHBOOK N1 handheld device or TOUGHBOOK A3 tablet, a built-in barcode scanner or the ProGlove MARK 2, a holster or shoulder strap and a TOUGHBOOK Omnia custom voice application.
"In the challenging supply chain environment, where every second counts, ProGlove is an ideal partner to work with Panasonic TOUGHBOOK," said Jon Tucker, General Manager Solutions and Engineering for Panasonic TOUGHBOOK Europe. "Together we can provide solutions that shave seconds off of every scanning task, delivering a rapid return on investment."
Manuel Bönisch, VP of Strategic Initiatives at ProGlove, added: "In Panasonic, we have found an ideal partner that shares our vision to deliver rugged, innovative and user friendly solutions to industry to help them deliver a more efficient and effortless working environment."
About Panasonic
Panasonic Corporation is a worldwide leader in the development of diverse electronics technologies and solutions for customers in the consumer electronics, housing, automotive, and B2B businesses. The company, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2018, has expanded globally and now operates 582 subsidiaries and 87 associated companies worldwide, recording consolidated net sales of Euro 62.5 billion for the year ended March 31, 2019. Committed to pursuing new value through innovation across divisional lines, the company uses its technologies to create a better life and a better world for its customers. To learn more about Panasonic: https://www.panasonic.com/global
Panasonic Mobile Solutions Business
Panasonic Mobile Solutions Business is a Business Unit of Panasonic System Communications Company Europe (PSCEU). Headquartered in Wiesbaden (Germany), Mobile Solutions Business helps mobile workers improve productivity with its range of Toughbook rugged notebooks, business tablets and handhelds. As European market leaders, Panasonic had a 45% revenue share of sales of rugged and durable notebooks and tablets in 2019 (VDC Research, March 2020).
ProGlove builds the lightest, smallest, and toughest barcode scanners in the world, connecting workers to actionable information. More than 500 renowned organizations in manufacturing, production, logistics, and retail use these smarter workforce solutions. ProGlove was founded in December 2014 after winning the Intel "Make it Wearable" Challenge in Silicon Valley and is backed by growth-focused investors Summit Partners, DICP, and Bayern Capital. The World Economic Forum named ProGlove a Technology Pioneer in 2020. More information is available at www.proglove.com.
Vuzix and ProGlove Partner to Offer a Combined Hands-Free Scanning Solution... ProGlove's New Accessory Streamlines Charging For Barcode Scanners


A special exhibition commemorating the success of GB Paralympic athletes celebrates their victories against a backdrop of Grecian mythology in a display at the county museum.
In a series of remarkable photographs, many of them life size, the exhibition sees the athletes against backdrops of magical stories from ancient Greece that have captivated people for centuries, and that still reflect the wonders of human endeavour in today's world.
Paralympians are some of today's heroes, overcoming many things and winning a place in history, yet few of us know who they are and what their incredible stories are.
This exhibition, which will run at Bucks County Museum in Aylesbury through to Saturday May 13, brings together these heroes and their stories and connects them to the ancient roots to bring alive their extraordinary achievements to enlighten and inspire everyone.
Paralympians are responsible for winning seven times more gold medals than Olympians in a third of the time, yet little documentation of their achievement exists.
Photo artist Ms Newton set out to present an exhibition that creatively linked the heritage of the ancient Olympics with today's heros, by making photographic portraits of the many GB Paralympians, whether they are veterans or current day champions, whose contribution to society is hugely important on many different levels.
The exhibition includes Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, Paralympian wheelchair racer, as Hera, Queen of the Gods; and Sophie Hahn MBE, Paralympian track and field, as the Roman Goddess of Flowers.
The first part of the exhibition is in the main gallery of the museum and shows eight life size portraits of Paralympians, each portrayed in a setting relating to stories from Ancient Grecian Olympic mythology. In the adjoining gallery there are photographic portraits of Paralympians past and present, together with text labels highlighting their extraordinary stories.
There is also a display about Stoke Mandeville and the birth of the Paralympics as well as a torch used during London 2012 and Rio 2016.


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The Entertaining Saga of the Worst Crook in Colonial America
Stephen Burroughs was a thief, a counterfeiter and a convicted criminal. A rare piece of his fake currency is in the collections
Ernest B. Furgurson
The National Museum of American History in its new exhibition "American Enterprise," displays a prime example of Stephen Burrough's art—a $1 certificate on the Union Bank of Boston, dated 1807, signed by Burroughs as cashier, and later stamped COUNTERFEIT.
For every hero in American history, there must be a hundred scoundrels—con men, Ponzi schemers, cat burglars, greedy gigolos, jewel thieves, loan sharks, phony doctors, phony charities, phony preachers, body snatchers, bootleggers, blackmailers, cattle rustlers, money launderers, smash-and-grabbers, forgers, swindlers, pickpockets, flimflam artists, stickup specialists and at least one goat-gland purveyor, not to mention all the high-tech varieties made possible by the internet.
Most of these vandals have been specialists who stuck to a single line of skullduggery until they got caught, retired or died. Some liked to brag to admirers about their enterprises, and a tiny few dared to write and publish books about them; Willie Sutton, for example, the Tommy Gun-wielding "Slick Willie" who heisted some $2 million robbing banks back in the first half of the last century (when that was a lot of money), wrote Where the Money Was: The Memoirs of a Bank Robber in 1976. There was Xaviera Hollander, the Park Avenue madam whose memoir, The Happy Hooker, inspired a series of Hollywood movies and helped encourage the sexual frankness of recent decades.
Occasionally, one of these memoirists tells of diversifying, spreading out, trying this dodge if that one doesn't work. Sutton's lesser known contemporary, Frank Abagnale, who was portrayed in the movie Catch Me If You Can, wrote of bilking wealthy innocents of some $2.5 million by posing as a lawyer, teacher, doctor and airline pilot before going straight. Other such confessors are hiding in the archives.
But there has been only one Stephen Burroughs, a poseur whose life would make a fabulous movie if today's audiences were as interested in early American history as in robotic space monsters. His exploits began during the Revolutionary War when he ran off to join—then depart—the Continental Army three times at the age of 14. By the time he was 33, he had lived and misbehaved vigorously enough to make up the first version of his autobiography. So far, Memoirs of the Notorious Stephen Burroughs false has been published with slightly differing titles in more than 30 editions over a span of more than 216 years.
The New England poet Robert Frost wrote that Burroughs's book should stand on the shelf beside the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. To Frost, Franklin's volume was "a reminder of what we have been as a young nation," while Burroughs "comes in reassuringly when there is a question of our not unprincipled wickedness…sophisticated wickedness, the kind that knows its grounds and can twinkle…Could we have been expected to produce so fine a flower in a pioneer state?"
Harper's Magazine once described Stephen Burroughs as "a gentleman who at times came in somewhat violent contact with the laws of his country."
"Sophisticated wickedness that can twinkle" sounds like a review of one of Shakespeare's greatest hits, his sublime caricatures of English nobility. But in Burroughs we find no nobility, only 378 or so flowing pages by the only son of a harsh Presbyterian preacher in a colonial New England village; a memoirist who lived his adventures before he wrote about them with such jolly sophistication. Or at least he said he did.
Stephen Burroughs was born in 1765 in Connecticut, and moved as a child to Hanover, New Hampshire. At home and briefly away at school, he earned and proudly wore a reputation as an incorrigible child, stealing watermelons, upsetting outhouses, restlessly looking for trouble.
He explained his boyhood thus: "My thirst for amusement was insatiable…I sought it in pestering others…I became the terror of the people where I lived, and all were very unanimous in declaring that Stephen Burroughs was the worst boy in town; and those who could get him whipt were most worthy of esteem…however, the repeated application of this birchen medicine never cured my pursuit of fun."
Indeed, that attitude explained most of Burroughs's imaginative career.
When he was 16, his father enrolled him at nearby Dartmouth College, but that didn't last long—after another prank involving watermelons, he was sent home. Young Burroughs proved that schooling was not necessary for a quick-witted young man zipping between gullible New England communities so nimbly that primitive communications couldn't keep up with him.
At 17, he decided to go to sea. Venturing to Newburyport, Massachusetts, he went aboard a privateer, a private vessel authorized to prey on enemy shipping. Having no pertinent skills, he picked the brain of an elderly medicine man before talking himself aboard as the ship's doctor. This produced a dramatic account of surgery amid storms, battling a British gunship and later being jailed for improperly issuing wine to the crew, a series of adventures that would strain even Horatio Hornblower.
The historian Larry Cebula recalls two unacquainted travelers sharing a coach in 1790 New England when one of them, a Boston lawyer, discoursed about a famed confidence man named Burroughs. This Burroughs, he said, had "led a course of the most barefaced and horrid crimes of any man living, including stealing, counterfeiting, robbing and adultery, escaping prison, burning the prison and killing guards." He did not realize that the fellow listening quietly to all this was Stephen Burroughs himself, who by then, at the age of 25, had a log of misdeeds stretching well beyond the lawyer's account.
Burroughs's life can barely hint at the richness of his memoirs, which scholars accept as mostly, or at least partly, true.
A hundred years after Burroughs first tried to become a boy soldier, Harper's Magazine described him as "a gentleman who at times came in somewhat violent contact with the laws of his country." Yes: after his seafaring adventure, he snitched some of his father's sermons and headed out pretending to be a preacher; he got away with it until the congregation caught on and chased him out of town. Skipping from village to village, he briefly occupied pulpit after pulpit.
When that career dwindled, he branched into counterfeiting. Printing phony money was a popular crime in those days, before common currency was established, and Burroughs was a master. The National Museum of American History in its new exhibition American Enterprise, displays a prime example of his art—a $1 certificate on the Union Bank of Boston, dated 1807, signed by Burroughs as cashier, and later stamped COUNTERFEIT.
Artful but not quite perfect, he was caught and jailed, but broke out and moved on, becoming a schoolteacher. Convicted of seducing a teenage student, he was sentenced to the public whipping post. He escaped again and took his tutorial talents to Long Island, where he helped organize one of the nation's first public libraries. After failing at land speculation in Georgia, he returned north and settled across the border in Quebec, nominally a farmer but still counterfeiting till he was caught and convicted yet again. But there he settled down, converting to Catholicism and living as a mostly respectable citizen until he died in 1840.
This race through some of the high/low spots of Burroughs's life can barely hint at the richness of his memoirs, which scholars accept as mostly, or at least partly, true. Whatever their factual percentage, they remain an affectionate, sometimes hilarious, extremely readable meander voyage through provincial life in the brand-new republic.
The permanent exhibition "American Enterprise" opened on July 1 at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. and traces the development of the United States from a small dependent agricultural nation to one of the world's largest economies.
American Enterprise: A History of Business in America
Memoirs Of The Notorious Stephen Burroughs Of New Hampshire
Ernest B. Furgurson | READ MORE
Ernest B. Furgurson is the author of Freedom Rising: Washington in the Civil War and Ashes of Glory: Richmond at War, plus other books about war and politics.
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